This term is as complicated as it sounds.
Although people can grasp many Christian concepts such as atonement, salvation, sanctification, among others, the very nature of Christ in the hypostatic union caused a great deal of division in the early church.
After all, Jesus is fully God and fully man, two natures united in one person. And if any of us have excelled at math in school, we know those numbers don’t compute on a human level.
How can someone be 100% God and 100% man and still be one man?
Welcome to the hypostatic union. The concept of Jesus’ nature: Two natures, one person. Greg Laurie sums it up this way.
"Jesus is God, and He left the safety of heaven. He entered our world and breathed our air and shared our pain and walked in our shoes. He was fully God and fully man. This does not mean that Jesus had the capacity to sin; this could not and would not happen. Yet He was a man. He was in a human body. He felt human emotion. He faced physical limitations. He felt real pain. It was actual blood coursing through His veins. Yet He was diety. He was God in human form.
Jesus did not become identical to us, but He did become identified with us. In fact He could not have identified with us any more closely than He did. As Hebrews 4:15 reminds us, 'We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.' It was total identification without the loss of identity as He became one of us without ceasing to be himself. He became human without ceasing to be God. Jesus left heaven, lived our life, and died our death. He has walked in your shoes—and then some."
The following is taken from “Fully God and Fully Man” by Harvest Ministries
In this article, we’ll dive into the dangers of veering away from the hypostatic union, scriptural support for the hypostatic union, and why this matters.
The Problem of Removing the Man from the Equation
Although we do wrestle with various heresies today that stem from the ones listed below, the early church had to tackle them head-on. Many theologians struggled with the concept of Jesus being fully God and fully man, so they often would remove one of those parts from the equation (or lessen one of the parts).
This led to a number of heresies.
For instance, if someone tried to diminish Jesus’ humanity they might have committed the heresy of Docetism. This heresy believed bodies to be evil and said Jesus “appeared” as a man but was not really a man.
We also have other similar heresies such as Apollinarianism (Jesus had a human body, but a divine mind). Although there are others, these plagued the church in the early centuries and received condemnations.
If we remove Jesus’ humanity, we cheapen his sacrifice on the cross. If Jesus does not have a real body, or if Jesus did not experience temptation in a human sense, then why should we care about his death and resurrection? They would be illusory at best and would not fix the problem of sin. Philip Ryken explains the need for Jesus to be both man and God.
"It's clear that Jesus was a true human being, but it's also clear from the testimony of the Bible and from what Jesus said about himself, that he is also truly God. That he claimed to be the same Lord God, as the God of the Old Testament. That he demanded and deserved to be worshiped as God and now has been exalted by God, the father, to a place of a rule and dominion over the entire universe. To believe in Jesus really is to believe both in his genuine humanity and his full and complete deity. And really both of those things are necessary for our salvation. We need a savior who himself has become flesh and blood. The Bible says that in order to save his brothers, Jesus had to be made like us. And yet, in order to offer a perfect atonement for our sins, the infinitely, precious sacrifice, he also offered the very blood of God you might say, a perfect sacrifice based on his deity and both of these things are necessary for our salvation."
No, in order for salvation to work, Jesus needed a fully human and fully divine nature. In the next section, we’ll dive into the heresies that tried to remove the God part of the equation.
The Problem of Removing God from the Equation
Let’s discuss heresies that tried to diminish Jesus’ fully divine part of his nature.
Enter Arianism. This heresy in the simplest of terms, makes Jesus into a junior god, whereas God the Father is the ultimate god. This heresy, believing in the Father’s too pure and perfect nature, creates Jesus to endure the suffering on earth for the Father.
We could, of course, dive into the loads of other heresies that tried to mix and match the two natures of Jesus, such as saying he had a certain percentage of both or any other weird hybrid conglomeration of his divine and human nature or will.
For those unfamiliar with the problems of removing or lessening Jesus’ divine nature, we run into a heap of issues here. First of all, this would turn Christianity into a polytheistic religion opposed to a trinitarian monotheistic religion (and we could devote entire books to the subject of why that simply would not work).
Apart from Arianism, which comes with its own can of worms, we cannot divorce Jesus’ divinity from his nature. John makes it clear in John 1 that Jesus has existed since the beginning (and before then). And if we lessen his divine status, we make him not greater than an archangel, like Michael. We remove his power. And by doing so, we lessen his ability to save us from our sin.
As we can see from both sides of the pendulum, if we try to remove an inkling of Jesus’ divine or human nature, we run into a slew of issues.
Scriptural Support for the Hypostatic Union
As stated above, John 1 (especially John 1:14) gives strong scriptural support for the hypostatic union. We also see similar support in verses such as Colossians 2:9, 1 Timothy 2:5, John 10:30, Romans 1:4, among several others.
Although we may have difficulty grasping the concept, Scripture makes it clear that Jesus, one person, had two natures. And if we lessened either nature, we run the risk of cheapening his divine power or his work in salvation.
As Christians, we do have to reconcile our finite understandings with the fact that we have an infinite God. We may not understand everything about him. But from Scripture and through a personal relationship with him, we can know enough to know that it’s ok if we don’t have all the answers, especially when it comes to fully comprehending something like the hypostatic union.
Further Reading:
What Does it Mean That Jesus Became Sin When He Knew No Sin?
Did Jesus Really Sweat Blood in the Garden of Gethsemane?
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Rachata_Sin
Hope Bolinger is an acquisitions editor at End Game Press, book editor for hire, and the author of almost 30 books. More than 1500 of her works have been featured in various publications. Check out her books at hopebolinger.com for clean books in most genres, great for adults and kids. Check out her editing profile at Reedsy.com to find out about hiring her for your next book project.
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