Figuring out how Jesus could be fully God and fully man at the same time has been a challenge for theologians going back to the first century of the church.

However, this difficult to grasp doctrine stands at the very center of the Christian faith and serves as the foundation for virtually every facet of Christian

theology. My guest today is Stephen Wellam, and in our conversation he walks us through this

difficult doctrine, often referred to as the hypostatic union, explaining where we see it clearly

taught throughout Scripture. He reflects on the many heresies related to Jesus that have popped up

through the centuries and highlights why all Christians would benefit from taking time to think

carefully about Jesus being fully God and fully man, even if we'll never fully comprehend that fact.

Stephen Wellam serves as professor of Christian theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky,

and is the author of The Person of Christ an Introduction from Crossway.

Let's get started.

Well, Stephen, thank you so much for joining me today on the Crossway podcast.

That's great to be with you.

So before we get into the meat of our conversation today, I wonder if we could take a step back and just answer that question, the so what question.

Why is it important for all Christians, not just theologians, not just pastors, but all Christians to understand the hypostatic union to some

extent.

Well, I mean, the big picture would be to not understand the hypostatic union is to not fully

understand who Jesus is and to not understand him in terms of who he is the way the Bible

presents him as the one who is truly God, truly man, one person, two natures and that's really getting at the hypostatic union, is we don't have a savior.

So we don't understand who God is, right? Because God is triune and Jesus is the eternal son of God.

But we also, with the incarnation, need a redeemer.

And what's necessary to understand the nature of the hypostatic union is to give us that

redeemer who can meet our need. So that's the largest sort of picture, the biggest picture of

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