My recent columns have explored the Nicene Creed and some of the central tenets of our Christian faith, as we celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.
Jesus revealed two profoundly new aspects of God’s identity — the Most Blessed Trinity and His own identity as the Son of God, fully divine and human.
History shows that these doctrines took centuries for the Church to find appropriate theological language to accurately express them in the face of numerous heresies and misunderstandings.
The ‘hypostatic union’
Last week, we reflected on the Most Blessed Trinity. Now, we turn to the identity of Jesus Christ.
Christianity is the only world religion that believes that the universal, mysterious, all-powerful, invisible God humbled Himself to embrace our humanity without losing His divinity.
In the person of Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity united fully with a human nature, to redeem us from sin and death.
The Church came to use the term “hypostatic union” to explain this mystery, the eternal union of a fully divine nature and a fully human nature, but without sin, in the one divine Person of the Son of God.
Neither nature changes nor loses its properties in this union.
Various heresies in the early centuries of the Church, fomented by thinkers who could not accept this hypostatic union in Christ, sought to either assert that Jesus was fully God but only masquerading as a human, or that he was a man but not fully God.
The Council of Nicaea, followed by the Council of Chalcedon, articulated the truth of the Lord’s identity.
In the Creed, we profess that Jesus is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through Him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, He came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.”
This true understanding of Jesus Christ’s identity is crucial for us as His followers.
The wonder of the Incarnation stands front and center in our Catholic faith. We have never gotten over the wonder of Christmas — God came to earth as the Babe of Bethlehem, to love, save, and forgive us for all time.
By assuming our human nature, God has given each of us a greater dignity than humanity had before the Fall and Original Sin.
Jesus extends His Incarnation through the Church as His Body and Bride, and through the efficacy of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist.
We are privileged to receive the living Body of the Lord in every Holy Communion, a gift which the angels envy us for.
The hypostatic union upholds the authority of Jesus, as teacher, healer, and savior.
He is God
Because He is God, the Lord reveals Truth, heals broken humanity, forgives sins, and redeems us through the Cross and Resurrection.
If Jesus were only God and not man, our humanity would not have been nailed to the Cross and raised from the grave.
If he were only man and not God, His death would have been a noble and tragic event, but devoid of any saving power for us.
St. Irenaeus beautifully wrote that “God became man, so that man could become God.”
We cannot take this statement literally, for we do not become God Himself, but the point that this sainted Doctor of the Church makes is a central one.
The whole Christ event is the divine rescue mission, the Son sent by the Father to save us from the grasp of sin and death, so that we could be fully united with God forever, wrapped in His fiery love, enclosed within the life of the Most Blessed Trinity in the beatitude of Heaven.
Reflect often on the Incarnation. Ponder how Jesus Christ makes Himself present in your life.
Where do you see Him? What is he whispering to your heart? How is He inviting you to a deeper faith and an expanding holiness?
“God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (John 3:16)