Hypostatic Union - How to you Explain it?

It's not easy! But I think Paul is of enormous help in 1 Timothy 2 and then in Philippians 2.

1 Tim. 2:5 -- For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

Jesus is God. The one God. Jesus is man, the one mediator.

Phil. 2:5b-7 -- ... Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

There are other verses, but too many can get overwhelming. The point to the second one, in Philippians, is that Jesus made Himself (no one did this to Him) a man. Born, grew up, ate, went to the bathroom, had to bathe...fully man. He even died like a man.

Are there pictures from nature you can use? I think so, but in a limited way and very carefully.

H2O is a possibility. Always it is fully H2O, but as water it can be poured. As ice it can be thrown. As vapor, it cannot do either. The form it is in allows the function.

In order for God to satisfy all justice, He had to be God yet function as a man and die. Therefore, as Paul writes, although He was, and is, God in nature, He humbled Himself. God is the ONLY one who could humble God!

He 'froze' Himself into a shape for the purpose of being smashed. You cannot effectively smash liquid or vapor H2O. It can only be smashed as a solid. You can't take this too terribly far, but you can play with the idea that just as ice can melt and later vaporize, and thus rise, so Christ also changed the form in which He was as a man, and rose glorified -- but always God. Just as H2O is always H2O.

I know you can get into heresy pushing this too far, but I think used carefully it might help with the understanding of fully God and fully human.

Fully H2O yet fully ice. Or water. Or vapor....

The nature was always the same -- God. The form was changed for the purpose of function.

If I've made a horrid error here in theology, please correct me fast!

 

Dr. Bob, I get the feeling you are discipling a high school student, or at least being asked a lot of questions about Jesus!

I would say that when Jesus incarnated, his deity was not set aside but he did fully become man. His human nature was added to the deity nature, so he was 100% God and 100% man.

 

Bob
Good question. I think the "100" termnology confuses people. We should really say that He was just as much God as He was man.

Is it not possible to have full citizen qualifications in more than one counttry?
Can't a full-blooded Irishman also be a full-fleged American citizen?

Several years ago I listened to a discussion of the PROMINA of the Sun and saw a good illlustration of Jesus also being God. The PROMINA stays attached and is always of the same nature and material of the Sun.

 

When there is an eruption on the sun and an extremely long connected fireball juts out, it is called a promina. It stays attached.