Biblical Reasoning by R. B. Jamieson

Author:R. B. Jamieson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Theology/Biblical Interpretation;Bible—Criticism | interpretation | etc;Bible—Theology;Jesus Christ—Person and offices;Trinity;REL006400;REL067000
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2022-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

The Grammar of Christological Paradoxes: The Hypostatic Union

Given the pressures discerned and described above, in this section we must now process these pressures in order to discern their underlying grammar, asking how it is that these various pressures presuppose and display a deeper framework of coherence. In other words, why does Scripture speak about Jesus in these ways? What is the reality that demands to be spoken of in such paradoxical patterns?

Preserving Paradox

As we move from Scripture’s pressures about Jesus to its underlying grammar, we must state at the outset that the truth these passages teach is irreducibly mysterious. According to Francis Turretin, the most difficult questions in theology are the unity of three persons in one being and “the union of the two natures in the one person in the incarnation.”25 So when discussing the hypostatic union, we are not solving but stating the mystery.

Therefore, we are not setting aside paradox, but vindicating it as paradox and not contradiction. By “paradox” here we mean an apparent contradiction that ultimately is consistent. For Jesus to be both God and man seems contradictory but ultimately is not. Paradox is thus intrinsic to the confession that “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor. 12:3), and biblical reasoning must preserve this paradox, owning that seemingly contradictory characteristics coalesce in Christ.26 For this reason, the incarnation is a mystery, something we cannot fully explain. Given the reality of the Word made flesh, we should not shrink from paradox but instead revel in it. Orthodoxy is not about explaining mystery away but maintaining it. Orthodoxy stands upright not because it discards the weight of inconvenient evidence but because it keeps seemingly opposing truths in exact equipoise. So what does Scripture’s pressure presuppose about the union in Christ of divinity and humanity?

The Hypostatic Union

In light of the foregoing, the biblical discourse about the unity of Christ and the diversity of predicates befitting him are reconciled in the underlying grammar of what theologians traditionally call the hypostatic union. This doctrine is clearly articulated by the Chalcedonian creed, which our sixth principle echoes: “One and the same Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son, must be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion or change, without division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character [ἰδιότητος, idiōtētos] proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one Person and one hypostasis.”27

Notice first of all that this tells us nothing about how the hypostatic union occurs, but only that the union occurs in Christ’s one person. The Son of God assumed a human nature into union with his person, such that God the Son now truly exists as a man. This remains a mystery because this personal union is not “such as could be found in the sphere of created nature at all, but is an absolutely unique, supereminent union.”28 Therefore, we can know more about what this union is not than about what it is. This is not a union in nature, where divinity and humanity become some third thing.

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