Drinking From The Deep Creedal Wells: Nicaea, Christology, and Salvation-History

This is intended as a reflection on the Creeds in Relation to New Testament Christology and the Christian Life

In reflecting upon this past quarter, one is hard pressed to consider a topic more pressing and pertinent than Christology. The topics of the virgin birth, subordinationism, and Christ’ sinlessness—or inability to sin—are persistently being debated in academic institutions and seminaries, with little end in sight. Often the relationship between theoretical dogma and ordinary life is overlooked, as the academic world and pastoral ministry can be seen as at odds with each other. However, in light of the Christian existence and the need to actually live a life based upon Scripture, one then needs to know the Scriptural reciprocity Scripture and the Creeds. The goal of this paper is to reflect upon the nature and witness of the Creeds for New Testament Christology, and the implications for daily life in the Church.

The Creeds of Nicaea (325AD) and Nicene-Constantinopolitan (381AD) are considered a vital part of the Church’s historical testimony. I confess that I had never read either Creed in its entirety until this past quarter, so perusing the ancient literature provided a theological jolt that would press anyone into more serious study. Thus, there are three crucial issues one may find within the Creeds that present Christian theology with some measure of doctrinal preeminence.

First, the Creeds have centralized key doctrinal issues that most consider to be top tier. For example, Christ’s equality with God the Father, his preexistence, virgin birth, death, and resurrection. Second tier subjects such as church government, differing views on eschatology (eternal conscious punishment or annihilationism), and even the inerrancy of Scripture are not present in any of the early Creeds—although baptism appears quite prominently as a feature as the universal church favors “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” This of course does not mean the aforementioned doctrines are not important doctrines—far from it! —But rather the early church did not view them in an ‘essentialist’ manner. Christology was—and is—more important than Christian views of church and government. So, in a way, this Creedal first order has helped provide an essential result of the basics of Christian orthodoxy, confirmed by Paul (1 Cor. 15:1-4 and passim) as Christ’s bodily resurrection from the dead.

Second, the Creeds have really teased out a lot of the theological themes in the New Testament. A classic example is the doctrine of the Trinity. Nowhere in the New Testament—disregarding the textual interpolation in 1 John 5:7-8—is the doctrine of the Trinity clearly and systematically laid out in a manner that would provide unequivocal support. However, given the data regarding Jesus’ divinity (John 5:18; 10:30), some form of his preexistence (1 Cor. 10:4; Col. 1:15-20), his equality with God (Phil. 2:6-7), and his possibly being called God (θεὸς in Rom. 9:5; c.f. Titus 2:13 if by Paul) all offer some strong possible glimpses of the relationship within the Godhead, or as Richard Bauckham says, “the divine identity.” The inclusion of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20 is a classic example of an early proto-Trinitarian doxology (c.f. 1 Cor. 12:4-6). Christ is also spoken about in the same way as YHWH, where 2 Thess. 1:8-9 speaks of “the Lord Jesus from Heaven” (τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ ἀπ᾿ οὐρανοῦ) in the same way YHWH is spoken of in the Old Testament (c.f. Isaiah 66:15-16), bringing judgment upon the oppressors of the church. This all seems to culminate in our fulfilled affirmation of Christ:

“And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all things, Light of Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one substance/being with the Father.”

This teasing of doctrine out of the New Testament is helpful, insofar as it finds common threads among the diverse authors of Scripture and manages to intertwine them in an embroidery—an embroidery that illustrates the beauty of Scripture as she dances throughout history, leaving footprints in the sands of time for us to follow.

Third and finally, the Creeds place a definitive capstone on the salvation-history narrative that Scripture seems to point towards. They tell the story of the preexistence and consubstantial Son who was sent into the world “who for us [humans], and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made [human].” In a world driven by personal and corporate narrative and the accumulation of particular experiences, this salvation story offers humanity a glimpse into the divine reality. This narrative categorically rejects other competing narratives, such as sexual, racial, and economic exploitation in favor of a life of humbleness and service. It tells a story of God waging a war against the forces of evil and death, being subjected to these forces in a state of humiliation, and rising in triumph over the grave. It assumes the unity of the holy Catholic Church (Eastern, Roman, Protestant), and where we place our hope: in the resurrection of the dead and in the life of the world to come. It is to stand with the Prophets of old who denounce injustice and corruption, whether secular or religious. It presents to us an ecologically minded framework for the care of the earth, as this earth was given by God the Father through Christ (1 Cor. 8:4-6), and thus demands our care as viceroys, as caretakers. It confirms the unique humanity of both male and female, as Christ died for “us humans” (ἀνθρώπους) and was made human for us (ἐνανθρωπήσαντα), that neither male nor female are excluded from the drama of redemption.

This new creation under the reign of the eternal Godhead will have no end. Thus, fear is no longer a necessity, but a memorial. Our salvation narrative ultimately trusts in the final defeat, abolition, and annihilation of evil and death. It proclaims hope for the dearly departed in Christ, and requires our action within this very page-turning narrative. It is a call for holy living ‘in Christ’ where we place ourselves within his paradigm and partake in his church. Ours is a pursuit of theosis, a dance towards the divine, nearing a place where the streets have no name. It is the rejection of darkness and an assumption of never ending light (Rev. 21:25), where God dwells with mortals (Rev. 21:3).

The richness of the Christian tradition is indeed a comfort for many, offering to us chances of reflection and refinement as we seek to offer our faith in an increasingly unique and challenging world. The Creeds offer us a chance to offer a concise look at this faith, with its potential and implications for the future. It demands allegiance in a military manner, and confirms our trust in the working out of our lives with fear and trembling. It calls us to think of the future as an approaching reality, not as a distant unattainable goal. Our τέλος requires working towards this now. This is why we exhort people to now be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5), and why we proclaim his coming—where he is both Judge and King. 

The Creeds thus are relevant, necessary, and vital to the Christian understanding of God and our understanding of how we relate to the world. 

NQ

Christology: A Global Introduction (Parts III and IV)

Part three (109-188) is by far the most substantial part of Kärkkäinen’s work, dealing with theological luminaries such as Pannenberg, Barth, Tillich, Moltmann and Bultmann. His treatments of each theologian are incisive and his ability to summarize their key points of emphasis is respectable. He rightly emphasizes the ‘dialectic’ that captivated Barth and even includes lesser-known theologians such as evangelical Stanley Grenz. The only complaint one could offer in this section is that the more interesting writings from Grenz were published posthumously (c.f. Rediscovering the Triune God) and only one main text (Theology for the Community of God). from Grenz appears to be consulted at the time of Kärkkäinen’s publication. Throughout, Kärkkäinen is charitable and displays the views of in question with grace. All theological discussion ought to be conducted in such a manner and our author models this well. However, Kärkkäinen does not shy away from difficult questions that result from a theologian’s construction of theology. For instance, he questions Tillich’s contribution to modern theology and asks, “if the Fall was a necessary event?” (131-132), and calls his approach “idiosyncratic” (132). As regards Rudolph Bultmann, Kärkkäinen notes the ‘missionary’ aspect of why one would be interested in the ‘mytholgical nature’ of the New Testament (123). This reveals two key truthes in modern theology: first, we are products of our times, and second, that we ought to consider how to best offer the gospel to an increasingly pluralistic world. Though Bultmann denied the literal resurrection, nonetheless it held him emotionally captive, exemplifying the power of the Gospel to cause both one to see and yet another to stumble. For better or worse Kärkkäinen has wet the appetite of evangelicals and offered us a strong reason to now read Bultmann!

The final part of Kärkkäinen’s work in part four concerns various Christological ideas that include black and feminist theology—among many others. For readers—and this reviewer—this section is the final bite of a rather fast-paced sweet. Kärkkäinen’s summation of black Christology is especially powerful in light of modern events (Ferguson), presenting his students with the problem of ‘otherness’ and the necessity for reconciliation ‘in Christ.’ The emphasis of James Cone on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ offers evangelicals a firm starting point of identification. This creedal affirmation, found in 1 Cor. 15:1-8, is a strong primer for black Christology, and it’s a parallel belief that all evangelicals can embrace. “Liberation and reconciliation,” [Cone] said, “presuppose one another” (211).

The chapter on feminist Christology is both a painful and necessary reminder for all who profess the liberating message of Christ: the use of Holy Scripture to subordinate women. This injustice must be acknowledged and rectified. A helpful comment by Stanley Grenz of the previous section is this: “Jesus [is] not only essential deity but also essential humanity” (174). A point that could have been noted by Kärkkäinen concerns the continual use of “ἄνθρωπος” (generic: person, human) in the Gospels, and also by Paul in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15: since Christ is commonly referred as a ‘ἄνθρωπος’ instead of ‘ἀνήρ’ (specific, male/man) this has some intriguing assumptions that may already press against the mistaken belief that “Jesus’ maleness has often been used as an argument against the full humanity of women” (198). Christ’s humanity is most often in view, not his maleness. Christ, as savior of women and men, is identified as the one who became σάρξ in John’s prologue. The humanness of the person, as complete in the image of God, is what matters in Christ; of note is Galatians 3:28 which directly quotes Gen. 1:27, indicating that the flesh of the Son of God who died and reconciled us of Paul’s primary concern. Thus, there is sufficient biblical warrant to elevate that status of Christ’s humanity and not overplay his gender in a manner that would disregard women, especially when both genders are active in ministry (Rom. 16; Phil. 4:2-3) and mutually yield to one another (Eph. 5:21). A helpful addition to this section would be the succinct and classic defense by the late T.F. Torrance who argues persuasively that the Christological excuse to exclude women “conflicts with the orthodox understanding of the incarnation as the saving assumption of the whole human being, male and female, and as the healing of our complete human nature.”[1] These additional considerations would have helped present some of the biblical witness that has been pressing back against patriarchy from the very incarnation.

There is much to commend about Kärkkäinen’s work. It is fast-paced and yet not without considerable substance, passionate without being pedantic. The diverse offerings are a breath of genuinely ecumenical air. Kärkkäinen offers us a wide feast of Christian history and theology that pushes all beyond the limits of the evangelical scholastic subculture. While there are some weaknesses—mostly due to the aforementioned brevity of the textbook–nearly every major portion of Church history is discussed, most major modern theologians are represented, and the major biblical difficulties are examined with a creedal and critical eye. Kärkkäinen’s theological distillation can only inspire further study and he is to be thanked for his work.

NQ

[1] Torrance, T.F. "The Ministry of Women." Touchstone Archives:. January 1, 1992. Accessed January 22, 2015. http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=05-04-005-f.

Christology: A Global Introduction, A Review (PART I)

This review (though modified) was written for ST502, and I commend it to you.

Taking two thousand years of Christian theology and surveying it in fewer than three hundred pages is no small feat, especially when one includes the complexities of world religions. Dr. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen—Professor of Systematic Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary—has engaged these diverse theological strands and offers students of theology an inclusive and largely successful survey on the person and work of Jesus Christ. He does this in four distinct parts.

Part one includes a survey of the New Testament witness to Christ, beginning with the various Christological titles employed to describe Jesus. Titles such as κύριος and Χριστός—among many others—are expounded upon, thanks to the previous scholarship of James D.G. Dunn, yielding a unity and diversity of Christological viewpoints within the New Testament. Kärkkäinen’s presentation is helpful and succinct because he draws upon current scholarship and is quick to inform the student about the complex theological titles for Jesus. He then turns to Jesus and the Gospels, where the great themes are briefly elucidated: for Mark, suffering and servanthood; for Matthew, kingship and Jewish identity; for Luke, inclusion; for John, the word as life. However, one can always press for more detail: for example, the Lukan theme of ‘eschatological reversal’ is not mentioned, and would have strengthened Kärkkäinen’s contention for inclusion, as Mary’s Magnificat praises YHWH for “bringing down the powerful” and as the one who has “lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:46-55). The inclusion of women, gentiles and the poor in Luke’s rendering of Christ’s ministry would have helped flesh out this vital contention, as it is a dominant Luke motif. With all that said, Kärkkäinen does not force a synthesis between the divergent accounts but prefers to see each account as illuminating, “various aspects of the life, death, and resurrection of the One who was and is confessed as Lord and Savior” (43). The gospels are a tapestry to be experienced, not contained or diluted.

Rounding out part one is Paul and Kärkkäinen approaches the apostle in the same manner he approached the Gospels: the various titles appropriated by Paul for Christ are discussed, and a survey of the various Pauline epistles save for the Pastoral Epistles. The unfortunate exclusion of 1-2 Timothy and Titus, although understandable as they are certainly disputed texts, is a problematic omission when considered against the inclusion of Ephesians. Certainly the Pastoral Epistles contain some Christological content that merits consideration, and could even aid in the diversification of early “Catholicism,” assuming Paul is not their author. For example, Titus 2:13 may be the second instance where Paul affirms explicitly that Jesus is God, with the other being Romans 9:5. Notably, Jesus is called a ‘mediator’ in 1 Tim. 2:5, a text that begs for further integration with the biblical tradition, especially since it may contain a theological strand also seen in Hebrews of Jesus as ‘high priest.’ The notion of ‘received text’ must be contended with if theologians are to exclude three epistles of the most prominent first century interpreter of the life of Jesus.

Finally, Kärkkäinen contends that Paul believed in, among many things, the preexistence of Christ and particularly the death and resurrection of the only Son of God (58). The strength of this section is that the breadth of the Pauline writings are mined and each epistle is permitted to stand as sole witness to the truth of Christ with the lone exception being the Pastoral Epistles.[1]

NQ

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[1] The issue about the authorship of the Pastoral Epistles is long and vexatious. Suffice to say, the slim majority of Pauline scholars reject Pauline authorship (I. Howard Marshall, Jouette Bassler, Raymond Collins) while others affirm them (Ben Witherington, Luke Timothy Johnson). Personally, I'm on the fence until I've had enough chance to research the specific topic on my own time. The only other text I've delved into is Ephesians and I'm leaning against Pauline authorship though its not a settled case at all.

Moltmann and The Liberation of the Cross

"It promises first of all the pain of repentance and fundamental change. It offers no recipe for success. But it brings a confrontation with the truth. It is not positive and constructive, but is in the fist instance critical and destructive. It does not bring man into a better harmony with himself and his environment, but into contradiction with himself and his environment. It does not create a home for him and integrate him into society, but makes him homeless and rootless, and liberates him in following Christ who was homeless and rootless. The 'religion of the cross', if faith on this basis can ever be called, does not elevate and edify in the usual sense, but scandalizes; and most of all it scandalizes one's 'co-religionists' in one's own circle. But by this scandal, it brings liberation into a world which is not free." 

--Jurgen Moltmann, "The Crucified God" pg39.

In thinking about Christology and working my way through the myriad of material, I was struck by Moltmann's quote above. I don't quite agree with all of it so I'll start with that.

I think in some ways, depending on context, the truth itself is a positive proposition. If one is incorrect, then certainly the truth can be devastating, but I wish to nuance this a bit. I think it depends on the level of falsehood within a certain viewpoint. There are certainly differences between Mormon and Evangelical Christians, but there would be greater differences between the lack of religion within certain European countries and the "americanized" Christianity most of us would fall into. I think it would be better to say something instead that the crucifixion can mean a whole host of things to one who is already familiar with the concept and one who has no conception of what they would concieve of as monotheism.

But that's more nitpicky on my part.

The biggest aspect of this that struck me was the idea of the cross as liberation. Moltmann sees Jesus' death as solidarity with all of humanity, dying a common and painful death like most of those who currently sleep, to borrow a Pauline term. It awakens us to new perspective and identification with those that are not only outside our circles, but also in that we can never see such ideals in the same light again.

It demands change and self-involvement with those that would rather be alone and afraid and isolated. It breaks down the social barriers that divide and instead proposes an entire unity within not only the church but with all humanity. Moltmann doesn't proof-text above, but I think Paul's letter to the Galatians is something that Jurgen would get giddy over right about now.

Consequently, this invites another dilemma in that the cross demands change, and this brings forth contradiction. We cannot live in such a way as we currently are when encountered by the Crucified God. This invokes freedom ἐν Χριστῷ.

Something has to give. 

--Nick

When God Came to Earth

For centuries, Mark's Gospel, the shortest one, was regarded as not much more than an abridged version of Matthew and Luke. . .there is agreement that Mark's Gospel provides the outline for the rest of the Synoptic Gospels and was written first. Therefore, it is an appropriate starting point for a study of the Gospels' Christologies (1).

Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ 

For my own amusement, I did a bit of translation on the Greek above, coming to roughly "the commencement of the good news of Jesus Christ." My Greek New Testament has a footnote that includes [υἱοῦ θεοῦ] below, translated "Son of God." My initial bias was to use "origin" instead "commencement" or "beginning," but instead I think origin brings about connotations of beginning or creation and I don't think Christ was 'created' or had a 'beginning.' He certainly, however, was born into this world and thus, the "commencement" of the Son of God within a temporal context seems to make more sense to me. At least from a theological musing sort of point.

The Greek word εὐαγγελίου is translated here as "good news." So, immediately, we have a picture of a person we know nothing yet everything about. If we take my translation as commencement (as tentative as it obviously is) we see the commencement of a ceremony, as God coming to earth as Christ. We don't get this in Mark obviously in terms of birth, but the ceremony of birth is portrayed in the other Gospels. This gospel assumes that Christ had an earthly beginning.

This is good news. Particularly with how Mark portrays Jesus as "healer" and many other things. The physical nature that Christ enacts for His people is often overlooked, but Mark sees this as central. Certainly as deliverer, but also tangible evidence of what the Son of God intends for His creation:

Healing and restoration.  

This includes the removal of sickness, eating with sinners and driving out demons. This presupposes some form of preexistence. This is the commencement of the ceremonial aspect of Jesus coming down to creation and enacting inaugurated eschatology.  

And this is only the beginning of the good news. 

--Nick

Citations.

1. Karkkainen, "Christology: A Global Perspective" pg30.

The Christology of Jurgen Moltmann

Karkkainen:

"Because the hope of resurrection goes back to the decisive victory of God in Christ over death, it encompasses and includes the hope of God's righteousness within history, yet it also transcends history. Interestingly enough, in contrast to Pannenberg, Moltmann refuses to subject the event of the resurrection to the scrutiny of historical-critical research, even though he obviously regards it as an event in time and space. He does so because the even of the resurrection calls into question the concept of history as it is conceived of within the limits of the modern scientific approach. The proper way to approach the resurrection is to connect it with the future eschatological hope; to believe in the reality of the resurection, one must let oneself be thrown into active hope."

 Karkkainen, Christology: A Global Introduction pg151.