Chalcedon was the definitive council and subsequent creed that proclaimed from the foundation of scriptural truth and evidence and by the counsel and influence of the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ was indeed two natures in one person. The two natures were one of the divine or the very nature of God or as Colossians 1: 19 says, “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him”. The infinite entered time and space, the invisible became visible, the transcendent became immanent. The second nature in the one person was that of a truly physical man, born into the world able to breath, bleed and die, so that he could identify with us, be humiliated for us and finally exalted before us.
The God-man existed eternally as the second person of the Trinity, but only entered into time and space when the fullness of time had come, so that he could accomplish his eternal purpose of salvation for his elect brethren. He suffered a humiliation in life, which consisted of restraining his rightful powers within this singular person, the humbling of himself taking on the role as servant, the suffering of his temptations and eventual death on the cross. Finally he was humiliated by experiencing a death that that removed him from that perfect communion with God the Father.
The glorious nature of his exaltation however is what lies before us as we see his resurrection, ascension, placement at the right hand of God the Father and power to judge the living and the dead. In the God-man’s exaltation we have the promises of redemption and reconciliation laid before us in the promise of eternal life as adopted sons and daughters and brethren to our Lord Jesus Christ. All those that are in Christ have this promise applied to them and can rest in the righteousness of the God-man, who can both fully indentify with their suffering and fully satisfy the divine justice of God.
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