a. The Purpose of Councils
[08/19/20]
To properly assess the work of the various councils of the church, we must first observe their purpose, and in doing so, must consider not merely the purpose of those men who convened, attended, and made their various declarations and decisions. We must consider whether these were of God’s purpose and if so, what His purpose was in causing man to so convene. It is common to look upon these gatherings as being merely human in motive, and where that is the perspective, it should come as no surprise that the statements and decisions arrived at in these various councils are viewed with suspicion, if not total disregard. But is the human perspective the correct one to assess? Or perhaps more properly, was the human motive aligned with or at least its result brought into line with the holy motive and purpose of God? That, I suppose is more a question for the next subsection, regarding the applicability of the councils, and in that regard, we must consider each council on its own merits.
Here, I am more concerned with purpose. Why were there councils in the first place? Again, if I assess on the human plane, there are political factors that play into the calling together of these councils, and not all of them from within the Church. We know full well of Emperor Constantine’s involvement in calling some of the earliest councils into session and why? Because he was busy making Christianity the state religion of Rome, and as such, he wanted firm agreement about what this new religion actually believed and required. Such agreement was not to be found amongst the bishops of the Church in that age or, I suppose, in most any age. And that leads to the stronger human motive and purpose.
The Church, represented by her bishops and theologians, recognized one thing quite clearly. Scripture calls for the unity of the Church, it speaks to the Church as holy and catholic, as the creeds insisted. Of course, many of these creeds were the outworkings of councils, so no real surprise that we find a certain commonality of focus and result. But the Apostles wrote often of the unity of the Church, and the commonality of our faith. We saw that as well, with Paul’s recitation of one God and Father, one Lord Jesus (1Co 8:6), one faith, one baptism (Eph 4:5). He writes to believers to walk worthy of the calling with which we have been called, which requires of us humility, gentleness, patience and loving forbearance towards each other, and most critically, diligence in preserving ‘the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ (Eph 4:1-3), for there is One, and we were called in one hope (Eph 4:4). Unity is stressed, and such unity must surely incorporate a unity of belief.
You can see, then, the trouble that would arise where significant disagreements pertained. If the leading lights of the Church could not agree on the tenets of her faith, then something was terribly wrong, either with the faith or with her leaders. It’s no wonder that Constantine, fresh off a rather stunning conversion and looking to establish this newfound faith amongst all over whom he ruled, while he may have misapprehended the nature of the Gospel’s spread, was eager to see the bickering amongst her chief proponents brought to an end.
But thus far, I have continued to look upon the councils from the earthly plane, looking at the human motivation. This is necessary, for each of these councils came together due to human motivations, human disagreements. But I am willing to say that, much like our own salvation and sanctification, and indeed the whole course of human history from Adam onward, however much man is involved, God remains in control. Whatever the purposes of man, God has His own purpose in seeing these councils convened, and primary in His purpose must be that concern of having His Truth truly understood and believed.
[08/20/20]
I have had occasion to observe previously the comment made by Mr. Ironside in his commentary on Colossians. He observes the graciousness of God displayed in the fact that all these various heresies began to make their appearance while yet the Apostles were present to address them. It is indeed a great blessing to the Church that in these earliest challenges she had yet those directly appointed by Christ her Lord as her champions of God’s Truth. The sad reality, however, is that those heresies did not entirely die out, nor have they even today. There is still need for defending the Truth against those who would corrupt the course of Christ’s Church.
As the Church spread into gentile lands, it met the claims of gentile religions and gentile philosophies; which is to say paganism, mysticism, asceticism, pantheism, atheism, and most every other possible ism one could arrive at. As we have seen already, looking at the creeds, even within the leadership of the Church, questionable beliefs arose. These did not necessarily start out as attempts to undermine the Gospel, nor were they consciously pursuing such a purpose as they developed, but their development did in fact have that effect, and as such, their development needed to be either terminated or at least excised from the healthy body of the Church.
These were serious matters. They considered serious questions and seriously held beliefs in differing answers. The questions were not of the sort that could be called cut and dry. They rarely are, for it is the ineffable, eternal, uncreated God that is being considered, and how are finite beings such as ourselves to suppose we can comprehend Him in full? Indeed, I think our goal cannot be to comprehend Him in full, for such knowledge is to great for us (Ps 139:6). But we just as surely must have it as our goal to understand God to the degree that He has revealed Himself and as He has revealed Himself. So, then, hard questions arose to which answers were not as simple as one might like. What to do? “A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel, to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles” (Pr 1:5). “Listen to counsel and accept discipline, that you may be wise the rest of your days. Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but the counsel of the Lord, it will stand” (Pr 19:20-21).
There is a precept laid down here, and likewise throughout Scripture, that where one man alone may think himself down many a wrong avenue, by gathering and hearing one another’s counsel we are preserved in the way of Truth. This is fundamental to the precept that we are to gather together for worship, which is to say that simply worshiping alone in the privacy of one’s home is not sufficient. We are called upon to edify one another, to admonish one another, to aid one another in perceiving our sins and pursuing our sanctification. Yes, there is a high call to personal responsibility, but there is an equally high call to mutual aid both given and received.
This gets us to the core of God’s purpose in these councils. If it is needful for the least of us to have the aid of our fellow believers in order that we all may grow into the fullness of the image of Christ, how much more critical this must be to those who serve to lead and teach the Church! If disagreement as to the finer points of faith can be so stressing to us, how much more so when those disagreements are amongst the leadership! If our own thoughts can so readily lead us astray for a season, how much worse when our leader has chosen a false path. But God does not leave His Church to wander aimlessly as every fresh wind of doctrinal novelty arises. To be sure, there are those who will wander with the wind, just as there are most assuredly those in the pews whose proclamations of faith have little or nothing to do with true faith. This is the reality of life in this fallen world: Even the Church, that vessel established by Christ Himself against which the very gates of hell shall not prevail (Mt 16:18), is beset by sins for it is composed of sinful man, and man individually and corporately remains all too prone to the predilections of fleshly, worldly thinking and vain imaginations.
It requires something greater to keep that vessel on course, and Christ has not left it without such a greater thing. He has sent the Holy Spirit to abide amongst His children here on earth, to begin with, and that is a most powerful beginning, it must be said: God with us is nothing to sneeze at. But it does not prevent the presence of counterfeit spirits with counterfeit pronouncements, and the believer has yet to be on his guard, and to test the spirits, whether they are truly from God, “because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1Jn 4:1). As you see, this is nothing new, but neither is it a problem resolved in the ancient past.
So, we have the Spirit, but also these other spirits we daren’t listen to, and we must test them. How are we to do so? John gives us some basic tests: If they confess Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, good. If they don’t confess Jesus, they are not from God. But what does it mean to confess Jesus, John? Is it simply mention of His name? I think it is something more than that. After all, many a demon, confronted with the living Jesus, confessed knowledge of Who He Is and why He has come. His brother James wrote to the church, “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder” (Jas 2:19). I don’t think admission that there is a God or that He is the God revealed in Scripture suffices. I don’t think admission that Jesus is both God and man in His being is sufficient. I don’t think, even, that declaring that Scripture is True is sufficient. To truly confess Jesus Christ must entail a true knowledge of Him Whom we would confess, and more: It must entail a true commitment of oneself to Him, the very root of sanctification and holiness.
But if we are faced with men of good conscience, seeking as best they may to know Him in truth and to worship Him in truth, and yet arriving at quite distinct and contradictory understandings of truth, what are we to do? Our first recourse is, of course, to the Word of God, the written record of His revelation, but bear in mind that particularly in these earliest ages of the Church, the bounds of what counted as the Word of God and what did not count had not as yet been determined. Even with the Word established, there were plenty of points which were left to hard thought and prayer to apprehend.
Here, the councils come into play. It was there in Constantine’s insistence that the church come together and resolve her doctrinal disputes, arriving at a clear definition of her beliefs. Were it only so easy! But such efforts precede Constantine’s call, and continue long after his departure. It seems in every age there are matters of faith that become points of heated, divisive dispute, and thus in every age there is need for the Church to come together, combine her wisdom in seeking holy, Spirit-led guidance as to which understanding truly reflects the Lord of the Church. In many churches, this principal still applies in macrocosm, as leadership is not given to one man, but to a board, a council, or some other group who may, in taking counsel together find more readily the guidance of their Lord made clear.
b. The Applicability of Councils
As to the applicability of these ecumenical councils, we are challenged. If, in fact, the councils are convened according to the will of God, ought we not to take their pronouncements as binding? For some, the answer would be a resounding yes, but for others, the answer must be no. Indeed, if we continue to hold that only Scripture, being the revealed holy Word of God, is our binding rule of life and worship, then the councils cannot be raised to equal stature. And yet, the very definition of what is and is not the revealed holy Word of God rests upon the work of just such a council.
Here, I found this comment from The McClintock and Strong Encyclopedia most apt. “The value of the decisions of the councils depends, not upon their authority, as drawn together at the call of emperor or pope, not upon the number of the bishops who attended them, but upon the truth of their decisions, and their conformity to the Word of God.” Even these councils, as important as their decisions may prove to have been, are necessarily subordinate to the Word of God. Even their decisions must be held to that test and, if they fail that test, must be rejected.
This holds with the ancient councils that gave definition to the faith and practice of the Church in her early years. This holds as well with such councils as may be called by the church in her various denominations today. If the council concludes an ungodly conclusion, its conclusions must be rejected and its guidance dispensed with. This is easier in some denominations than in others, to be sure, and to throw off the governance of the church is nothing to do lightly, but neither is Truth to be rejected lightly. We are all of us bound to face the sorts of trials and dilemmas the Apostles faced in Jerusalem at the outset, and we all, in those moments, must stand as they stood. “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge” (Ac 4:19).
Again, this is not some bull-headed, my way or the highway stance to be taken on every little disagreement. But the time comes when we must reject the dictates of man, whether coming from civil government or from ecclesiastical government. That governing power which would demand rejection of God’s way for His people has in so doing exceeded its authority. “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil” (Ro 13:1-3a).
It has to be said that this passage is usually held forth, and rightly so, as a call for good citizenship amongst the believer. Considering the state of Rome and world governance at the time it was written, this is really rather a shocking bit of advice to hear. We may not have been at the stage of Christians hiding in the catacombs just yet, but it was no light thing to call for submission to authority with the likes of Nero on the throne. But I observe that final clause: “Rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil.” Let me submit to you that here is the line of demarcation. Here is the point at which rulers cease to be rulers in the eyes of God and ought rightly to cease to be rulers in the eyes of His people. It’s the same line Peter pronounced before the Sanhedrin, the chief counsel and leadership of God’s people at the time. Surely, if it applies to such heights of ecclesiastical leadership, it applies to what must be deemed a lesser power of civil governance. When they become a cause of fear for good behavior, and not for evil, I think we can reasonably conclude that these are not in fact appointed by God, except it be for severest discipline and punishment.
It's hard to look around the social landscape today and not see just such an ungodly, unauthorized civil government at work. When violent criminals are set at liberty and law-abiding citizens effectively imprisoned, surely that clause is no longer being satisfied. I am not about to suggest that the Church ought to rise up in revolution. That was not the answer under Rome’s depravations. I can’t imagine it’s any more the answer today. That said, I do suggest the Church ought to stand up, and to state plainly, as John the Baptist stood up to Herod, just how sinful and illicit is the governance that seeks to promote evil and suppress good.
This same must surely hold where the guiding councils of the Church likewise set out to accept sin and reject God’s Truth. It is one thing to have disagreement over minor, secondary matters, and to render decisions as to one’s best sense of where the Truth lies in such things. It is quite another to insist, as a sop to popular culture, that we dispense with what is clearly and repeatedly proclaimed in Scripture lest it offend the sinner in his sins. It must be pronounced utterly anathema when those who purport to lead God’s Church insist that we allow in all these other idols, whether idols in material form, or idols of a more vapory sort. Hymns to mother earth have no place in the house of God. One should think that rather an obvious point, but apparently for some it is not. May God have mercy on their souls.
With these demarcations in mind, let us consider some of these earliest councils in their situations and in their decisions.
c. Council of Jerusalem
[08/21/20]
Whether or not this ought rightly to be accounted a council akin to those which followed, Acts 15 does present us with a gathering together of the Apostles in Jerusalem to consider the question of just what it should mean for the Gentiles to be made part of God’s kingdom. There was a strong sense amongst certain contingents that circumcision, as the abiding mark of God’s covenant with His people, ought to be required. But then you had Paul insisting that no, actually, that sign was done, as the real circumcision of the heart in Christ Jesus has come. “And the apostles and elders came together to look into this matter” (Ac 15:6).
It’s worth noting that it was not only the Apostles, but the elders as well who were brought together to consider what the right course might be for the Church. Room was given for debate. I would like to think it was not given to rancor, but one suspects that is wishful thinking. But in the end, Peter observed the common factor of faith. “But we believe we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are” (Ac 15:11). Added to this was the testimony from Barnabas and Paul as to what God was doing amidst and through the Gentiles. James also weighed in, observing the way in which Scripture spoke to these events from of old, and rendered the decision of the council. “Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood” (Ac 15:19-20). The decision was put in writing and sent to the churches.
What is the weight of this? Well, given the apostolic involvement and the enscripturated status of the result, it does indeed bear the weight of Scripture. It must. What does this say for those councils which followed? Not much. For those later councils, of necessity, had no apostolic involvement. They might well be product of sound, Spirit-filled men and thus result in decisions beneficial to the Church, but they do not, cannot rise to the level of Scripture.
What does the decision of this earliest council make clear? Idolatry and fornication are high on the list of sins to be avoided. Of course, all sins are to be avoided, but if one must prioritize, here were the ones most critical to see ended. Do these constitute the sin unto death of which John writes? I don’t think so. Even with such vile sins as these, there remains hope of forgiveness to those who will repent. Some seek to make rather more of what James sets forth here than I think is intended. It seems to me that what is happening is that he is addressing, in the Spirit, those sins most ready to entangle the new believers coming out of Gentile backgrounds. Idolatry was rampant. Israel had had long centuries of experience with God, as well as with idolatry, and had discovered that even in her privileged state, the idolatries of surrounding nations with their foreign gods presented serious and seriously detrimental enticement. Fornication was, as often as not, a product of idolatry, part and parcel of what passed for worship in these pagan temples.
One thinks of the situation in Corinth, from whence the church there was seeded. Here, the temple of Aphrodite was significant not only to the religious pursuits of the populace, but also to the commerce of the city. After all, in a seaport, prostitutes rarely suffer lack of trade. But we could go back to the practices of Canaan, as well. How many an ancient idol had an eye to fertility in their worship? Sex and idolatry are of a piece, for even from ancient times the general understanding of the advertiser was established: Sex sells.
Why the matter of things strangled and blood? These, too, reflected idolatrous practices. These were the forms of ritual slaughter. One could observe, as well, the various mystery cults, which in some cases had elements of blood involved. It all comes back to one central point, really; one reiterated by John at the end of his first epistle. “Little children, guard yourselves from idols” (1Jn 5:21). That is ever sound counsel, whatever form the idols of the age may take. And rest assured, where there is fornication, it is idolatry. The modern addiction to pornography is no less idolatry than the public couplings of the Ba’al worshipers of old.
d. First Council of Nice
By the time we arrive at the next council, we are already in the year 325 AD, well beyond the days of the Apostles. Issues had arisen, primarily the errant teaching of Arius. Much is made of the fact that Constantine called this council to order, and thus, some would dismiss it as a wholly secular, non-authoritative and fully human endeavor. But the nature of the argument which the council sought to resolve would have required addressing with or without Constantine. We can argue, I suppose, whether Constantine had godly intent or merely worldly concerns for keeping his empire in good order. What cannot be argued, I think, is that God used him for God’s purposes, much like others before him.
The matters under debate centered on the nature of Christ. Arius was teaching that Jesus was in fact a created being, and not eternal. Whatever the worldly purposes that may have produced this summit, the fact remains that such a teaching could not but undermine sound faith. If Jesus is found to be created, he cannot be deity. If He is not deity, then the whole fabric of Christianity must be destroyed. The counterargument is fundamentally, that as Scripture, which forbids the worshiping of created beings such as angels, indeed commands that we worship Jesus. It further proclaims, by Paul’s words, that the fullness of the Deity lives in Christ bodily (Col 2:9), the which Jesus Himself affirms in declaring Himself to be ‘the Way, the Truth, and the Life’ (Jn 14:6). In short, Arius could hardly have been more wrong, and the council composed the Nicene Creed as a firm denunciation of this errant perspective.
This was not the only matter brought before the council, but it is the one of primary note. I will observe that the question of when Easter was to be celebrated also came before this council. Whatever one may think of their decision to situate it as they did, it would be difficult and, I think, exceedingly counterproductive, to reject this celebration of the single most crucial event in the history of creation over quibbles as to the propriety of the day chosen. Was there concession made to pagan practices? Perhaps so. Was there an attempt to entice worshipers of Ishtar to participate in the new state religion of Christianity? Perhaps so. The central point remains, however, that here is observed the singular event upon which the entirety of Christian faith centers: The Son of God, God Incarnate, having lived a perfect life in perfect obedience to God’s perfect law, and having become the perfect sacrifice to atone for the sins of all whom the Father called His own, conquered death. “He is Risen!” This is as key to faith as is His divinity in the first place. If He has not conquered death, we remain dead in our sins. If He has not atoned for our sins, there is yet no true atonement possible.
To the best of my understanding, which is very much incomplete when it comes to these councils, there was not debate as to what this observance ought to be called, only about the appropriate setting of a date, that the whole of the Church might rejoice together in the reason for her faith. This question was apparently not fully resolved, and in fairness remains unresolved to this day, as various branches of the Church opt for an alternate dating of the observance. They do not, I would not, eschew the observance, only quibble as to the appropriate timing.
Other matters were also considered, such as the consecrating and governance of bishops, and even lesser matters like ranking the various sees of the Church then extent. Already one can see lines drawn as to what applies and what does not. Matters concerning lending at interest, being in accord with general scriptural principals, might be construed as reinforcing the already existing biblical stance, as did the decision to uphold the divinity of Christ and the Trinitarian nature of our God. But matters of governance and primacy amongst the various churches will be found, I suspect, less authoritative.
Indeed, as I have already stated, these councils could not be considered as authoritative. Their strength, such as it exists, is not to be found in establishing truth, but in reinforcing Truth already revealed. To the degree that Truth is upheld, their decisions are beneficial to the Church and aid in our understanding of central doctrines, by sharpening the definitions and by clearly demarking those ideas which constitute a departure from sound faith and Truth. But where they devolve to mere opinion, their value diminishes accordingly.
e. First Council of Constantinople
[08/22/20]
A mere thirty years finds the Church gathered again, this time at Constantinople in 381 AD. The Nicene Creed was, it would seem, revisited and developed somewhat further, and the doctrine of the Trinity further established. This time the focus was on the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and His co-equality with Father and Son.
Here, too, more political concerns were addressed; Constantinople’s bishopric being assigned a precedence just shy of Rome’s. None too surprisingly, this decision was not well received in Rome, although the creed was accepted as then updated. What is seen here, as well as with the earlier Council of Nice, is the intrusion of both outside political forces in the form of the emperor inserting himself in the process, and the inside political forces of ambition amongst the bishops who guided the Church. Once more we see the need to distinguish the nature of what this council produced and to test the results by the Word of God, our only true Rule.
f. Council of Ephesus
Looking at the Encyclopedia Britannica, to which I’ve found it necessary to resort in pursuit of reviewing these several councils, there was in fact an earlier council in Ephesus, convened by Polycrates in 190 AD to set the date of Easter as coincident with the Passover. But as we have seen in the decisions rendered in Nice, that decision did not stand, at least in the Western Church.
Here, however, we consider the council called in 431 – this time by pope rather than emperor. Sadly, the politics were rife in this one, as the pope had convened the council to address the teachings of Nestorius, but had conveniently arranged that those bishops more supportive of Nestorius’ teachings were either uninvited or perhaps given the wrong date. At any rate, the council started with rather uneven representation, and led to a significant division, each group effectively excommunicating the other.
What was at issue here? Nestorius, it seems, argued that the human Christ and the divine Christ were two distinct persons; a point which the pope, and his representative Cyril of Alexandria opposed and condemned. One can see how it would be rather difficult for the two sides of this debate to continue in any sort of unity. You can further see quite clearly that a clarification as to true doctrine is once again critical here, as critical as was the rejection of Arius and his created Christ.
Unfortunately, the division that resulted in the Church led to intervention by the emperor, who at least sided with Cyril and upheld the singular Personhood of Christ the God-Man, although that terminology was unlikely to have applied.
There comes a third council here in 449 AD, called by the emperor, which once more sought to resolve two distinct perspectives on the nature of Christ. On the one hand, there was Eutyches with a ‘monophysite’ theory of Christ, and on the other, Flavian, who put forward the idea of there being two distinct natures. The council upheld Eutyches, and anathematized Flavian and his group, even attempting to excommunicate the pope for his siding with Flavian. All that being said, the decision of this third council was soundly reversed in the next council.
g. Council of Chalcedon
So, we come to Chalcedon, to another council convened by decree of the emperor, a mere two years after that last gathering in Ephesus. Much of the work here consisted in reaffirming declarations made in prior councils. The Nicene Creed was upheld, as was Cyril’s defense of the unity of Christ’s Person, and the Flavian view, defended by Pope Leo I, of two distinct natures. Other matters more to do with church governance were also promulgated, and the council produced another confession of faith.
Again, it behooves us to set the political and governmental decisions to one side. The central, and highly significant issue at root in all these councils thus far concerns the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and those various theories – primarily coming from eastern influences, I might note – of His being that threatened the very core of Christianity. If He is not divine, as Arius insisted, then the Church ought rightly to declare itself anathema and fold up shop. If He is not human, then His presence among men, His life and death and resurrection, can have no bearing on our own situation.
Politics continue to intrude, because the Church is composed of people just like us, and we are, it seems, ever inclined to jockey for position and advantage. Alexandria was jealous of the rising power of Constantinople, and Constantinople had its own ideas about Rome. Antioch also enters into the fray, although primarily in its views of Mary, which once again threatened the proper understanding of Christ.
Doctrinally, the sum of these councils was to establish Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as well, as co-equal members of the one, Triune God, alongside the Person of the Father, and to establish the dual nature of Jesus as God and Man simultaneously in one Person. The formulation that comes out of this last council largely defines our understanding of Christ to this day. He is ‘perfect in deity and perfect in humanity’. These two natures are neither mixed nor separated. That is a difficult idea, admittedly. Perhaps this declaration helps. Perhaps not. “The distinction between the natures is by no means done away with through the union, but rather the identity of each nature is preserved and concurs into one person and being.”
h. Second Council of Constantinople
[08/23/20]
This council appears largely to have dealt with the same issues again; reaffirming prior decisions as to the Person of Christ and His two natures as God and man. This was largely in reaction to Nestorianism, which had not quietly departed after the prior council, but continued to have its proponents. Politically, the divide between Constantinople and Rome was deepening, and the western church did not entirely embrace the decisions of this council, though the pope himself apparently did, in spite of his opposition to the council having been called in the first place. The results led to further splintering in the Western church, as many refused to accept the decrees of this council, holding instead to the results of Chalcedon.
So, once again, there are aspects of this council that seem wholly political in nature. There is a clear power play between Constantinople and Rome. There is also the rising power of Antioch, which was the chief proponent of the Nestorian ideas of Jesus as two persons embodying His two natures. It is difficult to see where the debate arises between supporting this council and that of Chalcedon, for they seem to arrive at much the same conclusions.
On a higher plain of purpose, it seems there was hope that this council would somehow manage to reunite the two major branches, but the end result was quite the opposite; resulting in new schisms around new heresies. We now find some seeking a middle way between the two ideas, with one group suggesting perhaps Christ was, while possessed of two natures, driven entirely by the divine energy or principle (monoenergism), another that His human will was entirely absent, with only the divine will in occupancy (monotheletism).
One positive outcome was a further refining of the understanding of the person of Christ, which built on the determinations of Chalcedon, but further emphasized the singularity of Person in Christ Jesus, the Word. This apparently remains foundational to the Eastern Orthodox branch, but did not succeed in bringing the two major sections of the Church back into unity, even if there was little to nothing here that had reason to cause division. History, it seems, intervened to put paid to any later consideration of the matter in the West.
I have to say it’s easy to get lost and put off by the rancor and division in view with these councils, but then one has to recall to mind that the councils were hardly the cause of rancor and division, but rather the result. They were, at least to a degree, the effort of the doctors of the church to lance the boil of divisive rancor. As with any medical procedure, the results were not always successful, but one can see the desire if we work past the antics.
i. Third Council of Constantinople
We come to a third council in this seat of eastern Christianity. Monotheletism is put off; and two wills, the human and the divine are declared operative in the Person of Christ. This was yet another attempt to bring East and West back into unity, and not least because of the incursions of the Muslims into the remains of the Roman Empire. The emperor, none too surprisingly, was keen to shore up his kingdom, and if possible, even to regain those regions lost to the Muslims. This, to his lights, required a Church united, and these divisions over the person of Christ needed to be resolved.
One seemingly key development here was the condemnation of a prior pope for his views on the matter then being addressed. At the same time, the present pope, in delivering his presentation on the two natures united in Christ, and Him still possessed of both human and divine will, was acclaimed as Peter speaking through the present pope. That in itself ought, I should think, render the whole of the proceedings a tad suspect. But let’s save that for a bit yet.
j. Second Council of Nice
By now, we are nearing the ninth century, and still I observe that every one of these councils has transpired in what is now Turkey. The issue now had to do with icons. A faint distinction was drawn, declaring icons deserving of reverence but not adoration. This also formalized the call for relics, insisting that every altar should have one.
k. Fourth Council of Constantinople
This council seems nearly simultaneous with the last, but also affirmed the decisions of that prior council. If further insisted that the image of Christ was to be elevated to status equal to that of the Gospel.
l. Later Councils
By this stage, the catholicity of the church was already largely shattered, at least so far as its earthly representation was concerned. The divisions between East and West within the Catholic Church were hardening rather than healing, and councils became more contested. Some councils were accepted by the East, others by the West. But it was clear by this juncture that however much the two might yet hold in common in doctrine, the divisions were too great to permit of unity going forward.
Further, it seems that the influence of political maneuvering was overtaking concern over any sound, biblical understanding. Papal authority was already elevated out of due proportion in the west, and only got worse. Sundry inventions, such as the worship of Mary, praying to dead saints, and for that matter, the elevation to sainthood as a matter over which the Church held sway, were given place in the official beliefs. The ostensible infallibility of the pope, at least when speaking or writing under certain conditions, became a tenet of the church. Observing the past actions of the popes, not to mention their politicking throughout the later period of the Holy Roman Empire, it’s hard to imagine how such a doctrine could persist, and yet it does, at least within the confines of Roman Catholicism.
The sum of it is that by this point, we have already reached the stage where the decisions of these councils, and their significance to the Church going forward had become questionable. More and more, it seems it was a matter of infighting and preservation of power than anything to do with God and holiness. That may be a bit harsh, and the Catholic Church is not without her bright spots, even into the twentieth century. But by and large, it seems to have become something far different than the biblical insistence upon one holy, catholic church.
m. The Line Drawn with Councils
[08/23/20]
So where do we draw the line? How do we determine what applies and what does not? One position I would suggest is to view it in much the same light as we view Mosaic Law under the New Covenant. There, distinction is made between the moral Law, primarily as summed up in the Ten Commandments, and that part of the Law which is either civil, concerning the governance of the specific nation of Israel in a specific period of history, or ceremonial.
As we have seen, much of what came out of these councils falls more into these latter categories, considering the governance of the church, and relative rankings of various churches within the whole fabric of the larger Church. These sorts of decisions, while of historical interest, cannot be taken as binding. Of course, in the larger context of faith, nothing from these councils can be taken as binding. That is, admittedly, a fundamentally Protestant perspective on the matter, but it is not without reason.
We hold Scripture as the only binding rule of conscience, for the simple reason that only Scripture bears the authorizing stamp of the Holy Spirit. Here are texts commissioned by God. Other writings may indeed be godly, and may prove beneficial for our understanding of faith and of faith’s God. But these writings can, at best, serve as commentary and explanation for what has already been declared in Scripture. That is to say, such writings, whether we consider the early councils of the church, or the writings of the Reformers, or more current efforts in theology, must be measured against the revealed Word of God. They either affirm the biblical Truths and perhaps allow us to understand them more deeply and more fully, or they are to be rejected outright.
The early councils battled clear issues of heresy. No doubt you can find proponents of those very same heresies right down to the present day, and no doubt, they would argue that the heretical nature of these ideas was not clear at all. In fact, they would rather necessarily have to conclude that what is generally accepted as orthodoxy of belief by the Church is in fact the heretical view. As a simple example of this division of thought, just consider the general perspective of Protestants on Roman Catholicism and Roman Catholicism’s perspective on Protestants. Both would, at least in their official, doctrinally informed opinions, account the other as heretics. It has to be thus, and the desire of less fully involved individuals within these churches to insist otherwise show perhaps a good heart, but lack significantly in understanding.
If one holds that Scripture alone has the full authority of being God’s voice, then one can hardly accept that the pope in all his human fallibility is to be raised to equal standing. If one believes the pope does in fact have said equal standing, then one can hardly accept those who reject him as something far less. We may as well be calling for a common shared faith between Christian and Muslim. It may sound ever so nice, but it is utterly ridiculous to suppose such a thing could ever be reflective of either faith. They are too diametrically opposed to ever display commonality, unless both are effectively shredded and reconstituted so as to leave nothing of their original forms.
Now: In general, the first five councils are accepted as having value, if not necessarily being binding. I think they are, at least in their moral, theological determinations as to the Person and Nature of Christ, near enough to binding to be spoken of as such. But their value, as observed earlier, does not lie in the fact of the council having made its decrees. The value is found in that said decrees fully accord with Scripture. They amplify the teaching of the Bible, rather than seeking to augment it.
When we arrive at ideas like the veneration of Mary, or matters of iconography, relics, and the like, we have arrived at augmentation. These are not topics that can be said to accord with the message of Scripture. Scripture is not going to offer support for praying to Mary, or to any other created being. Indeed, it could more readily be argued that insomuch as we find a constant insistence that no worship is to be given to created beings, whether animals or angels or anything in between, prayer to such creatures is likewise precluded.
As to the elevation of some individuals to officially sanctioned sainthood, this too is problematic given the teaching of Scripture. It is, in its way, of a piece with the idea of a necessary second baptism, or of tongues as a required evidence of faith. Scripture proclaims one holy nation, the priesthood of all believers (1Pe 2:9). It repeatedly emphasizes the controlling agency of God as the one who calls His own. No place is given for even the Apostles to render decision on this matter. The believer is a saint from the moment of belief. There is no ranking system by which we are granted to adjudge this one holier than that one. “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and stand he will, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Ro 14:4).
This does not preclude matters of church discipline, certainly. It is not that we are to forego any and all judgment. If a brother sins, surely he is to be held to account, and if he will not repent, then, per the ordinance of Christ Himself, he is to be removed from fellowship for twofold cause. First, this is undertaken to preserve the sanctity of the Church, lest it be supposed that she sanctions sin. Second, it is undertaken in hope: Hope that the ejected brother may feel the weight of conviction so as to repent and be restored in due course. Church discipline is nothing to be exercised lightly or politically, but ever from the foundational motive of love.
[08/24/20]
Yet church discipline is not to be despised or set aside, and that discipline does require judgment. In that sense, the efforts by these councils to root out false teachings and, where necessary, the false teachers themselves, can be viewed as legitimate exercises in church discipline. It is ever and always necessary to guard the truth of God against every false wind of modern theory that would put itself forward as sound doctrine. Here, I think, is where the councils have their greatest value. As expressions of prior efforts by the Church to clarify the sound understanding of biblical doctrine and as means by which to recognize falsity, they served well and continue to serve well. It may not render our understanding of the Trinity perfectly simple to apprehend, but that is exactly why such efforts were needed. He is not perfectly simple to apprehend, and that makes it easier for false beliefs to creep in and shift our understanding away from the Truth.
We shall never, I suspect, find it simple to explain or even express how it is that Father, Son, and Spirit are in fact one God, perfectly co-equal in every regard, and yet retain the distinctions of God’s three Persons. We shall never find it possible to express the way in which humanity and divinity are one in Christ and yet distinct. This should hardly surprise. God is ineffable and utterly beyond us in His being. That He has revealed Himself in ways comprehensible at all is a far greater surprise, I should think, than that we find it difficult to put His being into words. But here is where the traditions and history of the Church, of which these councils are assuredly part, can be of assistance. They demark what has been learned and settled as to the understanding and beliefs of the Church. They are not Scripture, nor can they bear the weight and authority of Scripture. But insomuch as they clarify Scripture and seek not to alter its teachings, they are of great value.
As we look around at society in the present, we see many urgings to effectively dismantle and dismiss all that we have learned over the course of history. The attack, it seems, is particularly upon those things which have been the product of Western civilization, and I dare say there’s a reason for that. There’s a reason, as well, that Christianity, which is at root a product of Eastern civilization, is accounted Western, and therefore under attack. That reason has far less to do with politics and the clash between socialism and capitalism. That is the surface reading. That is the human perspective. In reality, the battle playing out around us does have deep spiritual roots, and reflects the war in the heavens. That may sound like primitive superstition to the modernist ear, but it is, in fact, the deeper reality of what we see happening.
Look at the form it takes. It is seeking the destruction of every idea that has propelled mankind forward. It is removing every sense of Truth and reality-based apprehension of life with a false, seemingly optimistic utopian perspective that insists man is not what he is after all. It preys on the better lights of its proponents, in that it plays primarily to emotional appeal rather than rational assemblage of evidence from life. It purports a utopia but leads inevitably to a degrading of life. But along the way, we see repeatedly this insistence that all that has preceded the present day has been built upon lies and evil deception. It’s projection, pretty much, but that’s unlikely to be recognized by those behind the projector. But the process consists not in understanding the complexities of past achievements in thought and understanding, but seeking for any least crack, and on the basis of that crack, rejecting the whole outright, without thought and without understanding.
This is playing out with assessments of history, assessments of science, assessments of human worth. Sadly for its adherents, such an approach toward building a worldview can really only have one possible outcome, which is utmost despair. If all is to be condemned on the basis of its least deviation from the ideal, then all is condemned, and all must, in the end, include the one purporting to root out the deviations. It is a harsh and unforgiving worldview which cannot possibly result in utopia, only in destruction. That, too, plays out before us in the news.
What we miss, perhaps, is that this is not some sudden, modern phenomena, but the result of slow rot that has been going on about as long as I’ve been alive, if not somewhat longer. It is the final fermentation of that leaven of sin of which Jesus taught. The leaven works in hiding, as it were; a small bit of corruption introduced into an otherwise whole lump. It spreads below the surface, corrupting as it goes, until in its fruition it bursts out. The scene from Alien comes to mind, for in the instance of sin, and particularly sin on such a societal scale, the bursting out is grotesque in the extreme to behold.
Here is where we must take great care in the Church, for the Church, being drawn from society, will tend to find society’s woes playing out in her people. Christianity is for most a radical shift of worldview from that which guided their development prior to coming to faith. “Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you! But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God” (1Co 6:9-11).
Consider that! The practices Paul identifies are quite physical in nature, yet they express a worldview. They are the outworkings of a worldview that suggests these things are perfectly acceptable and quite normal. Which item from this list would you say society at large still counts objectionable today? I’d like to think maybe thieves and swindlers are still considered antisocial, but then I look around. Politics is practically industrialized swindling as it stands today. We have watched thievery on a grand scale being summarily dismissed as some sort of acceptable expression of long-held grievances – at least so long as it’s kept of my street. In sum, in present day society, none of this is really counted as intrinsically wrong.
Now consider why Paul felt it necessary to spell this out. Those very things were being tolerated within the confines of the Church body. He could as readily have said, at that point, “And such are some of you!” But his point is not to convict and to condemn, but rather to make clear that a new worldview has come to light in them. Sanctification, that washing, and justification unto righteousness – these are the arrival of that new worldview. Your perspectives must change for you have been changed. You can’t keep doing what the old worldview told you was acceptable, because you are now possessed of newer, more accurate information and you know those things are not merely unacceptable, but sins deserving of a death more final than what Roman punishment could impart.
Here’s the thing: He’s writing to Christians. Their old worldview had come in with them, and they needed to be clearly instructed not only as to what the Truth really is, but also as to the need to wholeheartedly reject the false tenets of those old views. They needed to be taught to recognize when the old way of the flesh was asserting itself over against the new life of the spirit.
It seems to me that we are in greater danger of this who have been in the Church for a season. We tend to think we have become impervious to the inroads of worldly thinking, but in fact, we have not. The devil remains a cunning adversary, if not terribly original. He is perfectly happy to repackage his ancient lies and present them over and over again and we, sadly, are too quick to look upon the repackaged ideas as something new and interesting, rather than something old and shabby. So we see this modern tendency to simply dispense with history and with the achievements and developments of past ages and start afresh. We can have Church our way! We can ignore the councils entirely, for after all, they had men like Constantine involved. Surely, they could not produce anything of value. Of course, it somehow eludes those who would thus dismiss the works of prior believers that the same can, and indeed must, be said of their own efforts.
Our purpose must not be to seek out any least excuse to reject what men of faith have discerned in past ages, but to discern along with them what is the width and the height and the breadth and the depth of God’s love for us, and ‘to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that [we] may be filled up to all the fulness of God’ (Eph 3:18-19). Note well: This is not a dismissing of knowledge. Rather, it is the prayerful desire that we ‘may be able to comprehend with all the saints’. To comprehend must surely involve knowledge. Paul’s point is not that knowledge is bad and love is good. Rather, it is that the knowledge that comes of knowing the love of Christ is far and away in excess of that knowledge which rests on the philosophies of man. But how would we know what ‘all the saints’ comprehended, if we insist on first dispensing with anything they had to say on the matter? It is foolishness, and the Bible, I must observe, never advocates foolishness.
Hopefully, this serves to give us some sense of how we measure these councils. They are to be understood and, to the degree that they put forth doctrines and explain doctrines that are in accord with Scripture, they are useful for aiding our own understanding. Where they deviate from Truth they must just as surely be rejected. But the decision cannot come of simply dismissing as human product. The decision, as the validity and value of the source material, must rest on more than mere opinion. It must rest on conformity to the Truth of God revealed in Scripture. Of course, that must lead us to consider, as I shall in the next section, how it is we determine what is in Scripture and what is not.
