The Hypostatic Union
RO96-01

© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1977)

We are looking at Romans 8:1-4, in which the apostle Paul makes a summary statement concerning our freedom from eternal condemnation. This is segment number seven in that series.

The apostle Paul has made a very dramatic declaration to the effect that those who are in Christ Jesus; that is, those who are born again – those who have been regenerated spiritually by personal faith in Jesus Christ, can never under any condition be condemned to the lake of fire. There is the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which is overridden, he says – the law of sin and death for those of us who, by natural birth, found ourselves in Adam. And all of the moral code of the Bible, such as the Ten Commandments, that told us what we have to be like to satisfy God, was a code that we simply could not rise to. The apostle Paul has indicated that the problem was that the Law was good, but it was dependent upon human capacity to obey it. So, the law was weak because of human nature.

So, Paul says that God sent His Own Son; that is, the Son Who was just like Himself – One who is divine. He sent Him in the likeness of human flesh. He sent Him with true humanity, but He sent Him without a sin nature. So, we've been pausing to look at the nature of this Person Whom God has sent. And this information, of course, was made clear to the human race right from the very beginning. Through something like 2,500 years, there was no written record from God, but there was the verbal communication, and there was the communication via nature in a variety of ways that testified specifically what God was going to do for this human problem.

Well, He has, from that first Christmas Day, solved the problem; set the thing into motion; and, the issue has been settled. Now, the Bible makes it very clear that there is a great distinction between the person's salvation from the lake of fire and his subsequent lifestyle. And that is the problem with the sin nature. The sin nature is always telling people to somehow keep connecting people to how they live with whether they're going to go to heaven or hell. The sin nature wants you to keep connecting your lifestyle with the security of your salvation.

Now if there's anything that should have already come clearly through to us from the book of Romans it's the fact that there is no condemnation under any possible circumstance, once you are born again, and once you are in the position in Christ. That is because a lost sinner is saved by the death of Christ alone. A believer is forever secure from the lake of fire. He is forever secure in his salvation, because it is based only on what Jesus Christ has done. Never forget that there is no contribution from the sinner relative to your salvation. Even your believing God's offer is not a contribution. Even your believing, please remember, is non-meritorious. There is no merit in believing. It is simply taking God at His Word, and accepting the offer.

So, a believer's lifestyle after salvation does not affect the salvation. It will certainly affect your temporal blessings. How you live will affect how God prospers you. How you live will affect how happy your life is. Living in violation of the Word of God will bring you a lot of misery into your life, but it will not take away your eternal life. How you live will certainly affect your eternal rewards. Your lifestyle does, very directly, affect just how rich you will be in heaven. And some of the people who are very nicely well off here on earth are going to be very poor in heaven. Being well-off here does not mean that God favors you. And there are some ignorant Christians who like to say, "God knows whom to trust with His money, and so He prospers me. That shows that I stand in great favor with Him, and that in eternity, I'll be really well off." That is not so. How you live, in terms of investing your treasures and your time, will very directly determine how many rewards you enjoy in heaven, and the quality of your eternity.

So, salvation by grace, through personal faith in Jesus Christ, is secure because it's all dependent on Him. Our lifestyle affects only our temporal blessings and our eternal rewards. And this secure salvation (it is made possible), as we've indicated, because of the nature of the person of Jesus Christ. We have already seen that He is undiminished deity. He is the second person of the Godhead. Secondly, we have seen that He is true humanity, born sinless via the virgin Mary. He is this the sinless God-Man, and thus the unique Person in the universe. There is no one else like him. The two natures of Jesus Christ are so related that He has satisfied the holiness of God toward sinners, and has made their salvation eternally secure once they accept this God-Man as their Savior.

So, today, we're going to look now at how these two natures are related. Never in the history of the human race has there been such a person – One who is both divine, and One who is human – a person who existed from eternity past. He never had a beginning because He's God. And then He comes to a point in time where something about Him has a beginning – his flesh. We call that His incarnation – the taking on of a human structure.

Now that raises a lot of issues and a lot of questions as to how this individual relates these two, and the significance of that again, relative to our salvation, because it does have a very direct bearing.

Jesus Christ was a God-Man

The Bible is very clear on the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared on this earth as a God-man. He did not appear as God alone. He did not appear as man alone. He appeared as a God-Man. Let's look at a few Scriptures. John 1:14 says, "And the Word (referring to Jesus Christ, the Son of God – Christ in His deity) was made flesh (that is, took on human form) and dwelt among us. And we behold His glory – the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." And there, "the Only Begotten of the Father" phrase again indicates His deity. So, John 1:14, says that He came as the God-Man.

Galatians 4:4 says, "But when the fullness of the time was come; that is, in God's program – in His time schedule, the time for the first Christmas finally arrived), God sent forth His Son (the Divine One – the deity), made of a woman, made under the law:" "Made of a woman" means that He was coming through the natural birth process. So, again, the Bible indicates that He came as a God-Man.

In Philippians 2:7, the apostle Paul says, "But made Himself (that is, Jesus Christ) of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." Jesus Christ, who has, in this context, been described as God, we are told, took upon Himself the form of a servant, and specifically in the form of humanity. It says "in the likeness of men," again, because He did not have a sin nature.

1 Timothy 3:16 puts it this way: "And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh; justified in the Spirit; scene of angels; preached unto the nations; believed on in the world; and, received up into glory." Now there is the full summary. God was manifested in the flesh, and was received back into the heaven from whence he had come.

Hebrews 2:14 says, "For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He (that is, Jesus) also Himself likewise took part of the same, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death; that is; the devil." Jesus Christ by nature originally was not human. He was only divine. But He took upon Himself the nature of the people he had come to save.

Jesus Christ Came as a God-Man

One more: Hebrew 10:5 says, "Wherefore, when He comes into the world, he said, 'Sacrifice and offering You would not. But you have prepared a body for me." Here is the Son speaking to the Father, declaring that the Father has prepared for the son a human body. Now, we've already looked at His humanity, and we've seen the necessity for that humanity. All we're trying to stress now is that when He came into the world, He came as a God-Man; that is, from the point of His physical birth, He therefore had two separate natures, but they were forever united in one person. For this reason, He called Himself Son of God and Son of Man – two natures in one person. God the Father sent no less a person to save mankind from hell than God the Son of the Divine Trinity. And he came as a God-Man.

Now, that's a simple statement. You may not realize its significance, unless you do a little research in church history. Many centuries were involved in theological discussion before such a simple statement could be made concerning Jesus Christ – that He was undiminished deity, and true humanity's. This is a simple statement that seems so self-evident when we look at the Scriptures as we brought it all together. But there was a time when people did not know how to look at Him. Some in the early church said that He was only God, and that He only appeared to have a human body. Others said he was just a Man. This is like the Jehovah's Witnesses today will say, "Jesus was just a Man – a very obedient Man. He went into the waters of baptism, and deity came upon Him. So, He served as God. Then He got to the cross, and when He died, God left Him. And now there is the human Jesus who is someplace dead."

Now that viewpoint was commonly held in the early church. So, they said, what is the real nature of the God-Man? And when you understand that, then it adds to our assurance of salvation, because something very important evolves, if He is both God and Man, relative to the security of our salvation.

The Hypostatic Union

We speak of this in theological terms, the combination of two natures in one person, as the hypostatic union. You might as well learn this term so that you have the words that theologians use: "hypostatic union." The word "hypostatic" refers to the mode of being which gives one distinct individuality. It is a mode of being that distinguishes a person from all others. We get it from the Greek word "hupostasis." This actually comes from two words. This first word, "hupo," is a preposition, and it means "under." And knowing where these words come from will make it very clear what he's saying. This word "stasis" is another Greek word, and it means "a standing." So, you bring these two together, and you have "a standing under." And that's what "hupostasis" means. The "hypostatic union" means "a standing under." It connotes taking something on oneself so that you stand under. When you go out into the rain, you take an umbrella, and you open it, and you stand under the umbrella, and you have a "hupostasis." You have a "standing under."

What this refers to is that the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, took true humanity on Himself. The deity of Jesus Christ stood under His humanity. That's what is the idea of "hupostasis" – the deity standing under the humanity, and doing it in such a way that the two are now a single unit. They're not two natures which are operating on their own. They are operating as a unit. And that's what is very important to realize – that this is a total single unit operation.

"Hypostatic union" is then a theological term. It simply refers to the natures of Jesus Christ as a person. It describes the whole person as distinguished from the divine nature and the human nature. In one person of Jesus Christ are these two natures.

A Theanthropic Person

Now the other thing that came up under discussion over the centuries of the Christological debates was: what happens? Do these things mix together? Is the divine and the human all mixed up one with the other? Well, obviously, if that happened, then He would not be able to be called God, because He would no longer have true deity. And nor could He be called Man, because He would no longer have true humanity. So, it was evident then in time, to the students of Scripture, that while there was a "standing under" of the deity under the humanity, and when you looked at Jesus Christ, He looked just like an ordinary man, but there was a deity within Him such that the two were not mixed. The two remain separate. He was one person. But this is why he was unique. He was God, and He was Man. He could function as God, and He could function as man. He was what we would call a "theanthropic person," or more simply, "the God-man."

These natures, furthermore now, are inseparably united. When you see the Lord Jesus Christ, as someday you will see Him, you will see Him as He looked when He ministered here on this earth. He will look just like any other man that you know. He will be a human being in appearance. The union of Jesus Christ, however, is unique, in that He is now different from God, because He is God-Man, and He is different from man, because He is God-Man.

Christ's Deity and His Humanity do not Mix

Now let's look at a few Scriptures describing this hypostatic union. The Bible, again, is very explicit that He is a union of both. The thing to remember is that he is one person, and the two do not mix.

Philippians 2:5-11 is a major passage. It says this: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God;" that is, "Who, being in the form of God; that is, being deity." Literally, it says, "Thought it not a thing to be held onto." That's what that verse really says: Being in the form of deity, He didn't think that that was something that He should hold onto. Now that's the amazing thing. Suppose that God the Son had said, "No, once I take on humanity, then for the rest of eternity, I will be deity combined with humanity. I don't want to do that." Had that happen, and had He hung onto His deity (without His humanity), we could not have been saved. Or had He not been willing to temporarily shield that deity as he did on this earth, we could not have been saved. This is an amazing verse. Philippians 2:6 says, "He was deity, but He didn't look upon it as a thing to be held onto.

Verse 7: "But made Himself of no reputation, and took on Him the form of a servant Who was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, everybody knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." And you remember that the word "Lord" means deity. He is Lord; He is God; and, He is divine.

Now He had the capacity as deity to have preserved Himself from the death; from the humiliation; and, from the abuse that led to His being placed upon the cross. Peter wanted to do it. Peter shipped out his sword and went after the soldiers immediately when they approached to take the Lord in Gethsemane. And the Lord said, "Listen, Peter, I could call legions of angels at just a word that would take care of these dudes. I don't need you with your sword. You're puny. I have all the capacity I need to resist this, but I'm not resisting this." And the Bible makes it very clear that He was God who willingly assumed this kind of human abuse.

Then there's the very important passage in the gospel of John, right at the very first chapter, that again describes this deity standing under humanity – the hypothetic union: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." This term "Word" in the Greek is the term "logos," and that refers to Jesus Christ: "The same was in the beginning with God because He was God. All things were made by Him." Jesus Christ is the Creator: "Without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Then it goes on to say that: "There was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness to the light, that all men through him might believe. He (that is, John) was not the light, but he was sent to bear witness of that light (Jesus Christ). That was the true light which lights every man that comes into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world did not know it. He came unto His own (that is, the Jewish people), and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His name."

Election

You notice how you become a child of God. You believe in Jesus Christ. You don't invite Him into your heart. You don't ask Him into your heart. You don't pray Him into your heart. You don't do anything but believe the gospel. And that's the only thing you should tell people to do: "Who were born then not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God." And don't forget that if you are a born again believer, you are not born again because you simply exercised your will to do it. You would not have moved your will to accept Him if God Himself had not moved your will first. Every one of you who are in Christ today are there because God chose you. That's the dramatic truth of election.

Verse 14 says, "And the Word was made 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." Now that passage makes it very clear that Jesus Christ was a theanthropic person. He was a God-Man combination.

Romans 1:2-5 tell us about the hydrostatic union, where we read, "Which He had promised before by His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, by Whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name."

So, the apostle Paul says that Jesus Christ was physically born in the line of King David. Furthermore, He was declared to be deity (Son of God) by the power that He demonstrated (and we've looked at that power, and His miracles, and so on), and by His holy, godly, sinless life. It was evident that He was a combination of God and Man.

Romans 9:5: "Whose are the Fathers, and of whom is concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is overall God-blessed forever. Amen." That's very clear. He is of the flesh, but He is also God- blessed forever.

1 Timothy 3:16 puts it this way: "And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh (Jesus Christ)."

We have one more in Hebrews 2:14: The writer says, "For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same, that through death, he might destroy him that had the power of death; that is, the devil."

So, here are major passages that clearly indicate that Jesus Christ came as the God-man.

So, the deity of Jesus Christ is undiminished. As God, He was coequal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. That was true before He took on a human body; and, it continued to be true after.

In the wilderness temptation, you'll remember that Jesus Christ did not use His deity against Satan, though He possessed it fully at the time. Instead, He depended upon God the Holy Spirit to guide Him to meet Satan through the Word of God, because he knew the Word of God. He knew exactly, as a human being, how to meet Satan. That's a great comfort to us. We as human beings are fully capable of meeting the devil, providing that you know doctrine. Then you know exactly what to say at every point in time. Every issue you need in life: socially; in business; in marriage; in the family; in education; in all of your ambitions; and, in every area, it is the Word of God as a human being that makes you capable of meeting Satan in his world, who is over all these areas of life, and to put him to flight, the way the Lord Jesus Christ did. God the Holy Spirit will shine His light upon your human spirit to give you the doctrinal answer to the particular issue you face. Now if you've got an empty warehouse, you're in trouble, and there's nothing for Him to illuminate.

So, the deity is undiminished. The humanity of the incarnate Son of God is true humanity. He possessed a body; He possessed a soul; and, He possessed a spirit. He possessed a human body; a human soul; and, a human spirit, which all true human beings. Because of the virgin birth, He had no sin nature, so Adam's sin was not imputed to him.

So, the Savior sent was, as we say, undiminished deity, and sinless humanity, both at the same time – the hypostatic union.

Now, what you must understand is that while you have these two natures within Jesus Christ, united in one person, they do not transfer to one another. The two natures are never mixed in any way. They never lose their separate identities. There's no transfer of attributes from one to the other. Each nature retains its own characteristics. The essence of deity obviously cannot be transferred to the finiteness of humanity, and the finiteness of humanity cannot be transferred to the infinity of deity. To transfer or to mix these attributes would destroy the true humanity and the true deity of Jesus Christ.

So, He was a personality indeed different from the personality He was in heaven before the incarnation. He was one personality when He was just God. When he became God-man, He was a different personality, but the two natures remained separate. The deity of Jesus Christ does not possess the humanity, or vice versa. He had two separate natures combined forever in one person. And this is a full joining together.

The Soul of Jesus Christ

So, Jesus Christ had a human mind which was limited with information, but He also had a divine mind, which was omniscient. He had human emotions, but He also had divine emotions. He had a human will, and He also had a divine will. That, for example, is illustrated so clearly in the Garden of Gethsemane. What did He mean when He said, "Father, not My will, but Thine be done?" He was saying, "Father, not My human will. As I look upon (as a human being) what I'm about to face, I am reluctant to have the sewage and the garbage of human sin poured out upon Me, the Sinless One. But Your will is the issue, and that's what I'm going to follow. So, it's clear, in the Gethsemane statement, that there was God's will, and there was man's will in this one Person. Both the divine and the human attributes belong to the one person, Jesus Christ.

So, in the first advent, He could be omnipotent, and yet He could be so physically weak that they had to get somebody to help Him just cross. The ignorance of His humanity had to be overcome by His own study of doctrine. Yet, at the same time, in His deity, He knew it all. In fulfilling the purpose of the incarnation, the Lord Jesus Christ did not use certain attributes that were His as deity. But you must understand that he never surrendered any of those attributes. While He was the God-man, He was fully God with all the powers, and with all the prerogatives of deity. He never gave up any of the attributes of His deity.

Now He did limit Himself to the Father's plan. That's the only way he lived. He did not operate independently of God, but He did live independent of His divine attributes. For this reason, He came to live among men as a man. Therefore, He needed food; He needed shelter; He needed clothing; and He needed to walk to get from place to place. In His deity, He could have snapped from place to place immediately and instantaneously. But He limited Himself deliberately as a human being.

The Wilderness Temptations

So, when Satan came along in that temptation in the wilderness, here's a splendid example of the relationship of the humanity and the deity. And we're getting to the fact that this relationship is why our salvation is so secure. When Satan approached Him, Satan approached Him the way He chose to live: as a man; and, as a human being, not using His deity to function. That's important for you to remember, because if He can function as a human being in the face of Satan, then we, who are in Christ, can also do it.

As you know, the devil has a three-pronged appeal to you and me every waking moment of our day. They are listed for us in 1 John 2:16. They are these: "For all that is in the world (that is, Satan's world system) is (number one) the lusts of the flesh (the lusts of the sin nature); (number two:) the lusts of the eyes (the things that appeal to us through our eye-gate); and, (number three) the pride of life. Those three things are not of the Father, but they are of the world."

Now notice Satan's approach. If you turn to Luke, he comes face-to-face with Jesus Christ, and he's going to seek to bring him down as a man. And notice that, while He was God in man, the natures functioned one time or another time. They functioned independently. But they functioned united to one another, but He operated either in His humanity or in His deity. He operated here clearly as a man. In Luke 4, we have the picture clearly drawn for us. First of all, Satan comes to the Lord Jesus Christ and says, "If You be the Son of God." What class condition is that of that "if? One, two, three, or four. It is number one: "Since you are the Son of God." That's the beauty of the Greek language. The devil was not saying, "Oh, You say You're the Son of God, but I don't believe it. Let's see if you really are." The devil says, "OK, you know, I can't con you. You know that you are deity. Now if You are deity, let's see what You can do with it. You've been starving for 40 days now, and 40 nights. You're ready for some food. You're hungry as can be. Turn these rocks into bread, and feed yourself.

Now, can a human being do that? No, but can deity do that? Yes. And the Lord Jesus Christ was now being tempted by Satan in His humanity to meet His human need for food. But if He had, it would have been a violation of God's plan for Him as the Son, to live in dependence upon God the Holy Spirit to meet his human needs. And Jesus says to Satan, "No, because a person is to live according to the Word of God only. And the Word of God says that I, as a human being, move from day-to-day in dependence upon God the Holy Spirit to meet My human needs. That's where I get My food. God the Holy Spirit provides Me with the employment so that I can earn the money to supply My food. I don't do it by some supernatural means."

So, Satan changes his attack, and he moves from the lusts of the flesh. That was his first attack. And he goes to the lusts of the eyes. And we're told how he shows Jesus, from a high mountain, all the glamor of the kingdoms of the world. And he says, "If You worship me, I'll give you authority over these kingdom." Now what he was doing here was to indulge the desire that human beings have to possess – the desire that human beings have to enjoy possessing things. So, he appealed to Jesus' human desire to have these kingdoms, which would have been a violation of the Father's plan, which is for Him to rule the kingdoms of this world in the millennium only after suffering. So, he counters Satan by saying, "No, you worship God, and God alone. And then He gives us what is His plan for us. And if the Father wants Me to rule the kingdoms of the world, He will give them to Me, and I will not worship you to secure them."

So, then Satan goes to the third attack – the pride of life. He takes Him up to a high pinnacle of the temple. He can see hundreds of feet below into the valley adjoining that site. He says, "Jump off. If you'll jump off, the Bible says that the angels will catch you so that your feet will not be dashed on the stones below." Now what he was doing was appealing to the human sense of being a very important person, the VIP status of Jesus Christ, because the angels would give special protection. But this would have violated the Father's plan for Him to die on the cross as a human being. Furthermore, it would have violated the principle of testing God. You must never, never test God.

If you choose to find yourself some rattlesnakes and say, "I believe that God will protect me from the rattlesnake bite, you're going to wake up dead, because that snake is going to bite you, and you are going to die. And you better not tempt; test; or, pressure God. It won't work. That's what the Word of God forbids. And the Lord Jesus Christ was, in His humanity, being pushed to try to test God to prove Himself.

How does the Bible begin? "In the beginning, God created the heavens." Some would say, "Wait a minute. I don't even know if there is a God. What do you mean, 'In the beginning, God created? . . . Let's talk it over." God says, "No. I'm making a statement of fact. I don't prove. You listen. You obey. I've given you a statement of authority." So, you don't prove God. You take His Word; you listen to it; you believe it; and, you obey it. All of the people who are headed for hell, while they are still on this side of hell, think that they can argue that God hasn't proven that Christ can save. In hell, they will learn the hard way that the reality of what He has promised, and what He warned about, God is not to be pressed or to be proven. You listen to His Word. He is veracity. He speaks the truth.

Well, verse 13 tells us that Satan slithered off, defeated by the positive volition of a human being. Isn't that great? "And when the devil had ended all the testing, he departed from Him for a season." And when the devil is knocked down by you, as a human being, because the Spirit of God has given you the doctrinal position to answer the devil's temptations to you, don't forget the last part of the verse. He's going to lick his wounds, and then he's going to come slithering back to have another shot at you. That is his technique.

So, here's the hypostatic union: deity, coming under humanity. The natures remain separate from one another, retaining their own attributes, but the one Person functions together. So, here's how we classify the attributes of the hypothetic union.

Attributes of Christ's Deity Only

Certain attributes of Jesus Christ belong to His deity alone. You have an example of that in John 8:58: "Jesus said unto them (to His accusers here), "Verily, verily, I say unto you, "Before Abraham was, I am." And what He is saying there by that statement "I am," is that He is eternal. He is God. Now you can't say that of His humanity. His humanity was not eternal. His deity was eternal. So, He was saying here that He has the eternity quality of God. That is true of His deity only.

Attributes of Christ's Humanity Only

Then there are attributes, obviously, which are true of His humanity only. I'll just give you one example. John 19:28: "After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst." Now deity does not thirst. That can only be said of His humanity. In His humanity, He grew thirsty.

Attributes of Christ as the God-Man (the Person) of Both Deity and Humanity

So, here you look at the person of Jesus Christ, and as you read the Bible, be aware that sometimes you see Him operating, and you know that that's the deity functioning. Other times you see Him saying something, or functioning in some way, and you know that that's the humanity. But there are other times when the hypostatic union comes into play, and it is the Person who is functioning. When He is the Savior, it is the person, the God-Man, Who is doing that. When He is the Redeemer, it is the God-Man that's doing it. When is the Prophet, Priest, and King, it is the God-man who is doing that. An example of that is Matthew 11:28. You have the person functioning: both the human; and, the divine. Jesus says, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Now humanity could not say that. Humanity couldn't say, "You come unto Me, and I'll give you rest. You'll find peace in Me." But deity combined with humanity can say that: "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. That's the person.

So, everything that Jesus said or did came from one of these three sources.

The Impeccability of Christ

Now that leads us to some questions about the functioning of the person of Jesus Christ. We'll go ahead and get started on this, because this leads us to the question of the impeccability of Christ. So, here's another word that you should get acquainted with: the word "impeccable." "Impeccable" means not capable of sin or wrong-doing. The word does not mean that one is not able to be tempted. All of us in this room are able to be tempted, but no one in this room is impeccable. Jesus Christ, as you have learned, did not have a sin nature.

1 John 3:5, for example, clarifies that: "And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin.

Furthermore, we know that Jesus Christ, in His life on earth, never committed a single act of sin. We have that in 1 Peter 1:19, for example: "But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot." He was without blemish, and He was without spot. The Lord Jesus Christ was tempted in the area of His humanity only. His deity could not be tempted with evil. His deity could not be the author of evil. So, when we talk about the temptation to Jesus Christ, that temptation was only toward His humanity.

James 1:13: "Let no man say when he is tempted, 'I am tempted of God.' For God cannot be tempted with evil; does he tempt any man." So, in the hypostatic union, all the temptations of Jesus Christ came from outside of his own being, as was true of Adam originally. Adam had no sin nature. Therefore, there was no temptation from within Himself. Adam was created without a sin nature. Jesus Christ was born without one, as Hebrews 4:15 has told us. Both of them faced the issue of positive volition to the will of God. The first Adam faced the outside temptation of Eve offering the fruit. The last Adam, Jesus Christ, faced the temptation of Satan offering the shortcut to the ruling of the kingdoms of the world, going without the death on the cross. All temptations to Jesus Christ, therefore, are directed to His humanity, and the humanity of Jesus Christ by itself was temptable. And notice that I said that the humanity by itself was temptable, just as our humanity by itself is temptable. We can be tempted. So, the Lord Jesus, by Himself, could be tempted.

The Greatest Temptation of Christ

One of the greatest, of course, was that recorded of Matthew 26:39, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He faced the cross – the temptation to forget it all. The first Adam failed the test, but the last Adam passed it with flying colors.

The Second Greatest Temptation of Christ

The second greatest temptation was the one we've just looked at, of course – the one in the wilderness.

So, the humanity of Jesus Christ was temptable, and, therefore, we have another word. This is the kind of word that they knock around in seminary, and they're good words to learn because they describe great theological truths. The humanity of Jesus Christ by itself would be temptable and peccable. "Peccable" means "able to sin." Do we have any peccable people here this morning? We have a majority of them. A couple of you think you aren't, but the human race knows that everybody is peccable. Everybody is able to sin.

Now, the question is, could Jesus Christ, the person, sin? Because of the hypothetical that you have just learned about, where the deity of Jesus Christ was overridden by the humanity, and this was combined in one person, you have a certain condition. We can illustrate this condition with a fine piece of wire representing the humanity of Jesus Christ. That humanity, by itself, like ours, could be tempted, and it could be peccable. It could sin. You could bend it, and you could break it. But because of the hypostatic union, something else has happened, and that is that that wire has been welded onto a steel bar of deity. Now, because it is welded to a steel bar, you can't snap it into, and you cannot bend it. And the same is true of Jesus Christ. Because of the hypostatic union, Jesus Christ could not sin as a human being.

His humanity could suffer limitations only of a non-moral kind. He could be weak physically; He could be tired; He could feel sorrow; He could experience death; He could be hungry; He could be thirsty; and, He could have emotions that moved Him to tears. But those are non-moral limitations.

The Doctrine of the Impeccability of Christ

So, the doctrine of implacability is an important doctrine concerning the person of Christ. In His humanity, we say that He was able not to sin. In His humanity, He was able not to sin. In His deity, He was not able to sin. When you tie the two together, in His humanity, He was able not to sin. Why? Because His humanity could not do something that deity wouldn't do. In His deity, He simply was not able to sin.

Now, the significance of this is that Jesus Christ was capable of experiencing all of the demands and temptations of our humanity, but He was preserved from sinning because of His deity. So, there can be no failure relative to our salvation. That's the point. If He, as a human being on this earth, could not only be tempted, but could be peccable (able to sin), then He can still do that in heaven. And if that is true, then our salvation is only secure as long as He does not sin. If we are dependent upon Him in that human condition only, we're not absolutely sure that He's going to make it, so that suddenly, we might all be thrown into hell.

However, there is no possible repetition, thank God, to what the first Adam did, who sinned and dragged all of his posterity down with him. The God-Man characteristic of Jesus Christ ensures that there will be no repetition of falling into sin.

So, the hypostatic union and the impeccability of Christ are joined together. Because He is God-man in one person, the humanity is forever welded to the deity, and the humanity cannot do anything that God would not do. And when you and I come into His presence someday, we will become like Christ, and this is how we will be. We will not be gods, and we will not be divine, but we will have the incapacity ever to sin again, because we shall be like Him in that characteristic. He is like that because of the hypostatic union – two natures" deity, attached to humanity. We will be like it because everything that He is, we are to become.

So, when we say that our eternal life is secure, now you know a little better why that is so. It is impossible for you ever to lose your salvation, either now or in eternity, because the hypostatic union makes Jesus Christ impeccable – not able to sin.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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