“Homoousios or Homoiousios” - Pastor Lucky's Masters in Theology Essays

“Consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father according his Divinity...consubstantial (homoousios) with us according to his Humanity” (Council of Chalcedon) Why must Christ be both?

The Council of Nicaea in AD 325 debated the terms homoousios and homoiousios. The word 'homoousios' means "same substance", whereas the word 'homoiousious' means "similar substance". The council affirmed the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Godhead) are of the homoousious (same substance). This is the source of the English idiom "differ not by one iota." Note that the words homoousios and homoiousios differ only by one 'i' (or the Greek letter iota). Thus, to say two things differ not one iota, is to say that they are the same substance. (Kennesaw State University)

Introduction

According to Karkkainen (2003) the humanity of Christ particularly for the Johannine community was held as central criterion for true orthodoxy as demonstrated in 1 John 4:2-3:

“This is how you can recognise the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.”

The dilemma of accepting his humanity led to further debate among the early church as to how he differed from other human beings. Following this attempts to understand and explain the dual nature of Christ led to further debate and divisions in the church.

The argument for his humanity according to O’Collins (2009) who credits St. Irenaeus with making a great stand to shed more light on homoousios, with humanity and homoousios with divinity. This Irenaeus approach argues for a saviour who is human for the bondage to be fully broken over mankind, but for the breakthrough to be sustained the saviour needs also to be God to ensure the permanence of the salvation. In Christ both the nature of God and the nature of man find habitation in one making it possible for mankind to share in the incorruptible, homoousios with the Father and homoousios with man. On the other hand, The Greek term ousia according to Arius cited in Karkkainen (2003) means both “essence” and “substance” and this term was to be accorded only to God the Father in a way that made him uniquely transcendent.

For Arius there was only one God and to suggest that Jesus was of the same substance with the Father was equal to having two gods Karkkainen (2003). So rather than sharing the same “essence” with the Father Arius preferred the Son as the first and unique creation of God which suggests according to Arius the notion that there was a time when the Son did not exist. As I progress with the discussion I will explore the arguments brought forward against this approach by other early church fathers on the divinity and humanity of Christ.

Mary mother of God

The origin of Jesus as a man was one of the contentious issues that divided opinion (Norris 1980). To ascribe a beginning to him was to suggest that God had a beginning. If he was begotten then he couldn’t be God as God was God and so in order to preserve the otherness of God separation had to be made that kept Jesus as special but not in the same realm as God (Norris 1980). The significance of Mary in the narrative became a sticking issue because defending the ideal supreme God necessitated denial of the claim that Mary gave birth to God.

McDonald in Dowley (2014) speaks about Nestorius a Bishop of Constantinople who did not deny the deity of Christ but pictured the relation between the two natures in Christ in terms of a moral conjunction or a merging of wills rather than that of an essential union. He argued using the image of a man helping another who has fallen to rise up,

“If you want to lift up someone who is lying down, do you not touch body with body and by joining yourself to the other person, lift up the hurt one while you, joined to him in this fashion, remain what you were? This is the way to think of the incarnation…”

Here I continue to pursue Nestorius’ notion which Norris (1980) contends rested on the premise that in Mary the Logos just picked a body to use but in nature he remained what he was from the beginning, The logos. This same Logos animated the body that Mary provided and so Mary was the mother of the flesh or human being “anthropotokos” because it was impossible for her to birth anew the Logos. So the child that Mary produced according to Nestorius was to be received as an instrument of the Godhead (Norris 1980). The Holy Spirit did not create God, the Logos, as mentioned in Mathew 1:20 “But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in dream saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” God is in this case understood to have formed out of the virgin a temple, a house for God, Logos to use. In further denouncing Mary as Theotokos Nestorius stresses that the taking up of a human form is an expression of his benevolence and to support his argument he uses Philippians 2:5-7 “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.”

The separation that Nestorius deliberately picks is in the mention of ‘Christ’ not God, which would imply that the slave form is Christ which Mary would have produced and the God part which was already in existence in the beginning with the Father remains a separate nature though co-existing in one body.

Christ the slave according to Nestorius was necessary for mercy to be revealed but the mercy of God could not be dispensed cheaply it had to be bestowed after the judgement of God, the mercy had to be an escape from the full wrath of God’s justice: which would be borne by Christ on his body (Norris 1980). Using the premise of the book of Romans 3:25 “whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed”. Nestorius stated the type of Adam that Christ assumed that this Adam would pay the debt that the first Adam contracted through his error and only his kind could dissolve the debt and properly redeem him. In carrying on the narrative of the Adam image Nestorius further posits that since the debt had its start with a woman, that is Eve, the remission also had its start from a woman, Mary (Norris 1980).

According to Mcdonald in Dowley (1996) Cyril of Alexandria devoted his theological discourse to preserving Christ’s person as a living unity, against Nestorius’s dualism. Cyril brought out the concept of hypostasis which in my understanding was about how the Logos converged with the flesh in the womb of the virgin. This he insists should not be mistaken for the origin or starting point of the Logos. This understanding becomes a direct rebuttal of the impassible nature being implied by Nestorius’s approach on Jesus and would have been contrary to scriptures like Hebrews 2:16, “For indeed he does not give aid to Angels but he gives aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.”

This way of looking at things which suggests that Jesus suffered and was tempted makes the redemption of the seed of Abraham real and credible. According to Norris (1980 pp 133) Cyril argues, “We do not say that the Logos became flesh by having his nature changed, nor for that matter that he was transformed into a complete human being composed out of soul and body. On the contrary, we say that in an unspeakable way the Logos united to Himself, in his hypostasis, flesh enlivened by a rational soul, and in this way became a human being and has been designated “Son of God”.

According to Berkhof (1998) in the incarnation it was not the triune God but the second person of the Trinity that assumed human nature. Further-more Berkhof (1998) states that it would be impossible to talk of an incarnation if there had not been a pre-existence and therefore establishes that the incarnation was not something that happened to the Logos but rather something he had active participation in. In my understanding the progression of the man Jesus is not hidden in the account of the gospels, in Luke 2:52 there is a clear observation of his growth, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men” this observable trajectory confirms the understanding that Cyril argued for in declaring the full humanity and full Divinity of Jesus. According to Norris (1980) the creed became a point of argument as Cyril and Nestorius argued for its meaning in relation to the nature of Jesus.

Cyril used the creed to express the Divine that was fully operational and identifiable in the man Jesus saying,

“Now the great and holy synod stated that the unique Son himself—naturally begotten out of God the Father, true God out of true God, light of light, through whom the father made everything that exists—descended, was enfleshed, became human, rose on the third day and ascended into the heavens.” (Norris 1980 pp133)

This manifestation of true God from True God Cyril credited to the “unutterable convergence into unity, one Christ and one Son out of the two.” In direct response to this very fact Nestorius points out that a key element of the statement had been misunderstood and misapplied by Cyril. Nestorius said, "So if it seems right examine what was said more closely, and you will discover that the divine chorus of the Fathers did not say that the coessential Godhead is passible or that the Godhead which is coeternal with the Father has only just been born, or that he who has raised up the temple which was destroyed has himself risen.” (Norris 1980 pp137)

The distinction that Cyril implies by separating the natures is countered by Nestorius who defends his idea of Logos fully expressed in the flesh called Jesus saying, “We also believe, they said In our Lord Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son.” This he claims is important as the main mention is of the nature of the man as “Jesus”, “Lord”, “Christ”, “Only begotten” and “Son.” Therefore, the importance being that since the titles which signified both natures were elaborately and distinctly specified to avoid confusion and infusion of attributes common to both natures. In my view by pointing to Christ as the factor that brings common premise to the two natures Nestorius is happy to conclude for that Christ to be crucified and to die on the Cross because the Logos, the eternal one is finding expression in Christ. Passible in the body of Christ, impassible in the Godhead.

For salvation’s purpose

O’Collins (2009 pp159 ) suggests that understanding the heart of the early Christological developments that address the basis from which early believers understood Christ and what they said about him for this purpose he proposes four questions,

"(1) What experiences fuelled their insights and assertions about Jesus?,

(2) How important for them was the task of interpreting the scriptural testimony to Jesus?

(3) What contextual factors put a pattern on their Christological understanding?

(4) What language did they reach for when interpreting their convictions about Jesus."

Therefore it seems purpose of Christ’s coming to earth was to save man from sin and the definition of his constitution is key if the salvation secured will be of value and sustainable. Laying aside the technical details of his structural composition.

Grudem (1999) makes the point that the virgin birth served to remind mankind that salvation could only come from God and could never come through human effort. He makes another point of the extra-ordinariness of the virgin birth which made Christ uniquely different because he was born without inherited sin,

“All human beings have inherited legal guilt and a corrupt moral nature from their father, Adam,”.

The line of descent in Christ is partially altered or interrupted by divine agency making Christ exempt from Adamic sin. This partial interference in the natural course of entry into life leaves the dilemma of transmission from Mary to Jesus. Grudem (1999) credits the work of the Holy Spirit in Mary with keeping Jesus from contamination. The humanness of Jesus is established further by Luke 2:52, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men”.

According to Grudem (1999) this proves that Jesus had a human mind and according to Hebrews 5:8, “Though he was a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things which He suffered.”

It seems to me that He was a normal child at home taking instructions from his parents and progressing with every challenge just like all children. He had a human body, a normal body that could thirst as in John 19:28, After knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst.” And after he had fasted He was hungry, Mathew 4:2, “And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, Afterwards he was hungry.” He was prone also to being tired, John 4:6, "Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour”

The humanity of Jesus was essential for salvation. Ferguson cited in Dowley (1990) talks about how Athanasius contended that, “Christ was made human so that we could be made divine”. Athanasius argued this to be the only means by which God could save, “Only God could restore the human race to communion with himself.” This was also in accordance with the council of Nicaea’s ruling which gave out the creed as standard understanding and position of the church on the divinity and humanity of Jesus and part of the creed stated belief in Christ, “the only begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father” (McDonald cited in Dowley 1990). The inquiry and interest in their Saviour led to the well thought out conclusions that made salvation both applicable and defendable, “The concern for salvation and their experience of it led Christians to maintain that two basic conditions make it possible for Jesus to do this for them: he must be truly human and truly divine to function as their effective Saviour.”

Ebionitism and Docetism

According to Karkkainen, (2003) the nature of the man Jesus was a problem for the early Jewish believers who had their traditional beliefs informed by the teachings of Moses. Their monotheistic approach complicated their reception of Jesus because they firmly held to the belief that there was only one God and entertaining another would simply lead to polytheism. Justin Martyr cited in Karkkainen (2003) posited that the Ebionites believed Jesus to be the Messiah but they also thought him to be still a man, born of a woman. In this community Jesus was thought of as a special person who surpassed all in wisdom and righteousness, very special but not a god. Eusebius quoted in Karkkainen (2003) contributed to the effect that the other second part of the Ebionites accepted the virgin birth but rejected the idea that Christ pre-existed as the Son of God.

Karkkainen (2003) says that Docetism was a view in the early first and second centuries that defined the humanity of Christ in a nonorthodox way. The word Docetism comes from the Greek dokeo which means “to seem” or “to appear”. This understanding suggested that Christ did not suffer at all but appeared to because he was completely divine and his humanity was merely an appearance. The problem with this approach is that it contradicted the account of St John 1:14, “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full grace and truth.” The fear of making Christ really flesh was that the magnificence of his glory would be diminished and his divinity and spirituality compromised.

St.Ignatius Denounces Docetism

Staniforth (1968) cites the writings of St. Ignatius, who was waiting to be executed, against Docetism and the grip of the growing influence that it was beginning to have in the thinking of the believers particularly in Smyrna where St Ignatius had visited. St Ignatius commends his readers to hold firmly to their convictions about the Lord Jesus Christ, “Believing him to be truly of David’s line in in His manhood, yet Son of God by the Divine will and power; truly born of a Virgin; baptised by John for his fulfilling of all righteousness.” St Ignatius emphasises the realness of the humanity of Jesus and expresses for his readers that even the nails that were used to crucify him were driven into real flesh. So that after his resurrection he could call the believers both Gentile and Jew into his body the Church.

St Ignatius does not hide disapproval of the disavowal of Jesus’s humanity because to him that would make the passion an unreal illusion and this He finds most offensive. The evidence of scripture backs up the claim that St Ignatius makes about the realness of the humanity of Christ even after his resurrection, Luke 24:37—39,

“They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

The contact with real flesh and blood reality of Jesus that the disciples experienced is what St Ignatius argues is key to understanding and accepting the humanity of Christ. The admonition that St Ignatius gives to his readers is to abstain from engaging in any form of debate with the Docetists but rather urges that only prayer be made for those people. I think St Ignatius considers the Docetists beyond reach and redemption for disputing what He considered to be the key aspect of salvation.

St. Irenaeus’s exposition of the Saviour

Fergusson in Dowley (1990) details the ministry of St. Irenaeus and his journey, having sat at the feet of Polycarp bishop of Smyrna, he went on to become bishop of Lyons in AD 177 and from there much of his work was to do with counter-acting the Gnostic ideas dominant in the region. Yamauchi (1983) talks about some of the Gnostics that dominated and influenced local traditional and religious culture of the time, mention is made of Simon who is not identified as a Gnostic in Acts chapter 8 but rather as a sorcerer, Acts 8:9—11

“Now for some time a man named Simon had practised sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, this man is rightly called the Great Power of God, they followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery.”

It was against such a background that St. Irenaeus appealed to the historical roots of the Christian faith, “and argued that Scripture contained a succession of covenants through which ‘one and the same God’ progressively revealed his will to men and women, as they were ready to receive it” (Fergusson cited in Dowley 1990). Irenaeus is also credited with expressing a confident embrace of the Eucharist as an “earthly and divine reality.” The emphasis on the substance of the humanity of Christ as a divine reality compounds the depth of his faith in the God who was made manifest in the flesh, his fundamental belief was that, “…. The world was created by one God; that Jesus Christ, Son of the creator, died to save humanity; that there will be a resurrection of the body” (Fergusson cited in Dowley 1990). The body could not be neglected or diminished in the mission and redemptive work of the saviour.

Robinson (1920) sets out how St. Irenaeus disputed the Docetic heresy by arguing that the Son was the full manifestation of God’s plan for the salvation and to suggest that he was not what he appeared to be would have also been to deny that the Spirit that was with him, for not “being” means that, If he were not man and yet appeared to be man, then neither did He remain what He was in the truth. Viz a viz “Spirit of God, since the Spirit is invisible; nor was any truth in Him, since He was not what He appeared to be.” The core-existence of the divine and humanity in one is further supported by the function of the Spirit in the life of Jesus and the pattern of pattern is continued in the everyday life of the New Testament believer.

Evidence of Attributes of Deity in Jesus

The Ebionites stance that Jesus was just a special person but not God is a position that many in the early church grappled with but the scriptures are full of the testimonies and evidence that Jesus was not just a special person but God in the flesh. Grudem (1999) supports this by pointing us to scriptures that confirm the deity of Jesus. Examples are “Jesus demonstrated his omnipotence when he stilled the storm at sea with a word,” Mathew 8:26-27, “But he said to them, Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?, Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. So the men marvelled, saying, Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” Grudem (1999) proceeds with the exposition and makes the claim that Jesus was eternal because of what he said in John 8:58, “Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” The title “I AM” was the same that was given to Moses when he asked for the identity of the God who was sending him to Pharoah, Exodus 3:13-14,

“Then Moses said to God, Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent to you, and they say to me , ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?’ And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM,’ And HE said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you,’ ”

The identification that Christ makes of himself with God qualifies the notion of his deity in respect to eternity. Further to his eternal nature mention is made of him being omniscient in Mark 2:8, “But immediately, when Jesus perceived in his Spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, ‘ Why do you reason about these things in your hearts?’” Though not much is given concerning his omnipresence while he still lived but Jesus would make the promise about a time in the experience of the believers where if two or three gathered in his name he would avail himself to them, “For where two or three are gathered in My name, I am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).

The last attribute Grudem mentions was the divine sovereignty and authority possessed by God alone which Jesus appropriated for himself. Only God alone could forgive sins, Mark 2:5-7, “ When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven you.’ And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, ‘Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can sins but God alone.” And in the following verses Jesus would allude to his own authority, the same authority of God himself, “because he himself was God.” Mathew 5:22, “But I say to you . . . .” verse 28, “ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman . . .” and verse 32, “But I say unto you whoever divorces his wife except for. . . .” It seems to me that the personal value of the first person mention in these statements expresses for the listeners that Jesus was using his own authority in his own capacity as God.

The Creed

Dowley (1996) relates the different Councils that were called to establish the church’s position on many issues that needed clarity. Special mention is made of the Council of Nicaea which was called by the Emperor Constantine, himself a new believer, in order to quell the divisions that had beset the church. According to Norris (1980) of particular interest to the Council was the teachings of Arius that diminished Jesus and set God apart as a transcendent being. The conclusion reached after much debate resolved to put together a document to establish the church’s agreed beliefs and this was called the Nicene Creed which stated the following,

“We believe in one God, the Father,. . . We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ . . .God from God, begotten not made . . of one being with the Father…”.

Even though according to Dowley (1996) this was followed by many other counter-councils the main one that followed on was the council of Chalcedon which was summoned by Constantine in 451 and over four hundred bishops attended. This council agreed with Cyril’s refutations of Nestorius and declared “We all with one voice confess our Lord Jesus one and the same Son, at once complete in manhood, truly God and truly man consisting of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, of one substance with us as regards his manhood, like us in all things apart from sin . . . .born from the Virgin Mary, the God-bearer (theotokos) . . . .” Berkhof (1998) takes a look at the aftermath of the Chalcedon Council and considers the position of Bishop Felix who advocated adoptionism. In this approach Felix regarded Christ according to his divine nature, that is Logos, but considered Christ on His human side as a Son of God merely by adoption. The distinction he sought to make was that he was not the natural son but rather adoptive according to the flesh. I think this expresses in many ways the fractures that persisted in the church even after such a clear and very elaborate document that came out of Chalcedon.

Conclusion

The many questions that were addressed by the early church fathers went to the heart of their faith and demonstrated the genuineness of their approach. I personally feel that there can only be one conclusion after careful consideration of all the facets of objective viewpoints. I find it hard to fault the school of thought that sought to preserve the trascendency of God by maintaining a lowly Jesus who was born of a Virgin but not of the same essence or nature with God. This can not be perceived as malicious because all they thought to preserve was the authenticity of the faith that only one God existed. The era in which these deliberations were made was also too close to the time of the revelation Christ in the flesh for there to have been enough room to benefit from historical hindsight.

The argument for the divinity and humanity in one was a very difficult venture that required a lot of faith without much understanding because of the language that was now being introduced into the Christian dialogue. This language that was not common to scripture included words as Homooousios. The quality of the gospel that the apostles preached did not need much intelligence in fact it was wrapped up in foolishness, 1 Corinthians 1:26-27;

“For you see your calling, brethren that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many noble are called but God has chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise”.

This scripture takes the investigation of all things Godly out of the realm of human and natural wisdom into the realm of grace and yet the early fathers in order to reach a Godly conclusion needed both. Yes, Christ needed to be both man and God in order for salvation to be tangible in human experience.

REFERENCES

Berkhof, L (1998) Systematic theology Banner of Truth : Pennsylvania

Dowley, T (1990) History of Christianity Oxford: A Lion Handbook

Grudem, W (1999) Bible Doctrine Inter Varsity Press : Leicester

Karkkainen, V-M(2003) Christology: A Global Introduction Baker Publishing Group : Michigan

Norris, R.A (1980) The Christological Controversy Fortress Press : Minneapolis

O’Collins, G (2009) Christology : A biblical, historical, and systematic study of Jesus Oxford University Press : Oxford

Robinson, A (1920) The demonstration of the apostolic preaching Macmillan Co : New York

Staniforth, M (1968) Early Christian Writings Penguin Books : London

Yamauchi, E.M (1983) Pre- Christian Gnosticism : A survey of the Proposed Evidences Baker Book : Michigan