A Review of God with Us

Herman Bavinck once said,
The language of Chalcedon is not sacrosanct and is open to reformulation. However, up to now all efforts to improve on it have failed, and the church can do no better at this time than to maintain the two-natures doctrine. Since the essence of religion is communion with God, the two-natures doctrine is integrally connected to the heart of religion. If the incarnation is impossible, then religion cannot consist in communion between God and human creatures.[1]

Maintaining the two-natures doctrine is critical in order for us to understand who Jesus is and what he has done for us. Due to our finitude, we cannot fathom the mystery of God and man as one person. Due to our fallen-ness, we cannot avoid making idols out of what we do not understand. Yet, the challenge of maintaining the two-natures doctrine is not for the seminary classroom and ecclesiastical court alone; it must also take place in the catechesis of a local congregation. While our creeds, confessions and catechisms aid us (and unite us) to that end, further instruction on this incomprehensible doctrine is always needed. Pastors and laypeople alike are in want of a clear and biblically faithful explanation of the two-natures of Christ. Danny Hyde’s book, God with Us, provides such an explanation in fewer than 160 pages.

In his introduction, Hyde makes the crucial point that theology and life are inseparably united. Studying the two-natures doctrine is not an abstract or irrelevant exercise. Good doctrine leads to good doxology. It is a difficult task nonetheless, requiring us to humble ourselves from the onset and confess our need for the illumination of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of church history. Hyde reminds the reader that any study of the Incarnation is a study of holy mystery. We are doing “pilgrim theology” in the process. We can only know those things which God has revealed to us in the accommodation of his Word. Moreover, we seek to know these things with the historic Christian church, not apart from her. Hyde points out that that historic catholicity must play an integral role in our study of the Person of Christ.

Seven chapters follow the introduction. The first chapter is a basic survey of biblical theology, showing how the Incarnation is the climax of human history and the necessary act of God to bring his elect to the goal of human history, namely, the consummation. As we have come to expect from Hyde, he peppers his work with references to church history, weaving historical theology into biblical theology.

The next four chapters stand closely together. Chapter 2 outlines the two-natures doctrine, defining some of its key terms (nature and person) and greatest foes (a confusion of the two natures on the one hand, and a rejection of them on the other). Chapter 3 looks more closely at Christ’s divine nature. In the space of ten pages, Hyde summarizes the redemptive-historical revelation of the divinity of Christ from Genesis to Revelation. He then provides some very helpful commentary on the Bible’s title of Christ as “the only begotten Son” and the Nicene Creed’s language of “eternally begotten.” Chapter 4 turns to Christ’s human nature. In it, Hyde shows how, contrary to many of the heresies that afflicted the early church, the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus had/has a real body and a real soul. There are some brief comments on the Virgin Birth, Christ’s sinlessness, and his two wills. The chapter ends by making a succinct case for the necessity of the Incarnation. Chapter 5 then brings the previous chapters together by helping the reader to think about the two natures in one single person. Hyde tackles the difficult subject of the communicatio idiomatum, that is, “the communication of proper qualities” between Christ’s two natures, with exceptional lucidity.

In Chapter 6, Hyde applies the two-natures doctrine to the Christian life. He shows why this theology helps the believer to know Christ and the Father better, how it affects evangelism, and how it brings comfort and hope in daily living. Chapter 7 provides additional application by comparing the Christ of the Qur’an to the Christ of the Bible. While this chapter seemed slightly detached from the previous six, it is nevertheless very helpful in its content. Hyde equips the reader with a basic understanding of Islam’s doctrine of Christ, which informs Christian evangelism to Muslims and those experimenting with Islam.

The book has four appendixes: (1) the ecumenical creeds; (2) Protestant confessional statements on the two natures, taken from Luther’s Small Catechism and Large Catechism, the Augsburg Confession, French Confession, Scots Confession, Belgic Confession, The Thirty-Nine Articles, Heidelberg Catechism, Second Helvetic Confession, and the Westminster Confession of Faith; (3) the seven ecumenical councils; and (4) the Tome of Leo I. A Scripture index is attached at the end.

As I read God with Us, five strong qualities stood out to me:

1. This book is clear and simple. Hyde has a lucid writing style. He walks the reader through the pathways of sublime doctrine, carefully explaining the details as he moves along. God with Us is very impressive in what it makes clear in its short number of pages. It is evident that Hyde is one who spends the majority of his time preparing and delivering sermons to ordinary people. His experience and skill as a preacher and teacher comes through in each chapter.

2. This book is pastoral. Hyde writes as a pastor to laypeople. He instructs with doctrine, and then shows why the doctrine is important for the Christian life. He states that this is his intention from the beginning. In his introduction he writes, “We will apply this mystery [i.e. the two-natures doctrine] to our comfort and confidence in our sufferings as pilgrims in this life, to our witness to the world, and to our worship before the throne of God’s heavenly grace.” Hyde keeps his focus throughout the book.

3. This book surveys critical church history. As anyone who has studied systematic theology knows, getting a grasp on the historical development of the two-natures doctrine is indispensable to orthodox Christology. Too much has happened in church history for us to neglect learning about the ecumenical councils and the major Christological heresies. Hyde does an excellent job of introducing the reader to the heroes and villains of church history and defining important terms such as Nicea, Chalcedon, Docetism, Arianism, Eutychianism, Apollinarianism, Nestoriansim, and Monothelitism. He shows why understanding each one of these terms is necessary in order to avoid theological pitfalls, uphold sound doctrine, and, most importantly, grow in his knowledge and love of Jesus Christ.

4. This book is equipped with helpful appendixes. Hyde wisely included relevant creedal and confessional material and provided a brief explanation of each. This is very useful for the person uninitiated to the study of theology and church history. It gives the reader a neatly organized arrangement of the most significant ecclesiastical statements of the historic Christian church, and helps her to see that the discussion of the two-natures doctrine has been taking place for a very long time.

5. This book has footnotes rather than endnotes! While this may not seem like an obvious strength to some, it deserves mentioning. Reformation Heritage Books had the good sense to use footnotes, allowing the reader to stay on the page he is reading when checking a reference (and Hyde has a good number of them), rather than being forced to flip back and forth to the end of the book. (A note to all publishers: endnotes are cumbersome, unwieldy, and should be banned forever!)

I noticed two possible weaknesses of Hyde’s book. Notwithstanding the importance of appealing to the witness of history for a proper Christology, it is possible that God with Us could use a little more in the area of biblical exegesis and a little less in lengthy quotes from the ancient fathers. Moreover, I was surprised that Hyde did not do more on the theological significance of the Virgin Birth.

Nevertheless, God with Us is an excellent introduction to the Reformed doctrine of the Person of Christ. As a pastor, I frequently encounter professing Christians and potential new members who have unwittingly embraced (or partially embraced) one of the historical Christological heresies. God with Us is a first-rate resource to give to someone who is thinking through this difficult doctrine for the first time. Likewise, people at all levels of theological understanding and in different stages of their journey in the Christian life are certain to find Hyde’s book immensely helpful. People have a lot of questions about who Jesus is. This is the book to give them. I recommend it enthusiastically.