Transcendent Touched

Why do we focus on doctrine?  

Phil 1:9-11 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

When Love is combined with knowledge and wisdom, then we can discern how to grow in purity and righteousness. This leads back to how spiritual disciplines help us become more like Jesus. If we know how to live better then we can order our lives to achieve that. That is, the more we know the truth about God, the better we can order our lives to be like him.

How should doctrine create unity?

We can see the apostle Paul tackling this issue in the book of Romans, written in the context of much hostility between Jew and Gentile, where he explains in many different ways how the doctrine of the faith actually binds Jew and Gentile together. Then towards the end of that lengthy exposition he says, “Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement grant you harmony with one another in Christ Jesus, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 15:5-6) and “Now I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who create divisions and obstacles that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Turn away from them.” (Rom 16:17). Then there are other verses where Paul combines knowledge, love, unity, and maturity in the faith. These all are supposed to work together.

But sometimes, we see distortions in the gift of knowledge, where it has become knowledge of the Biblical text and not the knowledge of the God who gave us the text, knowledge about God without the love of God, and that knowledge has become an end to itself. This has led us to the claim that some have made, “doctrine divides.”  However, doctrine, as the properly taught knowledge of God, should lead to unity.

• Knowledge of God’s love. To increase our knowledge of God is to increase our knowledge of His love to us and to those around us.
  • (1 John 4:8) “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
• Knowledge of God’s holiness. The more aware of we are of God’s holiness and, consequently how far short of that we are in our sinfulness, we should be led to greater humility.
  • Phil 2:1-4 “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”
• Knowledge of God’s voice. In order to increase our ability to hear God, we must respond in obedience to what we hear.
  • Rom 2:13 “For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.”
• Knowledge of God’s people. When we are called to God, we are called to His Body and we each have a part in building one another up.
  • Ephesians 4: 11-13 “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

Why does doctrine seem to create division?

It is not doctrine per se that created division

• We are (or think we are) guardians of a truth full of paradoxes and mysteries that we cannot fully understand.
  • God is beyond comprehension and, to us, full of paradoxes. How can we understand that there is one person, God, and yet have God revealed in three personalities:  the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit? How can the God who exists outsides the confines of time and space, confine Himself to a particular space and time and come to be born and then to live and die as a normal human being? How can these things be?
• Our maturity of knowledge outpaces our maturity of love, wisdom and humility.
  • In our apparent ability to parse the knowledge of God, creates knowledge about God that is not balanced by love, wisdom and humility. We can allow love of knowledge to override our love of others. Having knowledge itself does not mean we have the wisdom to correctly handle that knowledge. Pride can cause us to sin against others, create self-importance and self-entitlements.
• Differences in language, culture, personality and experience create misunderstandings and mistrust
  • AS humans, we have limited knowledge, wisdom, etc. Those limits are tested when there are differences in language, culture, etc. which can cause disagreements. Furthermore, we have an inherent proclivity to mistrust people that are different than us.

Developing the doctrines

Growing in the knowledge of doctrine and mysteries of the faith

In the book of nature, God has shown us that it is a normal process for living things, plants and animals, to grow from seed to maturity and to the production of new seeds. That gives us a template for the process of spiritual growth as well, not only for us as individuals but for the Church as a whole. When Christ planted His Church, it took time for the Church to study the mysteries of the faith and then to develop its doctrines, its teachings, about such things. The mysteries of who God is, who we are as individuals and as the Church, and how to develop disciplines for us to grow in our knowledge of Christ. This process would happen in the context of changing situations and emerging challenges. Growing numbers of new members in the church create one kind of challenge and expansion of the church into new territories add growing numbers of new languages to think and communicate in.

The Church did not develop all its doctrines overnight. It took a period of years to understand and clarify some of the mysteries of God. Because of the depth of the mysteries of God, some people developed doctrines that were considered dangerous to the development of the Church. The response was to call together church leaders across the empire to discuss such teachings and to then clarify what the “orthodox” teachings of the church ought to be. These Ecumenical Councils of the Church subsequently developed statements of the faith, called “creeds,” that could be used to correct these errors.

Heresies and Core errors

A Heresy is an opinion or doctrine contrary to the orthodox tenets of a religious body or church. The following is a list of most prevalent heresies, grouped into common categories.

• Dualism – matter is inherently evil, only the spiritual is good
  • Asceticism – denial of the flesh
  • Antinomianism – since body is inherently evil it doesn’t matter what you do with it
  • Docetism – since matter is evil, Jesus only appeared to have been human
  • Gnosticism – includes dualism, Docetism, syncretism (blending Xty with another belief (e.g. Greek philosophy))
  • Neo-Platonism – God is undefinable. Logos is intermediary
  • Marcionism – rejection of Old Testament and the laws
• Christ a not one person that is both fully human and fully divine
  • Monophysitism – Christ has only a divine nature but no human nature, as opposed to the Chalcedonian position which holds that Christ has two natures, one divine and one human. There are two major doctrines that can undisputedly be called monophysite:
    • Eutychianism holds that the human nature of Christ was essentially obliterated by the Divine, “dissolved like a drop of honey in the sea”.
    • Apollinarianism holds that Christ had a human body and human “living principle” but that the Divine Logos had taken the place of the nous, or “thinking principle”, analogous but not identical to what might be called a mind in the present day. Maintains that Jesus was not a real man although he had a human body and soul, but not totally divine either.
  • Monothelitism – Christ had two natures, but one will. This teaching was condemned as heretical in the Third Council of Constantinople (6th Ecumenical Council 680-681).
  • Nestorianism – Mary gave birth to a human person, Jesus, who was subsumed by divine person, Christ (one will with two persons/natures). This view of Christ was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431 and led to the Nestorian schism (separating the Assyrian Church of the East from the Byzantine Church).
• Legalism – our salvation requires our righteous acts
  • Judaizers – Gentiles needed to be circumcised, Jewish laws
  • Pelagianism – refutes original sin, man can choose to be good
  • Semi-Pelagianism – humanity is tainted by sin and we need his grace to be saved, but without God’s grace, we can still take the first step of seeking God
  • Donatism – validity of sacraments depends on moral character of the minister of the sacraments
  • Novatianism – those guilty of grave sin were permanently excluded from the Church
• Unitarianism – rejects Trinity
  • Subordinationism – only the Father is God
  • Adoptionism – Christ was only adopted son of God
  • Arianism – Jesus is a created demi-god; Denies that the Son is of one essence, nature, or substance with God; He is not consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father, and therefore not like Him, or equal in dignity, or co-eternal, or within the real sphere of Deity.
    • Macedonianism – Holy Spirit was a creation of the Father and the Son and, like the Son was not of the same substance of the Father
  • Modalism (aka Sabellianism) – God is one person and the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are just three modes of God expressing himself at different times and places.  Patripassianism (Father suffered with the Son on the cross) is an offshoot of this.
  • Monarchianism – emphasized God as one
• Claiming revelations that supersede the New Testament
  • Montanism – Montanists had direct inspiration of Holy Spirit which superseded that of the apostles, encouraged ecstatic prophesying (unlike the usual practices of some churches), rigorists (fallen Christians could not be redeemed, forbid marriage
• Humanistic Rationalism – all truth, all knowledge of God, is accessible by the human mind. Discards supernaturalism.
• Universalism – all people will be saved

The seven ecumenical councils

In all, there were seven of the Ecumenical Councils that were called, before the Church centered in Rome, separated from the rest of the Church, in effect, ending the possibility of calling further Ecumenical Councils. The Protestant Reformation further made ecumenical councils impossible. What follows is a summary of the seven councils.

1. 325 AD – 1st Ecumenical Council of Nicaea
   1. repudiated Arianism,
   1. adopted the Nicene Creed
   1. celebration of Passover (Easter)
   1. ordination of eunuchs,
   1. validity of baptism by heretics, lapsed Christians,
2. 381 AD – 1st Ecumenical Council of Constantinople
   1. expands 3rd stanza of the Nicene creed defining the divinity of the Holy Spirit
   1. condemns Apollinarianism
   1. revised the Nicene Creed into its present form which is used in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches
   1. prohibited any further alteration of the Creed without the assent of an Ecumenical Council.
   1. Condemned Arianism, , Sabellianism,
3. 431 AD – Ecumenical Council of Ephesus
   1. defines Christ as the incarnate Word of God
   1. proclaims Mary Theotokos (“God-bearer” or “Mother of God”)
   1. condemned Pelagianism and Nestorianism
4. 451 AD – Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon
   1. defines Christ as having both a divine and a human nature in one person affirmed that in Jesus there are two distinct natures in one person that are hypostatically united “without confusion, change, division or separation”;
   1. repudiated the Eutychianism and Monophysitism
   1. adopted the Chalcedonian Creed.
5. 553 AD – 2nd Ecumenical Council of Constantinople
   1. confirms Christological & Trini­tarian doctrine against the Nestorians
   1. reaffirmed decisions and doctrines explicated by previous Councils,
   1. condemned new Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite writings.
6. 680 AD – 3rd Ecumenical. Council of Constantinople
   1. affirms that Jesus had a truly human will as well as a truly divine will
   1. condemned Monothelites
7. 787 AD – 2nd Ecumenical Council of Nicaea
   1. vindicates the veneration of images based on the humanity of Christ as the image or icon of the unseen God, ending the first iconoclasm.
   1. It is rejected by some Protestant denominations, who instead prefer the Council of Hieria (754), which had also described itself as the Seventh Ecumenical Council and had condemned the veneration of icons.

The Creeds

What is a “Creed”?

“Creed” comes from the Latin word, credo, which means, “I believe,” and is the first word of the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds. A creed is defined as:

    1: a brief authoritative formula of religious belief

    2: a set of fundamental beliefs

    3: a guiding principle

The Creeds and Confessions produced by the Christian Church over the centuries are not are not meant to be replacements for the words of Christ and his apostles or the prophets which preceded them. Creeds and Confessions are statements of faith usually produced in response to various issues, heresies and historical situations that have troubled the Church and the world over the centuries. Creeds and confessions are not designed to be a thorough representation of a church’s theology, and for that reason some churches, although in agreement with the major creeds, describe themselves as a “non-creedal” church.

Creeds from the Bible

(aka proto-creeds)

• Deut. 6:4 Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.
• Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
• Matt. 16:16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
• Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
• Matt. 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
• Acts 8:36-37 And as they went along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water!  What is to prevent my being baptized?”  And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”  And he replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
• Acts 16:31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
• 1 Cor. 15:3-7 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
• 1John 4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.

Ecumenical Christian Creeds

The first creeds of the Christian Church are called ecumenical creeds because they were decided upon in church councils that represented the entire church at the time before the church permanently spilt into Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman) factions in AD 1054.  Later creeds reflect the diversity of the Christian tradition and tend to become more specialized expressions of particular doctrines for various groups.

The Apostles’ Creed

The Apostles’ Creed is one of the oldest creeds of Christianity, dating in an early form (sometimes called Old Roman Creed) to at least the middle second century with roots in the biblical traditions of the Gospels. Some phrases were added for clarity as late as the fourth century, but the basic creed remained intact. The clearly Trinitarian structure was likely intended to counter the teachings of Marcion who denied that the God of the Old Testament was the same God revealed in Jesus the Christ.

• I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth,
• And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; He descended into hell. . The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
• I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, The forgiveness of sins, The resurrection of the body, And the life everlasting. Amen.

 

The Nicene Creed (AD 451)

The Nicene Creed was developed by the early Church largely in response to the teachings of Arius. Arius taught that Jesus was not truly divine and of a different “substance” than God. The emperor Constantine, newly converted to Christianity, called a Church Council at Nicæa in AD 325 to bring some unity to the church amid developing controversies and false teachings. The Council at Nicæa adopted an early form of the creed, but the current form emerged from the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. It was officially adopted by the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451.

• We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
• And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
• And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father (and the Son*), who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

 *               the clause “and the Son” was added by the Western church but was not agreed upon by the Eastern Church

The Athanasian Creed (AD 500)

The Athanasian Creed is one of the three most important Creeds of the early Church and is named after the well known fourth-century apologist and theologian Anathasius who played an important role in defining and defending the orthodox doctrines of the Trinity and the person of Christ. Although the creed bears the name of Athanasius is wat most likely not written by him.

• Whoever wishes to be saved must, above all else, hold to the true Christian Faith. Whoever does not keep this faith pure in all points will certainly perish forever.
• Now this is the true Christian faith: We worship one God in three persons and three persons in one God, without mixing the persons or dividing the divine being. For each person — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — is distinct, but the deity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory and coeternal in majesty. What the Father is, so is the Son, and so is the Holy Spirit.
• The Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated; The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. And yet they are not three who are eternal, but there is one who is eternal, just as they are not three who are uncreated, nor three who are infinite, but there is one who is uncreated and one who is infinite.
• In the same way the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, and the Holy Spirit is almighty. And yet they are not three who are almighty, but there is one who is almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. So the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord; yet they are not three Lords, but one Lord.
• For just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually to be God and Lord, so the true Christian faith forbids us to speak of three Gods or three Lords. The Father is neither made not created, nor begotten of anyone. The Son is neither made nor created, but is begotten of the Father alone. The Holy Spirit is neither made nor created nor begotten, but proceeds from the Father and the Son. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.
• And within this Trinity none comes before or after; none is greater or inferior, but all three persons are coequal and coeternal, so that in every way, as stated before, all three persons are to be worshiped as one God and one God worshiped as three persons. Whoever wishes to be saved must have this conviction of the Trinity.
• It is furthermore necessary for eternal salvation truly to believe that our Lord Jesus Christ also took on human flesh. Now this is the true Christian faith: We believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is both God and Man. He is God, eternally begotten from the nature of the Father, and he is man, born in time from the nature of his mother, fully God, fully man, with rational soul and human flesh, equal to the Father, as to his deity, less than the Father, as to his humanity; and though he is both God and Man, Christ is not two persons but one, one, not by changing the deity into flesh, but by taking the humanity into God; one, indeed, not by mixture of the natures, but by unity in one person.
• For just as the reasonable soul and flesh are one human being, so God and man are one Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose the third day from the dead. He ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty, and from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. At his coming all people will rise again with their own bodies to answer for their personal deeds. Those who have done good will enter eternal life, but those who have done evil will go into everlasting fire.
• This is the true Christian Faith. Whoever does not faithfully and firmly believe this cannot be saved.

Chalcedonian Creed (A.D. 451)

This creed was adopted at the Fourth Ecumenical Council, held at Chalcedon, located in what is now Turkey, in 451, as a response to certain heretical views concerning the nature of Christ.  It established the orthodox view that Christ has two natures (human and divine) that are unified in one person.

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 [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial 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 distinction 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.

Confessions/Statements of Faith

Many congregations will specify which ecumenical statements they agree to. But each congregation will additionally have its own statement of faith, sometimes called a confession or affirmation, that describes its beliefs. Typical items in those statements include a particular view of the Bible; God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Virgin birth; sin and salvation; resurrection; eternity; essential practices of worship; sacraments: and the church. The statements typically include scripture references and are one to three pages long. The Westminster Confession of Faith used by Reformed denominations is 66 pages. Some congregations declare that they are non-creedal, in recognition of the fact that all creedal statements incompletely articulate the gospel. In those cases, the congregation will specify that, although they may agree with the ecumenical creeds, the only “creed” they recognize is the Bible as a whole, or sometimes they will specify that the Bible is their creed.