Lessons from Church History: Part 2

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
"See, this is new"?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
Ecclesiastes 1:8-9

Why is the study of church history so vital for the health of the church today? Because there is nothing that the church in the 21st century is currently dealing with that the church hasn't dealt with at some point in the past (in one form or another). There is nothing new under the sun.

In 431, the council of Ephesus was convened. Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople, had been strongly advocating for the teaching that Christ has two persons. He did so to correct the false teachings of those who were seeking to essentially deify and glorify Mary because she was "the Mother of God" (Theotokos). Nestorius sought to correct this false teaching by claiming that Mary was the mother of Jesus, but not the mother of the Son of God. But, in so strongly opposing one false teaching (the deification of Mary), he himself fell into another false teaching by implying that Jesus has two persons. The council of Ephesus brought clarity to the issue by denying that Jesus has two natures and subsequently condemning Nestorius as a false teacher.

In 451, the council of Chalcedon confirmed what had been agreed upon at the council of Ephesus, namely, that Jesus has two distinct natures (human and divine) that are united in His one person, which is what we have come to know today as the hypostatic union.

The history of the church in general, not just the specific example of Nestorius, has confirmed that false teaching is the result not just of denying a particular biblical truth but of overemphasizing one biblical truth to the exclusion of another, which is why we must demonstrate great care in embracing a balanced view of the multifaceted teachings of Scripture.

I've been teaching through Paul's letter to the Romans and we've spent the past couple of months in chapters 9 and 10, where Paul is explaining why so many ethnic Israelites haven't come to faith in Christ . In chapter 9, Paul's argument emphasizes the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. In other words, the reason so many Israelites don't trust Jesus is because God has chosen some for salvation but not all. In chapter 10, Paul's argument emphasizes human responsibility in salvation. In other words, the reason so many Israelites don't trust Jesus is because the majority of them are self-righteous and hard-hearted, refusing to believe that Jesus is the Messiah even though many Gentiles are putting their faith in Jesus.

Historically, this tension between the absolute sovereignty of God and human responsibility in salvation has resulted in two factions: Calvinism (which emphasizes God's sovereignty, named after John Calvin) and Arminianism (which emphasizes human responsibility, named after Jacobus Arminius).

An overemphasis on God's sovereignty (I'm not saying this is necessarily true of Calvin or of all who embrace Calvinism) often concludes that since God has only chosen some people to be saved and not all, then when the Bible says that God is "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" (2 Peter 3:9) or that God "desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4) or that God "so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16), the "all" must be referring only to those God has chosen and not all human beings.

An overemphasis on human responsibility (I'm not saying this is necessarily true of Arminius or of all who embrace Arminianism) often concludes that since all human beings have the choice to either trust Jesus or reject Jesus, then when the Bible talks about names being "written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain" (Revelation 13:8) or being "chosen in [Christ] before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4) or "those whom [God] foreknew [and] predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son" (Romans 8:29), it must mean that before He created the world, God was able to "look down the corridors of time," see those who would trust Jesus, and it is those people He predestined, writing their names down in the Lamb's book of life.

Overemphasis on any particular biblical truth to the exclusion of another is usually the result of trying to force everything the Bible teaches to conform to our reason. We reason like this, "Since God chooses only some people to be saved, He can't possibly want all people to be saved. Since all human beings are responsible for whether they trust Jesus or not, God can't possibly be the one who ultimately determines that choice. Since Mary is a human being, she can't possibly be the mother of God."

But it really is true that God chooses only some people to be saved and at the same time He wants all people to be saved. It really is true that human beings are responsible for whether they trust Jesus or not and at the same time God has already unalterably determined who will trust Jesus and who will reject Him. It really is true that Mary is the mother of God and at the same time is only a human being. It really is true that Jesus, being fully God and fully man, has two separate, distinct natures and at the same time He is only one person.

Why? Because the Bible says so.

Whether we can make complete sense of it or not is irrelevant. And, if we're not careful, our insatiable desire to make complete sense of it all will inevitably lead us to embrace false teaching or, worse, to become false teachers.

There's nothing new under the sun. So let's learn from church history and embrace all that the Bible teaches without trying to force it to conform to our reason, instead asking God to transform us by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).