Often in the history of humanity, people don’t really consider deeply what their position is on a matter until a controversy arises that forces them to analyze the issues and settle on their personal standing regarding a particular topic. The Church found itself having to deal with various assertions that it felt were heretical regarding the person of Christ in the fifth century AD.
In AD 451, the Roman Emperor Marcian convoked the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian church which convened in the city of Chalcedon (in modern-day Turkey) to settle the Church’s position regarding certain heresies that had developed regarding the person and natures of Christ. The Council of Chalcedon:
settled the controversies concerning the person and natures of our Lord Jesus Christ and established confessionally the truths of the unity of the divine person and the union and distinction of the divine and human natures of Christ. It condemned especially the error of Nestorianism, which denied the unity of the divine person in Christ; the error of Apollinarianism, which denied the completeness of Christ’s human nature; and the error known as Eutychianism, which denied the duality and distinction of the divine and human natures of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Creed of Chalcedon, Protestant Reformed Churches in America website, https://www.prca.org/about/official-standards/creeds/ecumenical/chalcedon, accessed October 3, 2022.
Out of the Council of Chalcedon came the Creed of Chalcedon. A creed is a succinct statement of what the Church believes to be the scriptural truth about certain fundamental matters. The truth of the person and natures of our Lord Jesus Christ came out of the Council of Chalcedon. The essence of the Creed of Chalcedon is found in article 19 of the Belgic Confession and chapter 8 of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Here is an excerpt of the Creed of Chalcedon:
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 soul and body; 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 taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.
The Creed of Chalcedon, Theopedia, https://www.theopedia.com/chalcedonian-creed, accessed October 3, 2022.
The preceding excerpt from the Creed of Chalcedon is a concise summary of the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ in one person of Christ. The idea of fully God and fully man yet one person involves the hypostatic union (hypostasis means “one person; one individual existence”) and it is difficult for humans with their natural world minds to mentally “get their arms around” such a concept. The truth is that we cannot totally comprehend many mysteries of the gospel including this one. Nevertheless, the Bible teaches of this kind of union and we have knowledge of it and believe it because God’s revealed Word says it.
The Bible teaches unequivocally that the godhead is a triune divine being of three distinct persons each of whom possesses fully the single divine essence and are thus equally divine. Jesus Christ is one person with two natures, one divine and one human, which natures were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion, and is indivisible but distinct. Christ is one person, fully God and fully man, whose natures are in hypostatic union.
