In this lesson, Pastor Dave Capoccia discusses the seven ecumenical councils of the early and medieval church that sought to clarify what the Bible teaches about the Trinity and the nature of Christ against various emerging heretical beliefs. In many ways, we Christians today still benefit from the pronouncements of these ancient councils, but not every council was particularly helpful.
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good to start all right well good morning and welcome to Sunday school let’s pray as we get started great God we are so glad that you are the god of History you have worked in a mighty way in the past and Lord we benefit from our spiritual fathers and mothers from the past but Lord we also want to learn from their mistakes pray God that you would bless this time of instruction in Jesus name amen all right we are back this week with our series on church history this is church history 101 the early church two weeks ago if you remember when we were last moving through this series we were talking about early heresies and when it comes to heresy and the Christian Church the situation is kind of like what the superhero Mr Incredible says at the beginning of the movie The Incredibles he says you know no matter how many times you save the world it always manages to get back in Jeopardy again I feel like the maid I just cleaned up this mess can’t you keep it clean for 10 minutes well the same can be said for Christ Church the World the Flesh Satan they never give up their assault on the truth so we Christians will always have to do as Jude exhorts Us in his book we must contend for the faith we must keep contending for the faith once for all handed down to the Saints we can’t take a break we must stand and fight as faith ful soldiers until the end but historically speaking there came a notable change in the way that Christ’s true church contended for the faith starting in the 4th century and that is because Roman emperors started to get involved in Christian controversies controversies these Emperors called ecumenical or worldwide empire-wide Church councils to help Christians settle doctrinal disputes in some ways this new tool and in one way it’s not new there’s a council in the book of Acts that we hear about but this one is different and that it’s empire-wide in some ways this new tool for defending and clarifying Christian belief proved extremely helpful and even effective we still benefit from the meetings and the decisions of these ecumenical church councils today but in some other ways this new tool proved limited and at times counterproductive I want to talk to you today about the seven ecumenical church councils I know I said last time that we talked about the Canon of the Bible today how that was established but I’ll say that for next week Focus today just on the councils well I could probably do a Sunday school lesson on each one of these councils we’re going to try to tackle all seven today and that means we’ll have to do it in an overview fashion these councils start in the 300s and end in the 700s which means we’re going to go outside of our early church time period a little bit that way we can talk about all these councils together each of these councils aside from the last one they’re going to be articulations about the nature of the Trinity and or the nature of our Lord Jesus Christ so let’s examine what these were all about what specific what specific issues were at stake at each Council What was decided and what were the results you see the seven seven councils there we start with the Council of niia in 3:25 chances are if you’ve heard anything about church councils before we begin this church history course you probably heard about the Council of NAA unfortunately however the Council of NAA somewhat like the whole early church period it is subject to many falsehoods half-truths and misinformation from The Da Vinci Code to the claims of Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons many people say inaccurate things about NAA they will claim that it’s when different Christian doctrines became invented or were unfairly dismissed and on the other side some people give too much credit to the council of NAA the Roman Catholic Church says that what happened at NAA and these other ecumenical church councils is authoritative and binding on all Christians because it is church tradition they Elevate Church tradition to an authority alongside the Bible the Greek Orthodox Church goes even further saying that this Council the decision of this Council and the other councils is inspired the same way that the Old Testament and New Testament are inspired this was God speaking authoritatively through his people that’s going too far but with so much conflicting talk and misinformation about these councils particularly the Council of NAA we need to find out what really happened so let’s do that first the background the road to NAA in 318 seven years before the council would be convened a bishop in Alexandria Egypt named Alexander was preaching a sermon in which he emphasized the union of Father and Son within the trinity both Eternal God yet distinct from one another this sermon did not sit well with a certain alexandrian presor or priest priest is just the shortened form of that term didn’t sit well with a certain priest named Aras who soon after publicly rejected Alexander’s teaching and accused him of sabellianism you might remember what is sabellianism another term for modalism that there’s only one God who takes different masks sometimes the father sometimes the son sometimes the Holy Spirit Aras accused Alexander of sabellianism aryion then taught his own understanding of the father and son’s relationship which was does anybody know what is aryanism only the father is God the son is a special exalted being but created he is not God like earlier monarchians and we talked about that uh sector of heresies Aras did not accept the biblical tension when it comes to the Trinity the Trinity and he clung to a logical explanation of the Father and Son Aras maintained that the son was begotten which means he must have been more he must have been born or made the son is just an exalted created being without the Eternal existence or substance of the father aras’s favorite phrase his jingle was there was a time when the sun was not there was a time when the son was not Aras also made much of the fact that the son subordinates himself to the father and his Incarnation which Aras saw as an expression of infer inferiority to the father hence more proof of The Logical relationship of Father and Son one must be Eternal the other must be created now Aras was a popular preacher and he converted more and more people to his views Bishop Alexander then convened a regional Cade of Egyptian church leaders which condemned Aras as a heretic but this did not stop Aras Aras had connections with other church leaders in the Roman Empire and he began to travel he continued to spread his teaching via preaching and writing he even wrote songs that contained his Theology and these songs became popular among Christians Bishop Alexander a man named acius who was Alexander’s secretary and a deacon and other Orthodox church leaders consequently engaged in a war of words with Aras and his supporters each side trying to prove that the other was being unfaithful to the scriptures but this conflict between church leaders soon became a conflict between Church followers one historian writes the debate was conducted with the violence of a political convention everybody entered into it men who met to transact business neglected their bargaining to talk theology if one said to the baker how much is the loaf he would answer the son is subordinate to the father if one sent a servant on an errand he would reply the son arose out of nothing Aras put his Doctrine in verse to popular tunes and it was sung and whistled in the streets the arguments were punctuated with fists and clubs so this Aryan conflict was spreading further and further in the church and not only were Christians arguing with one another but some were even attacking and killing each other over this issue now this is the situation in the eastern half of the Roman Empire in 324 now you might remember what important GE geopolitical event also happens in 324 which we’ve already talked about this is the year that Constantine defeats his last rival and becomes the sole ruler of the Roman Empire it had been split between East and West before but he defeats his last rival Emperor and he becomes sole ruler and you can imagine Constantine who quasi convert to Christianity you can imagine Constantine’s reaction to all this theological controversy among Christians why are the Christians trying to tear apart my precious new United Empire so like any wise political leader Constantine knew that this source of instability needed to be dealt with and he called the first ecumenical Church council at NAA a town across from constant const Constantinople in Asia Minor uh pretty close by so on the turkey side Constantinople is on the Europe side now Constantine invited the most important Bishops of the Empire and even from outside the Empire to come and settle this issue one way or another Constantine was not going to decide what the issue was he’s just like you guys got to figure it out because the Empire needs peace and thus the counil of NAA began in June 325 according to uus of season IA a Christian historian of the time 318 Bishops showed up to the council along with a number of priests that is prors and deacons in all there were about 2,000 churchmen in attendance and from all over the Empire Council lasted 41 days it mainly consisted of debates around the issue of aryanism though there were a few other minor topics that were also addressed by the council three viewpoints emerged at the council based on three Greek words words used to describe the relationship of the son to the father first is the term or the Viewpoint of hetero usus now hetero is a root that means what different different like um heterogeneous versus homogeneous hetero would mean different and usus was a term that referred to substance or Essence so hetero usus means different substance different ESS Essence and this is the starting view this is the starting point the platform of Aras and his allies they said the son has a different substance or Essence from the father but this view is immediately rejected by the council as unbiblical the scriptures show that Christ is not of a different substance than the father second Viewpoint second uh group was the homo usus group and if hetero means different homo means same same substance or Essence the son is of the same substance or Essence as the father now this is the view of Bishop Alexander athenus and all aras’s Chief opponents now many Bishops were uncomfortable with selecting this word to describe the relationship of the son to the father because homo usus was the term that the sabellians use to describe their modalistic view of the Trinity they like to use homo usus to say oh yeah the son is the same substance as the father because they’re just different masks of the same person so many Bishops were uncomfortable with homo usus as the biblical way to describe the Son and the father together and so they preferred a third term which was h usus does anybody know what Hy means means similar if hetero is different homo the same Hy means similar substance or Essence the sun has a similar substance or Essence of the father and this was a preferred term at first because the Bishops on guard against sabellianism thought that you could contain the idea of homo usus while still preserving the biblical distinction between the father and the son with homoy usus so yes in one sense the father and son are the same but in another sense they’re different so why don’t we use the term homoy usus well the Aryan faction on seeing that hetero usus was a non-starter that’s not going to get anywhere they took up this third position they said yeah why don’t we say homoy usus but the homo usian faction they saw this third position as a trap and why would that happy because the term is too ambiguous it very readily allows for an Aryan point of view to exist within it and aryanism is heresy we can’t settle for homoy usus and this is what they argued before the council even though homo usus had been used inappropriately by the sabellians this homo usus faction AR argued it is the only word that can correctly describe the biblical relationship of the son to the father without leaving wiggle room for aryanism so after intense deliberations the G the gathered church leaders finally settled on the conclusion and wrote down a Creed a statement of doctrinal belief based on the scripture and then voted on it they decided to take the homo usus viewpoint they believe that that was the most accurate way to describe what the scripture teaches and so out of 318 Bishops said to be in attendance 316 voted for the Creed and only two voted against and Aras as a priest didn’t get a vote so that was two other people now Constantine had a limited role at the Council of just listening and asking questions but once the council’s Creed was decided and approved by vote he also approved it he published it officially and is known today as the nyine Creed now this Creed would be slightly modified later so if you’ve ever read the nyine Creed it’s going to sound a little bit different than what I’m about to read to you but here is the original nyine Creed not super long it says we believe in one God the Almighty maker of all things visible and invisible and in our Lord Jesus Christ the son of God the only begotten of his father of the substance of the father God of God light of light very God of very God begotten not made being of one substance omo usus with the father by whom all things were made both which be in heaven and in Earth who for us men and for our Salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate and was made man they suffered on the third day he rose again and ascended into heaven and he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead and we believe in the Holy Ghost just a little bit more and whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not or that before he was begotten he was not or that he was made of things that were not or that he is of a different substance or Essence from the father or that he is a creature or subject to change or conversion all that to say the Catholic or the universal that’s just what Catholic means the universal and Apostolic Church anathematized them what does that mean what does it mean to anathematize no not bring together it’s uh it’s condemned but even more strong we to anathematize means to designate somebody as damned to Hell by God let that person be damned to Hell let those false teachers be damned that’s a term actually that comes from the Bible so seems like a pretty good outcome what were the results of the council trinitarianism is upheld as as Orthodox praise the Lord Constantine also as a result Exiles Aras and Aryan bishops from the Empire doesn’t put them to death but he says you don’t have a place here you need to go and a little bit later athanasius who was one of the advocates for the Biblical teaching of trinitarianism he’s soon made a bishop of Alexandria after the previous Bishop’s death in 326 also one minor note the Council also decided when the date for Easter would be this was one of the other considerations of the council because there was prevailing super sistic View at the time among Christians which was that the church replaces Israel and so they kind of wanted to put more distance between the Jews and Christians and they did not want to celebrate Easter at the same time the Jews celebrated Passover they wanted to show more they wanted to show more of a break so the Bishops decided that Easter the commemoration of Christ’s Victorious Resurrection should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the First full Moon after the first day of spring and it’s been that way ever since so if you’ve ever been confused about the when Easter is each year it’s because of the council and I see it so sorry about that but with such a clear articulation of biblical truth and giving Constantine support that was the end of aryanism right wrong because wait there’s more amazingly just two years after the council con Constantine was persuaded to reverse his stance on aryanism due to political considerations and he brought back the exiled Aras or the exiled Aryans and he exiled aanus and aryanism again started to spread throughout the Empire and many trinitarian church leaders were browbeaten into accepting Aras teaching or face the consequences from the emperor well many conformed to the official aryanism promoted by Constantine and the Emperors after him some did not from Exile in the Egyptian desert and other places aanus continued to write and expose aryanism as heresy and trinitarianism as truth proving this not by Na’s decision or Creed but from the Bible aanus would later be allowed to returned to the Empire but then he got exiled again he was exiled a total of five times before he died in 373 he did not live to see aryanism defeated but he never stopped fighting against it indeed sometimes athenus felt like he was the only one opposing aryanism hence the phrase that was said of him athanasius Contra mundum which means athenus against the world he was convinced that no matter what anyone said or what was officially sanctioned by the emperor God’s truth was still God’s truth and had to be upheld he was being faithful in that way but he wasn’t the only faithful non-conformist we don’t have time to talk about these other men but the capid Doan fathers and of course I love them because they come from an area that sounds similar to my last name capid ocian fathers B of cesaria Gregory of Nissa and Gregory of naanis they also continue to argue for the Son and the Holy Spirit being God as taught by the scriptures I’ll give you a few words from Gregory of Nissa this is from his work on the Holy Trinity he says they the Aryans charge us with preaching three gods and D into the ears of the multitude this slander which they never rest from maintaining persuasively then truth fights on our side we show both publicly to all men and privately to those who will converse with us that we anathematize any man who says that there are three gods and hold him to be not even a Christian then as soon as they the Aryans hear this they find sabellius a handy weapon against us and the plague that he spread is the subject of continual attacks against us so they kept saying you teach three gods or no you teach modalism excuse me now they charge us with Innovation and frame their complaint against us in this way they allege that while we confess three persons we say there is one goodness and one power and one godhead and in this assertion they do not go beyond the truth for we do say so but the ground of their complaint is that their custom does not admit this and scripture does not support it what then is our reply we do not think that it is right to make their prevailing custom the law and Rule of sound Doctrine for if customs Traditions is to Avail for proof of soundness we too surely May Advance our prevailing custom if they reject this we are surely not bound to follow theirs let the inspired scriptures then be our umpire and the vote of truth will surely be given to those whose dogmas are found to agree with the Divine words so you can hear Gregory are distant brother upholding trinitarianism but also commenting on where the Authority for Orthodoxy comes from not from tradition not even from counsels but from what the scriptures yeah it’s solo scripture now thankfully aryanism would eventually give way but not till the second ecumenical council in the meantime God used the capid ocian fathers and faithful acious to keep the torch of Truth burning until the darkness of error was ready to dissipate and of course there were others besides them now I’ve spent a good amount of time talking about NAA and its aftermath but now let’s talk about the other councils and we’ll be a little bit briefer with them in the intervening years between Isa and the next Council in Constantinople arianism got stronger and spread mostly in the East not so much in the west but then certain Aryan leaders began to dispute with one another which means aryanism as a whole became vulnerable and by this time there’s a new emperor in town theodosius I also known as theodosius the great he was not Aryan finally we get one of those he was from the west and he was eager to see trinitarianism restored as Orthodox because it is in 380 theodosius in conjunction with other rulers in the Roman Empire at the time published the Edict of thessalonica which essentially declared that all forms of Christianity besides NY trinitarianism were illegal and would be persecuted by the government now that’s bad news for arianism especially because aryanism really was only strong because it was being propped up politically without political support the movement began to collapse however in reaction to aryanism another view had gained popularity in the church by this time and that is apollinarianism if arianism stressed that Jesus was human but not fully God apollinarianism said that Jesus was God but not fully human Bishop apollinaris of Lea he taught that when the son became human he did not take upon himself a human soul or mind Jesus was essentially the body of a man with the soul and mind of God whereas professor buit at Master Seminary would say Jesus was like a letter sitting inside an envelope was God in a human shell or God in a bod now is this a Biblical view of Christ no it’s not why not that’s right because he must be fully human that’s what the scriptures teach he must be fully human to be a sufficient high priest he must be made like us in every way he cannot be part human he must be all the way human so the dois convened a council in 381 not only to deal with apollinarianism but also to emphatically deal with aryanism at the Council of Constantinople the nyine Creed was reaffirmed and expanded and a poin arianism was condemned as heresy the council stated emphatically that Jesus is both fully God and fully human so the council published a new Creed which is probably the nicest Creed that you’ve heard of today it’s really the Nano constantan Creed which says the same thing as the N Creed but also more explicitly affirms the Holy Spirit as being God I won’t read that one to you you can look it up later with the Edict of fanica the Council of Constantinople and other religious laws enacted by theodosius arianism and many other second and third century heresies were finished they began to fade dramatically so that was a pretty good outcome nice good Council good Emperor praise the Lord but how to protect against these kinds of errors in the future it’s kind of doctrinal drift well that would be a subject of the next ecumenical council ecumenical council about 50 years later let’s now talk about the Council of Ephesus 4:31 by this time there are two main schools of thought in the Christian sector of the Roman Empire when it comes to interpreting the Bible there’s one school of thought that’s mainly centered in Alexandria Egypt and another one centered in Antioch Syria so you got these two schools of thought and they have to do with interpreting the Bible I’ll say much more about this in another class but for now know that Alexandria was famous for promoting an allegorical interpretation of the Bible more spiritual meaning where Antioch was known for for a more literal interpretation of the Bible we would be more in line with the antiochian school today well there’s continuous rivalry between these schools and it pretty much went back to the second century rivalry between the schools rivalry between their followers and one of the Battlegrounds became Mary Jesus mother what should we call Mary was she the bearer of God the one who bore and gave birth to God or the bearer of man the bearer of the man Jesus now this question was raised not to elevate Mary in worship but to safeguard the reality of the Incarnation Alexandria the school of Alexandria said that Mary ought to be called Theos which means bearer of God in order to safeguard that Jesus really is God aryanism which you might remember from just me saying it a few minutes ago denied that Jesus was God and that had originated in Alexandria so the alexandrians had reason to want to safeguard this teaching about the Divinity of Jesus Antioch on the other hand they said that Mary ought to be called anthropos which means the bearer of man in order to safeguard that Jesus was really man apollinarianism had recently denied this and in response to the alexandrians the Antioch School argued that God was eternal and therefore could not be born a man could be born God could not be born why would you say thecost let’s go with anop anthropos then you had noorus who was Bishop of Constantinople who suggested a third option do I have these up there oh yes I do Christos which you can guess means bearer of Christ so we got Theos anthropos Christos these are all Greek terms in Theo’s opinion Not only would this third option serve as a compromise between the other two schools but it would also be a term to emphasize that Christ was unique having two Natures God and man neither of which were absorbed into the other well the resolution of this theological question of what to call Mary ended up playing out ridiculously this is not a good moment for the Christian Church s of Al Alexandria who is the leader of alexandrian faction accused noorus the bishop of Constantinople of heresy claiming that noorus taught that there were two persons inside Christ with two completely different Wills that the son was basically a schizophrenic now noorus we’re actually not sure whether he taught that but that’s what nestorianism came to mean that you have like these two separate people inside Jesus he probably actually didn’t teach this but that’s what he was accused of teaching and syal of Alexandria was able to get some other main Christian leaders to de side with him and noorus was about to be excommunicated if he did not change his views well noorus wanteded to clear his name and so he got the emperor at the time to convene a council at Ephesus now we know Ephesus from the Bible it’s on the west coast of Asia Minor to convene a council of Ephesus at in 431 but the council did not go according to plan first of all the leaders from Alexandria arrived first and they started the council without the leaders from Antioch those assembled quickly came to a resolution about what to call Mary can you guess what their decision was Theos because it’s only the alexandrians who were there and that’s what they wanted so they decide that Theos is the is the right term and secondly this Council dominated by The alexandrians Condemned theorious as a as a heretic and this would have important unforeseen implications because later some Churches is that like noorus where his teaching was popular they felt like he and his teaching had been unfairly dismissed and these Christians in the eastern part of the Empire some of them traveled further east mostly settling in Persia and they broke from the rest of the churches they broke from the Roman Church thus the nistoran Schism resulted in most churches in Persia India and East Asia becoming historian now how much of the historism that we think of today these two persons inside Christ and Christ has got like these two different sides that aren’t united we don’t know how much of that they actually embraced but this was a fundamental Schism in the early church because of this one Council and the condemnation of noorus thirdly when the churchmen from Antioch did arrive they saw what happened and basically decided to have their own councel at which they condemned of Alexandria as a heretic oh man this is just a mess when the emperor heard of the result of the count Souls it’s really two he had noorus and syy exiled though cro was allowed to come back after two years so Ephesus was definitely not the most helpful Council as you can see it was very politically charged what’s worse is that oops soon after the council different Christians throughout the Roman Empire began to consider Mary now officially called thecost bearer of God as a saint worthy of special veneration it’s really after the Council of Ephesus that we see the cult of Mary worship take off the title meant to Pro protect the reality of the Incarnation unfortunately United with Pagan thinking of many nominal Christians coming into the church and it led to the unbiblical exaltation and even the worship of Mary so Ephesus was problematic but as unhelpful as this ecumenical council was the next Council 20 years later was much better let’s go to our fourth Council the Council of Caledon in 451 at this Council church leaders met to clarify the nature of Christ his humanity and his deity you can see we’re having lots of questions about this we really want to get this nailed down in the early church and they met to have a council about it in Caledon this is also near Constantinople and again we have two sides on this issue separated based on school school of thought Antioch versus Alexandria again on Antioch side we have a reappearance of a kind of nestorianism they said Christ has two Natures human and divine which are totally separate from each other and of course their opponents came by and said you’re making Christ is schizophrenic of course they didn’t use that term but they’re you’re trying to put two people inside Jesus that’s not biblical but this was Antioch side on Alexandria’s side we have utian ISM that said that Christ has only one nature it’s neither human nor Divine he’s a unique mixture of the two a hybrid which of these views is accurate according to the Bible does Christ have two completely independent Natures not you related to one another at all or does Christ have only one hybrid nature council’s answer was and this is the biblical answer it’s neither it’s neither of those things the bishop of Rome Leo I first now called Leo the great Pope Leo the Great by some he sent a tone a book to the council he wasn’t able to attend himself but he sent this long document to be read at the council in which he argued for what we call today the hypostatic union anybody tell me what that is hypostasis or hypostatic refers to the Greek term hypostasis which is another word for substance or existence Pope Leo maintained the Son of God as a result of the Incarnation has two complete and different substances within him human and divine but they are not separate from one another nor are they mixed they are united in Perfection and purpose so you see how this is different between those other two views he does have two different Natures but they are united not mixed they are bound up with one another so it’s not like Jesus is like oh what does my Human Side say what does my God side say no it’s all together and yet they are not the same nor are they mixed Jesus must be 100% God to be of the same Essence as God but he must be 100% man to be our intercessor and substitute so these Natures cannot be mixed we can’t have him stop being 100% God or stop being 100% human that would nullify many important things about Jesus so they’re not mixed but they’re not completely separate there’s no struggle of the man’s side of Jesus versus the god side the two complete Natures are totally United now let me read to you the confession of Caledon this is two paragraphs we then following the holy fathers all with one consent teach people to confess one and the same son our Lord Jesus Christ the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood truly God and truly man of a reasonable or rational soul and body consubstantial or co-essential with the father according to the god head and consubstantial with us according to the manhood and all things like unto us without sin begotten before all ages of the father according to the godhead and in these latter days for us and for our Salvation born of the Virgin Mary the Mother of God there’s that term according to the manhood one and the same Christ son Lord only begotten to be acknowledged in two Natures in confusedly unchangeably indivisibly inseparably the distinction of the natures being by no means taken away by the union but rather the property of each nature being preserved and concurring in one person and one subsistence hypostasis not parted or divided into two persons but one in the same son the only begotten God the word the Lord Jesus Christ as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning him and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us and the Creed of the Holy fathers has handed down to us good articulation Caledon represents for us an important reminder about theology from church history for caldon even though it stood true on what the Bible teaches in doing so recognized a limit in the human ability to comprehend God even to describe him it’s impossible to fully explain the hypostatic union just as is impossible to fully explain the Trinity how can Jesus be 100% God and 100% man at the same time that’s 200% that logically doesn’t make sense we can’t fully explain it but we do know that it’s true because that’s what the Bible teaches and the Bible is true we can only go so far as the Bible perits what it says and what is a just inference from what it says the rest we leave to God as glorious mystery when we try to unravel some of the Divine tensions of the scripture and make it fit well within our reasoning we only fall into error that has been the frequent happening in church history So Cal is an important reminder about theology but Calon would also be important because of how it inadvertently elevated the bishop of Rome because after all two important Christian centers two Christian patriarches Antioch and Alexandria they were disputing with one another but who was it that served as the Umpire and triumphed over both it was Rome now while there was no official acknowledgement of Rome being Superior to these other Bishop rcks by submitting to Rome’s mediation and Direction the other churches gave tactic acknowledgement to Rome as the leader of the churches at least that’s the way that Leo and other Roman Bishops after him interpreted these events now we’ll say more about the rise of the papacy later but this would be an important Milestone along the way so Caledon settled the issue about Christ nature at least in the west the East would continue to de debate more about Christ’s substance and nature even after this Council and you know what that means they’re going to want more councils which is what we have the fifth Council oh yeah there we go the fifth Council Constantinople too yes I’m sorry some councils go back to the same cities as earlier councils this one is in 553 so kind of moving out of the early church period to early medieval period or we might call late antique this Council was essentially a restatement of Caledon Christ has two Natures a hypostatic union why do they need to make this reaffirmation well there were mono monopis remaining in the East monop fite is a term that refers to one nature so there are some people saying Christ doesn’t have two Natures he has one nature which is the opposite of what the previous Council said the council reaffirmed The diosy View so we have monophos sorry I said that wrong the first time monophos versus diosy Council reaffirmed the dios sites are correct caldon was correct they also condemned something called the three chapters which was just some early church writings that seemed to teach nestorianism so the second Council of Constantinople it just upheld Counsel on Rec condemn those who belied that Christ had only one nature and those like the historians who believe that those two Natures were only Loosely connected nice but the Easter theologians are not done probing the nature of Christ CU they were soon asking doeses the hypostatic union mean that Christ had one will or two Wills all right one more Council on the nature of Christ Constantinople 3 this is in 680 back in Constantinople more than two more than 100 years later this time pitting the monothelites one will supporters versus the diyes two will supporters it’s like wait didn’t we just didn’t we just have this kind of one of the reasons why this Council occurred is because Emperors around this time were trying to build Bridges with those Christians who are still clinging to that old monophos view we’re saying Christ was one nature don’t tell me he has two Natures that’s unbiblical Emperors are like man how are we going to get those Christians back into the fold how are we going to get them back United with our Empire H why don’t we have another Council we’ll POS a similar question and we’ll suggest that even though Christ had two Natures in hypostatic Union we could say that he still has only one energy which is a term left completely vague and that he has only one will it’s kind of like we we’ll throw you guys a bone he still has two Natures but he’s got one energy one will so this was kind of a political effort but this effort at conciliation it only upset the Orthodox Christian leaders in the Empire they’re like wait wait wait that’s not correct so having stirred up controversy the emperor decided to call a council on Constantinople and 680 to settle the question and the council determined that Christ has two energies and two Wills but that again they are in complete harmony with each other they also said specifically that Christ’s human will was in submission to Christ’s Divine will now you’re probably wondering did we really need to have whole another Council about this you know what probably not and we are definitely getting into wh space theology here I mean the Bible doesn’t talk about an energy in Jesus how are we even going to decide that question and even the relationship of his wills is not explicitly stated it is a little bit ironic to note that despite the Eastern Christians in these early periods continuing continuing to try and explore the mystery of Christ nature which part of Europe ends up embracing theological mystery more the west or the East strangely it’s the east if you look into Greek Orthodox theology today you will see that there is a lot of emphasis even over emphasis on mystery on negative theology oh we can’t say what God is we can only say what God is not there’s a place for negative theology there’s certainly a place for mystery but it seems to be overdone in the eastern and the Greek Orthodox church today which is weird considering what happened historically but anyways this was their decision not necessarily wrong I don’t know if how helpful it was are we done having councils no one more ecumenical council but this one kind of doesn’t fit with the rest all the other councils have sought to describe the nature of Christ or the nature of the Trinity but this last council is about Christian worship and here we are back to NAA Isa 2 in 787 the last ecumenical Church Council the last Council that can claim that it had all Christians from everywhere represented and this council is all about religious icons the question is is it appropriate to venerate icons as part of Christian worship now the reason why Christians were asking this question that particularly in the East has to do with historical circumstances because by 787 what militaristic religion has emerged in the Middle East Islam due to the weakening of the Eastern Roman Empire for various reason reasons historians often call the Eastern Roman Empire the Byzantine Empire though they never called themselves that but I’ll call them that too due to weakening of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire Muslim Fighters were able to conquer much land that belonged to the byzantines and this development was traumatic for Eastern Christians why would God let this happen to his devoted people why would he allow us to be defeated again and again to make matters worse Martyrs relics and famous icons in various cities which were said to have miraculous Powers they had not helped the Christians win battles or prevent the Muslims from taking over Christian cities and Muslims even taunted Christians about these things calling them polytheists and Idol worshippers whose Idols i e relics had no power against Allah so the Eastern Christians went through some serious soul searching what was the Empire’s secret sin causing us to be defeated by the Muslims some Christians believe that the culprit was Devotion to icons so when I say icon I’m referring to the paintings the other artistic depictions of Jesus the Saints biblical scenes that are meant to be used in worship as aids to worship Christians believe the culprit was Devotion to these icons and these Christians became iconoclasts what’s iconoclasm referred to destruction or destroyer of icons want to destroy all these icons these Christians concluded that the statues and paintings of Christ marrying the other Saints the icons which people bowed down to prayed to and kissed these were actually idols and they needed to be changed they needed to be removed they needed to be destroyed the iconic class for their support went back to the Old Testament prohibition about making images of God or making images to worship as Leviticus 261 says you shall not make for yourselves Idols nor shall you set up for yourselves an image or a sacred pillar you shall not place a figured Stone in your land to bow down to it for I am the Lord that is Yahweh your God so the iconic class were claiming that those using icons in worship were in fact worshiping idols and idolators other Christians however defended icons as legitimate helps in worshiping God these supporters could be called icono or iconophiles duel referring to service so icon servers or iconophiles icon lovers these maintain that the Old Testament proh prohibition about making images of God did not apply to Jesus because Jesus was incarnated after all does not Colossians 1:15 say that Christ is the image of the invisible God if God took physical form they argued how can it be wrong to depict that physical form and use that depiction as an aid in worship theads also maintained that they were not worshiping the images only venerating them and further this veneration was not really from the images but for what the images represented now for a Time the iconic clasts were triumphant Byzantine emperors banned icons from churches ordered their removal there was even a church Council that formerly condemned icons but when those iconic class rulers died other rulers came to power who were Icona duels and what happened while icons were restored and right before the second Council of NAA icons had again been restored by the Byzantine Empress Irene who was ruling on behalf of her too young for the throne son and thus with icons given official sanction ionad church leaders asked Irene to convene a church Council to overturn that previous council’s determination that said that icons are bad which is where we get NAA 2 now the question asked at I Nika 2 NAA 2 are icons appropriate in Christian worship worship it was a foregone conclusion they already knew what this Council was going to say and what did they say yes icons are great here’s part of the council’s Declaration as the sacred and life-giving cross is everywhere set up as a symbol so also should the images of Jesus Christ the Virgin Mary the Holy Angels as well as those of the Saints and other Pious and holy men be embodied in the manufacturer of sacred vessels tapestries vestments Etc and exhibited on the walls of churches in the homes and in all conspicuous places by the roadside and everywhere to be revered by all who might see them for the more they are contemplated the more they move to fervent memory of their prototypes therefore it is proper to Accord to them a fervent and reverent adoration not however the veritable worship which according to our faith belongs to the Divine being alone for the honor according to the image passes over to its prototype and whoever adors the image adors in it the reality of what is there represented image worship then was not only allowed by the church it was encouraged and both the Roman Catholic church and the Greek Orthodox Church have maintained this St on icons ever since this Council though the Greek Orthodox church does not allow for statuary the western church does so this last this last council is of course tragically an error this is not biblical this is not right among many issues is the basic fact that borrowing from Calvin’s Trea on relics there’s little to nor difference little to no difference between adoring an icon and worshiping it and even if s if even if such a distinction were to exist it would be impossible to discern when one crosses the line from adoration into idolatry furthermore was not the icon dual argument the same as those used by Pagan worshippers for their Idols those who bowed down to Zeus and Athena understood similarly that the God was not the statue but worshiping the statue was how you worship the God after all the gods dwelt on Mount Olympus still there was something of the God’s presence in the Statue something of the power of that God the gods were even imagine to be able to animate their statues or cause their statues to perform Miracles which ironically is exactly what many Christian icon worshippers claimed there are countless Legends in the Roman Catholic church and the Greek Orthodox Church of icons performing miraculous works or granting Visions even today but really their arguments on behalf of icons ought to be dismissed for the same reason uh that Pagan icons and Idols are condemned it’s really the same thing when you venerate the image when you bow down to the image you are essentially bowing down to a different God that’s expressly forbid by the scriptures now separate question can you depict Jesus can you depict things from the Bible at all does that mean that children’s Bibles that depict you know Jesus walking around that that’s evil that’s idolatry some Christians today do say that though we should not a distinction between using a picture for instruction and using a picture as an aid in worship that is specifically how these churches were doing that you’re supposed to look at the image and express things outwardly towards it as a way of worshiping God anyways that’s a question we could talk about more in another space but there we have it the seven ecumenical Church councils some of them like the original Nia Council Constantinople 1 caldon these were wonderfully helpful articulations of biblical truth these are our brothers in the past standing up for what the Bible teaches that should be encouraging to us other councils like Ephesus Constantinople 3 and certainly Nia 2 they were less helpful councils have been helpful to the Christian Church throughout history but sometimes they ended up hurting the church that’s it for the instruction today but programming note this point of the course we’re going to do a little pivot so far I’ve been mainly talking about empire-wide forces and movements but starting next week after we spend some time talking about biblical canonicity how did we get a set of Bible books and recognize them as the Bible I want to have you start meeting individuals I want you to meet different Church fathers from the first to the 4th centuries I want you to sample their writings and also look at some of the issues that are connected with them talk about uh for example ignacius and the rise of the bishop being the most important person in the church or we’ll talk about Justin Martyr and what he has to say about how early church services actually were run what did they look like and what did they do I think that will be very encouraging and instructive to us so next week we’re going to start that new effort by talking about the Canon but then also talking about the apostolic fathers the ones who were discipled even by the apostles so the first group of church fathers after the Bible ends so we’ll see them in the first and second centuries that’s it for today let’s oh Ignatius what a Gody Ignatius he he’s a really interesting one um I I’ll save the stories for next time but let’s close in prayer Lord your truth is wonderful and mighty Lord you are mysterious you are a God who cannot be completely fathomed by our minds because you are holy you are special you are different you are set apart Lord forgive us for where we insist in conceiving of you thinking about you even producing some sort of physical object of you that fits with our own thinking we make you into our image rather than accepting what you’ve revealed about yourself but thank you Lord that fundamentally that is not what we do anymore you have opened our eyes so that we would be freed from Idols that we would be freed from thinking about you just according to our own feelings our own thoughts but rather Lord trusting in what you say about yourself and actually coming to love it seeing that there is no God like you who is glorious and set apart like you are who is like the Lord Jesus 100% God and 100% man what can be compared to the Trinity one God three persons what great Mysteries what glorious realities and instructive even for how we think about what you’ve made us for Lord we thank you for these truths Lord help us to worship you today for the Trinity for the amazing hypostatic uh Union in Christ even as we go about the rest of this service in Jesus name amen