The Formidable Unity Among Us Christians

In his introduction to the modern translation of an ancient book by St. Athanasius (On The Incarnation), C.S. Lewis wrote, 

"We are all rightly distressed, and ashamed also, at the divisions of Christendom. But those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily dispirited by them. They are bad, but such people do not know what it looks like from without. Seem from there, what is left intact despite all the divisions, still appears (as it truly is) an immensely formidable unity."

The creed named after Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, reflects that "immensely formidable unity" among us Christians. Almost all Christians readily embrace the Athanasian Creed as a carefully crafted summary of what we believe about the tri-unity or trinity of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Outside the pages of the New Testament itself, Athanasius is probably the man to whom we chiefly owe the preservation of that Christian faith. The creed named after Athanasius exposes the false teachings of a popular party that taught Arianism and defends the full divinity of Jesus Christ. The Arian view is seen today most especially in the teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons, who teach that Jesus is not unique from the rest of mankind. Against the Arians the Athanasian Creed emphasizes that Jesus is of one substance with the Father (the Greek word is homo-ousios), leaving the Arians no room to teach that Jesus is merely a god or a high ranking angel then or today.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit = God

Est = is. Non est = is not.

In today's and in upcoming blog postings I intend to emphasize especially that unity we Christians have, most especially around the person and work of Jesus, Son of Mary and Son of God. To do that I invite you to step back to the 4th century to listen to what Athanasius himself taught about Jesus who is "Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood" (Athanasian Creed: 31).

This teaching is of immense importance for several reasons. Let's begin with how we of the 21st century explain the origin of the universe and our own planet. We Christians teach that the universe and our world were carefully designed and crafted by a Mind from outside and beyond our universe. Scientists who espouse Darwinian evolution and natural selection reject such statements. Neo-darwinians stress that it is a grave mistake to mix religion with science, especially since religion is a matter of feelings and blind faith in some supposed revelation whereas modern science depends upon careful observation and rational conclusions that grow out of the scientific method. Here is a chart from Concept Crucible outlining that method:

In response to these modern Darwinians a growing number of scientists stress that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause and design. They point out that intelligent design (ID) is indeed a proper scientific hypothesis or theory.

Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.

ID scientists do not want to be identified as creationists. Their science is science and not religion. They operate with rational thinking and the scientific method. That is all fine and good, I suppose. It keeps open the dialogue. However, we who have been reborn by the power and working of God's Holy Spirit (John 3:5-6) have no choice but to teach openly that our God is not only some god above and outside this creation. We are not Deists. No indeed. The very same God who created the universe by His Word out of nothing is Jesus! Jesus IS that Word of God who became flesh and blood in the Child born of Mary (John 1:1-16). That is what our Christmas celebration is all about.

And He became incarnate flesh and blood for a specific reason, a reason tied to creation and to the universe itself. We emphasize that if our first parents had obeyed the Creator, the life of a paradise without sorrow, suffering, pain and death would still be ours today—and forever. But they threw away their heritage and birthright. They disobeyed His clear command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so they died (Genesis 2:16-17; Gen 3:1-19). We who are the children of Adam and Eve share in that death, as does creation itself. In Adam we all died, writes the Apostle (1 Cor 15:21-22).

Life here on our planet was created with purpose and meaning. It was never to be meaningless as it so often seems, a mere matter of the undirected and mindless chance taught by the religion known as Darwinism. Everything was created with purpose and order. Note how the order of creation progresses as recorded in Genesis 1-2. At the end of each day the Creator pronounces what He either created or made as good!

But what do we see all around us? Chaos, confusion, suffering and the cessation of life. This is exactly what the Creator said would be the result. Adam, Eve and their children would all die, die  because of their disobedience. That disobedience is called sin. Death is directly related to sin. Death entered creation because of our disconnect with our Creator. And since we who bear the very image of our Creator were to rule over this world (Gen. 1:26-30) there is a disconnect between us and this created world as well. We either do not have dominion over it or we find it warring against us. As the Creator said to Adam, the earth is cursed (Gen. 3:17). Life has now become a struggle. We murder and wage war with one another. We have twisted and perverted our sexual natures. Family life breaks down everywhere. Our bodies are infected by other hostile lifeforms of the creation. We suffer from disasters brought on by the uncontrolled forces of wind and wave. Hurricanes, electrical storms and earthquakes ravish our homes and destroy our children. Everything is in confusion.

It was never to be this way. God did not want it this way, but what could He do about it? That's a topic for tomorrow.

Jesus, One With The Father, Begotten Not Made

In my last post we began to look at Jesus' hard saying in John 6. We pick this discussion up today.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." - Jhn 6:51-58 ESV

Jesus' saying or teaching was stiff, unbending and difficult. Many of his disciples couldn't accept it. It simply made no sense. They joined with the others who were not his disciples to complain about what Jesus said, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

Lets start with Jesus' saying about his flesh and blood, "Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink."

At the beginning of his Gospel, John writes, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). Prior to that John tells us that the Word was God! And that everything was made by Him. In other words, this Word is not a creature of God. No indeed. He IS God. And yet . . . "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

This was a great controversy among us Christians in centuries past about Jesus. Just who is he? The whole thing surfaced in a huge fight in the fourth century after Christ's resurrection and ascension. An Egyptian clergyman by the name of Arius taught that Christ is the Son of God, but he did not always exist. Rather, he was created by God the Father. He based this on Jesus' discourse with his disciples prior to his suffering in which he pointed out that his Father was greater than he.

You heard me say to you, 'I am going away, and I will come to you.' If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. - Jhn 14:28 ESV

Obviously this does not appear to square with John's introduction about the Word being God and becoming flesh and blood like the rest of us. So the controversy waged on and on until the church fathers had to get together again and again to solve it—or at least agree as a majority about what the Scriptures teach about Jesus. Various forms of Arianism—the teaching that Jesus is a creature—continue among so-called Christians to this day. For instance, Mormonism, the religion of American presidential candidate Mitt Romney, teaches that Jesus is a creature, conceived by the physical union of God the Father and Mary. They further teach that Jesus is our elder brother who progressed to become a god. By following his example we too can become gods.

The majority of the church's teachers and pastors came to an agreement toward the end of the fourth century in a gathering in Constantinople, the capitol of the Roman empire. There they agreed on the wording of the Nicene Creed, the most universal of all the Christian creeds, accepted by the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox churches, Lutherans and most protestant churches. That teaching is that Jesus is begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

This teaching comes from the first chapter of John's Gospel as noted above. There we read that the Word became flesh and blood after all things came into being through him.  He is not a creature, but  the only-begotten (monogenēs - Greek) of the Father (John 1:14). That's why the creed says, begotten, not made. To say he was made would suggest that Jesus is a creature or some kind of demi-god as the Mormons teach. 

So back to the hard saying and the question, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" The point made by the church is that Jesus is indeed a man—and will always be a man. BUT! He is also God, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made (see also the Athanasian Creed). So the saying is harder than it first appears. We are dealing with the God-Man, Jesus, the Word made flesh. 

We'll probe this hard saying some more next time. 

 

Jesus Is The Image Of God

Last evening my wife, some friends and I attended a dinner and a movie at The Houston Club. After a fine meal we viewed Mao's Last Dancer, the story of how an acclaimed Chinese ballet dancer defected to the United States here in Houston back in 1981. It was a moving, emotional story and is based upon the autobiographical account of the dancer himself, Li Cunxin. He believed that as a citizen of the United States he had much greater freedom to develop and practice his art. He is now retired from the ballet.


The Epistle appointed for Christ the King Sunday, the final Sunday of the Church Year of worship, Colossians 1:13-20, speaks of how we Christians escaped from the power of darkness and were transferred to the domain of the Lord Jesus, the beloved Son of God. All this began, Paul writes, when we were baptized and the Spirit worked faith in our hearts to believe in the forgiveness of sins. Paul then goes on to make some astounding claims for Jesus Christ. Permit me to make a list.

1. He is the image of the invisible God
2. He is the firstborn of all creation
3. Through him all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, rulers and authorities—all things were created. 
4. For him all things were created. 
5. He is before all things
6. In him all things hold together
7. He is the head of the body, the church
8. He is the beginning
9. He is the firstborn from the dead
10. He is preeminent in everything 
11. In him all the fullness of God dwells
12. By the blood of his cross all things, whether on earth or in heaven, are reconciled to him and at peace. 

This is a rather astounding list, a list that does not exhaust all that the Apostle says about Christ in this marvelous letter to the believers in Colossae and to us. Were we to examine each of these statements in the light of the rest of God's revelation we'd have enough to write for the next two years—and more. So let me lift up but the first, the image of the invisible God. Even that I can but point to, for there is so much wrapped up in it. I have no room here to explore with you all the implications. 

Let's look at Genesis 1:26 where we read of the Creator saying, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The Greek Old Testament word for image, icon, is the same Greek word Paul uses in Colossians. The word for likeness is homoiousin. Both words are claimed for man in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 11:7 a man is called the icon of God. In James 3:9 the apostle says mankind was made in God's likeness. So what, if any, is the difference between image or icon and likeness. And what does it mean that Christ is the image or icon of the invisible God?

Perhaps a couple analogies will help. Take out a coin or a bank note from your pocket. On them you find the image or icon of a President of the United States, say Washington, Lincoln, Franklin or Jefferson. Why? Because the coin or the bill has behind it the power of the United States. Its value is drawn from the resources of that country and guaranteed by the same. The image points to all that.

Closer to the heart of the matter is the fact that a child is the icon or image of her parents. She carries their DNA and in most cases their rights as a citizen of a particular country. Her being is  derived from her parents. Of course, she also bears the likeness of her parents. One may say she looks very much like her mother or her father. However, likeness is not the same as image. One can look like others and yet not bear their image. 

Do you begin to get it now? Do you see why Jesus is called the icon or image of His Father in Colossians 1:15? He is not merely like the Father. He is the image of the Father. He has received from the Father power, glory, preeminence and fullness. He is very God of very God. He is not created or made. This is why the church has resorted to the word begotten rather than made. All power and authority reside in Him. By Him were all things made and without Him nothing exists. He is the image of the heavenly Father.

This Son of God was made man and was born of the Virgin Mary. He who is true God from all eternity is also true man, with flesh and blood and lineage. By the shedding of His blood this One of priceless worth has paid the price of all men's sins.

In days gone by the church had a huge quarrel about all this, reaching all the way back to the years following 250 AD and beginning in the city of Alexandria with a clergyman named Arius. Arius and those who followed him were greatly influenced by Greek philosophy. To say that Jesus bore the image of the Father did not make sense. It was, they said, irrational. Instead they taught that Jesus and the Father were not together eternally and before the creation of all things. They denied the Trinitarian teachings of the church.  The Nicene Creed came out of this long controversy, a quarrel that continues in one way or another to the present day as people ask who Jesus was and is.

On this final Sunday of the Church Year we affirm with great enthusiasm that Jesus is the very Son of God, the image of the eternal Father.