Incorruptibly Indivisible

Mark A. Smith

3 minutes ago6 min read

THE SYMBOL OF CHALCEDON

one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably

Beginning with the phrase “one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten,” it will be a helpful reminder in defense of the Creed’s overall purpose to consider how they are applying this knowledge, for it was crafted in defense against those who were denying, through the practice of their teaching (1Jn.4:2-3), “Christ’s coming (in the flesh).” This Symbol is not purposed against Christ’s second coming or against the nature by which He comes to judge the Earth but is purposed to protect the nature by which Christ is saving the Earth (1Jn.1:5-2:2; 5:6-12; 1Tim.4:10). So the Creed relates to us the first coming of Christ as coming in the likeness of our flesh but as the promised Immanuel (Matt.1:23). As was said before, particularly with the term Son, these are all terms by which we relate to God and by which God relates to those He has redeemed. Jesus is our Christ because He is the only Christ appointed by the Almighty Father to satisfy justice on our behalf as a son begotten of the same flesh, and so He is the only-begotten Son of God. This means He is the only recognized son of the flesh that has never broken fellowship with God (Matt.27:46; Lk.23:46). Therefore, He is Lord over all because He is the only received son that has proven to conquer death (Matt.27:47-54). So He is Lord over all creation (Acts 10:36-43), but He is not Father over all creation (Col.1:15-18/emphasis:v.18), because not all creation is from everlasting to everlasting (Isa.9:6; 56:5; 63:16; Ps.90:2; 103:17; 106:48), but He is both Lord and Christ as “our” substitute by which we receive the right of adoption to become sons of God and children of the promise of eternal life (Jn.1:12-13; 20:17). Because He is the only-begotten, our adoption is through Him, and because God loves us through Him, we are called sons of God (1Jn.3:1-3).

Therefore, all this language pertaining to the “two natures” has its application to His mediation through His earthly crucifixion (Rom.8:3), not His ascension to glory by which He changes forever everything that is being made to come under His footstool (Heb.9:28; 1Jn.3:2), for we shall be changed from dust to glory, corruptible to incorruptible, according to the resurrection image of the angelic body (1Cor.15:36-38, 45-57). So then, in what way are we to ‘acknowledge two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably?’ The divine nature and the human nature are not confused. This is true! Each nature functions within its own purpose and is not to be confused with each other. The divine nature doesn’t ‘change’ into the human nature and vice versa. But neither are they divisible or separable from the singular person of the soul and spirit of the human body of Christ except in death as it is with every man (James 2:26; 1Cor.15:36; Jn.12:24-28). It is the spirit that carries the soul (1Cor.15:45; Heb.4:12), but a soul that clings to the corruptible body abides in death because of the corruption of the body (Ps.22:15; Jn.19:28; Ps.44:25; 119:25; Acts 2:25-31). This is why the body must be changed to inherit glory, so in that sense the body does change and the soul changes with the new spirit (Jn.3:6-8; Ezk.36:26). But Christ was incorruptible in the nature of His soul and spirit, for He alone was indivisible and inseparable of soul and spirit (James 2:26). We, therefore, are begotten by His life-giving spirit (1Cor.15:45; 1Pet.1:23), for our spirit must be cast out as unclean because it corrupts the corruptible soul and in turn corrupts the corruptible body (Rom.6:23; 7:24). So we are divisible and separable because we are darkness (Matt.6:23; Lk.11:24-26), but in Christ is no darkness at all (1Jn.1:5; Jn.3:19-21).

The spirit grows either by the nature of light or by the nature of darkness (Ps.25:17; 119:32; 135:5; 2Chr.2:5; 1Cor.8:5-6; 1Jn.3:20; 4:4; 5:9), so by Christ taking on the nature of man, He was made to grow back up into His own spirit incorruptibly in His soul (Heb.7:24-28; 2Cor.10:12-18; Jn.5:20, 36; 14:12). Being “one with Himself,” He no longer dies (2Cor.5:16-17; Rom.6:7-10; Jn.1:18; 3:13 (nkjv)). It is an interesting ongoing debate of textual criticism concerning Jn.1:18. The more I meditate on it, the more inclined I am to side with the Alexandrian text, which interprets it as “the only begotten God” because, as the Son; this is what He grows up into regarding the glory He had before the world was (Jn.17:1-3; 14:5-10), which abandons my traditional reasoning. He is no longer unto us as a son but unto us as a father (Isa.9:6-7). We, too, grow up into our spirit or angel (Eph.4:20-24; 1Cor.6:17; Acts 12:15; 23:8; Lk.20:34-36; Matt.18:10), but if we grow up into a spirit of darkness (Jude 6), our soul remains unclean as an imposter of the light (2Tim.3:13; Jn.3:19-21; 10:7-9; 2Cor.11:12-15). So then, we must lead our souls to pursue the truth that sanctifies our souls by the Spirit of Christ who has perfected the spirits of the redeemed according to the election of the Father of spirits (Jn.17:17-19; Heb.12:7-9, 22-24; Rom.5:6-11). It is possible to “seal” the fate of our soul as one of the sons of perdition through a spirit of apostasy in every generation (1Tim.4:1-5; Heb.10:39; Jn.17:12; 2Thess.2:3; Mk.3:27-30). This is the spirit that Catholicism has risen to in her universal bread of apostasy (Lk.12:1). The angel of her body of ethics has risen to an irrevocable status that stands without a verified lampstand of the Spirit of Christ (2Tim.2:19; Rom.6:1-2; 1Cor.15:29-34; Rev.2:1, 5, 7; 16:13-16, 19-21; 17:18; 18:2-8).

So then, my aim in this is not to understand all the nuances of the debate that went into how the Creed was formed against the heresies of that time but to look at this with a new angle that springs out of the old mold that dampers our growth and beholding a deeper understanding that is more refined for our growth according to the Scriptures rather than the traditional minds of men (Ps.19:12; Jer.17:9). I am not an expert on church history, and therefore do not claim to understand all the debates that went into framing the Symbol this way, but we should be free to think about the Scriptures beyond what those traditional debates confine us to when shaping our questions around this Creed. I have no intentions of “erasing” the page but every good intention of reminding us of the freedom in “turning” the page (Heb.5:12-6:8). We should not allow ourselves to be slaves to the Symbol when examining the Scriptures through its limited lens of thinking. We should hold fast to what is good but be fearless of being harmed by learning something new that can still be found in the manna of God’s Word (1Thess.5:19-22; Rev.2:12-17). Therefore, the goal of my personal study around this Symbol is to become “one with what I am in Christ” as He is seated in the heavenly places (Eph.1:20-21; 2:1-7), not as “one with myself in His crucifixion,” where I am divided in soul and spirit (Heb.4:12; Rom.7:14-25), for though I am crucified with Christ as a sinner (Gal.2:20), the life of that old man and the body of his sin is dead being hidden in Christ (Col.3:3; Rom.6:1-11), while I live as a new creation of the new man (from the two) living in me (Rom.8:1-2, 10-11), which is the Lord from heaven (1Cor.15:47; Eph.2:14-16), the heavenly man in whom my spirit is preserved and perfected (2Cor.5:16-17), whereby I live by faith in the race to see Him in my heavenly body (1Cor.9:24; 13:9-13/emphasis:v.12; Heb.12:1-2, 22-24; 2Tim.4:7; Acts 20:24).

chapter iii

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS FIXITY

1. The Creative Period

The object of this chapter is to examine the evolution of creeds (using the word in the elastic, non-technical sense adopted in the first chapter) in the period between the close of the first century and the middle of the third. [...] After the middle of the third century, as has already been suggested, an entirely new situation arose with the introduction of the “handing out” and “giving back” of the creed, and the disciplina arcani with which they were connected. These ceremonies not only brought declaratory creeds into the foreground, but had the effect of tending to stabilize their wording.