Eph 786 4/17/88
A. Definition and Description.
1. In the title of the second person of the Trinity, there are three words.
a. KURIOS, translated “Lord,” means deity in both Greek and Latin.
b. IESOUS is translated “Jesus.”
c. CHRISTOS is translated “Christ.”
2. “Lord” refers to His deity, for Jesus Christ is God. “Jesus” is the title for His humanity, meaning Savior. “Christ” is the title of His second royalty as the Son of David, the Messiah.
3. The Lord Jesus Christ was referred to by Israel in the words of Deut 4:6: SHAMA JISRAEL, ADONAI ELOHENU, ADONAI ECHAD, translated “Hear O Israel, the Lord [Jesus Christ] is our God, the Lord [Jesus Christ] is unique.”
4. Jesus Christ is true humanity and undiminished deity in one person forever. He had to be true humanity in order to be judged for our sins and take our place.
5. In Rev 1-2, Jesus Christ is called the Alpha and the Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Alpha refers to His deity; Omega refers to his Hypostatic Union with emphasis on His humanity.
6. So in the title of the second person of the Trinity, “Lord” refers to the deity of Christ. “Jesus” refers to the humanity of Christ. “Christ” refers to His Messiahship as the legitimate and eternal king of Israel.
7. The use of the term “hypostatic union” refers to the unique person of Jesus Christ as the God-man, beginning with the virgin birth and continuing throughout the incarnation.
8. There is a dispensation of the Hypostatic Union which begins with the virgin birth and terminates with our Lord’s death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and session.
9. “One Lord” in Eph 4:5 refers to the unique person of Jesus Christ as the God-man. His uniqueness began with His First Advent.
B. The Hypostatic Union of the Lord Jesus Christ.
1. With the virgin birth, the person of Christ had two natures inseparably united without mixture or loss of separate identity, without loss or transfer of property or attributes, the union being personal and eternal. This is the theological definition of the Hypostatic Union.
2. Since the First Advent, Jesus Christ is the God-man, being undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever. 3. When Jesus Christ was resurrected and ascended to the throne room in the third heaven, God the Father said to Him, “Sit down at My right hand.”
a. As God, Jesus Christ is immanent and transcendent. He fills all the universe and therefore doesn’t “sit” anywhere as God. But this was addressed to His humanity.
b. As humanity, Jesus Christ went to the cross and was judged for our sins, after which He said, “Finished!” Salvation was completed while He was still alive.
c. As God, Jesus Christ could not “die” for our sins. He had to be true and perfect humanity. On the cross, Jesus Christ was perfect and remained perfect because He resided in the prototype divine dynasphere where the filling of the Holy Spirit sustained His humanity. Therefore, He was qualified as the “lamb without spot and without blemish” to be judged for our sins.
d. Therefore, He was the “lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” No one else could do this; only the perfect Jesus Christ as the Son of God could provide salvation.
e. Since the First Advent, Jesus Christ is the God-man as undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever. Now He is resurrected.
f. Once resurrected, He spent forty days on the earth, after which He ascended into the presence of the Father.
4. As the God-man, Jesus Christ is different from all members of the human race because He is eternal God. He is also different from the other two members of the Trinity because He is true humanity.
5. As infinite and eternal God, Jesus Christ is superior to all creatures, both angelic and human.
a. In the Hypostatic Union, where He is undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever, Jesus Christ continues to be superior to all creatures, both angelic and human.
b. The glorified humanity of Christ in a resurrection body is superior to angels, Heb 1-2.
c. He is also superior to all mankind, Phil 2.
6. Jesus Christ creates and controls the universe.
a. Prior to the incarnation, Jesus Christ created the universe, Jn 1:3; Col 1:16; Heb 1:10.
b. As God, and now as the God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ holds the universe together, Col 1:17. “For by Him were all things created that are in heaven, that are on earth, visible or invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.”
c. Heb 1:3, “He holds the universe together by the word of His power.”
7. Documentation for the Hypostatic Union: Jn 1:1-14; Rom 1:2-5, 9:5; Phil 2:5-11; 1 Tim 3:16; Heb 2:14; 1 Jn 1:1-3.
8. The pre-incarnate person of Jesus Christ was and is infinite and eternal God, coequal and coeternal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. The post-incarnate person of Christ includes undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever.
9. The incarnation does not in any way diminish or destroy the deity of Jesus Christ.
10. As true humanity, Jesus Christ was born as Adam was created, i.e., trichotomous, having a body, soul, and spirit because of the virgin birth. When our Lord died physically, His person went in three different directions.
a. He dismissed His spirit into the presence of God the Father, Jn 19:30. So His human spirit went to heaven.
b. His body went into the grave.
c. His soul went to Paradise, a compartment of Hades, where all the Old Testament believers resided. After resurrection, when the perfect righteousness of the humanity of Christ was accepted in heaven, only then were the Old Testament saints transferred to the third heaven, the “new Paradise.”
d. So in resurrection, the omnipotence of God the Father returned our Lord’s human spirit to the body in the grave.
e. In resurrection, the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit returned the human soul of our Lord from Hades to His body in the grave.
f. From this comes the principle that the power that resurrected Jesus Christ from the dead is the same power that sustains us in the protocol plan of God.
g. In Jn 10, Jesus Christ said He could have raised Himself, though He did not. According to the doctrine of kenosis, Jesus Christ did not use His own omnipotence to act in any way independently of the Father’s plan.
C. Jesus Christ is the only Savior.
1. Because Jesus Christ was judged for our sins on the cross, becoming our substitute and taking our place, we who have believed in Him for eternal salvation have Him as our one Lord. 2. Eph 4:5, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
a. “One Lord” means Jesus Christ is the basis for our unity. See the doctrine of the Substitutionary Spiritual Death of Jesus Christ.
b. “One faith” means we are all saved in exactly the same way, by faith in Jesus Christ.
c. “One baptism” refers to God the Holy Spirit entering us into union with Christ forever at the point of salvation. We will always be in union with Christ, documented throughout the New Testament by the prepositional phrase “in Christ.”
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R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries 5139 West
Alabama, Houston, Texas 77056 (713) 621-3740
© 1999, by R. B. Thieme,
Jr. All rights reserved.
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