ABOUT THE HYPOSTATIC UNION OF THE SON OF GOD
The Athanasian
Creed reads:
"He is
God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is human from
the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely human, with
a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as regards divinity, less
than the Father as regards humanity.
Although he
is God and human, yet Christ is not two, but one. He is one, however, not by
his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God's taking humanity to himself.
He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of
his person. For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh, so too the
one Christ is both God and human." (1)
This creed
however is not the first one in Christian history.
Before this, the
famous anonymous creed called ‘The Apostolic Symbol’ reads as follows:
“2. And in
Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord:
3. Who was
conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary:
4. Suffered
under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell:
5. The third
day he rose again from the dead:
6. He
ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty:
7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead” (2)
And even, in the
NT we have the earliest Christian creed available to mankind:
“The
elementary doctrine of Christ,
a
foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of
instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the
dead, and eternal judgment.”
(Hebrews 6:1-2)
It is impressive
the ample addition that the latest canonical Creed has over the most ancient
formulations of Christian belief, with the use of words with precise
theological implications in comparison with the vague earlier versions.
But the reason
for these technicalities were the problems that provoked the first three
‘ecumenical’ councils.
It was not the
first problem the Christian church experienced. There were heresies even from
the times of the Apostles, like when gnostic teachers taught that there would
not be resurrection of the death (2Timothy 2:18), or that the Kingdom of God
had already come (2Thessalonians 2:2), or the heresies of the Nicolaitans
(Revelation 2:6), or the denial of YHWH, our Father, and the Old Testament by
Marcion. This time, the divinity of
Jesus of Nazareth, our common Lord, was challenged through the writings of
Arius of Alexandria.
ARIANISM
In brief, what
we can gather from the surviving comments about Arius’s works, since all his
writings were burned by the church, is that he taught that Lord Jesus is a
mighty being, the first creation from GOD YHWH, but was neither God, nor
eternal. But instead, Arius taught that He was ‘divine’, meaning of similar
qualities to God, granted to Him by LORD YHWH, and that there was a time when
He was not. So, in essence, by nature, Jesus, the Logos, was neither eternal,
nor God, not omniscient or omnipotent in any way (3).
To solve this
problem, the church of the time met under the protection of Emperor Constantine
I and formulated the first part of what would become the first canonical
‘Christian’ orthodox creed in History, being completed later in the Council of
Ephesus, defining the nature of the Holy Spirit; even though almost half of the
body of Christ did not agree with it (the Arians).
We will not
discuss here the details of this controversy, but the definitions of the
hypostatic union in Christ, and what the Bible says about it.
‘ORTHODOX’
DEFINITION
What the words
of the articles 30 to 37 of the Athanasian creed describe, and the words of the
Nicene creed defines, in conclusion say that the human Jesus of Nazareth was
and is one person, not two. But that this single person, possessed a divine
nature and a human nature, from the moment of the incarnation and from then
onwards for eternity.
Furthermore, it
takes care in clearly stating that these two natures live together under one
mind, one body and one person, together, in harmony, but not mixed, or evolved
into a mixture of divine-human nature.
WHAT THE
BIBLE SAY ON JESUS’S NATURE
The man we know
as Jesus of Nazareth, according to the Bible was as follows:
DIVINE
He was divine by
nature, meaning He shared the same nature as the eternal GOD YWHW-ELOHIM.
Arianism used to
elevate prayers to Jesus, and even call Him ‘god’, because they believed He was
elevated to that level by GOD, but they never accepted that the Logos, later
called Jesus was truly God or divine in nature.
However, this is
a wrong concept, from Greek reasoning as well as from Hebrew principles.
A created being
cannot inherit or received from anyone, not even GOD, his Godhood, because
nobody can become God or stop being GOD. When the Bible describes the Word as
divine, it calls Him GOD, the same way it calls the Father GOD (John 1:1).
Is in this sense
that the Bible speaks of Jesus as being God and no other, which otherwise will
be a pagan concept totally strange to Jewish theology
(Philippians
2:5-6; John 1:18)
PRE-EXISTENT
Before He
incarnated, whom we know as Jesus had no name, and it was only known as ‘Logos’
or ‘Word’ of GOD, or the ‘Angel of YHWH’
(John 1:1;
Judges 6:21-23).
Jesus
acknowledged his pre-existence from before He became a man (John
1:14-15,18;17:5).
ETERNAL
The Bible openly
teaches that the Logos was ‘in the beginning’ with GOD YHWH, executing his will
through the Universe (John 1:1).
If GOD is
eternal and the Logos has been always representing the person of the Father
before all ages; as an emanation independent from God YHWH, then the Word is
also eternal, because the Logos has always been the face of YHWH even before time
began, which also has no beginning, since God has always been creating.
However,
theoretically we could say that time, and even the Logos must have a beginning,
but this beginning is eternal and cannot be singled out in a single moment
along linear time which is the only concept of time for all created beings.
Moreover, this
independent existence of the Logos, even though it has a conceptual but not
historical start; it always existed within GOD ELOHIM, since the Word is not a
‘son’ to the Father, but He is only called ‘Son’ from the moment of his
incarnation, and not before. Therefore, the reality of Jesus in his
pre-existent form has no real beginning, since He always existed in the ‘bosom
of the Father’, is part of the Father, and that is why HE IS GOD ALMIGHTY
(Micah 5:2; John
1:18; Revelation 1:17-18).
INCARNATED
This extension
of GOD, called the WORD, took flesh, and became human.
He did not take
a human and invaded his body, neither He begot a body to take possession of;
but He Himself became human, through the Will of GOD YHWH, the Father, through
his HOLY SPIRIT, a child was begotten in the womb of Mary, implanting a sinless
and perfect seed in Mary’s womb, and taking from her DNA, the child who will be
called JESUS OF NAZARETH, the incarnated WORD, became human.
(Luke 1:30-32,
35).
It is from this
moment and for this reason that Jesus is called ‘The Son of God’ (John 1:14).
DIVINE AND
HUMAN
God can never
stop being God. It is impossible. God in ONE and IMMUTABLE for eternity.
When God
incarnated, He adopted humanity without leaving his divinity. And as God is
perfect, and He demonstrated his desire to be fully human in representation of humanity,
He did not beget a ‘super-human’ or a ‘demi-god’, but a perfect human, with all
the faculties of a man, but without sin in action or intention, or even sinful
nature. He was born the PERFECT HUMAN the same way Adam was created before the
Fall.
(1John 4:2; 2John1:7;
Galatians 4:4; Hebrews 1:3; 4:15)
But because the
man was a direct incarnation and not a possession of the divinity of a human
being; the WORD who became and is JESUS, had only one mind, one identity, but
two natures, that worked perfectly in Him, even though each manifested its own faculties
in full.
(John 1:14;
Colossians 1:19; 2:9; Philippians 2:7)
CONCLUSION
Councils are
correct in the measure they submit to the teachings of Scripture, which contain
in the modern world, all the apostolic teaching available to mankind.
Sometimes the Council
of Jerusalem described in Acts 15 is used to justify and teach that all
councils are correct; but that is an exaggeration of a historical event. The
only reason the council described in Acts 15 is considered correct is because
it was ratified by the fathers of our faith, the living Apostles, the Elders,
and all the present at the time, and it shows in Scripture, otherwise, its
validity would be questioned.
In this case,
the conclusions of the Councils of Nicaea and Ephesus are proven to be correct
according to the light of infallible and inerrable Scripture, and only for that
reason it is accepted by Christians to this day.
Omar Flores.
(1)
Athanasian
Creed, Art. 30-37.
(2)
Apostle’s
Creed, Art. 2-7.
(3)
Arianism,
Encyclopedia Britannica, 2022.
Comments
Post a Comment