Christology

Christology, or the doctrine of the person of Christ, should not be understood as yet another region of doctrine separate from the doctrine of the Trinity. Instead, the doctrine of Christ interlocks with the doctrine of the Trinity. It affirms that the divine and eternal Son or Logos took our human nature upon himself for us and for our salvation. In more striking language, an orthodox Christology confesses along with a group of sixth century Scythian monks that no one less than “one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh” for our salvation. By using the technical language of the Chalcedonian Definition that Christ is “acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, and without separation,” the Church seeks to secure this truth about the person of the Savior: he is God in the flesh stooping to save his lost creatures. Much like the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of Christ has been the source of significant dispute over the history of the Church. Vital to a proper articulation of this doctrine are the first four ecumenical councils: the Council of Nicaea, the Council of Constantinople, the Council of Ephesus, and the Council of Chalcedon. The Anglican Church in North America affirms the teaching of these councils, along with the “Christological clarifications” of the fifth, sixth, and seventh councils “in so far as they are agreeable to the Holy Scriptures.” In the modern period, the conciliar doctrine of Christ has frequently come under criticism as being fundamentally incompatible with the scholarly reconstructions of the “historical” Jesus. One of the primary tasks of modern Christian theology, then, has been to demonstrate the essential harmony between the Gospels’ portrayal of the man, Jesus of Nazareth, with the Church’s confession of the perfect God-man, Jesus Christ. The candidate should be able to express the basic conciliar teaching on the person of Jesus Christ and how this teaching coheres with the portrayal of Jesus in the four canonical Gospels.

Recommended Reading

Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ. Pope Leo I, “Letter to Flavian” in The Christological Controversy . Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980. Richard Norris, “Introduction,” in The Christological Controversy . Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980. Thomas Weinandy, OFM. Jesus the Christ . Ex Fontibus Company, 2017. Richard Bauckham. Jesus: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Resources for Further Study

N.T. Wright. The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is . Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999. Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ . Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015. Richard Burridge, Four Gospels, One Jesus?: A Symbolic Reading . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994. Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration . London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007. Richard Hays. Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness . Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. 2016. David Yeago. “The New Testament and Nicene Dogma,” in Pro Ecclesia 3:2 (1994).