Church History 7 Christology, part 2. (497)

Keith returns with another installment of his journey through church history. Today we will wrap up the chapter that we started in our last session.

We didn’t quite make it all the way so will pick it up from here:

God’s United Purpose

When we think of Christology, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to simply as crucifixion and his purpose of salvation. God preordained every part of Christ’s life. From the moment of his conception through his birth. At every stage of his life and ministry Christ fulfilled prophecies. Even after his crucifixion he still offers hope that he will return and raise us to be with him.

Christ Recognized Through Prophecy
prophecies are fulfilled in all of Christ’s life and ministries. The Gospels testify to this. Even demons recognize who Christ was as God’s son. He was every bit as human as any of us, and was not free from temptation.

Mark 1:13 And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan;
and He was with the wild beasts,
and the angels were ministering to Him.

the difference is that Christ overcame in a way that the first Adam never did. Proving that he indeed lived a perfect life.

The Embodiment of God’s Purposes

Jesus entirely embodied God’s purpose for mankind. He alone was able to carry out everything that God preordained. In a very real way, and the flesh, he met every requirement God intended to restore mankind to a relationship with him.

Dealing with Gnostics

The Gnostics were a group of believers who claim to possess a superior understanding of the mystery of God’s way with his creation. They believed that Christ was entirely spiritual, and not flesh. They believe that required a higher level of mysticism to overcome fleshly limitations. It wasn’t enough to have the Christ alone, they believed a person could attain that higher level of spirituality on their own.

The Foolishness of Crucifixion

to them the idea of the crucifixion was foolishness. They felt that Paul needed to offer the church a more profound teaching on how to attain salvation. In reply, Paul answers them that ”the power of God and the wisdom of God” are not to be found in human ability, but in Christ alone.

1 Corinthians 1:23, 30
23 but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness,
30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,

In other words, it is through Christ alone and no other that God carries out his purposes of salvation. He alone expresses God’s divine wisdom. There is no reason to look for the answer for salvation anywhere else. All the divine attributes that God possesses; Christ also possesses.

New Testament Authors Reject Gnosticism

it’s not only Paul that makes these claims, the gospel writers do as well.

Matthew 11:19 “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

Hebrews 1:2-3
2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.
3 And He is the radiance of His glory
and the exact representation of His nature,
and upholds all things by the word of His power
When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

in Colossians, there is an early Christian hymn
which portrays God’s Son as ”the image of the invisible God,” and so forth.

Colossians 1:15-17
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities– all things have been created through Him and for Him.
17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Jesus is not only the chosen son who was sent to embody God’s wisdom, he existed from the beginning of the creation.

To Understand Jesus is to Understand Divine Wisdom

in the Gospel of John Christ is described as the word (or logos) of God.

John 1:1, 2
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.

The Logos is both divine and creative.

John 1:3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

the logos is also the carrier of divine life and ”the true light”

John 1:9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.

Jesus is the saving power for redemption, grace and truth.

John 1:14, 15
14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among s, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.'”

Jesus and His Fleshly Nature

it is still crucial to understand that Jesus had a human nature. As a human being, he fulfilled God’s purpose for humankind. He is the only one to have achieved a perfect life, fulfilling all the Jewish laws. Through him God achieved his purpose to restore the relationship of mankind to himself.

The Incarnation is Well Understood

by the end of the first century, and into the second century, early church leaders had a solid understanding of the Christology. They understood it so the variety of writings that came to them from the apostles.

Ephesians 3:2 if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you;

it also appears in early church fathers such as Ignatius of Antioch. He understood Christ as ”our God.”
This does not mean, however, that Ignatius ignores or plays down the ordinary humanity of Jesus. He insists that Christ was truly born, truly suffered, and was truly crucified.

he understood Jesus as having spirit and flesh. That he also had attributes of the divine and human, and boasts are at one.

views of Incarnation by Clement

Clement was the leader of a Roman congregation who sent a letter to the church at Corinth. He makes some parallel, but slightly different observations about Christology. He portrays Jesus as the reflection of God’s splendor,
the ”mirror” of ”God’s . . . transcendent face, and ”the scepter of God’s majesty”

He still understood Jesus as the Wisdom and Power of God who comes into the world to suffer
but who is at the same time a descendant of Jacob ”according to the flesh.”

From another later writing from Rome, The Shepherd of Hermas we find the ideas of ”the holy pre-existent Spirit
which created the whole creation is combined with the picture of Jesus as the suffering servant.

Gnostic Viewpoint, Rejecting Divine Incarnation

fortunately, this style of Christology was not universally favored. These doctrines tended to reject the idea that Christ was a human being at all. To them it was offensive to mix the divinity of God with human nature. To some extent, the early Jewish Christian churches fell in with this camp. They had an easy enough time believing that Christ fulfilled all the Jewish laws. On the other hand, they had a hard time considering he was divine, and their pre-existing son of God.

A Unified Christology Emerges

there has always been a variety in schools of thought about Christology. A unified believe had emerged in this time frame. Christ is understood to be the bearer of a new and immortal life. He is the one who reveals righteous teaching and is the one who we can model a divine righteousness after, as we can observe through his life and ministry. We can certainly look towards him to be the model on how to live our lives. Through him, and his ultimate resurrection we can receive the gracious gift of God’s wisdom and have our relationship restored to him.

A History of the Christian Church
Williston Walker
Richard A. Norris, David W. Lotz, Robert T. Handy
Copyright © 1918, 1959, 1970, 1985 Charles Scribner’s Sons; Copyright renewed 1946 Amelia Walker Gushing and Elizabeth Walker.

Chapter 7
The Interpretation of Jesus

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