7 Verses Declaring the Hypostatic Union

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The apostle John writes the first chapter of his Gospel to specifically address challenges to the hypostatic union. We can look at verse 1 and 14 of chapter 1. 

John 1 opens with the claim, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Here, John establishes the truth of Jesus as God and a separate person. He uses the Greek philosophical term Logos, the word or message of God, to describe Jesus.

John reaches back to Genesis 1 to reveal how when God spoke (“let there be light”), Christ was the word of creation. A message begins as a part of a person and then goes out to the world. Therefore, Jesus is God as the message to the world, born from the Father as the Son, all which happened before Jesus’ physical birth. 

John 1:14 establishes how God, as his own message, became a human being in historical time. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Two thousand years ago, the Logos became a person – not appearing like a man but actually a baby growing into a man. The Greek word for “became” is egeneto, meaning a real and permanent change. The Word didn’t stop being God but added humanity to his person. 

John wrote his Gospel later, during a time when Greek philosophies we call Gnosticism started challenging the early church’s doctrine. John begins his writing with these two verses to confirm the dual nature of Christ.

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“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.”

The apostle Paul, once a Jewish religious theologian working against Jesus, became a disciple of Jesus through radical revelation. Growing into his destiny as an apostle, this man also addressed and affirmed the hypostatic union.

While a short statement, Paul declares the complete and full Godhead within a real body, not a facsimile. God placed himself fully within a human man. 

Looking at the phrase “all the fullness of the Godhead,” Paul uses the Greek theotes to describe the total essence of God. Not just being like God, but the full deity. Paul teaches how Jesus didn’t only reflect God, He was God. Further, the word “dwells” (Greek katoikei) is used in the present tense, meaning Jesus continues to be fully human and fully God. It wasn’t a temporary state. Since he ascended as a resurrected man, this makes sense. Christ is eternally God in a resurrected body made of spiritual material (1 Corinthians 15). 

Finally, the word “bodily” (somatikos) reiterates how Christ took a physical, human body. Many in those days and today argued Jesus was more like a ghost or illusion, not true flesh. The Gospels address this many times on purpose, and Paul does the same here. The divine nature and the human nature aren’t separated or blended but both in one.

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“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

Paul establishes this theology again in Philippians 2:6-7. In this passage, Paul describes how God humbled himself to take on a human body for our sake, to save us. Verse 6 specifically includes how Jesus, “being in very nature God” or “form of God,” didn’t consider his equality with the Father as a source of pride, as if he wouldn’t obey and be born in humble estate as one of us.

The phrase “form of God” (Greek morphe theou) means he shared the nature and status of God. This verse also supports how Jesus remained equal to the Father but chose to submit himself. 

Verse 7 adds, “but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Jesus didn’t empty himself of being God but chose humility and obedience as a servant, not only to God but humanity, as well. “Being made in human likeness” can also be translated as taking on the complete human nature, body and soul. 

These verses declare the hypostatic union but further adds the purpose: for God to become human for the salvation of others. Love lives humble, and Jesus modeled that for us. The eternal Son became man to redeem humanity, uniting God and humanity in himself. We will also receive an immortal, resurrected body like Jesus in the end (1 Corinthians 15).

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“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil.”

The writer of Hebrews addresses the Jews, particularly Jewish believers, detailing ways Jesus both connects to what came before and brings something new in a greater covenant. As we can imagine, the letter includes declarations of the hypostatic union. 

The phrase “share in flesh and blood” refers to taking on a real human body, corrupted and mortal, doomed to temptation and death. Jesus encountered human life, “partook of the same things,” as he chose to take on true humanity, subjecting himself to weakness and suffering. And yet, he wasn’t bound by sin. Although tempted, he chose righteousness as only he could because of his pure, divine nature. 

Hebrews explains the purpose of this dual nature, “that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death.” He had to be human to die, but since he was also God and sinless, he broke the power of the Devil, death, and sin. Only God could overcome death and Satan. Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection shows his absolute authority and victory. Both natures were crucial.

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“For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.”

Paul wrote to people like he did to churches. The apostle addresses a letter to a young man he discipled, Timothy, a Gentile convert who began to work with Paul to encourage the churches. As a father in the faith, Paul finds true doctrine essential. Within 1 Timothy 2:5, one simple sentence, Paul declares Jesus both God and man, pointing to Christ’s role as mediator, the great and forever High Priest. 

The verse starts with the declaration, “there is one God.” Paul further defines this one God as the mediator, the man Jesus Christ. The best mediators represent both parties in a dispute. Since Jesus had experience as a human – tempted in every way yet without sin – and exists in a renewed, immortal body, he can represent humanity to the Father. Because he is fully God, he can understand the Father’s heart and express him to us, as well. Only someone with these two natures could bridge the gap between God and humanity, reconciling us to the Father through himself. 

Again, we see how essential the hypostatic union becomes when looking at the role and work of Christ, for our salvation and eternal good.

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“’The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’).”

The hypostatic union shows up at Christmas. Matthew 1:23 proclaims Jesus as the fulfillment of a prophecy from Isaiah. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke both reveal Jesus’ identity as God and human at his very conception through the Christmas story.

The name Immanuel points to “God with us.” It is not someone like God, close to God, or an especially gifted person; it is actual God. And he came as a baby to be with us, referring to God’s love and desire to end the separation of sin and rebellion between us and the Father through the Son. He came to dwell with us in this temporary world to redeem us so we could dwell with him forever. In Jesus, God didn’t send a messenger or representative. He personally showed up. 

The nativity stories take pains to make sure we understand the dual nature. Angels appear to tell Mary and Joseph that God himself is the child’s Father, conceived by the Holy Spirit. Since Mary was a virgin, only God could enact this impossibility, a miracle. At the same time, Mary was fully human, and she went through the process of pregnancy and birth, a very human experience, as the Gospels make clear. We celebrate and remember the Christmas stories, not to get gifts but to celebrate how God came to be with us in history so we could be with him for eternity.

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“This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.”

We started with John and we shall return to him. Christian tradition says John was the only one of the original apostles to die a natural death, to not be executed for his faith, although John still suffered for Jesus. Later in his life, John wrote to the first century church, and in one letter, he teaches how central the hypostatic union is.

John provides a clear and simple argument. Since Jesus is fully God and came as a human, and this is a central work of the Father, no spiritual message can deny the hypostatic union and be from God. 

The apostle John confirms the pre-existent nature of Christ: he “has come.” Jesus’ existence didn’t begin at his birth two thousand years ago. As John explains in the Gospel, the Word/Logos of God was one with him and participated in creation, long before a Jewish kid was born in Bethlehem under Roman occupation. Further, “in the flesh” makes it clear this eternal Son became a human being. 

John reveals this as a test for whether a teaching or doctrine is true at all. Denying the incarnation denies the Gospel and undermines the complete work of God through Christ in saving and reconciling humanity to himself by the Spirit. The hypostatic union is non-negotiable for the Christian faith. 

Peace.

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