Day 8: Historical Creeds

Chalcedonian Creed (451)

Today we understand the concept that indeed Christ was both fully human AND fully divine. So the thought that we would need a statement saying just that doesn’t seem important to us because we know and understand from the scriptures this truth-as hard of a concept as it is. Nevertheless we need to consider how rare a copy of ANY part of scripture was for someone to have, let alone all of them prior to Gutenberg and the moveable type printing press. So about 1,000 years before that press was invented anyone could say just about anything and be believed by a lot of people because of a lack of resources to learn from. Certainly not like today…

Chalcedon (now named Kadecoy) lies across the Bosporus strait from Istanbul. It is here that in 451 yet ANOTHER council was called. Evidently Arianism just didn’t want to go away. This time it was joined by her (His? It’s? Do heresies have pronouns?) fellow heresies, namely the Eutycian heresy which taught that Christ WAS both human and divine but the divine absorbed the human into itself, so that Christ was only divine. Meanwhile the Nestorian heresy stated that Jesus was both God and Man because there was dwelling inside of Him both God AND Man. Two separate beings. Kinda like the protagonist in Robert Louis Stephens novel ‘The Strange Case of Mr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde’. To my mind, I agree with Constantine and his opinion in 325 that the stuffy scholars have waaaay too much time on their hands. 

Nevertheless the council came to the conclusion that Jesus Christ was both God and Man-one in the same, being both divine and corporeal. Similar with what Paul preached and taught and wrote about in both Romans and Philippians-the Philippians passage itself an early creed. Still, because of the lack of Bibles, Flannel Boards in Sunday School, Billy Graham Crusades and the Dallas Theological Seminary the understanding of scripture was easily muddled. Thus is the case with both the triune nature of God as well as the dual nature of Christ. They really ARE hard concepts to grasp, and we DO have the whole of scripture.

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.

One very serious positive to come out of this is that the churches-both Western and Eastern came together to agree and write what might seem daunting due to the language but is probably the clearest statement on the person of Jesus Christ. 

Scripture readings for today:

Romans 1:1-5
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scripturesregarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David,and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Philippians 2:5-7

Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;    
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.