Theology for Your 40-Hour Work Week

It's Monday morning.

You're flying down the passing lane because you hit the snooze button waaay too many times, and now you're running late for work. You didn't even have time to stop for your pumpkin spice latte.

The work day isn't much better. Your boss piles on the workload. Your coworkers just won't stop talking about all of their weekend drama. And it's only Monday.

Sound familiar?

Work can be a grind, and it can often feel mundane or insignificant. However, our theology of God and who He is can illuminate a new perspective on our work and the purpose of it. In fact, we image the very creative nature of the Almighty God each and every time we punch that time clock.

God Before the Beginning

As you may be aware, the book of Genesis starts out by telling the story of creation. “In the beginning…” is a familiar phrase to many. But what was going on before “the beginning”? If God is eternal, then he was there before he created the universe and everything in it. We don’t really have any explicit explanations in the Bible, but we can infer some important details from looking at the entirety of Scripture.

One of the most important inferences we must conclude is that God was perfect, satisfied, and delighted even before he created everything. In eternity past, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit shared perfect love and fellowship amongst one another.

This idea is known as the aseity of God: that God is not dependent on His creation for anything. We see this is Scripture in Exodus, when God reveals His name to Moses as "I Am Who I Am". Here, God is indicating that He isn't defined or dependent on anything outside of Himself.

God was not lonely; He wasn’t in need of us to give Him company. God wasn’t bored and needed something to do. And God doesn’t need our love and adoration. He is perfectly complete within Himself.

Therefore, we can conclude that God created the universe in a completely free fashion, with no obligation on his part to do so.

The Creativity of God

Scripture provides a full picture of what it looks like for God to be creative, and to create. There are at least four aspects to the creativity of God: Imagination, Organization, Sustentation, and Redemption.

Imagination
Imagination is what we think of when we hear the word “creative”--an artist with a unique style, or someone who does things in an unorthodox fashion.

We see this type of creativity with God in the natural world around us. God has blanketed some planets in red dust and others with massive amounts of ice; some with elaborate ring systems and some that rain diamonds. Mountains capped with snow year-round and deserts that seldom taste the rain.

Some people have dimples, and others can cross their eyes. Some can perform complex mathematical calculations in their head and others can write music that brings people to tears. Just look up some of the wild and crazy creatures around the world that God has made, like the Saiga Antelope or the Markhor Goat. There is no doubt that God has an imaginative mind!

Organization
This may be my favorite aspect of God’s creativity, as I love to organize things (albeit not always successful in that pursuit). We see God organizing way back in Genesis 1. In verse two of this opening chapter of the Bible, it says that “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.” This is a picture of a chaotic situation, there is no rhyme or reason to the universe at this point. The remainder of the chapter describes God organizing creation--beginning with separation (light from darkness, water from land, etc) and then filling creation (birds in the sky, fish in the oceans, etc). God takes chaos, and organizes it into something orderly and purposeful.

Sustentation
Not only does God create things initially, He also sustains them. Both Colossians 1 and Hebrews 1 speak of how Jesus “upholds the universe by the word of His power” and that “...in Him all things hold together”. It is Christ that ultimately keeps the planets in their proper orbit, spins the earth to turn day into night, and causes every synapse in your brain to fire correctly as you read this sentence.


Redemption
Whenever I eat french fries, I like to save the best for last. And so I’m going to do that here as well by saving the best aspect of God’s creation for last: redemption.

I’m referring specifically to God’s work in redeeming a people for Himself, through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Ephesians 2 speaks of the redeemed as “God’s workmanship”. We get a real sense that this is God’s finest work of creation.

It is often rightly pointed out how amazing it is that in Genesis, God creates ex nihilo--out of nothing. But an even greater feat is God’s redeeming work--He takes something that is spiritually dead and hostile towards Him and turns it into something that is beautiful and desires to serve and love Him.

The redeemed people of God is truly His finest work, His masterpiece.

Imaging God in Our Work

Let’s take all of this theology and turn it into something practical, specifically how all of this relates to our jobs.

As humans, we all bear the image of God. Whether we serve God or hate Him, we have this “divine imprint” on our being. This means that we possess many characteristics that are a resemblance to God’s characteristics--and one of these traits is that we, like God, are creative.

Now many of us are not creative in the traditional sense of the word--my own drawings would easily be mistaken for those of a 1st-grader--but when we look at these four aspects of God’s creativity, we should begin to see how our jobs mimic this creativity of God.

Imagination
There are some obvious professions and hobbies that fit into this category. Painters, musicians, and novelists all excel in the art of imagination. But there are many other areas where imagination comes into play. Let’s say you are in a sales position, you may have to be very creative in how you pitch your product or service to a potential client. Or even in computer science: not only do you need to have logical code when creating an application, you need to be imaginative in knowing how to make that application fun and enjoyable for your user.

Organization
Many jobs involve some sort of organizing, and in so doing image the creativity of God. Think that your data entry position is dull and meaningless? You are taking information that is chaotic, and organizing it so that it makes sense and has a purpose. In doing this you are imitating God’s organization of creation in Genesis! Carpentry, masonry, and sewing are just a few more examples of organizing raw materials into something with purpose and meaning.

Sustentation
Upholding and sustaining our business takes up a huge chunk of our week most of the time. Maintenance workers who service machines to keep them working, retail employees who manage inventory and keep shelves full, and accountants who track revenue and expenses are all examples of this. I would estimate that sustentation is about 90% of what I do in a given week at my job. It can seem quite monotonous given how much of our time is spent on just “keeping things running”, but these tasks are essential and find ultimate meaning in Christ. Are you thinking about how your everyday tasks are an image of how Jesus sustains each of us every single day?

Redemption
If we are employed in full-time ministry, or even just involved in our local church, we participate directly in God’s work of redemption. What a privilege that God invites and even commands us to be a part of His finest work!

Even beyond this direct redemptive work, there are other ways that our 9-to-5 work displays redemption. For instance, have you ever encountered a customer who is hostile to your company, and have worked hard to win that customer over, to the point that they are now a fan of your organization? If so, you have “redeemed” that customer, you have turned them from an enemy into a friend. This is a shadow of the ultimate redemptive work that Christ has accomplished.

"I Was Born To Do This"

You’ve certainly heard this phrase before--”I was born to do this”-- in reference to someone and their career. Maybe this is something that resonates with you and your job. But maybe it isn’t. I know that for me personally, I’ve never found a career field where this phrase applies. Or maybe you feel that you were born to pursue a certain career, but the right opportunity just hasn’t come along in that field.

Whatever situation you find yourself in, working to image the creativity of God is a sure-fire way to find joy and satisfaction in your work.

I’ll use an example from my own job: my current position involves managing a delivery route; not exactly the line of work that you grow up dreaming about. But I find satisfaction in this work when my route is organized and running smoothly, and when I can be imaginative in creating situations that please both my customers and my employer.

Maybe you find yourself stuck in a job that doesn’t feel fulfilling or meaningful. My encouragement is this: you can glorify God in whatever job you’re currently in by imaging God’s creative attributes as you go about your daily responsibilities. This is where we can find true joy and satisfaction in our work.

Can you see the ways in which your current position reflects these attributes of God's creativity? You'll likely discover that your work possesses several or all of these four aspects of creativity. I pray that seeing this will enhance your time on the clock, and give it a new sense of meaning and importance.

What to Look for in a Church

Let’s be honest: finding a church can feel a lot like dating: there are many criteria to be met, a lot of awkward encounters, and some heartbreak along the way. Is there any way to make it easier?

I can’t promise you that a church search will ever be easy, but it’s helpful to go into it at least knowing what you’re looking for. I pray that some of the following will put you on the right track and give you confidence in knowing when you’ve found a church where you can grow in your Christian faith.

What Exactly is Church?

Most of us have been to church at least a few times. Whether you attend weekly or you’re a CEO (Christmas & Easter Only), we’re generally aware of what goes on during a church service. But what precisely is occurring as we sing songs, listen to God’s Word preached, and participate in the Lord’s Supper? Is there a deeper significance to these things?

When it comes down to it, all of what occurs during a Sunday morning service is worship. Not just the singing, all of it is worship. Those who profess Christ as Lord and Savior are coming together as the body of Christ to worship Him and remember what He has done for us.

Why do we do this? Because we’re forgetful. This doesn’t mean that the truths of the gospel have completely left our memory, but that they will get buried beneath the cares of this world if we don’t constantly bring them to the forefront of our minds. If you ever read the Old Testament, it is basically a repetitive story of Israel forgetting about God, falling into calamity, remembering God, and then falling back into that same cycle again. The same can happen to us today if we’re not constantly reminding ourselves of the truth of the gospel.

Can’t I just do all this on my own, without going to church?

No.

That’s a bit terse, but it’s true. Hebrews explicitly commands Christians to meet together: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Why is this? Why can’t we just “go it alone”?

One of the primary reasons for this, which is also discussed in Hebrews, is that we have a distorted view of ourselves and our actions. Modern psychology calls this the Fundamental Attribution Error: we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.

What does this mean? It means that we may not recognize bad behavior in ourselves because we see the intention of our action rather than the action itself. We may neglect to spend time with family and see it as ok because “I’m spending that time working to provide for my family”. Or we may develop a pattern of harshness towards others, and justify it by claiming that “we’re just being honest”. We need the outside perspective of others to notice this type of drifting and lovingly call us to repentance.

We’re also called to attend church because human beings are designed by God to need each other. In the early chapters of Genesis, God says that “it is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). There is wonderful community and fellowship within the members of the Trinity, and as bearers of God’s image we are likewise made for community.

You can't be sufficiently edified through your television or computer. Sermon videos and podcasts can only do so much. It requires the presence of other Spirit-filled Christians that God will graciously use in your life to make you more like himself.

Now that we’ve established what church is and why it’s necessary and good, we can examine what things should be considered when looking for a church.

Is the Church Healthy?

While there is no perfect church, there are churches which are healthy and those which are not.

And just like determining the health of a person, we need to identify the correct “measuring sticks” that help us to discern whether a church is a healthy one. Oftentimes, people will judge a church’s health by its growth in attendance or by the level of emotion felt on a Sunday morning, but these measures can be misleading.

I don’t feel the need to reinvent the wheel in this area, as we have a wonderful resource in the form of Mark Dever’s “9 Marks of a Healthy Church” - both a book and website. This organization has developed nine areas that help determine how healthy a church is:

1. Expositional Preaching
2. Biblical Theology
3. The Gospel
4. Conversion
5. Evangelism
6. Membership
7. Discipline
8. Discipleship
9. Leadership

I strongly encourage you to learn more about all these church health factors over at www.9marks.org.

Is the Church a Fit Doctrinally?

Just like we shouldn’t be looking for the “perfect church”, we also shouldn’t expect to find a church that is doctrinally perfect or homogeneous. That being said, we should expect a true church to teach the essential doctrines of the Christian faith, and should hopefully agree on most of the secondary doctrines of our faith.

In general, there are three tiers of doctrine: primary, secondary, and tertiary.

Not Compromising on Primary Issues

Primary doctrines are things that divide Christian from non-Christian. Therefore, every Christian church should be espousing primary doctrines.

These include historically accepted doctrines such as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, original sin, and the bodily resurrection of Christ, among other things. If you find yourself attending a church that is questionable on issues such as these, or outright rejects them, I would suggest that you find another church quickly or at least confront the church leadership if you’re unclear on their official stance.

Understanding Secondary Issues

Secondary church doctrines are where the majority of your decision-making will be made. These are issues where true professing believers in Christ differ, and your stance on them can dictate what church or denomination you end up attending.

The famous two issues in this realm are the oft-debated issue of baptism, and the debate over spiritual gifts.

In terms of baptism, many true Christians believe that infants should be baptized (paedobaptism), while other Christians hold that only adults professing faith in Christ should be baptized (credobaptism). Your stance on this issue has a large impact on where you attend church. Imagine you are a paedobaptist: you would feel compelled to baptize your child, but if you attend a credobaptist church, that would not be permitted as it is not held as a valid baptism. This would affect the type of church that you attend.

Or on the issue of spiritual gifts: many believers hold to cessationism, the belief that the higher gifts such as tongues and prophecy ceased after the apostles, while other Christians believe that they continue in the modern-day church (continuationism). A continuationist would have a difficult time attending somewhere that doesn’t believe in these higher gifts, especially if that person believes that they have been gifted with one of these gifts. Therefore it is generally wise to attend a church that lines up with your beliefs on secondary issues such as these.

Other secondary doctrines include the role of women in church leadership, the role of human free will in salvation, and beliefs on the specifics of the Lord's Supper.

These doctrines are very important, but they aren't ultimate. Therefore, Christians who differ on secondary issues can and should come together on doctrines where there is agreement. One recent example of this is the increasing unity between Baptists and Presbyterians - two groups that differ on the secondary issue of baptism but find common ground on Christianity's core beliefs and some secondary issues such as salvation.

Not Overemphasizing Tertiary Issues

Tertiary doctrines are the lowest level of importance, and while still important, are often the issues that cause unnecessary division within the church. These are doctrines that members of the same church can disagree on, yet still continue to worship and serve together in their congregation effectively.

Some of these issues that are common today include differences on the geological age of the earth, beliefs regarding the end times (eschatology), and stances on how church government should be structured.

In the spirit of promoting peace and unity within the Church, we must put these doctrines in their proper significance, not disregarding them completely, but also not overemphasizing them to the point of causing discord within the body of Christ.

Some Quick Points on Polity

Now I know I just said that the structure of church government is a tertiary issue, which is true. But it is helpful to understand how your church is structured and how it affects your call to biblically submit to the authority that God has graciously placed in your life.

Without going into detail, there are generally three forms of church polity: episcopal, presbyterian, and congregational. These three differ on how the hierarchy of church leadership looks, but all of them have variants of the roles of elders and deacons - the two church leadership positions described in Scripture.

Elders

Elders are the “shepherds”, or spiritual leaders of their congregation. They have the responsibility to lead their flock closer to Christ and to defend it from false teachers. Qualifications for this office are found in 1 Timothy 3, and include such characteristics as being hospitable, gentle, and able to teach.

Therefore, elders take the primary role in teaching the Scriptures and discipling members of the congregation. Depending on the type of church government, the pastor of a church is typically considered the “teaching elder”, meaning that he has the same level of authority as the other elders but is tasked with the preaching of the Word during corporate worship.

Elders also handle church membership and church discipline. Becoming a church member means submitting yourself to the authority of these elders. Therefore, ignoring the instructions of your elders and refusing to repent can lead to church discipline, such as being refused the Lord’s Supper or even removal from church membership.

Elders are a tremendous blessing to a church - they lovingly lead the people of their congregation to maturity in their faith.

Deacons

While elders handle the spiritual matters of the church, deacons handle the physical issues that arise. This office was instituted in Acts 6, where we see seven men chosen to attend to the physical needs of the church so that the elders can focus on the preaching of God’s Word.

The existence of this office indicates that our physical selves matter. It is easy to slip into thinking that only spiritual things are important, but God cares about our entire being. Physical matters such as poverty, sickness, and loneliness greatly affect our relationship with the Lord, so deacons aim to mitigate these circumstances and foster a better situation where people can continue to grow in their faith.

Why I Love My Church

I’m personally a member of Kutztown Bible Fellowship Church, which doctrinally fits into the Reformed Baptist camp. During my 4+ years attending here is when I’ve really come to love and appreciate the institution of the church.

Growing up in the church in the 90s and early 2000s, I was somewhat influenced by the “seeker sensitive” movement in the church. This movement sought to modernize much of what the church was all about in an effort to attract people who had become disillusioned with Christianity. So we started seeing pastors in Hawaiian shirts, contemporary worship bands, and just a generally laid back atmosphere when it came to church.

So when I began to attend my current church, it was a bit of an adjustment. The worship was simple: just a piano and a mixture of hymns and some modern songs. The service and sermon were longer than I was used to, which as someone with a short attention span, took time to get used to.

Regardless, I continued to attend, and haven’t left. I got used to the service length and came to love the lyrical richness and singability of the music. I loved the sense in which it is relaxed: it’s in no way a performance or a show. I used to get annoyed in churches when something got messed up, worrying about how it would be perceived by visitors. Now mistakes are reminders that we’re average people who are worshipping God and occasionally screw up, and that’s normal and ok.

I like that my church is small. Growing up, my desire was the complete opposite. I wanted my church to be the biggest and best, the envy of all the other local churches. And it’s good to want a lot of people to be attending your church. But having a small church allows more people to serve, and enables deeper relationships with more people.

I appreciate the genuine fellowship that we experience at KBFC. I’ve heard many visitors note how upon the conclusion of the service, people just don’t get up and leave, but stay and talk with each other for quite a while. It is one thing to be fellow church members, but another thing entirely to be able to call them your closest friends.

I also love the godly leadership that we have. When you realize the significance of elders in your life, you’ll appreciate it when they truly care about leading the church in a biblical direction. Submitting to their leadership is quite easy because I know that they have the best of intentions for me and the rest of the congregation.

Let’s face it -- church isn’t easy. It’s a collection of very different people coming together under the banner of Christ. But the importance of church and church attendance can’t be understated.

If you’re checking out a church, don’t base your impression of it on just one Sunday service. Commit to attending for at least three months to get a real picture of the health of that particular congregation. Active involvement in a local church is a gift that God has given us to not only grow in our personal devotion to Him, but also to be able to reach into the lives of those around us and impact their lives for eternity.

Double Imputation

In the world of sports, trades are a core aspect of a team's plans and future aspirations. A team may trade future assets in order to “win now”, or may trade current players in an effort to build for long term success. In fact, the New York Giants recently shocked the football world by trading their superstar wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. as part of their rebuilding process.

The key to trades is that both parties are receiving something of relatively equal value, depending on what their goals are.

What's unique about the doctrine of double imputation is that it represents what is quite certainly the most lopsided “trade” in all of history.

Martin Luther has a wonderful quote regarding this concept, calling it the “Great Exchange”:

“That is the mystery which is rich in divine grace to sinners: wherein by a wonderful exchange our sins are no longer ours but Christ’s and the righteousness of Christ not Christ’s but ours. He has emptied Himself of His righteousness that He might clothe us with it, and fill us with it. And He has taken our evils upon Himself that He might deliver us from them… in the same manner as He grieved and suffered in our sins, and was confounded, in the same manner we rejoice and glory in His righteousness.”

The terms of this trade are as follows:

1. Christ receives: the sin of all his people, and just punishment for that sin.
2. Sinners receive: the perfect righteousness of Christ and justification before God.

Pretty clear who got the better end of the deal?

Double Imputation is glorious news for those who are in Christ; it is a central truth of the gospel.

Imputation?

Before we move any further, it would be prudent to examine precisely what we mean by the word “imputation”, because I'd be willing to bet that you've never used that word in a natural conversation before.

Imputation comes from the root verb “impute”, meaning “to ascribe to someone by virtue of a similar quality in another.” Theologically, double imputation says that the righteousness of Christ is ascribed, or credited to our account, and our sin is credited to Christ’s account.

We can draw the analogy of a checking account: imagine that as we live our lives, our sin accrues more and more debt, and our bank account is $1 million negative. Then Jesus comes and lives a perfect life, and amasses a $10 billion fortune through all of his righteous acts.

These amounts are imputed, or transferred, from one account to the other. $10 billion now resides in our account and negative $1 million in Christ's. What's crucial is that the $10 billion was not something that we earned or built ourselves, it is entirely a gift.

Imputation differs starkly from “infused” righteousness - the official doctrine of Roman Catholicism. Continuing with the checking account analogy, infused righteousness says that the funds in our account fluctuate based on how well we follow the sacraments or participate in worldly pleasures. If our account hasn't accrued to the “full amount” we would spend time in purgatory. Despite their similar sounding names, imputed vs. infused righteousness is one of the most fundamental differences between Catholic and Protestant theology.

My Favorite Verse in All of Scripture

Every Christian has been asked what their favorite verse of the Bible is. Yet, for a long time, I didn’t have a concrete answer to this. Sure I had favorite books and passages, but just one verse? I couldn’t nail one down.

At long last, however, I found it! I’ve claimed 2 Corinthians 5:21 as my favorite, in large part due to how much it packs into one quick sentence. Let’s break it down:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

1. “...he made him to be sin”: Here we have one half of our double imputation puzzle. He (God the Father) made him (Jesus) to be sin. How? Jesus never sinned himself, we know this and discussed it in the Hypostatic Union article. Jesus became sin by having our sin imputed to himself; it was credited to his account.
2. “...who knew no sin”: This section starts to build the other half of our puzzle. Jesus knew no sin, he lived a perfectly sinless life. This leads into the last portion of this wonderful verse.
3. “...that in him we might become the righteousness of God”: Now we have the full picture. When we are saved, we see our sin being imputed to Christ and the righteous works of Christ imputed to us. So not only is there no sin on our account, there is also perfect righteousness, granted to us by Jesus!

Our Sin Imputed to Christ

Let's just expand a bit on the two sides of this doctrine.

First, the side that everyone is familiar with. If you ask your everyday evangelical why they're saved, you'll likely get an answer along the lines of “because Jesus forgave my sins”. And this answer is absolutely correct.

It's important to note here that in Jesus forgiving our sin, it wasn't a forgiveness that just “swept it under the rug”. Consider the case of a boy playing outside and throwing his baseball through a house window. If that homeowner chooses to forgive the boy, there is still a price to be paid; the window still needs to be fixed. The homeowner is choosing to pay that price himself.

This is what biblical forgiveness looks like, and we see this in the doctrine of double imputation. Our sin demands a price, a high cost. And Jesus decides to take that price upon himself, by having our sin placed on his account and facing the wrath of his Father in our place.

This is some of the best news we could ever receive. If our sin has been imputed to Christ, and God's wrath towards that sin poured out on Christ at Calvary, then there remains no wrath for those who are in Christ! We can live our lives with the freedom of knowing that God looks upon us with delight instead of anger, all because of the sacrifice of his Son in our stead.

Christ's Righteousness Imputed to Us

Now for the part that often gets overlooked.

It’s commonly known that Jesus lived a sinless life, but why he did is what’s important. Why did Jesus live on the earth for 33 years instead of just showing up to die on the cross and be raised again?

Jesus lived a righteous life because that righteousness was to be imputed to us. Jesus says in Matthew 5 that we “must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”, so the standard for entering heaven is as high as it gets. What does it look like to be righteous like God?

We must conclude that righteousness means more than just the absence of sin, although that is part of it. Having our sin forgiven erases all of the negative acts on our account, but there are still no positive, or righteous acts on our account.

So can we start doing righteous deeds to make our account “positive”? Not if we want to achieve the standard of perfection that Jesus talks about in Matthew 5. Even our best actions are not “perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. For us to achieve even one action that is done with a love as full and perfect as God’s would be an impossibility. Only the perfect, righteous life of Christ will suffice, and he graciously grants that to our account.

An Indivisible Doctrine

Thus far we’ve looked at two other core doctrines of the faith: the doctrine of the Trinity and the Hypostatic Union. And just like those two, double imputation is a doctrine that is indivisible. In the Trinity, you can’t have the Father without the Son and Holy Spirit. In the Hypostatic Union, you can’t have the full divinity of Jesus without his full humanity as well. Similarly, the doctrine of double imputation requires both the sin of man to be imputed to Christ and the righteousness of Christ imputed to man. Without one or the other, we are without hope. But praise be to God that he has taken our sin upon himself, and has given us his perfect righteousness in order that we can live with him forevermore!

The Hypostatic Union

I'm a fan of country music.

Ok don't exit out of this post just yet, it's not going to be about dirt roads and pickup trucks. But I am going to use some country music lyrics to make a point.

Dierks Bentley recently released a single called “Burning Man”, in which he sings about the paradoxes that he experiences within himself:

“I'm a little bit steady but still a little bit rollin' stone

I'm a little bit heaven but still a little bit flesh-and-bone

Little found, little don't-know-where-I-am

I'm a little bit holy water but still a little bit burning man”

Maybe you've felt this way about yourself -- in fact these lyrics are somewhat analogous to Paul's words in Romans 7:15-20.

It may be easy to view Jesus in a similar fashion: partly human and partly God. Or maybe he took a break from being God when he came to earth and then resumed his divine status upon his ascension to heaven.

The Hypostatic Union is a way of explaining precisely what Jesus’ nature looked like. Was he this “half-and-half” Christ, a human with divine superpowers? Or was he something greater than that?

History

This concept has its origins at both the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, where disputes arose surrounding the nature of Christ. Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople, made the claim that Christ consisted of two separate persons with two separate natures: one human and one divine. Alternatively, Apollinaris of Laodicea taught that Jesus instead had a human body, but a divine mind.

These questions were addressed at the Council of Chalcedon, and the Chalcedonian Definition was formulated, establishing accepted church doctrine on the nature of Christ. The text of the Chalcedonian Definition is as follows:

Following, then, the holy Fathers, we all unanimously teach that our Lord Jesus Christ is to us One and the same Son, the Self-same Perfect in Godhead, the Self-same Perfect in Manhood; truly God and truly Man; the Self-same of a rational soul and body; co-essential with the Father according to the Godhead, the Self-same co-essential with us according to the Manhood; like us in all things, sin apart; before the ages begotten of the Father as to the Godhead, but in the last days, the Self-same, for us and for our salvation (born) of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to the Manhood; One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He were parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ; even as from the beginning the prophets have taught concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers hath handed down to us.

There’s obviously a lot going on in that definition; essentially what was agreed upon was this:

1. Jesus Christ consists of one person with two different, and yet united natures.
2. These natures, one human and one divine, are full in of themselves. Jesus isn’t “half God, half man”; rather He is “fully God and fully man”.

This definition refuted the teachings of Nestorius and Apollinaris. Jesus was not two persons as Nestorius claimed, he was one person with two natures. And those natures were not parts of a whole as in Apollinarianism -- both human and divine natures are complete.

"Fully God"

In thinking about the full divinity of Jesus, it's helpful to reflect on what's known as the covenant of redemption. In case you haven't heard of it, it's a concept not explicit in Scripture, but very clearly supported throughout. It refers to an arrangement between the Father and the Son in eternity past to carry out a mission of redemption, resulting in the glory of the Father and the exaltation of the Son. This is where Jesus agrees to come and die for the sins of His people.

This reveals the eternality of Christ in an astonishing way. Jesus wasn't just there at the beginning of creation, he preceded creation. He's eternal. He was coordinating the redemption of man before He had even created man. And yet he entered history on an actual date on the calendar, and in a real geographical location.

As we learned in the article on the Trinity, Jesus Christ is eternal and uncreated. These are aspects that are unique to God. Colossians 1:16 reads “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”

So not only is Jesus uncreated, He was the one who has created all things, and for whom all things are created.

"Fully Man"

It feels a bit disrespectful saying this, but if I’m honest, it can feel difficult to relate to Jesus when I read about His life in the gospel accounts. He’s always loving people, always has the right thing to say, and is unwavering in His commitment to His heavenly Father. I’m just not that way at all.

So it’s helpful to me to remember the full humanity of Jesus. Jesus had siblings. Jesus likely helped his parents around the house as a child. Jesus got tired. Jesus had favorite foods and places he liked to travel to. You get the point.

These details aren’t recorded in scripture explicitly, but it’s not unreasonable to assume these things about Jesus. There’s a reason that his family members and hometown initially rejected Him: likely because to them he was just another member of society. He didn’t seem any different to them, besides maybe the fact that he always seemed to do the right thing.

We are blessed to have a Savior who is “able to sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus can truly speak to your situation, whatever it is, and say “I understand”.

Did Jesus feel the heartbreak of a lost friendship? Most likely. Did Jesus have profound love for people that went unreturned? Absolutely. Was Jesus tempted with the things of this world? Yes, though He never once succumbed to that temptation. Our Savior is one who can empathize with the brokenness we’ve encountered in our lives, and yet has lived a perfectly righteous life in order to redeem us from our fallen, broken nature.

Two Natures, One Christ

Both natures of Christ are equally important. First of all, the Hypostatic Union is a biblically accurate representation of who Jesus is, so it matters regardless of what it means for us and our salvation.

But imagine for a second if one of these two natures wasn’t the truth -- what if Jesus wasn’t divine, or was just partially divine? One would have to conclude that without His divine nature at the Incarnation, Jesus would have had a sin nature like the rest of man, and would not have lived the perfect life that was necessary for our salvation.

Or imagine if Jesus had only had a divine nature but no human nature. Regarding the perfect life that Jesus lived, it would not have been anything extraordinary if it was simply a divine being being perfect. That would be par for the course. What Jesus did as fully human was what the first human, Adam, failed at. Adam disobeyed God and became a sinner. Jesus, as the second Adam, lived in perfect obedience to the Father. Without that perfect life lived by a man, the rest of us have no hope of eternal life.

A technical term to describe our Savior, the Hypostatic Union is essential to our faith. We have a Savior who is both God and man, who can sympathize with our weakness and is Himself strong enough to save us from it.