Christ Church Leavenworth
Call to Confession
October 25, 2026
"The Chalcedonian Creed"
INTRODUCTION
Happy Reformation Sunday! Next week we will begin reciting the Chalcedonian Creed as our confession of faith following the sermon. And since it’s been a year since we have recited it, I thought it would be helpful to review it this morning so that we’re ready to throw our hearts into it next Sunday. Let’s begin by reading it in its entirety. If you’d like to follow along, it is printed on pg. 819 of the Cantus.
“We confess our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to his Godhead, and consubstantial also with us as according to his Manhood; in all things like unto us, yet without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the virgin, Mary, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the fathers has handed down to us. Amen.”
WORDS MATTER
The Scriptures teach that Jesus is and was both fully God and fully man. We see this stated perhaps most clearly and concisely in the prologue to John’s Gospel in 1:1, 14, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” So, there it is: The Word was God and the Word became flesh: God became a man. But how did that work? How can infinite God be bound to a particular place? And how can a particular man bear the sins of the world? That is what the Chalcedonian Creed was drafted to address and that is why it reads more like a theology manual than a statement of belief like the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. For that reason, this may all seem like a bunch of nerds arguing over words, but don’t check out if systematic theologies aren’t your thing. There is actually quite a bit at stake here and a lot of practical applications for people like you and me.
And that is because our view of Jesus matters. Especially for Christians. If we are striving to be “little Christs,” what we think He is like will affect what we’re trying to do and how we go about doing it. For example, if we, as the late, great Voddie Baucham once warned, view Jesus as a “soft, effeminate, European, metrosexual, shampoo model,” that will show up in how we see other things. Or if we think of Jesus as the guy on the right side of the Bible who came along to apologize for the guy on the left side of the Bible, that will affect the way we talk about Him and what we think about His rules, especially the ones on the left side of the Book. Our theology comes out of our fingertips and what we think affects what we do. A.W. Tozer put it this way, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us." Ideas have consequences. Belief is upstream from behavior. What Owen Barfield once said about C.S. Lewis is more or less true of all of us, “What we think about everything affects the way we think about anything.” The same thing is true here. What we think of Jesus matters.
WHAT WE THINK OF JESUS MATTERS
If Jesus is really God, but only kind of a man, we have a High Priest who cannot really represent us when He enters the presence of God on our behalf. He doesn’t really “get us” despite what the Super Bowl ad said. But if Jesus was just a man and not really God, we have a High Priest who cannot really atone for our sins because he has enough of his own to atone for. In that case, “He gets us,” just like the Super Bowl ad said, but He can’t really do anything about it. All Christs are not created equal. One, in fact, wasn’t created at all. Consider 2 Corinthians 11:3-4
“I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims a Jesus other than the one we proclaimed… you put up with it.”
Do not put up with designer knock off Jesuses. Do not drink the Aldi Kool-aid Christs. Put them out of mind and put them in their place, which is under the footstool of the real Jesus. There are many counterfeit Christs out there and some are closer to the real thing than others, but all are missing some essential quality that keeps them from being the real thing and close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Christ-ish isn’t going to cut it. In our day, most of the counterfeits fudge on the fully God part. They are big on the fully man part. So much so, many of them are bold enough to attribute even some of the worst sins of fallen man to Him – like gay pride parade Jesus, trans-the-kids Jesus, open borders Jesus, and commie-redistribution Jesus. A dead give away is when they say, “If Jesus were alive today He would…” IF?!?!? What do you mean if? He IS alive! I think we are talking about two different people.
And that is why the Chalcedonian Creed is as important today as ever. We are not free to redefine who Jesus is. We are constantly bombarded by people posting about how their Jesus would never turn someone away or how their Jesus would never carry a sword. And you know what? They’re right. Their Jesus would never do any of those things, because their Jesus can’t do anything. He isn’t real. They have fashioned an idol in their own image and named it, “Jesus.” But calling your idol “Jesus” doesn’t make it any better, it only makes it worse.
When Moses went up the mountain, the Israelites got worried and petitioned Aaron to make a new god for them. They gathered up their gold and “out came the golden calf.” They worshiped it and thanked it for delivering them out of Egypt. Even though they had just made it like an hour ago, they praised it for parting the red sea months before. And as egregious as that all is, do you know what the worst part of it was? They named the thing “The Lord.” So, when Moses came back down the mountain and accused them of going after false gods, what did they say, “Far be it from us to worship false gods, we worship the Lord. See, he’s right there.” Moses, who had just been in the presence of the Lord for 40 days and nights, however, said, “I’ve seen the LORD. I know the LORD. The LORD is a friend of mine. And that, my friends, is NOT the LORD! That is a cow. Shut it down!”
JESUS IS NOT A TAME LION
In our day, the temptation is to rob Jesus of His divinity in order to make Him less scary to be around. We like the idea of the Lion laying down with the Lamb because it makes the Lion less intimidating. We like the Lamb of God, but we fear the Lion of Judah. Chesterton observed this tendency and described it this way, "We are constantly assured that when the lion lies down with the lamb, the lion becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb. The real problem is this -- Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity?"
Jesus is not a tame lion. He is not a domesticated house cat you can keep around to snuggle with when you feel lonely. If you declaw Him, muzzle Him, shave His mane, and castrate Him in order to make Him easier to live with, you’re not left with a “better” lion. What you’re left with isn’t a lion at all. But that is the Jesus most of our neighbors picture when they think about Him, and if we’re not careful, the same can happen to us. Jesus is both fully Lion and fully Lamb. How is that possible? The same way He is both fully man and fully God. Which is to say, it is a miracle. The miracle of the incarnation is what we celebrate and sing about at Christmas and the Chalcedonian Creed prepares our hearts and minds to dwell more rightly and to delight more fully upon it. May it be so this Christmas.
CALL TO CONFESSION
Well, since we are often too slow to think about who Jesus really is and too quick to fill in the gaps by making the rest up, we are reminded of our need to regularly confess our sins, whether they be related to this or to others. So, if you are able, please kneel with me and confess your sins, first privately and then corporately using the prayer found in your bulletin.
CORPORATE CONFESSION
Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to Your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgment. Cleanse me, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
DECLARATION OF PARDON
Arise and hear the Good News! The assurance of pardon today comes from Romans 4:4-8 “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.’”
We are not forgiven because we understand who Jesus is or what He did for us. We are not saved by reciting the Chalcedonion Creed or by better understanding it. We are saved because of who Jesus is and what He has done for us whether we fully understand it or not. We are saved because there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for us all. And because He did that and because you have placed your faith in it, it is my pleasure to pronounce to you, that in Him, your sins are forgiven… THANKS BE TO GOD!
Now let us ascend to the presence of God in all worship and praise
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