Christ the Rock
Originally posted by IBD Vice President Matt Coombe on mjcoombe.com
In the mist of my morning studies as I was reading a book concerning the resurrection of Christ I realized how Christian view of Christ (and more importantly Christ himself) has not waivered for 2,000 years. The early followers of the resurrected Christ were put to death and tortured because they would not cry “Caesar is LORD” but rather maintain, “Jesus is LORD.” For the initial 250 years of Christianity two things were certain, the Christians would not think of Christ as anything else other then God, and they were willing to die for this belief.
Some early disputes arose concerning the deity of Christ and the bodily resurrection of Him among early believers but they were quickly refuted by eye witness accounts. As latter disputes arose, once the eye witnesses were dead, the apostolic fathers (the disciples of the disciples) were likewise easily able to refute claims that Jesus was not God.
For the most part, views concerning Christ were in no way refuted with any source of evidence until the turn of the 18th century when German Higher criticism arouse. I am not going to respond to this now, because I don’t have space though, I do have a lecture on the subject on www.sermonaudio.com. From this, people had a new criticism, Jesus was not who He claimed to be. This view was met with a barrage of responses, but none better the simplistic response of the logician C.S Lewis, who singled the argument to, Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or LORD. The attacks on Jesus ceased.
The attacks moved from Jesus to the people that wrote about Him, the apostles. They had turned him into an unwilling icon of their religious revolution. Jesus never claimed to be God. So the responses turned to the apostles as well, “if the first 250 years were marked by disciples for dying for the refusal of calling Christ anything other then God, then the question remains, ‘do people die for what they know to be a lie.”
Running out of cards to play, the criticisms returned to Jesus, “He never really existed.” By far the most laughable of all the claims, because there is neither any evidence to support this and not one scholar who is dedicated to first century history holds to it.
Attacks have come and gone for the last 2,000 years and the Christian response has yet to change, “Jesus is LORD.” And we back this up not with a fist but with words. We eagerly anticipate the next objection so that we can refute that as well!
It is quite an intriguing issue. In my judgement, the sustenance of apostolicity in the Church was due to the development of the episcopate between 60 AD and 150 AD. By the time of St Irenaeus in the late second century, the strength of the office of bishop was such that that the attacks of the Gnositcs were easily refuted. Thus, the apostolic Gospel was preserved, left untainted by heresies external to the Church catholic. The Nicene Council basically put to rest objections to apostolic Christology. It was not until the radical Reformation that questions arose about established, catholic dogma.
John
You are essentially agreeing with me. The espiscopate arose and was sustained by the influence of the apostolic fathers. The reason they could so easily refute gnosticism is because Iranaeus was close with Polycarp, a direct disciple of John (the disciple whom Jesus loved). It is for this reason why you never see major heresies arising early. The students of the eye witnesses of Christ were there to refute them.
I agree with you that was not until the Reformation that questions arose about the established, Catholic dogma. Remember, most of those heresies came about at the end of the medieval period and were really the mark of the Renaissance rather than the later Reformation. Thomas Aquinas is the first major theologian with obvious Catholic influence in his writings, but his writing is still in accordance with biblical orthodoxy and he wrote over 1500 years after Christ.
Further, despite all the heresies that arose during this time, none contradict my thesis of the blog. The church has never wavered as to the substance of Christ. Even as the Catholic church venerates the saints and deifies Mary, they are not straying from the deity of Christ. They may be marring it by comparing Him so closely with Mary, but they never deny it!
Good post!
For love and peace,
Matthew J
I speak of “catholicity” as those teachings commonly held by all Christians. I as a Lutheran and you (I think) as an Evangelical hold a common set of beliefs grounded in the witness of the New Testament. The errors of medieval Catholicism existed for only about 400 years before the Reformation began. So the modern Roman Catholic Church, which is really defined by the council of Trent, is about as old as the Magisterial Reformation. But that doesn’t have anything to do with your original post. In essence, we are in fundamental agreement.
JH
PS, I’m a student of Dr. Fernandes’ at Crosspoint.