Christology Matters
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What do Christians mean when we talk about the divine nature of Jesus, and why does it matter? These christological questions were front and center through the first four centuries of the church and are revisited in every generation, including this one.
It is worth noting that ecumenical Christianity has made big determinations through a conciliar process of bringing together a council of bishops to discern historical teaching and articulate theological doctrine. Over the first eight centuries, there were seven ecumenical councils, the first being the Council of Nicea in 325 and the final being the Second Council of Nicea in 787. Of these seven councils, six dealt with significant christological controversies. Arriving at consensus around the identity of Jesus was the church’s most important task, and the teaching preserved and passed down from the saints continues to be a gift that the church can give to the world.
In the fourth century the creedal formulations were finalized. We are wise to remember, however, that these are not entirely new ideas, but interpretations of the apostolic witness. The councils and their contribution to, or affirmation of, the creeds were necessitated by misinterpretations of the apostolic witness.
So, who is Jesus? The First Ecumenical Council was called to deal with Arianism, a heresy that taught that the Son was a being created by the Father, made of a similar substance to the Father. During that council, Arianism was rejected as heretical and the council developed the original Nicene Creed, which teaches us that Jesus is:
… the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father, that is, from the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father; through whom all things were made, both in heaven and on earth, who for us humans, and for our salvation, descended and became incarnate, becoming human, he suffered, and rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will come to judge both the living and the dead (The Story of Christianity, Gonzalez).
At Nicea, the church gave us a definition of divinity. It included:
The Son is not a created being.
The Son is made up of the same substance as the Father.
The Son was born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered and died.
He rose on the third day.
He ascended into heaven.
But christological controversy persisted. Along with disaffected Arians, the fourth century saw the rise of Apollinarianism, which taught that Jesus was indeed divine, but that his human nature was essentially a shell, without a human mind or soul, which housed his singular divine nature (hypostasis). The Second Ecumenical Council deemed this a heresy, affirming instead that Jesus had both a divine nature and a human nature which were united. They also reworked the creed a little bit (additions bolded):
… the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end. (This version taken from the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church.)
In addition to the first six subclaims made when speaking of Jesus’ divinity, this edited creed clarifies the Holy Spirit’s role in his conception, and the expectation that he will rule over the coming kingdom.
Then in 431, the third ecumenical council came together to deal with Nestorianism, which claimed there was a human Jesus and a divine Christ, two distinct persons present in the incarnation. This council deemed Nestorianism a heresy and affirmed the Nicene Creed.
An ecumenical council assembled for a fourth time in 481 in Chalcedon. This time the heresy was monophysitism, which affirmed that Jesus had one divine-human nature rather than a human nature and a divine nature. Not only did the Ecumenical Council deem this departure from the hypostatic union to be heretical, it also produced this definition:
Following, then, the holy Fathers, we all with one voice teach that it is to be confessed that our Lord Jesus Christ is one and the same God, perfect in divinity, and perfect in humanity, true God and true human, with a rational soul and body, and of one substance with the Father in his divinity, and also begotten in the latter days, in his humanity, of Mary the virgin bearer of God.
This is one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, manifested in two natures without any confusion, change, division, or separation. The union does not destroy the difference of the two natures, but on the contrary the properties of each are kept, and both are joined in one person and hypostasis. They are not divided into two persons, but belong to the one Only-begotten Son, the Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. All this, as the prophet of old said to him, and he himself has taught us, and the Creed of the Fathers has passed on to us (The Story of Christianity, Gonzalez).
For those keeping track at home, our list of what we mean when say Jesus is divine now consists of:
The Son is not a created being, but is co-eternal with the Father.
The Son is made up of the same substance as the Father.
The Son was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
The Son lived without sin.
He died and was buried.
He rose on the third day.
He ascended into heaven and will come again as king.
It is worth noting here once more that the work of these councils was primarily to articulate the faith that had been handed down over the previous four centuries.
In 553, Nestorianism was rehashed and once again condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council. Then in 680, the Sixth Ecumenical Council refuted monothelitism, which argued against Jesus having a human will. (Chalcedon had discerned and made dogma two centuries earlier that Jesus had a human will.)
So, why does it matter? Why can’t a Christian believe that Jesus was born the normal way in the year one to a young girl with a human father, lived a morally exemplary life and only sinned a little bit, before being murdered by the government—his memory living on in his disciples as they recalled his words and lived in the way he taught them?
All seven claims point to an essential piece of the soteriological puzzle. In article four of question forty-eight of the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas writes,
Man was held captive on account of sin in two ways: first of all, by the bondage of sin, because (John 8:34): “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin”; and (2 Peter 2:19): “By whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the slave.” Since, then, the devil had overcome man by inducing him to sin, man was subject to the devil's bondage. Secondly, as to the debt of punishment, to the payment of which man was held fast by God’s justice: and this, too, is a kind of bondage, since it savors of bondage for a man to suffer what he does not wish, just as it is the free man’s condition to apply himself to what he wills.
Since, then, Christ’s Passion was a sufficient and a superabundant atonement for the sin and the debt of the human race, it was as a price at the cost of which we were freed from both obligations. For the atonement by which one satisfies for self or another is called the price, by which he ransoms himself or someone else from sin and its penalty, according to Daniel 4:24: “Redeem thou thy sins with alms.” Now Christ made satisfaction, not by giving money or anything of the sort, but by bestowing what was of greatest price—Himself—for us. And therefore Christ’s Passion is called our redemption.
Jesus’ death makes a superabundant atonement for the sins of humanity precisely because he successfully navigated life without sin. In 1 Peter 1:18-19 we read, “You know that from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors you were ransomed—not by perishable things like silver or gold, but by precious blood like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb, namely Christ.” It is Jesus’ ability to navigate human life without sin which makes his atoning sacrifice sufficient for the sins of humanity. Not only this, but it cannot be overstated the revelation of divine character in the incarnation. The Son’s co-eternality with the Father makes the atonement an act of divine self-giving love. God didn’t put the sins of humanity onto some unwitting pawn who drew the short straw, but instead the sinless, incarnate God took on the full penalty of sin for humanity.
But what about the resurrection bit? Why is that necessary? First, Jesus predicted his death and resurrection, and had he not died and risen on the third day, then he is a liar. However, since he did it, we can trust the promises Jesus makes, especially the promise that we too will experience resurrection life. Paul says it best in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19:
Now if Christ is being preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is futile and your faith is empty. Also, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified against God that he raised Christ from the dead, when in reality he did not raise him, if indeed the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is useless; you are still in your sins. Furthermore, those who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. For if only in this life we have hope in Christ, we should be pitied more than anyone.
Additionally, the resurrection inaugurates the new creation, is evidence of Jesus’ divinity, and creates a new hope for all of creation that in the parousia those who have put their trust in Jesus will experience resurrection life. This still doesn’t fully answer why can’t Jesus be a created being, much less a normal man, the biological son of Mary and Rob Bell’s hypothetical Larry? A God so cruel cannot be fathomed. To bring a man into the world to live without sin or selfishness just to crush him under the weight of everyone else’s sin… barbaric. That isn’t the sort of God worthy of worship. But a God who exists in Trinity, who out of an abundance of love chooses the path of incarnation, kenosis, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension… that God is worthy of praise.
I am a United Methodist, and we have a problem—a big problem. We have fully accepted a post-modern deconstructed view of the world where the individual is the ultimate locus of authority and truth, which means that in practice, a person’s thoughts about God or what is good or true or beautiful are sacred and must be accepted. As a result, we play this intellectually dishonest game where we use the same words but define them for ourselves rather than have a shared definition. As a result we have pastors and lay people who call Jesus divine but define his divinity with a heretical formulation, whether that be adoptionism, pantheism, some flavor of gnosticism, or some other post-modern, deconstructed definition that denies or diminishes the soteriological necessity of the seven essential subclaims of Jesus’ divinity.
And some may want to say that the church has simply gotten it wrong all these years and that here and now in the twenty-first century we are finally, for the first time, in a place as a species where we can truly understand the nature and identity of Christ. But, if that is true, God is incompetent. The divine revelation to humanity—first through Israel, more fully through Christ, canonically through scripture, and affirmed through the centuries of the sanctified reason of the saints—is a multi-millenia failure of self-revelation. Across time, the church has identified certain beliefs and practices as soteriologically valuable. Its orthodox doctrines are chief among these. At times, the church varied from these doctrines, but over time she corrected course and returned to what became the consensual tradition. The point of valid doctrine is not to decide who’s in and who’s out. Rather, over time, the church has insisted on these truths because our beliefs about God come to bear on our relationship with God. If we do not know who God is or how he has acted on our behalf, we cannot respond appropriately to the soteriological work that God has carried out on our behalf.
God wants us to know him, love him, and experience his saving grace and powerful presence. Therefore God has guided us as we have tried to do so. Of course we don’t get everything perfect, in part because we are finite and sinful, but also because God is transcendent and therefore surpasses any and all theological constructs. We might say that the orthodox faith is true, but it never expresses the fullness of God. The major contours of the faith, however, are agreed upon by the three major branches of Christianity. We confess the holy Trinity. We confess the incarnation, atonement, and bodily resurrection. Thus we know something of the salvation that is available to us and can respond faithfully to God’s soteriological work.
Caleb Speicher is an ordained elder in the West Ohio Conference of The United Methodist Church. He serves as Senior Pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Grove City, Ohio.