In this article before Christmas, I shared with my readers the debate that the Church Fathers had about finding just the right words to express Who Jesus is. The words they chose are Greek philosophical terms that have a very definite meaning. The main term used to define Jesus as fully and completely God and Man simultaneously, is hypostasis. The fact that the notion of hypostasis is irreducible to the concepts of particular nature, or to the notion of individuality, is   crucially important not only in Christology but also in Trinitarian theology.

Hypostasis is the personal, acting source of natural life; but it is not nature, or life itself. In the hypostasis, the two natures of Christ accomplish a union without confusion. They retain their natural characteristics; but, because they share a common hypostatic life, there is a communication of idioms, which, for example, enables some of Christ’s human actions – words or gestures – to carry consequences which only God could have provoked. The clay made out of His spittle, for example, restores sight to the blind man.

St. John Damascene wrote: Christ is one. Therefore the glory which naturally comes from the divinity has become common to both natures thanks to the identity of hypostasis; and through the flesh, humility has also become common to both nature, but it is the divinity which communicates its privileges to the body, remaining itself outside the passions of the flesh.

While I realize that this might be difficult to understand, I would encourage all of my readers to make an attempt to connect with the logic of the Fathers. I believe it is critical that we believe that Jesus IS both divine and   human and I think it helps if we have some words that we can use to express this. I would add that we should always remember that our concept of God allows for the fact that He could truly accomplish this mystery because it is not illogical. It is not illogical because the Fathers found the words and ideas to express this most important mystery of our faith. We have to always remember that there are many humans who cannot embrace the idea that Jesus was both God and Man and that as God He did not dictate how He lived as man. This is important, I believe, because without this understanding we could never attempt to Live Like Jesus Lived. It is essential to our faith, I believe, that we see Jesus as someone we can imitate. We CAN live like He lived, unconditionally loving others as ourselves and not judging them. The key to our spiritual growth is that we can imitate the MAN Jesus IS and become more like the GOD Jesus IS. That is the whole idea of Theosis, the process wherein we learn how to live more like Jesus lived and become more God-like.