Truly God, Truly Man

Posted on by
Reply

Article by Dr. Nicholas Needham, minister of Inverness Reformed Baptist Church in Inverness, Scotland, and lecturer in church history at Highland Theological College in Dingwall, Scotland. He is author of 2,000 Years of Christ’s Power.

It’s hard enough to pronounce “Chalcedon.” Getting to grips with its theology can be even more daunting. But the effort will be very richly rewarded. For the past 1,500 years, right up to the present day, virtually all orthodox Christian theologians have defined their “orthodoxy” with reference to the Council of Chalcedon. That certainly includes the Reformed tradition. We may not think that the early ecumenical councils were infallible. But we have generally held that they were gloriously right in what they affirmed, and that Christians who take the church and its history seriously must reckon with these great councils as providential landmarks in the unfolding life story of God’s people.

What was Chalcedon all about? Basically it was trying to settle the aftermath of the Arian controversy in the fourth century. Biblical theologians had struggled successfully against Arianism to affirm the deity of Christ. But this led to further controversy. This time, the issue was the relationship between the divine and the human in Christ. Two tendencies quickly became prominent. One was associated with the church in Antioch. It wanted to protect the full reality of Christ’s deity and humanity. To do this, it tended to keep them as far apart as possible. The Antiochenes were afraid that any close blending of the two natures might mix them up. Christ’s human limitations might get applied to His deity — in which case He wasn’t fully God. Or His divine attributes might get applied to His humanity — in which case He wasn’t fully human. This was fine, as far as it went. The trouble was, Antiochenes sometimes separated Christ’s two natures so much, He seemed to end up as two persons: a human son of Mary indwelt by a divine Son of God. The most famous Antiochene thinker who took this line was Nestorius, a preacher who became patriarch (chief bishop) of Constantinople in 428. Nestorius was condemned by the third ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431 (it also condemned Pelagianism as heresy).

The other tendency was associated with the church of Alexandria. Their main concern was to protect the divine person of the Son as the one single “subject” of the incarnation. In other words, there is in Christ only one “I,” only one personal agent, and this is the second person of the Trinity, God the Son. And again, this was fine as far as it went. The trouble was, Alexandrians sometimes became so zealous for Christ’s divine person, they could lose sight of His humanity. To the extremists of Alexandria, any sort of emphasis on Christ’s human nature seemed to threaten the sovereignty of His single divine person. Would Christ not break apart into two persons — the hated Nestorian heresy — if one insisted too much on the full reality of His manhood?

In the aftermath of Nestorius’ condemnation at Ephesus in 431, the Alexandrians made all the running. Their greatest thinker was Cyril of Alexandria. But when Cyril died in 444, a more extreme figure stepped into his place. This was Eutyches, a leading monk in Constantinople. Eutyches was so violent in his commitment to Christ’s single divine person, he could tolerate no rivalry (as it were) from His humanity. So in an infamous phrase, Eutyches taught that in the incarnation, Christ’s human nature had been swallowed up and lost in His divinity: “like a drop of wine in the sea.” This extreme Alexandrian view triumphed at another ecumenical council in Ephesus in 449. Its victory, however, was due less to theological argument and persuasion, and due more to gangs of unruly Alexandrian monks who terrorized the proceedings, supported by the troops of emperor Theodosius II, who favored Eutyches.

The council was condemned in the western, Latin-speaking half of the Roman Empire. Pope Leo the Great thundered against it as the “Robber Synod” (and the name stuck). After the death of emperor Theodosius, a new emperor, Marcian, called a new council at Chalcedon (in Asia Minor) in 451. This time, Eutyches and the extreme Alexandrians were defeated. The council skillfully wove together all that was good and true in the Antiochene and Alexandrian outlooks, producing a theological masterpiece on the person of Christ:

So, following the holy fathers, we all with one voice teach the confession of one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; of one essence with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same of one essence with us as regards his humanity; like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days, for us and for our salvation, the same born of Mary, the virgin God-bearer, as regards his humanity.

He is one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation. At no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being. He is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself instructed us, and as the creed of the fathers handed it down to us.

Perhaps we can best appreciate what the Council of Chalcedon achieved by asking what the consequences would have been if either Nestorius or Eutyches had won the day. Let’s take Nestorianism first. If the incarnation is really a case of a human son of Mary being indwelt by a divine Son of God, then Christ is no different in principle from any holy human. Every sanctified man is indwelt by the Son. Was Christ merely the highest example of that? If so, no true incarnation has taken place at all. We cannot say “Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God.” We can only say “Jesus of Nazareth had a relationship with the Son of God.” Think of what this does to our doctrine of the atonement. We would have to say we are saved by the sufferings of a merely human Jesus who happened to be indwelt by God (as all holy people are). Would that not inevitably lead to a belief that human suffering — perhaps our own — can atone for our sins? And think of what it would do to our worship. We would not be able to worship Jesus — only the divine Son by whom Jesus was indwelt. That would destroy Christian worship entirely.

But then, think what would have happened if Eutychianism had won out. If Christ’s humanity was lost and swallowed up in His deity “like a drop of wine in the sea,” then once again, no real incarnation has taken place. Rather than God becoming man, we have man being annihilated in God. One can see how this would easily have lent itself to all manner of humanity-denying mysticism. After all, if Christ is our pattern, shouldn’t we too seek for our own humanity to be lost and swallowed up in deity like a drop of wine in the sea?

The fathers at Chalcedon set themselves firmly against both of these unwholesome tendencies. They affirmed that Christ is indeed one single divine person, not some alliance of a divine and a human person, as in Nestorianism. The subject, the “I,” the personal agent whom we meet in Jesus Christ is singular, not plural; this person is “the Only-begotten Son, God, Word, Lord” — the second person of the Godhead. Mary is therefore rightly called the “God-bearer,” a truth passionately rejected by Nestorius. The person whom Mary bore was precisely God the Son! Mary is the mother of God incarnate (although not, of course, the mother of the divine nature). The fathers of Chalcedon equally affirmed that this one person exists in two distinct natures, complete deity and complete humanity, thus rejecting the Eutychian absorption of one into the other. We see in Christ everything that it is to be human, and everything that it is to be divine, at one and the same time, without either being compromised by the other. We could say that in Christ, for the first time and the last, all the fullness of human being, and all the fullness of divine being, have come together and exist together in exactly the same way — as the Son of the Father and the Bearer of the Holy Spirit. Or to put it more simply, Christ is fully and truly man, fully and truly God, at the same time, in a single person.

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; 
Hail the incarnate deity! 
Pleased as Man with man to appear: 
Jesus, our Emmanuel here.

The fathers of Chalcedon did a fine job. In matters christological, we can perhaps only ever be dwarfs on their giant shoulders. We may be enabled to see even further, if we sit there. But if we climb off, I somehow doubt that we’ll see anything but Nestorian and Eutychian mud.

A man found him there

Posted on by
Reply

Article by Chris Gibbs, Pastor of Denver Baptist Church, Denver, NC

(original source: https://missionbeforeme.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-man-found-him-there.html

In Genesis 37 we read about the well-known story of Joseph, who is the 11th son of the old patriarch Jacob, whose father was Isaac, whose father with Abraham. We are told that Joseph is Jacob’s favorite son, which doesn’t sit well with his brothers. In fact, the text says that after Joseph was given a “robe of many colors” that his brothers “hated him and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him.” 
Joseph didn’t help improve relations with his brothers by telling them about a couple of dreams he had. The first involved seeing all these sheaves of grain bundled up and laying in a field. Joseph’s sheaf stood up, and his brothers sheaves bowed down before it. His brothers clearly understood the message–Joseph thought that one day he would rule over them.
The second dream didn’t sit any better with them. Joseph told them that he saw the sun, moon and eleven stars bowing down before him. Eleven stars represented his eleven brothers, the ones who already hated him (except for the youngest, Benjamin). This dream even upset dear old dad, who “rebuked him” for elevating himself as someone that even his parents would bow down to. 
If you know the rest of the story, then you know that it was to be true. What Joseph saw in those dreams actually happened. One day Jacob sent Joseph out to visit with his brothers, who had traveled some distance away to pasture the flock and herds. He wanted to know how things were going, so he sent Joseph to get a report and bring it back to him. When Joseph showed up the anger of his brothers showed out and they threw him into a pit. They debated whether or not they should kill him, but eventually decided to sell him into slavery when a caravan of Ishmaelites passed by. Say goodbye, Joseph, to your robe, your dreams, and your spot as dad’s favorite. 
The brothers watched Joseph ride off towards Egypt, then returned home with a mangled robe that they smeared with goat’s blood. Jacob mourned the “death” of his son, thinking a wild animal had torn him to pieces. 
Years later a severe famine would hit the land, and Jacob’s family would find themselves in a dire situation. Word had come that there was grain in Egypt, so off the boys went. You know how the story plays out–Joseph had been favored by God, risen to second in command, and put in place a savings plan that allowed there to be plenty of grain stored up when the famine hit. One day he notices his brothers, hoping to buy grain, and guess what? They eventually bow before Joseph, who in time reveals that he is their brother. Instead of killing them for their betrayal, he forgives them and  says, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.”
The small band of Israelites are saved from destruction, eventually move to Egypt and grow into a flourishing nation. From there they make it to the Promised Land, which God had promised their father Abraham when He made His covenant with him earlier in Genesis. Fast forward a few thousand years and another covenant promise is kept when Jesus, the “offspring” of Abraham comes on a mission to save sinners from another kind of destruction through His death and resurrection. In Him, Jesus, all the nations would be blessed, just as God had promised. 
It is a familiar story. But there is one event in Genesis 37 that is easy to overlook or quickly read past without thinking much about it. As I re-read this chapter, I sat on these words for a while, pondering them and wondering why they made it into the story. Here they are, from Genesis 37:15-17…

15  A man found him [Joseph] there, wandering in the field, and asked him, “What are you looking for?”
16  “I’m looking for my brothers,” Joseph said. “Can you tell me where they are pasturing the flocks?”
17  “They moved on from here,” the man said, “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.” So Joseph set out after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

Right in the middle of the story an unnamed man shows up and points Joseph in the right direction. Apparently he had been around his brothers earlier, close enough to hear them discuss their travel plans. 
Why is this little, seemingly insignificant event a part of this story? Who is this nameless man? What is the point? Those were the questions I rolled over in my mind as I read this chapter. I think I found the answer by asking some other questions: what if Joseph gives up looking for his brothers and goes back home? What if he is never sold into slavery and never winds up in Egypt? What if his family perishes during the future famine? What if the young band of Israelites is destroyed?
See, that little random, nameless man matters. He reminds us that the God we worship is a God who keeps His promises and accomplishes His plans. He had made a covenant with Abraham and He intended to keep it. There is young Joseph, wandering around in some field. Then suddenly this man shows up and points him in the right direction. It is possible that Joseph may have been sitting in the bottom of that pit, which his brothers overhead eating their lunch and plotting his demise, thinking, “I wish I had never met that man in the field.”
That encounter in that field wasn’t some random, lucky meeting. It was a weapon of war. Ever since Genesis 3:15, when God promised the serpent that he would be crushed by the seed of the woman, who is Jesus, that serpent had been trying to derail the redemptive plan of God, to wipe out God’s people so that the One promised never arrives. This happens over and over again in the Old Testament. Pharaoh orders all the Israelite baby boys thrown into the Nile. Goliath, dressed in armor that looks like snake scales, threatens to rip apart young David, from whom the true King would come. Haman tricks the king into passing a law that all the Jews should die, which sprung Queen Esther into action for “such a time as this.”
You really can summarize the redemptive story of the Bible with three phrases: Satan rages, God laughs, and Jesus wins. 
Satan doesn’t want God to keep His covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because he knows that means his ultimate defeat. He wants God’s promises to fail, so he rages against God’s people and wars against them. So, see Joseph scratching his head in that field as a pivotal moment in this spiritual war. “Go home Joseph,” the snake may have whispered. 
But God laughs. “He who sits in the heavens laughs…” (Psalm 2:4). He laughs in the face of anyone who thinks that they can diminish His glory or thwart His plans. Everything is under God’s control, including every little detail in the universe. Satan can rage and plot all he wants to against Jesus. He can stir up kings and generals to plot against those who follow Jesus. He can convene councils, lead rebellions, even possess people and lead them to act against the glory of God. He who sits in the heavens laughs. Why? Because nothing can stop Him from fulfilling His plan to rescue sinners, to defeat the devil, to exalt His Son Jesus Christ in all the earth. Nothing and no one can derail the sovereign plan of our all-powerful, all glorious, all gracious, holy, righteous, just, magnificent God!
In the end, Jesus wins. Like Joseph, Jesus was uniquely loved by His Father. He was also hated by His brothers, who rejected the idea that He would rule over them. Like Joseph, Jesus was also sent to His brothers by His Father, and those brothers conspired against Him, falsely accused Him, and handed Him over to Gentiles. Like Joseph, Jesus is sold for the price of a slave. He, too, is stripped of His garments and condemned to die. Like Joseph, Jesus is numbered with transgressors even though He was faithful amid temptation and was innocent. And also like Joseph, Jesus is exalted through humiliation, forgives those who betrayed Him and uses His power to save them.
But Jesus is unlike Joseph in one important way–his brothers only threatened to kill him but instead sent him away. Jesus’ brothers made good on their threats and actually put Him to death. Joseph can only offer grain to hungry people, that they may go and make bread; but Jesus is the bread come down from heaven. His body, represented at His table by bread, was broken for us. The blood of a goat is sprinkled on Joseph’s garment and presented to his father, which was a cover-up for their sin; but Jesus, the Lamb of God, presented His own blood to the Father as an offering for our sin. 
Just as people bowed before Joseph, the Bible says that one day “every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.” Joseph’s brothers found favor with Pharaoh because of their relationship to Joseph; today we find favor with God because of our relationship to Jesus. Joseph was called a “savior” in his day for saving his people from physical death; but Jesus has done something greater–He has delivered us from spiritual death in His cross and resurrection and has been given a name is the exalted above all names. Jesus wins.
Be encouraged that if God has gone to great lengths to keep His promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, He will keep His promises to you. Nothing can stop His plans from coming to pass. He is orchestrating every event of this universe to accomplish His desires–whether it is sending a nameless man to a field to direct Joseph, or some other event of history. 
So, fill your heart with hope today! Rest in His promises to you! Rejoice in the victory of Jesus! Be faithful to Him and His mission until He comes for you. Endure suffering, knowing that a day of deliverance has been promised for you. Stay the course, knowing that one day you shall see Him. Though Satan may rage, Jesus will not fail.