Sunday (1.10.10), the first week of our “Personal Jesus” series, we laid out the ground-rules for considering the humanity of Jesus Christ. How do we keep the balance of the divinity of Jesus while at the same time not minimize the humanity of Jesus? Where is the dividing line? In order to give a solid, time-testing answer, I appealed to how the church solved this issue in the passed.

Wrong Answer #1

The Nestorian Heresy

The Council Nicea (in 325) had declared the church’s belief that God is one in essense and three in person, the “Trinity.” The next attack on the faith centered on the Person of Christ.
Nestorius became a religious leader (patriarch) of Constantinople in 428. On coming to office, he exercised great energy in persecuting heretics. Among his victims were those who did not confess the two distinct natures in Christ (the divine and human). Nestorius, however, understood “distinct” to meant separate. Nestorius taught that the divine Word (Logos) and the human Jesus were two separate persons who were joined together in some sort of moral or sympathetic union. According to Nestorius, the Son of God had joined Himself to the child named Jesus because of Jesus’ own moral excellence in his person. And so Jesus was born, grew to manhood, hungered and thirsted, suffered pain, and was crucified, dead, and buried. The Divine, Son of God, on the other hand, endured none of these things. He was with Jesus — so much so that Nestorius taught that the man Jesus ought to be worshipped — but He was a different or seperate person, incapable of experiencing anything human. To Nestorius, the Divine and the human could no longer mix than oil and water could mix. while there are multiple problems with this view, there were two that were clear. First, this teaching would lead to the worship of a mere human, Jesus. Let alone trying to determine how do you worship the divine half of Jesus alone? Two, the conclusion of Nestorius was based on mere philosophical speculations. The authority of God’s Word was at stake.

The Council of Ephesus (431), under Cyril’s leadership, declared Nestorius and his doctrine of the Incarnation anathema. The Council confessed the reality of Christ’s two natures. Nestorius was banished to upper-Egypt where he died alone in 451 A.D. However, there were many more questions to be asked regarding the precise relation between the divine and human nature of Jesus Christ.

Wrong Answer #2

The Monophysites Heresy (“single nature”)

As Nestorius erred in one direction, the Monophysites came along and erred in the other. They believed that Christ’s human nature had been absorbed into His divine nature, thus destroying it altogether or creating a mixture of the human and the divine in one single nature. In the name of preserving the one Person, they confused the two natures. Again, nowhere was there warrant in the Bible for such a conclusion. The monophysite teaching minimized both the unique divine nature of Jesus as well as His humanity, creating a type of alien hybrid. Again, a measurable solution was needed.

Pope Leo was determined to quell these philosophical speculations once and for all.

The Right Answer

The Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.)

The following statement was adopted as the binding standard by which the Church of Jesus Christ would abide when it comes to the Jesus being fully human and fully divine.

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 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; 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. [emphasis mine]

Notice that the Council (of between 500 and 600 bishops) did not try to answer exactly how the divine and human side of Jesus related (and thereby damage either one), but created a “formula” that dictated the relationship between the divine nature and the human nature of Jesus Christ.

In this solution, Chalcedon provides for us enough room for the Biblical Jesus to be fully divine in essence and yet fully human in his ability to experience life. This is exactly what we need to do. We need not shrink back from worshiping Jesus as Lord nor having confidence that Jesus experienced life so as to sympathize with the struggles of all humanity. The implications of this truth leads me to confidently affirm that Jesus gets your struggles, your hurts, your cares. The real and dynamic humanity of Jesus means that you can, with bold confidence, “Cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you.” I Peter 5:7

What an amazing God we serve!