The Nicene Creed, Part 4 &nbsp;

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‘Begotten of his 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.’

These seven phrases all attempt to define Jesus Christ in relation to God. Four of the phrases came from very early baptismal creeds.

‘By whom all things were made’

Christ is the ‘Word’ of God, and God’s instrument in the creation of the world. This is New Testament teaching found in St John: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God….all things were made by him…’ The same teaching is found in St Paul’s Epistles, eg Colossians 1 15-16: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth…all things were created through him and for him’.. See also Hebrews 1.2: ‘God….has in these last days spoken to us by his son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds’.

‘Begotten of his Father before all worlds’

This follows from the previous statement. If Christ was instrumental in creating the world he must have existed ‘before all worlds’.

God of God, Light of Light (i.e., God from God, Light from Light). In these very economical phrases is expressed the belief that Jesus Christ – the Word made flesh - is God. The source of the words is St John; ‘….the Word was with God, and the Word was God….in him was life and the life was the light of men. The Word is the word of command that brought all things into existence, and it is also the light by which God makes his purposes known to men. So close was the identification of God with the Word that the early Church established the firm belief that the Son of God was God. With development of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity the Word, or Son, became the second Person of the Trinity. (See end of this section for the teaching of the early Fathers on the divinity of Christ.)

The other three phrases - Very God of very God, Begotten not made, Being of one substance with the Father – were introduced for the first time into the Church’s statement of belief by the Council of Nicaea in 325 with the specific purpose of dispelling the Arian heresy. Arius (250-336) was one of the most influential heretics in the Church’s history. He taught that the Son of God had not existed ‘from all eternity’ but was created by the Father from nothing as an instrument for the creation of the world. He was therefore not God by nature but a changeable creature and therefore inferior to God. The Arians thought that the concept of God and the Son, or Word, denied belief in One God, and their reading of the Gospels led them to think of Christ as obedient in all things to the Father and therefore a servant of God. They could not see how the Son could be equal to the Father, let alone one and the same Person.

The Council of Nicaea was called for the purpose of dealing with the rapid spread of Arianism, and it drew up the declaration of faith that became the foundation of the Nicene Creed, which explains why the Creed we use today has such a heavy emphasis on the divinity of Christ. The declaration reads. as follows:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, 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, both which be in heaven and in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered and the third day he rose again, and ascended into heaven. And he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead. And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost.

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The following note was added:
‘And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence [from the Father] or that he is a creature, or subject to change or conversion - all that so say, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them.’ [The term 'anathematizes' in this context means to excommunicate or cut off from the Christian community.]

The Divinity of Christ

The evidence that Jesus Christ is God is found in the Scriptures and constantly reinforced by the early Fathers.

For example, in John 5:18 we are told that Jesus' opponents sought to kill him because he "called God his Father, making himself equal with God." In John 8:58, when asked how he can have special knowledge of Abraham, Jesus replies, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am" - invoking and applying to himself the personal name of God - "I Am" (Ex.3:14). His audience understood exactly what he was claiming about himself. "So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple" (John 8:59).

In John 20:28, Thomas falls at Jesus' feet, exclaiming, "My Lord and my God!" In Philippians 2:6, Paul tells us that Christ Jesus "who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped" (New International Version). So Jesus chose to be born in humble, human form though he could have simply remained in equal glory with the Father for he was "in very nature God."

Also significant are passages that apply the title "the First and the Last" to Jesus. This is one of the Old Testament titles of Yahweh: "Thus says Yahweh, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Yahweh of armies: 'I am the First and I am the Last; besides me there is no god'" (Is. 44:6; cf. 41:4, 48:12). This title is directly applied to Jesus three times in the book of Revelation: "When I saw him [Christ], I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, and ‘Fear not, I am the First and the Last’ “(Rev. 1:17 "And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: 'The words of the First and the Last, who died and came to life'" (Rev. 2:8).” Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay every one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the beginning and the end" (Rev. 22:12-13). This last quotation is especially significant since it applies to Jesus the parallel title "the Alpha and the Omega," which Revelation earlier applied to the Lord God: "'I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty" (Rev. 1:8).

The early Church Fathers also recognized the need to maintain the precious truth that Jesus Christ is God:

Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the Church at Ephesus in Asia Predestined from eternity for a glory that is lasting and unchanging, united and chosen through true suffering by the will of the Father in Jesus Christ our God" (Letter to the Ephesians 1 [A.D. 110]).

"For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God's plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit" (ibid., 18:2).

[T]o the Church beloved and enlightened after the love of Jesus Christ, our God, by the will of him that has willed everything which is" (Letter to the Romans 1 [A.D. 110]).

Aristides
"[Christians] are they who, above every people of the earth, have found the truth, for they acknowledge God, the Creator and maker of all things, in the only-begotten Son and in the Holy Spirit" (Apology 16 [A.D. 140]).

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Tatian the Syrian
"We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of a man" (Address to the Greeks 21 [A.D. 170]).

Melito of Sardis
"It is no way necessary in dealing with persons of intelligence to adduce the actions of Christ after his baptism as proof that his soul and his body, his human nature, were like ours, real and not phantasmal. The activities of Christ after his baptism, and especially his miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the deity hidden in his flesh. Being God and likewise perfect man, he gave positive indications of his two natures: of his deity, by the miracles during the three years following after his baptism, of his humanity, in the thirty years which came before his baptism, during which, by reason of his condition according to the flesh, he concealed the signs of his deity, although he was the true God existing before the ages" (Fragment in Anastasius of Sinai's The Guide 13 [A.D. 177]).

Irenaeus
"For the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and from their disciples the faith in one God, Father Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them; and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who announced through the prophets the dispensations and the comings, and the birth from a Virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily ascension into heaven of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and his coming from heaven in the glory of the Father to re-establish all things; and the raising up again of all flesh of all humanity, in order that to Jesus Christ our Lord and God and Savoir and King, in accord with the approval of the invisible Father, every knee shall bend of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth . . .” (Against Heresies 1:10:1 [A.D. 189]).

"Nevertheless, what cannot be said of anyone else who ever lived, that he [Jesus] is himself in his own right God and Lord . . . may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth" (ibid., 3:19:1).

Clement of Alexandria
"The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient beginning-for he was in God-and of our well-being. And now this same Word has appeared as man. He alone is both God and man, and the source of all our good things" (Exhortation to the Greeks 1:7:1 [A.D. 190]).

"Despised as to appearance but in reality adored, [Jesus is] the expiator, the Savoir, the soother, the divine Word, he that is quite evidently true God, he that is put on a level with the Lord of the universe because he was his Son" (ibid., 10:110:1).

Tertullian
"The origins of both his substances display him as man and as God: from the one, born, and from the other, not born" (The Flesh of Christ 5:6-7 [A.D. 210]).

"That there are two gods and two Lords, however, is a statement which we will never allow to issue from our mouth; not as if the Father and the Son were not God, nor the Spirit God, and each of them God; but formerly two were spoken of as gods and two as Lords, so that when Christ would come, he might both be acknowledged as God

and be called Lord, because he is the Son of him who is both God and Lord" (Against Praxeas 13:6 [A.D. 216]).

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Origen
"Although he was God, he took flesh; and having been made man, he remained what he was: God" (The Fundamental Doctrines 1:0:4 [A.D. 225]).

Hippolytus of Rome
"For Christ is the God over all, who has arranged to wash away sin from mankind, rendering the old man new" (ibid., 10:34).

Novatian
"If Christ was only man, why did he lay down for us such a rule of believing as that in which he said, 'And this is life eternal, that they should know you, the only and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent?' [John 17:3]. Had he not wished that he also should be understood to be God, why did he add, 'And Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent,' except because he wished to be received as God also? Because if he had not wished to be understood to be God, he would have added, 'And the man Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent;' but, in fact, he neither added this, nor did Christ deliver himself to us as man only, but associated himself with God, as he wished to be understood by this conjunction to be God also, as he is. We must therefore believe, according to the rule prescribed, in the Lord, the one true God, and consequently in him whom he has sent, Jesus Christ, who by no means, as we have said, would have linked himself to the Father had he not wished to be understood to be God also. For he would have separated himself from him had he not wished to be understood to be God" (Treatise on the Trinity 16 [A.D. 235]).

Cyprian of Carthage
"One who denies that Christ is God cannot become his temple [of the Holy Spirit] . . . " (Letters 73:12 [A.D. 253]).

Lactantius
"He was made both Son of God in the spirit and Son of man in the flesh, that is, both God and man" (Divine Institutes 4:13:5 [A.D. 307]).

"We, on the other hand, are [truly] religious, who make our supplications to the one true God. Someone may perhaps ask how, when we say that we worship one God only, we nevertheless assert that there are two, God the Father and God the Son-which assertion has driven many into the greatest error . . . [thinking] that we Confess that there is another God, and that he is mortal. . . . [But when we speak of God the Father and God the Son, we do not speak of them as different, nor do we separate each, because the Father cannot exist without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from the Father" (ibid., 4:28-29).

The next part of this study will deal with the Creed's assertion that God became incarnate, and that Jesus Christ is not only true God but true man.

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The Nicene Creed, Part 4

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“Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”

Having proclaimed with great emphasis that Jesus Christ is God, the Creed goes on to establish that he became truly man in the Incarnation. This statement – that the Word, the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, became man in the womb of the Virgin Mary – was the subject of huge controversy in the fourth and fifth centuries, and it is necessary to trace some of this history in outline.

The word ‘who’ at the beginning of the clause refers to the ‘One Lord Jesus Christ’ , who, in the previous clause, has been identified completely with God. So ‘for us men and for our salvation’ makes it clear that the Incarnation was a saving act of God. ‘Came down from heaven’ reinforces this; the man who was born of Mary was the same as he who was begotten of the Father before all worlds.

The Son of God descended from a place outside space and time as we understand it and entered human history. God chose to save mankind by voluntarily submitting to our human condition. St Augustine summed it up very concisely when he said that the only remedy for the pride of man was the humility of God.

The original Greek word for ‘incarnate’ means ‘ putting on flesh’. The ‘flesh’ which the Word became means humanity as we know it – not merely its outward appearance but the complete human being, body and soul, with the human soul’s powers of thought and will. And it is also true to say that the human nature into which the Son of God entered was subject to the same fragility and weaknesses that we are familiar with.

For the early Church this concept was shocking, and inevitably the question of Christ’s manhood became the subject of controversy and heresy. The basic question was: how was it possible for Godhead and manhood to be united without one or the other being deprived of its full reality? An answer was vital because of the Christian conviction that we humans are united to God through Christ, and this could not be so unless Christ was truly and completely God and truly and completely man.

The attempt to find an answer led to at least four major heresies.

1. The earliest was Arianism, a controversy that occupied much of the fourth century. Arius was an Alexandrian priest who taught that the Father is the only true God and that Jesus Christ was created by Him as a subordinate creature. This denial of the divinity of Christ became such a popular belief that the first Ecumenical Council was summoned at Nicaea in 325 to define the orthodox doctrine. Largely under the influence of St Athanasius the Council condemned Arius and sought a formula that would define orthodox belief about the divinity of Christ. The result was the origin of the Nicene Creed:

‘We believe in only one God, the Father, Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one only Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the sole-begotten of the Father, that is to say of the Father’s substance, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God; begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father…..’ (The word ‘consubstantial’ means ‘of the same nature’. )

For good measure the Council added a note:

‘As for those who say There was when he was not, and Before being born he was not, and that He came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is from a different substance, or is created, or is subject to alteration or change – these the Catholic Church anathemises’ [declares to be heretical].

Arianism was temporarily subdued but was never entirely eliminated.

2. It became necessary in 381 to summon another Council at Constantinople to deal with continuing controversy about the nature of the incarnate Christ, this time centred on Apollinarianism. Apollinarius, Bishop of Laodicea, had been a close supporter of Athanasius in opposition to Arianism, but his own teaching now came under condemnation. He proclaimed his belief that Christ was a ‘miraculous mixture’ of the divine and the human. In other words the living body was that of a man, but the mind – the reasoning power by which the body was controlled – was that of God. This meant that God had entered into a sort of human shell; Christ appeared human but did not have a human soul or human intellect. The Council of Constantinople condemned the teaching and produced an extended statement of belief which was virtually identical with the Nicene Creed we have today.

3. Arius denied that the Son was in the full sense God. Apollinarius denied that he was in the full sense man. The next major heresy – Nestorianism – got its name from Nestorius, who became Bishop of Constantinople in 428. Nestorians argued that the picture we have of Christ in the Gospels is that of a real man, tempted to make false choices, touched by doubts, suffering in body and mind – and praying. How was it possible to imagine a unity between an almighty, unchanging God and a man who, in the Gospel accounts, does change, being required to learn obedience to his Father through experience and suffering? The Nestorian answer was that that the nature of God and the nature of man existed together in Christ but were not united. In effect God ‘lived in’ the man Jesus, as He might dwell in a temple. Jesus was a man of supreme virtue – the only one worthy to receive the Word into himself. This meant that Jesus was the instrument of God’s will – not God himself. In claiming this the Nestorians also had to deny Mary the title of ‘Mother of God’, preferring to believe that Jesus was not born the instrument of God but achieved that status as he grew in perfection. Mary thus became simply ‘the mother of Christ’

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This claim led to the Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus in 431. The Council reaffirmed the Nicene Creed drawn up at the previous Council of Constantinople, but, in the face of continued heresy, felt it necessary to reinforce the Church’s beliefs concerning the nature of Jesus Christ. They adopted an earlier statement by St Cyril of Alexandria, a powerful opponent of the Nestorians, as the definitive belief. Here is the relevant extract:

We confess, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, perfect God, and perfect Man of a reasonable soul and flesh consisting; begotten before the ages of the Father according to his Divinity, and in the last days, for us and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin according to his humanity, of the same substance with his Father according to his Divinity, and of the same substance with us according to his humanity; for there became a union of two natures.

Wherefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of this unmixed union, we confess the holy Virgin to be Mother of God; because God the Word was incarnate and became Man, and from this conception he united the temple taken from her with himself.

For the blessed prophet Isaiah does not lie in saying "Behold the Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us." Truly also the holy Gabriel said to the Blessed Virgin: "Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shall conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son, and shall call his name Jesus. He shall save his people from their sins."

For when we say our Lord Jesus Christ descended from heaven, and from above, we do not so say this as if from above and from heaven was his Holy Flesh taken, but rather by way of following the divine Paul, who distinctly declares: "the first man is of the earth, earthy; the Second Man is the Lord from heaven."

We remember too, the Saviour himself saying, "And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man." Although he was born according to his flesh, as just said, of the holy Virgin, yet God the Word came down from above and from heaven. He "made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant," and was called the Son of Man, yet remaining what he was, that is to say God. For he is unchanging and unchangeable according to nature; considered already as one with his own Flesh, he is said to have come down from heaven.

He is also called the Man from heaven, being perfect in his Divinity and perfect in his Humanity, and considered as in one Person. For one is the Lord Jesus Christ, although the difference of his natures is not unknown, from which we say the ineffable union was made.

The essential words here are ‘a union of two natures’. Cyril was asserting that, at the Incarnation, God took human nature to himself while remaining at the same time God. Although perfectly and completely God he became a human being in the fullest sense. The union of these two natures meant that Mary gave birth to the same Person as God the Word. Hence Mary must have the title Theotokos, the Mother of God.

4. By the middle of the fifth century further controversy had arisen, linked with the name of Eutyches, a monk from Constantinople, who had the support of Cyril’s successor at Alexandria. Eutyches taught that the Incarnation was a ‘merging’ of the divine with the human into a ‘single incarnate nature of God the Word’. This meant that Christ had a single divine nature into which his humanity had been absorbed, so that he could not be fully man. Thus his two natures could not operate independently. This implied in turn that human beings could not completely identify themselves with the humanity of Jesus Christ. This fourth major heresy became known as Monophysitism – the belief in the one nature of Christ.

The new dispute led to the fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon in 451. The dominant influence here was Pope Leo the Great who proclaimed the orthodox belief in ‘a single union of God the Word in two natures, divine and human’. He wrote a powerful explanation, appealing to the Gospel narratives:

He is one and the same, truly Son of God and truly Son of Man. He is God, in so far as In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is Man in so far as The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The nativity of the flesh is a manifestation of human nature; the Virgin’s child-bearing is an indication of divine power. The infancy of the Baby is exhibited by the humiliation of swaddling clothes; the greatness of the Highest is declared by the voices of angels. To hunger, to thirst, to be weary and to sleep is evidently human. But to satisfy five thousand men with five loaves, to walk on the surface of the sea, is unquestionably divine. It does not belong to the same nature to weep with feelings of pity over a dead friend and, by a voice of command, to raise him up to life again. It does not belong to the same nature to say ‘I and the Father are one’, and also to say ‘My Father is greater than I’.

Thus, said Leo, each nature operates separately, yet Christ is not two persons but God the Word.

The Council subsequently issued the Definition of Chalcedon:

In following the Holy Fathers we with one accord confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in divinity, perfect in humanity, truly God, truly human being, with a rational soul and body, consubstantial with [i.e. completely identified with] the Father in his Divinity and consubstantial with us in his humanity, in all things like us except sin, begotten before all ages according to the Divinity, and in these latter times for us and for our salvation from the Virgin Mary and the Mother of God according to is humanity, one and the same Christ, the Son, the only-begotten Lord, discerned in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, as the difference of the two natures is in no way destroyed by the union. Moreover the attributes of each nature are preserved and united in one Person – not into two divided persons, but one and the same Only-Begotten Son, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was the best the Council could do to express in human language something that is a mystery beyond the powers of the human mind to grasp completely. The Definition remains the authoritative Catholic statement of the nature of Christ, although a small section of the Church – the Monophysites – refused to accept it and broke away.

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Here are two useful extracts from writers on the subject of the Incarnation:

1. Mary: Mother of God (author unknown)

Fundamentalists are sometimes horrified when the Virgin Mary is referred to as the Mother of God. However, their reaction often rests upon a misapprehension of not only what this particular title of Mary signifies but also who Jesus was, and what their own theological forebears, the Protestant Reformers, had to say regarding this doctrine.

A woman is a man's mother either if she carried him in her womb or if she was the woman contributing half of his genetic matter or both. Mary was the mother of Jesus in both of these senses; because she not only carried Jesus in her womb but also supplied all of the genetic matter for his human body, since it was through her-not Joseph-that Jesus "was descended from David according to the flesh" (Rom. 1:3).

Since Mary is Jesus' mother, it must be concluded that she is also the Mother of God: If Mary is the mother of Jesus, and if Jesus is God, then Mary is the Mother of God. There is no way out of this logical syllogism, the valid form of which has been recognized by classical logicians since before the time of Christ.

Although Mary is the Mother of God, she is not his mother in the sense that she is older than God or the source of her Son's divinity, for she is neither. Rather, we say that she is the Mother of God in the sense that she carried in her womb a divine person-Jesus Christ, God "in the flesh" (2 John 7, cf. John1:14)-and in the sense that she contributed the genetic matter to    the human form God took in Jesus Christ.

To avoid this conclusion, Fundamentalists often assert that Mary did not carry God in her womb, but only carried Christ's human nature. This assertion reinvents a heresy from the fifth century known as Nestorianism, which runs aground on the fact that a mother does not merely carry the human nature of her child in her womb. Rather, she carries the person of her child. Women do not give birth to human natures; they give birth to persons. Mary thus carried and gave birth to the person of Jesus Christ, and the person she gave birth to was God.

The Nestorian claim that Mary did not give birth to the unified person of Jesus Christ attempts to separate Christ's human nature from his divine nature, creating two separate and distinct persons-one divine and one human-united in a loose affiliation. It is therefore a Christological heresy, which even the Protestant Reformers recognized. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin insisted on Mary's divine maternity. In fact, it even appears that Nestorius    himself may not have believed the heresy named after him. Further, the "Nestorian" church has now signed a joint declaration on Christology with the Catholic Church and recognizes Mary's divine maternity, just as other Christians do.

Since denying that Mary is God's mother implies doubt about Jesus' divinity, it is clear why Christians (until recent times) have been unanimous in proclaiming Mary as Mother of God.    The Church Fathers, of course, agreed, and the following passages witness to their lively recognition of the sacred truth and great gift of divine maternity that was bestowed upon Mary, the humble handmaid of the Lord.

2. Dwight Longenecker

'I have long recognized the unique vocation of our Lady, called tothe highest honour among all created beings. It is a fact of history that, if true honour is not paid to her as the Mother of God, people put our Lord in her place as the highest of creation rather than adoring him as God Incarnate.' Rev. Msgr. Graham Leonard from The Path to Rome the former Anglican Bishop of London—now a Catholic priest—sums up the reasoning for the church’s most ancient title for the Blessed Virgin Mary. Put simply, Mary’s title of Mother of God insures Christ’s true place as the unique Son of God and Son of Man.

The title Theotokos means literally "God-bearer." It is the title used by the Greek fathers from Origen in the early third century, and some even think it can be traced to Hippolytus who died in A.D. 236. (See F. L. Cross, Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press [1957]). This term for the Virgin Mary was used increasingly by the early Church, but in the early fifth century it was attacked by Nestorius, who wanted to replace the term Theotokos with Christotokos or "Christ-bearer."

In a sincere attempt to avoid an earlier heresy called Apollinarianism, which subtly denied the full humanity of Christ, Nestorius used language that was perceived as asserting that there were two separate persons conjoined in Jesus Christ. Thus the Blessed Virgin Mary in giving Jesus human flesh could be the "Christ-bearer" but not "God bearer." (Patristics scholars today generally acknowledge that Nestorius expressed himself badly and so was misunderstood. He did not actually hold that there were two Persons conjoined in Christ.)

Cyril of Alexandria opposed Nestorius, and the controversy was referred to a Council of Rome in 430. Pope Celestine condemned Nestorius’s teaching, and in the meantime the emperor arranged a general council to meet at Ephesus. In the summer of 431 this council condemned Nestorius and therefore reaffirmed the already ancient title Theotokos. What is clear from the controversy surrounding Nestorius is that the title Theotokos is not primarily an exaltation of the Blessed Virgin Mary but a defence of orthodox Christology. The Council of Ephesus upheld a fully orthodox view of Jesus by reaffirming the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary that supported the fullest understanding of Christ’s divinity.

Just twenty years after the Council of Ephesus, another council was held, this time in the city of Chalcedon. In 451 the council dealt with another heresy called Eutychianism. As a result of the council, the Definition of Chalcedon was drawn up. This definition reaffirmed the basic definition of Christ’s divinity given at the Council of Nicea in 325. It also expressly repudiated those who deny the title Theotokos for the Blessed Virgin Mary and reasserted the position that our Lord was "One Person in Two Natures which are united unconfusedly, unchangeably indivisibly inseparably.

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I have gone into a bit of detail about the events of the fifth century for a specific reason. One of the things Catholics and traditional Protestants have in common is that they look to these first councils of the Church for their definition of true belief about the united humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ. The Definition of Chalcedon, based on the earlier definitions of Ephesus and Nicea, is looked to as a test of orthodoxy not only by the Catholic Church and most Eastern churches but also by many Protestant believers. Protestants say they look to Scripture to support their orthodox Christology, but of course their interpretation of Scripture is dependent on the definitions worked out in these early councils and accepted by orthodox Christians since. The Council of Ephesus specifically upheld the title of Theotokos for the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Council of Chalcedon expressly repudiated those who would deny Mary that title. Therefore, modern-day Christians who deny Mary the title of Theotokos are actually condemned by the very councils they venerate as having worked out the correct way to articulate orthodox Christology.

One might argue that the councils affirmed the title Theotokos as a minor, incidental matter, but this wasn’t the case. It was affirmed as an integral part of their defence of orthodox Christology. The records of the early Church councils show that devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Mother of God developed at the same time as the orthodox understanding of Jesus as the God-Man.

Graham Leonard’s pithy statement at the beginning of this article explains why the two beliefs developed together. As the relationship between Jesus’ humanity and divinity came to be understood more fully, it became even more clear that Mary, as his human mother, was specially graced by God in order to make her a fitting mother for God the Son—for example, by being specially preserved from sin. This special relationship to God the Son and the accompanying graces make her the highest of created beings. Devotion to her was therefore intertwined with submission and obedience to her Son, the incarnate God.

The essential unity of man and woman is established in Scripture when Genesis says that both of them were created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). In marriage men and women re-establish the unity God intended for them, and they live in a state of mutual interdependence as "one flesh." The Genesis account might show woman being taken from man, but the birth of every man from a woman also establishes the essential unity and interdependence between the genders.

Paul expresses this natural co-dependence between men and women:

"For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. . . . Woman is not independent of man nor man of woman, for a woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman" (1 Cor. 11:8, 11–12). In the divine economy man and woman are interdependent, and in the mystery of redemption God chose for both Jesus and his mother to play out the naturally interdependent roles of man and woman.

Some non-Catholics grant Mary the title of Theotokos for theological reasons but do not practice any form of Marian devotion. This is reflective of an illogical and truncated faith, because in every other aspect of our faith our devotions are inspired by and united to the doctrines we profess. How can one grant Mary the title Mother of God and yet refrain from using the ancient prayer in which we say, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death"?

Worship of Jesus Christ as "God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father" is therefore a unity with prayerful devotion to his mother. With her and through her we affirm and bow before the one who is God made man.

Those who deny Marian devotion sometimes sincerely object because they believe devotion to Mary detracts from proper worship of her Son. This misunderstands the Church’s teaching and practice. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin is constantly united with the worship of her Son. This unity of belief and practice cannot be separated, and, just as the early Church taught, those who deny that Mary is Theotokos also implicitly impugn the true divinity of her Son by failing to work out its practical implications—even if they are unaware that they are doing so.

Well-known convert Kimberly Hahn has said, "There are three things that keep Evangelicals away from the Catholic Church: Mary, Mary, and Mary." While it is true that Evangelicals do have a strong resistance to Marian devotion, Catholics should not apologize or back away from the issue. Instead it should be shown that devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary has been an integral part of orthodox Christianity from the very earliest days of the Church. It should be pointed out that the Church Fathers considered a proper view of Christ to be dependent on a proper understanding of Mary’s identity.

Furthermore, those who object to Catholic practice should be reminded that the vast majority of Christians through the ages and around the world today incorporate the Marian dimension into their Christian lives in daily devotion. Most importantly, it should be stressed that devotion to Mary, rather than being something different than their already keen love for Christ; is instead a fuller experience of his everlasting love.

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The Nicene Creed Part 5

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‘And was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried.’

This brief and bald statement is entirely factual. Christ was crucified. He suffered physical agony as a man, and his corpse was buried in the normal way. The statement does not elaborate upon the reason for the Crucifixion (apart from the phrase ‘for us’, which means ‘on behalf of us’), but these few words have given rise to a quite complex set of beliefs known in theology as the Doctrine of the Atonement. At-one-ment means the reconciliation of two parties one to another, and the subject of the doctrine can be briefly defined as ‘Man’s reconciliation with God through the sacrificial death of Christ’.

While it is important to ask how the death of Jesus Christ contributed to this reconciliation we must never regard the Crucifixion and the Resurrection as two distinct acts. Together they become the one great act of Redemption. God’s intention was not to send his Son to die but to defeat death, and thereby to open up to fallen mankind the possibility of a life after death. Indeed, as we shall see, we cannot isolate the Crucifixion from the whole process of the Incarnation, and the Nicene Creed makes no attempt to do so. This particular clause is a continuation of the Creed’s statements concerning the Incarnation.

The Crucifixion in history

The inclusion of the name Pontius Pilate is a reminder that the Crucifixion is an historical fact – it was recorded by the Roman historian Tacitus – and it is worth putting that fact into its historical context. The Jewish law in the time of Christ was held to be the direct expression of the will of God, so offences like theft, murder, blasphemy and Sabbath-breaking were all regarded as violations of the Law Of God. They had to be punished, there could be no discretion on the part of judges, because to condone them would be to do what God would never do – that is ‘justify the wicked man’. ‘We have a law, and by that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God’ (John 19.7). Jesus had to die because the religious leaders of his own people saw him as a menace, not only to authority and social order but to the sanctity of their religion.

But crucifixion was not the punishment for blasphemy. In order to ensure his death the Jewish authorities had to present Jesus to the Roman governor as a potential, if not an actual, leader of revolt against Roman rule. Pilate asked ‘Art thou the king of the Jews?’ and Jesus did not deny it because in doing so he would be denying his calling to be the Savior.

So it is possible to answer the historian’s question ‘Why did Christ die?’, but the Christian needs a different sort of answer. We need to consider further the key words ‘reconciliation with God’, and we can start with the Old Testament.

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The search for reconciliation in the Old Testament

Throughout the OT we find the principle that man cannot reconcile himself to God by his own initiative; reconciliation requires an action by God providing the possibility of cancelling sin. Thus the Law was seen by the Jews as a God-given means of establishing what God requires of men, while the Jewish sacrificial system, also God-given, was a means of cleansing when the Law was broken. Unfortunately the sacrificial system might provide for the cleansing of past guilt but it appeared to do nothing to break the ever-present power of sin. The frustration and helplessness of this situation is expressed vividly by St Paul:

‘I am carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate….I can will what is right but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.’ (Rom. 7 14).

There are also several references in the Epistle to the Hebrews to the very limited effects of the sacrificial system. Isaiah specifically dismisses the mechanical sacrificial system and insists on heartfelt repentance before reconciliation is possible:

‘Hear the word of the Lord…What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?….I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts….Bring me no more vain offerings…Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good.’ (Isaiah 1.11).

The rejection of the ritual sacrificial system is also evident in Psalm 51:

‘For thou desirest no sacrifice, else would I give it thee; but thou delightest not in burnt offerings. The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt thou not despise.’

Some of the Prophets saw the possibility of true reconciliation in the gift by God of a new Covenant to replace the Mosaic covenant that had clearly broken down. Jeremiah says:

‘Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke…I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.’ (Jeremiah 31.31)

Uniquely Isaiah presents the picture of a Suffering Servant as the agent of reconciliation:

‘He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our grief’s and carried our sorrows…he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities…and with his stripes we are healed…and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’

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The New Testament fulfillment of the search for reconciliation

In the New Testament we find a consistent message that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the OT longing for an effective sacrifice for sin. Jesus himself confirms it:

‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” (Matt 9 12-13).

In a direct echo of Isaiah he says: For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’ (Mark 10. 45).

And in an even more specific reference to Isaiah: ‘For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me, “And he was reckoned with the transgressors”; for what is written about me has its fulfillment.’ (Luke 22. 37)

He also confirms the institution of the new covenant foretold by the prophets:

‘Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (Matt 26.28).

The teachings of St Paul

The message of reconciliation or atonement was enthusiastically preached by the Apostles (e.g. Philip’s exposition of the Suffering Servant passage to the eunuch in Acts 8 32-35). But it was St Paul who turned the teaching into a doctrine through a series of brilliant insights. These can be briefly summarized as follows (you are recommended to look up the references and study the passages in full in their context):

Jesus Christ is the Son of God – ‘the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation’ (Col 1 15)

He was sent forth by God ‘to redeem them that were under the law’ (Gal 4 5)

He is the second Adam who came to restore what had been lost by the sin of the first Adam (Rom 5 14-17)

He died ‘for us’ [i.e. on behalf of us] (Rom 5 6-8)

It was God’s intention ‘through him to reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of his Cross’ (Col 1 20)

‘He gave himself up for us as an offering to God’ (Eph 5 2)

‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself’ (2Cor 5 18-19)

In particular St Paul recognizes that, while the sacrifice of Christ was a unique and sufficient action for our salvation, we have been given the means to perpetuate its benefit through the establishment of the Church, Christ’s body on earth.

We are not redeemed as separate individuals; we are one body of which Christ is the head (1Cor 12 13,27: Col 1 18: Eph 1 22 and 5 25-30).

It is by baptism that we are made members of the body (Rom 6 3: Eph 5 26) Baptism represents a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness: ‘I have been crucified with Christ, yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’

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Other New Testament Teaching

‘God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son , that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3 16).

‘If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins’ (1St John 2 1-2).

Virtually the whole of the Epistle to the Hebrews is taken up with the theme of the Atonement. Christ is the true High Priest (6.20), offering himself to the Father (7.27), and cleansing us by his blood (9. 11-14). He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself (9.26). He was offered to bear the sins of many (9.28). His offering perfects them that are sanctified (10.14).

But if we are to understand the biblical teaching about the Atonement we must abandon any sentimental or emotional interpretation of the term ‘the love of God’. The biblical writers are always aware of something that we would rather forget - that God’s love coexists with God’s unchanging justice, a justice that cannot be relaxed, altered or suspended. So they assume the need for some kind of atoning action if man is to be restored to a right and proper relationship with God. They teach that man is a sinner wholly estranged from God, that his sin caused and causes the alienation, and that this alienation must be remedied and removed before a true relationship can be created. They further assume that this restoration cannot be initiated by mankind alone; it must come wholly from a merciful act of God, free and undeserved.

The Apostles and biblical teachers held the Atonement through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ to be a fact, a mystery to be grasped by faith. They made no attempt to explain precisely how Christ’s death had saved us, and the Church has never formulated a dogmatic explanation. This has not prevented much subsequent speculation.

Here are two expositions of the Doctrine of the Atonement that have been most widely accepted:

1. CB Moss in The Christian Faith

“Christ saves men who have fallen through their own fault into the power of the Devil by breaking that power. He became Man for this purpose. He lived and died and rose again so that he might break the chains by which Man was bound. It is not his death alone, but the entire Incarnation, of which his death was a necessary part, that freed men from their captivity by Satan. By becoming Man, living a sinless life, and rising from the dead (which he could not have done unless he had first died) he introduced a new power into human nature. This power is bestowed on all who are willing to receive it, through the Holy Spirit. Those who receive it are united with Christ in his mystical body, the Church. The corrupted human nature (the bad habits and evil desires which St Paul calls ‘the old man’) is driven out by degrees until at last it is expelled altogether, and the redeemed person becomes entirely obedient to the will of God, as Jesus himself was when on earth. He is freed from the power of sin. God forgives him as an act of pure love, but the condition of his forgiveness is that he must sin no more.”

2. GD Carleton in the King’s Highway

“God is perfectly righteous and true, as well as perfectly loving and merciful. Man had sinned, and by sin had done injury and outrage to God’s glory. Justice required that the sinner should himself atone for his sin. Forgiveness by God, in the sense of letting man off his punishment, might have been merciful but would not have satisfied truth and justice. If a debtor is forgiven his debt, and if he is thenceforth able to avoid incurring new debt, the debt already incurred still remains unpaid. The obedience to God of a forgiven sinner, even the perfect obedience through all the rest of his life, would not avail to pay off the debt he owes – that is the honor that was due from him to God, and which he withheld during the time of his sinfulness. All his future obedience day by day can do no more than pay what is daily due from him to God. He can acquire no surplus with which to pay his original debt.

How, then, was God to have the honor that belonged to Him, the honor which eternal righteousness demanded that man should pay, but which he did not have the means to pay? How indeed, unless God should become man, to do for man what man must do but cannot do by himself? If God joined himself with all humanity then justice could be satisfied. Humanity having divine strength could do what man in his own weakness could not do. The perfect obedience of Jesus Christ, even unto death, was of so great merit that it outweighed all the debt that mankind owes to God. In that way divine justice was satisfied.

God, holy and true, could not simply ignore sin, for that would have been to act contrary to his holiness and truth. But God, who is love, could pay the price of sin, conquering Satan and redeeming mankind from his power. God could become man so that the payer and conqueror could be man.

But we must not separate the thought of Calvary from that of Pentecost and the Church which is the body of the risen and ascended Lord – the body in which we are united with Christ as his members. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus any more than to Christ himself, because they are in him and are one with him. God sees them as being made one with him who, in our common humanity, has paid the debt. And mankind, receiving a higher life than that of nature through their union with the risen Christ, can be restored from the effects of the Fall – and not only restored but raised to a state higher than that from which they fell. Mankind can say with St Paul: ‘I have been crucified with Christ, yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Note two important points made by these writers:

(a) It was the Incarnation of God as man that brought us the possibility of salvation. The death of Jesus was one necessary and decisive event, but we should not isolate it to the exclusion of benefits of the Incarnation – for example, God’s sharing of our common humanity for a substantial period of time, Jesus’ teaching about the Christian life, his institution of the Eucharist and his retention of his humanity after his Ascension.

(b) We are not saved as individuals but as members of the Body of Christ, his Church, divinely instituted at Pentecost and entrusted to the protection of the Holy Spirit. Each person’s salvation begins with baptism into membership of the Body. The Atonement is more than the forgiveness of sins; it makes it possible for mankind to enter into a new working relationship with God, by which, in St Paul’s terms, we work out our own salvation. The saving relationship can only be sustained and nourished within the Church.

Finally we need to ask the question: when the Creed says that Christ was crucified ‘for us’, does it mean that the Atonement was for all mankind or for the chosen? There was a mistaken ancient belief, which has become the modern heresy of ‘universalism’, that everyone will be saved because of the infinite love of God. This idea springs from the sentimental notion of God’s love referred to earlier, and there is no biblical evidence for it. Quite the contrary:

‘But as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name’. (John 1 12)

‘For the promise is to you and to your children…everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him’. (Acts 2 39)

‘Drink ye all of this; for this is the blood of the new testament which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins. (Matt 26 28)

‘Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her…that he might present the Church to himself in splendor…that she might be holy and without blemish’ (Eph 5 25-27)

‘For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified…’ (Rom 8 29-30)

In the Gregorian Canon we pray that we may be ‘numbered in the flock of thine elect’.

The mystery of the Atonement is that it is offered freely to all, yet God foreknows those who will be his chosen – i.e. those who, of their own free will, become believers in and followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself referred to this mystery when he told his disciples ‘You have not chosen me; I have chosen you’. We are, of course, not at liberty to take over God’s prerogative and try to decide for ourselves who are the chosen.

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