The scandal of Church history

St. Athanasius

In 1 Corinthians 15, St. Paul says:

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. . . . And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.

Those who are Evangelicals–and, frankly, many non-Evangelicals as well–use this passage to point out that the Early Church not only believed in a physical resurrection, but also insisted that the very efficacy of the faith is fully dependent on a physical resurrection. No resurrection means no salvation, no forgiveness of sins. No resurrection means the second death. The Early Church went on to make a parallel statement. No Incarnation means no salvation. If Jesus was not God incarnate then there is no salvation, no forgiveness of sins.

But, as I have pointed out in my previous posts, unless the Early Church Fathers reliably transmitted the faith, then–I would argue–our salvation could also be in danger. This does not mean that you have to agree with every doctrine of the later Church! But, it does mean that the Christian faith continues to be tied in to history at least through the Early Church period. It is not the least bit surprising to me that the only way to change the definition of the faith, its beliefs, its worship, its structure, its leadership, has been to challenge its history. This has been true of the Radical Reformers, the Calvinists, and the modern progressive/liberal contingent. And, every time the history of the Church is challenged, the Early Church Fathers are the first targets.

Do you like to read your Scriptures? Then thank the Early Church Fathers who gave you the list of New Testament books that you so happily read. They read; they argued; they researched; they made sure that the books of the New Testament  were truly inspired of the Holy Spirit. Particularly thank Pope Athanasius I, Patriarch of Alexandria who, in 367, wrote an episcopal letter which gave the first known listing of the New Testament that included all the books which we consider to be canonical and none of the books which are considered apocryphal.

Do you want to know about apostolic worship? Well, as I have pointed out, there is no full description in the New Testament. Read St. Justin the Martyr, and read The Didache, among others.

Do you want to know something about Early Church structure? Read St. Clement of Rome and St. Polycarp, the disciple of St. John the Apostle, and read the Didache, among others.

Do you wish to know whether the apostles wore vestments? Interestingly enough, Eusebius, who wrote the first history of the Church, claims that St. John the Apostle wore an episcopal headdress. [I will admit that Eusebius is just a little later, in that he is late third to early fourth century.]

Do you believe in the Trinity, to the point that you consider that any Christian who does not believe in the Trinity is a heretic? Well, it is not as clear in the New Testament as those who would undo the Church Fathers but wish to retain the faith would like you to believe. Thank the Church Fathers, who met in Ecumenical Council more than once in order to ensure that we understood Scripture correctly, that you believe in the Holy Trinity.

Do you believe that our Lord Jesus Christ is one person, with a divine nature and a human nature, with a divine will and a human will? Thank the Church Fathers, who met in Ecumenical Council more than once in order to ensure that we understood Scripture correctly, that you believe in the Lord Jesus in whom you believe. Uhm, and did I tell you that the Ecumenical Council that spoke about the two wills in Jesus met from 680-681 A.D.? That is long after most Protestants would even come close to admitting that the Church could have still been faithful.

Let me make it clear, the Orthodox do not believe that everything the Church Fathers did is infallible. Nor do we believe that everything this or that Early Church Father believed was actually true. We do believe that the dogmatic pronouncements of the Ecumenical Councils are infallible. But, if you believe that the Early Church Fathers are highly mistaken, then you have seriously undermined the strength of the argument for the books of the New Testament, the Holy Trinity, and the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And, if you do believe that the Church Fathers, as late as the year 681, were accurate about those topics, and you are a non-Lutheran/Anglican Protestant, then why do you resist so strongly against their understanding of worship and ecclesiology, among other subjects? Mind you, I would argue with the Lutherans and Anglicans that they, too, make some doctrinal mistakes regarding Holy Tradition. But, at least they have a view of Church history that honors the work of the Holy Spirit in the Early Church.

No, like it or not, the Church is intimately tied in with history from its inception. And, if you take that history away, then Christianity means nothing. Or, another way to put it, if one separates Christianity from history, then Christianity means whatever you want it to mean. And guess what? There are tens of thousands of denominations around the world, not to mention those who are within existing denominations who are busily redefining (or reimaging) Christianity to more closely fit their cultural desires. So, as a result of the Radical Reformation (and Calvinist) rejection of the Early Church Fathers, the world sees a Christianity which cannot agree with itself, a Christianity without focus, a Christianity whose salvation is unclear and ill-defined.

Important note: I am not, in any way, denying that the Western Church needed some serious reformation in the Middle Ages. The Eastern Church also benefited immensely from the Reformation. In fact, I even believe that the Reformation was something in which the Lord was involved, in the same way in which Jeroboam was allowed by the Lord to rebel against Rehoboam in the Old Testament. But, it is worth remembering that the rebelling northern Ten Tribes drifted into false worship and were eventually removed by the Lord. The last remnant we see of the Ten Tribes (before Pentecost) is the Samaritan woman who, when she asks our Lord Jesus about the correct place to worship, is told by the Lord, “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.” That is still true today.