Chalcedon [had] charted middle territory and succeeded in doing so with consummate skill. “Word-flesh” advocates, it asserted, had to be willing to allow against all of their natural theological tendencies that both natures in Christ were fully preserved (The Person of Christ: A Biblical and Historical Analysis of the Incarnation, 107).

“Word-man” proponents, on the other hand, had to make peace with the affirmation which sometimes disconcerted them theologically that there was “one and the same Son, one Lord Jesus Christ,” “one and the same Christ” who was born of Mary, the Theotokos (Wells, 107).

The Chalcedonian Definition declared that the human and divine natures of Christ were not to be confounded or confused but equally asserted that there was but one person existent in these two natures. The union was hypostatic in that it was metaphysically substantial and not just a loose conjunction of two complete and separate hypostases which could be considered distinct persons. As Wells puts it, “It was in the divine that [Jesus’] human nature lived, and that human life was not experienced separately from the life of the divine. He had two natures, one fully human and the other fully divine, but was only one person” (109). J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig succinctly conclude that “the settlement is a ringing endorsement of dyophysite Christology. Christ is declared to exist in two natures, whose distinction remains real even in their union in Christ” (Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 601).   

Historians have provided mixed reviews of the results of Chalcedon. Skeptics suggest that the council settled nothing of real import. The major question remained. Just how could such a hypostatic union of natures exist? All the Definition stated was that it did exist without solving the metaphysical mysteries that engulfed such a notion. Furthermore, the Definition failed to bring about the hoped for unity. There were a sizeable number of people on both sides of the debate that believed the council had betrayed them.

Those of more radical Antiochene leanings believed that the council had lost sight of the real distinction in the natures. They broke from Orthodoxy and formed the Nestorian Church. Schismatic Alexandrians did the same, contending that the council had abandoned the primary emphasis on the union and founding the Monophysite Church. These churches still maintain a presence in parts of Asia, Persia, and Northern Africa.

Nonetheless, most of the East accepted the Definition, and the West embraced it immediately without schism. It was not the intention of the council to solve the mystery of the incarnation, but to preserve it within acceptable theological and philosophical boundaries. Moreland and Craig point out that the Definition set up “channel markers for legitimate Christological speculation; any theory of Christ’s person must be one in which the distinctness of both natures is preserved, and both meet in one person, one Son, in Christ” (601).

It provides “a convenient summary of essential facts that must be borne in mind by all those who attempt to penetrate further into the mystery” (601). When evaluated in this light, the Definition of Chalcedon stands as one of the greatest theological achievements of the Christian Church, and the Council of Chalcedon as one of the most significant events in the history of religion. That the Definition has endured the test of time and provided a steady bulwark against the invasion of aberrant Christological ideology is a testimony to its strength.

So, following the saintly fathers, we all with one voice teach the confession of one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards his humanity; like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from Mary, the virgin God-bearer as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ himself instructed us, and as the creed of the fathers handed it down to us (From the Documents of the Council of Chalcedon).

Blessings,

Arnie Gentile
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