“That which He has not Assumed He has not Healed” (James Bryner Chu)

Introduction

The title of my address this morning is, ‘“That which He has not Assumed He has not Healed”: Why the Two Natures of Christ Matter for Life and Ministry.’ This well-known statement about the unassumed being unhealed comes to us from one of the Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory of Nazianzus, and his First Letter to Cledonius the Presbyter in 382 A.D.:

Whoever has set his hope on a human being without mind is actually mindless himself and unworthy of being saved in his entirety. The unassumed is the unhealed, but what is united with God is also being saved. Had half of Adam fallen, what was assumed and is being saved would have been half too; but if the whole fell he is united to the whole of what was born and is being saved wholly. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Letter 101, par. 5)

He is writing here against the followers of Apollinaris of Laodicea, am erstwhile bishop who, in his eagerness to affirm the true divinity of Christ (over and against the Arians who taught that the Son was only of similar—not the same—substance with the Father), had apparently gone overboard and taught that the incarnation of the Son entailed his assumption of a true body but not of a reasonable human soul. Meaning to say that Jesus only had one divine mind and one rational faculty. This error was condemned as heresy just a year prior at the First Council of Constantinople (381) but the Apollinarians persisted and the threat of their heresy continued to require an orthodox pro-Nicene response. This was what Gregory was concerned to do in his two letters to Cledonius.

So much for the historical background to the controversy. But what was really at stake in these debates and why should they matter to us as Christians today in the 21st century? To answer this question of why the two natures of Christ—his true divinity and true humanity—matter for life and ministry, I intend for us in this first session to explore two theses together:

1. Thesis 1: Because the Son of God has assumed to himself a true human nature at the incarnation, redeemed sinners who are united to him by faith have the assurance that the transforming and renewing power of the gospel extends to their entire lives and circumstances—from womb to tomb—and even unto glory.
2. Thesis 2: Because the ministry of the Church takes its inception from the mission of Jesus Christ the God-man, its divine power, its pattern for all of life, and assured progress to glory properly derive from him and are ordered according to his own Word and Spirit.

But before we reflect on what these may mean for us, I would like for us first to spend the first part of our time together considering the doctrine of the incarnation together.

I. Two Natures, One Person

To help us with the framing of our theological reflections, I’d like for us (by way of reflection) to review what Chad Van Dixhoorn describes as “the clearest statement … on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ” (ESV Bible, Creeds and Confessions Edition) in the first five centuries of the Church.

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one consent, teach people to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and body; of one substance with the Father  according to his Godhead, and of one substance with us according to his manhood; like us in all things, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father,  according to his Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the God-bearer, according to his manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one person and one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and Only-begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning declared concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us. (Definition of Chalcedon, 451 A.D.)

In the opening prologue of the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 14 we have the clear Scriptural witness of the incarnation in these words: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

The Word, the Logos, that is to say, the only begotten Son of God, the second person of the blessed Trinity, he who was, and is, and forever will be “the same in substance, [and] equal in power and glory” (Westminster Larger Catechism, Q&A 9) with the Father and the Holy Spirit—became flesh and pitched his tabernacle-tent among us. “[T]he Divine Word,” remarks Augustine, “though suffering no change of nature, yet became flesh, that He might dwell among us” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, I.13). The humanity that Christ assumed was a true and complete human nature—body and soul—just like ours with the exception only of sin.

This is what we mean by the doctrine of the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ: in the one person (Greek ὑπόστασις/hypóstasis) of Jesus Christ the incarnate one, there obtains a personal union of his true divinity and true humanity. Does this mean that at his incarnation, the Son assumed another human person in union with his eternally subsisting divine person as God the Son? No, because that would be the heresy of Nestorianism.

To guard against this, we must maintain that the true human nature that the Son assumed was non-personal in and of itself (anhypostatic/im-personal). Hebrews 10:5 tells us that, “Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me’ (emphasis added). It was not a human nature that belonged to any other human person but rather it was a true created human nature that, according to John Owen, 

hath not a subsistence of its own, which should give it individuation and distinction from the same nature of any other person. But it hath its subsistence in the person of the Son, which thereby is its own. (ΧΡΙΣΤΟΛΟΓΙΑ: Or, A Declaration of the Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ – God and Man, in The Works of John Owen, ed. by William H. Goold, 16 vols, 1:233)

So, the human nature that Christ assumed was im-personal. But this is not all that we can and must say about the matter. The true humanity of Christ was im-personal (anhypostatic), and it was also enhypostatic in-personal. What do we mean by this?

By enhypostasia we mean that the im-personal humanity that Christ assumed to himself found its individuation and personhood in the person (hypostasis) of the Son. Stephen Wellum puts it this way: “As a person, the Son gave personal identity to the human nature that he had assumed without losing or compromising his divine nature. . . . This implies, then, that the man Jesus from the moment of conception was personal by virtue of the union of the human nature in the divine Son, who alone is the sole personal subject in Christ” (Stephen J. Wellum, God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ, 321–22).

By way of summary, listen to this stunning summary of what we have been considering so far from the pen of John of Damascus: 

We hold then that the divine subsistence of God the Word existed before all else and is without time and eternal, simple and uncompound, uncreated, incorporeal, invisible, intangible, uncircumscribed, possessing all the Father possesses, since He is of the same essence with Him, differing from the Father’s subsistence in the manner of His generation and the relation of the Father’s subsistence, being perfect also and at no time separated from the Father’s subsistence: and in these last days, without leaving the Father’s bosom, took up His abode in an uncircumscribed manner in the womb of the holy Virgin, without the instrumentality of seed, and in an incomprehensible manner known only to Himself, and causing the flesh derived from the holy Virgin to subsist in the very subsistence that was before all the ages. (John of Damascus, De Fide, iii.7)

We move now to consider the question of why this all matters for life and ministry.

II. For Life: From Womb to Tomb

Thesis 1: Because the Son of God has assumed to himself a true human nature at the incarnation, redeemed sinners who are united to him by faith have the assurance that the transforming and renewing power of the gospel extends to their entire lives and circumstances—from womb to tomb—and even unto glory.

In Galatians 4:4–5 we read, “[4] But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, [5] to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

The divine Son was born of a woman. In the language of the Apostles’ Creed, he “was conceived by the Holy Spirit” and “born of the Virgin Mary.” Why is that significant? Recall Gregory of Nazianzus, “The unassumed is the unhealed, but what is united with God is also being saved.” It was necessary for Christ our Redeemer—in order that he might save all sorts of people in all stages of human existence—to begin his earthly life not as an adult Jewish man but as a blastocyst in the womb of Mary, then as an embryo, then as a fetus.

Because our Lord chose to assume a true human nature by being conceived in the womb as a baby tells us that the grace of God and the redemption that Christ brings does not have an age requirement. It teaches us that the baby in the womb is equally an image bearer of God as you and I are. And if a bearer of the divine image, then possessed of true worth and dignity (just as you and I!) and therefore also redeemable.

This has deep implications on how we ought to view other people who are made in the image of God. Not just believers but also those who have not yet placed their faith in Christ alone to save them. It means that every human person who is made in God’s image, every man, woman, and child—as long as they still draw breath upon this earth—is redeemable. It means that there is no one who is beyond the reach of the grace of God. The nature that the Son assumed to himself is our nature. “The unassumed is the unhealed, but what is united with God is also being saved.”

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in 2:17–18 tells us, “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

If you are a Christian, this is your hope and mine in Christ. Because Christ had to be made like us in every respect, and because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to both sympathize with us and to help us. The truth that we must grasp here is that by virtue of our faith union with Christ, the transforming and renewing power of the gospel now extends to every aspect of our lives and circumstances, from womb, to tomb, and unto glory.

Michael Allen helpfully frames this reality of our sanctification in this way:

Humans were created innocent to be with God. Having fallen away from God and into the murky ignobility of sin, God has brought grace to us, which means that God has given himself yet again to us, for grace is personal. In Christ and by the Spirit, God has restored us not only to cleanliness but also to sacrality, that is to distinction unto him . . . Christ not only brings cleanliness but holiness; he not only returns us to innocence but he draws us unto sacral maturity. Put otherwise, sanctification does not merely describe moral renewal or ethical purification (though it depicts nothing less). Sanctification in Christ speaks of personal transformation through indwelling and indwelling through incorporative union in Christ himself by his Holy Spirit. But that union and this holiness is ours, ours as humans and ours in this created nature. Being sanctified does not involve becoming otherwise; it suggests being restored and renewed, perfected and glorified. (Michael Allen, Sanctification, 224–25)

The incarnation of Christ and the truth about his two natures—truly God and truly man—are what energize and make real to our lives the various promises of God towards us in the Son. Because Christ has assumed a true human nature in his incarnation—his perfect life, his victory over temptation, his suffering, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and indeed his session at the right hand of the Father now make possible the redemption of our own lives, our own struggles with temptation, with doubt, with discouragement. His life, death, and more importantly, his resurrection life and power are ours. Every promise of the New Testament now takes on fresh meaning because we are united to the God-man who loved us and gave himself for us:

Philippians 1:6: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

III. For Ministry: Hatch, Match, and Dispatch

Finally, a word to those among us who are involved in the ministry of the Church. As ministers of the gospel, our chief responsibility is to minister the whole Christ to the whole people of God. This means championing the truths of the incarnation and the gospel and of Christ’s true divinity and true humanity to the people whom we minister. Why? Because the incarnation is where the glory of the gospel lies. For this reason, Paul urges us in Philippians 2 to imitate the Lord Jesus precisely in his incarnation:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, [6] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, [7] but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. [8] And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. [9] Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, [10] so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, [11] and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5–11)

Because the ministry of the Church takes its inception from the mission of Jesus Christ the God-man, its divine power, its pattern for all of life, and assured progress to glory properly derive from him and are ordered according to his own Word and Spirit.

The incarnation teaches us that Christ values our humanity so much that he assumed it fully in order that he might heal it fully. This means that we must also preach the truth that every man, woman, and child—from womb to tomb—bears the image of God, and therefore redeemable, and therefore must be called to repentance and faith in Christ. 

Christ also continues even now to have a true human nature united to his true divine nature in his one person. This is a testament to the humility of Christ and the perfection of his work as our mediator. He will always and forever be the one mediator between God and man. We must therefore imitate the humility of Christ’s servanthood in our own roles as servants of our humble Lord.

You also will notice that the rubric under which I have endeavored to reflect on the entailments of the two natures of Christ for ministry is the oft repeated, “Hatch, Match, and Dispatch.” These, of course, describe what traditionally have come to be associated with the very public aspects of Christian ministry, namely baptisms (Hatch), weddings (Match), and funerals (Dispatch).

In every avenue of Christian ministry, whether we are welcoming new members into the society of God through baptisms, or we are marrying couples and reminding them of the role of their marriages as signposts to the gospel of Christ and his everlasting and sanctifying love for his Bride, the Church, or we are committing the bodies of the faithful departed to their temporary resting places on this earth—in every stage of life (and death) where we are called to minister, it is the whole Christ that we are to hold out as their and our only hope and help. Amen.