Council of Chalcedon

in this lecture we're looking at the ongoing disputes about Christology about the incarnation of Jesus in their conclusion at the Council of Kassadin and we can begin by recapping the story as to where we come thus far flowing out of Nicaea the church had affirmed that the Sun was equal with the father that he was homo osseous with the father the same being the same substance and that it flowed down into the Council of Constantinople which clarified the full breadth of the divinity of the Trinity and yet also affirm that there is a separate personhood we've come to say between the three persons of God we don't worship three gods we worship one God but we also affirm from Scripture that there is a separation of some kind in the Trinity in the language that the church has come down upon is that there is a separation of person and then we notice how flowing out of the issues of Nicaea and Constantinople whenever the son has become fully God that there were some who began to challenge or think about or reflect or come up with conceptions of how God came down sometimes by a misguided attempt to protect the divinity of the son we first looked at the teachings of apollon arias who came up with a concept that the son comes down and really takes over part of the man Jesus that he takes over the mind of Jesus and we said he was well intentioned but wrong that his attempt to understand the Incarnation was really driven by a desire to separate divine and human natures and in our last lecture we looked at the teachings of Theodore mops who is Tiye head of his student historian which was a more robust and energetic description of the separation between Jesus Humanity in his divinity and I said in that lecture that it's a bit schizophrenic in the end that nestorianism at least in the main is an idea that because the son is fully God that there is no way he could come down and become incarnate that he is already everywhere so we really need no doctrine of the Incarnation at least not in the sense that we say that God came down to save well all throughout this we've mentioned that the issues of salvation are preeminent and we've stressed that because too often it's assumed that the doctrines of salvation really only show up a little bit with pelagianism which is an utterly works/righteousness system the idea that if you do anything you must do works only by your own strength and if you don't do them well then you will not be saved and then too often it said that the subject of salvation really kind of lays dormant until Luther comes on the scene banging 95 theses into a church door and suddenly everyone's talking about salvation again but we try to stress throughout all of these lectures that the doctrines of salvation is really the driving force here God came to save God came to die on our behalf that is really the core of the gospel and so those even well intentioned souls who somehow attempt to protect the divinity of the son by denying an incarnation or denying that he came down is ultimately suspect well we can pick up in this lecture that ongoing theme because one of the things that's often overlooked is the fact that Pelagianism is on the scene at exactly the same moment in really what has arisen at this point is two conceptions of what Christ came to do in the first is the teachings of Cyril and the vast majority consensus of the church which is that we were unable to save ourselves we were dead in our trespasses or in our sins we were unable to save ourselves and so God came down took on human flesh and died on our behalf that's just a basic outline there's some natural instincts in there that we can appreciate it's the idea that humanity does not save itself it's the idea that God saves and he comes down to do it while on the other hand around the same time is arising this idea that what God came to do is to kind of prepare a path to give examples or to grace human nature in a particular way so that that human nature is thereby able to achieve things that it never could before in other words when you look at pelagianism and it's radical works-based system this idea that you have to do works to save yourself or else and then you look at historian ism and some of the teachings there about how the human Jesus was simply graced by the divinity of the Sun well they are actually a natural boon companion these two because what nestorianism seems to be suggesting is that the salvation that Christ provided is not so much on the cross in fact he do Muir's about the cross saying that God did not die there that was simply the humanity of Christ but rather what nestorianism tends distress or the paradigm that it's sort of imposing upon our understanding of the gospel is that the grace filled Humanity of Jesus provides a way for us to achieve the works that we were unable to before and this pattern really has as its object the idea that God prepares the way gives us grace and this is epitomized by the Incarnation the resurrection now we too in graced by the Spirit of God can perform the works for salvation and only naturally the Pelagian historian perspective is profoundly ascetic and profoundly focused on our obligations to save ourselves now obviously that two-part division is a bit overly simplistic but you need to see the pressure here the church is rejecting nestorianism not only because they find it to be inadequate according to scripture to say that God did not come down but they're also suspicious that what is envisioned here is not that God came to save but that God came to sort of give us the power to save ourselves well after the council of ephesus the first council the ecumenical council and after the formula of reunion that john of antioch Cyril have brought together both really go on a PR campaign you might say to pacify the more extreme supporters on either side in particular to pacify the extreme historians who are now hurt and embittered by the way that the Proceedings of the first Council of Ephesus went and we said in our last lecture that many on John side believe that he could have been more of a buffer more of a savior for historias and he felt betrayed by this Cyril supporters to the more extreme side felt that he was mudding the waters by cavorting with men like John and trying to woo men who were at least somewhat supportive of historia s-- at least personally well so long as Cyril and John are alive they are capable of keeping this things together however in the 440s it all goes down like the Hindenburg John dies in 441 and Cyril dies in 444 and not surprisingly now that the sheriff's are gone both extreme sides rise up and you have a real fight on your hands now I've commented throughout much of this discussion of the council's that often what you see is an over balancing problem in the language that people use whenever they're combating one side of an issue we've seen how when people combat against Arianism and they go too far they can confuse in an opposite direction well that's what happens here if 'no stories is the man who simply schizophrenic lea divides human and divine natures will the more radical anti historians do what well they collapse the two into one another well that's exactly what happens deus chorus for example one of the theologians and bishops from this time Bishop of Alexandria actually becomes sort of enamored with the idea in an anti Nestorian way of saying that there was one incarnate nature of God the word now that's vague it's sort of purposely vague he's trying to combat the two person's separation between the human and divine ages and historian ISM and he just brought them back together and he talks about the one incarnate nature well along comes a man by the name of Eutychus and eutychus becomes somewhat of a arch anti heretic and by doing so becomes a heretic himself at least in terms of his formulation of the language here now we go and say right now Eutychus is completely muddled in unclear as to what he means bunny of these things but again the issues not so much that Eutychus came up with these ideas at a thin air but rather he wants to kind of be what I call a theology of nah-ah which is the idea like kids on a playground that when you don't like something you just say nah and you just go the opposite direction well that's Eutychus Eutychus argues and teaches that the humanity and the divinity of Christ essentially come together in such a way that the distinction between the two is utterly obliterated there's a bit of a slogan that's often attributed to Eutychus which as he says and like a drop of wine into the sea so the humanity of Christ was swallowed up and lost and that the divinity of Christ took over entirely well that just simply does the opposite problem again let's go back to the paradigm God came down to save any saved us by being like us in every way except without sin but Eutychus is done here is said God came down tried to take on humanity and swallowed it up entirely lost it entirely well I think this proves the axiom that the answer to one extreme is hardly ever the opposite extreme eutychus or as it's known you tikkun ism is a radical blending or fusion of the two and again since we're talking about an infinite Sun an omnipresent Sun and a finite and a particular humanity well the divine side's going to went out and therefore the humanity is entirely lost in Eutychus is teaching well this all came to a head in 448 with a synod of constantinople which is presided over by Flavian well Flavian had in a manner of speaking in his back pocket something is known as Leo's tome or the tome - Flavian written by the Bishop of Rome at the time Leo in Pope Leo's book argued pretty extensively not for nestorianism obviously but against you tikkun ISM in the language that Leo used was that he described the unity of Christ the simple unity of him as God come down and he says that the priority of our expression is that is the divine nature that came down meaning we have no problem with saying that a man named Jesus died on the cross but we're going to put a priority we're going to put emphasis on the fact that it's God come down in human flesh but Leo stresses that there is a simple unity in the Incarnation that we're not going to try to understand it in a philosophical or theological sense but rather we're going to affirm a unity but we're going to stress that it is God come down well Flavian condemns Eutychus but it's not over yet in 449 again because the controversy is still swirling there is called a second council of ephesus and this council was to be ephesus - it was to be the fourth ecumenical council but it was an utter mess not surprisingly because Flavian had presided over the senate of constantinople now dias Korra steps in the man who would sort of inspired you to kiss his ideas and he kind of flips the tables now Flavian is condemned and dias chorus reinstates Eutychus and this is just simply a violent kind of torturous experience at this council if ephesus one was a mess Ephesus 2 is an utter mess and it is done entirely for political and personal reasons dias chorus simply has the bully pulpit he condemns Flavian and restores eutychus without really any care or concern for Leos Tom or for any of the other theological consensus of the world Heda simply gets what it wants while not surprisingly leo rejected this council entirely and as a result Ephesus - as was supposed to be has forever gone by the name the robber council now that name the robber council is given by the actual 4th ecumenical council the council Kassadin they claim that Ephesus the Senate of Ephesus in 449 had betrayed the very nature of a council which was to hear the consensus of the church and rather dias chorus and Eutychus conspired to get eutychus off the hook and so the robber Council of Ephesus is null and void at least according to later history well the controversy continues and finally for 51 there is called the Council of Chalcedon now it is such an important council here because the issues and the fights ensuing thus far involve Bishop against Bishop fight against fight and a rather extremist view on either side and as a result over 500 bishops and leaders show up for the council of chalcedon they want to put an end to this mess and it's sometimes been alleged that the council Caledon really is inventive in its language of Christology and we're going to talk about a couple of these phrases and words here in a minute they do come to conclusions on language and they decide one way or the other as we're about to say but I think if you look at the ensuing problems and the fights in the backs and forth that we have up until the Council of Chalcedon I think hopefully you can see that the council of chalcedon is actually a more sane representation of the church's consensus what they're trying to do is simply put a stop to all this back and forth and to once and for all in the extremism between the sides and they know if they kill off the theological bones of contentions between either side and if they can come up with a framework if they can put the bumpers on the bowling alley as I've said about the Council of Nicaea and content the noble if they can say you can go this far in one direction and this form the other direction and stop don't go any further stop speculating and shut up if calcine can manage do this then in the end ideally the church would be restored to peace well the council's decision is a couple of points obviously they a null and they create the concept that Ephesus one was a robber Council and they condemned it for it's inappropriate proceedings they don't stop there though they move on and they accept again Leo's tome his attempt to come up with a consensus argument that we have a unity of Christ in the Incarnation that there are two natures and that we're not going to fight about what is the difference between the two or which one is the biggest of the two the Leo of course does again stress but the priority of emphasis is on the divinity that the Sun came down to save they do also come up with a formula or a Creed known as the Caledonian creed or the Caledonian formula now I think if you would have read this document before the lectures thus far it would sound a bit strange it uses language about the consubstantial bility of the Sun in terms of his divine and human nature's I've actually had students say to me I can accept Nicaea as simply putting it into arias and I can accept the homoousios word because really is simply protecting the divinity of the Sun but he start talking about the consubstantial 'ti of the suns incarnated nature and give me a break well again hopefully by now you can see what they're going to do essentially what they're going to do is put parameters around our lang they're going to stop all of the speculation and so the Council of Chalcedon comes up with the Creed that I think is frankly pretty ingenious because what it does is it reaches back to Nicaea and it picks up the language of being in a personhood of nature's and substances etc and it applies it again to the Sun and the formula they come up with is very simple in a manner of speaking it has essentially two moves it says when we're talking about the divinity of the Sun we affirm that he is consubstantial with the father again that is an affirmation of Nicaea all the way back what they then do is they turn to the humanity of Jesus and they say that we were describing the humanity of Jesus we're going to affirm that he is here's the word again cause substantial with us in every way now again I think that is actually pretty ingenious because everyone by this point is pretty hyper Nicaea they affirm that the Sun is like the father in every way and what they've done now again taking verses like Romans five and others or we described that the Sun had to become incarnate and they've basically said he is like us in every way as well in his humanity they then go on and they say that there is a simple unity of the Sun in the incarnated Jesus and they say don't confuse it don't mix it don't separate it don't deny one don't kill one don't come up with a formula or an algorithm to understand how this works rather God came down to save and he was like us in every way therefore if you're going to be describing the divinity of the son that he is divine do not lose the language that he is like the father in every way he is fully God he's not an angel but don't allow that to confuse they say that he is like us in every way and he is they use the word consubstantial of the same substance as we are which is frankly does another way of saying he's like us in every way he had flesh and blood he had an incarnated body he was human he died on our behalf and so in the end where the Council of Chalcedon has landed is a very simple formula for understanding how we can describe our understanding of Christ as the Incarnate of God come to save that pins us in that it hymns in the boundaries and it says do not transgress outside of these it's not our place the Scriptures don't give us mention of this and therefore we affirm that he is both God and man now often in the modern world what we try to do is you try to say that he is a hundred percent God 100 percent man that's not where Houston goes they haven't sort of come up with I don't know let's just say he's both of everything not in that simplistic of a way rather what they're doing is they're putting an end to the ongoing speculation the ongoing attempt to make one bigger or more powerful than the other or to separate the two they're saying guys the Bible gives us both he's like us in every way but he is God come down that's all we can say and as we've come to the conclusions based off of the teachings of Arius we're gonna say that the son is not a creature he's not less than the father he and the father are one but don't mistake that as an opportunity to say that did not come down to take on human flesh to die on our behalf so at the end this is the fourth ecumenical council now there are seven ecumenical councils affirmed by the church but the first four are the primary theological ones five six and seven deal with the algae at times but not to this magnitude however we can say a few things about the first four sort of overall again to recap salvation is the primary issue at stake the primary position essentially of all the council's is that God came down to save and even though it's messy even though it's problematic and even though it causes us the winds from time to time these councils help shape our language not in terms of inventing language but rather in terms of limiting it very often or in those places where words and language are developed again they're often developed in a way that limits us from going too far in one direction or the other in a manner of speaking the first word medical councils sue for simplicity they press us to stick to the text stick to the essentials of the biblical language the essential story of the gospel that Jesus is God but he is also human and he came down and because of that our Lord died on our behalf as a purchase for our sins

Channel: Ryan Reeves

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Keywords: Council Of Chalcedon (Organization), Chalcedon (City/Town/Village), Religion (TV Genre), Christianity (Religion), Jesus Christ (Deity), The Bible (Religious Text)

Id: tFfNFJOppsM

Length: 20min 23sec (1223 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 28 2015