Law and Gospel, God and man

Martin Luther famously identified that law and Gospel must be 'rightly and properly distinguished' for either to be understood properly. He argued that doctrine could be 'falisfied, either by mingling these two into one, or by mistaking the one for the other' ("The Distinction between Law and Gospel: A Sermon by Martin Luther" trans. Willard L Burce, Concordia Journal 18).

In Christianity Explored this evening Rico Tice argued that the disciples initially understood Jesus as human, but did not see him as divine. Strictly this is true. But throughout the Gospels you find that there was a two-fold error that those who encountered Jesus fell into. They neither understood him as divine, but neither could they comprehend quite how human he was.

We know the danger of thinking that Christianity is law-lite by mingling law and Gospel. We also know that we can make Christianity into Gospel without law, or law without Gospel, by mistaking one for the other (and so misunderstanding both).

Similarly, the disciples often saw Jesus as a semi-divine Messiah who would rule and lead Israel, but could not still storms or lay down his life to take it up again because that was too high for him, or for that matter die an ignominious death because that would be too low for him. In this way they mingled the divine and human natures of Jesus and lost both. Also similarly, people now treat Jesus as only human and ignore his deity, or see him as only divine, who visited Palestine dressed in white robes and floating a few inches above the ground (HT Tom Wright for that phrase).

UPDATE

The Chalcedonian Creed says it better than me:

one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably;

the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ;