Hypostatic Union

Romans 1:3

We looked last week at how the gospel that saved people in the Old Testament is the same gospel preached today. Verses three and four will make that even clearer today and will also dive a little deeper. If there is any doubt on what verse two meant, the next two verses should remove it.

This verse says, “concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh.” Bouncing back to verse two we can see that it was Jesus Christ who was promised by the prophets in the Holy Scriptures which is what we looked at last week. What I want to home in on here is the hypostatic union.

The hypostatic union is the understanding that Jesus is fully God and fully man. He wasn’t half and half. He wasn’t fully God when He chose to be and then fully man at other times. He was fully God and fully man simultaneously. This verse and other verses will help to show that today.

We see in our verse today that Jesus is stated to be God’s Son. Jesus is who was prophesied about, and He is His Son. I mentioned Isaiah 53 last week which is a great example to show that Jesus is God’s Son (specifically verse ten). There are even better examples to show this in the New Testament, including right after Jesus was baptized (Matthew 3:17), and on the mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:5). God clearly called Him His Son.

Jesus also did things that only God can. The prime and only example we really need of that is when He rose from the dead and defeated our sins. Only a perfect, sinless One could defeat our sins, and He was that perfect, sinless One. Only God could be perfect; Jesus is God.

We also see how Jesus was fully man. He was born just like any other, though born of a virgin. He grew up and had to study Scripture (Luke 2:46), He got tired (John 4:6), and He ate and drank just like us, both before and after His resurrection (Mark 14:18; Luke 24:42-43). If He were not human He would not need to do these things.

We have established then that Jesus is God and is man, but we have not established if He were fully, one-hundred percent God and fully, one-hundred percent man at all times. We again must turn to Bible verses to find the truth.

First, John 1:14 is a great verse to turn to. It says, “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” The Word is clearly shown in the verses leading up this to be Jesus. Therefore the Bible clearly states that Jesus became flesh, and yet kept His Father’s glory. He took on flesh whilst still being fully God.

Colossians 2:9 tells us that “in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Philippians 2:6-9 shows us how Jesus, being fully God, came down to earth and became fully flesh, and died for our sins. A perfect man had to die for us. Only God could.

Hebrews 4:15 tells us that we serve a God who can sympathize with our weaknesses. In order for that be possible He needed to deal with the same difficulties, the same hardships, the same pain, as a man. He had to experience the enticement of sin. He had to look at the relief that sin would bring if He would just give in and yet still resist it. In doing so, He can sympathize with us.

The hypostatic union cannot really be fully grasped, but it can be understood. God does not need us to know everything about how things work. How can He be fully God and fully man at the same time? How can He be fully God and yet have questions about Scripture? How can He be a man and yet never stumble and sin? I believe the Holy Spirit, or even our God given knowledge, can help give us an understanding of this, but it will not be something that finite minds can grasp. That is where trusting in God comes in. We don’t have to fully understand His ways as long as we trust and fear Him. What we do know will show us time and time again that He is worthy of our trust, that He is worthy of our fear, and that He is worthy of our time and devotion.

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