Introduction
At the center of the entire Gospel is the teaching that God came down to earth as a man and humbled himself. In Philippians 2:5-8 we have the whole description of God humbling Himself and coming as a man, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”[1] So what if someone were to challenge the validity of the claim that has been traditionally accepted in Christianity? This has happened and has resulted in many different counsels determining what is the Orthodox view of the Hypostatic Union of Christ. I desire to show in this paper four different classic views of the union of the God-man and then use Scripture to decide which view is most Biblical and therefore should be espoused by Christians. I will look at the three views that are not biblical: Arianism – error concerning the nature of God, Docetism – error concerning the humanity of Christ, and Nestorianism – error concerning the nature of Christ. We will spend a lot of time looking at the Orthodox view and the supporting Scriptures.
Arianism – Error Concerning the Nature of God
Arianism was founded by Arian, a priest in Northern Africa. Arian taught that “Christ was created by God, and hence not deity.”[2] He believed that Christ was a creature and not a God. He believed that there was a time when Christ did not exist in the Godhead and then he was created by God to do His work on earth. “Arianism has been known as the heresy which promulgated that, to use the slogans of its adversaries, ‘there was a time when the Son was not,’ that ‘the Son was a creature,’ and that ‘the Son is not equal to the Father.’”[3] Arian even believed that on the earth Christ was not a God, but may be called God as a courtesy. “The Word was given the status of a demi-god. He was seen as the highest of all the creatures, yet still a creature. He was an intermediate being between God the Father and the rest of the creation, the agent by whom the Father had created them and continued to relate to them, but not God in the full sense. He might be called God as a courtesy but he is at most a god, a created god, not the God, the eternal, uncreated being.”[4]
In order to be able to espouse this view we would need to find that Christ is not taught about in Scripture other than the Gospels. We would have to reject the notion that the Trinity was complete at the creation of the world and we would have to believe that Christ has no role in the current church. I see that Arian tried to explain a difficult doctrine, but sacrificed the clear teachings of the Word of God in order to do that.
Docetism – Error Concerning the Humanity of Christ
Docetism takes its name from the Greek word dokeo which means to seem. Docetists believe that Christ just seemed like He was a man. “An early teaching, regarded as heretical, according to which Christ’s incarnation (i.e., taking human form) was only a matter of appearance (Gk. dokéō “seem”). Thus his suffering, death, and resurrection were aspects of the human Jesus’ life in which the divine Christ did not participate (that nature having withdrawn prior to these events).”[5] Docetists believe that God and Jesus were united in activity but their nature was separate. “If we had been in Jesus' presence we would have been in the presence not of God in the sense that the man Jesus Christ literally was God, but in the sense that he was so totally conscious of God that we could catch something of that consciousness by a type of spiritual proximity: God and Jesus were unified in activity but not in nature.”[6]
This view came into being because of the belief that matter is evil and God cannot be evil. “This view was the logical sequence of their assumption of the inherent evil of matter. If matter is evil and Christ was pure, then Christ’s human body must have been merely phantasmal. Docetism was simply pagan philosophy introduced into the church.” [7]
Once again the desire to explain Christ as a God-man apart from the faith required to simply believe that God is fully God and fully Man came at a great sacrifice to the Godhead. “This particular Christology resolved the tension in the idea that deity and humanity were united in one person. It did so by saying that while the deity was real and complete, the humanity was only appearance. But the church recognized that this solution had been achieved at too great a price, a loss of Jesus’ humanity and thus of any real connection between him and us.”[8] This is a failed attempt at the over explanation of a truth that must be accepted by faith. With the step away from the simple understanding of Scripture came the heresy that is Docetism.
Nestorianism – Error Concerning the Nature of Christ
Nestorianism was founded by Nestorius the patriarch of Constantinople. Nestorius came up with this heresy following a discussion about the humanity of God in regards to Mary the mother of Christ. This was the founding of the “Nestorian idea that Jesus was two personalities—the Son of God and a man—under one skin.”[9] They made the God-man into a separate pair, God and man. “Nestorius preferred to think in terms of a “conjunction” rather than a union between the two. Perhaps the best possible summation of Nestorius’ thought is to say that while he did not consciously hold or overtly teach that there was a split in the person of Christ, what he said seemed to imply it.”[10]
Once again the error of trying to make this union into more than a God-man relationship led to a heretical view. “The Nestorians said not that He was one person with two natures, but that He was two persons. They said, ‘He is God and man, a personal God and a personal man.’ They were so anxious to emphasize the two sides that they went too far and said that He was two persons, God and man, instead of saying that He was one person with a divine and human nature.”[11]
Orthodox Hypostasis – The Biblical View of the Nature of Christ
Orthodox Christianity has taught that Christ was indeed one-hundred percent God while also being one-hundred percent man. This can best be described as “the single person of Christ, as contrasted with his dual human and divine nature.”[12] In order to explain this, Orthodox Christians have tried to use the simplest terms possible. We note that the father of Christ was the Holy Spirit but the mother of Christ was Mary. Many believe that Christ was man because of Mary, but He was God because he was fathered by God. Thus the simplest explanation is that, “as a man, the Lord was 'fatherless,' whilst as God He was 'motherless’.”[13]
I will spend the rest of the paper presenting Biblical truths that can be used to prove that Christ was indeed God from the beginning and that he was fully man. This next section is the key to the whole understanding of the Orthodox position on the Hypostasis of Christ.
Biblical Evidence for the Orthodox Hypostasis Position
Jesus is God
In Matthew 1:23 we see the description of Jesus as being Immanuel which literally means God with us. So from the very beginning of the Gospels we have been introduced to the simple understanding that God has come to be with man in the man Jesus Christ.
In Titus 2:11-14 the church is being told that we are to wait for the glorious return of the Savior Jesus Christ, who is God. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”[14]
I could list other texts that contain such clear evidence to the fact that Christ is God, but in an effort to conserve space in a paper of this size I will let the strength of these two passages carry the burden of proof that Jesus is indeed God.
Jesus is Lord
The angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds in the field as they were watching over the sheep. And on the night of the birth of Christ they pronounced this baby as the Lord of all. In Luke 2:11-12 the angels tell the shepherds to go to the manger and find the Lord. So even from birth Jesus was known as the Lord.
God has exalted Christ so that every knee will acknowledge Him as Lord. Philippians 2:9-11 says, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”[15]
We see clearly that Christ is Lord. To argue this fact would require some denial of the inerrancy of the Scriptures.
Jesus is a Man
Galatians 4:4-7 says, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”[16] God sent His Son to become a man in order to redeem us.
II John 7 has become a warning to those who would be against the belief that Christ was God come in flesh. It says, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.”[17] These are pretty strong words of warning for those who would deny the humanity of Christ.
Conclusion
We must ignore the wrong attempts to explain the Hypostatic Union as something other than the union of God and man in a complete and perfect union. We must not commit errors concerning the nature of God like Arianism, concerning the humanity of Christ like Docetism, or concerning the Nature of Christ like Nestorianism. We must fall on the line of the sufficiency of Scripture to explain these tough truths. This is most accurately described in the Orthodox view of the Hypostasis.
[1] The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Php 2:5–8.
[2]Paul S. Karleen, The Handbook to Bible Study : With a Guide to the Scofield Study System (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 311.
[3]“Heresy and Heortology in the Early Church : Arianism and the Emergence of the Triduum,” Worship 72 no 2 (1998): 117.
[4] Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), 713.
[5] Allen C. Myers, The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987), 289.
[7]Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology (Bellingham, Wa.: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2004), 670.
[8] Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), 730.
[9] J. I. Packer, Concise Theology : A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1995).
[10] Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), 744.
[11] David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God the Father, God the Son (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1996), 281.
[12]Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson, Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
[13] “Christological dogma in Orthodox worship,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 13 (1968): 241.
[14] The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Titus 2:11-14.
[15] The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Phil. 2:9-11.
[16] The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Gal. 4:4-7.
[17] The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), 2 John 7.
