The Humanity Of Jesus The Christ: An Overview -- By: Robert H. Culpepper

Journal: Faith and Mission
Volume: FM 05:2 (Spring 1988)
Article: The Humanity Of Jesus The Christ: An Overview
Author: Robert H. Culpepper


The Humanity Of Jesus The Christ:
An Overview

Robert H. Culpepper

Professor of Theology,
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

The great achievement of the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) was the affirmation that the Son is of the same substance as the Father or consubstantial with him. The Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) reaffirmed this truth, but balanced it with the statement that he is also consubstantial with us according to his humanity. The Chalcedonian statement also affirms the unity of Christ’s person, but the duality of the natures, divine and human.

The Chalcedonian definition, which has been generally accepted by the major branches of Christianity, stands for the principle of equal stress upon the divinity and the humanity, without over-or under-emphasizing either. History has proved, however, that such a balance is difficult to maintain.

Early in the Christian era two divergent Christological heresies appeared. Ebionism, arising originally from the Jewish sector of Christianity, failed to do justice to the divinity of Christ. Docetism, on the other hand, springing from Gentile soil, treated Christ as human in appearance only. “ ‘If he suffered,’” said the Ebionites, “ ‘he was not divine.’ ..... If he was divine,’ “ answered the Docetists, “’his sufferings were unreal.’”1 These two opposing deviations have been manifest throughout Christian history. Generally speaking, in our day Christologieal views that seem to do less than justice to the divinity of Jesus are not called “ebionitic,” but rather “adoptionistic.” On the other hand, the adjective “docetic” continues to be applied to views that seem to do less than justice to the human nature of Jesus, whether in the physical, psychic, or spiritual dimensions.

Chalcedonian Christology is inearnational theology. The Chaleedon definition reaffirms the definitions of Nicea (325) and Constantinople (381). The Niceano-Constantinopolitan Creed (381) speaks of Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God, “who, for us men and our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man ....”2

“The Christian Doctrine of the Incarnation,” says The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, “affirms that the eternal Son of God took flesh from his human mother, and that the historical Christ is at once fully God and fully man.”3 I wish to affirm my basic belief in this kind of incarnational Christology and to dissociate myself from the anti-incarnational Christology expressed...

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