Ask the average person on the street about the hypostatic union and you’ll be greeted with a blank stare. Is it a labor union and members pay dues? Perhaps it’s a group of specially trained workers who unionized for better pay and benefits like the AFL-CIO? Do they specialize in something to do with static electricity? Who knows? We scratch our heads and wonder. Can anyone can understand the hypostatic union? What exactly is the hypostatic union anyway?
The Mysterious Hypostatic Union
If you ask a theologian about the hypostatic union you’ll get an earful! Trinitarian scholars have conjectured that Jesus had two natures! They theorize that Jesus was God and a Man joined into one body by way of the mysterious hypostatic union. Although He had a human nature it was somehow “impersonal” so He wasn’t really a genuine human being at all even though He seemed to have been formed from a human blueprint. He was “man but not a man”. This theory claims God inhabited a vacant human body! These are novel intellectual gymnastics but scripture does not indulge in this kind of thinking. Not for one minute, not for one second, never.
Jesus Christ is One of Us
Jesus said, “I am a man who has told you the truth I heard from God but now you want to kill me. Abraham wouldn’t have done that.” (John 8:40) The Apostle Peter said Jesus was “a man attested by God to you by miracles wonders and signs which God did through Him in your midst” (Acts 2:22) Moses prophecied about Jesus declaring “a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto thee, from the midst of thee, of your brethren, like unto me”. Now Moses was a great man indeed but he was still a man and Moses claimed this prophet would be like him. (Deureronomy 18:15) These are straightforward and understandable Bible verses. Do you really think we have to believe in a hypostatic union or an impersonal human nature to make sense of them? We don’t think so either.
Jesus Said “I Am a Man”
Jesus never claimed to be God Himself but He did claim to be the Christ. He told us plainly that He was a man, a human being like us. “I am a man who has told you the truth!” He was a man who came in His Father’s name, did the works His Father showed Him and spoke the words His Father put in His mouth. (John 14:24) Jesus was a perfect man and His courage, compassion and sacrifice on Calvary were all intensely personal. We declare that anti-scriptural notions like the “hypostatic union” and Jesus’ so-called “impersonal human nature” detract from the beauty and glory of His life.
Copyright 2022 by Bob Shutes
PS: This is what most Christians believed in the first three centuries of the Christian faith… and what many believers are re-discovering in our times. These are wonderful and ancient beliefs and if you get the chance please share them. God Bless.