Who Ever Is Jesus Christ?

"My church is a lot more open-minded than yours!
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we teach that Christians, Jewish people, and Muslims all pray to the same God. You talk as if Jesus were the Savior, the only path to God."  

"Muslims believe that Jesus was a great prophet. Jewish people believe that Jesus was a gifted yet unorthodox rabbi. Buddhists regard Jesus as an enlightened person. Scholars acclaim Jesus for his remarkable ethics. Jehovah's Witnesses describe Jesus as an exalted, divine being. Mormons teach that Jesus Christ became a god."

So begins the section about Jesus Christ in the 2010 book I downloaded from Amazon last week. The book is called The Lutheran Difference. You might want to check it out. It discusses in detail in what ways Lutherans differ from other Christian and non-Christian groups. The book is organized around the Nicene Creed. As the introduction says, the name Lutheran is shorthand for saying, I agree with Martin Luther whose teaching has been well-known for over 500 years. The book goes on to show from the Bible how Lutherans differ and why. Since I've been writing about Jesus in particular during the past several weeks, I thought it well to continue by using this book as my reference.

One word in that Nicene Creed has caused much controversy. It is the Greek word ousios. We translate the word into English with our word substance or being. The Nicene Creed describes Jesus as being homo-ousios, that is of the same substance or one in Being with the Father. So one English translation of the creed describes Jesus in this way:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.

I mention this to point out that there was much controversy over the years about the person of Jesus. Just who is he? Is he truly God? How can there be three persons and yet but one God? So the teachers argued back and forth for many, many years. The details of that controversy are spelled out in the link above to the Wikipedia article. Ultimately the teachers of the church developed the Nicene Creed in order to declare what they understood to be the teaching of God's Word. Millions of us since then have embraced that Creed as our own confession of faith.

Now mind you, not everybody likes the term homo-ousios. It certainly is not a Bible word. It is a Greek word cooked up by some and tossed back and forth with many nuances. There are times when many of us wonder whether the term detracts from the awesome mystery. Maybe we're trying too hard to explain something beyond human words, a mystery foretold by the prophet Daniel, among other O.T. prophets. He wrote like this in an inspired attempt to describe what he saw and experienced.

"I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. - Dan 7:13-14 ESV

This mysterious son of man in Daniel's vision is given authority and dominion that rightly only belongs to God. All peoples, nations and languages serve him. This appears to be why Jesus favored the title Son of Man. He used it again and again to describe himself. Examples:

• the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. -  Matt. 8:20 
• the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. - Matt. 9:6
• the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath - Matt. 12:8
• the Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather of of his kingdom all causes of sin - Matt. 13:41
• they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom - Matt. 16:28
• Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead - Matt. 17:9
• The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men - Matt. 17:22
• Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man - Matt. 24:30

As you can see, again and again and again Jesus took to himself what Daniel described: dominion, authority, glory, and equality with God the Father. His is an everlasting kingdom that shall never pass away nor be destroyed. This is what the creeds attempt to say in whatever language they use.

Lutherans—and millions in other Christian traditions—embrace that confession, that credo. More about this next time, especially since we believe our eternal destiny rests upon getting this right.

 

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.