Jason Dulle article:

[Esaias]

Both Bernard and Dulle err in assuming that Christ was in 'hypostatic union' with the Father, in the sense that two things are joined together. This was a problem throughout much of antenicene and post nicene catholic trinitarian development up until the Council of Chalcedon made an official formula of words to use to describe the issue.

The Bible does not teach that God was 'united with' Christ in the sense such terminology suggests. The suggestion is that the union is similar to when bread and meat are 'united' to make one sandwich, or when tea acids and water are 'united' to make one (glass) of tea. The theory is that something called 'the divine essence or nature' was 'united' with the 'human essence or nature' to produce one 'hypostasis' or 'person'.

Oneness, in holding to the Chalcedonian definition of Christ being 'one hypostasis in two natures' or 'two natures united hypostatically', has created some unnecessary difficulties for itself.

For example, the 'Spirit' is said to be that which was united with the humanity. But the 'Spirit' is not the divine nature itself (except when trinitarians are equivocating...) but rather the 'Holy Spirit'. The Holy Spirit is not merely the 'essence' or 'nature' of God but is a descriptive term for God Himself. So Chalcedonian Oneness Christology has a two edged problem: Either the Person of God (the Holy Spirit) was 'united hypostatically' to the humanity in the Person of Christ (which logically leads to two Persons?), OR the Holy Spirit is not God Himself but merely the divine essence (which logically leads to a denial of the Personhood of the Holy Spirit, that is, a denial that the Holy Spirit is Jesus Himself spiritually present and active).

Furthermore, by claiming a hypostatic union of two natures relying on trinitarian (and thus Platonic and Aristotelian metaphysics), we fall into the problem described above in the quotation from Dulle - the divine essence 'departing' from Christ at ANY point, whether at the cross, at the moment of death, in the grave, or what have you. For if the Divine Essence departs from Christ in any meaningful sense, then either Christ ceases to exist as a person, OR there are two persons (one God, the other a man). Bernard's approach leads to this dilemma.

Dulle attempts to get around this dilemma by proposing that the divine Spirit departs from Christ in the same way the human spirit departs from a man at death. He says " Indeed, I would argue that if the divine Spirit did not depart from Jesus’ body at the point of death, Jesus could not have died, because death only occurs when the spirit separates from the body. Since Jesus’ spirit is the divine Spirit incarnate, the divine Spirit had to depart from Jesus’ body in order for death to occur. "

But this is unproven. Dulle did not demonstrate that Christ could not die unless the Divine Spirit departed from his body, except by the unproven claim that the hypostatic union is functionally identical to the union of spirit and flesh in a human being.

The problem is, the Spirit is not merely 'the divine essence', it is God Himself. And if the Divine Essence departed from Christ, it is not the same as when a human spirit departs from a body of flesh. The Divine essence, in Chalcedonian Christology, is not united to the flesh body of Jesus, it is united to the human nature. Therefore, he only separation possible is for the Divine Essence to be disunited from the human nature (the entire man), and thus Christ ceases to possess the Divine nature, and thus ceases to be God. On the other hand, if the Spirit is in fact (as the Bible teaches) God Himself, then God Himself was united to the human nature, and the separation is a separation of God and the man, thus again resulting in Christ CEASING TO BE GOD in any meaningful sense.

All this however can be avoided by rejecting Platonic, Aristotelian, Catholic trinitarian metaphysical terms and paradigms, and sticking with the Biblical statements themselves.

The Word (who was God) became flesh. Not the Word was 'hypostatically united to a human nature', nor that the Word was 'hypostatically united to a human body', but that the Word which was God 'came to be' flesh (ie a physical, genuine, human being, as 'flesh' does not mean merely the physical body, but refers to a living human).

So when Jesus died, what actually happened? The HUMAN SPIRIT departed from the HUMAN BODY, and the MAN DIED (this is what happens to every human who dies). God did not 'depart' because God was never 'united' in any way that a 'departure' or 'separation' could be possible. God WAS the man, he was existing AS THE MAN. As the man, he died a human death (human animus or spirit separating from the human physical body). He remained in that condition until the third day, when human spirit was re-united with the human body, and the MAN came alive once again.

If we stay within the confines of leftover trinitarian concepts like Chalcedonian Christology, we might as well seriously argue and debate and try to figure out how many angels can really 'dance on the head of a pin'.