Zobel said:

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Anything outside of that Circle is something foreign. I place that Christ Jesus is the unique Son and Word of God who Is before all creation within, and that Arius jingle "there was a time when He was not" without. At any time, in any place, any person who believed that "there was a time when He was not" was in error. This does not make them a heretic to be clear - just in error. That does not place you outside of the Church. It doesn't even mean you lack faith or are a bad person. It just means you know something wrong, or you're ignorant, or were taught incorrectly, or you're using terminology that is incorrect because its use promotes a falsehood. But it also presumes that you - being a normal person - have no direct illumination on this matter. Otherwise you would know it isn't true by experience. This experience and revelation we ascribe to few, which is why not many should teach or presume to theologize. Prior to Nicaea, anyone who believed that Jesus Christ was a creation was in error. They were not heretics. They were not not-Christians. The border of the belief was made clear at Nicaea, and only then can you mark "out" and "in". The Fathers at Nicaea (and all councils) said that they were not creating anything new - the Circle was already there - they were just affirming it.

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This is always interesting to me. How do you think people were able to misinterpret - or re-interpret? - John:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it...The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."

BTW - in the immortal words (almost) of Admiral Ackbar, this is NOT a trap. I've always found this entire debate of the 4th and 5th centuries very interesting. John seems to be very clear - of course, I understand that I'm interpreting this with the benefit of the various councils.

How do you read this and make various arguments that were debated at the councils. other scriptures that could be interpreted the other way - like this one from Matt 24?:

"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

The difference between the invisible church and the Orthodox Church is that we confess there is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church which has an identity relationship with that Circle. That's "fullness of Truth". The RCC says the same, but they say they have fullness of truth. Obviously where there is contradiction someone is wrong. Invisible Church is a flexible doctrine with as meaning meanings as denominations which use it.

I absolutely hold modern Christians to a higher standard. We have an incredible amount of knowledge at our fingertips even in the past few decades that no one before us had. The scriptures always judge people for what they have. It's a sliding scale. I absolutely expect modern people to "know better" because we have centuries of well-defined clarity on these matters. It's no different than the various second temple interpretation of the OT - who the Messiah was, and so on. Many (most? all?) early Christian theological controversies are dealing with these extant interpretations...adoptionism, Arianism, etc...which answer the questions posed by the OT (who is the Messiah? Who is the Word? Who is the Spirit?) but left unanswered until the revelation of the Mystery of Christ. I don't fault pre-Resurrection Jews if they believed something wrong. I don't fault people who lived in later times of less clarity the same.

As for St Athanasius - why do you assume he was a miaphytist or that he taught miaphytism? You have this idea in your head that anyone from Alexandria always taught that. Do you believe all RCC ever going back to the Apostles taught the Filioque? Of course not. So why do you assume that? Why do you assume all people from the east were always Nestorians? I don't think that's true *at all*.

The "closer to the source" doesn't come to bear on this. Formulations of the teaching were always responsive to external pressures. The Doctrine of the Trinity is extant in a kind of nascent form in the pages of the scriptures, it is part of the Apostolic teaching. The exact formulation we use today was developed in response to heresy. Just like the hymn "only begotten Son and Word of God" was composed by St Justinian, but now we sing it every Sunday.

You're making the mistake of identifying the confessions of the faith as the faith. They're different things. One is eternal, the other temporal. There was a time when people used different words to talk about the divinely revealed truths of the Godhead, but the revelation experienced by the saints didn't change because of that.

I think most heresies are in one way or another related to people trying to muscle through divine revelation with human wisdom, or logic. I don't have detailed arguments from Arius. But St John is drawing on extant Jewish tradition about the Word, and Wisdom of God. Here he speaks very similarly to the Wisdom proverbs. St John had an understanding or expectation of who the Word was, and his direct interaction with Christ Jesus not only identified Jesus with the Word, but also imparted a correct understanding of who the Word was.

There were Second Temple Traditions that did not see the Word or Wisdom of God as co-equal with Yahweh, but as an angel, or the first of angels, or the first thing. If, hypothetically, you were trained in that tradition it would be easy to agree completely with St John that Christ Jesus is the Word, but have a different understanding of who the Word was. Especially if you lacked that direct experience. So over time these different ideas can seem like agreement even if they're covering over different underlying understandings. The arbiter is always revelation by the Spirit - experience of God, actual true knowledge of God, which is ineffable. Hence the challenge of language to describe things which are beyond description, and why formulations were so carefully worded, and only when necessary.

Good article on Chalcedon, by the way
http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/mono_share.aspx

So here is where I'm having trouble. You say the faith is eternal, unchanging, and handed down from the Apostles. I understand that. The Apostles spent years with Jesus, received the Holy Spirit and were specifically sent out to start the Church. If the Apostles were wrong about anything, then we're all in such big trouble that it doesn't bear consideration. It also makes sense to me that people closer chronology-wise would be better in-tune with the teaches of the Apostles than those that came later. After all, me trying to guess various meanings in the letters of Paul should have a lot less validity compared to someone who spent years learning under Paul or the students of that student of Paul. More time isn't going to lead to more truth, as it was all already given. So that's an easy logic to follow.

However, later on it gets harder square that with the Councils. Let's take the Nestorians, for instance. If the Apostles said nothing on the subject of how many natures Christ had and whether they were merged or separate, then how is it heresy to have a differing belief on this point? If the Apostles handed down the entirety of the faith, and they were silent on this point, then doesn't it make sense that this is not a critical part of the faith? If someone isn't drawing their authority from the Apostles' teaching, then where does that authority come from in this case? To my poor judgement, it would seem like you would need a new divine revelation to clarify something like that. It seems like a council with trying to get a majority vote is a sort of crass way to deal with potentially Church-fracturing theological mysteries in which there is neither Apostolic teaching or relevant divine revelation.

I can totally see a Council coming together to point to a specific long-time teaching on a subject. The condemnation of Arianism is a good example. It had been a teaching directly from the Apostles and everyone was able to verify that. I don't see that anyone could look at the teachings of the Apostles and come to an concensus of authority on something like myophysitism/miaphysitism/diophysitism.

So you are going with the accretion theory - people are debating about things not in the circle at all.

You say "if the Apostles said nothing on the subject" and "if they were silent on this point" but that is a big if. It also points to a kind of minimalist approach where we have to take silence as permissive, a kind of letter of the law approach where anything outside the law is something we can't comment on.

But I have two issues with this. One, we don't have so many councils that we should ignore the handful of schisms of import. You essentially have three which you'll allow by your "are they still around" test - Nestorianism, Miaphytism, and Papism (which includes filiuoque). So it's not like people were going around and schisming every five minutes over minutiae. Clearly these things they thought were pretty important.

Two, if you'd need to then show that the apostles said nothing on the subject or were silent. But read the Tome of St Leo the Great. At first, he says that he was confused and couldnt understand the matter of dispute (particularly with Eutyches, not between what would become Coptic and Orthodox). However once he grasped the issue, he did not say "well let's infer" or "if you squint" but goes to scripture after scripture, and then after that, refers to supporting quotations of the Fathers.

But even further, what is within my "Circle" cannot be false, by the nature. We accept paradox by the limits of cataphatic theology, but not falsehood. So if a teaching is false it cannot be true. There are some valid disputes over what just amounts to bad philosophy, which is demonstrable false or troublesome logically.

The last thing is a matter of faith. We believe that the Holy Spirit guides the Church to this day. The Spirit is active, living, involved in our daily life. You seem to leave no room whatsoever that the Spirit could guide and lead men and groups of men for the benefit of the Church, even in matters like these. The first council in Acts said "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us". Why do you deny this same agency in the rest of history?

Zobel said:

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So you are going with the accretion theory - people are debating about things not in the circle at all.

You say "if the Apostles said nothing on the subject" and "if they were silent on this point" but that is a big if. It also points to a kind of minimalist approach where we have to take silence as permissive, a kind of letter of the law approach where anything outside the law is something we can't comment on.

But I have two issues with this. One, we don't have so many councils that we should ignore the handful of schisms of import. You essentially have three which you'll allow by your "are they still around" test - Nestorianism, Miaphytism, and Papism (which includes filiuoque). So it's not like people were going around and schisming every five minutes over minutiae. Clearly these things they thought were pretty important.

Two, if you'd need to then show that the apostles said nothing on the subject or were silent. But read the Tome of St Leo the Great. At first, he says that he was confused and couldnt understand the matter of dispute (particularly with Eutyches, not between what would become Coptic and Orthodox). However once he grasped the issue, he did not say "well let's infer" or "if you squint" but goes to scripture after scripture, and then after that, refers to supporting quotations of the Fathers.

But even further, what is within my "Circle" cannot be false, by the nature. We accept paradox by the limits of cataphatic theology, but not falsehood. So if a teaching is false it cannot be true. There are some valid disputes over what just amounts to bad philosophy, which is demonstrable false or troublesome logically.

The last thing is a matter of faith. We believe that the Holy Spirit guides the Church to this day. The Spirit is active, living, involved in our daily life. You seem to leave no room whatsoever that the Spirit could guide and lead men and groups of men for the benefit of the Church, even in matters like these. The first council in Acts said "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us". Why do you deny this same agency in the rest of history?

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I love the discourse going on here…but Zobel slow down…I can't look up some of those terms fast enough. On another note, some of this is discussed in a great podcast 'Pints with Aquinas'.

And just to put my bias out front, I think the Church is fractured. I don't think we have one correct Church and a bunch of more or less heretical sects. I think we have one Church split into a bunch of different branches. Also, if you think Christian unity is important, then I think it has to start with the Churches I've been harping on so far. Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian. You put those groups together and you're basically back to church of 350AD, which doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. So I'm trying to mine your brain to see why that hasn't happened a long time ago, and why it isn't a priority now.

Not touching the other Protestant groups, for reasons I discussed earlier. Protestantism is a mess.

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First, at what point does the Holy Spirit ever in history prior to the Councils help a group of men get a vote correct?

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Acts 15. Don't be hung up on voting. Casting lots makes me a whole lot more nervous that bishops coming together for discussion and consensus.

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Especially when you're espousing a doctrine not taught by the Apostles and the issue ends up fracturing the Church

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This is begging the question. I'm sure you could make a case that way for Arianism. Given the duration, prevalence, stickiness of Arianism in history I'm sure many have.

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You've just said above that the average person today should be judged more harshly than the average person in 300 AD, because we have access to all this knowledge and history at our fingertips. So given that, a council of 100 bishops in the year 325 should be more likely to err than a council of 100 bishops today. Or even a council of 100 well educated Christians today.

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That doesn't follow. I don't expect a bishop of today to be any more or less knowledgeable than a bishop then. A bishop is not an average person.

Again, this is not purely an academic issue. Historical inquiry is a tool, but it is faith which completes our argument. The truth is not based on the tightness of the philosophical position.

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So given that fact, why are the ancient councils inviolate, but the Spirit is not expected to guide modern councils? After all, wouldn't it be good to convene and let the Spirit weight in on some current theological issues?

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Not sure what you mean. By canon there are local synods held every year. Who said the Spirit doesn't guide the Church today, including conciliar activity??

But why are the ancient councils considered inviolate? Because they were accepted by the Church writ large. Councils mean nothing, bishops decrees mean nothing - the Truth is what matters, and He says the Church will not fail. And the church for centuries reaffirmed the canons of Nicaea, the symbol of faith, and so on. It's all linked. If you say, well I like Nicaea but not Chalcedon you're just following Luther (who said I like up to Chalcedon but nothing after, and some of the early I don't really care about either including the prohibition of eating blood in Acts!). The authority argument always comes back around in that way.

Your view seems to me to be incompatible with scripture. When the Pope of the RCC anathematizes the East 7x over, there's clearly an issue.

Zobel said:

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Your view seems to me to be incompatible with scripture. When the Pope of the RCC anathematizes the East 7x over, there's clearly an issue.

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I got anathematized before a colonoscopy recently. Very pleasant (the anathematizing). Not sure why you'd need to do it 7x though.

Sorry. I just couldn't help myself. Please forgive me. Carry on.

(I will say - it's very nice to have a reasonable, measured and thoughtful theological discussion without ad hominem and hysterics. Great reading. If only we were all at a bar.)

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(I will say - it's very nice to have a reasonable, measured and thoughtful theological discussion without ad hominem and hysterics. Great reading. If only we were all at a bar.)

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Zobel is good people, as are most the people around here if your goal is a frank, honest, respectful discussion

The whole wide acceptance of the Councils is sort of the rub, right? If Chalcedon loses the entire Egyptian Patriarchate for 1600+ years, then was it really a great and widely accepted council? And I'd consider Acts to the be the teaching of the Apostles themselves. They may have used a council to determine their teachings, but we're still talking a small number of people, all Apostles, rendering one unanimous judgement. To me that's worlds different than 100 bishops voting on something unprecedented 250+ years later.

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As far as I'm concerned, every Christian with a genuine heart for God and behavior to match is part of Christ's Church. I'd even go so far as to say that there are people in every culture and in every country that lead lives pleasing to God regardless of religion or lack thereof, and I'd say their part of Christ's Church as well. I'm sure there are some violent, cannibal tribes that would make me reconsider, but I very much believe that goodness and Christ is within reach of anyone, anytime, anywhere.

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That's not what the scriptures teach though. I think you should make a distinction between people who are God-pleasing and the Church. They're not the same thing, just like Israel was not the totality of righteous people in OT. And of course I agree Christ is within reach. The statement of who the Church is doesn't limit the Spirit or the activity of Christ in the world. The Church has the fullness of truth, that doesn't mean those without are bereft of truth. St Paul teaches as much at the Areopagus. I don't see what you're saying in the second part as an opposition to what I'm saying.

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The whole wide acceptance of the Councils is sort of the rub, right? If Chalcedon loses the entire Egyptian Patriarchate for 1600+ years, then was it really a great and widely accepted council? And I'd consider Acts to the be the teaching of the Apostles themselves. They may have used a council to determine their teachings, but we're still talking a small number of people, all Apostles, rendering one unanimous judgement. To me that's worlds different than 100 bishops voting on something unprecedented 250+ years later.

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I mean, yes, it was widely accepted by the Church writ large. It was 100 bishops and 13 bishops. That ratio holds true today, they represent around 1/10th of Orthodoxy. The Nestorian churches are less than 1%. But numbers don't mean much, to be fair.

The Council of Jerusalem was not all Apostles. And you don't know if it was unanimous or not. The judgment was said with authority, but that doesn't make it unanimous. And again you're begging the question with what is and isn't apostolic, and what is and isn't unprecedented. You need to show that. St Leo and the fathers at Chalcedon said quite strongly that the formula was scriptural, represented in the fathers, and a faithful witness to the faith of St Cyril. That would make it Apostolic, and not unprecedented at all.

I think the Council of Jerusalem is pretty obviously Apostolic. And I meant all apostles, as in all the people deciding the matter and rendering judgement were Apostles. I said unanimous because there is no mention of a split vote. So either it was a unanimous decision or Luke wanted us to think it was.

Regarding Chalcedon, apparently a significant minority of people with credentials as good as anyone else felt that this statement was not apostolic. So what right does anyone have to tell an entire Patriarchate that they are mistaken? Especially when they are entirely sincere and manifestly following their own tradition? Is majority rule the way that goes? Would you change your deeply held beliefs if a papist majority voted it so? Does the Spirit ever fall with the minority, perhaps in an assaulted bastion of truth scenario?

When I read and learn about all the Apostolic branches, I think they all have a point to an extent when it comes to Christology. I just don't see any way to compare one to another and say "that one is right" and "the rest are all wrong". I mean, if we're going by numbers and Apostolic authority, it's hard to beat the RCC. They have the most devotees and the claim to primacy. If we're going by surviving persecution and adversity, the Assyrians are "lucky" to still exist at all. The Oriental and Greek Orthodox have also endured tremendous adversity and have maintained the ancient faith for a century and a half.

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That's not what the scriptures teach though. I think you should make a distinction between people who are God-pleasing and the Church. They're not the same thing, just like Israel was not the totality of righteous people in OT. And of course I agree Christ is within reach. The statement of who the Church is doesn't limit the Spirit or the activity of Christ in the world. The Church has the fullness of truth, that doesn't mean those without are bereft of truth. St Paul teaches as much at the Areopagus. I don't see what you're saying in the second part as an opposition to what I'm saying.

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I tend to use God's Kingdom, God's Church, and God's People interchangeably. That reflects the idea of Israel as all of these things simultaneously. Since we've already mentioned the Council of Jerusalem, the takeaway to me is that the Apostles weren't so much converting God's people so much as finding them.

I think something that doesn't stick out to most Christians is their decision that people don't need to convert to Judaism to be part of God's Kingdom. It seems obvious to Christians, but that was a crazy ruling. Since Moses, being part of God's Kingdom literally meant being a Hebrew, whether naturally born or converted. Since the only Hebrews left at that point were Jews, being part of God's Kingdom and being Jewish was an identity relationship for nearly a millenium. The Council of Jerusalem said these people didn't need to change their identities to join God's Kingdom. The Holy Spirit had already approved of them being exactly who they were. Notice they only gave a few prohibitions. There is nothing about the Eucharist, baptism, or anything else coming out of the Council. They didn't neglect to require people to follow one religion only to turn around and hold them to a brand new one, especially when they considered Judaism and Christianity the same thing. The Council saying that people didn't need to be Jewish might as well have been them saying people didn't have to be Christian.

If you want to call people of the Christian religion the Levites of God's Kingdom, then I can go along with that.

We know not everyone there was Apostles. We don't see if they voted, how they voted, if they voted, if people dissented. You don't know that the only people "rendering judgment" were the Apostles. We just get a couple of speeches (in rhetorical style by St Luke...) and the letter that goes out. I agree that you get what St Luke wants you to get. That's part of the historical style of the day. I don't think any of the speeches are verbatim or exhaustive - just representative.

At Chalcedon 13 bishops did not accept the definition of the 520 present. I don't know if less than 3% is a significant minority in your opinion or not. It's within striking distance of 314-2 at Nicaea, no? But you accept that without blinking. And again, I'm not even sure that it is "majority rules" kind of thing.

Is sincerity the judge of truth? Pelagius was, by all accounts quite sincere and pious. Extremely so, even. Does that make him right? Surely the Pharisees of the Lord's day were as well. Is zeal the metric?

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Would you change your deeply held beliefs if a papist majority voted it so?

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No. That doesn't make me right, though, which is kind of the issue.

Does the Spirit fall with the minority? Sure, St Maximos was tortured for his beliefs, definitely against the majority. But now he is recognized as a saint and his tormentors recognized as incorrect.

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I just don't see any way to compare one to another and say "that one is right" and "the rest are all wrong".

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Don't make it a binary and it won't bother you so much.

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I mean, if we're going by numbers

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we're not, but you seem to be. As I said, numbers don't mean much. See: all of the OT and the faithful remnant.

At most of the ecumenical council the "two sides" made mutually exclusive claims. They can't all be right.

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Notice they only gave a few prohibitions. There is nothing about the Eucharist, baptism, or anything else coming out of the Council.

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The prohibitions were a strict reading of Leviticus. The requirements were those in the Torah which were required not only of the Sons of Israel but of aliens and foreigners (i.e., everyone).

I can't emphasize strongly enough that you're crossing categories concerning the requirements of the Torah with the Eucharist and baptism. In the Torah for Israel are circumcision and celebrating the Passover optional? What makes an Israelite an Israelite? Not blood - never from the start. But if you are Israel, you must celebrate the Passover and you must be circumcised to do so. Likewise with Christians. You must celebrate the Passover - Christ Jesus sacrificed for us (1 Cor 5:7) - and you must be baptized to do so. St Paul letters are beyond clear in this matter.

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The Council saying that people didn't need to be Jewish might as well have been them saying people didn't have to be Christian.

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Completely confused. How does applying the Torah directly to people somehow abrogate it? St Paul never says so. Christ denies it. The Torah is firmly in place, St Paul alludes to it in a casuistic way (do not muzzle the ox...). The Council affirmed the Torah, established it - and understood its purpose.

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If you want to call people of the Christian religion the Levites of God's Kingdom, then I can go along with that.

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No. The difference is in the purpose, as mentioned above. For what purpose was the Torah given to Israel? St Paul tells you, the Torah tells you. It was to manage sin and provide means for Israel to have fellowship with Yahweh, for Yahweh to dwell among them. It was a beachhead in the world, a small cleansed area of holiness in the larger world. It was a base for the new people Israel to act as a priesthood to the world, to represent Yahweh to the nations and to bring the nations before Yahweh (it is no accident that 70 bulls, one for each nation, are sacrificed during Sukkot). When Christ is the Atonement what was not clean, covered, was made clean by His blood. He was both goats, the goat who took on the sin and the goat for Yahweh. Except it was the perfect, hapax atonement that cleansed not only the temple, not only the people of Israel, but the whole world. God's kingdom is then the whole world, and all people are reclaimed. The fulfillment of Passover is the freedom of bondage to demons not of the Hebrews to the gods of Egypt but of all mankind from all of the powers and principalities of the world. That's why all authority on heaven and on earth has been given to Him.

Thus there is no bar to the nations from coming to worship. Before the gentiles were barred, because they were unclean. Now they are not, and they are able and willing to be sought by God, as St Paul tells the Areopagus - the time for ignorance is gone, now is the time to draw near. What keeps us from being baptized - the new circumcision - asks the Eunuch? Nothing. He couldn't go to the Temple, but he can be the living Temple. This is why here there is no Jew or Greek. That is the significance. All become the people of God. Christians are the priesthood and there's no distinction between the people of God and the priesthood - there never was.

But priesthood is that same act of Israel I described - representing God to the world and offering the world back to God. Anyone can do this, like you say, anyone who loves and faithfully reflects God to others, in self sacrifice, in creation, in making new life.

Read carefully when the people of God in the OT are called the Qahal - the Assembly - the Ekklesia. The Church. It is not in the abstract... it is when they are assembled, often translated "gathered". You can't have a gathering without people coming together. This is why St Paul says "when you come together as Church" and it is in a eucharistic context. That sentence doesn't make sense if Church is always there abstract thing.

Also that was preachy as hell so sorry. Honestly I get really excited by the beautiful image St Paul paints when you really *see* the fulfillment of Atonement, Passover, all Israel and how it all just fits together with the OT. It's amazing.

The true church is clearly a remnant, and is not strictly limited to a set of believers of a given subset of denominations/followers of a set of ecumenical councils/doctrines:

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God's sovereign choice as to whom He will save can also be seen in the New Testament: "Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: 'Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. For the Lord will carry out His sentence on earth with speed and finality'" (Romans 9:27-28). This implies that great multitudes of the Israelites would be cast off. If only a remnant was to be saved, many must be lost, and this was just the point which Paul was endeavoring to establish. While the word remnant means "what is left," particularly what may remain after a battle or a great calamity, in this verse, it means "a small part or portion." Out of the great multitude of the Israelites, there will be so few left as to make it proper to say that it was a mere remnant.

Of course, the most blessed remnant is that of the true Church, the body of Christ, chosen out of the millions who have lived and died over the centuries. Jesus made it clear that this remnant would be small when compared to the number of people on the earth throughout history. "Many" will find the way to eternal destruction, but "few" will find the way to eternal life (Matthew 7:13-14). We who believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior can, with great peace, rest in the fact that we belong to the "remnant."

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Amen to that.

Zobel said:

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Also that was preachy as hell so sorry. Honestly I get really excited by the beautiful image St Paul paints when you really *see* the fulfillment of Atonement, Passover, all Israel and how it all just fits together with the OT. It's amazing.

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Wouldn't you say that the EO in general is "covenantal" in terms of theology vs. "dispensational"? Your writing fits very nicely with the covenantal view (which I believe is really the only way to see things of course ) Is it possible to be either? As I write this I wonder about the RCC as well?

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I just don't see any way to compare one to another and say "that one is right" and "the rest are all wrong".

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Don't make it a binary and it won't bother you so much.

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At most of the ecumenical council the "two sides" made mutually exclusive claims. They can't all be right.

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Zobel said:

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Also that was preachy as hell so sorry. Honestly I get really excited by the beautiful image St Paul paints when you really *see* the fulfillment of Atonement, Passover, all Israel and how it all just fits together with the OT. It's amazing.

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No worries. I'm guilty of the same often enough. Will get back to you when I have downtime

I meant two sides making mutually exclusive claims about one thing doesn't make one side ALL WRONG on everything else.

I'm really not sure what those two terms mean. I would say that the covenant of Sinai in blood is renewed and fulfilled in the blood of the Eucharist. Does that help?

Zobel said:

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I'm really not sure what those two terms mean. I would say that the covenant of Sinai in blood is renewed and fulfilled in the blood of the Eucharist. Does that help?

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This is a good summary. I'd be curious about and thankful for your thoughts on it if you have time to skim it. I would guess that the EO is much closer to the covenant side of things.

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-does-john-piper-believe-about-dispensationalism-covenant-theology-and-new-covenant-theology

(It's got a little about what Piper thinks, but mostly it's a good basic summary of the positions).

Definitely not the first or third one. Covenant seems closest on that list.

Zobel said:

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I meant two sides making mutually exclusive claims about one thing doesn't make one side ALL WRONG on everything else.

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So then I need you to clarify. Do you consider Oriental Orthodox, RCC, and Assyrians as Christians? I'm fine with a "they are Christians too, but they hold to errors" point of view. But in that case, isn't Christianity clearly divided? Your comment that Christianity isn't divided is what kicked off my whole confusion. Either only one of the branches is Christian, and therefore undivided, or all are Christians and all are divided. I don't see another option. If only Orthodox are Christian, then I don't see what criteria an outsider could use to make that determination given the similar claims of the other groups above.

I should also be more fair to the Assyrians. I heard a talk given by an Assyrian bishop a few years back. They aren't Nestorians and don't agree with the argument about separate natures of Christ. The schism occurred because they refused to condemn Nestorius. They were sympathetic to him, because the Greek word theotokos doesn't translate directly into Assyrian. The translation becomes literally "Mother of God" and that gets into all kinds of theological troubled waters. It was a real problem for the Assyrians when trying to explain their faith. So it really boils down to a language issue and a refusal to condemn. That bishop said he had spoken with Catholic and Orthodox bishops about Christology and found there were in agreement once the language issue was resolved. Sorry, just a tangent I found fascinating.

Zobel said:

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Notice they only gave a few prohibitions. There is nothing about the Eucharist, baptism, or anything else coming out of the Council.

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The prohibitions were a strict reading of Leviticus. The requirements were those in the Torah which were required not only of the Sons of Israel but of aliens and foreigners (i.e., everyone).

I can't emphasize strongly enough that you're crossing categories concerning the requirements of the Torah with the Eucharist and baptism. In the Torah for Israel are circumcision and celebrating the Passover optional? What makes an Israelite an Israelite? Not blood - never from the start. But if you are Israel, you must celebrate the Passover and you must be circumcised to do so. Likewise with Christians. You must celebrate the Passover - Christ Jesus sacrificed for us (1 Cor 5:7) - and you must be baptized to do so. St Paul letters are beyond clear in this matter.

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The Council saying that people didn't need to be Jewish might as well have been them saying people didn't have to be Christian.

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Completely confused. How does applying the Torah directly to people somehow abrogate it? St Paul never says so. Christ denies it. The Torah is firmly in place, St Paul alludes to it in a casuistic way (do not muzzle the ox...). The Council affirmed the Torah, established it - and understood its purpose.

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If you want to call people of the Christian religion the Levites of God's Kingdom, then I can go along with that.

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No. The difference is in the purpose, as mentioned above. For what purpose was the Torah given to Israel? St Paul tells you, the Torah tells you. It was to manage sin and provide means for Israel to have fellowship with Yahweh, for Yahweh to dwell among them. It was a beachhead in the world, a small cleansed area of holiness in the larger world. It was a base for the new people Israel to act as a priesthood to the world, to represent Yahweh to the nations and to bring the nations before Yahweh (it is no accident that 70 bulls, one for each nation, are sacrificed during Sukkot). When Christ is the Atonement what was not clean, covered, was made clean by His blood. He was both goats, the goat who took on the sin and the goat for Yahweh. Except it was the perfect, hapax atonement that cleansed not only the temple, not only the people of Israel, but the whole world. God's kingdom is then the whole world, and all people are reclaimed. The fulfillment of Passover is the freedom of bondage to demons not of the Hebrews to the gods of Egypt but of all mankind from all of the powers and principalities of the world. That's why all authority on heaven and on earth has been given to Him.

Thus there is no bar to the nations from coming to worship. Before the gentiles were barred, because they were unclean. Now they are not, and they are able and willing to be sought by God, as St Paul tells the Areopagus - the time for ignorance is gone, now is the time to draw near. What keeps us from being baptized - the new circumcision - asks the Eunuch? Nothing. He couldn't go to the Temple, but he can be the living Temple. This is why here there is no Jew or Greek. That is the significance. All become the people of God. Christians are the priesthood and there's no distinction between the people of God and the priesthood - there never was.

But priesthood is that same act of Israel I described - representing God to the world and offering the world back to God. Anyone can do this, like you say, anyone who loves and faithfully reflects God to others, in self sacrifice, in creation, in making new life.

Read carefully when the people of God in the OT are called the Qahal - the Assembly - the Ekklesia. The Church. It is not in the abstract... it is when they are assembled, often translated "gathered". You can't have a gathering without people coming together. This is why St Paul says "when you come together as Church" and it is in a eucharistic context. That sentence doesn't make sense if Church is always there abstract thing.

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Lots of good stuff here. I'm Messianic. I obviously agree that the Council was not trying to abrogate the Torah. The Torah itself condemns anyone who speaks against it, and the Apostles were all Torah-observant Jews. I was never trying to imply that. The Torah is still the most comprehensive account of what God considers good action for humans, even considering the changes in the world since.

Yet Acts says clearly that the Judaizers wanted to make all Gentile believers get circumcised and follow the Law of Moses. This makes sense. The earliest Christians were Jewish, and Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. So it makes sense that converts would need to become Jewish. None of the new sect considered themselves anything but Jewish at that point. They were called Christians by the Greeks, but that's just a direct translation of Messianics into that language. None of them thought they were starting a brand new religion to replace the old Jewish one.

Yet even then, even thinking that they were the most correct of all the Jews and champions of the true Jewish faith and Jewish Messiah, they didn't require converts to become Jewish. There was a place in their church for people wholly different from themselves and no requirement that they homogenize. They put down a few rules to allow mutual worship, as the prohibitions given were common practices in pagan Greek worship. Basically, "you can worship with us as you are, but these worship practices of yours are evil and offensive to us. So don't do those things and we're all good"

That gets into Paul's letters later on. Many of the Gentiles they were converting were already good people. You don't need to tell every new convert to love their neighbor as themselves, plenty of people of all cultures and times already do that. Same with exalting truth, justice, charity, kindess, and love. These people didn't need a Torah to tell them how to be good people. They were already following a Torah of sorts by being the best people they could be in their current circumstances. God accepted these good people by giving them the Holy Spirit.

So we know that among the Greeks and many other peoples there existed good, God-approved people. I contend this is true everywhere. So what about the people living in Australia, Japan, or the Americas in 50AD? If the Apostles could have reached them, then I'm certain they would have found many more such people. I'd go so far as to call them God's people. So why are the Greeks of 50AD that joined the Apostles considered part of the Church while the Chinese in 50AD that would have joined the Apostles,if only they had the opportunity, not considered part of the Church? What else is the Church if not God's people? Does the accident of birth mean that some Greeks are in the Church and some south Africans are not, but are instead included in some other, lesser category that is beloved by God but not in the Church? If so, what sort of reasoning (Scriptural, traditional, logical, or spiritual) makes you say that?

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Do you consider Oriental Orthodox, RCC, and Assyrians as Christians? I'm fine with a "they are Christians too, but they hold to errors" point of view. But in that case, isn't Christianity clearly divided? Your comment that Christianity isn't divided is what kicked off my whole confusion. Either only one of the branches is Christian, and therefore undivided, or all are Christians and all are divided. I don't see another option. If only Orthodox are Christian, then I don't see what criteria an outsider could use to make that determination given the similar claims of the other groups above.

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This is kind of getting into semantics I think. It depends on what you mean by Christian, like I said. There's probably a minimalist and maximalist definition, and any line is going to be based on that. I would say they are heterodox. There is a line for what beliefs actually disqualify you from a position both in an additional (there are other gods equal to Yahweh, for example) and subtractive (insufficient belief or understanding of God) way. I don't feel any need to draw those lines. My statements are affirmations about the Church having the fullness of truth, not what portion of truth others have. I'm not going to say that any Trinitarian group isn't Christian.

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The translation becomes literally "Mother of God" and that gets into all kinds of theological troubled waters

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I mean... that's what theotokos means. "One who gives birth to God" would be woodenly literal, but last time I checked that was completely identical to mother. She is truly Theotokos, because she really gave birth to Christ, and He is fully God and fully Man. I find this confusing.

Right - the problem with the Judaizers is that they wanted the nations to become Jews, not understanding that the nations were coming to God as people. Israel didn't assimilate the nations, all nations become part of Israel, if that follows.

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They put down a few rules to allow mutual worship, as the prohibitions given were common practices in pagan Greek worship. Basically, "you can worship with us as you are, but these worship practices of yours are evil and offensive to us. So don't do those things and we're all good"

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No, they neither added or subtracted. They literally followed Leviticus - for example "you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you." This type of instruction is not there for dietary laws or circumcision for example. But no one in the land could do what was prohibited.

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What else is the Church if not God's people?

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The Church is the assembled people of God.

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The Church is the assembled people of God.

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I like that a lot