Intoxicated by Orthodoxy: Chalcedon

As a twenty-first century evangelical Protestant living in postmodern America who is a physical therapist by profession, I know that I'm not expected by most to care much about ancient creeds and confessions.  But I confess that I do.  I find creeds energizing, clarifying, stabilizing.  What's more, they get my blood boiling for the glory of the triune God.  Call it quirky.  Call it an odd primitive urge.  Call it what you will.  I love Chalcedon.  I get intoxicated by orthodoxy.  And today I savor this particular creed more than usual on account of recent discussions with a client who is a JW.  So much wisdom in the creeds!  What a heritage the Christian Church has!  Oh how we should give thanks to God for them!  We stand on the shoulders and walk in the steps of so many who've gone before.

Last week I posted the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.  This week you get the Chalcedonian definition:

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [coessential] (homoousion)* with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial (homoousion) with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, 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, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the disctinction 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, and 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 holy Fathers has handed down to us.

Praise God, Father, Son, and Spirit, from who all blessings flow, praise him all you creatures here below!  For this God, the triune Lord who reigns supreme, our Creater and Redeemer--and this God alone--is worthy to receive all power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! Amen.

* The parenthetical Greek additions are mine.  The text is taken from Philip Schaff's The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2.

(By the way, I am an infallibalist inerrantist who embraces sola Scriptura with every fiber of my being.  The Scriptures, not creeds, are our sole rule for belief and behavior, for faith and practice.)