Seasonal Reflections from Carl Trueman

Posted on December 19, 2010 
Filed under Opinion

Carl Trueman has been posting some seasonal reflections at Reformation21. Part 1, part 2 and part 3 are now online.

From part 2,

“The glory of Christmas is the reality of the God in human flesh; and one of the greatest aspects of this incarnation is that which found its clearest doctrinal expression in the so-called Chalcedonian Formula of 451 AD. This rather dusty looking formula emphasized the union of the two natures, divine and human, in the one person of the Lord Jesus Christ.   While many of us instinctively recoil at the language of natures and person, as being somewhat abstract and philosophical, as taming what is really a most explosive biblical truth – that God entered history in human form — this formula is actually the most glorious of practical truths.  Actions are, after all, things performed by persons, not natures. Thus, Chalcedon underlines the fact that, when Jesus looked with pity on the woman with the flow of blood, we know that this was not something that his human nature did while the divine nature was somehow disengaged or hidden or even opposed to what he was doing. No, God manifest in the flesh looked with pity upon her. God saw, God knew, God acted with mercy.

Because God in Christ is a person, not two people or simply two natures spookily floating in the one space, the action of Jesus revealed something deep and wonderful about God himself: the one who created all things, the one who measures the very dimensions of the universe as if they were the mere span of his hand — this God looks with pity upon a poor, nameless woman in her sufferings which, while terrible to her, were of no cosmic significance whatsoever.”