Christ of the early church

Sunday School at Cornerstone Community Church 11/28/04

Why should we listen to what the early church said about the nature of Christ? After all, do not we as Baptists hold the Bible as our only confession? Weren’t the decisions of the councils really just determined on political reasons?
Politics did enter into the discussion of the theological issues in focus at the councils. Heresy was a political issue because Christianity was the state sponsored religion.
Nonetheless, God was at work in these councils in spite of human frailty.
These councils hold no authority over us except as they conform to biblical truth. For the most part these councils were faithful to the biblical witness.
It is exceedingly arrogant to suppose that what Christians over the past 2000 years have said has no bearing on us today. Early Christians over the course of several centuries dealt with how to understand what the bible says about Christ. They have already thought through these issues. Thus, we can benefit greatly from their insight.
The Protestant Reformers accepted these councils.
We’re talking about who Jesus is. This by definition should be an important issue for all those who claim to follow him.
There is a close relationship between the person of Christ and the work of Christ. Our understanding of Christology (doctrine of Christ) in part determines our Soteriology (doctrine of salvation).

Early Heresies

Ebionism
1. Has Jewish roots
2. Rises in the first and second centuries A.D.
3. Affirmed the radical oneness of God, monotheism, and the eternal validity of the Mosaic Law.[1]
4. This led to a denial of the deity of Christ
5. Had a poor understanding of the Old Testament
Docetism
1. Comes from the Greek word doke,w
2. Says that Jesus wasn’t really human. He only appeared to be.
3. Can see elements of this in John’s day – 1 Jn. 4:1-2.
4. Gnostic theology draws from this well. Gnostics held to:[2]
  1. A distinct metaphysical dualism. Matter is inherently evil, while spiritual things are good.
  2. Creation is the work of a demiurge (the Son) because God cannot involve himself with the evil creation of matter.
  3. A depreciation of the process of human generation and birth.
5. Because matter is evil it followed that Jesus as God couldn’t have been really human.
Monarchianism – God exists as an impersonal being who represents himself in these personal ways. Two varieties:
1. Dynamic (Adoptionistic): said that the Logos of God descended upon the man Jesus of Nazareth, but left him before his death. Jesus is therefore not divine.
2. Modalistic (Patripassionism, Sabellianism): The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are different “moments in the life of God.” They’re like three different masks that God uses to reveal himself.

The six councils:

Council of Nicaea (325)
1. Heretic: Arius
  1. Arius was Presbyter of Alexandria
  2. Arius charged Bishop Alexander of Alexandria with Sabellianism (modalism)
2. Heresy: Denial of the full deity of Christ
  1. Following Tertullian: “there was when he was not” (time is not the issue)
  2. Said that two persons cannot share the same essence. The Father and Son can therefore not be of the same ousia.
  3. He pressed the analogy of the human Father-Son relationship to draw inferences regarding the divine Father-Son relationship. Human fathers are prior to their sons, so God the Father must also be prior to his Son.[3]
  4. He said that the Son was a created being and was thus not equal to the deity of the Father. He is a demi-urge, a semi-god
  5. Arius also undermined the humanity of Jesus by teaching that he was indwelt with the Logos and therefore did not have a human soul.
  6. Texts he used to support:
    1. Prov. 8:22 – Christ (wisdom) has a beginning.
    2. John 14:28 – The Father is greater than the Son.
    3. John 17:3 – Represents the Father as the only true God.
    4. Col. 1:15 – the Son is the firstborn of all creation.
  7. Modern Arians: Jehovah’s Witnesses; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
3. Orthodoxy: Christ is fully divine: homoousios (same substance with the Father) rather than homoiousios (similar substance with the Father).
  1. Eusebius of Caesarea proposed a mediating solution. His language is somewhat ambiguous and could be read either way:
    1. “We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Logos of God, God from god, light from light, life from life, the only-begotten Son, the first-born of all creation, begotten of the Father before all-ages, through whom all things were made.”
  2. Athanasius and Alexander:
    1. Rejected Eusebius’ solution.
    2. The Son is the same ousia (substance) as the Father but is a different hypostasis (person). He is not created. He is begotten, but not made. The language “firstborn of all creation” is drawing an analogy from human experience but must not be pressed too far. It is not the reality itself.
    3. His logic:
      1. Jesus saves
      2. Salvation is a type of creation
      3. Only God can create
      4. Therefore Jesus must be God
    4. He also argued that you cannot have an eternal Father without an eternal Son because this would import change into the Godhead which he held was unacceptable [is this really a convincing argument?]
  3. The creed proposed by Alexander and Athanasius:
    1. “We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from god, light from light, true God from true God, not created, of the same substance with the Father, through whom all things were made, things in heaven and on earth.”
    2. Also added: “But the holy and apostolic church anathematizes those who say there was [a time] when he was not, and that He was made from things not existing, or from another hypostasis, or ousia, saying that the Son of god is mutable or changeable.”
  4. The council voted 295-5 to accept Athanasius and Alexander’s creed. The Arian bishops were banished by Emperor Constantine.
4. Victor: Athanasius – was assistant to Bishop Alexander
  1. Despite the affirmation of the Nicaean Creed at the Council, the controversy continued until 381 and was not only a theological issue, but became an issue in imperial and ecclesiastical politics as well. It took time to get this orthodox theology into the local pew.
  2. Athanasius is banished several times because of shifts in the theology supported by the imperial authority (some emperors were Arian). The phrase Athanasius contra mundum (against the world)
Council of Constantinople (381)
1. Heretic: Apollinarius (although it is debated whether or not he really held the heresy bearing his name)
2. Heresy: Denial of the full humanity of Christ (Christ has a human body and spirit, but divine mind/soul/reason)
  1. Christ has a divine mind wrapped in human flesh
  2. The problem with this is that the divine mind would overpower and swallow up the rest. This makes Christ less than fully human.
3. Orthodoxy: Christ is fully human
  1. Gregory of Nanzianzus: “The unassumed is the unhealed; it is what is united to God which is saved.” The atonement only works if Christ was a real union of the Logos and humanity.
  2. Also affirmed that Christ was homoousios, against Arius
  3. Also condemned Macedonianism which denied the deity of the Holy Spirit
4. Victor: The Cappadocian Fathers (Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus)
Council of Ephesus (431)
1. Heretic: Nestorius
2. Heresy: Divided the two natures (virtually two persons)
  1. Nestorius attacked a popular expression, theotokos (“Mother of God”) as a description of Mary. He was bothered by the idea of Mary giving birth to God. He said that God cannot have a mother, that no woman can give birth to God.[4]
  2. He instead proposed Christotokos (“Mother of Christ”). He said that Mary gave birth to humanity, not the Logos. This humanity was then the vehicle or instrument of the divinity. The man and the Logos are separate in the person of Christ and are never conjoined. Each has its own prosopon (mask). Both are present but are running on parallel tracks.
  3. He therefore could speak of the two natures of Christ manifesting themselves at separate times in the life of Christ. For example, he said that the human nature of Christ was buried in the grave, not the divine nature of Christ.
  4. This undermined the unity of Christ’s person
3. Orthodoxy: Christ is one person
  1. Cyril charges Nestorius with adoptionism (perhaps unfairly).
  2. Cyril: The God-man, the Logos, expresses itself only together. He used the term communicatio idiomatum (“the communication of the identities”), to refer to the union of the two natures.
  3. Confesses Mary as the theotokos
4. Victor: Cyril of Alexandria
Council of Chalcedon (451)
1. Heretic: Eutyches (and the first three are in view here as well)
2. Heresy: Confused the two natures (thus one ‘blended nature’)
  1. Eutyches not a clear thinker
  2. He was accused of teaching that the two natures of Christ, the divine and human, were united into one nature at the incarnation. He advocated strict monophysitism, that Christ had only one nature.
  3. This threatened the humanity of Jesus, because the human nature might be overwhelmed or subsumed by the divine.
3. Orthodoxy: Christ is two natures; see definition of Chalcedon
  1. Eutyches’ view was upheld by a council at Ephesus in 449, but this council is not held as a valid ecumenical council
    1. Empoeror Theodosius II order a council in 449. This became known as the “Robber Council”. Those present at the council don’t allow Pope Leo’s Tome to be read and leave the issue of Eutychianism unanswered.
    2. Theodosius II dies and Marcian replaces him as the new emperor. He calls the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
  2. Followed the Tome of Pope Leo I (the best theologian ever to occupy the position of pope)
  3. Christ is fully human and fully God, possessing two natures which exist in a hypostatic union – unmixed and unchanged; unseparated and undivided
4. Victor: Leo
2^nd Council of Constantinople (553)
1. Heretic: Monophysites
2. Heresy: Monophysitism – in part a renewal of Eutychianism; taught that Jesus just had one nature
3. Orthodoxy: Reaffirmed Chalcedon but interpreted it in an Alexandrian fashion. The Monophysites remained unconvinced and to this day have rejected the Definition of Chalcedon
4. Victor:
3^rd Council of Constantinople (680-81)
1. Heretic:
2. Heresy: Monthelitism – taught that Jesus had only one will; this was actually a form of Monophysitism
3. Orthodoxy: Christ has two wills, a human will following and subject to a divine will – this council ended the long debate over the two natures of Christ
4. Victor:

Conclusion: Key Theses of the Two Natures in One Person[5]

The two natures do not act independently of one another. Christ the person speaks and acts. The two natures work concurrently in one person.
The person of Christ has accomplished all that is necessary for our salvation. This connects who Jesus is and what he did.
1. From Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo (Why the God-Man?)
  1. It was necessary that God save us due to the gravity of our sin.
  2. It was necessary that man pay the price for sin
  3. Thus we need a God-Man to redeem us.
As fully God and fully man, Christ, is the perfect mediator between God and man.

[1] Millard J. Erickson, The Word Became Flesh: A Contemporary Incarnational Christology (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1991), 42.

[2] Erickson, 45-6.

[3] Erickson, 51.

[4] Erickson, 62.

[5] From the notes outline of Dr. Brad Green’s Christian Doctrine course taught at Union University in Fall 2003, pg. 67.

Test Message II