We Evangelicals and Our Mission. Lianna Davis. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Lianna Davis
Издательство: Ingram
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isbn: 9781725271296
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of the Old Testament are understood as prefiguring or foreshadowing the events, people, and things of the New Testament. Theodore also gave increased attention to the historical record and to the overall purposes of God as revealed in the Bible. As for Chrysostom, he “gave primary attention to the literal, grammatical and historical interpretation of Scripture.”10

      Apologetic and Polemic Writings

      Early apologists included Quadratus, Aristides, Melito, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Justin Martyr. Justin Martyr, who seems to have headed up a school in Rome, wrote one of the most famous early apologetic works, entitled simply Apology. One of his disciples, Tatian, wrote Discourse to the Greeks—a work that was as much a polemical attack on pagan culture and religion as it was a defense of Christianity. Irenaeus (born around AD 130) is sometimes known as the “Missionary Bishop.” His best-known apologetic work is Against Heresies, though he himself called it An Examination and Overthrow of What Is Falsely Called Knowledge—a title that was most apt since the book was largely directed against Gnosticism and the gnostics. Finally, Origen presented the gospel as the final goal of man’s quest for truth and defended it against all detractors. Among his six thousand writings of various genres, First Principles and Against Celsus are usually considered to be his best works.

      Confessions and Creeds

      As noted above, the church was called upon from within as well as without to make her faith known, and that she did with increasing unity and clarity right up to the triumph of Constantine. In fact, in some ways that was even more true after Constantine intruded his secular power into the affairs of the church. In such a context, it is easy to lose sight of the profound importance of creeds and confessions that serve to articulate and confirm the faith of the true Christian. These early confessions took two basic forms: 1) rules of faith and 2) classic creeds.

      Table 1. Rules of faith and classic creeds

TermBasic Meaning
Rules of FaithEssential or core beliefs of “early church laity.”
Classic CreedsStandardized or universal creeds adopted in response to theological controversies.

      “Rules of Faith”

      Rules of faith were confessional statements or core beliefs of the “early church laity.”

      Classic Creeds

      It is important to be aware of the kind of issues with which early major councils had to do, such as the relation of Christ to the one God as well as the means and method of man’s salvation. About 318, a presbyter from Alexandria named Arius asserted that Jesus was of a similar but lesser essence or substance than God—homoiousios (of like substance) but not homoousios (of the same substance). Apolinarius basically agreed. He held that the Christ of Bethlehem and Nazareth—and of Calvary and the Empty Tomb—was not fully man. Docetists, on the other hand, held that Christ was entirely too divine in his nature to suffer either pain or death. He only seemed (Greek dokeo) to do so. All of these proposals were wrong, but they were more than wrong; they were heretical. And they were answered with increasing completeness and clarity at councils at Nicaea in 325, Constantinople in 381, and the Council of Chalcedon in 451: Christ is, at one and the same time, fully God and fully man.

      As concerns man’s salvation, the idea that man is lost and in need of salvation was seldom questioned. Rather, the fathers attempted to explain the work of Christ in redeeming mankind. J. N. D. Kelly suggests that running through all the various attempts to explain Christ’s redemptive work was “one grand theme”—recapitulation—derived from the apostle Paul by Irenaeus and presupposed in sacrificial theory. It held Christ to be

      In 409 a British theologian named Pelagius appeared in Rome and promoted the idea that humans are born with a free will and with the ability to understand and “cooperate” with God in overcoming evil and attaining salvation and righteousness. Among others, Augustine argued against Pelagius, holding tenaciously to the doctrines of original sin, human depravity, the sovereignty of God, and the gospel of grace.

      Closing Reflections

      Christians have been living in the light afforded by the apostles, early believers, and church fathers for two thousand years and more. For the most part Christians have taken what they have been given but with relatively little thinking and even less thanks; nevertheless, that heritage is inestimable. Enabled by the ministries of Christ and the Holy Spirit, those early believers accomplished a missionary task of inestimable proportions. Acknowledging a debt to Dockery and George, here are just a few aspects of the “deposit of faith” those early believers bequeathed to us: