The Christ of the Creeds

Why should we as Christians be concerned about doctrine that sets the boundaries.

It establishes the borders over which you dare not travel new dare not transgress those lines because the only thing on the other side of those borders will be some kind of heresy. Why that document divides is being heard loud and clear. Today we hear that unity is far more important than theological clarity about what we believe matters and today on Renewing Your Mind, Dr. RC Sproul will underscore that point as he continues his series on systematic theology is a message that clarifies who Jesus is. Fortunately Christians throughout church history have thought long and hard about that and we benefit from their work.

When we looked earlier at the doctrine of the Trinity. I mentioned how that the greatest concern for the early church theologically was to establish a clear understanding of the biblical portrait of Jesus were on the one hand, the deity and humanity of Christ were confessed and the unity of God was preserved and we saw how that worked out. For example, in the developments that led up to the Council of Nicaea and the framing of the Nicene Creed which took place in the fourth century. Also, some of you may remember that time, I mentioned that the church has faced a major crisis with respect to their understanding of Jesus in four centuries in church history. The fourth century the fifth century the 19th century with the advent of 19th century liberalism which made a fierce assault on the deity of Christ and the 20th century support for us to understand that because we happen to be living in a time where the person of Christ is a matter of great controversy among theologians witnessing the radical teachings of the so-called Jesus seminar that have taken scissors and razors to the Bible and chopped it up to such a degree that they've made mincemeat out of it and give us precious little to rely on from the biblical documents even questioning such things as Jesus being born in Bethlehem, but in any case throughout church history. The church is always had to define her understanding of the person of Christ and in the fifth century the church faced a crisis that was different from that provoked by the Arian controversy that led to the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century and this crisis led to the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in the year 451 I remember again as a graduate student under Prof. Burke hour in the Netherlands studying the person of Christ and in his writings Burkart had a whole chapter devoted to the Council of Chalcedon and the title of the chapter in his book was this Chalcedon – a terminal counsel? The fascinating title for a chapter on Christology in the question.

The Burke hour was raising there was was jostled on the last great Christological counsel. There were other issues faced later in some other lesser counsel, but was it the last terminal counsel of church history to define the person of Christ and his answer was, basically, yes, for the simple reason that it was unimaginable that the church could ever go beyond where Chalcedon went in their formulation of the person of Christ. Now what provoked the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century was the assault on Christian orthodoxy that came on two fronts. The church was fighting a war on two fronts at that time. On the one hand, there was the heresy of a man by the name of you techies that was called the Monophysite heresy and on the other hand, there was the heresy that emerged under the leadership of a man by the name of Nestorius which was consequently called the Nestorian heresy. And so what was involved in these heretical views were simply this in the first place.

You techies denied that Christ had two natures, a human and divine nature, and hence his position was called Monophysite from the prefix mono which means one or single and from the board fuses from which we get the word physics, which is the study of the nature of things and so the Monophysite heresy was the view that Christ had only one nature. Now remember in our doctrine of the Trinity, the church was very clear in affirming that God has only one nature and there.

The difficulty was having one nature or one being with three persons and just the opposite problem comes up. With respect to the person of Christ, because here you have one person with two natures well of that was what you techies objected against and said that Christ only had one nature while you would ask the question then out of the proceeding that one nature was adjusted.

Human nature or just a divine nature because there had been those prior to you techies who had argued that Christ is only one nature of those who said that he was simply human with no deity, and others who argue that he was completely divine, such as the Dawson Tsuda denied his true humanity might think that you techies would be in one of those two cans, but alas that's not the case.

What you techies formulated was an idea that Christ had a single which we call the man from fake nature. Let's take a few moments to define this $0.50 word the anthropic because is not a word that you hear every day you might hear the word philanthropic, but you don't usually hear the word philanthropic philanthropic somebody who is engaged in philanthropy or who is philanthropic Lee implied is somebody who manifests a love for humanity.

The word Philadelphia the city of brotherly love the light of his love, Adele Foss's brother well in Greek the word for man is the word author plus and the word for God is the word the office and so what is happening here is that the Greek word for God is just jam together with the Greek word for man taking the word fat loss and answer possible placing them together and what is in view here is this that what you techies were saying was that Christ's nature was neither human nor divine, but it was kind of a hybrid form a mixture that is partly divine and partly human but neither truly divine nor truly human, but rather a blending, mixing or confusing of deity and humanity. On the other side there was the Nestorian heresy and Nestorius argued that if Christ has two distinct natures divine and human nature. He must therefore have two distinct personalities two natures would spell to persons you have two persons.

You have two natures of your two natures you have two persons and so the doctrine of Christ was being attacked from both sides one denying the dual nature of Christ by reducing it to a single confused mixture between divine and human and the other one, though affirming two natures denied the unity of those two natures by separating the natures or dividing the natures from the person's so it's that issue that provoked the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and at that counsel we get the classic formulation for what we call the duel do well nature of Christ, namely, that Christ is one person with two natures and the formula that we meet at Chalcedon is found in the words vera Homo vera diagnosis while the words vera here of course is the word from which we get Veritas or verily veracity, voracious, and so on. It's the word based on the Latin word for truth and so the idea here is that Christ is confessed to be truly man, and truly God and so if the church is to be consistent with the Scriptures we have to confess that in Christ we meet one who has a true human nature and at the same time, one who has a true, divine nature as well.

Then, beyond this simple affirmation that Christ is truly man, and truly God. It says that the two natures are perfectly united and then what is affixed to the confession at Chalcedon to the creed is a list of what is called the famous historical for negatives.

Some of you might recall, early on in our study. When we look at the difficulty of making descriptive terms were speaking in descriptive language about the nature of God.

I said that the church had made use of different ways of describing things, including what I mentioned at the time was the way of negation whereby we define what God is by saying what he is not. He is infinite, meaning he is not finite is in mutable meaning he is not mutable.

We take a concept that we understand like mutability or finitude and then we attach the negative form to it, and that's called the way of negation when you have these four famous negatives at the Council of Chalcedon that are very important for the historic understanding of Christ. The church confess that Christ was truly human, truly God, the two natures perfectly united without mixture confusion separation or division is the for negatives without mixture, confusion, separation or division in the first part of the formula obviously what is in view is the heretical teaching of you techies in his Monophysite heresy saying that the two natures, the divine and the human are not mixed together or confused or blended in such a way that you have a deified human nature or a humanized divine nature that human nature is always human subjected to the normal limitations of humanity the divine nature is always divine. It's not mixed up with the pound of flesh or a pound of humanity is not that, all of a sudden, the divine mind loses its omniscience in the incarnation, the divine mind knows everything but the human mind does not resample the searches try to come to grips with questions that arise in the New Testament. For example, when the disciples asked Jesus questions regarding his return. And Jesus says that of the day and the hour no man knows not even the sun, but only the father not so at that point, Jesus says to his disciples. Here is something I don't know well with that be an indication of the human nature or of the divine nature. People struggle with this on the one hand, we look at the life of Jesus as it is displayed for us in the pages of Scripture. Certain things are easy when we see that Jesus is perspiring. He sweating in the garden of Gethsemane is that a human manifestation of meanness sweat something that you expect from God. God doesn't sweat God doesn't get hungry. God doesn't bleed.

God doesn't cry. God doesn't die divine nature doesn't die on the cross of the divine nature died on the cross, the universe would cease to exist. So we see many things in the life of Jesus. The display or evidence is humanity now when he says there's something I don't know without display something of his humanity or of his deity obviously would be a statement regarding his humanity, but some people say wait a minute. If that's God incarnate, and God knows everything and there's a perfect union between the divine nature and human nature.

How could it be that there's something that Jesus doesn't know what it's like saying well if there's a perfect unity between the divine nature and human nature. How could the human nature get hungry because God never gets hungry again. The point that we have to make here is that the church says that it's absolutely important to distinguish between the divine nature and the human nature so that we don't confuse them and blend them in together in such a way as to obscure the reality either of the divine nature or of the human nature and by like manner as soon as I start talking about distinguishing the two natures I have some friends to come up to me and say you're a Nestorian because your dividing or separating the two natures when you say or say that in this human nature. Jesus didn't know the day and the hour or two separating his human nature from his divine nature of sin no distinguishing them that human mind was always in unity with the divine mind and we see Jesus displaying supernatural knowledge all the time in the New Testament where he reveals things that he knows that no human could possibly know on their own. Where does he get that information. I guess it from the one who is omniscient, but it's one thing for the divine nature to communicate knowledge to the human nature, it's another thing for the divine nature to swallow up the human nature and deify the human mind of Christ to see the difference. The human mind had access to the divine mind if you will, but they were not to say, so there were certain things that Jesus did not know by his own testimony that really perplex somebody as great as Thomas Aquinas who formulated what he called the accommodation theory, where he said Jesus had to know the coward is God incarnate, and there's a perfect union, there could there be something that the divine mind knows the human mind is not that can't be said so Jesus must've known in this accommodation theory was, he said, but the knowledge was too mysterious. Was too deep it was to only whatever and the cut the Gordian knot to spare all the explanation of theological difficulty that they wouldn't understand anyway as the mega simply told him he didn't know and I will promise that's helpful one point on the other hand, if Jesus is telling his disciples that he doesn't know something that he actually knows he's lying. He's deceiving them and if he did, it may even be a little white life that's just enough to disqualify him as our Savior, because he can't have any sin, and so we have to take seriously what Jesus says about the limits, humanly speaking of his own knowledge, just like his body was limited physically, and his appetite underwent transitions and changes just like ours are engaged in. So in any case before negatives here are without mixture confusion that is designed to eliminate the Monophysite heresy without separation or division. Those two words are designed to eliminate the Nestorian heresy and all for negatives are setting for us the boundaries in which we seek to understand the mystery of the incarnation. I stress the word mystery because even with these formulae that the church gives let's not kid ourselves. Nobody in this world has ever penetrated the depths of the mystery of how Christ can be truly God and truly man, we don't have any reference for that in all of history. Here we have one who is suing Gaynor season the class by himself. There's only been in all of human history.

One person ever appear on the sphere of this earth was God incarnate, and how the mystery of the incarnation works is beyond our full understanding. This takes us right back to the first lecture on the incomprehensibility of God and so well if all we have are negative terms does not tell us we really don't noisy about it. No, the value of Chalcedon here is twofold. On the one hand there is the affirmation the very important affirmation every Christian has to make the Christ is truly human and truly divine.

And then whenever the church tries to explain the nature of that unity. Then they fall back on negatives and about all that accomplishes my relation even said that way that all that are called because of the clubs is something extremely important is that it sets the boundaries. It establishes the borders over which you dare not travel you dare not transgress those lines because the only thing on the other side of those borders will be some kind of heresy. I remember again when I was a seminary student art professor systematics later went on to become the Dean of Yale Divinity school and we were dealing with the subject of Chalcedon in class one day and he said if you try to think concretely about the nature of the union of the human nature with the divine nature said if you go very far to get yourself in deep trouble. He said because if you want to go beyond these negative categories established by Chalcedon. He said to some never get subdominant choose your heresy because the only thing on the other side of those boundaries will be some kind of heretical distortion of our understanding of Christ.

And so that's the great service that this creed has given to us to restrict us to say no matter how you conceive of the two natures don't think of them as being in Amalgamated confusion or blending of two and don't think of them as being separated or divorced from one another. There United yet distinct amendment added to that is a very important wind chill salons been woefully neglected. Historically, each nature retaining its own attributes crucial that in Christ, the divine nature does not lay aside any of his divine attribute the divine nature in Christ is eternal, infinite, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, and all the rest and the human nature also retains the attributes of humanity. It is limited.

It is finite, is restricted to space and time and so so with that formula, we get some direction that I hope will help guide us as we continue our study of person, etc. RC scroll with a message from his series, foundations, an overview of systematic theology over the next several days here on Renewing Your Mind were highlighting the portion of the series that concentrates on the life and work of Christ as we saw today if we swing in any direction away from the biblical revelation of Christ we stumble in the heresy understanding Christ properly is critical. That's why would like to send you Dr. Sproles complete teaching series 60 lessons in all on eight DVDs you will gain a firm knowledge of the Bible, God, the Trinity man sin and salvation so request the series today with your gift of any amount you can find us online@renewingyourmind.org or you can call us at 800-435-4343 and when you requested this week will also include a bonus disc containing the study guide as well as the audio files of the full series. So again request the 60 part series foundations by calling us at 800-435-4343 if you prefer you can give your gift online@renewingyourmind.org. We are so thankful for your financial gifts especially this time of year and as you think about your year-end giving. I hope you'll keep us in mind, we remain committed to the mission. RC entrusted to us to come alongside the church to provide trustworthy teaching resources like you heard today and that's happening more and more. Your gifts will help us start 2021. With the funding necessary to accomplish that goal well before we go today. Here's a preview of what will hear tomorrow from Dr. Sproles that the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue that's what that he is he is curious that he is the glory of God the father as we read through Scripture, we discover that Jesus has many names many titles sent tomorrow. RC will explain what they mean.

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