In the tapestry of Christian faith, the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) wove a defining thread: Christ as one person in “two natures,” fully divine and fully human. This foundational truth shapes our understanding of Jesus and invites us into a deeper contemplation of His life, death, and resurrection.
Yet, as Bruce McCormack has suggested, the Chalcedonian legacy is not without its complexities and challenges.
As such, this reflection explores these nuances and how his Reformed perspective on Christ's kenosis—the self-emptying of the divine—can deepen our spiritual journey while firmly rejecting natural theology.
The Promise and Challenge of Chalcedonian Christology
Chalcedon affirms that in Jesus Christ, the fullness of God and the fullness of humanity are united without confusion, change, division, or separation. This mystery is both a promise and a challenge. It promises us a Savior who is truly God and truly man, able to bridge the infinite gap between God and us. Yet, it challenges us to understand how these “two natures” coexist harmoniously in one person (this assuming, as we will consider, such terminology is even necessary).
In historic Reformed theology, this mystery is guarded by emphasizing the integrity of both natures. Jesus' human nature remains truly human, unmarred by a fusion with His divine nature. This means that Jesus experienced human life in all its reality—its joys and sorrows, its strengths and weaknesses.
As Bruce McCormack highlights:
The Reformed confessions gave heightened emphasis to a particular element in the Chalcedonian dogma that any Christology that seeks, even today, to be ‘Reformed’ must also bring to expression. That the two natures of Christ were ‘unimpaired in their original integrity’ subsequent to their union in one person was given special emphasis precisely in order to reject an interpenetration of human nature by the divine nature as taught by the Lutherans. For the Reformed, the human nature of Christ could not undergo ‘divinization’ in the sense of participating in any of the divine attributes without ceasing to be human. It was, then, completely in line with this originating impulse in Reformed Christology when a later Reformed theologian like Francis Turretin taught that the ‘excellencies’ of Jesus – that is, the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit that made him unique amongst humans – were ‘created gifts’ (not uncreated, as is often thought elsewhere to be made possible through participation in the triune life of God)
McCormack, Bruce Lindley. The Humility of the Eternal Son: Reformed Kenoticism and the Repair of Chalcedon (Current Issues in Theology Book 18) (p. 249). Cambridge University Press.
McCormack’s insight helps us appreciate the Reformed commitment to preserving the full humanity of Christ. This commitment ensures that while Jesus possessed extraordinary gifts, these were the result of the Holy Spirit’s work and not an inherent divinization of His human nature. This perspective guards against any blurring of the lines between Christ's divinity and humanity.
Kenosis and the Holy Spirit
Philippians 2:7 tells us that Christ "emptied Himself" by taking the form of a servant and being born in human likeness. This self-emptying is not relinquishing His divinity but a profound expression of divine humility and Triune love. Jesus, the eternal Son, willingly embraced the limitations and vulnerabilities of human existence.
And so, we must emphasize the profound nature of kenosis as God’s active decision to be involved in human history. The Incarnation is not merely an abstract theological concept (detached from history) but a divine act that brings God into intimate fellowship with humanity. This connection is not about God abandoning His divinity but fully participating in human life.
In this act, the depth of God’s Triune love is revelated to us. God did not remain hidden but entered into our world, taking on our flesh and blood to reveal Himself. This “kenotic” journey reveals a God who is not only divine but also intimately, irrevocably involved in the human story; revealing the more important fact that the Triune God has made us characters in His story in a way far more personal than we had ever known.
Through Jesus’ life, we see the Holy Spirit at work, guiding and empowering His way through the inglorious life of ministry to common people. From His baptism to His ministry and miracles, Jesus operated through the animation of the Spirit. This pneumatological dimension—emphasizing the Spirit’s work—shows us that Jesus’ extraordinary gifts and abilities were exercised in dependence on the Spirit. This aligns with the Reformed tradition, which views these gifts as bestowed by the Spirit, preserving the true humanity of Jesus.
One could make the case that such a thing is a call for us to embrace humility, serve others, and participate in the Triune love that reaches out to the low places, the lost, and the “empty.” For Jesus, there simply is no glory in his way of engagement with the world.
McCormack provides further insight:
The early Reformed didn’t make as much of ‘pneumatological Christology’ as they might have done but they certainly laid the foundations for it. If the ‘elevation’ of Christ’s humanity took place through created gifts bestowed by the Spirit, the door is open wide to a pneumatologically driven two-natures Christology. And so it comes as no surprise that Jesus’ obedience to the Father’s will was understood as spontaneously offered even as it was also guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit, rather than as the necessary consequence of being employed by the Logos as an instrument.
ibid., p. 250
This underscores the Reformed understanding that the Holy Spirit’s work in Jesus’ life is crucial for maintaining His true humanity. The Spirit’s empowerment allows Jesus to perform extraordinary acts while remaining fully human. This pneumatological emphasis preserves the integrity of Jesus’ human experiences and His dependence on the Spirit.
Embracing the Chalcedonian Christ
Reflecting on Jesus' “two natures” helps us understand that He is both fully God and fully human. This duality is not a division but a union that deeply enriches our faith. Jesus' humanity was real and complete; He grew tired, felt sorrow, and faced temptations. Yet, His divinity was also complete, performing miracles, forgiving sins, and revealing the Father’s heart. Jesus (the God-man) simply has no “genus.”
In this utter uniqueness, we are presented with the opportunity to trust Jesus more fully. As God, He has the power to save us. As man, He understands our struggles and intercedes for us. His life models for us how to live fully human lives in communion with the Trine God, empowered by the Spirit.
McCormack helps clarify:
"What then of Chalcedon’s talk of two ‘natures’? This language needs to be surrendered – and not merely because it seeks to bring the divine and the human together under a single master-concept, as Friedrich Schleiermacher rightly pointed out. Some have questioned whether a God whose ‘being’ belongs to no genus can be rightly described as having a ‘nature.’ I don’t think this would be an insuperable problem, though, if we were to dispense with the idea of divine simplicity"
ibid., p. 254
Here, McCormack challenges us to reconsider traditional language about Christ’s “two natures.” By moving beyond rigid categories (“two natures”), we can better appreciate the dynamic relationship between Christ’s divinity and humanity, emphasizing the unity and fullness of both in his “genuslessness.”
Divine simplicity asserts that God’s attributes, such as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, are identical to His essence and therefore unchangeable. McCormack argues that this view is problematic when considering the Incarnation, where the Son of God experiences human limitations. This challenges the idea of immutability in the divine essence.
So, what’s the answer?
The Unio Hypostatica
McCormack points out that in the “hypostatic union,” divine actions are directly carried out through Jesus' human nature. This union allows God to fully participate in human experiences of speaking, acting, and suffering.
The exaltation of the human is made possible by the act of God by means of which God takes up human ‘essence’ and unites it to himself. God alone is the Subject of this uniting action; there is no ‘point of contact’ for it on the human side, no cooperation on the part of the creature. This is a ‘new creation’ (2 Cor. 5:17) which consists in God’s act of taking ‘human being into unity with His own.’ The result of this uniting action is that ‘the existence of the Son of God became and is also the existence of a man.’ This, for Barth, is the most difficult point to comprehend, the truth that beggars all the language we might choose to describe it. There is no analogy to the unio hypostatica—not in the heavenly sphere and certainly not in the earthly. The unio hypostatica can be understood, to the extent that it is understood at all, only in terms of itself.
McCormack, B. L. (2008). Participation in God, Yes; Deification, No: Two Modern Protestant Responses to an Ancient Question. In Orthodox and Modern: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (pp. 211-239). Baker Academic.
One critical aspect to clarify is that neither should kenotic Christology imply, therefore, that believers somehow "incarnate" throughout history (that is not only a common misreading of Barth but bad theology on the part of popularized evangelical accounts of “incarnationl mission”). As such, none of our own actions can ever be characterized as salvific in the overly-pietistic capacity that some have lead us to believe is appropriate for Christians. We are simply participants in the Triune life of God made possible through the unio hypostatica. And so, neither is it appropriate to suggest we are “penetrated” by the divine life like the Orthodox doctrine of “deification” might suggest. McCormack makes this theological move extremely clear through his emphasis on the utter uniqueness (genuslessness) of the the unio hypostatica.
As McCormack states:
The valid concern is that there is, indeed, a participation of the human in the divine and not merely a participation of the divine in the human.
ibid.
Karl Barth's Contributions: The Centrality of History
Karl Barth offers profound insights to this end that support us in reshaping our approach to kenotic Christology. Barth emphasized that the true knowledge of God comes not through abstract metaphysics or natural theology but through God's historical self-revelation in Jesus Christ. For Barth, history is not merely a backdrop but the arena where God’s redemptive action “toward us” unfolds.
McCormack articulates Barth's view:
The electing God is not an unknown ‘x.’ He is a God whose very being – already in eternity – is determined, defined, by what he reveals himself to be in Jesus Christ; viz., a God of love and mercy towards the whole human race. That is what Barth means for us to understand when he says that Jesus Christ is the Subject of election.
McCormack, Bruce Lindley. The Humility of the Eternal Son: Reformed Kenoticism and the Repair of Chalcedon (Current Issues in Theology Book 18) (p. 284). Cambridge University Press.
Barth’s focus on the historical reality of Jesus’ incarnate life highlights that Christ's divinity and humanity are not merely a historic event (although they are that too) but normative for the lived human reality he reveals (Hebrews 12:2). Said another way, the Incarnation is not an abstract theological concept but an event in history where the Triune God engages with humanity in a tangible, transformative way. This historical engagement is seen in every act of Jesus—His teachings, miracles, suffering, death, and resurrection. Through these events, God reveals His character, his purpose, and what it means to have “life in him.” (John 1:4)
Foolish Piety: Rejecting Natural Theology
An essential aspect of embracing this account of kenotic Christology is a firm rejection of natural theology, as its theological trajectory, according to Barth, is toward “anti-Christ” because all natural accounts of theology are eventually exposed for foundations guilty of abstraction from divine revelation.
True knowledge of God comes through the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ. It is not through human effort or natural observation that we come to know God but through God's gracious self-disclosure in the Incarnate Word.
According to McCormack, Barth’s account of "ontological receptivity” provides the theological framework for understanding the divine self-revelation, further aligning with Barth’s emphasis on revelation being hidden in human experience.”
[Ontological receptivity] is made possible by the act of God by means of which God takes up human ‘essence’ and unites it to himself. God alone is the Subject of this uniting action; there is no ‘point of contact’ for it on the human side, no cooperation on the part of the creature. This is a ‘new creation’ (2 Cor. 5:17) which consists in God’s act of taking ‘human being into unity with His own.
McCormack, B. L. (2008). Participation in God, Yes; Deification, No: Two Modern Protestant Responses to an Ancient Question. In Orthodox and Modern: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (pp. 211-239). Baker Academic.
As such, by emptying Himself and taking on human flesh, Jesus witnesses to the heart of God in a way that natural theology never can. This kenotic revelation suggests the challenge of developing theological attitudes radically suspicious of primarily “natural” modes of theological reasoning:
Misrepresentation of God’s Nature: Natural theology inevitably distorts the true nature of God by interpreting divine attributes through the lens of human understanding. By doing so, it risks reducing God to a concept that fits within human categories, rather than recognizing the Chalcedonian mystery of God revealed in the unio hypostatica.
Undermining the Necessity of Revelation: Natural theology undermines the foundational Christian belief that God has chosen to reveal Himself fully and uniquely in Jesus Christ. As McCormack points out, divine self-revelation is central to understanding God’s true nature and character.
Devaluation of Christ’s Kenosis: By emphasizing human reason and observation we devalue the significance of Christ’s kenosis. The self-emptying of Christ is a divine act that cannot be fully comprehended or appreciated through natural means. It requires a disciplined recognition of the mystery and humility inherent to God’s decision to enter into human history.
Living Out Kenotic Love
As such, the kenosis of Christ in the unio hypostatica sets concrete expectations for Christian practice. Just as Jesus emptied Himself out of love, we are called to this way of life revealed in the Son. This self-giving love is not about “losing ourselves” but dying to our “false selves” by finding our “true selves” as defined by participation in God’s Triune life. It calls us to let go of arrogance, admitting authentic need, embracing vulnerability, and serving others both selflessly and unpretentiously.
McCormack further discusses the practical implications:
I take the point that there will always be any number of men in the churches who will be inclined to regard ‘self-emptying’ as the proper province of those they see as called to serve, not of those called to lead (a designation they reserve for those of their sex and gender). And so, as a practical matter, I would suggest that any congregation that tries to embody the self-emptying love Paul calls for should begin with those who are currently in positions of authority, with all that they are, do, and say, their entire way of being in the world – and not with those who possess little to no power. Self-emptying love is the ‘essence’ of what it means to be ‘Christian’ (Jn. 13:35). No one can be exempted.
ibid., p. 292
This understanding and embrace of the kenosis of Christ deepens our worship and, as such, our relationships with one another through imagining a lives where filling our selves up with the self-will is not a primary concern. Such a conviction reminds us that God’s Triune, kenotic love is made known in weakness, that true greatness is found in humbling oneself, and that God’s love is most clearly seen grounded in God’s self-giving. This perspective should shape our prayers, our actions, and our daily practices.
And so, as we reflect on the legacy of Chalcedon, let us be inspired by the depth of God’s love revealed in Christ’s self-emptying. Let us consider the meaning of living lives marked by humility, service, and deep compassion, embodying the kenotic love of the Savior.
The Chalcedonian definition, when viewed through this lens of Reformed kenotic Christology, offers a rich and profound understanding of Jesus. It challenges us to delve deeper into the mystery of God’s Triune love and our call to consider how we may reflect this love in tangible ways in concrete practice. By embracing the humility and self-emptying of Christ, we find a renewed call to worship and meditate:
The integrity of God and human in their uniting in Christ has been preserved...As the performative agent of all that is done by the God-human, Jesus is fully human in all that he does and all that he experiences. That God the Son remains unchanged in the uniting, on the other hand, has to do with the [purposefully] ordered nature of his ‘being’; he was eternally generated for his mission in time and beyond it.
ibid., p. 293
Amen.