The Chalcedonian Definition
What is the Chalcedonian Definition and why does it matter?
After Jesus’ death, and well after the first disciples and apostles had passed away, the early Christians went to great lengths to try and better understand God, with a particular interest in the person of Jesus. They wondered things like, “Was Jesus really God?” Or, “How could God be God while also being human?” Or, “How could Jesus be God if he was born of a woman?” And even, “Was Jesus really born God or was he adopted into his Godness?”
These questions led to arguments. The arguments led to major church councils. And the councils led to the formation of creeds, statements, and declarations that we now consider to be summaries of Orthodox (true) Christian beliefs.
One such council was the Council of Chalcedon—also known as the fourth ecumenical council.
Around the year of 451 AD, an emperor by the name of Marcion wanted to bring unity to the church over matters surrounding the nature of Christ. So in October of that year he gathered bishops and other Christian leaders from the region in order to come to some agreement. There, they discussed questions like, “Was Jesus fully God and fully man?” “Was he more one than the other?” Or, “Was he born a man and made into a God?” And eventually, after much deliberation, research, reviewing of previous church councils, prayer, and study of New Testament letters, they came to agreement.
This is what they found:
We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach all people 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 (rational) soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, yet 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, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledge in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably;
the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and 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 has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.
Whereas the Nicene Creed (produced earlier at the Council of Nicaea) is a Trinitarian statement, the Chalcedonian Definition above is a Christological statement that is concerned with the nature of Jesus. And as they state above, Jesus was one person with two natures: fully God and fully man. While this may seem obvious to us today, such a statement was hardly simple to come by. But after rigorous study of the Scriptures, and learning from those before them, they found that Jesus was not adopted into Godness, nor only partly human. Rather, Jesus was one person, fully God and fully man, born of Mary, who condescended to us to bring us salvation and union with God.
Thus, rather than try and understand Jesus through our own wisdom, this Spring in Redemption Youth we will be reciting this definition every week in order to be reminded who Jesus is, so that as we wrestle with difficult passages in John’s Gospel regarding the person of Jesus, we can lean on the wisdom of those faithful Christians who came before us who help us to know Jesus rightly.