PART
II
"It's Time
for Change"
Theological significance
Philippians
2:6
New King James Version (NKJV)
6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery
to be equal with God,
Galatians 4:4-6
New King James Version (NKJV)
4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born[a] of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
1 Corinthians 2:7-8
New King James Version (NKJV)
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Hebrews 2:17-18
King James Version (KJV)
17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.
2 Corinthians 3:14-18
King James Version (KJV)
14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Philippians 2:4-6
King James Version (KJV)
4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
Galatians 4:4-8
King James Version (KJV)
4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
8 Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
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| Minas Monir |
As I had
personally experienced, any unbalance in understanding who Christ is will
inevitably shake the whole Christian belief. That's why the
Fathers of the Church were carefully using unique and specific terminology for
the creed. They did not imitate or invent a myth but they crafted the template
with which we describe the truth of the revelation recorded in the Scripture.
The work of the Holy Spirit was obvious in their witness to the one truth. This
ensured that terminology didn't take over meaning, but rather it illuminated it.
The
Fathers were not merely debating irrelevant or other-worldly concepts and so
they were mindful of their responsibility to defend the faith carried to us by
the Apostles. This endeavor was the crux of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon.
This time, the question was not one of loyalty to the preferred terminology of a
certain person but of loyalty to the faith. This was the core of St. Leo the
Great’s famous letter best known as the Tome.
In my
opinion, the most important passage in the Tome is number IV. This passage of the Tome summarises the meaning of
the scriptures and echoes Paul’s two famous poetic passages in Philippians 2: 6
and Galatians 4:4-6, which describe how God became man and gathered weakness
with almightiness in His very own Person. St. Leo ends with the conclusion
"…Therefore in consequence of this unity of person which is to be understood
in both natures , we read of the Son of Man also descending from heaven, when
the Son of God took flesh from the Virgin who bore Him. And again the Son of God
is said to have been crucified and buried, although it was not actually in His
Divinity whereby the Only-begotten is co-eternal and con-substantial with the
Father, but in His weak human nature that He suffered these things. And so it is
that in the Creed also we all confess that the Only-begotten Son of God was
crucified and buried, according to that saying of the Apostle: "for if they had
known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glor.” (1 Corinthians
2:8).
The
Chalcedonian creed grew meaningfully in this spirit. Despite the use of classic
patristic terms like "Theotokos" and "hypostasis", it was not
limited by terminology. It managed to be, as Karl Rahner says, “both; a point of
end and beginning. As much as it managed to explain a doctrine and put an end to
nearly two hundred years of controversy, it managed to be the base for a deeper
Christian anthropology in the light of Divine love.”
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| 4th Ecumenical Council held in Chalcedon |
The
"Theanthropic”[1]
Essence
Having
answered my initial question of who is Christ and grounded my understanding of
what that practically means through studying the Council of Chalcedon, I began
to take steps in deepening my concept of faith and spirituality. I found that
there are two kinds of spirituality; a real and a fake one. Real spirituality is
based on Christ as the reality and the cornerstone of the Church. He is Truth
(Jn 14:6) and real spirituality is abiding in Him (1 Jn 2: 28). In contrast,
fake spirituality often emanates from shifting emotional needs. Some people
enact a superficial spirituality out of fear of hell or judgment, while others
seek good deeds to satisfy something inside them or wear a mask like the
Pharisees (Mark 12:40). This appearance of spirituality cannot carry on
permanently and can never be as beautiful or solid as a spirituality based on
the image of the God Man i.e. Theanthropos. When spirituality is deeply
rooted in the knowledge of Christology, we are better equipped to recognize the
beauty and meaningfulness of Christian life.
Here came
the crucial point. I knew that believing in Christ should be based on two
important concepts; firstly, we should understand that incarnation is not only
that the Son assumed flesh in the womb of the Mother of God. That was only the
beginning. Incarnation found its fulfillment when God the Son lived the whole
human experience with all its limitations. Jesus poured from His divine light
into the human experience and delivered it to God as Paul says,
“Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his
brethren … For
in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that
are tempted” (Hebrew 2:17-18). This makes the human form complete and
enables it to be deified. In this way, Christ becomes the Archetype of man and
the goal of a deified humanity. He is Alpha and Omega.
Secondly,
we need to see the divine person. So, the second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity,
that is the Son, took human form. Consequently, our nature is
inside his hypostasis and in this way we meet God, not merely a prophet, because
Jesus is the expression of God's essence (Hebrews 1: 3). That's why when we see
Jesus, “we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord” ( 2 Cor 3:18). St. Leontius of Byzantium used the term
enhypostaton , which means Christ's human nature had never been in a
human person or different person from God, but became personalized in His Divine
hypostasis/person.
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| Christ Pantocrator icon, 6th century, St. Catherine Monastery in Sinai. In His eyes the divine power and love appear together |
It's Time
for Change
Salvation
is crossing to the "other" nature. I remember a beautiful definition of
redemption in the recent book of Pope Benedict XVI, which says, "the disciple
who walks with Jesus is thus caught up with him into communion with God. And
that is what redemption means: this stepping beyond the limits of human nature,
which had been there as a possibility and an expectation in man, God's image and
likeness, since the moment of creation."[2]
This is
the difference that an understanding of Christology made in my life. To believe
in the God-Man is to know how much God loves his creation and especially
mankind. Because He Himself became man living the experience of human nature and
leading it to the divine mode of being even though humans killed him. It's
almost impossible to understand this ultimate self-giving as described by St.
Paul in Philippians 2: 4-6 and continue to treat people with disrespect.
At the
heart of Salvation is the divine inhumanation, whereby God the Father sees His
own Beloved Son's face in human form. Through Jesus' being one among us,[3] God the Father sees us
in His Son. He pours His Spirit in us through his Son, so we partake of His
Sonship (Galatians 4: 4-8). At the same time, in Jesus we see the divine nature,
the Divine prosopon.[4]
The real
meaning of this was beautifully expressed by an interesting story that Henri
Boulad, a Jesuit monk, told us during the first Theological-Ecumenical
Conference in our Church in Egypt. When the Jesuit order in Egypt was preparing
the next issue of its annual magazine, Boulad was asked to choose a picture of
Jesus for the cover. He saw icons and images from here and there but then he
chose a picture of a homeless child he saw in the street. He said when we can
see the divine image in that child and move towards it with love as God did with
us through his incarnation, then we become saved.
So, we
truly accept salvation when we see the divine image of the Son within the
humanity of every human being we meet. Then we can see Christ in them and pour
our love on them, even God pours his divine light through us – His Eucharistic
community - so we become His priests for the new glorified world exactly as Paul
said in Romans 8: 19 - 20.
It is
these concepts that were put into words in the Chalcedonian creed and these same
concepts are exactly those that were rejected by the Non-Chalcedonians, such as
the Coptic Church in which I had been raised. Consequently, they reject the
whole orthodox teaching of salvation as I have come to understand it.[5] In
September 2006, having concluded all of this, I said to myself, "It’s time
for change!" and I was received into communion with the Orthodox Church
where I'm now celebrating and living the fullness of the divine economy and its
2000 years of life and prayers.
Now, if
the same history teacher asked me the question “Who is Jesus?” again, I would
reply with the same answer; Jesus is God and Man. I won’t be perplexed this
time, not because I could reveal the mystery of incarnation but because now I
understand it and accept it by faith. However, I don't think that she will be
less perplexed.
[1] This term is derived from
Theanthropos;
a Greek patristic word that means "The God Man", who is
Christ.
[4] Prosopon means person, in Christ we meet God personally because Christ is not
different to the divine son or even united with him. Christ is the divine person
Himself.
[5] That led to a
series of condemnations inside the Coptic Church against scholars who accepted
deification and salvation as mentioned before. The most famous case is the
excommunication of the prominent scholar George H. Bebawi who serves now under
the Russian Orthodox Church.
thanks to John Sanidopoulos
part I
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