117. I. Construction Of The Doctrine.
I. Construction Of The Doctrine.
1. Importance of a True Doctrine.—The doctrine of the person of Christ is not a question of mere speculative interest, but one that vitally concerns the central realities of Christianity itself. No other religion is related to its founder as Christianity is related to Christ. Buddhism is related to Buddha simply as the original of its doctrines and cults. They derive no intrinsic worth from him, and would he the very same in value if originated by any other man. The same is true of Confucianism and Mohammedanism, and of every other religion of human origin. Even in the instance of men divinely commissioned and inspired for the communication of religious truth and the institution of forms of worship, nothing in themselves gives intrinsic worth to either the truth so communicated or the religious service so instituted. So thoroughly is this true that, in the providence of God, other men might have replaced Moses and Aaron, David and Isaiah, Peter and Paul, without any intrinsic change in either Judaism or Christianity. It could not be so respecting Christ. Without him Christianity could not be what it is. No man could have taken his place. He so wrought himself into Christianity that what he is must determine what it is. It follows that the doctrinal view of the person of Christ must determine the view of Christianity itself. The history of doctrinal opinions respecting the person of Christ witnesses to the importance of a true doctrine. Indeed, without the details of history this importance is clearly manifest in the inevitable consequences of any serious or determining error of doctrine. Hereafter we shall have occasion to point out several error in Christology and to note their consequences. For the present it may suffice that we place the Socinian doctrine in contrast with the Chalcedonian or orthodox doctrine. In the former Christ is a mere man, a mere human person. No spiritual or miraculous endowments, not even such as the older Socinianism freely conceded, could change this fact. He would still be a mere man. In the latter doctrine he is a theanthropic person—truly God-man. He is the Son of God incarnate in our nature. In this doctrine there is sure and sufficient ground for all the great facts of Christian soteriology: atonement; justification by faith; regeneration by the Holy Spirit; a new and gracious spiritual life. There is no ground for these great facts in the Socinian Christology. A mere human Christ could not make an atonement for sin. He could not be a Saviour in any other mode than that in which Peter and Paul, Luther and Wesley, Edwards and Asbury, were saviours. So determining is the doctrine of the person of Christ in Christian theology. Without his divinity and incarnation, without his theanthropic personality, he is another Christ, and Christianity is robbed of its divine realities in the measure of the change in him.
2. Early Need of Doctrinal Construction.—In Christianity, even from the beginning, Christ was the great theme of the Gospel and the life of Christian experience and hope. Therefore he could not fail to be the subject of much thought. Nor could such thought limit itself to merely devotional meditations, but inevitably advanced to the study of his true nature or personality. For the deepest Christian consciousness Christ was the Saviour for whose sake all sin was forgiven, and in whose fellowship all the rich blessings of the new spiritual life were received. For such a consciousness he could not be a mere man. It is true that in the history of his life he appeared in the fashion of a man and in the possession of human characteristics; still, for the Christian consciousness he must have been more than man. But how much more? And wherein more? Such questions could not fail to be asked; and in the very asking there was a reaching forth of Christian thought for a doctrine of the person of Christ. In such a mental movement the many utterances of Scripture which ascribe to him a higher nature and higher perfections than the merely human would soon be reached. Here it is that a doctrine of the person of Christ would begin to take form. He is human, and yet more than human; is the Son of God incarnate in the nature of man; is human and divine.
Reflective thought could not pause at this stage. If Christ is both divine and human in his natures, how are these natures related to each other? What is the influence of each upon the other on account of their conjunction or union in him? Is Christ two persons according to his two natures, or one person in the union of the two? Such questions were inevitable. Nor could they remain unanswered. The answers were given in the different theories of the person of Christ which appeared in the earlier Christian centuries.
It is not to be thought strange that theories differed. The subject is one of the profoundest. It lies in the mystery of the divine incarnation. The divine Son invests himself in human nature. So far the statement of the incarnation is easily made; but the statement leaves us on the surface of the profound reality. With a merely tactual or sympathetic union of the two natures, and consequently two distinct persons in Christ, the reality of the divine incarnation disappears. With the two distinct natures, and the two classes of divine and human facts, how can he be one person? Is the divine nature humanized, or the human nature deified in him? Or did the union of the two natures result in a third nature different from both, and so provide for the oneness of his personality? The Scriptures make no direct answer to these questions. They give us many Christological facts, but in elementary form, and leave the construction of a doctrine of the person of Christ to the resources of Christian thought.
Soon various doctrines were set forth. In each case the doctrine was constructed according to what was viewed as the more vital or determining fact of Christology, as related to the person of Christ. Opposing views and errors of doctrine were the result. More or less contention was inevitable. The interest of the subject was too profound for theories to be held as mere private opinions, or with indifference to opposing views. The strife was a serious detriment to the Christian life. Hence there was need of a carefully constructed doctrine of the person of Christ ; need that the construction should be the work of the best Christian thought, and that it should be done in a manner to secure the highest moral sanction of the Church.
3. Formula of the Council of Chalcedon.—The state of facts previously described called for some action of the Church which might correct or, at least, mitigate existing evils. Certainly there was need that errors in Christology should be corrected and contending parties reconciled. A council which should embody the truest doctrinal thought of the Church seemed the best agency for the attainment of these ends. The Council of Chalcedon was constituted accordingly, in the year of our Lord 451. The Council of Nice was specially concerned with the doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine constructed clearly and strongly asserted the true and essential divinity of Christ, but expressed nothing definitely respecting his personality. For more than a century this great question still remained without doctrinal formulation by any assembly properly representative of the Church. The construction of such a doctrine was the special work of the Council of Chalcedon. The subject was not a new one. Much preparatory work had been done. Many minds were in possession of the true doctrine, which was already the prevalent faith of the Church. There was such preparation for the work of this Council. Indeed, the notable letter of Leo, Pope of Rome, to Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople, so accurately and thoroughly outlined a doctrinal statement of the person of Christ, that little more remained for the Council than to cast the material into the mold of its own thought and send it forth under the moral sanction of the Church.
Perfection is rarely attained in such work; never, indeed, on so profound a subject. Yet the work of this Council was well done. The Chalcedonian symbol combines the elements of truth respecting the person of Christ. There is no better construction of the doctrine. It is true that this symbol has not completely dominated the Christological thought of the Church; yet it has ever held a position of commanding influence, and has furnished the material and the model for the Christological symbols since constructed in the orthodox Churches. In view of these facts we here give it entire:
“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.”[576] [576]
It is proper to note the doctrinal contents of this formula, so far as they directly concern the question of the person of Christ. He is the subject of its doctrinal predications. Christ, the incarnate Son, is truly and essentially divine: perfect in Godhead;” “consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead.” In these affirmations there is a formal exclusion of the Arian Christology, which denied the essential divinity of Christ. The real and complete humanity of Christ is definitely affirmed. He is “truly man, of a reasonable soul and body;” “consubstantial with us according to the manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin.” These affirmations were formally exclusive of two heresies in Christology: the Gnostic, which denied to Christ the possession of a real body of flesh and blood; and the Apollinarian, which denied to him the possession of a human mind. The personal oneness of Christ in the union of the two natures is affirmed: “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.” These doctrinal predications excluded two heresies in Christology: the Nestorian, in which Christ was held to be two persons, not one; and the Eutychian, which held the deification of the human nature in consequence of its union with the divine in the incarnation; so that the human nature became one with the divine. On this great question the Athanasian Creed is in full accord With the Chalcedonian: “For the right faith is that we believe and confess: that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man; . . . perfect God, and perfect man, of reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. . . . Who, although he be God and man, yet he is not two, but one Christ. One, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God: one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ.”[577] It is readily seen that this creed affirms both the divinity and humanity of Christ, and the oneness of his personality in the union of the two natures in him.
[577]
[578]
Monothelitism could readily admit a human will as really present in the complete human nature assumed in the divine incarnation; but the denial of its exercise in volitions distinctively human involved the very difficult task of properly interpreting many facts in the life of Christ which were seemingly of a purely human cast. On the other hand, if such human volitions are asserted, the result must be either a Nestorian or a Socinian Christology. We regard the Constantinopolitan additions to the Chalcedonian symbol as really Nestorian, though not so intended. The existence of two wills in Christ is strongly asserted; and the human is viewed, not merely as an element of the human nature assumed in the incarnation, but as an active agency in the life of Christ. There are two natural energies or operations—which must mean the separate energizings of a divine will and a human will in Christ.
Nothing that follows respecting the union and harmony of the two wills in Christ can bring their alleged duality into consistency with the oneness of his personality. The assertion respecting the complete submission of the human will to the divine will, instead of eliminating the Nestorian dualism, really concedes it.[579] No such obligatory or becoming submission can be required of any impersonal thing. Not even the heavens can be subject to any such law of courtesy, propriety, or duty. No more can a finite will in its abstract self, or apart from a finite person, be the subject of any such law. Only a person can yield a becoming or dutiful submission to the divine will. Hence, in the assertion of such a submission of the human will to the divine will in Christ, there is an assumed personal dualism which cannot be reconciled with the oneness of his personality. This is really the Nestorian error.
[579]