The Hypostatic Union- the 2 Natures in Christ

Here is a problem that some here keep fighting.

Some insist that He was always being as God in ability....



So. Note the first verse...




5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Philippians 2:5-8


Now? Verse 5?

How can we be of the same mind?

If we are not God???

That is... If He was always being as God when He came to earth?

grace and peace ..................
What Paul makes very clear in this passage is that in addition to being God, He became man. The Incarnation was not a subtraction of His deity but an addition of humanity to His nature. This passage does not say Jesus gave up His deity but that He laid aside His rights as Deity, assuming the form of a servant in verse 7. The text says He was in the form of God or being in the very nature of God in 2:6. Just as He took upon Himself the "form of a servant" which is a servant by nature, so the "form of God" is God by nature. The word "being" from the phrase: being in the very form of God is a present active participle. This means "continued existence" as God. What Paul is actually saying here is Jesus has always been and still is in the "form of God". If you continue reading the passage Paul really drives this point home so that his readers have no doubt what he is trying to get across to the Philippians. Paul says that every knee will bow and will one day Confess Jesus is LORD. Paul takes the passage in Isaiah 45:23 which clearly refers to Yahweh a name used for God alone and says this of Jesus. The fulfillment of YHWH in Isaiah 45 is none other than Jesus who is God(Yahweh) in the flesh.

He self limited His divine prerogatives via the Incarnation as per Phil 2. In other words did not use them to His advantage but was in submission to the Father for 33 years to accomplish our salvation. All the FULLNESS of DEITY dwells in bodily form. Col 1:19;2:9. Jesus was and is fully God lacking nothing in His Deity.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

Even through Christ existed in the form of God He did not regard equality with God something that He needed to reach for or grasp. Why because it was already His and never gave that up for a millisecond.

Paul is using syllogisms from the text in Philippians 2.

Just as the term “form of God” in verse six does not mean “less than God” because of the phrase “equality with God" in the prior passage.

It goes to reason in the same way with the 2 phrases in the “form of a servant” and in the “likeness of man” in verse seven do not mean that Jesus was any “less than human,” but instead means He was the same or “equal with all humans.”

That is how the passage reads and how it is to be understood in its " CONTEXT ".

In Colossians 1:19 and Colossians 2:9 the Apostle Paul said, For in HIM (CHRIST) ALL of the “ fullness of deity dwells bodily. “Did Paul use the word fullness there to mean partially? NO as Jesus did not empty Himself of His Deity. Jesus Divinity is FULL, complete lacking in nothing. The ENTIRE Fullness of Deity dwells (is present) bodily in Jesus.

hope this helps !!!
 
Humility is a character trait of God. The Divine Son prior to the Incarnation, in eternal past decided as God the Son to become man, take upon Himself our humanity to die for our sins and be obedient to the point of death , the torturous death of the cross . Phil 2:8 - Says He humbled Himself ( as God) .

Philippians 2:1-11
Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Galatians 5:13-26
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness (meekness, humility) and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Zechariah 9:9
Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is righteous and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Blessed are the meek, the gentle the humble in spirit. Be humble before God will exalt you. God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. The rewards of humility and the fear of the LORD are wealth and honor and life.

John 13:1-17- The humility of Jesus on display.

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
10 Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not everyone was clean.
12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

Conclusion :Jesus is God in the flesh. He is God living and walking among men. As Jesus said to see Him is to see the Father. Jesus said in John’s gospel that He only did what He saw His Father doing and only said what His Father told Him to say. The pharisees were so enraged over this because as a “man “He was making Himself equal to God and tried to kill Him for those words and making such outrageous claims. So, if you want to know what God is like then we need to look no further than Jesus’s life on this earth living before us as our Immanuel. When we see Jesus, we see the Father and the Holy Spirit. This in Theology is known as Perichoresis. The inter-dwelling of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son is in the Father, the Father in the Son and the Holy Spirit in the Father/Son. So, we see not only are we to be humble it’s a command, God is humble as we see demonstrated in the life of Christ. Jesus Person is Divine as the 2nd Person of the Tri-Unity, the Trinity, the Godhead. Jesus was fully God while walking this earth as per Colossians 1:19 and Colossians 2:9. All the fulness of Deity dwells in Him. That means He lacked nothing in His Deity. So, Love and Humility are attributes of God. God would not ask us to do anything that He doesn’t have in and of himself with His character in relationship with others. God created man in His image to be like Him. God is a relational Being and created us to be like Him in our relationships.

Be Holy
Be Righteous
Be Humble
Be loving
Be Just
Be Merciful
Be Meek
Be Pure in heart
Be Forgiving
Be Peacemakers

hope this helps !!!
 
not a subtraction

Did the Son "give up" anything?

Isn't "giving up" by definition a loss of something, a subtraction?

What, exactly, did Jesus "give up"?

This says "He laid aside His rights as Deity."

Is it an attribute of God to possess the rights of Deity?

[shaddap dont make me think anymore u kenosis heretic!!!!]
 
Did the Son "give up" anything?

Isn't "giving up" by definition a loss of something, a subtraction?

What, exactly, did Jesus "give up"?

This says "He laid aside His rights as Deity."

Is it an attribute of God to possess the rights of Deity?

[shaddap dont make me think anymore u kenosis heretic!!!!]
where does scripture say He gave anything up ?

is submission giving anything up ?

Is their roles within the Trinity before creation ?

chew on that for a while and get back to me. :)
 
where does scripture say He gave anything up ?

is submission giving anything up ?

Is their roles within the Trinity before creation ?

chew on that for a while and get back to me. :)

Why can't you just answer my questions.

FOR ONCE IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE, LOL.

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. (Jn. 15:13 NKJ)

For ye are taking knowledge of the favour of our Lord Jesus [[Christ]],--how that, for your sakes, he became destitute--although he was, rich, in order that, ye, by his destitution, might be enriched. (2 Cor. 8:9 ROT)
 
Why can't you just answer my questions.

FOR ONCE IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE, LOL.

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. (Jn. 15:13 NKJ)

For ye are taking knowledge of the favour of our Lord Jesus [[Christ]],--how that, for your sakes, he became destitute--although he was, rich, in order that, ye, by his destitution, might be enriched. (2 Cor. 8:9 ROT)
I did answer it with Gods nature never changing.
 
You may believe whatever you want but there are several instances of the souls of dead people showing consciousness and communicating in the Book of Revelation. If they can be conscious before their resurrection then for sure Christ, who is the Resurrection, can also be.
Hello @synergy, :)

That requires a dedicated thread for the purpose of investigating such evidence as you can bring. This thread would not do it justice.

In Christ Jesus
Chris
 
Maybe you could start a new thread :)
To do that properly, I would have to tie in Hades, Christ's Descent into Hades, "1st Resurrection", Saints, the Book of Revelation, Final Judgment, etc... all together in a coordinated Biblical fashion. I'll google that to see if someone has done this task before.
 
To do that properly, I would have to tie in Hades, Christ's Descent into Hades, "1st Resurrection", Saints, the Book of Revelation, Final Judgment, etc... all together in a coordinated Biblical fashion. I'll google that to see if someone has done this task before.
Hello @synergy, :)

If you decide to start a thread on this subject: When you are ready to begin, please tag me, so that I can take part (God willing).

Thank you
In Christ Jesus
Chris
 
Hello @synergy, :)

If you decide to start a thread on this subject: When you are ready to begin, please tag me, so that I can take part (God willing).

Thank you
In Christ Jesus
Chris

Agree.


With few exceptions, the Christian church has affirmed that human nature is a body-soul composite. As created by God, a human’s body and soul are united as a self-conscious person in a psychosomatic unity—a view known as dichotomy. The purpose of this essay is to survey the biblical teaching regarding the body (the physical/material element of human nature) and the soul (the immaterial element variously described in the Bible as either “soul” or “spirit”). After considering the biblical data, we will address a popular departure from the biblical teaching known as trichotomy—the view that humans are composed of bodies, souls, and spirits—which denies that human nature is a body-soul composite.

We begin with our bodily existence. Since it is taught in the creation account, Christians have affirmed this truth against the challenges of non-Christian and pagan thought. The Bible tells us that bodily existence is essential to human nature, which mitigates the tendency to depreciate the body because it is material, as found in Platonic philosophy (which asserts that the soul is immortal and essential to human nature, while the body is not), or Gnostic distortions of Christian teaching (which contend that our divine spiritual nature dominates human existence). Christianity, on the contrary, teaches that the body is not a mere appendage to the spirit and that the spirit does not transmigrate to higher or lower forms of life (as in reincarnation). Neither is the body the prison house of the soul, a popular but unbiblical notion. The body is an essential element of human existence. The body is not evil just because it is material.

Death and the resulting separation of body from the soul are due to the wages of sin, the tearing apart of the unity of body and soul that God established at creation. God created the human body first, and only then did He breathe life into the body He made from the dust of the ground and designed for existence in a material world (Gen. 2:7). God pronounced everything He had made to be “very good” (1:31), including the body, as reaffirmed in Psalm 139. Our return to dust at death after the soul’s departure from our body is not the ultimate liberation of the spiritual from the material but the sad consequence of Adam’s sin and the curse (death).

Trichotomy has been rejected by virtually all Christian theologians.

In addition to the creation account, there are other important considerations regarding the material element of human nature. In His incarnation, Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity, took to Himself a true human nature (Gal. 4:4), indicating that our bodily existence was suitable for Christ’s incarnation. A second consideration is that Jesus’ body was raised from the dead (Luke 24:40–43; 1 Cor. 15:3–8). It is described as the firstfruits of the resurrection of the bodies of those who are in Christ (1 Cor. 15:35–58). Contrary to popular lore, we will not spend eternity as disembodied spirits, floating weightlessly on the clouds. Rather, we will be redeemed in resurrected and glorified bodies, forever rejoined to our soul-spirit with the integrity of the person fully restored. Through His bodily resurrection and glorification, Jesus has undone the penalty of sin—the separation of body from soul at death.

The fact that we have an immaterial, spiritual element in addition to our material bodies is equally clear in Scripture. This immaterial element is variously identified in Scripture as “soul” (Greek psych ) or “spirit” (pneuma).

Jesus speaks of “soul and body” in Matthew 10:28, while in Matthew 26:41, He contrasts “flesh” and “spirit.” The terms “soul” and “spirit” are used interchangeably. A “spirit” is immaterial (Luke 24:39) and said to be within us (1 Cor. 2:11). Elsewhere, Paul speaks of sanctification as purification from “every defilement of body and spirit” (2 Cor. 7:1). James speaks of a body without a spirit as “dead” (James 2:26) because at death, the spirit leaves the body (Matt. 27:50; Acts 7:59).

The term “soul” is used in various ways throughout Scripture, but it generally refers to life as constituted in the body (as in Matt. 16:25–26; 20:28; Luke 14:26; John 10:11–18; Acts 15:26; 20:10; Phil. 2:30; 1 John 3:16). The word often serves as a synonym for the entire person (e.g., Luke 12:19; Acts 2:41, 43; Rom. 2:9; 3:11; James 1:21; 5:20; 1 Peter 1:9). “Spirit” can likewise refer to human life in a general sense (as in Matt. 27:50 when Jesus gave up His spirit), or it can refer to the spiritual aspect of human life in contrast to the flesh (Greek sarx, as in 1 Thess. 5:23).

Trichotomists contend that the body is the material element of human nature, the soul is the life force, and the spirit is the immortal element of human existence that relates to God. Trichotomy has been rejected by virtually all Christian theologians as a speculative Greek philosophical notion rather than a biblical conception. Admittedly, a doctrine is not necessarily false simply because of its origins, but it is important to remember that a doctrine’s pedigree is often a good clue as to its ultimate consequences. When viewed from the perspective of Christian reflection across time, trichotomy has a dubious pedigree. With its roots in Plato’s separation of body from soul and Aristotle’s further division of soul into “animal” and “rational” elements, the trichotomist notion of human nature as tripartite is unmistakably pagan rather than biblical.

J.
 
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Agree.
Hello @Johann,

Thank you for kindly providing the link for consideration. :) Yet, how complex man has made everything. Genesis 2:7 is so much simpler.

'And the LORD God formed man
of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life;
and man became a living soul.'

(Gen 2:7)

In the name of Christ our Saviour,
now risen and glorified,
and sat at God's right hand.
Chris
 
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