THE HYPOSTATIC UNION

The hypostatic union in the history of theology

We can trace back to the 4th to 7th centuries the Christological controversies regarding the
Person of Christ. Some of the questions raised during that time
they were:
Christ is divine, and he is human (God-Man); how can this be understood?
relationship between these two sides of their personality? How can it be conceived of
Is the positive mode the union of the divine and the human in a single person?
(2) How can a true humanity and a true divinity be conceived and
exhibit as united in a historical personality?
James Orr1presents us with some of the responses that came from the:

a. Apollinarism – Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea in Syria (361-390)

Supports the heresy of the mixed natures of Christ and attacks dualistic Christology.
which emphasizes the deity of Christ and the union of the two natures in His person
incarnate
Apolinar stated: "There are not two natures in Christ, one that should be worshiped and the other that should not."
He attributed to Christ a "new nature" by merging the divine and the human into a new one.
creation, "a co-mix of Logos and limited human nature: a middle ground
between God and man, neither totally God nor totally man, but a combination
of God and man. He eliminated the human mind (for him also the seat of perverse choices)
of the structure of the person of Christ; denied a rational soul to Christ, replaced the
soul through the Logos in Christ. The divine nature occupied the place of the rational soul.
human. In other words, the humanity of Jesus was not complete and rational. Jesus was
human because his body was human, and that body functioned like any body
human. But it was not human in the sense of having a human mind. The Logos of
God joined not to a complete human being, but only to a human body.
The objection made to Apollinarism was that Jesus assumed human nature to
to save it. If such was the purpose of the incarnation, it follows that 'what is not assumed by
Christ is not saved. Then, if Christ did not assume a human mind, the human mind
it does not save. And yet, it is in the mind that sin shows all its power and its
main action. In order to save the integral human being, the Word of God had to
to incarnate in a whole human being.
It was in the East that the three great Cappadocians realized the danger it posed.
the christology of Apollinaris, which for all practical purposes denied the reality of the
the human nature of Jesus Christ, and how such Christology destroyed the principles
from what they saw as the Christian doctrine of salvation. For the Cappadocians,
For most Greek Fathers, the doctrine of deification constitutes a
fundamental aspect of Christian soteriology.

1
The Progress of Dogma
b. Nestorianism - Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople (428-451)

It is linked to the heresy of the two persons, one divine and one human, existing.
in juxtaposition in the incarnate Christ. He argued that Christ was the conjunction of two
different natures. Before the union, the Son of God existed, with his divine nature,
and a human embryo with its human nature. The Son of God entered the fetus in the
moment of conception, but it did not mix with him in any way. God and the
men were united in a symmetrical union (something like a pair of hands in position of)
sentence) in which the whole is greater than its parts. This whole is the person of Christ, the
appearance of a union that in theory could dissolve without destroying either the Son of God nor
the man Jesus. In short, it dissolved the Person of Christ.
He sought to preserve the full humanity of Jesus by making a clear and radical distinction with
his divinity. He argued that there can be no true union except between "natures
"incomplete." The body and the soul are both incomplete natures, and when they
They together form the complete nature of the human being. But in Jesus, both divinity
since humanity are complete natures, and therefore cannot unite equally.
the way in which the body and the soul unite. This means that the union is not
not "hypostatic," but rather "moral." In Christ, there are two natures.
complete and two people, united by their will and common purposes.
Nestorio suggested that, as a man, Christ could be worshipped if the worship was directed toward him.
directed in thought to the Logos that clothed it. A consequence of this mistake is that
It would be inappropriate to worship Jesus as a man.
According to Cyril, who refuted Nestorius, the union of divinity and humanity in Christ
it is a 'hypostatic union' - he is the first to use this expression, which later came to
is a hallmark of Christological orthodoxy. In Christ, the divine nature is united with the
humanity in a single hypostasis, that is, in the hypostasis of the Word. The nature
the human of Christ lacks its own hypostasis; it is 'anhypostatic', that is, it does not subsist
by itself, but the principle of its subsistence lies in the Word. Jesus Christ was not
a man who could survive independently of the Word.

c. Eutychianism - Eutyches (378-454)

He declared that Jesus Christ proceeded from two natures before the union, but it was one
nature after the union. I conceived Christ as a mix of two
natures. The divine plays the main part in the union, combining with humanity
with the deity as a drop of honey mixed with the ocean. The human remained
absorbed by the divine. Both natures, the divine and the human, remained
confused. As a result, Christ would not truly be able to relate and
to fully identify with us; it would not be truly and fully divine nor
human. Therefore, he would be unable to act as the perfect mediator between God and the
man, or to truly atone for our sins.

d. The Creed of Chalcedon - 451 A.D.

The Council of Chalcedon reached the following conclusions:

 Jesus Christ is perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity; true God and
true man, of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the
divinity, and he himself consubstantial with us according to humanity; similar to
we in everything, but without sin; begotten of the Father before the ages according to the
divinity, and in the last days and for us and our salvation, of the Virgin
Mary, the Mother of God, according to humanity; one and the same Christ Son and Lord
Only-begotten, in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without
separation, and without the disappearance of the difference of the natures by reason of the
union, but preserving the properties of each nature, and uniting them into one
person and hypostasis; not divided or split into two persons, but one and the same Son
Only-begotten, God Word and Lord Jesus Christ.

The Council did not resolve the problem presented by a person who was at the same time human.
and divine, but only tried to set aside the solutions that had been offered and that
were clearly recognized as erroneous. Thus, we have that the terms 'without
confusion, without mutation" are directed against Eutyches; the terms "without division, without
"separation" is directed against Nestorius. The purpose of the Creed was to affirm unity.
of the Person, along with the distinction of the two natures.
The Council tells us only what Jesus is, without any attempt to show us how.
became what it is. The great truth stated is that the eternal Son of God took
about our humanity, and not as Brunner reminds us, that the man Jesus
acquired divinity.
As a result of the Council of Chalcedon, the Church accepted the doctrine of the two
natures in a person, not because he fully understood the mystery, but because
he saw in it a mystery revealed by the Word of God. It was, and has remained since
then for the Church, as an article of faith that is beyond comprehension
human.

e. Monophysitism – After the Council of Chalcedon

Monophysitism is the doctrine according to which in Christ the two natures are
combined into a single nature of the divinity. The concern of the monophysites.
it was the doctrine of the two natures in Christ - one divine nature and another
human –it seemed to divide it in two, and it was getting too close to Nestorianism. Therefore,
they were willing to say that Christ was of two natures, but not two
natures. By this they meant that the humanity of Christ, although it is found
present after the incarnation, became so absorbed by divinity that
it has become a nature with her. As a consequence, the problem arises that in
Jesus would not be fully represented by either God or man, as He would be a being with
a mixed nature, incomplete in terms of divinity and incomplete in terms of the
humanity.
The followers of Severus, patriarch of Antioch (460-538), considered that the two
natures were merely an ideal abstraction. They affirmed the human quality of the
resulting nature, which they declared capable of corruption in itself, as well as the
our.
 For the followers of Julian, bishop of Halicarnassus, the human body of Christ had
was so modified by his union with the divine that he was incorruptible. Christ suffered for
an act of his own will and not because he possessed a corruptible human nature.

f. Monotheletism – Heraclius (610-641), Byzantine Emperor

He stated that although there are two natures in Christ, nevertheless he had a single will.
and not two. The instincts, appetites, desires, affections, aversions, the natural retraction before the
suffering and death were only an appearance in Christ.
Monotheism took two forms: Either human will could be seen as already
merged with the divine, so that the latter was the only one acting, or else the
will could be considered as composed, that is, resulting from a fusion of what
human and the divine. In both cases, the logical elaboration of the doctrine seemed
to imply the denial of the truly human will in Christ (Mt 27:39; Jn)
5.30).
The duotelites, for their part, starting from the duality of the two natures, and
attributing a will to each one, they seemed to create two centers of will in one.
consciousness, and apparently destroyed the unity of personal life.
The Council of Constantinople (680) approved the formula: 'two natural wills, and two
natural operations (energies) in Christ, without division, change, separation or
confusion.

g. The Westminster Confession of Faith

Teaches that 'The Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, is the same God
eternal, of the same substance and equal with the Father, took upon Himself the nature of
man when the fulfillment of time came, with all its essential properties
common diseases; however, He was without sin; He was conceived by the power of the
Holy Spirit, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance. So, two
complete, perfect, and distinct natures – Divinity and humanity – united.
inseparably in one Person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. That
Person is true God and true Man, and yet he is a Christ, the only one
Mediator between God and man.
Dr. Cunningham explains that the words 'of her substance' serve as
denial against the heresy that teaches that He was conceived in the womb of Mary, but
not of her substance, and passed through her body without deriving anything from her
substance. The purpose of that expression is to affirm, in opposition to that heresy,
that she contributed to the formation of Christ's human nature, in the same way
how mothers ordinarily contribute to the upbringing of their children. Having
taking on a true body, formed of the substance of the Virgin Mary, He retained it
continuously, as it has manifested throughout the history of his life, of his death and in the
period that followed the resurrection and still has him there where he is seated at the right hand
of God.
Berkhof2explains to us the exact meaning of the terms 'nature' and 'person', as it
how they are used in this connection. The term "nature" denotes the total sum of all the

2
Berkhof, Luis
 essential qualities of a thing, qualities that make it what it is. A nature
it is a substance possessed in common, with all the essential qualities of such a substance.
The term 'person' denotes a complete substance endowed with reason, and,
consequently, an individual responsible for their own actions. Personality is not
an essential and integral part of a nature, but it's as if we said, the goal towards
which is directed. A person is a nature with something additional, that is,
individuality with independent subsistence. Well, the Logos took on a nature
human that was not personalized, that did not exist by itself.

18th century onward

Luis Berkhof3it tells us that the rationalist attacks on the doctrine of a person
which is both human and divine were not lacking. They declared it contrary to reason and
it is undignified for man to accept, on the basis of the authority of Scripture, what was in
reality contrary to human reason. What was not advisable on its own to this
the new referee simply declared that it was wrong. Philosophers and theologians
individually they tried to solve the problem presented by Christ, in order to be able to
offer the church a substitution of the doctrine of the two natures. They took their
starting point in the humanity of Jesus, and even after a century of painful
search found in Jesus nothing more than a man with a divine element in Him. Not
they were able to rise to the recognition of Him as their Lord and their God.
Schleiermacher spoke of a man with a supreme consciousness of God; Ritschl, of a
man who had the courage of a God; Wendt, of a man who remained in a
intimate and continuous communion of love with God; Beyschlag, of a man full of God,
and Sanday, of a man with an irruption of the divine in the subconscious but Christ
is and remains solely a man. Currently, the broad school represented
by Harnack, the eschatological school of Weiss and Schweitzer, and the more recent one,
compared religions, led by Bousset and Kirsopp Lake, all agree on
to strip Christ of his true deity and reduce him to human dimensions. For the
first our Lord is only a great ethical character; for the second is a
apocalyptic seer; and for the third, a leader like no other towards an exalted destiny.
They considered the Christ of the Church as a creation of Hellenism or of Judaism, or of
the two, combined. However, currently all the epistemology of the centuries
previous ones are under discussion, and the sufficiency of human reason for interpretation of
the ultimate truth is seriously contested. There is a new emphasis on the
revelation. Very influential theologians such as Barth and Brunner, Edwin Lewis and Nathaniel
Micklem does not hesitate to confess once again his faith in the doctrine of the two natures.
It is of utmost importance to uphold this doctrine as it was formulated by the
Council of Chalcedon and how it is contained in our confessional symbols.

The hypostatic union

The hypostatic adjective is derived from the noun hypostasis, a word that comes from Greek.
The being or the substance of which phenomena are a
manifestation.

3
Berhof. Op. Cit. pp. 393-394.
 The expression hypostatic union pertains to theology, and is only applicable to Christ.
In Him, as in no one else, two distinct and dissimilar natures unite.
history does not find any example of another being like Christ in this respect, nor
there will be no other. There can be no other, for every demand, whether for satisfaction
divine or of human necessity, is completely satisfied in Christ. This only
A person who has two natures, who is at the same time the Revelation of God for the
men and the manifestation of the ideal and perfect humanity.4
It is the union of divine and human nature perfectly in the Person of
Christ, which already pre-existed. We understand by nature, the complex of perfections, the
set of elements and essential properties that make a being what it is according to its
species.
Jesus is not a man who became God, but God the Son who became man without
never cease to be God (Jn 1:14).

3. Structure of the doctrine of the hypostatic union

5
According to Chafer, Four vital factors constitute the structure of this doctrine.
specific:

a. The Deity of Christ

The retention of your Deity

Christ is not only a Member of the Divinity co-equal with the Father and the Spirit before
of his incarnation, but He retained that reality "in the days of his flesh."

The necessity of your divinity

6
According to Berkhof in
the divine plan of salvation, it was absolutely essential that the
Mediator outside true God. This was necessary, so that:
He will present a sacrifice of infinite value and will give perfect obedience to the law of
God.
He will bear the wrath of God with redemptive purpose, that is, to free others.
of the curse of the law and
He could apply all the fruits of his fulfilled work to those who it
they would receive Him by faith. The man with his shattered life cannot pay the
punishment of sin, nor render perfect obedience to God. He can endure the wrath
divine, and if it weren't for God's redeeming grace, I would have to endure it
eternally, but I couldn't bear it in such a way that it could open up
a way of escape, Psalm 49:7-10; 130:3.

b. The humanity of Christ

4
CHAFFER, Lewis Sperry. "Systematic Theology", Volume 1. Spanish Publications, Inc. 1986. 5369, Hwy
ZC Dousman, WI 53118 USA. P. 388.
5
Chafer. Ob. Cit. Pp. 389-
6
Berhof. Op. Cit. p. 398.
 The experience of incarnation

The experience of the incarnation, through which two natures were united in one.
Person, only belongs to the Son. Only the Son took the human form for Himself.
The incarnation was the means by which Christ assumed complete humanity and
perfect. He did not possess this humanity before, and by adding it to his eternal Deity, he gave as
result of the God Man who is Christ.

The enduring nature of their humanity

Although His Divinity is eternal, His humanity was obtained in time. Therefore, God
Man—destined to be this way forever—began with incarnation.
The assumption of humanity was first a condescension and then a humiliation;
Through his death, his resurrection, and his ascension, He obtained a glory.
most excellent. Your condescension and humiliation were not alleviated by the
the act of discarding one's humanity, but through its glorification. In heaven is
a glorified man who did not renounce his humanity.
The God Man is the same God and the same Man. His humanity, perfect and
complete, it is as enduring as its Deity.

The impeccability of his humanity

We accept as Berkhof7not only natural perfection but also moral perfection,

integrity or moral perfection, that is, impeccability. This means not only that
Christ could avoid sin (pituita non peccare), and that he truly avoided it, but
that it was also impossible for Him to sin (non potuit peccare) due to the
essential union between his human and divine natures. Insofar as Christ had to be
a sin committed in the judicial sense, yet ethically was free from both the
hereditary depravity as well as actual sin. He never made a confession of error.
He did not join with his disciples to pray, saying: 'Forgive us our sins.'
He could challenge his enemies to accuse him of sin. Scripture even...
presents as the only one in whom the ideal man is fulfilled (Heb 2: 8, 9; I Co. 15:
45; II Co. 3: 18; Flp. 3: 21. Furthermore, the name 'Son of Man', which Jesus appropriated,
It seems to declare with authority that He responds to the perfect ideal of humanity.
By the way, Christ's impeccability was denied by Martineau, Irving, Menken,
Holsten and Pfleiderer, but the Bible clearly attests to that impeccability in the
The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.'

14; I Peter 2: 22; I John 3: 5.

The need for her humanity

For Berkhof8the necessity of human nature in Christ follows from what it is

essential to the biblical doctrine of atonement.

7
Berhof. Ob. Cit. P. 397.
8
Berkhof. Op. Cit. pp. 397-398.
 Since man sinned, it was necessary for the punishment to be received by man. Furthermore,
the payment of the punishment involved the suffering of the body and the soul, in such a way that only
man is capable of suffering it, John 12:27; Acts 3:18; Hebrews 2:14; 9:22. It was necessary
that Christ will take human nature, not only with all its properties
essentials, but also with all the weaknesses to which it is prone since the fall, and
that in this way will descend to the depths of degradation to which man
he has fallen, Heb. 2: 17, 18. At the same time, he had to be a man without sin, because
one who was a sinner and had ruined his own life certainly could not
to make atonement for others, Heb. 7: 26. Only a Mediator like Him, truly
human, who had the experimental knowledge of the miseries of humanity and
that will rise above all temptations, could enter with all sympathy to
all the experiences, trials, and temptations of men, Heb. 2: 17, 18; 4:
15-5: 2, and to be a perfect human example for his followers, Matt. 11: 29; Mark 10:
39; John 13: 13-15; Phil. 2: 5-8; Heb. 12: 24; I Peter 2: 21.

c. The complete preservation of each of these two natures without confusion or

alteration

So delicate is the adjustment of the two natures in Christ that to emphasize only one
To sacrifice one at the expense of the other is to undermine the effectiveness of all.

The non-decrease of the Deity

The undiminished Deity of the second Person of the Trinity incorporated into His Being.
that perfect humanity that it acquired and will retain forever. In this union, the
The divine is not degraded in any way due to its amalgamation with the human.
In the hypostatic union, the Deity of Christ remains intact as it unites in one Person.
with what is fallen human nature.
In the incarnation, the divine nature was not subject to any essential change. This
it means that he remained impassive, that is, incapable of suffering and dying, free from the
ignorance and beyond the reach of weakness and temptation.
In the incarnation, the person of the Son of God was incarnated.

The limitations of their humanity

In the hypostatic union, His unfallen humanity retains its normal limitations.
In the hypostatic union, the human is not exalted in any way nor elevated by
above what is the unfallen humanity.
The result of the incarnation was that the divine Savior could be ignorant and weak,
tempted, and to suffer and die, not in his divine nature, but derivatively, by being in
possession of a human nature.

d. The unity of Man God.

The reality according to which the undiminished Deity and the unfallen humanity united.
In the Person of the God-Man, there is no parallel in the universe.
 The saving unit

The hypostatic union is not a matter of a correct viewpoint regarding the Deity,
Neither with respect to the humanity of Christ, considered separately. It is a matter
related to the God Man, what He is, for having incarnated and for having become
the time God and Man. The Deity of Christ could not, without the company of his
humanity, to save the lost; nor could their humanity, acting
separately, redeem.

The unipersonality of the God-Man.

It is natural to conclude that the presence of two natures must lead to

result of the personalities. However, this is not true, as Christ is represented
always as a Person, even if it is a coalition of two qualities so widely
different. The two natures are united in one Person, and not in two;
Warfield says that from the beginning to the end of the entire series of New books.
Testament, although the divine nature is made prominent first and then the human one,
there is never conflict between the two, nor any confusion in their relationships, they never
it presents a schism in his personal unitary action; but obviously, it presents itself to Him
as a Personality, composed in reality, but indivisible.
Berkhof9explain the statements in which the concept of the Church is declared in
concerning the unipersonality of Jesus Christ:

(1) There is only one person in the Mediator, the immutable Logos. The Logos provides
the foundation of Christ's personality. However, it would not be correct to say that the
the person of the Mediator is divine and nothing more. The incarnation constituted him in a
complex person, formed of two natures, He is the God-man.
The human nature of Christ as such does not constitute a human person. The
Logos did not adopt a human person, because otherwise we would have two persons in.
the Mediator, but simply took on a human nature. For Brunner, in the
point where we have a sinful person, He has or rather is,
the divine person of the Logos.
(3) At the same time, it is not correct to speak of the human nature of Christ as
impersonal. This is true only in the sense that this nature does not have
independent subsistence by itself. However, strictly speaking, the
the human nature of Christ was not impersonal, not even for a moment. The
Logos took that nature, making it a personal subsistence with itself.
human nature has personal subsistence in the person of the Logos. It is in the
rather a person than without the person.
For that very reason, we are not authorized to speak of human nature.
of Christ as imperfect or incomplete. His human nature is not lacking in
none of the essential qualities that belong to that nature and have
also individuality, that is, personal subsistence in the person of the Son of
God.

9
Berkhof. Op. Cit. pp. 401-402.
 This personal subsistence should not be confused with consciousness and freedom.
free will. The fact that the human nature of Christ, in and of itself, does not
having personal subsistence does not mean that one lacks consciousness and will.
the church has taken the position that this corresponds more to nature
that to the person.
The divine person, who possessed divine nature from eternity, took a
human nature, and now it has both. This must be upheld against
those who, while admitting that the divine person took a human nature,
they endanger the integrity of the two natures by conceiving them as if
they were melted or mixed to create a tertium quid, a kind of nature
divine human.

Biblical evidence of the unipersonality of the God-Man

There are passages in Scripture that refer to the two natures of Christ but in the
which is clearly evident that it is one person, Rom. 1: 3, 4; Gal.
4: 4, 5; Phil. 2: 6-11. In several passages, it is stated that the two natures are united. The
The Bible nowhere asserts that divinity in the abstract, or any divine power, is
union in, or manifested in, a human nature; but always says that nature
divine in particular, that is to say, the divine person of the Son of God united with a nature
human, John 1: 14; Romans 8: 3; Galatians 4: 4; 9: 5; 1 Timothy 3: 16; Hebrews 2: 11-14; 1 John 4:
2, 3.

Effects of the union of the two natures in a Person

A communication of properties. The properties of the two natures, the human and
the divine, they are of the person and therefore are attributed to the person. The person can
consider themselves all-powerful, omniscient, omnipresent, etc., but can also
to be called, a man of sorrows, of limited knowledge and power, and subject to the
needs and human miseries. But it is not that the divine nature was
communicated to human nature, or vice versa; or that there is an interpenetration of
the two natures as a result of which the divine becomes human, and the human becomes
deify. The deity cannot participate in human weakness; nor can man
to participate in none of the essential perfections of divinity.
A communication of operations. The redeeming work of Christ, and particularly
her final result, the apothelesma has a divine human character. Analyzing this
we can say that it means: that the efficient cause of Christ's redemptive work is that
personal subject one and indivisible in Christ; that this occurs through cooperation
of the two natures; that each of these natures acts with its own and special
energy; that despite all this, the result forms an indivisible unit because it is the
work of a single person.
The communication of charisms. The human nature of Christ from the very beginning.
Her existence was adorned with all kinds of rich and glorious gifts, for example:
the grace of union with the person of the Word, that is to say, the grace and glory of being united to the
divine Logos, also called the grace of eminence, by which human nature
it rises above all creatures, and even becomes an object of worship; the
habitual grace, which consists of those gifts of the Spirit, particularly those of
 intellect, will, and power, through which the human nature of Christ
was exalted far above all intelligent creatures. Its impeccability, the non
The ability to sin should be mentioned here in a special way.

4. Character of the hypostatic union

The union of hypostatic character is a union of natures that, in themselves, are

independent and distinct.
It was not an accidental union (inhabitation), but rather the Word of God came.
truly to become man, manifesting in His humanity the glory of His
divinity (John 1:14).
It is indissoluble, forever (Lc 1.33; He 7.24). It is indissoluble by divine design, not by
metaphysical necessity.
The two natures have their own reality and existence as such, but the two
they exist and subsist in the person of the Son, who exists: as God, in nature
divine; as man, in the human, thus covering both natures with one
divine-human personality. Everything that belongs to the two natures is double, but
there is only one "I" (Lk 1:43; Jn 1:14; 3:13; 6:62; Acts 20:28; Rom 1:3,4; 8:3,32; 9:5; 1 Cor 2:8; Gal 4:4,5; Eph
1.22,23; 4.10; Philippians 2.6-11; Colossians 1.13,14; 1 Timothy 2.5; 3.16; Hebrews 1.2,3; 2.14; 1 Peter 3.18; 1 John 4.2,3.
That sometimes he acts and expresses himself as God.
At other times, he acts and expresses himself as a man.
What other times does he act and express himself as God-Man.