The Christ We Cannot Lose

Reflecting on Chalcedon, the creeds, and gospel clarity with The Reclamation Podcast.

Photo by Morgan Legg on Unsplash

I was delighted to join my brothers from The Reclamation Podcast on a recent episode discussing the Chalcedonian Definition of 451 A.D. and why this historic Christological confession is still relevant today. You might recall, I wrote a lengthy essay diving into Chalcedon’s history and theology, so I was thrilled to be involved in this roundtable discussion with

Brad Kafer

, Michael Lewis, and Timothy Baird, as we sought to consider not only its Christological implications, but also the pastoral weightiness inherent in the gospel message of the God-Man who died and rose again for our sins. The paragraph developed by the Council of Chalcedon is dense, comprehensive, and loaded with the good news of the one person who can actually save us. In light of modernity’s continued attempts to reinterpret or reimagine him, part of the church’s ambition to hold fast to the confession of our faith might just involve recovering this patristic-era definition.

Listen to the full episode here:

To be sure, the Christological definition that emerged out of the Council of Chalcedon wasn’t formulated by pastors and theologians who had nothing better to do with their biblical degrees. Rather, it was born during an era of great struggle, as controversy plagued the early church. Much of the conflict could be condensed to the question Jesus posed to his own disciples: “Whom do people say that I am?” (Mark 8:27). How one answers that question has enormous ramifications for almost every subsequent tenet of one’s faith. And, indeed, as Jesus demonstrates by healing the blind man of Bethsaida (Mark 8:22–26), unless one confesses that Jesus of Nazareth is both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36), one only has a blurry conception of his identity. In many ways, the church has been fighting for a clear view of who Jesus was and is ever since.

This conversation is more timely than you might think. According to recent data from the State of Theology Survey, there are loads of folks in pews who aren’t sure that Jesus is God. This, of course, is why recovering the Chalcedonian Definition is so important. It’s not some ecclesiastical artifact. Rather, it’s a guardrail that springs from the Word that keeps the church from succumbing to believing in a sentimental, half-divine, demi-god Jesus whose teachings might inspire, but whose life can’t redeem us. Christology and soteriology are inseparably linked. Tweak one, and you lose the other. Redefine the former, and you forfeit the latter. This is why the creeds still matter. Not because they’re as authoritative as Scripture, but because they function to save us from our insipid tendency to reinterpret God’s Son after our own likeness.

The Definition of Chalcedon is vital for every sinner-saint for the ways in which it gestures to the Son of God, who partakes in our humanity without reservation, hesitation, or diminution, whose glorified body still shows the wounds that reconciled us to the Father. This is the Christ we cannot afford to lose. And this is why Christological clarity isn’t just an academic exercise; it’s the oxygen of discipleship. It’s the lifeblood of the faith once delivered to all the saints. Consequently, every generation of believers, including ours, must fight to see him clearly.

Grace and peace to you, and happy listening!