Church Councils & Controversies

So this is lesson number seven in the book Forerunners of the Faith.

Lesson number seven is titled Controversies and Councils. Doctrinal debates in the late patristic period and early

Middle Ages. So if you want to look at the key verse this is from 2nd John.

2nd John only has one chapter so 2nd John 9 it says anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have

God. The one who abides in the teaching he has both the Father and the

Son. So section number one is titled Contending for the Truth.

There's a lot of review in this from lesson five so we're going to kind of go through the first Council of Nicaea.

We're going to go through that quickly since we've already talked about it but just as a an introduction it says the

New Testament predicts the coming of false teachers who seek to undermine the truth and distort sound doctrine from within the church.

In Matthew 7 15 Jesus warned beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

And going through this I mean I really feel like I've just been talking about this so much over the past I don't know how long.

I start to think to myself you know am I talking about it too much? Obviously we had the controversy here locally this past year and I pray 2024 we don't hear any more about it.

It's probably unlikely but you know the point of bringing it up is here it is.

Just wherever you turn this subject it's in the book it's in the Bible whatever

New Testament letter you're reading through they all address this subject except for Philemon.

So again I know I've said it before I'll say it again it's a major theme in the

Bible especially the New Testament. So hey if you feel like I'm talking about it too much you see it in the book right?

Like this isn't just another opportunity for me to talk about my favorite subject or anything.

Larry. Yeah and so that everybody is kind of solid on this topic and then you can go out and just you know you'll be able to pass this along.

The importance of the subject Acts 20 verses 28 through 31 says in the book the

Apostle Paul similarly instructed the Ephesian elders be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock

I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them therefore be on alert and I can only imagine what the

Apostle Paul would say this past week when you you all heard the news that the

Pope declared that the Catholic Church will now officially bless same -sex unions that is officially their doctrine now.

So what would the Apostle Paul say? Yeah men speaking perverse things.

This is what he said back then so I can only imagine what he would say. Peter told his readers so you see

Jesus talked about it Paul talked about it Peter talked about it second Peter 2 1 but false prophets also arose among the people just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies even denying the master who bought them bringing swift destruction upon themselves and notice it says they will secretly introduce destructive heresies well how gonna be secret if they're teaching it to the congregation here's how they start little you know it's incremental steps a pastor says something in a sermon you're like what that doesn't sound right but there's plausible deniability where if you talk to him well that's not really what

I meant but he gets away with it so the next time he takes it a step further than a step further and then a step and then you know five years down the road it's like the frog in the pot of boiling water you don't realize that it's too late until it's too late so that's how they do it incremental steps second

John 7 the Apostle John explained that many deceivers have gone out into the world those who do not acknowledge

Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh this is a deceiver and the Antichrist and then

Jude warns about people who crept in unaware okay so point being what like all the

Apostles of Jesus talked about it all the New Testament books are talking about it so it says as errors arose in the early centuries of church history the true church responded by defending what

Scripture teaches and clearly articulating the truth in the face of heretical attack so the main thing in the early church today we're dealing with our own issues back in the early church who is

Jesus his person his work his nature human nature divine nature that was the big subject early on today that should just be a given we shouldn't have to go back and debate about because it's already been settled so now we're dealing with new things but back then it's mainly the person of and this is the most important subject who is

Jesus making sure you get that right says here this should be in your book as well after the

Emperor Constantine brought peace to Christians living in the Roman Empire in the early 4th century church leaders were able to address the major heresies of their day by organizing what what did you have written in yes synods and councils synods and councils yeah you've maybe heard of the

Missouri Synod if you're gonna hear that word today it's like the council for the

Lutheran Church I think it's one of the denominations so synods and councils somebody asked me our our church is still having councils today well as far as an ecumenical council where the entire church comes together no because the church is fractured right you have the

Catholic Church Protestants Independent Church it like it would be impossible to bring every professing church and of course we're not even recognizing each other as legitimate churches anymore so Catholics and Protestants wouldn't come together but back in the early days before the

Roman Catholic Church was a thing they had ecumenical council so all the counts all the churches in the

Empire came together that is still happening within the Catholic Church the last council they call it an ecumenical council it was what and when did it happen who knows it was that called

Vatican to and it happened in the 1960s so this is where the

Catholic Church radically changed in the 1960s but denominations are still doing this they're coming together in discussing important issues but again it's within denominations that this still occurs yes yeah so we had

I told you about this we had 14 different evangelical churches all come together in November and we held something like a church council and we all were in agreement except like maybe one guy was sort of in agreement but maybe not time will tell but churches can

I would call it a council I mean it was it was unofficial because every church is independent so it's not it's not like we're a denomination and it's binding because any church can decide what what they want to do at any given moment but yeah

I would call it a council it's very small on a local level but that is the right way to determine things like we can handle things in our church the pastor the deacons and the members can all get together and deal with something if we have to deal with it but when it's affecting all the churches in the county or potentially could affect all the church that's the right way to do it for all the pastors to come together and that's what took place so in a sense we are doing that as well okay so the largest of these councils were organized by the

Emperor's themselves and involved church leaders from all over the Roman world these councils are known as quote what ecumenical ecumenical councils because they included all the churches in the

Empire so the word ecumenical back then it it has a different meaning today when you hear the word ecumenical what does that mean yeah ecumenical what it is originally ecumenical meant just the churches in the area came together today we think of it as in Presbyterians working with Baptists working with Methodists working with which is good it's fine as long as all these churches are actually preaching the truth so you know that's the sticking point but because if you said that the reason why

I say it's bad today or why some people think it's bad is because some churches some people want to set aside doctrine that it really doesn't matter what you believe we're just going to set doctrine aside and all come together in unity well if you don't have unity in doctrine you don't really have unity so it's a fake superficial unity where you just smile and get along well our unity is in what it's it's in Christ so it's important we have the same doctrine the doctrine of Christ okay in church history seven ecumenical councils are generally recognized and there's a whole bunch of other

Roman Catholic councils that we do not recognize but there are seven councils that typically even

Protestants would recognize the central theological issues addressed at those seven councils centered on the person of Jesus Christ in this lesson we will focus on the three most important of these seven councils the

Council of Nicaea who's heard of that council of course you have you we already covered it less than five next the

Council of Constantinople in 381 who's heard of that okay a few less and then the

Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD who's heard of Chalcedon okay now you're getting down into one or two so the the other four councils will be summarized briefly at the end okay so it says read 2nd

John 7 through 11 someone want to look that up and read it 2nd

John 7 through 11 in that passage what was the primary doctrinal issue that the false teachers were distorting who has it wants to read it

Aaron go ahead speak speak loudly so we can all hear okay so what's the primary issue being well the doctrine of Christ but what seemed to be the problem what was being denied yeah they his humanity that he came in the flesh today if the church is going to deny

Christ usually they're denying his deity but back then it was it was this it was a big issue of denying his humanity okay so let's just quickly review the

Council of Nicaea because like I said we already covered it in lesson 5 so I don't want to spend a lot of time on it it says in your book the key issue was the deity of Christ the context go back see lesson 5 but this is basically areas the false well he was a priest or a bishop and he areas taught the false doctrine basically denying the deity of Christ saying that Christ was lesser than God the

Father he was not of the same substance so basically areas held to the view that Christ was a created being and this is known as the

Aryan heresy and today the Jehovah's still believe in the

Aryan heresy they deny the deity of Christ also 7th day Adventist there's a large section of their church that also is

Aryan and denies that now not all of them believe that but a lot of them do so this is still a problem even today yes a r i a n yeah so this is areas a r i u s is his name it's not like Aryan ism with like the

Nazis like that's a totally separate thing right well it's pronounced

Aryan if I misspelled it before it is Aryan ism is typically how it's so denying the deity of Christ Jesus was a created being areas was condemned as a heretic at the

Council of Nicaea and out came the Nicene Creed which we already discussed one point

I do want to bring up again this is Christmas Eve and a lot of people have this tradition part of Christmas where they believe in Santa Claus or tell their kids about Santa that's a whole other subject that I'd love to talk about but then

I'd make people mad so then I don't but Santa Claus is based on this historic figure named st.

Nicholas who is a bishop at the Council of Nicaea and the story goes that he actually smacked areas in the face because areas with this was the heretic denying the deity of Christ and st.

Nicholas clocked him one I we don't know if that's true and technically pastors are not supposed to be strikers you're not supposed to be brawlers so he probably shouldn't have done that if it happened but we'll give them a pass it's

Christmastime after all right anyway so that's the

Council of Nicaea all dealing with the deity of Christ so now let's look at the

Council of Constantinople this occurred in the year 381 and these councils lasted sometimes for months it wasn't like our local council that you know two and a half hours and we were done now this is this is a drawn -out process so the key issue was what the deity and humanity of Christ and the deity of the

Holy Spirit so the Holy Spirit really wasn't discussed so much at the

Council of Nicaea now this is a bigger issue so the context this should be in your book in spite of the

Nicene Creed the false teachings of Arius continued to be very popular in the

Roman Empire the view of homo homo a UCS right there's homo

UCS homo a UCS technical terms we don't need to worry about that right now but the view that the

Son of God is of a similar but different substance than the father this was popular in the

Roman Empire again boil it down it's denying the deity of Christ Athanasius along with other church leaders like Basil of Caesarea Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nisonius they continued to defend the doctrine of Christ's equality to the father so this is the idea the

Orthodox teaching Christ is co -equal co -eternal with the father in rejecting the doctrine of the so that we call this the

Trinity one God three persons Father Son Holy Spirit co -eternal co -equal in rejecting the doctrine of the

Trinity the followers of Arius also denied who the

Holy Spirit proponents of this view were known as pneumatic

McKeon's if I'm pronouncing there's a lot of difficult words that I've never even seen before so pneumatic

McKeon's denying the Holy Spirit it means that word means combaters against the

Spirit Basil of Caesarea refuted their views in his work titled on the

Holy Spirit so a new heresy about Christ called a

Paulian Arianism also arose the creator of this view of Paul and Arius of Laodicea taught that although Jesus possessed a human body he did not have a human spirit or soul instead his physical body was like a shell occupied by a divine mind so if somebody if a pastor got up and Jesus didn't have a spirit he was his body was like a shell possessed by the divine mind that would probably sound strange to you well should sound strange because it was condemned as as a heresy so yeah right right yeah and I don't know if the church of Laodicea it was

I would assume it was still in existence but they were bad in the first century so by the time he's teaching this probably same along the same lines yeah yeah this is how he can be our high priest like the book of Hebrews talks about Jesus he can sympathize with our weaknesses because he lived he was a he lived his life and dealt with the same types of things as we do but this doctrine would deny that right so because of all of this the

Emperor Theodosius in 395 he called this council to convene the

Council of Constantinople and it lasted for three months so here are the positions going over to the next page this should be in your book there was

Arianism right we talked about that what that is Apollyonarianism and then the third position was

Trinitarianism which one's correct yeah Trinitarian Christians today true believers are

Trinitarian and when a church or a denomination is not Trinitarian they are considered a what cult right so the

Mormons Jehovah's Witnesses some of the Seventh -day Adventists Christian science they all deny the doctrine of the

Trinity that's why they historically have been considered a cult they're teaching wrong things about who

Christ was the nature of God yes yeah well yeah so there's a there are churches that have

Trinitarian in the name and back when these churches started the one in Northfield which

I don't know that much about except I saw the rainbow out front so that tells me something when they started out they're called

Trinitarian so yeah they had a correct belief of the Trinity but you know that was a couple hundred years ago and they had a lot of time so I'm sure they would still give lip service to the

Trinity on some level if it's in the name but are they are they teaching the truths of Scripture obviously not okay because every church is teaching something that's correct right but is is the gospel being preached that's the first thing you want to look at okay so this is the

Council of Nicaea or excuse me Constantinople or Chalcedon sorry

I'm getting mixed up Constantinople sorry so those were the positions Trinitarianism is the correct view okay let's just move on here to the

Council of Chalcedon so this occurred in the year 451 so we're getting we're getting a ways away from the time of the

Apostles the key issue at the Church of Chalcedon is what yeah the two natures of Christ his deity and his humanity so they're different things came up but yeah it's like we're still dealing with the same type of subject oh by the way there was the

Creed of Constantinople which said we believe in the Holy Spirit the

Lord and giver of life who proceeds from the Father and the Son who is to be worshiped and glorified with the

Father and the Son who spoke through the prophets so the doctrine of the Holy Spirit should have been settled there at Chalcedon though now we're dealing with Christ and his deity deity and his humanity it says the

Council of Constantinople had affirmed the true deity and true humanity of Christ the eternal

Son of God and the second member of the Trinity he took on flesh and became a man in his incarnation but questions remained this is the

Council of Chalcedon questions remained as to how these two natures the divine and the human nature how they related to one another in the person of Jesus this question would be addressed at the

Council of Chalcedon okay so the Emperor Marcion he's the one who called the council he had denounced an earlier council that met in Ephesus and 449 as being illegitimate the

Council of Chalcedon was convened to override it some 370 bishops attended including the

Bishop of Rome who lived from 440 to 461 why is that significant because the

Bishop of Rome is supposedly who the Pope okay but this is the this is the four hundreds so he wasn't the

Pope back then he was just the Bishop of Rome you know be like someone being a pastor in New York City there they have a higher profile than than pastors out in the sticks right so some people would view them as more important and that's what happened with the

Bishop of Rome this is the capital of the Empire so people kind of viewed him as a little more significant because of that position but over time it developed into this claim of the papacy where he's in charge of the whole church that was not the case back then okay actually wait it says he was unable to attend but he sent a letter called his

Tomei to be read at the council so he wasn't even there excuse me got ahead of myself and I think that's significant but here are the positions some more difficult words probably new tell me are you familiar with these terms

Nestorian ism no you ticking in ism and then the hypostatic

Union what about that you should have heard probably the hypostatic Union all right so let's go through these

Nestorian ism this view divided the two natures of Christ putting a wall of separation between them to the point that he was viewed as two persons see the correct view of God there's one

God and how many persons three fathers father son spirit yep

Christ though is one person but with two natures but this teaching

Nestorian ism it it made Jesus into like two two people two persons there is a debate as to whether Nestorius who is the

Archbishop of Constantinople actually held the view associated with his name in summary

Nestorian ism asserted that Christ possessed two natures and therefore was two persons

I mean that's just to me that's bizarre it like it is obviously not true how can

Christ be two people two persons well I assume they had to say he was in one body but two persons in one body again it's this is strange doctrine okay the next thing they had to deal with you ticking in ism in response to Nestorian ism you taking us that's his name he emphasized that Jesus Christ was a single person with a single divine nature the human nature was either eclipsed by the divine nature or mixed together with the divine resulting in a hybrid nature in summary you take in ism argued that Christ was only one person and therefore possessed only one nature what's the problem with this right the correct view

Jesus is truly God and truly man basically Eutychia said he's not a man he's he's truly

God fully God but this is just a fancy way of denying the humanity of Christ okay so these are the two errors and now the third one this this is the correct view okay this is called the hypostatic

Union Leo who is at the council he articulated a position that avoided the errors of both

Nestorian ism and Eutychian ism and he affirmed that Christ in his incarnation possessed two natures divine and human if Jesus is both truly

God and truly man the integrity of each nature must be preserved yet at the same time

Leo also affirmed that Christ is a single person in becoming a man

Jesus did not become multiple persons in summary Leo's position asserted that Christ is a single person who possesses two nature okay and the result of the council was

Leo's position was affirmed okay that's the true position of the church the writings of Eutychius and his followers they were condemned in the council proceeded produced a creed to articulate the

Orthodox position that Chalcedonian Creed which I'll read in a moment but I understand some of you are probably thinking this you know you're hearing these terms like I never heard this before and it's really complicated and it's like this

I know this matters you're probably thinking like I get this is important but what difference does this make to me today well you know just this is you go to school and you learn things you know you think it doesn't matter but somehow it does and someday we'll figure out how but yes why do you think it matters right our minds can't grasp and think they're smart enough that they can we live in a society where people really do think they're smart enough to explain everything yep and that's where we can fall into error becoming full of ourselves and our own knowledge and thinking we've got the corner market on the information and a new thought and like that Eutychian thing

I've never heard of that but it sounds like he's trying to explain how God can be both right and he came up with a finite earthly explanation which of course brings us into heresy because it isn't right yeah

I think that's why we see so many different denominations falling away from the pure teaching of Christ because they're trying to explain and make it fit their concept instead of just accepting that there are things we can't understand sure sure

Mike yeah what will

AI come up with someone's gonna put in a formula and artificial intelligence will give us a whole new actually there was one article that AI was gonna produce its own

Bible or something like who knows what's gonna happen in the future but you know artificial intelligence it's supposed to be way above our intelligence and maybe it is but I think there's a there's a danger when a pastor or somebody they're reading the

Bible and sometimes they might have the right intentions trying to explain something that's really difficult but there are some people they want they want to come up with something brand new there are there are some movements some churches where the pastor wants to be on the cutting edge and he wants to tell somebody he wants to tell his church something they've never heard before so he cooks up some and I I've seen this before that's a real danger our job is to teach the scripture not to come up with some brand new thing to amaze people because they've never heard it before you're on some thin ice when you're doing that statement you've probably heard this if it's new it's probably not true if it's true it's probably not new like we've had the

Bible the church churches have had the Bible for 2 ,000 years you're gonna come up with something new like I don't think so not to say it couldn't happen but yeah that's that's a danger okay so the yes the danger isn't it that when these false teachers or false prophets or whatever come into a church they will go for the person that's that's weak or that's isolated in the same the same way that wolves or or you know will pick off the weak in a herd that's what will happen is those that are you know they're in a good sound church and then one of these guys will come in and start telling all of this no no yeah the pastor said this but there's not that's not really a hell don't worry about right right

I'll say oh boy that's good to hear and then they'll say yeah well you should come to our Saturday night

Bible study at my house right right here's here's one reason it matters as long as the church is still teaching doctrine and truth is is right up the top of importance once people understand that and you're used to that it guards and protects the church from all these other heresies but as soon as we say oh okay doctrine doctor this doctrine schmuck trend you know we'll just kind of put that aside well once the church gets used to that then you're susceptible it's like an immune system you lose your immune system and you can die of a thousand different diseases so it's important that we talk about this even if even if you don't see the relevance of it in your personal life today it's still important yes it says all scriptures give my inspiration for God is proper for doctrine and you go for reproves nobody likes to be told you're wrong for correction oh no no

I got everything right yeah so right okay the Chalcedonian Creed here it is following the

Holy Fathers we unanimously teach and confess one and the same

Son our Lord Jesus Christ the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity the same truly

God and truly man composed of rational soul and body consubstantial with the

Father as to his divinity in comes consubstantial with us as to his humanity like us in all things but sin he was begotten from the

Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days for us and for our salvation was born as to his humanity of the

Virgin Mary and the bearer of God or the Virgin Mary who is called in this

Creed the bearer of God now that's gonna lead to a whole other thing you've heard of Mary some people call her what

Mary mother of God they have a statue a porcelain statue in the backyard there's the mother of God there right yeah yeah and talking to dead people is not a good idea because you're gonna get you're gonna get somebody pretending or something pretending to be your dead person yeah yeah well okay last section of the

Creed last part we confess that one and the same Christ Lord and only begotten

Son is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion change division or separation the distinction between natures was never abolished by their union or the hypostatic union but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person and one hypostasis or one substance okay now you get into the reference to Mary as the bearer of God was a title affirmed by the

Council of Ephesus in 431 now there's a term for this

I think I don't know if it's Latin Theotokos but it means mother of God so let me just ask you is

Mary the mother of God who says no

Mary is not the mother of God who who says she is the mother of God okay okay so one brave soul says no she is the mother here's the thing she did give birth to Jesus Christ who was

God right don't say is God right sorry yes still is

Jesus Christ is God thank you so in a sense there is truth to the statement right

Mary is the mother of God in the sense that Jesus Christ is fully

God and fully man but it's wrong to say that Mary is the mother of God like she did not give she did not produce

God God did not come from Mary my Mary is a creature created by God so if mother of God Theotokos is a reference to Christ deity and that's all it was intended to be yeah

I think it creates confusion because there's Cathedral Catholic Cathedrals in Europe where they have the

Apostles down here Jesus is here God is here and Mary's on the top well that that's a problem it is conveying that she's like she's it she's up it that's how some

Catholics view it but that's not so it depends on what you mean by that okay

I again I think it creates more confusion so I don't think it's helpful but the line that says that Jesus possessed two natures without confusion change division or separation is a response to both

Eutychianism and Nestorianism okay so we talked about the church councils we have five minutes left let's just finish this up there are four other ecumenical councils there is the

Council of Ephesus and 431 the Council of Constantinople and 553 third

Council of Constantinople and 680 and then the second Council of Nicaea in 787 okay so let me just go through these quickly if you have any questions you can raise your hand yeah five minutes we need questions okay 431

Council of Ephesus at this council the church sought to protect the doctrine of Christ deity even in his incarnation accordingly they affirmed that the proper title for Mary the term

Theotokos mean meaning bearer of God so they affirmed this okay the purpose behind the title was not to elevate

Mary but to safeguard the deity of Christ so if that's the case okay

I can kind of hold my nose and say yes I I understand what you're saying in the incarnation

God the Son took on flesh and became human when Mary gave birth to Jesus the baby in the manger was

God incarnate okay that's the Council of Ephesus the second

Council of Constantinople and 553 says in the east even after the

Council of Chalcedon there remained a significant number of people who rejected the hypostatic

Union insisting instead that Christ possessed a single nature the advocates of this view were called what monophysites here's another term mono meaning one and the second part of the word meaning nature so Emperor Justinian convened a council to address the controversy over the issue the council affirmed that the council the council affirmed the

Council of Chalcedon but also condemned the writings of three earlier theologians who had been associated with Nestorius by condemning these earlier theologians

Justinian hope to improve relations with the monophysites here's the problem back then with these with the

Roman Empire this was a political problem because right everybody in the Empire professed to be a

Christian even though not we realize not everyone was a Christian but if you had division over some religious issue it actually threatened to divide the

Empire that's not the case today there's not some religious issue Christians are debating and you know it's it's in the it's in the presidential debate because it's threatening to split the country like this is not a problem today because Americans don't care about doctrine and you know the majority don't but back then this was a real issue in the

Roman Empire it could it could create political division as well as division in the church because the two were kind of connected right so you see how important this was overall the third

Council of Constantinople and 680 the primary question answered at this council was whether Christ possessed one will or two wills in keeping with the church's teaching that Christ possessed two natures the council affirmed that he likewise possessed two wills the divine and human the council was careful to clarify that Christ's human will is always in perfect submission to in accordance with his divine will and then finally the second

Council of Nicaea in 787 in the seventh and eighth centuries a major debate erupted in the east over the veneration of icons or images of Jesus and the

Saints I'd love to take some time and talk about this so some of the Emperors were concerned that icons of Jesus in particular they violated the second commandment

Exodus 20 verse 4 and thus constituted idolatry so you know that picture of Jesus where he's got the long brown hair and the beard and he's kind of looking off the distance who's seen that picture it's like classic thing so a lot of churches would have had a picture like that and people would have you know done the cross or bowed in front of it and it's like whoa this sort of seems like it's getting into idolatry other churches said we shouldn't have that image at all this is a violation of the second commandment no pictures of Jesus nothing nothing like keep images out of the churches and some denominations some churches actually don't allow any pictures of any person or animal

I think like I don't know if it's the Amish or the Mennonites I believe that at least historically you could have paintings of scenes of nature but not of people

I don't know if they still believe that but there are groups who yeah any picture of anyone especially

Jesus this is problematic so that in its ruling or excuse me let me back up in 754 a council met in Hyraria to condemn icons but its ruling was overturned in 787 by the second council of Nicaea which affirmed icons as being

Orthodox those who supported the use of icons argued that icons of Jesus do not violate the second commandment because Christ is the image of the invisible

God and we're out of time but you will find that churches are still divided on this issue today most

Baptist churches I know they have no problem with a picture of Jesus even though we kind of know it's not Jesus right yeah you probably are aware that Muslims will not never mind making a picture having a picture idol of God they won't allow any picture of Muhammad but again