The early church understood Christ to be both human and divine, the Son of Man and the Son of God. The concept of Jesus as divine was, however problematic for many with Jewish backgrounds due to the strong emphasis in Judaism on monotheism. There were therefore many heretical teachings that emerged that viewed God the Father as the One God and Jesus Christ as something less than fully God. Some regarded Jesus as a normal person who assumed the role of the prophesized messiah when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him at His baptism. Some also believed that this resulted in Jesus having supernatural powers. Dynamic Monarchianism was a specific variant of this belief where the divine Logos descended upon Jesus along with the Holy Spirit at the time of Jesus’s baptism. These types of beliefs where Jesus was born a normal human deny the full divinity of Christ.
Other heretical beliefs erred in the other direction by denying the full humanity of Christ. This was first seen in Gnostic teachings where Christ was thought to not have a physically human body because all matter was considered corrupt. One form of this belief is that the Logos descended upon the man Jesus at His baptism and then left just prior to Jesus’s death. Hence, the dying Jesus cries out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” (Mt 27:46)? Another form has Jesus’s body simply being a non-corporal phantasm. All of these variants focus on Jesus’s human form as simply a mechanism for the divine Logos to interact with the fully corrupted physical world.
There were a number of additional heretical beliefs that deny the full divinity of Christ in various ways. Arianism does this by making Christ something created by the Father. It defends this belief by pointing out that the Bible says that Christ is God’s only begotten Son, and that something begotten has not always existed. Apollinarianism views a man as having a body, soul, and spirit, with the Logos taking the place of the human spirit in Jesus (thereby denying His full humanity). Adoptionism understands God as simply adopting Jesus at His baptism. Nestorianism understands Christ as two separate persons, one human and one divine. Eutychianism taught that Christ was neither human nor divine, but a fusion of the two into a single nature. These are the major heretical positions, but there are many other variations and interpretations.
These heretical teachings were addressed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The result was the Confession of Chalcedon (also called the Chalcedonian Definition), which states the following:
“Following, then, the holy fathers, we unite in teaching all men to confess the one and only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. This selfsame one is perfect both in deity and also in humanness; this selfsame one is also actually God and actually man, with a rational soul and a body. He is of the same reality as God as far as his deity is concerned and of the same reality as ourselves as far as his humanness is concerned; thus like us in all respects, sin only excepted. Before time began he was begotten of the Father, in respect of his deity, and now in these “last days,” for us and on behalf of our salvation, this selfsame one was born of Mary the virgin, who is God-bearer in respect of his humanness. [We also teach] that we apprehend this one and only Christ—Son, Lord, and only-begotten—in two natures; [and we do this] without confusing the two natures, without transmuting one nature into the other, without dividing them into two separate categories, without contrasting them according to area or function. The distinctiveness of each nature is not nullified by the union. Instead, the “properties” of each nature are conserved and both natures concur in one “person” [prosōpon] and in one hypostasis [essence]. They are not divided or cut into two prosōpa [persons], but are together the one and only and only begotten Logos of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus have the prophets of old testified; thus the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught; thus the Symbol [confession] of the Fathers has handed down to us.”[i]
The Confession of Chalcedon was reaffirmed at the Council of Nicaea (325), at the Council of Ephesus (431), and remains the orthodox doctrine of Christ today. Jesus Christ is a single person that is both fully human and fully divine. Theologically, Jesus Christ consists of a single substance with two natures. These two natures are joined in what is referred to as the hypostatic union. Being fully human, Christ has a human mind and is therefore responsible and morally accountable for His actions. The human nature of Christ is not to be thought of as a human person as the totality of Christ is the second Person of the triune God. Rather, the human nature of Christ is an impersonal nature that is part of the God-man person. However, the human nature of Christ is generally thought of as having both a will and a consciousness that is distinct from that of the divine nature. As such, Christ is a single person with a human will, a human consciousness, a divine will, and a divine consciousness.
Christ’s full divinity and full humanity are both theologically necessary. Only in being both fully human and fully divine can Christ serve as the perfect Mediator between man and the Father. “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tm 2:5). Christ also needs to be fully human for two additional reasons. The first was the need suffer and die as a full human to satisfy the redemptive function of the Atonement. The second was to provide a perfect human example for how His followers should live their lives. Christ also needs to be fully divine because Scripture is clear on this point. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God … And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:1-14; see also 8:58; 10:30; 20:28).
This section has so far provided typical treatment of the doctrine of Christ since Chalcedon in that it focuses on what Christ is versus what Christ does. In other words, this section has presented ontological Christology rather than functional Christology. A famous debate occurred between C.S. Lewis and W.N. Pittenger about ontological Christology. Lewis defended it while Pittenger criticized it as an invention of the Church. Lewis emphasized “the very being, the ontology, of Jesus Christ in relation to the uncreated divine nature: very man and very God, fully human and fully divine, and in this divinity co-eternal with the Father from eternity to eternity.”[ii] Pittenger accused Lewis of belonging “to that modern school of thought which believes that if the catholic church has taught something long enough, then that something must necessarily be true.”[iii]
Morna Booker does a good job of explaining why the NT focuses on functional Christology, but theology gradually shifted towards ontological Christology.[iv] Essentially, this is due to the significant difference in Jewish versus Greek theological and philosophical thinking. The NT Jewish authors in the time of Jesus were primarily concerned with showing how OT beliefs about God are compatible with NT beliefs. The OT portrays a God of action and therefore the NT focus should be a God of action.
By the time of Chalcedon, revival of Greek philosophy in the West resulted in a more philosophical approach to theology. The Logos terminology is neo-Platonic, but Christology at the time of Chalcedon was based on Aristotelian metaphysics and its corresponding focus on the psychology and doctrine of substance. Today, Christological debates are still almost exclusively related to ontology and not divine action. But functional Christology has taken hold today in many parts of Africa in the form of Christ as a divine conqueror. This view of Christ responds to the need felt by many Africans to frame Christianity in the context of needing a powerful protector against evil spirits that work against human beings. But a theologian need not choose between ontology and functionality, and a balance of perspective is encouraged.
[i] John Leith, Creeds of the Church, Chicago: Doubleday, 1963): 35-36. Translation from Albert Outler, based on the text in Acta Conciliorum Oecomenicorum.
[ii] P.H. Brazier, “The Pittenger-Lewis Debate: Fundamentals of an Ontological Christology,” The Chronicle of the Oxford University C.S. Lewis Society, Vol. 6, Issue 1, 2009: 15.
[iii] Ibid., 9.
[iv] Morna Hooker, “Chalcedon and the New Testament,” The Making and Remaking of Christian Doctrine, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993: 73-79.
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