Definition of the Union of the Divine and Human Natures in
the Person of Christ
Council of Chalcedon, 451 A.D., Act V
Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one
accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at
once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man,
consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance (homoousios)
with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance
with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as
regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards
his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the
God-bearer (Theotokos); one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten,
recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division,
without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the
union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming
together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into
two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord
Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our
Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the Fathers has handed
down to us. (Referenced in the Book of
Common Prayer, page 864)
You may wonder why this matters at all. “I believe in Christ, so why bother with this
God and Man stuff?” It turns out that it
matters a great deal. In a previous post
I established how true love exists within the Trinity. That amongst the three persons, yet in the
oneness of God, there exists love and affirmation and affection, constantly
being given and received throughout all of eternity. Only God can participate in such a wonderful
thing, and yet, God desires to draw such lowly creatures as us into this
love. God is not content to love us from
a distance, but desires to have a loving relationship, whereby perfect love is
given and received. How can this happen?
It is safe to say that perfect love such as this rarely, if
ever exists within our world. So we need
a bridge. We need some way of connecting
our broken and sinful world to the perfect live and love within the
Trinity. The great mystery of our faith
is that in Jesus Christ, God the Son took up humanity itself, and united it to
him. He was born of the Virgin Mary, and
became every bit as human as you or I.
At the same time he remained God, with all of the Trinitarian love that
goes along with it.
The true miracle of Christ’s incarnation is that it put God
in a position to draw all of humanity into the life and love of the
Trinity. If we are made in the image of
God it should be our natural sate, but sin has corrupted and defiled that
image. So we look for someone to bridge
the gap, to set things right. Because of
Christ, God is both imminently close to us, and still transcends our ordinary
existence. By having both, we can
approach God in this world, and at the same time be drawn up to the next.
One of the lesser known legends of St. Nicholas a.k.a. Santa
Claus, is that during the Council of Nicea in 325 he slapped a heretic right
then and there. The issue in question was
this very duel nature of Christ. The
heretic wanted to deny the Church the complete connection. He couldn’t wrap his mind around so great a
mystery and thus sought to make God less.
Modern day heresies try to do the same thing. They either deny Christ’s divinity, thus
making Him unable to lift us out of our mess, or they deny or diminish His
humanity, making Him unrelatable. The
true Christian belief is that Christ is both – perfect God and perfect man, and
it’s only through Him that we are able to be drawn up into the wonder
fellowship of the Trinitarian life and love.
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