Jack Kilcrease

September 1, 2024September 2, 2024

Christology in the Early Church

A definitive moment in the history of Christology came at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. At Chalcedon, the bishops worked out a formula that balanced the concerns of both the Antiochene and Alexandrian schools of Eastern Christology.

*The attempt of the Council of Chalcedon to balance the integrity of Christ’s two natures with his one unified person*

The Council of Chalcedon Resolves Christological Controversy

Prior to the Council, St. Cyril of Alexandria had supported the formula of “one incarnate nature” (mia physis) to preserve the unity of the person of Christ.¹ To Antiochene theologians, this formula sounded very much like a Docetic denial of the humanity of Christ.² Cyril had never meant to deny the full humanity of Jesus. Rather, he had hoped this formula would affirm Christ’s unitary subjectivity. Lacking later terminological precisions, Cyril used the terms “nature” (physis) in a manner synonymous with “person” (hypostasis or prosopon, i.e., person or center of identity).³

Nevertheless, some drew more extreme implications from Cyril’s formula and promoted a form of overt Docetism. The key figure in this controversy was Eutyches of Constantinople, who held that the two natures in Christ had been melded into a single divine-human hybrid nature.⁴ Many claimed that Eutyches faithfully upheld Cyril’s confession and therefore vindicated him at a second council held at Ephesus (the “Robber Synod”).⁵

Finally, with the encouragement of Pope St. Leo I’s Tome regarding the two natures,⁶ Roman theologians came together at the Council of Chalcedon.⁷ With the Alexandrian school, the Council Fathers emphasized the unity of the person of Christ. With the Antiochene theologians, the Council Fathers strictly adhered to the duality and integrity of the two natures in Christ. In this formula, many might be tempted to see a completion of the doctrine of the person of Christ.⁸

August 25, 2024August 25, 2024

In, With, and Under: Sacramental Union, Not Transubstantiation

Holy Scripture clearly affirms the substantial presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. Yet, throughout the history of the Church, theologians have explained this presence in different ways. In Western Christendom before the Reformation, transubstantiation became the standard doctrine. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 dogmatized transubstantiation as official and infallible Church teaching. The Council of Trent reaffirmed transubstantiation after the Reformation was underway.

Luther On Transubstantiation

*Martin Luther distributing Holy Communion*

Martin Luther took a different approach. In On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther rejected transubstantiation, while still allowing that it could be accepted as a theologoumena. Although he later became more opposed to the doctrine, Luther was never as hostile to transubstantiation as he was to the sacramental teaching of the southern Reformers. This was largely because although transubstantiation is a misguided account of the substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist, it nevertheless affirms the core biblical teaching that Jesus is present in the elements of the Lord’s Supper.

August 16, 2024August 17, 2024

Christ’s Prophetic Proclamation in Hell and to You

Just as Christ’s office as priest logically proceeds from his office as king, so too his office as prophet logically proceeds from his office as priest. Christ actualized his testament of grace by his death on the cross and resurrection on Easter Sunday. As prophet, he delivers that new testament. He thereby fulfills the third function of sacrifice in the Old Testament, namely, the ratification of a covenant/testament. When instituting the Lord’s Supper, Jesus said “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”(Matt. 26:28).

St. Paul writes that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Because Jesus fulfilled the law, he delivers the gospel of unilateral and universal forgiveness, as well as eternal life and bodily resurrection. Since death is the wage of sin, the logical result of the destruction of sin on the cross is the destruction of death. This occurred in Jesus’s bodily resurrection, which actualized and proleptically anticipates the bodily resurrection of all humanity (1 Cor. 15:20). As a prophet, Jesus announced his resurrection victory.

In Deuteronomy 18, Moses spoke of a coming eschatological prophet who would be like him. Those who ignored this prophet’s word would be condemned (Deut. 18). Similarly, because Christ inaugurates a new testament, he is the fulfillment the prophetic role of the Servant written about by Isaiah. In a word, a new exodus and a new Passover Lamb, calls also for a new Moses. Just as Moses sprinkled the children of Israel with the blood of the covenant (Exod. 24:8), so too would the Servant will “sprinkle many nations” (Isa. 52:15).

August 11, 2024August 4, 2024

Did Jesus Intend to Die For You?

One major challenge for post-Enlightenment Christian dogmatics has been New Testament scholars’ doubt that Jesus prophesied his death or intended it to atone for human sin.¹ These same scholars suggest that the post-Easter Church pondered Jesus’s death after the fact and concluded that God must have intended it for some good purpose. Early Christians then developed the idea (found as early as the proto-creedal formulas of Paul, 1 Cor 15:3-4) that Christ died to pay for human sin. Contrary to these claims, a significant amount of evidence demonstrates that Jesus, our High Priest, did believe his mission was to die and that his death would be an atoning sacrifice for sin.

Jesus Was Not A Stoic

Confessional Lutheran theologians can make several responses to the critical scholarly consensus. First, the Gospel authors do not depict Jesus’s passion predictions in a stoic or disinterested manner. The Gospel traditions hand down statements of Jesus that suggest genuine pathos and anxiety about his coming sufferings: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” (Lk 12:49-50).

In this vein, the Synoptic Tradition witnesses to the distressed prayers of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46). In these prayers, Jesus repeatedly asks the Father to change his mission and withdraw the cup that he must drink. The “cup” Jesus speaks of is very clearly a reference to the “cup of wrath” mentioned in a number of Old Testament passages (Isa. 51:17, v.22, Jer. 25:15). Therefore, this “cup” refers to his sacrificial death on the cross.²

August 4, 2024August 7, 2024

Christ’s Priestly Atonement as Fulfillment and Transfer of Righteousness

Jesus’s sacrifice of himself on the cross fulfills the three main functions of sacrifice in the Old Testament: praise, atonement, and covenantal ratification. First, Jesus was able to fulfill God’s law as the one true and obedient representative human. He accomplished this purely as an act of praise to the Father and not out of compulsion or obligation.

Christ possessed the fullness of divine glory and was therefore completely free from the law. Consequently, he was uniquely capable of fulfilling the law as a sacrifice of praise. Jesus is the perfect person of faith (Heb. 12:2-3) who trusted that he shared all things with the Father (Phil. 2:6-7). Therefore, he could perform obedient service not because he had to redeem himself or curry favor with God, but only to glorify the Father: “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (Jn. 17:4).

Christ’s Death as Atoning Sacrifice

Secondly, Jesus’s death was an atoning sacrifice for sins. Under the old covenant, sin entailed death. As St. Paul wrote: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:32). Sin necessarily calls for retribution proportionate to the crime in the form of lex talionis. For example, under the Noahic covenant in Genesis 9, taking life must result in the murderer forfeiting his life (Gen. 9:6). Likewise, under Levitical law, the same principle holds true: “you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Exod. 21:23-25).