Theological Term of the Week: Athanasius

Athanasius 
The bishop of Alexandria who became “the outstanding champion of Nicene theology in the East” and who was “one of the greatest and most influential thinkers in the history of the Christian Church.”1 He lived from 296-373.

• From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power by N. H. Needham:

Athanasius’s whole theology was centred on the docrine of salvation. In common with Eastern Christians generally, Athanasius understood salvation to mean deification — Christ the Savior makes human beings divine. This did not mean that Christ actually changed the believer’s human nature into God’s nature, but that human nature was lifted up by grace, through Christ, to share in the glory and immortality of God. 2 Peter 1:4 was a favourite text, where Peter describes Christians as “partakers of the divine nature”. How, Athanasius asked, could Christ make human nature divine if He Himself was less than God? Salvation means union with God’s life — human nature sharing in the glory of God’s nature. Therefore if Christ is humankind’s Saviour,  He must be God and man in one person; in Christ the God-man, humanity has been lifted up into the very life of God. Athanasius also argued from the fact that Christians worship Christ. How can we worship Him, Athanasius asked, unless He is God? If we are worshipping a created being, we are committing idolatry.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: Who was Athanasius?
2. Christian History: Athanasius
3. Michael A. G. Haykin: 10 Things You Should Know About Athanasius
4. John Piper: Contending for Our All
5. Ryan Reeves: Who Was Athanasius and Why Is He Important?
6. Nick Needham:  Athanasius and the Deity of Christ: Part 1 and Part 2 (videos)
7. Athanasius: On the Incarnation (pdf)

Related terms:

• Ambrose of Milan
• Apollinarius
• Augustine of Hippo
• Basil of Caesarea
• Cappadocian fathers
• Columba
• Cyril of Alexandria
• Gregory of Nanzianzus
• Gregory of Nyssa
• Gregory the Great
• Hilary of Poitiers
• Irenaeus of Lyons
• Jerome
• John Chrysostom
• Justin Martyr
• Maximus the Confessor
• Monica
• Nestorius
• Origen
• Patrick
• Pelagius
• Sabellius
• Tertullian
• Venerable Bede, The

Filed under Christian History

1From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power by N. R. Needham.

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Sunday's Hymn: Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder

Let us love, and sing, and wonder,
Let us praise the Saviour’s name!
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder,
He has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame;
He has washed us with his blood,
He has brought us nigh to God.

Let us love the Lord who bought us,
Pitied us when enemies,
Called us by his grace, and taught us,
Gave us ears and gave us eyes:
He has washed us with his blood,
He presents our souls to God.

Let us sing, though fierce temptation
Threaten hard to bear us down!
For the Lord, our strong salvation,
Holds in view the conqueror’s crown,
He who washed us with his blood,
Soon will bring us home to God.

Let us wonder; grace and justice
Join, and point to mercy’s store;
When through grace in Christ our trust is,
Justice smiles, and asks no more:
He who washed us with his blood,
Has secured our way to God.

Let us praise, and join the chorus
Of the saints enthroned on high;
Here they trusted him before us,
Now their praises fill the sky:
“Thou hast washed us with thy blood;
Thou art worthy, Lamb of God!”

—John Newton

Other hymns, worship songs, or quotes for this Sunday:

• Let Every Lamp Be Burning Bright at The Happy Wonderer

What Are Dead Works?

 

For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh,  how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:13–14 ESV)

I host a Bible study on the New Testament book of Hebrews in my home, and a couple of months ago, we discussed these verses. We asked (and tried to answer) several questions about this text, questions like, “What’s up with sprinkling heifer ashes?” and “What does it mean to purify the flesh?” The question that intrigued me the most seems simpler than either of those: What exactly are the dead works that Jesus’s blood cleanses from our conscience?” 

Because I’m a reformed protestant, I see the word works in the Bible and automatically think of acts someone does to try to improve their standing before God. Some may give money to charity, for instance, or help the poor, or attend church in hopes of gaining God’s favour. Others perform religious rites, like (since it’s the season) giving up something for Lent. We could call these “dead works” in the sense that they cannot bring life. They will not gain God’s favor. No matter how many good works we do, we cannot perform ourselves into a better standing before God.

A couple of the commenters and preachers I read to prepare for the Bible study thought the dead works in this text were exactly these sorts of acts. Others thought the phrase referred to acts done in accordance with the Old Testament ceremonial system. S. Lewis Johnson, for instance, said dead works are “Levitical works. They have no power, really, to bring life. That’s why they are dead.” 

Neither of these answers to the question of the meaning of dead works in Hebrews 9:14 satisfied me. According to this verse, people needed to be cleansed from the inner defilement their dead works caused. Was a faithful Jew defiled inwardly by keeping all the Levitical laws? Considered in themselves without regard to motive, do giving to charity, helping the poor, and going to church defile us? I don’t think so.

I’ve concluded that the actual meaning of dead works in this passage is simpler than either of these explanations. The phrase “dead works” is used one other time in Hebrews, and this text helps explain what the author means by it: 

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, (Hebrews 6:1 ESV)

The writer of Hebrews says “repentance from dead works and faith toward God” is a foundational truth of the Christian faith. It’s his formula for the gospel. It means the same thing as “repentance from sin and faith in Jesus.” Dead works in Hebrews, then, are simply sinful acts. They are dead because they bring death. They are dead because they result in the condemnation of God. The NIV translates “dead works” as “acts that lead to death” and I think that’s exactly what it means. 

Our sinful acts defile our consciences, and Jesus’s sacrifice cleanses that defilement. The Levitical sacrifices effected cleansing from physical defilement, like the defilement that came from close contact with death, but they could not clean the inner defilement that came from intentional disobedience.

And—carrying on with the verse—a conscience purified by Jesus’s sacrifice is set free to serve the living God. We work for God, not to make ourselves clean, but because we have already been made clean. As the outflow of a cleansed conscience, we joyfully do the good works the living God prepared for us to do.