Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,I put the line breaks and hyphens in to idently the 'articles'.
- at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood,
- truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body;
- of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead,
- and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood;
- like us in all respects, apart from sin;
- as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages,
- but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer (Θεοτοκος);
- one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten,
- recognized in two natures,
- without confusion, without change, without division, without separation;
- the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence,
- not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ;
- even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.
I think those who do not like Theotokos are struggling against the (repeated)"ONE and the SAME."
Also, as is evident, they think (Θεοτοκος) raises Mary too much. I think that what we proclaim is the wonder of the Incarnation -- as truly wonderful.
I'm guessing that with their many dispensations, the dispensationalists may maybe miss the universe shattering and rebuilding of He Kaine Diatheke, the NEW Covenant (or in this context maybe I should say THE New Covenant - not one of many new covenants, because the newness of this one puts the distinctions in Noachian, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidian in the shade.
The great grace given to the Panagia is not that she is great in herself but that God is so great that his dumbfounding humility is too much for us to bear.
Uh, what was the question?
Oh yeah. So it gets to sounding like there are two problems: the first is not understanding what Motherhood is, either in terms of the biological errors of the old times or in the light of our new understanding. If Mom is diploid blue-eyes, and Baby comes out with brown eyes, that was Daddy. If Mom is diploid human type personnel, and Baby comes out divine, that was daddy.
One mom rejoices because she had the child of a brown-eyed handsome man. The other mom rejoices because she had the Son of God!
The first mom, if she knows her biology, knows she has no brown eyed traits in her. Mary knows she has no GOD traits in her.
And so, the second problem, arising from the reluctance to say Mary is Deipara, ends up requiring some kind of way that Mary could bear, well almost anything but God the Son of God.
We hardly dare rejoice in the wonder of God's humility. They just won't have it.
God bless the Fathers of Chalcedon and the gifts and promise of God and the Spirit.
Good post, thanks.
What I see often is something like “Mary was the mother of the human part of Jesus...”
Which is pretty pure Nestorianism.
Nestorius rejected “Theotokos” as I believe many of our Protestant FRiends do or have problems with. This and the Nestorian Heresy go hand in hand.
The First Council of Ephesus in 431 is also very relevant.