06_person_1226_chalcedon

Cyril of Alexandria taught that Jesus is one person with both divine and human natures. The question is whether these natures mix or stay separate. The debate at Nicaea also discussed the nature of Jesus. The Bible states that Jesus became like us in every respect, so our salvation depends on sharing the same nature as Him. The Council of Chalcedon concluded that Jesus' two natures are united without being mixed or confused. The metaphor of milk and marbles does not accurately represent this union. Jesus' natures are unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably united. So Cyril of Alexandria taught strongly that Jesus is just one person. There's not like a God-Jesus and a human-Jesus both doing different things. At the same time, we know that Jesus is both God and human, so he has to have some godness and some humanness, right? We call these natures. And this is the same concept, this nature concept, is the same concept of what they debated earlier at Nicaea, when they said that Jesus is the same nature as God. So, godness and humanness, these are his natures, right? So the question is, when these two natures come together, do they mix or do they stay separate without mixing? My kids like Rice Krispies more than Chocolate Puffs and their cereal because the Chocolate Rice Krispies mix with the milk, right? I kind of mix the chocolate milk. So are Jesus' godness and humanness more like the Chocolate Puffs, which don't mix at all? Or are they like the Chocolate Rice Krispies, which turn the milk into chocolate milk? And if the Chocolate Puffs is not a good example, because there are some mixtures, like imagine a bowl of marbles with some milk in it, right? But here's the problem. The Bible is pretty clear that he became like us in every respect, right? Also that we share in flesh and blood. So our salvation depends on us sharing the same nature with Jesus exactly. He has to have real, unaltered humanness. So if his godness mixes with the humanness, and now the plain milk, you know, is turned into chocolate milk, it's no longer normal milk, and we have a problem. So if you think of the milk as humanity, it has to stay completely and exactly just normal milk, right? If it's chocolate milk, they're not the same natures anymore. And this is what they said at Calzone. Not the cereal thing, right? But they thought that the two natures are not mixed in any way. The word that they used for mixed is confused, okay? So the nature of the milk and Rice Krispies get confused when they unite. Here's the language from the definition. The Lord Jesus Christ is acknowledged in two natures, unconfusedly. The difference of the natures being in no way removed because of the union, but rather the properties of each nature being preserved. All right, so that was it. Now, because the milk, which was not chocolate at all, all of a sudden becomes chocolatey, and the cereal, which used to be dry, is not anymore. Their properties are not preserved, right? Now, what does it actually mean for His natures to be united? Actually, one of the things I like about bad theology metaphors, and pretty much all metaphors about Christology or the Trinity are bad, is demonstrating where they fall short. So this one falls short in a lot of areas. But one of the reasons marbles and milk is a bad example is that the milk and the marbles are not really united, at least not in the way that Jesus' natures are united. Even the definition of chalcedon says that the natures are united unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably. So you can change how united the marbles and milk are, right? You can even separate them by just taking out the marbles and drying them off. But that doesn't work when you're talking about Jesus and His two natures, right? They can't ever be separated. So there's something about that metaphor that just doesn't really represent how their union works. The extent to which His natures are united never changes. In chalcedon, they defined the Christological definition as Jesus still has two different natures. One corresponds to Him being a man, and one corresponding to Him being God.