Scripture and God in Christianity

of God in our history, an immanence on which the biblical doctrine of the economy of salvation
rests." 726 Sellers hails the Council with the following words: "in the Chalcedonian definition of
her faith concerning the Person of her Lord, the Church possesses a treasure of inestimable
worth-the work of an age which deliberately embarked on the task of attempting to offer an answer
to the Christological problem-which she can hand down to succeeding generations of believers,
as they themselves are confronted with the same problem. The form of the doctrine may
vary as new thought-forms arise, but the content will remain. For, express it as we may, fundamental
to the Christian faith is the confession that Jesus Christ is no mere man, but God himself
living a human life, and sharing its experiences as the Saviour of the world; and, once this is accepted,
there comes, itself the result of Christological inquiry, the affirmation that in his one Person
are to be seen in closest union both Godhead in its supreme act of condescension and manhood
in the height of its perfection." 727 Commenting on the significance of Chalcedon Paul Tillich
observes, "To understand the steps in the christological doctrine, always keep in mind two
pictures: (1) The being with two heads, God and man, where there is no unity; (2) The being in
which one head has disappeared, but also humanity has disappeared. The one remaining head is
the head of the Logos, of God himself, so that when Jesus acts, it is not the unity of something
divine and something human, but it is the Logos who is acting. Thus all the struggles, all the uncertainties,
the despair and loneliness, which the Gospels present, were only seemingly experienced
by Jesus, but not really. They are inconsequential. This was the danger in the Eastern Development.
The fact that this danger was overcome is due to the decision of Chalcedon." 728 The
figure of two heads with unity is again as strange as both the others mentioned by Tillich. It is
more unintelligible and exposed to more subtle questions and curiosities. It is impossible to logically
determine the demarcation line between God and Man while insisting upon their unity, as
the traditional dogma asserts. It is corporeal and anthropomorphic.
This concept of being with two heads or natures has remained the official doctrine of Christian
orthodoxy to the present times. E. Brunner writes: "The Jesus Christ shown to us in the Scriptures
accredits Himself to us as the God-Man. One who meets Him with that openness to truth
which the Bible calls "faith", meets in Him One who, in the unity of His Person, is both true God
and true Man. It would be good for the Church to be content with this, and not wish to know
more than they can know, or more than we need, if we are to trust Him and obey Him as we
should." 729
It is pertinent to mention that the Council of Chalcedon was a kind of victory of Antiochene theology
over the Alexandrian Logos theology. Although it addressed the old unresolved issue, and
finally, drew a line between God the Son and Jesus the human by emphasizing Christ's humanity,
in reality it could not resolve the issue at all. Jesus, the historical human being, was declared to
have two distinct natures, perfect human and perfect divine, but one theanthropic person the Logos,
the Son of God. Moreover he was unlike human beings because of his sinlessness. Brunner
rightly expresses the implications:, "when we agree with the verdict "He is a man like ourselves
", we are also obliged to come to the exactly opposite view and say: He is not a man like ourselves....We
know of no other man in whose life sin plays no part, whose life is pure and unstained,
reflecting the holy love of God; who therefore, without hypocrisy or self-assertion could
come forth to meet man as One coming from God." 730
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