A couple of names that I would like to mention are Irenaeus and Athanasius. These two men are given an incredible amount of credit to the development of theology in the early church. Their writings are remarkable. It's amazing to me how little I knew about what they had written or how they shaped the early church until I began looking. Much of what they said and did have been like breadcrumbs on the path to lead me on a journey of rediscovery.
According to Irenaeus, the high point in salvation history is the advent of Jesus. Irenaeus believed that Christ would always have been sent, even if humanity had never sinned; but the fact that they did sin determines his role as a savior. He sees Christ as the new Adam, who systematically undoes what Adam did: thus, where Adam was disobedient concerning God's edict concerning the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Christ was obedient even to death on the wood of a tree. Irenaeus is the first to draw comparisons between Eve and Mary, contrasting the faithlessness of the former with the faithfulness of the latter. In addition to reversing the wrongs done by Adam, Irenaeus thinks of Christ as "recapitulating" or "summing up" human life. This means that Christ goes through every stage of human life, from infancy to old age, and simply by living it, sanctifies it with his divinity.
Athanasius put forward the belief that the Son of God, the eternal Word through whom God created the world, entered that world in human form to lead men back into the harmony from which they had earlier fallen away. He believed that the God of all creation was good and therefore the lover of humanity.
As I looked into some of the writings of the Patristic Fathers, I came across this from Irenaeus "Demontration of Apostloic Preaching." I want to share some of the points he makes in this writing:
- This then is the order of the rule of our faith, and the foundation of the building, and the stability of our conversation: God, the Father, not made, not material, invisible; one God, the creator of all things: this is the first point of our faith. The second point is: The Word of God, Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord, who was manifested to the prophets according to the form of their prophesying and according to the method of the dispensation of the Father: through whom all things were made; who also at the end of the times, to complete and gather up all things, was made man among men, visible and tangible, in order to abolish death and show forth life and produce a community of union between God and man. And the third point is: The Holy Spirit, through whom the prophets prophesied, and the fathers learned the things of God, and the righteous were led forth into the way of righteousness; and who in the end of the times was poured out in a new way upon mankind in all the earth, renewing man unto God.
- So then He united man with God, and established a community of union between God and man; since we could not in any other way participate in incorruption, save by His coming among us. For so long as incorruption was invisible and unrevealed, it helped us not at all: therefore it became visible that in all respects we might participate in the reception of incorruption. And, because in the original formation of Adam all of us were tied and bound up with death through his disobedience, it was right that through the obedience of Him who was made man for us we should be released from death: and because death reigned over the flesh, it was right that through the flesh it should lose its force and let man go free from its oppression. So the Word was made flesh, that, through that very flesh which sin had ruled and dominated, it should lose its force and be no longer in us. And therefore our Lord took that same original formation as (His) entry into flesh, so that He might draw near and contend on behalf of the fathers, and conquer by Adam that which by Adam had stricken us down.
- Thus then He gloriously achieved our redemption, and fulfilled the promise of the fathers, and abolished the old disobedience. The Son of God became Son of David and Son of Abraham; perfecting and summing up this in Himself that He might make us to possess life. The Word of God was made flesh by the dispensation of the Virgin, to abolish death and make man live. For we were imprisoned by sin, being born in sinfulness and living under death.
- But God the Father was very merciful: He sent His creative Word, who in coming to deliver us came to the very place and spot in which we had lost life, and brake the bonds of our fetters. And His light appeared and made the darkness of the prison disappear, and hallowed our birth and destroyed death, loosing those same fetters in which we were enchained. And He manifested the resurrection, Himself becoming the first-begotten of the dead, and in Himself raising up man that was fallen, lifting him up far above the heaven to the right hand of the glory of the Father: even as God promised by the prophet, saying: And I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen; that is, the flesh that was from David. And this our Lord Jesus Christ truly fulfilled, when He gloriously achieved our redemption that He might truly raise us up, setting us free unto the Father.
The reason I share this today is because I am often asked about how I came to believe what I believe concerning the finished work of Christ. In other words, how I view the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Christ as it relates to what was accomplished for humanity. It's rediscoveries such as these that tell us quite clearly that the early church had a much more complete understanding of redemption, salvation, and adoption. They saw the new birth as something that was performed by Christ. They saw everything that was bound up in the First Adam set free in the Last Adam (Jesus). And what is truly amazing about this discovery for them is that they did it by looking into the Old Testament Scriptures, discussing these truths among themselves, and finding the truth about what God had predetermined to do before the foundation of the world.
Think about the fact that Irenaeus did not have the New Testament letters that we possess today. He had listened to Polycarp who was a disciple of John, but the fact that He came to these conclusions based upon the leadership of the Holy Spirit is remarkable. I'm not saying that he had everything right just like I don't believe any of us have full knowledge. Jesus is the only one who could claim to fully know the Father. The point is that we are all learning, all discovering and rediscovering, and we are all being conformed unto the image of the Son.
I'm not sure when the message changed. I cannot give you a specific point in history when this happened. I do have my own theories. I do believe that Augustine's belief about "dual nature" changed the way we viewed mankind and even salvation. After the reformation, John Calvin and his beliefs about "double predestination" also hurt the message because many began to believe in a God who had elected some to heaven and others to hell. What's amazing about the predestination conversation is that predestination is found in the New Testament but it is the predetermination of God to put us all in Christ so that He could adopt us as His own. We also find in the New Testament that God has completely reconciled Himself to mankind. Nothing can change or alter that. However, if you are never reconciled to God then you will never enjoy this quality of life.
I hope that what I have shared with you today is challenging and refreshing. I hope that you will begin to see what was accomplished in Christ was complete. I hope that your faith is renewed in a good and loving God who has done everything that needed to be done to bring mankind back to His original intention. And I hope that you will enjoy the journey!!!
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