Theology
The study of:
• God
• The relationship between God and human
beings
• God’s expectations of human beings
• What humans are able to know about God,
and…
• The limitations of this knowledge
The Hebrew Covenant
During the Exodus
Worship only one God
Reject idolatry,
Follow the law that God given to Moses
Mutual reinforcement of compliance with the law
Relatively horizontal social structure (though there was a priestly class)
During the time of Jesus
Increasingly hierarchical structure of Jewish society; this structure
reflected in the temple architecture
Power shared by Pharisees and Sadducees
Scribes gaining increasing authority
Temple attendance refused to the “lame”
Jesus as a Jewish Revisionist
• Redefined the covenant people
• Indicted the hypocrisy of the Pharisees
• Emphasized the spirit rather than the strict
letter of the law
• Saw his body, and the bodies of his followers,
as a temple for the Holy Spirit
Substitutionary Atonement: the idea that suffering and
atonement for sin could function as a substitute for the
atonement of Jesus’s followers
“Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a
shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a
reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he
would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the
shriveled hand, ‘Stand up in front of everyone.’
Then Jesus asked them, ‘Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do
good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they remained silent.
He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their
stubborn hearts, said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He
stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the
Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how
they might kill Jesus.”
--Mark 3:1-6
Incarnation and the Covenant Community
“I am the vine, you [are] the branches”
--John 15:5
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind and
with all your strength.”
“The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself.’ There is no commandment greater
than these.”
--Mark 12: 30-31
Passover and the Holy Communion
“And he took bread and when he had given thanks,
he broke it and gave it to them saying, “ This is my
body which is given or you. Do this in
remembrance of me. And likewise the cup after
supper, saying, “This cup which is poured out for
you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22.19 21).
Transubstantiation: the miraculous transformation
of the bread and wine into the body and blood of
Christ.
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not
commit adultery.’ But I say to you that
everyone who looks at a woman with lust has
already committed adultery with her in his
heart.”
--Matthew 5:27-28
Salvation according to the Gospels
“All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate
people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from
the goats…Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come,
you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you
gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I
was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave
me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and
you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when
was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and
gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a
stranger and welcomed you…?
“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who
are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:31-40).
“For you have heard how I led my life under the Jewish
Law, that I was extreme in my persecution of God’s
gathering, trying to extirpate it, how I surpassed many
of my contemporaries in adherence to Jewish Law,
more highly devoted to the traditions I received from
the ancestors.”
“But when the time came for what God had destined
me to from the womb, summoning me by his favor, he
directly revealed his son to me, that I might proclaim
him to the nations. At this point I consulted no fleshand-blood person. Nor did I go to Jerusalem, to see
emissaries called before me. I went off, instead, to
Arabia, whence I later returned to Damascus.”
--Galatians 1.11-17
Resurrection
The appearance of Jesus, three days after his
crucifixion, to his apostles, as well as a variety of
other people (the list varies depending on the
source: holy women, Mary Magdalen, 500
common people).
Christian doctrine views this event as evidence
that Jesus was the Son of God.
Acts of the Apostles
Jesus tells the apostles that they will be touched by the Holy
Spirit and then spread his message “in Jerusalem, in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”
--Acts 1.8
“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing
hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the
foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all
the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were
unfastened”
--Acts 16:25-26
Paul’s Missionary
Journeys
Ekklesiai : communities “in Jesus”
Paul’s views on circumcision
“For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly,
nor is true circumcision something external and
physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one
inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the
heart—it is spiritual and not literal” (Romans
2.28-29).
“For if the inheritance comes from the law, it no
longer comes from the promise; but God granted
it to Abraham through the promise” (Galatians
3.18).
The Christian challenge to Jewish dietary laws
“I know, relying on Lord Jesus, that nothing is
unclean of itself. Only if a man supposes it unclean
does it become unclean for him” (Romans 14.14).
“What a man takes into his mouth does not make
him unclean. What comes out of his mouth—that is
what makes him unclean” (Matthew. 15.10-11).
“That you abstain from what has been sacrificed to
idols and from blood and from what is strangled and
from fornication” (Acts 15.29).
Leviticus 16
“Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to
make atonement for himself and his
household. Then he is to take the two goats and
present them before the Lord at the entrance to the
tent of meeting. He is to cast lots for the two
goats—one lot for the Lord and the other for the
scapegoat. Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls
to the Lord and sacrifice it for a sin offering. But the
goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be
presented alive before the Lord to be used for
making atonement by sending it into the wilderness
as a scapegoat.
--Leviticus 16.7-10
--Galatians 2.2
All of us who have been baptized into Messiah-Jesus, we were
baptized into his death. We were buried with him by this baptism
into his death, so that, just as Messiah rose from the dead to the
splendor of his Father, so we may fare forward in a life entirely
new.”
--Romans 6.3-4
“It is no longer I who live—Messiah lives in me.”
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that
God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”
--1 Corinthians 3.16
Salvation as Justification for Suffering
“We do not want you to be unaware, brothers
and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in
Asia; for we were so unbearably crushed that
we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that
we had received the sentence of death so that
we would rely not on ourselves but on God
who raises the dead. He who rescued us from
so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us…”
(2 Corinthians, 1.8-11).
Nicene Creed (325)
We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all
things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is,
from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from
light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one
substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into
being, things in heaven and things on earth, Who because of
us men and because of our salvation came down, and became
incarnate and became man, and suffered, and rose again on
the third day, and ascended to the heavens, and will come to
judge the living and dead, And in the Holy Spirit. But as for
those who say, There was when He was not, and, Before being
born He was not, and that He came into existence out of
nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different
hypostasis or substance, or created, or is subject to alteration
or change—these the Catholic and apostolic Church
anathematizes.
The Council of Nicaea (325):
What is the relationship between Jesus and God?
Anomoios: the (extreme) view that the Son is
“unlike” the Father.
Homoios: the view that the Son is "like" the Father.
This was rejected at Nicaea for not being specific
enough.
Homoiousios: the view that the Son is "of like
essence" with the Father. Homoousios: the
prevailing Nicene formulation that the Son is "of the
same essence" as the Father.
“I know, relying on Lord Jesus, that nothing is
unclean of itself. Only if a man supposes it
unclean does it become unclean for him.”
--Romans 14:14
“What a man takes into his mouth does not
make him unclean. What comes out of his
mouth—that is what makes him unclean.”
--Matthew 15.10-11
Advice to the communities “in Jesus”
living in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia,
offered to them by the emissaries
Judas and Silas:
“That you abstain from what has
been sacrificed to idols and from
blood and from what is strangled and
from fornication [sexual immorality].”
--Acts 15:29
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