For Us and for Our Salvation E-Book

Stephen J. Nichols

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2007

Beschreibung

The belief that Christ is the God-man is definitive of Christian orthodoxy and imperative to a right understanding of the gospel. By the middle of the fifth century, the church had wrestled with many challenges to the biblical portrayal of Christ and, in response to those challenges, had formulated the doctrine of Christ that remains the standard to this day. This look to the past helps as Christians contend with present-day challenges and seek to answer Christ's question-"Who do people say that I am?"-for those living in the twenty-first century. For Us and for Our Salvation tells the very human story of the formation of the doctrine of Christ in those early centuries of the church. A glossary, numerous charts and timelines, and some helpful appendices make the book accessible and user-friendly. Primary source materials from key theologians and councils complement the engaging narrative.

Leseprobe

For Us and for Our Salvation

Copyright © 2007 by Stephen J. Nichols

Published by Crossway Booksa publishing ministry of Good News Publishers1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Jon McGrath

Cover illustration: Veer

First printing, 2007

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version®. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission.All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations indicated as from KJV are taken from The Holy Bible:King James Version.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nichols, Stephen J., 1970– For us and for our salvation : the doctrine of Christ in the early, church / Stephen J. Nichols.p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-58134-867-5 (tpb) 1. Jesus Christ—History of doctrines—Early church, ca. 30–600. I. Title.BT198.N56 2007 232.09'015—dc22

2007003660

VP      17   16   15   14   13   12   11   10   09   08   07

15   14   13   12   11   10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

For GEORGE NICHOLS JAMES KUTNOW MICHAEL ROGERS

in appreciation for preaching Christ and him crucified

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: “Who Do People Say That I Am?”: Christ’s Crucial Question

1 In the Beginning Was the Word: Christ in the Early Centuries

2 In Their Own Words: Select Documents from the Early Centuries

3 The Triumph of Athanasius: The Battle for Christ at Nicea

4 In Their Own Words: Select Documents from the Fourth Century

5 The Wisdom of Leo the Great: The Battle for Christ at Chalcedon

6 In Their Own Words: Select Documents from the Fifth Century

Epilogue Jesus: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Glossary

Appendix 1: The Doctrine of Christ in Scripture

Appendix 2: A Guide for Reading the Church Fathers

Notes

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful for a circle of friends who are quick to offer encouragement and support. With the risk of missing some, I’d like to personally thank these folks for contributing directly and indirectly to this book: Eric Brandt, Mark Deckard, Allan Fisher, Gordon Gregory, Ted Griffin, Darryl Hart, Keith and Beverly Haselhorst, Keith Krueger, Timothy Larsen, Sean Lucas, Ray Naugle, Sam Storms, Justin Taylor, Derek Thomas, Carl Trueman, and my mom, Diane Nichols. I am especially grateful to Lester Hicks, Dale Mort, and Dan Treier for their close reading of the manuscript and for saving me the embarrassment of my mistakes. Some of my graduate students graciously endured being subjected to the manuscript. Thank you for courageously telling me when I didn’t make sense.

My family has graciously settled in to losing me to the past from time to time. I am truly grateful. Thank you, Heidi, Ben, and Ian. Finally, this book is dedicated to the three pastors that I’ve had in my lifetime: George Nichols, my father; Jim Kutnow, who now ministers in Milan in the shadow of Ambrose’s cathedral; and Michael Rogers, our pastor in Lancaster. Thank you for preaching Christ and him crucified. I think Athanasius is grateful to you too.

INTRODUCTION: “Who Do People Say That I Am?” : Christ’s Crucial Question

Thanks to a best-selling novel and to a movie with the likes of Tom Hanks, people everywhere inside the church and out are talking about the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Creed, gnos-ticism, the Christology of the early church, and early church figures such as Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Arius. This is a theo-logian’s dream scenario, and in some cases a nightmare scenario as well. Imagine the shock of reading three whole paragraphs about the Nicene Creed in the pages of USA Today. Before the Da Vinci Code phenomenon, you would be hard-pressed to find three paragraphs on the Nicene Creed in a Christian book, let alone in America’s most read newspaper.

The overwhelming wake of The Da Vinci Code has, like a tropical storm, caused a great deal of damage. Yet, some good has come out of it, not the least of which is that people are talking about the Nicene Creed. What’s more, Christians are talking about it too. And some of them are looking at it for the first time. All of this is good, very good, for the church. The Nicene and Chalcedonian Creeds express the bedrock of our faith. They put forth the biblical teaching of who Christ is and what he has done for us. This book’s title, For Us and for Our Salvation, comes right from the Nicene Creed. It is a way of saying that who Christ is has everything to do with the gospel, the church’s true treasure. If we learn anything from The Da Vinci Code phenomenon, it must be the lesson of the importance of getting the person of Christ right. The early church labored hard and long over this question, and they did so in the face of intense challenge. The contemporary church needs to do no less.

In our contemporary struggle to present Christ as the Bible portrays him, we should not work in a vacuum. We owe it to ourselves to look to the past and to learn from the church’s struggles. Perhaps in no area of theology is this more necessary or beneficial than in the doctrine of Christ in the early church.The first four or five centuries of the church’s existence witnessed the launch of nearly every possible challenge. Further, one is hard-pressed to offer a better response to those challenges than that offered by the early church leaders. We may be able to devise fresh and contemporary ways to illustrate their teachings and expressions, or we may have to think of new ways to relate their teachings to the particular challenges that we face in our day, but there is practically no room for improvement on those teachings. What these early church leaders said and did is tried and true.

The early church fathers wrestled with the same problems presented by The Da Vinci Code phenomenon and its fanciful speculations about Jesus. They wrestled with the same problems presented by Islam and its adamant denial of the deity of Christ. And they wrestled with the same problems presented by the scholars working in the Jesus Seminar or in gnostic texts like the Gospel of Judas who quickly dismiss the four canonical Gospels as God’s true revelation to humanity. In the days of the early church, the names of the opponents were different from those faced by us today, but the underlying issues bear a striking resemblance. When the church fathers responded with the orthodox view of Christ, they did the church of all ages a great service.

This book explores these controversies over Christ faced by the early church. This book also looks to tell the story of the people involved—Arius and Eutyches, Ignatius and Irenaeus, Athanasius and Leo. These may or may not be known to contemporary evangelicals, but they should be. The following chapters unfold this struggle in the early church chronologically. Chapter 1 starts with one foot in the pages of the New Testament and stretches to the first decade of the 300s. Chapter 3 tells the story of Athanasius and his arch-nemesis Arius, the two figures behind the Nicene Council in 325 and the Council of Constantinople in 381. Chapter 5 unfolds the events of the 400s, focusing on Leo I and the Chalcedonian Council in 451. In an unprecedented event, no fewer than 520 bishops met and actually agreed on a very nuanced and sophisticated theological statement that we know as the Chalcedonian Creed. The intervening chapters, 2, 4, and 6, all break from the narrative to provide primary source documents, allowing the major figures in this struggle to tell the story in their own words. A brief epilogue explores the variations on these themes that have occurred in the life of the church since Chalcedon in 451.

The early church was right in spending so much time and effort on the doctrine of Christ. They were right to contend that Christ is the God-man, very God of very God and at the same time truly human with flesh and blood. They were right to contend that Christ is two natures conjoined in one person without division, separation, confusion, or mixture, to use the language of the Chalcedonian Creed. They were also right to contend that the gospel collapses without this belief. In the words of Athanasius and the Nicene Creed, Christ is the God-man “for us and for our salvation.”

CHAPTER ONE: In the Beginning Was the Word: Christ in the Early Centuries

For in [Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. COLOSSIANS 2:9 AUGUSTINE , ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who donot confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one isthe deceiver and the antichrist 2 JOHN 7

In what way did he come but this, "The Word was made fleshand dwelt among us,"

AUGUSTINE, ON CHRITIAN DO CTRINE

E ven before we get out of the pages of the New Testament, Christ comes under fire. During his earthly life and public ministry, the crowds, the religious leaders, even at times his own chosen disciples got him wrong. His life of working miracles and his teaching of who he was and what he came to do were in plain view for everyone to see and hear. Despite this, he was misinterpreted, denied, and rejected. In the face of his healing, he was called the son of Satan (Matt. 12:22-32). In the face of his teaching, he was called the mere son of a carpenter (John 6:4151). In the face of his death on the cross, he was mocked as the king of the Jews (John 19:19-22). And in the face of his resurrection, he was mistaken as a gardener (John 20:15). Fifty days after his death and after he had ascended back to heaven, Peter had to tell the crowd that Jesus, the very one whom they had seen and who had walked among them, was indeed the Christ, the Messiah, and that he was indeed the Lord (Acts 2:36). Those great crowds missed it, and, at least for a time, so had his closest followers. They had gotten him altogether wrong.

After his ascension and in the first decades of the church, the situation grew worse. The apostles and the early church contended with those teaching falsely about Christ. According to John, these false teachings centered around two poles. The first concerned the denial of Christ as the Messiah (1 John 2:22).The second concerned the denial of the incarnation, the teaching that Jesus was fully human and had truly come in the flesh (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7). These two poles of thought dominated not only the first century but the immediate following centuries.This chapter explores these false teachings and the response to them in the early church.