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Roger Helland the Hypostatic Union: How Did Jesus Function?

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Roger Helland the Hypostatic Union: How Did Jesus Function? EQ 65:4 (1993), 311-327 Roger Helland The Hypostatic Union: How Did Jesus Function? The Senior Pastor of the Vineyard Fellowship in Kelowna, BC, Canada, here offers an exegetical study ofhow we are to understand the outworking ofthe combination of the divine and human natures in the incarnate Son of God. This is a controversial area on which there has been little written by evangelical scholars, and it is good that Mr Helland is prepared to blaze a traiL Introduction In the early centuries the Church contended with at least five major Christological heresies: (1). Arianism-which held thatJesus was a created being, the Son of God, but not eternal; (2). Ebionitism -which emphasized the humanity of Jesus at the expense of his deity; (3). Apollinarianism-which emphasized the deity of Christ at the expense of his humanity; (4). Nestorianism-which split Christ into two distinct persons, one human, one divine; (5). Eutychianism-which confused the two natures of Christ into one mixed nature of divine-human. The Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) has been traditionally recognized as the last word for the sake of established confessional dogma for orthodox Christology. Against Arianism, Apollinarianism, Nestorianism and Eutychianism this Council affirmed the full deity and full humanity ofJesus Christ. It declared that he was fully God and fully man in one person with two natures. The theological term used to label this relationship (coined by Cyril of Alexandria and accepted by the Council of Chalcedon) is the 'hypostatic union'. This Council may have stated ontologically what this union was, but the Church is still left with the difficulty of expressing how these two natures actually functioned practically in one person. How could Jesus function as a man who was God, or how could Jesus function as God who became a man? How did his two natures function in one person? This is a profound theological question to 312 The Evangelical Quarterly which I believe the New Testament provides sufficient revelation to fonnulate a clear answer. My presupposition is the view of the hypostatic union declared at the Council of Chalcedon-that Christ was fully God and fully human with two natures in one person. What I shall present are a number of New Testament passages which reveal how Jesus functioned while on earth as the God-man. Any and every interpretation must be arrived at through proper grammatical­ historical-contextual inductive exegesis not previously governed by theological grids, constructs, or biases. Let the writers of the New Testament speak for themselves. I also presuppose that a multitude of Scriptures are available to prove the deity and humanity of Christ. I shall not rehearse the plethora of evidence (see, for example, In. 1:1, 14; 8:58; Col. 2:9; 1 Tim. 2:5; and Heb. 1:3). I. Jesus Functioned as a Total Finite Man I shall present passages which, on a grammatical-historical, contextual, exegetical reading, will show how Jesus functioned as a man. I shall seek to prove that whatever Jesus did, he as a nonnal healthy person functioned as a total finite man. We shall see aJesus who experienced human limitations because of the finiteness inherent in being human. The only exception is that he lived a sinIess human life-but this too will become a reality for Christians in the eternal state. As a man, Jesus, we shall obselVe, did not live as God nor out of the eternal attributes of God. This is not to say that he gave up or lost his dei1y or his attributes of dei1y. It is to say that in order to live afully human life,Jesus had by necessity to lay aside the exercise of the attributes of deity-the kind of attributes that are not characteristic of human beings (omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence). However, Jesus as a man was dependent on the Father's will and derived his power not from his own inherent deity but from the Holy Spirit. In this way he selVes as an accessible human model for his disciples. Let us investigate the New Testament evidence.1 I shall highlight the pertinent parts with italics. Mt. 20:21 21 'What is it you want?' he asked. Mk. 5:9 9 Then Jesus asked him, 'What is your name?' 1 All Scripture citations are taken from the NIV. Definitions of the meanings of Greek words are taken from BAGD. The Hypostatic Union: How Did Jesus Function? 313 Mk. 10:35-36 35 ThenJames andJohn, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. 'Teacher,' they said, 'we want you to do for us whatever we ask.' 36 'What do you want me to do for you?' he asked. These initial passages, on a plain unbiased contextual reading, show that Jesus demonstrated a limitation in his knowledge. He asked questions to secure information. It could be argued that where Jesus asked questions, he was not seeking information, but was merely drawing out matters for his purposes. I would argue that, unless we have contextual clues from the writer or from a parallel reference, the burden of proof lies with those who would suggest such an interpretation. There are, however, some teaching and discussion situations where this interpretation is valid. For example, on at least the occasion of the feeding of the 5,000 Jesus asked the question 'Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?' John tells us: 'he asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do' On. 6:5--6). This suggests, contextually, thatJesus was not asking a question for the purpose of receiving information, but was leading his disciples into a discovery of the miraculous that he intended to accomplish. In other words, Jesus was in this case drawing out matters for his own purposes and not asking for information. There is no good reason to presume this in Mt. 20:20-23, Mk. 5:1-10, and Mk. 10:35--40. Mk. 6:S-6 He coulLl. not do any miracles there, except lay his hnds on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith. This passage clearly states that Jesus was limited in his ability to do miracles--he could not do any miracles there except heal a few sick people. Matthew's redaction of Mark lightens the force. He states: 'And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith' (Mt. 13:58). In both statements the absence of faith, in at least his home town, was a primary factor (d. Mk. 6:4, Mt. 13:57b). D. A. Carson comments on Matthew 13:58: Many say that v. 58 softens.... Mark 6:5-6. But two factors must be borne in mind: 1) Mark mentions some miracles, and Matthew, typically condensing, may be referring to these rather than commenting on Jesus' ability to do miracles; and 2) it is doubtful whether Mark's 'could not' is ontological or absolute, for Mark records other miracles in which the beneficiaries exhibit no faith ... The 'could not' is related to Jesus' mission: just as Jesus could not turn stones to bread without violating his mission (4:1-4), so he could not do miracles indiscrimi­ nately without turning his mission into a sideshow. The 'lack offaith' ... 314 The Evangelical Quarterly of the people was doubtless a source of profound grief and frustration for Jesus ... rather than something that stripped him of power.2 Carson appears fearful that acknowledging a limitation in Jesus does in fact say something ontologically or absolutely about him. He does not prove how the statement that Jesus 'could not do any miracles there' is related to Jesus' mission. The Synoptics are patently clear that the mission ofJesus was in fact to preach the Gospel of the kingdom and to heal the sick (ct Mt. 4:23; Mk. 1:14-45; Lk. 4:17- 44). In Mt. 4:1-4, Satan was testing Jesus. He would not turn bread into stones. Mark does not say thatJesus would not or did not do any miracles, but that he could not. In Mark, there is no contextual evidence to indicate that doing miracles in his home town would be 'indiscriminate' or a 'sideshow'. Dr. Carson commits the age-old hermeneutical error oftIying to harmonize the Gospels by discussing these two passages together. He seems to ignore New Testament theology-Matthew and Mark, taken on their own, make particular theological points according to their purposes in their Sitz, im Leben or Sitz, im Evangelium. Matthew's and Mark's theologies and purposes are different. One theological purpose in Mark is to show that Jesus is a complete man-he displayed human limitations and was treated as a man. Leon Morris writes: There can be no doubt about the lowly humanity ofjesus in the second Gospel. We see this, for example, in the account of his reception at Nazareth (6:1--6). Local people, astonished at his wisdom and his 'works of power' (dynameis), asked, 'Is not this the carpenter, the son ofMruy and brother ofJames and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?' (v. 3) ... But as Anderson puts it, 'The whole thrust of the question in verse 3 is to show that those who ask it cannot believe because of tire all-too-human connexion [sic] ofJesus with an ordinary family' [Italics his]. Mark says thatJesus could do no mighty work there except heal a few sick folk, and the account ends with Jesus' amazement at his townsfolk's unbelief (v.
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