Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Adult Sunday School Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/bb/bb20011104.htm

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY (ORGANIZED BIBLE KNOWLEDGE)
Part X: Christology (Doctrine Of Jesus Christ)
C. The Hypostatic Union Of Jesus Christ (Union Of Divine And Human Natures)
  1. Introduction
    1. The foundational bedrock of our Christian faith is the confession that Jesus Christ is the Creator God come in the flesh, compare 1 John 4:1-4 with 1 Corinthians 12:3 and Matthew 16:15-18.
    2. However, such a confession itself presents a great hurdle for human understanding: God is infinite while humanity is finite, so one wonders how can Jesus be both FULLY infinite God AND finite man!
    3. We address this union of the human and divine natures in Christ, the "Hypostatic Union," as follows:
  2. The Hypostatic Union Of Jesus Christ (Union Of Divine And Human Natures) (I am heavily indebted to John F. Walvoord's work, Jesus Christ Our Lord)
    1. Scripture reveals Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully human:
      1. The Bible shows Jesus Christ is fully God, John 1:1, 3; Isaiah 9:6 and Hebrews 1:1-2 with 1:8.
      2. Also, Scripture reveals Jesus Christ is fully human, Luke 2:52, Hebrews 4:14-15 and Hebrews 5:8-9.
    2. Nevertheless, though Jesus is fully divine and also fully human, He has a single consciousness as a single Person: He expressed fully human consciousness as Israel's king and the fulfillment of O. T. Messianic promises in passages like John 1:49-51 and He expressed fully divine consciousness as deity, as being supernatural and Savior of the world in passages like John 8:51-59.
    3. Thus, Jesus is One Person in identity, but having two distinct natures, one divine and the other human. These natures related to the Person of Jesus Christ as follows:
      1. At His earthly birth, no divine attribute was intrinsically altered or modified although Jesus voluntarily limited the expression of some of His divine attributes (such as omnipotence [God's infinite power] and omniscience [God's infinite knowledge]). Similarly, no human attribute was hyped or modified by Christ's divine nature to make it superhuman.
      2. Both divine and human natures adhere within that Person as can be shown from Scripture as follows:
        1. Some of Jesus' titles apply to both natures: these include Redeemer, Prophet, Priest and King.
        2. Some attributes apply only to His deity such as His eternality, John 8:58.
        3. Some attributes apply only to His humanity like mutability when He experienced thirst, Jn. 19:28.
        4. Some of His attributes describe Jesus' deity only to predicate (or add a description) that can be applied only to His humanity as in Revelation 1:12-18: Jesus is there shown to be God, but He then reports He had been dead and was now risen, an experience only applicable to Christ's humanity!
        5. Sometimes Scripture describes Jesus as human only to predicate (or describe) something about Him that can apply only to deity: John 6:62 follows a description of people figuratively partaking of Jesus' blood and body, and verse 62 speaks of Him ascending to heaven as His former abode!
        6. The Bible can describe Jesus as God only to add a description that must apply to both His divine and human natures: John 5:25-27 shows Jesus being sovereign over the resurrection of the dead in the end times and then informs us Christ receives such authority from the Father as the Son of Man.
        7. Scripture can describe Jesus as human and add a description applying to both divine and human natures: while His humanity suffered on the cross, Jesus addressed the Father as "My God," (showing His humanity) with the direct object, "me" to show one consciousness for both natures.
      3. There is only one will in Christ -- to do the will of the Father, Matthew 26:39. Though Christ's human nature shunned the cross in Gethsemanee, and though the divine nature shunned contact with sin in bearing humanity's sin on that cross, both natures were subject to the Father's will in Christ's Person.
Lesson: Jesus has two natures, one wholly divine and the other wholly human, yet these natures are united in one PERSON, the Person of Jesus Christ, Colossians 2:9. Our Christian faith thus stands.

Illustration: We might use and IMPERFECT illustration, but an illustration nonetheless to picture Christ's Hypostatic Union: Christians are single persons, but they have a sin nature and a new nature. The SIN nature can say, "I hate you!" to someone, the NEW nature can say, "Jesus is the Creator God come in the flesh," while EITHER nature can say, "Two plus two equals four!"