The Scriptural teaching and Christian belief that Jesus is of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father (that is to say He is God in nature) was proclaimed at the council of Nicea (325 AD). But how does His divine and human natures work together? This question was tackled in Chalcedon (Asia Minor, 451 AD) where a group of over five hundred bishops gathered in search of ecclesiastical unity in the East.

The resulting statement biblically laid out the revelation of Jesus’ two natures, how they work together, and guarded against their present-day heresies. Before you read the creed statement below, it is a sanctifying exercise to place yourself in their shoes. How would you have answered the question of Jesus’ two natures?

Imagine you have two different colors of clay in your hands, one representing Jesus’ divinity and the other representing Jesus’ humanity. How would you mold these two to accurately represent the two natures of Jesus Christ in His person? Would you take the clay of His humanity and wrap it around the clay of His deity, thus declaring Jesus as divine on the inside while human on the outside (like an M & M)? Well, if you did this it would be considered heresy. A bishop in Laodicea in roughly 361 AD named Apollinaris developed this view believing “that the one person of Christ had a human body but not a human mind or spirit and that the mind and spirit of Christ were from the divine nature of the Son of God.”¹ The heretical issue here concerns salvation. If Jesus were merely divine on the inside and human on the outside, then He would be an insufficient Savior. He had to be truly like us in every way in order to redeem us (see Hebrews 2:17).

Round two. Would you take both colors and mash them together? This also would be considered incorrect. Eutyches (c. AD 378–454), a monastery leader in Constantinople taught that the divine and human natures of Jesus were mixed with a new kind of nature arising. “[Eutyches] denied that the human nature and divine nature in Christ remained fully human and fully divine. He held rather that the human nature of Christ was taken up and absorbed into the divine nature, so that both natures were changed somewhat and a third kind of nature resulted.”² With a Jesus who was neither truly God nor truly man, the church would be left with an incompatible Savior.

Such an exercise in church history is humbling and sharpening. We can now appreciate even more the final statement from Chalcedon in 451 AD.

“We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men 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 [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, 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 acknowledged 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.”³

What then would be a more accurate way to combine the two different colors of clay to illustrate the two natures of Jesus? By simply joining them together side by side. This preserves each nature yet keeps them connected together in the one person of Christ.

Moreover, it is helpful to read this Chalcedonian creed against the false beliefs it was trying to protect Christians from. For example, “Against the view of Apollinaris that Christ did not have a human mind or soul, we have the statement that He was “truly man, of a reasonable soul and body…consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us.”⁴

Additionally, “Against the view…that Christ only had one nature, and that His human nature was lost in union with the divine nature, we have the words ‘to be acknowledged in two natures, incofusedly, unchangeably…the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved.’ The human and divine natures were not confused or changed when Christ became man, but the human nature remained a truly human nature, and the divine nature remained a truly divine nature.”⁵

The council of Chalcedon (451 AD) is a beautiful expression of the biblical truths of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us continue to stand with it as it stands on Scripture.

Sources
Gonzales, Justo L. The Story of Christianity, Volume 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. HarperSanFrancisco, 1984.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1994.
Hall, J. H., “Chalcedon, Council of” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology 2nd ed., ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2001), 218–219.