Christmas and Chalcedon

About Kevin Vanhoozer

Kevin Vanhoozer (PhD, Cambridge University) is Director of Postgraduate Research, leading the Alexandrian Institute PhD Program and its collection of doctoral supervisors in the Research Fellowship. Vanhoozer is a leading voice in the theological interpretation of Scripture, having authored scholarly and popular-level works in hermeneutics, theological method, and the movement from Scripture to theology.

He has taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, the University of Edinburgh, and most recently has been appointed Blanchard Professor of Theology at Wheaton College's Litfin Divinity School. His books include Is There a Meaning in this Text? (Zondervan, 1998), The Drama of Doctrine (Westminster John Knox, 2005), Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and Mere Christian Hermeneutics (Zondervan Academic, 2024). He is presently working on a four-volume systematic theology, forthcoming with Baker Academic.

Vanhoozer serves on the board of Westmont College, as a senior fellow for the Center for Pastor Theologians, and as a member of the Lausanne Theology Working Group.

The Alexandrian Institute Research Fellowship brings together a community of scholars and doctoral students committed to serving both the academy and the church through fostering rigorous and formative scholarship on the integration of Scripture and Theology, in conversation with the Great Tradition.

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Selected Publications by Kevin Vanhoozer

- Biblical Narrative in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur: A Study in Hermeneutics and Theology (Cambridge University Press, 1990)

- First Theology: God, Scripture, and Hermeneutics (InterVarsity Press, 2002)

- Editor, The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2003)

- The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Westminster/John Knox, 2005)

- Editor, Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Baker Academic, 2005)

- Editor, Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends (Baker Academic, 2007)

- Biblical Authority after Babel: Retrieving the Solas in the Spirit of Mere Protestant Christianity (Brazos, 2016)

- “Love without Measure? John Webster’s Unfinished Dogmatic Account of the Love of God, in Dialogue with Thomas Jay Oord’s Interdisciplinary Theological Account,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 19 no. 4 (October, 2017) 505-26

- “Holy Scripture,” in Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine 2^nd ed. Michael Allen, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 119-38

- Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transfiguring What it Means to Read the Bible Theologically (Zondervan Academic, 2024).

Christ and the Definition of Chalcedon

In this light, Chalcedon is very important for our celebration of Christmas today. The Chalcedonian Definition was a clarification of the Christian confession that was written at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. Before Chalcedon, other councils had decided important doctrinal issues. Once the church was clear in its articulation that Jesus is truly God in the same way that the Father is God (Council of Nicaea, 325 AD), more difficulties arose around how we should understand the humanity of Christ. The beauty of Chalcedon is that it puts in clear succinct language how it is that Jesus's humanity and divinity are united in the one person. Here is the Definition:

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Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all unite in teaching that we should confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. This same one is perfect in deity, and the same one is perfect in humanity; the same one is true God and true man, comprising a rational soul and a body. He is of the same essence as the Father according to his deity, and the same one is of the same essence with us according to his humanity, like us in all things except sin. He was begotten before the ages from the Father according to his deity, but in the last days for us and our salvation, the same one was born of the Virgin Mary, the bearer of God, according to his humanity. He is one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, and Only Begotten, who is made known in two natures united unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably. The distinction between the natures is not at all destroyed because of the union, but rather the property of each nature is preserved and concurs together into one person and subsistence. He is not separated or divided into two persons, but he is one and the same Son, the Only Begotten, God the Logos, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the way the prophets spoke of him from the beginning, and Jesus Christ himself instructed us, and the Council of the fathers has handed the faith down to us.

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Let's highlight several key features from the Definition that are particularly relevant for our faith, especially in the season of Christmas:

Jesus is both truly God and truly man at the same time. "This same one is perfect in deity, and the same one is perfect in humanity; the same one is true God and true man." The whole purpose of the Definition is to expound exactly what we mean by this, in accordance with Scriptures. How can a person (Jesus Christ) be both God and man at the same time? Scripture tells us this is true but there are many unbiblical ways to understand this. Church history is rife with error and misunderstanding.

Jesus in his humanity is fully human and like us in every aspect of humanity: "and true man, comprising a rational soul and a body." This is clear from numerous Biblical texts, for example:

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Heb. 2:14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,

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Jesus is not just a divine person or being covered over in human flesh so that he merely looks human. He is truly and fully human. Just as we have body and souls, so in his humanity Christ took to himself a human body and a human soul in the very same way that we have a body and soul. His divinity is not the super powered battery animated in human flesh. The eternal person of the Son also took on a human soul.

"He is of the same essence as the Father according to his deity, and the same one is of the same essence with us according to his humanity, like us in all things except sin." Here the Definition uses the word "homoousia" or "same essence," which was a hard-fought phrase central to the Nicene creed to describe the equality of the Son with God the Father and applies the same word to describe his identity with us in our humanity. According to his divine nature, the Son is God in the same way that the Father is God, and in his humanity he is human in the same way that we are human.

In their union, which happens in the one person of Christ, the divine and human natures don't lose their unique attributes. They become connected but they don't mix or change. They unite but it is not a union where each aspect changes or morphs:

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who is made known in two natures united unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably. The distinction between the natures is not at all destroyed because of the union, but rather the property of each nature is preserved and concurs together into one person and subsistence.

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At first glance, this may sound technical and esoteric. But there is a simple Biblical logic to it. When the Son becomes man, if something in his divinity changed then he wouldn't still be God the way the Father is God. And if the humanity he takes on changes to become something like a superhuman or a divinized human, then he wouldn't be able to represent us as one of us. Both the humanity and the divinity are united and neither undergo a change because of this union.

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Chalcedon and Our Christmas Confession

Christmas is a time to celebrate and remember who Jesus is and what he did! At Christmas, as much as any time of year, we confess that the Son of God who has existed for all eternity as truly God, took upon himself our humanity in the incarnation. In the Virgin's womb, he takes on all the attributes of humanity without ceasing to be God or losing any aspects of his divinity. These two "natures" come together and are united without either experiencing a change in the essential "godness" of the divine and "humanness" of the humanity. The Definition of Chalcedon is nothing but a faithful representation of Biblical language. He is God. He is God with us. He is God with us in the flesh.

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Matt. 1:23 "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us).

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Confessing Christ

This is summarized well when, in Matthew 16, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” The Apostle Peter answers in what would become one of the early confessions of the Church. He says, “You are the Christ the Son of the Living God” (Matt. 16:16). The early church confessed with Peter that Jesus is Lord. But what did they mean by this? Scripture makes clear that the Apostles understood this confession to mean that Christ Jesus is consubstantial with the Father—that is of the same essence or nature as the Father. Christ is “true God from true God” as the Nicene Creed would summarize.

For the early Christians, the entirety of Christ’s work makes no sense apart from his oneness with God. Even further, though, the Apostles also understood that as the divine Son is eternally “from the Father”, his “begottenness” communicates that the Son’s sonship says something more than just his incarnation or work, but identifies his nature and relation to the Father. As the Creed would render it, the Son is “begotten of the Father before all ages” as Light proceeds from Light. He is the “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1:3). When we see Jesus, the Apostle John tells us, we see the glory of the Father whom the Son has revealed. So following the Apostles, who passed along what they learned from Christ to the Nicene Fathers, when we confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, we are confessing what we mean by this is that Christ Jesus is eternally generated from the Father, co-equal together with the Father and the Spirit in all dignity, power, and authority.

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Who is Christ?

But we need to be clear. We don’t confess this because it’s one approach among many in the early Church, nor do we confess it because this tradition happened to win out in the end at the councils. Rather, the basis for this comes from Christ’s own teaching about himself from the Scriptures, which he showed were from start to finish all about him:

- He is the Davidic messiah come to rule over Israel as the Divine Son.

- He is the Son of Man, the Ancient of Days who wields God’s power and authority.

- He is the Creator of all that is made, worthy of worship with the Father.

- He is the Giver of God’s Spirit in fulfillment of the New Covenant.

Jesus himself understood and delivered the confession of his identity as one with the Father, full of grace and truth.

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Receiving the Confession by the Rule of Faith

So the Early Church received this confession through the teaching of the Apostles via their writings in inspired Scripture. The Early Church also received this confession through the “rule of faith.” This is the reading of Scripture handed down as the logic of Scripture to guard as the right understanding of God’s self-revelation through Christ’s own words of life by which he made known that all Scripture is really about Him. It is by this self-revelation of God and his work in redemptive history that the early church confessed in the Apostles Creed, the story of the Christ event:

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I Believe in God, the Father, Almighty,

     Creator of heaven and earth.

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I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

     who was conceived of by Holy Spirit,

     born of the Virgin Mary,

     suffered under Pontius Pilate,

     was crucified, died, and was buried.

     He descended to Hell.

     The third day he rose again from the dead;

     he ascended to heaven,

     and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.

     From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

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I believe in the Holy Spirit,

     the holy catholic Church,

     the communion of saints,

     the forgiveness of sins,

     the resurrection of the body,

     and the life everlasting.

     Amen.

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The challenge of the early church was to guard the confession through articulating the boundaries of the faith according to this logic of Scripture. The road to Nicaea, understood as the early church’s consensus concerning Scripture’s own teaching of Christ’s true divinity and full humanity, runs right through Alexandria. For out of Alexandrian came:

- Athanasius, addressing the challenge of Arianism—Christ is not subordinate to the Father in essence or relation.

- Cyril, addressing the challenge of Nestorianism—Christ is fully like us without loss or change of his full divinity, both natures united perfectly in one Person.

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