The Word Became Flesh

Thanks for this warm space where we can meet.

Thank you for the privilege that we can open up your word

and learn more about you and your son.

Lord Jesus, we pray that as you promised

at the end of Matthew's gospel,

that you would be with us to the end of the age,

that you'd be with us now by your spirit

as we consider the deepest mystery of all, Lord,

your incarnation and who you have become for us

by becoming flesh.

Lord, give us humility as we approach these topics.

Give us understanding.

Above all, we pray, you'd give us hearts

that are in all of you more and more

and in worship of you, adoration of you.

We pray this in your mighty name, Jesus, amen.

Okay, so where have we been in this class

on the person of Christ,

which is sometimes called Christology.

So if you're ever reading books of theology

or you're reading things, you run across Christology.

Basically what that means is just the doctrine

of the person of Christ.

So who is Jesus, his person?

And if you'll remember kind of where we've been in our class,

we've been doing kind of a walkthrough

of the person of Jesus.

Two weeks ago, we considered that Jesus is fully human.

So we looked through the gospel records

and looked at how Jesus had a fully human body,

how he had a fully human mind.

He had fully human emotions.

Just all the ways in which we think about ourselves

as human, we see that reflected in the gospels,

that Jesus was fully human.

And then just last week, we reflected on the fact

that Jesus is fully God.

And we looked at all those things that were,

some of those moments in the gospels

where Jesus is in his own words, in his own actions,

sort of claiming to be the one true God here among us,

like claiming to forgive sins,

claiming that only he knows the father

and only the father knows him,

these sorts of things.

Okay, so we've established two wonderful things,

that Jesus has a fully human nature

and he's fully God, he's a fully divine nature.

What more is there to talk about

in a class on Christology, right?

We're done.

Ah, but one large question still remains, right?

What is the relationship of these two natures

in the one person, Jesus?

Right?

We sort of say these two things,

but man, what does that even mean?

How do we relate those to one another?

Is there a way we can press into

the unity of the person of Christ?

Now, this is a very difficult question.

So as we approach this topic this morning,

we'll do so with some humility

and maybe even some trepidation.

One theologian, Millard Erickson, writes this.

He says,

this is the most difficult of all theological problems,

how the two natures of Christ are in one person.

Ranking up there, he says,

with the doctrine of the Trinity

and the doctrine of the relationship

of human free will and divine sovereignty.

So Erickson, they're sort of locating

some of these divine mysteries

that are very deep,

the doctrine of the Trinity,

how our agency and God's sovereignty

relate to one another.

But here's the sort of one that takes the cake,

what we sometimes call the hypostatic union.

How is it that there are two natures

in the one being of Jesus?

Okay.

And it's sort of obvious

why that's a difficult question, right?

Like Erickson goes on to say

in that same paragraph I referenced.

You know, it's difficult to comprehend

because it posits the combination of two natures

that by definition are contradictory, right?

I mean, think about deity, right?

Christ is infinite in his knowledge, power, and presence,

being fully God.

If he's God, he has to know all things.

You know, if he's God,

he can do all things that are proper objects

of his power, right?

If he's God, he can be everywhere at once.

But on the other hand, if he was human,

he was limited in knowledge.

He couldn't do everything.

And he certainly was limited

to being in one place at one time, right?

So how are those two natures combined in one person?

So it's a difficult question,

but it's also an important question, right?

It's not one just that, you know,

theologians can sort of write dissertations about

and get tenure and teach at a seminary, you know?

It's actually important.

And what's really neat,

this morning we're going to walk through

the historical development

of how the church has thought about this,

and we'll see that in the early centuries of the church,

this was the issue.

This was the issue over which

they spent most of their time and energy

because it was central.

Why was it central?

Because, I mean, one way of thinking about it, right?

This idea, this doctrine of the person of Christ,

what we call Christology, is important

because the incarnation involved,

well, we might say the bridging of the gap,

the bridging not just of sort of the kind of

metaphysical or ontological gap, right,

but bridging of the moral and spiritual gap

between God and humanity, right?

The great chasm between us and God

that sin had opened up,

it's the incarnation that bridges that gap.

And if it's really going to bridge that gap,

then Jesus has to be

divine and human in one person.

There has to be a unity

of deity and humanity within Jesus, right?

If they weren't,

then it's almost as if

the problem still remains, right?

Okay.

We'll come back to some of the

sort of deeper significance of these things

as we get to the end.

But let's think about this.

So, again, this is Millard Erickson.

He has a really good chapter on this.

I'll be referencing a lot of his stuff as we go.

But Millard Erickson,

it was a Baptist theologian in the South.

I think he taught somewhere.

Did he teach at Southwestern?

Do you know, Tyler, where Erickson taught?

Yeah, he's...

I'm going to read something from his book,

which is kind of funny,

because it's a very dry textbook that he wrote.

He wrote a big book called Christian Theology.

And, you know, Millard Erickson isn't known for, like,

you know, flowery language or things like this.

But then he comes to the end of his chapter

on the unity of the person of Christ,

and he says,

it's sometimes been said

that there are only seven basic jokes.

And every joke is a variation on one of them.

I don't know what the seven are.

He doesn't get into it, right?

But then he says,

a similar statement can be made

about the errors regarding the person of Christ.

So here's Millard Erickson sort of using comedy

as an illustration for understanding

the deepest mystery of all time,

the person of Christ.

But what he says is really, really helpful.

He says,

you know, there are basically,

there are basically six ways in which,

as humans,

we sort of go wrong

in thinking about the person of Christ.

And as we think about those six ways

historically that developed,

we can sort of figure out,

like, okay, well,

there are the kind of edges of the sandbox, right?

As we've tried to push up against it

with our human intellect,

we have found where, like,

we drift off into error.

And he says,

and I'll write some of these down as we go,

but he says,

here are the six.

Either they deny the genuineness

or the completeness of Jesus's deity.

There's the first two.

Either Jesus isn't divine,

or he's not totally divine.

There's the first two.

Or they deny the genuineness

or completeness of his humanity.

So Jesus either just isn't really human,

or he's, like, not totally human.

Or, here's the other two,

they divide his person

or they confuse his natures.

Now, those are the two

we'll spend a little more time on this morning

because those are maybe

the little more harder ones

to wrap our minds around.

And then Erickson says,

all departures from the orthodox doctrine

of the person of Christ

are simply variations

of one of these heresies.

And when he says orthodox there,

he just means

this is what the scriptures teach

and this is what the church faithfully

has affirmed throughout the ages.

This is sort of right belief

and right worship

or in line with,

or, like,

when you go to the orthodontist,

what are they doing?

They're ortho-ing your dontics, right?

They're straightening your teeth, right?

So what is orthodoxy?

Orthodoxy is,

doxy, right,

is belief or even worship, right?

Ortho is the worship

that's in line with,

in line with what?

In line with the scriptures

and what the church

has proclaimed the scriptures

to teach, right?

So,

all departures

from the orthodox doctrine

of the person of Christ

are simply variations

of one of these heresies.

Okay,

so this will be some fun.

Let's look,

let's look at some of these

and let's figure out

the edges of the sandbox,

right?

So, let's think about

heresies or errors

concerning Christ's deity.

Can I ask something

before we even start this?

Quickly, Richard,

because otherwise

I'll run out of time.

Go ahead.

This is a primary issue, right?

This is not a secondary

or tertiary issue.

Yes,

but we will see

as we get into this

that some of the distinctions

we're making

are very fine.

So,

we do want to have grace

if someone maybe

doesn't use the exact language

that we do

or maybe is just

prone to misunderstanding.

This is one of those doctrines

where

we have to be gracious

as one other.

But,

with that being said,

the short answer

to your question,

Richard,

is yes,

this is a primary doctrine.

To deny

the full humanity

or the full deity

of Christ

takes you outside

of

the realm

of Christianity.

Right?

You've stumbled

into something else.

Yeah.

So,

okay,

heresies regarding

Christ's deity.

Hey,

that looks pretty,

that's readable, right?

I'm getting better.

Yeah,

so the first,

the first one

is what we might call,

well,

what's been called

historically,

Evianism.

Okay,

so what does Evianism?

Evianism is basically,

and this cropped up

very early in the church,

was basically the belief

that Jesus was merely human.

He wasn't God.

He wasn't fully God.

However,

Jesus was,

he was the,

he was the human Messiah.

God was active in him.

His power was active in him

to,

to a superlative degree.

But,

but he wasn't God.

We just saw in him

humanity come fully alive

with the power of God,

right?

Now,

of course,

the church very early on

said,

no,

no,

no,

that's a departure

from what Jesus himself

taught us,

who he was,

and what we believe him to be.

A sort of variation of this

is called adoptionism.

Stop,

whoops,

shun,

ism,

adoptionism.

So,

adoptionism,

if you run across that

in conversations about Christology,

is basically saying that,

so Jesus was born as if,

he was fully human

when he was born.

There was nothing kind of

ontologically special about him,

but at a certain moment

in his life,

God came upon him.

A lot of times,

they'll say at his baptism,

at his baptism,

the Christ came upon him,

and at that moment,

he became

something greater than human.

And then he did his earthly ministry

that way,

and then oftentimes,

adoptionism will say,

but then the Christ left him,

right?

usually somewhere around

his crucifixion,

right?

Now,

you can see that

that gets way far out

from what the New Testament

taught,

right?

But both of these

were ways of trying to say,

like,

well,

we know God can't become

a human being,

right?

It was kind of working

with this prior philosophical

assumption that God

can't become a human,

so how do we make sense of it,

right?

But both of these

were out of bounds,

right?

Because they really just deny

what we talked about last week,

that Jesus was fully God.

Okay,

those are kind of easy to spot,

right?

There was a second one

that denied

Christ's deity,

although this one

was a bit more sophisticated.

And this one goes under

the name of Arianism.

Okay,

in the early 4th century,

there was an

Alexandrian presbyter,

sort of elder,

leader in the church,

named Arius.

who was a very smart guy,

and a lot of people

liked him.

And he was even

a songwriter.

And,

because we know,

right,

because we know

that God is one,

and God is eternal,

and God

is majestic,

right?

Surely,

that one

awesome,

majestic God,

right,

can't,

there can't be

two of them,

right?

And that one

awesome,

majestic God

can't,

like,

become a human

being.

So,

what do we believe,

then,

about the Son?

Even about the

eternal Son?

So,

now,

let me take a step back.

Everything I'm telling you

about the history of these

is very truncated,

and the story's way more

complicated,

but I'm just giving you

the overview.

So,

if you hear someone say,

well,

it's a little more like this,

yeah,

there's nuance here,

but I'm going to give you

the broad outline.

So,

basically,

Arius and his followers

began to teach that

the word that John

talks about

was actually

the highest

and best

and first

created being,

that the word

had a beginning.

and Arius

and his followers

actually wrote songs

for worship,

and one of the great

choruses was,

there was a time

when the word was not.

Interesting,

right?

Imagine singing

that one in church.

There was a time

when the word

was not.

You were not the word

in the beginning.

Right?

So,

but you can see

how

that sort of

makes sense,

right?

There's one God

and God creates

this superhuman being

and it's through

that sort of

ultra,

super,

first created being

that he does

everything else.

Right?

But again,

that sort of

makes Jesus

mostly God,

but not God.

Right?

He's actually

not God.

And here's how

it started to come down.

And this was what,

there was a council

that was called

by the church,

Council of Nicaea

in 325,

because this

controversy raged

for many,

many,

many years

and it continued

to rage

for many,

many years.

And there was a man

named Athanasius,

who was a great hero

of the faith,

who fought this battle.

And late in the new year,

later in the new year,

in the spring,

we're going to look at

more of this in detail.

But it came down

to this.

Is Jesus,

you're going to like this,

this is good.

Is Jesus

homoiosios?

Or is he

homoiosios?

Ah,

this little letter

right here

is the Greek letter

iota.

It's like our I.

Blood wish,

not blood wish,

literally,

but controversies

raged over this letter

because the difference

between this word

and this word,

if you know Greek,

is homoiosios

is similar in being.

Really alike.

Oosios is just being.

But homoosios

is insane.

The same in being.

Now,

in writing,

that's not a big difference,

is it?

One little I.

But in meaning,

it's a world of difference.

That Jesus isn't just

mostly like God,

he's fully God.

Homoiosios,

of one same nature

with the Father.

And at the Council of Nicaea,

that's what they will affirm.

This is from

the Council of Nicaea,

I believe in

one Lord Jesus Christ,

the only begotten

Son of the Father,

born of the Father

before all ages.

There's an eternal

generation of the Son,

is what we're talking about.

There was no time

when the Son was not.

And then it goes on

to say this,

God from God,

speaking of Jesus the Son,

light from light,

true God from true God,

begotten,

not made,

consubstantial,

which is just the Latin phrase,

homoiosios,

of one nature,

of the same nature

with the Father.

Okay,

so here's one edge

of the sandbox,

Christ's deity.

He's not God,

he's mostly God.

Both of those are ruled out,

he's fully God,

right?

Okay,

what about when it comes

to Christ's humanity?

How does this start to cook

in the early church?

Well,

we talked about this

a couple weeks ago.

The first one that cropped up,

especially as the gospel

began to take root

in,

as the gospel began

to take root

in cultures,

docetism,

that were more heavily influenced

by Greek thought,

and again,

that was everywhere,

it wasn't just,

I mean,

there were plenty of Jews

who were heavily influenced

by Greek thought,

so you see this pretty early,

but where the kind of

Greek worldview

was more heavily in place,

you began to see

this thing crop up,

docetism.

Now,

what is docetism?

Docetism,

we talked about earlier,

is that Jesus only seemed

to be human.

He had the appearance

of being human,

but he wasn't actually human.

Now,

why would you believe

something like that?

Why would you believe

that Jesus is fully God

but not fully human?

Yeah,

Ivor,

go ahead.

It sure does,

doesn't it?

Isn't it easier to believe

that God just kind of

showed up as an avatar,

but if you got close enough

to him,

your hand would go

straight through,

right?

Yeah.

Yeah,

and also several religions

at the time

thought about avatars.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

that's right.

Yeah,

especially if you get

into Eastern religions,

right?

Yeah,

that's right.

That's right.

Yeah.

Part of else

what was going on here

is that in,

in,

in,

in a particularly

kind of Greek cast of mind,

in some of them anyway,

matter,

the material stuff

of the world,

was,

was negative,

right?

It was a kind of

a negative approach

to the material world,

right?

Why?

Well,

because matter's changing,

matter's painful,

right?

So,

some of the Greek worldview

had the idea that

what's the goal

of existence,

right?

Well,

the real goal of existence

is to get out of this shell

into the one,

into the eternal,

right?

You see that in Stoicism

especially,

right?

You know,

the goal is to sort of

get a piece of,

get to a place

of equanimity

in this life

so that when you die,

you're kind of absorbed

into the one,

right?

Sounds very Eastern

to our ears,

doesn't it?

Obviously,

the church rejected this.

No,

Jesus was fully human.

Why?

Because from a biblical worldview,

matter's good.

God created everything

and said it was good.

So,

there's nothing sort of

necessarily wrong

with his full humanity

besides,

look at the records

that we have.

Look at the apostolic witness

that we talked about

two weeks ago.

Jesus was fully human.

He was eating with them.

He was touching them,

right?

Can a spirit do these things?

The resurrected Christ

said to them.

Okay,

so that one was out.

The second one though,

and again,

you kind of see the,

oh,

I'm going to spell this wrong.

I-N-A.

Ah.

This one was a little

more sophisticated though.

And this one,

man,

this one,

this one sounded

right on the surface.

It was kind of a clever,

Apollinarianism was a clever

solution to the problem,

right?

How is Jesus fully human

and fully divine

in one person?

So around 361,

so this would be about

40 years after the

Council of Nicaea,

right?

These two were pretty early on.

They kind of co-existed

and kept going,

right?

Arianism cropped up

early 4th century,

Apollinarianism kind of

mid to late 4th century.

Bishop of Laodicea

around 361,

Apollinarius,

I think is how you

would pronounce it,

said that,

hey,

Jesus clearly had

a fully human body.

That's obvious,

right?

But,

his soul

or his mind

was divine.

So that's how

God becomes

fully human.

God,

who we know,

the one God,

God is a spirit,

right?

Has no body.

That spirit just comes down

and takes a human body.

Boom!

Done!

Solution solved,

right?

How easy is that?

You know,

I kind of joked about this

a couple weeks ago

when we talked about this.

This is sort of like,

this is sort of like

the earth suit approach

to Christology.

That just like

astronauts put on

a space suit

to go into space,

God put on an earth suit

to come to earth,

right?

And that earth suit

was his human body.

But everything going

on side of that human body

was God.

But wait a second.

This is what the church

is saying

as the teachings

of Apollinarius

start growing steam.

But when we read

the apostolic witness,

that's not what we see,

is it?

Do we not see

that Jesus has

a human mind

and a human soul

and even a human will,

which will become

a debate a little later

in church history?

Does Jesus have

a human will

or is it just

God's will, right?

And think of it this way.

One of the things

we've been saying

over and over again

in this class

on the person of Christ

is that the full humanity

and full deity of Christ

are so important.

Why?

For our salvation, right?

If God the Son

doesn't assume it

in the incarnation,

if he doesn't take it up

into himself,

then it's not going

to be redeemed, right?

And friends,

do our bodies need saving?

Yeah, the older I get,

the more I realize

our bodies need saving, right?

As I can, you know,

get a little creakier

and get a little older, right?

But let's push a little deeper.

Do not our minds

and our souls

also need saving?

If Jesus is going

to save us,

then he needs

a fully human nature,

not just a human body.

So both on account

of the scriptural witness

and the theological

implications of it,

Apollinarianism

was ruled out.

That no, no, no,

Jesus had a fully human mind

or soul

as well as a fully human body.

And that was at the Council

of Constantinople

in 381.

So this would have been Nicaea

in 325

and this would have been

381, right?

Constantinople, 381.

Constantinople.

Constantinople.

Okay.

381.

Constantinople.

All right.

Well, how far have we gotten now

as we progress

through church history?

Okay.

Jesus is fully God

and Jesus is fully human.

We haven't gotten very far,

have we?

But look at where

the sandbox lies, right?

Good work was done

by our forebears

in the faith, right?

We've defended Jesus'

full divinity, right?

We've also defended

his full humanity.

Okay.

So then,

the story continues

as we progress.

So,

we're in now

into the 5th century,

into the early 5th century.

Now these,

what I'm going to call these

are,

well,

let me write it this way.

These would be errors

concerning

the unity of Christ's person.

Okay.

If I,

if I abbreviate Christ

with an X,

that's not because I'm like

taking the Christ

out of Christmas.

X is a Greek letter,

chi,

which is how Jesus'

name starts in the Greek.

It's just shorthand.

It's an abbreviation.

It's not a deletion.

So,

the unity of Christ's person.

Ah,

okay.

First one that crops up

is in

the early 4th century

with a guy named Nestorius.

And what we're going to see

with these two

is that

there's a bit of a tragedy

in some of these stories

because

a lot of the names

under which

these two things

I'm going to talk about

get called,

so poor Nestorius,

right?

He was a very good preacher.

He was a very godly man,

but he got himself

into a lot of theological trouble.

And he actually got slandered

a lot for things

he didn't believe.

But what happened was

is as he struggled

to articulate

the unity of Christ's person,

it got a little messy.

And then,

what he believed

ended up,

what,

what,

the,

something got labeled

with his name

that maybe he didn't

actually believe

when you dig down

into his writings.

But,

what it came to be called

was

Nestorianism.

Okay?

And what Nestorianism is,

is that

basically,

the way it gets

shorthanded is,

is that there's two persons.

And two natures.

Basically,

you've got,

you've got Jesus' humanity

and his divinity,

and it starts driving them apart.

That they,

that,

that,

that they're both kind of

almost protected

from one another.

Right?

That we don't want them

kind of commingling.

But you can see how

immediately this,

this becomes a nonsensical

proposition.

Right?

How can there be

two persons

within

Jesus?

Right?

So,

how this debate

got started

is very interesting

because

there was some debate

flying around

in the fourth century

of whether we should

call Mary

the theotokos,

the God-bearer.

Right?

Is it appropriate

to call Jesus

the mother of God?

The bearer of God?

Right?

Now,

I think today

in the church

we think,

well,

yeah,

of course,

because Jesus was fully God,

so she was the mother of God.

We were comfortable

saying with that.

But someone like Nestoria

says,

yeah,

but don't we need

to be careful there?

Did a human

like give birth

to the one true,

like the infinite God?

Right?

So suddenly

the mystery of the incarnation

starts pushing

against our language.

So Nestoria says things like,

well,

I'm fine with theotokos

as long as we quickly add

anthropotokos,

that she was the bearer

of a human.

But then it starts

to get squirrely,

right?

Well,

did that human person

Jesus

exist

before the incarnation?

Was there a pre-existing

human Jesus

before the word

became human?

In other words,

is there a human person

and a divine person

that are somehow

being melded

in the incarnation?

And the answer to that

is no,

theologically,

right?

But these were the things

that were trying

to be guarded against

when the church came up

against Nestorianism.

Now,

here's why I say

I sort of have some

sympathy for Nestorius

because

I think

when you go back

and look at the

historical records,

there's a good case

to be made

that Nestorius

actually affirmed

what the church

would eventually affirm,

but he was just

struggling to find

the language for it.

He was struggling

to find the right

language for it,

right?

And there are

some churches

today even

that sound

a little more

Nestorian

in how they

articulate

the person

of Christ,

right?

But I think

they're just

trying to find

language to

articulate

the inarticulable.

Okay.

Any questions

about Nestorius?

I know this is

quick and this

is probably

the most confusing

of all of them.

I usually think

of it as

two cats

in a bag.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's right.

But this produces

like a schizophrenic

Jesus,

right?

Well,

and here's the

theological problem.

Yeah.

Well,

go ahead.

We'll keep going.

Kim,

yeah,

go ahead.

In the Old Testament?

Oh,

can I have

pause on that

and can we talk

about that after

because it's

a yes,

but there's

both exegetical

things going on

there and

theological things

going on there,

but we'll talk

about them

afterwards.

Yeah.

Okay.

So this

kind of language

to talk about

the unity of

Christ's person

wasn't going to

fly,

right?

The other thing

that cropped up

in the wake

of kind of

this battle

against what

came to be

called Nestorianism,

oh,

by the way,

Council of

Ephesus

for,

I think,

31,

right?

Yes,

431.

Okay.

So they get

together,

they condemn

this way of

articulating the

unity of

person of

Jesus,

the Council

of Ephesus

in 431.

In the wake

of that,

there's lots

of enthusiasm

to not divide

the person

of Christ,

and it gets

a little out

of hand

because there's

a formula

flying around

that kind of

gets dubbed

one nature,

like one nature

Christology.

The unity

of the person

of Christ

was so real

and so actual

that it's not

even right to

talk about

two natures,

we just talk

about one nature.

And again,

this is where

church history

is a bit

tragic.

Hold on,

I'm going to

spell this

wrong too.

U,

T-Y-C-H-E-S,

yeah,

that's it.

Eutychus

was an older

kind of head

of a monastery

and he kind

of gets pulled

into this

controversy,

again,

maybe not as

clear of a

thinker or as

careful of an

articulator,

and he says

things like

that after

his birth,

Jesus only

possessed

one nature,

that of

God made

flesh,

right?

So this

starts to

develop into

the view

where the

humanity of

Jesus and

the divinity

of Jesus

sort of

create this

third thing,

this like

new

nature,

right?

So it's

like

right?

They like

come together

to create

something new,

a third

thing.

Mixing red

and blue

makes purple.

Exactly,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

or you have

water,

you have

water,

and you

have ink,

and you

drip the

ink into

the water,

and the

whole thing

kind of

becomes

something

else,

right?

Eutychianism,

which is

sort of a

confusion,

or a

combination

of the

natures,

right?

Now,

why,

when the

church started

to think

about this,

did it

start to

get

uncomfortable,

do you

think,

given what

we've talked

about in

this class

so far?

Well,

our nature

is not

a fusion

of two

nations.

Yep,

that's right.

Who is he

redeeming?

Who is

Christ?

Ah,

yes,

well,

that's right,

yeah,

who is

Jesus redeeming

in this

new

third

thing?

Anybody

else want

to add

to that?

It sort

of seems,

what is

he now?

And who

is he

saving?

Yeah,

anyone else

want to

jump in?

Why is

this kind

of mixture

of the

nature

something

that feels

problematic

to the

church,

you think?

Yeah,

he's not

God anymore.

What is

he?

He's not

human anymore,

and he's not

God anymore.

He's like,

what did

you say?

Alien,

yeah,

he's got

this new

thing,

right?

Yeah,

this is

exactly right.

So when the

church really

started to

think about

this,

they thought,

well,

then,

well,

goodness,

Jesus is

neither human

nor divine,

but something

else altogether,

and that

means he

can't do

what he

came to

do,

right?

He can't

actually save

us because

he's not

us anymore.

He's something

else altogether,

right?

Now,

again,

here's where

I want to

be maybe

charitable to

our forebears

in the faith,

right?

Can you see

how Nestorius

or even

Nestorianism

and Eutychism

or Eutychianism,

how they're

trying to hold

two things

together,

but maybe

falling off

either end

of the cliff,

right?

Because what

we want to

do is we

want to

hold together

he's fully

human and

fully divine,

but he's

not two

cats in

a bag,

right?

So we're

trying to

hold these

things together,

but you can

see how it's

easy to tip

off one

way or

to tip

off the

other,

to combine

the natures

together into

one person,

right?

One nature,

one person,

or two

natures in

two persons,

right?

So hard to

find that

balance,

the balance

that the

scriptures

present,

right?

That Jesus

is fully

human and

fully God,

but he is

one person,

right?

So how does

the church

try to sort

this out?

Well,

the short

story,

it goes,

that at the

Council of

Chalcedon,

this one's

Chalcedon,

sometimes you

hear it

Chalcedon,

Tyler,

what's your

preferred

pronunciation

of the

Council?

Chalcedon,

doesn't it?

Yeah,

yeah,

Chalcedon.

Where do I

write this?

I'll just

write it up

here.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

In 451,

so in 451,

the church has

another council

at Chalcedon

to try to hammer

out these

controversies that

we're developing.

So they're looking

back over the

last number of

years,

all the way back

to Apollinarianism,

actually,

Historianism,

Tuchianism,

and they're saying,

all right,

how are we going

to define,

how are we going

to define this

thing according

to scripture

and according

to what we

feel like the

church has

taught through

the years?

And this is

what's sometimes

called the

Chalcedonian

definition of

451.

And I'll read

this because

this is

really kind

of a high

watermark in

the church's

theological

development when

it comes to

the person

of Christ.

This is an

English translation

of it.

It says,

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

us,

right,

of the same

nature as us,

consubstantial

with us

according to

the manhood,

in all things

like 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,

see how they

slip that in

there in these

controversies,

according to

the manhood.

And here's

the sentence

that will get

kind of remembered

most throughout

history.

One in the

same Christ,

Son,

Lord,

only begotten,

so one,

right,

to be acknowledged

in two

natures,

inconfusably,

unchangeably,

indivisibly,

inseparably,

without confusion,

without change,

without division,

without separation.

The distinction

of natures

being by no

means taken

away by the

union.

The distinction

of the natures

being by no

means taken

away by the

union.

Who do they

have in the

eye there,

right?

The distinction

of the natures,

right?

But rather,

the property

of each being

preserved and

concurring in

one person and

one subsistence.

Okay,

subsistence.

This is sort

of technical,

that's a Latin

phrase, but the

Greek phrase there

would have been

hypostasis.

Sort of one,

again, they're

grappling for

language here.

Hypostasis

typically means

being, right?

One person,

one being,

right?

But two

natures,

not parted or

divided into

two persons,

there they're

glancing at

Nestorius,

right?

But one in

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 taught us,

and the creed of the

holy followers has

handed down to us.

Okay, there it is.

The definition of

Chalcedon.

And again, note,

two natures, right?

One person, two

natures, and the two

natures are without

confusion, without

change, without

division, without

separation.

The property of each

nature being preserved

and concurring in one

person.

And as I mentioned,

that word

subsistence or

hypostasis gets

picked up in later

theological language.

So when we're

talking about this

whole idea, we're

talking about the

hypostatic union.

The hypostatic union.

Okay, well, what

did the Council of

Chalcedon do for

us?

Did it make any

progress towards

answering the

question, do you

think?

Do you hear me read

that and think,

mystery solved.

I've got it figured

out.

What do you think?

So, these other

two views, Nestorius

and Eudakis, they

obviously, historically

precede the decision

that the Council

of Chalcedon.

Yes, yes, yes.

That's right.

So Nestorianism, what

became known as

Nestorianism, was

denied in 431 in

Ephesus, right?

So, not that much

longer after, about

20 years later, right?

But it's all in the

same ballpark.

But yes, this is

after these debates

have been raging for

many years.

So, Chalcedon

merely adds another

option.

I wouldn't say

that.

Well, sure, it

depends.

It depends what you

mean by another

option, right?

It sounds like a

summary.

You're trying to make

sense of all the

other...

Yes, that's right.

That's right, yeah.

Yeah, what they're

doing...

Right, yeah.

What they're doing

at Chalcedon...

So, sometimes this

Chalcedonian

definition is sort of

disparaged.

It's like, well, it

doesn't really say

anything.

It sort of says

what we can't

say, right?

We can't say this,

we can't say this,

we can't say this.

And there is a

sense in which it

is saying that,

right?

Again, it is sort

of defining the

edges of the

sandbox wherein we

want to stay

within.

But it is making

some positive

statements, right?

And again, I think

they're scriptural

statements.

They're looking at

scripture and saying

this is what the

scriptures teach,