So why don't we open in prayer? O Lord Godfather, we thank you for bringing us here today on this day you have set apart for your worship. We pray that as we study the confessions and creeds of your church, that we might see your sovereign hand working through the history of your people, the church. We pray that we might also look through the historical documents and that we might clearly see the text of Holy Scripture, that we might understand it better as it is the sole final authority May you bless our time and bless this lesson, that it might be to our edification, that we might grow in grace and in service to you. Amen. So over the last number of weeks, and I guess months at this point, we've been studying Nestorianism, Eutychianism, and the debates over the personhood and natures of Christ. This all built up to last lesson where we looked at the Chalcedonian definition, which is the final creed of the early church, and one of the greatest summaries of Christological orthodoxy produced by the church. So before we begin in the new material in today's lesson, I just wanted to read through the definition again so it's clear in our minds and for anyone who walked in afterwards, there's a quotation sheet you'll want and pick up one of the hymnals as well because there's a copy of the Westminster Confession there that we're going to be looking at as well. So reading from the Chalcedonian Creed, 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, inconfusably, unchangeably, indivisibly, and separably, 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 in 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. So what had we said last week? What is Chalcedon trying to affirm about Christ and his natures? First of all, how many natures does Chalcedon affirm that Christ has? Two, right? And what language is it using here in terms of Christ's natures? So it's towards the middle of that paragraph, and it's saying that his natures are unconfused, unchangeable, indivisible, and inseparable. that Christ is fully God and fully man, right? That his humanity does not in any way impair his divinity, nor does his divinity impair his humanity. Does that make sense? Now, Chalcedon didn't just stop there, right? It also affirms things regarding the properties or attributes of those natures. As we saw, this was the beginning of all of the debates in the 5th century, right? When Nestorius tried to argue that the attribute of being born couldn't be applied to divinity, and he kind of went off the rails arguing that therefore Christ is two persons. Right Chalcedon didn't just try to Correctly state what the issue of natures was but it tried to tie back to the earlier arguments and tried to create a cohesive in Christology according to what the scriptures teach and what it says is that the properties inherent to each nature are preserved in each nature and Concur in the one person of Jesus Christ So what that's saying is that you can rightly say Christ was born, or to the point that we covered a few months back, that Mary is the mother of God, as is said in the Chalcedonian Creed. It's not trying to give special honor to Mary. It's not trying to say that God had a beginning. It's simply affirming that the person of Christ was born according to his humanity, And given that his humanity is inseparable from his person, right, that he is both human and divine, that that attribute of being born concurs in the person of Christ. Does that make sense? So while that's some potentially high-minded theological verbiage, we've seen over the last few months why that verbiage is important, right? Because if you don't hold to that, you fall into one of the ditches of either that Nestorius fell into or that Eutychius fell into. So today we're going to look at the aftermath of the council and we're going to delve a bit more deeply into how we as reformed Christians understand and affirm Chalcedonian Christology. So with the closing of Chalcedon, we also see a closing of the early church period. For those long suffering enough to have stayed through or listened to this whole lesson series, there have been a number of recurring themes or threads to the fabric of the story of the early church. The first is the ongoing struggle between Alexandria and Antioch for whether Christ's divinity is to be stressed over all else or whether he is equally God and man as Antioch would affirm. Second was the evolving relationship between the church and the civil magistrate, particularly the civil magistrate in Constantinople. And the third was the unfolding Christological debates about how to understand the attributes of Christ and how to build up a scripturally sound vocabulary for affirming biblical truths about his natures. So let's look first at the controversy between Alexandria and Antioch. As we saw previously, the more extreme elements of the church at Antioch, those who wish to divide Christ into two persons, had already departed after the Council of Ephesus. After Chalcedon, the Egyptian church, which, as we covered earlier, had affirmed Miaphysitism, which was the doctrine that Christ has only one nature, which is a mixture of human and divine, split off from Orthodox Christianity at this point and remains distinct to this day. While attempts at reconciliation were made throughout the early Middle Ages, they came to naught. The doctrine of the two natures of Christ cannot be compromised away, and it was not. For those who held to the definition that was written down at Chalcedon, it became a touchstone of orthodoxy and Christology, just as the Nicene Creed is. On the relationship between the church and the state, the Council of Chalcedon was chalked up as one more win for those wishing for the civil magistrate to have an integral role in the life of the church. The controversy continued as an ever more overt power struggle throughout the Middle Ages. It isn't until the Concordat of Worms, the Reformation, and the American Revolution that we see a fundamental realignment of church and state. away from what we saw in church councils of the civil magistrate having a great deal of power to convene and rule over councils and choose leaders. Even in our own history as Presbyterians, the Westminster Assembly itself was convened at the behest of the civil magistrate and the original confession contained language defending that role. It wasn't until the changes adopted in the United States that we see the Westminster Standards affirm that the magistrate is to not interfere in church affairs. On the Christological thread we followed while Nicaea and Chalcedon together defined what a Christian must believe concerning substances, persons, and natures within the Godhead. The church continued into the Middle Ages to debate finer points. Whether Christ has one or two energies, whether he has one or two wills were hotly debated. Given that, you might ask why we should end the lesson series here then. The answer is that Chalcedon was the last great church council and the last great creed of the early church. As we've covered in previous weeks, the council at Chalcedon was leery of making a new creed. They were even more emphatic that we must be careful in producing additional ones. Along with the Chalcedonian creed that we all affirm, He also wrote the following, which is available as quotation number six on the handout sheet. These things, therefore, have been expressed by us with the greatest accuracy and attention. The holy ecumenical synod defines that no one shall be suffered to bring forward a different faith, nor to write, nor to put together, nor to excogitate, nor to teach it to others. but such as dare either to put together another faith or to bring forward or teach or to deliver a different creed, to as wish to be converted to the knowledge of the truth from the Gentiles or Jews or any heresy whatever, if they be bishops or clerics, let them be deposed. So the church fathers at Chalcedon made a strong point of saying that already in the Chalcedonian Creed they were affirming that Nicaea was all that was needed, but that Eutyches and other heretics had not properly understood Nicaea. They weren't trying to create a new creed in that they were trying to teach a new faith, right? They were trying to show that which Nicaea already says, but they were going to state more explicitly. And what they additionally said was a stern warning to those who might want to continue on continually reinventing the faith, reinventing creeds, changing that which the church has always taught, that they sternly warn against that. Does that make sense? So while this ends the historical section of this class, we're going to look at some applications of Chalcedon, namely how we understand and affirm the two natures of Christ as taught in our reformed confessions. So first, it's worth noting that these issues that we've spent a couple months on aren't just issues that were 5th century disputes. John Calvin himself spent considerable time writing on Christ's two natures. In his commentary on John 1, he wrote the following. You can see this in quotation number 7 if you'd like to follow along. And therefore, as Satan has made a variety of foolish attempts to overturn sound doctrine by heretics, he has always brought forward one or another of these two errors. Either that he, meaning Jesus, was the son of God and son of man in so confused a manner that neither his divinity remained entire, nor did he wear the true nature of man, or that he was clothed in flesh, so as to be as it were double, and to have two separate persons. Thus Nestorius expressly acknowledged both natures, but imagined two Christs, one who is God and another who is man. Eutychius, on the other hand, while he acknowledged that the one Christ is the Son of God and Son of man, left him neither of the two natures, but imagined that they were mingled together. So from this quotation, we see that the Christological errors of Nestorius and Eutychius were not just minor theological squabbles. These lasted into Calvin's day and are still actively referenced today. It's also important to note how carefully Calvin treats this subject. He exposits from John 1 that Christ can neither be divided into two persons as Nestorius did, nor is he to have his two natures merged into one nature as Eutychius did. The next paragraph makes this clear. Calvin wrote, the evangelist says what is well adapted to refute both of these blasphemies. When he tells us that the Logos was made flesh, we clearly infer from this the unity of his person. For it is impossible that he who is now a man could be any other than he who was always the true God, since it is said that God was made man. On the other hand, since he distinctly gives to the man Christ the name Logos, it follows that Christ, when he became man, did not cease to be what he formerly was, and that no change took place in that eternal essence of God, which was clothed in flesh. In short, the Son of God began to be man in such a manner that he continues to be that eternal Logos who had no beginning of time. From this, how is Calvin proving the unity of the personhood of Christ? What argument is he making? Exactly. Yeah, that when he became man, he didn't cease his divinity, right? And saying that the logos, the word was made flesh. He is saying that one must infer the unity of the person. If God was made man, then it must be the same person who is both God and man, right? Calvin is also saying that John one proves the two natures of Christ. How is he doing that? That's right. So just to repeat what Mr. Lovelady told us, so he is still the Logos, right? That Jesus Christ is given the name Logos or word while he is also a man, right? Being called both of flesh and the Logos, we have to affirm that he has both human and divine natures. He also makes the argument that since God cannot change, that he has the divine nature he has from the beginning of time, in addition to the human nature he took on at the incarnation. Does that make sense? So while that's clear to us, and we're going to see Calvin affirm that even more strongly in a moment, this actually is something viewed in some Protestant circles as a Reformed distinctive. So Calvin's views on the unchanging nature of Christ's divinity doesn't only apply to this proof from John 1 of his view of the two natures. Calvin also used this fact that God is unchanging to make a larger point about Christ's divinity. And if you'll turn over your quotation page to quotation number 8. Actually, sorry, I will get that in just a moment. So in looking at Calvin's view, I'm going to explain a finer theological point that's often called the extra Calvinisticum. It's really just a fancy Latin term for Calvin's extra. I'm not a huge fan of the term, I'm going to say already. Calvin's extra implies that Calvin added something to Christology not present in the scriptures or the early church fathers. And I'm going to do my best to show that the extra is anything but extra in our belief in Christology. So rather than give the textbook definition, I'm going to start with Calvin's own words that we might derive one ourselves, and this is quotation number eight. For even if the word in his immeasurable essence united with the nature of man into one person, we do not imagine that he was confined therein. There is something marvelous the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that without leaving heaven He willed to be born in the Virgin's womb to go about the earth and to hang upon the cross Yet he continuously filled the world even as he had done from the beginning So what is Calvin saying here? Exactly, that his humanity did not limit his divinity. Perfect, right? So, because he's saying that even while he was on earth, he still ruled in heaven, right? To teach otherwise would be a little peculiar, right? I mean, was heaven emptied? Was there a vacant seat when Christ was on earth? By no means, right? Calvin is teaching that Christ's divinity was not changed, was not confined, was not constrained in any way by his humanity. He did not leave heaven nor was his divine power in any way lessened by his humanity. His divinity didn't have to conform to any limits of his human form. Does that make sense? It should be clear to us that if we're to affirm the unchangeable and omnipotent God with whom there is no shadow of turning, that we must affirm Christ's divine power being unbridled by the weakness and finiteness of human flesh. The term extra Calvinisticum was something of a slur. Theologians during and after the Reformation, said that the Reformed taught that in addition to the God-man of Christ on earth during his first coming, that at the same time there was effectively an extra little part of Christ in heaven. This is of course not at all what Calvin said as we just read. We simply affirm that divinity cannot be wholly and fully contained inside of humanity without it ceasing to be divinity. And thus Christ's divine nature must both have descended from heaven and yet also still have been resident in it. Of course, Calvin was not known for inventing novel doctrines, but rather returning to those which scripture teaches and often the early church fathers themselves testified. Some opponents argued that this doctrine of Calvin was veering too close to Augustine and including errors of Augustinian theology. So in order to try to defend our dear Calvin, I'm going to give you a quote from before Augustine. So thankfully we've passed down to us the writings of a number of early church theologians who held to this same doctrine Athanasius who did possibly more than any single other person in humanity in teaching and upholding Trinitarian orthodoxy as we saw when we covered the Council of Nicaea wrote the following about our Lord Jesus Christ This is quotation number nine. The word was not hedged in by his body, nor did his presence in the body prevent his being present elsewhere as well. When he moved his body, he did not cease also to direct the universe by his mind and might. No, the marvelous truth is that being the word, so far from being himself contained by anything, He actually contained all things Himself. In creation He is present everywhere, yet is distinct in being from it, ordering, directing, giving life to all, containing all, yet He Himself, the uncontained, existing solely in His Father. His body was for Him not a limitation, but an instrument, so that He was both in it and in all things, and outside all things. Resting in the Father alone. At one and the same time, this is the wonder. As man, he was living a human life. And as the word, he was sustaining the life of the universe. And as son, he was in constant union with the Father. So what is Athanasius proclaiming here? So certainly he's saying the same thing that Calvin did, right? That his divinity was not contained inside his humanity, right? I would argue that Athanasius is in fact going further than Calvin did. Athanasius is arguing that not only is humanity not a limit, but it served as an instrument of his divine will. Does that make sense? His humanity was an instrument by which he was able to affect that which he came and descended to earth to accomplish. That's exactly right, yeah. So just to repeat for the sake of the audio, it is comforting to see that this was something that the church has always taught, right? In fact, there are some that I'm not hugely comfortable with this term either, but there are some who call the extra Calvinisticum the extra Catholicum. in part because people who actually hold to traditional church councils in the Catholic Church hold to this doctrine as well because it's affirmed from the earliest writers. So hopefully in this brief coverage of the extra, we see both its necessity and its historicity. So with the extra behind us, there's one more important doctrine in the Reformed view of Christ's two natures, namely the communication of attributes, or I apologize, we're going to have two nasty Latin terms this lesson, the communicatio idiomatum that we need to cover. It really just says an idiomatum is an idiom. It's a way of speaking, right? This doctrine, usually in English called the communication of attributes or communication of properties, centers around how to understand some texts in the New Testament and in early church literature, which seem to apply attributes or properties of one of Christ's natures to the whole person. While it's sometimes maligned as an abstract Christological point, the communication of attributes is a fiercely practical point in the sense that the integrity of the scriptures themselves hang in the balance. If you'll turn with me in your Bibles to Acts 20, we're going to read Acts 20, 28. It's written pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood. So what side of the ordinary in this verse. Is there anything that. At first blush seems strange about the wording. That's right. Yeah, so it makes it to repeat the answer. It sure makes it sound like God has blood, right? So we all know that God is a spirit not having a body like men. So how do we reconcile this apparent problem, right? There's a whole lot of ways to go off the rails with this verse, right? We, of course, have to affirm that Christ in his humanity had blood, which was shed for us at the cross. We can also affirm that Christ, being one person, shed his blood at the cross. We can furthermore say that Christ is God, right? Effectively, we affirm that the properties or attributes of Christ's natures, in this case the attribute being having blood of the nature of his humanity, can be applied to the person, can be communicated in the proper theological terms to the person of Christ. Since in his humanity he has blood, we can say that Christ has blood, and we can say that in his divinity he is of the same substance as the Father and God of God. While it seems peculiar, the scriptures in the early church fathers do sometimes mix the properties into one person, and thus talk of the blood of God. When we say this, we are not affirming that Christ's divinity has blood, and we are not affirming that the property of divinity can be applied to his humanity. Rather, we simply teach that to affirm a unity of the person of Christ, we must affirm that the properties of his nature is applied to the person. Does that make sense? This is perhaps best explained in the Westminster Confession. And if you'll turn in your hymnals with me, I believe this is going to be page 677 if I remember right. Let me see here. Yeah, so Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 8. Paragraph 7, sorry, it's on page 678. The divines wrote, Christ in the work of mediation acts according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself. Yet by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature. So here we see a concise summary of what we've described. Each nature does what is proper to itself. And yet, scripture can and does at times speak of the person of Christ using terms which are proper to one nature, using a term denominated by the other nature. So what it's saying is, you know, you have a property of having blood, you have a term that's proper to the other nature, God. And in the person, you can communicate both of those attributes, one from each nature, into a term that mixes those attributes in the person. It's not saying that there's a mixture of natures. It's not saying that the natures communicate with each other. It's simply saying that all of the attributes of both man and God are communicated into the person of Christ. And therefore you can say the blood of God, if you understand it rightly, without falling into some fallacy. Does that make sense? Now that we've covered the extra and the communication of attributes, I'd like to conclude our lessons on the personhood and natures of Christ by looking at the Westminster Confession sections on the person of Christ. So if you turn back a page to 677, we're going to look at section 8.2. The Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man's nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance, So that two whole perfect and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man. So you might ask why I've waited so long in this class to go over the Westminster Confession text on the subject. It's certainly not because of any lack of clarity or helpfulness in our standards. Rather, the divines appeared to go to some effort to avoid novel doctrines, as the Council of Chalcedon warned us against. As such, what we have in our confession is a summary of the Chalcedonian definition that hews so close to the wording of the formula of reunion, Leo's Tome, and the Chalcedonian Creed itself, all of which we've looked at in depth in previous weeks, that it scarcely requires further discussion. You see, the divines sought very much to not invent a new faith, right? When they saw that Christology had been worked out in great detail and clarity in the early church, and even though some of those things were lost, were reformed and restored by John Calvin, they sought to simply restate the words which the church had always taught and affirmed. Does that make sense? Yeah, sorry, it's an excellent question. The question, for the sake of the audio, is who were the divines? So the men who convened in Westminster to draft the Westminster Confession at behest of effectively the British government were called the Westminster divines. Divine is an older, no, it's not a, yeah, it's not a, you know, that they're particularly holy men and it's not some, you know, 60s rock band either. It's an older English term for theologians and, yeah. Yeah, and just to restate for the sake of the audio, it's those who had studied theology were considered divines, even today, right? Pastor Cassidy is a doctor of divinity, right? That's just the name for the term. If you'd like to start calling Pastor Cassidy the divine, that might be a little awkward in our modern day and age, but I think that's probably where the terminology came from. Yes, so you're asking at the time of the Westminster Assembly who was mediator between God and man or who was who was trying to be? Yeah, so this is fearing a little out of early church history, but so at the time of the Westminster Assembly, particularly in Britain, that was a point under great contention, right? You had people who were full-throated Roman Catholics who wanted to be in communion with Rome. You had Reformed Christians, such as the Westminster Divines, who clearly did not want a sacerdotal system of priests and bishops and popes mediating between God and man. And then you also had Anglicans, who believed in sort of a third way or a middle way. They'll often talk about the Anglican via media, which is just a fancy Latin term for the middle way. It is to the credit of the Westminster Divines that they didn't try to survey all of the belief systems in Britain and say, we're going to try to formulate a doctrine for the church which makes everyone happy. which tries to mediate all of these disparate positions, right? The Westminster divines took a very, very different tact, right? What they said was, this is what we believe. This is what scripture teaches, right? It's, you know, while our version in the hymnal here doesn't have the scripture proofs, those scripture proofs are not a modern edition. They're not like a, like a study Bible, right? Where you say, well, the word of the Bible was written and then other people have written study notes on it. They originally wrote the Confession, and to tell you how different times were in the mid-1600s, Parliament met and they said, yeah, you've got to go back and give us scripture proofs for everything that you just wrote. So they reconvened and wrote down all the scripture proofs. And so they very unabashedly said, this is not what everyone believes, but this is that which scripture affirms and therefore this is all that we can in faith write. Any other questions, comments? Yeah, just for the sake of the audio, Robert rightly noted that when the confession talks of one mediator between God and man, that is obviously teaching that which scripture affirms, but is also very clearly drawing a line in the sand versus other belief systems that were present in their day and are still present to our day. The Roman Catholic Church sometimes refers to Mary as a co-mediatrix. which is certainly not a term which we would be comfortable with and I think everyone would be comfortable saying is certainly outside of Westminster standards. That is, yeah, no, that's exactly right, and that's an excellent point, just for the sake of the audio. So to an earlier point that the Egyptian church broke off and remains out of communion to this day, yeah, so that is the Coptic church that is often referred to as the Oriental Orthodox church because Back in the early church days, Egypt was considered the Orient. We had a very different definition of where East was. And so effectively what happened was, you know, there were multiple attempts to merge particularly in the Eastern Empire, right, where, you know, so Rome split into two pieces, East and West, right? The Eastern Empire still had nominal control over Egypt. You know, given that they had a very close-knit view of church and state, the fact that you had an Egyptian church which was not believing the same thing as the state church was a large problem. There were attempts made to mediate the two views. The Egyptians absolutely did not want to give up their belief systems, and they remain separate to this day. So the Second Council of Ephesus, which we had covered a little while back, which the West views as the robber council, they view as authoritative, and they view Chalcedon as invalid. Instead, we would view the Second Council of Ephesus as invalid, and Chalcedon as affirming rightly that which Scripture teaches. There have been some attempts made in our lifetime, too, that I have to openly admit I have not fully followed. I believe that there might be some I believe that baptisms and marriages are now viewed as valid across Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, but don't quote me on that. So yeah. Does that hopefully answer your question? All right. So I'd like to close briefly by looking at an excerpt from the Belgic Confession, which is the confession used by continental reform churches. In its article on the two natures of Christ, the Belgic Confession takes some effort to describe the Christological ramifications of the cross. And this is quotation number 10 in your handout. After describing the two natures they subsequently wrote, but these two natures are so united together in one person that they are not even separated by his death. So then what he committed to his father when he died was a real human spirit which left his body, but meanwhile his divine nature remained united with his human nature even when he was lying in the grave. And his deity never ceased to be in him just as it was in him when he was a little child, though for a little while it did not reveal itself. These are the reasons why we confess him to be true God and truly human. True God in order to conquer death by his power and truly human that he might die for us in the weakness of his flesh. So what is the Belgic confession asserting about what happened when Christ died on the cross? That's right. Yeah, so just to repeat for the sake of the audio, it's affirming that even in death, his divine nature remained united to his human nature, right? So it's a common error to say, well, divinity can't die, and therefore there must have been some separation of natures at death. And yet, that's not what we affirm as Reformed Christians. Now, did he die according to his humanity? Yes. He died in a human way in that his soul and body were cleft. At the same time, he was still united divinity and humanity even in his death. Now, the reason I cover this is because I think the Belgic Confession rightly says that this is an important doctrine and provides a good place to close this series of lessons. It goes to a special effort to affirm this, because it's saying that we must rightly confess Christ to be truly God and truly man, not because of some theological nitpicking, but because for him to conquer death and to be able to die on our behalf, to be able to affirm the basic truth of the gospel, requires us to affirm Christ in one person and two natures. Does that make sense to everybody? Yes, Rose, this is the end. There will be no more early church history lessons for a good long while. Any questions, comments, concerns before we close in prayer? All right. Dear Father in Heaven, we thank you for all that we have learned and all that we've been able to study in this lesson series. We thank you for your mighty works of providence manifested in the early church. We thank you for the testimony of the martyrs and theologians of that era who sought to testify to and illuminate your word, bringing light to a society in need of repentance and transformation. May what we have learned bless us, that we might better hold to the truths taught in holy scriptures. As in the early church, may those truths inspire us to a zeal to proclaim the gospel to our neighbors, to our city, and to the whole world. The good news of the risen Christ, who died for all the sins of all his people, and who promises rest for the weary and the heavy laden. All this we pray in your name. Amen.