Chapter 5: Lights Breaking Upon Us, Gradually

In the previous chapters we have come to several important conclusions about Christian revelation. These fall into three main headings. 

First, we have established some important biblical principles concerning where Christian truth comes from. We have seen that going “beyond the Bible” is absolutely necessary. The Gospel of John tells us that there is much more to be said about Jesus than the Bible can contain (Jn. 21:25). And the same Gospel tells us that all of this truth, biblical and “beyond”, is promised to the apostles (and therefore arguably their rightful successors) through the Holy Spirit (Jn. 16:13). We have also seen that the apostles were commanded to teach the faith they had received by letter or by word of mouth (2 Thess. 2:15). They heard and passed on many things which did not make it into Scripture – as John implies, and as Paul confirms. And so, right from the beginning, what the Bible calls “Tradition” (paradosis) encompassed both those things written down in letters which later were gathered into the New Testament, and also those aspects of the Christian revelation which were not directly contained in Scripture but were passed on by other means. The concept of authentic Christian Tradition (both scriptural and non-scriptural) is therefore both biblical and apostolic. 

Second, we have established that the apostles, to whom all truth was promised, inherited a special kind of authority from Christ (Jn. 20:21-23): whoever receives them receives Him (Matt. 10:40) – even to the extent that they can forgive sins on His behalf (Jn. 20:23)! They are to be respected and held “in the highest regard in love” (1 Thess. 5:12-13). 

Third, following the pattern of priestly kingship established in the Old Covenant (e.g. Gen. 17:7, Ps. 110:4, 2 Sam. 7:16, 1 Chr. 17:14), the apostles chose to continue to pass on their own authority, through spiritual appointment and inheritance, to future generations of Christian leaders. We see them choosing successors to their own number (e.g. Acts 1:21-26), and appointing others to continue and further their work (Acts 14:23, 20:28; Tit. 1:9). 

We need to explain and expand all three of these topics further. But we will leave the second and third of them to one side for now. Let us first concentrate on the issue of Scripture and Tradition, for this is the key to understanding everything else about where Christian beliefs come from. 

Tradition and “traditions” 

It is important to remind ourselves that when we speak about Church Tradition we are not speaking about trivial matters. These days, the word “tradition” is often used to suggest things which are peripheral or trivial, customs and practices which are ephemeral and inessential to the faith – and the Bible does sometimes use the word “tradition” in this way. [1] However, the Bible also uses the word to describe matters of the highest importance, things worth “holding onto” (2 Thess. 2:15) or “entrusting to reliable men” (2 Tim. 2:2): Tradition with a capital “T”. In this sense, Scripture itself is a part of Tradition, for Scripture is an essential part of the deposit of faith we have received from Jesus and the apostles, and which we must pass on to those who follow us. But there are other aspects to Tradition as well. 

The fact is that all Christian denominations depend upon non-scriptural Tradition (or tradition) as well as Scripture, for they all have many things which they hold very dear to their hearts which are only very indirectly, if at all, attested to in Scripture. As Evangelical scholar Harold Brown attests: 

Even those who claim to have “no creed but the Bible” show that they have plenty of tradition, though they may formally disdain the concept… We need traditions to live; the Bible itself, the undisputed source of Christian truth, does not provide us with enough content to fill out our worship, not to say our lives. [2] 

Some of these may be traditions with a small “t” (and usually in the plural) – customs which, though well-loved, may change from time to time as fashions change. Every “denomination” has different traditions in this mould. Other matters, however, may more properly fall under the heading of Tradition with a capital “T”. For example, all Christians believe that Jesus is fully man and fully God – though it took quite some time for all Christians to agree upon this definition. And all Christians worship God as a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit – even though there is nothing in Scripture which directly instructs us to do so. But no Christian can deny that these Traditions are of absolutely fundamental importance to our faith, nor claim that they leap fully-formed from the pages of Scripture. All of us, whether we admit it or not, arrive at our religious convictions by a complex process of doctrinal extrapolation and development, often going back centuries – or millennia – into the history of our faith. The development of Tradition, then, may be seen as part of what Jesus meant by the Holy Spirit leading us into “all truth” (Jn. 16:13). Whether we regard our beliefs as authentically rooted in Scripture (i.e. merely a matter of “interpretation”), or whether we regard them as “going beyond” the Bible, depends to a great extent upon the mindset to which we have become accustomed in our Christian journey. 

If therefore we are wanting to seek the authentic Christian view of anything, then we need to try to step outside our customary mindset (be it Roman, Anglican, Methodist, Quaker, or whatever) and seek again the mind of Christ and His apostles. We need to look at how our understanding of the truths of our religion developed in the crucible of the meeting of Jew and Greek two thousand years ago. We need to look not just at the text of the Bible, but at the non-scriptural aspects of faith (both written and word of mouth, as Paul says) which must have accompanied that Scripture as it spread the Christian revelation throughout the ancient world. 

By letter and by word of mouth 

But how can we know what the word of mouth was on any particular subject two thousand years ago? How can we know that this appeal to oral “Tradition” isn’t just a deft way for the Catholic Church – or any church for that matter – to attribute spurious authority to some rather suspect bits of doctrine which lack proper foundation? 

This is a very good caveat to raise. We have seen that in the early years of the Church there were all sorts of variations upon the Christian message. Some were clearly acceptable variations which developed around particular personalities (e.g. Apollos v. Paul v. Cephas – 1 Cor. 3), which we trust were eventually reconciled. Others were deeply flawed, and would not today be accorded the label of “Christian”. So it would be good to identify a few principles by which we might recognise something as a good Christian Tradition, as opposed to a bad one. 

One benchmark is clearly attested to in Scripture: 

If someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, you put up with it easily enough. But… such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. (2 Cor. 11:4-5,13) 

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all… But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! (Gal. 1:6-8) 

Therefore, authentic Christian Tradition can never contradict the Christian faith taught by the apostles. And since Holy Scripture, whole and entire, is the infallible word of God, and therefore in full accord with the true apostolic faith, any notion which purports to be Christian but which contradicts the testimony of Scripture must be rejected. 

We must remember, however, that in the early years of the Church, people must often have looked at things the other way around, i.e. judging Scripture according to how well it stood up to the word of mouth they had received. At the beginning, the Church had no Scripture other than the Old Testament. Any specifically Christian teaching that a person might have received would have come by word of mouth. An exceptionally fortunate person might have been able to hear one of the apostles preach, but most would have received their teaching orally from one of the episkopoi or presbyteroi appointed by the apostles, or their successors. It was Tradition, even though it was not yet Scripture! 

Lutheran theologian Oscar Cullmann shows how this took place even in the teaching of the apostle Paul. [3] Paul was not a disciple during Christ’s lifetime on earth. But, though he never met Christ before his vision on the road to Damascus, he often spoke of having received “from the Lord” teachings which, short of a miraculous vision, he could never have heard directly from Jesus. For example, he quoted “the Lord” on the second coming (1 Thess. 4:15-17), on marriage (1 Cor. 7:10-11), on how preachers should make their living (1 Cor. 9:14), and on the gospel itself (Gal. 1:11-12). Yet he clearly regarded these teachings, which he had presumably received second-hand, by word of mouth, as being reliable – and they later made it into the Bible. We can discern this process even more clearly when we read what Paul had to say about the Last Supper: 

For I received [parelabon] from the Lord what I also passed on [paredoka] to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed [paredidoto], took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” (1 Cor. 11:23-24) 

Did Paul receive this teaching directly from the Lord? No. But he must have received it verbally from one of those chosen by the Lord – and as far as he is concerned, that amounts to the same thing. Oral Tradition, therefore, is not necessarily something to be distrusted. As Cullmann explains: 

The words “I received it from the Lord” mean “I received it through a chain of tradition which begins with the Lord” … The Lord himself is at work in the transmission of his words and deeds by the Church; he works through the Church. [4] 

Later it fell to the apostles to write various letters, and afterwards the Gospels. It would not always have been clear in the early years of the Church whether all the apostolic writings in circulation were authentic. Therefore, it fell to the episkopoi of the Church to judge their authenticity by comparing the written texts with the verbal teaching they had already received. Some of these letters contained things which contradicted the verbal Tradition which the bishops recognised as authentically apostolic, and were therefore rejected; others were accepted because their content was in accord with the Christian truths which had been inherited by word of mouth. 

In other words, throughout its early years the Church, as well as discerning authentic Tradition according to the norms of Scripture, had to judge potential books of Scripture according to the norms of Tradition, both written and verbal! It was not until late in the fourth century A.D., as we have seen, that the canon of the New Testament was fixed. And in the process of fixing it, each book had to be assessed according to the extent to which it was in accord not just with other potential books of Scripture but also with the non-scriptural Tradition of what the episkopoi of the time understood to be the authentic gospel of Christ, i.e. the faith of the worldwide Church. There was no other list of authentic Christian books; and the Bible certainly does not include its own table of contents! Therefore, if any Christian of today accepts the canon of the New Testament, he is, by implication, also accepting not only the faith of the worldwide Church of the fourth century A.D., but also the manner in which the New Testament canon was arrived at, i.e. through the joint discernment and authority of the episkopoi of the Church, relying on the combined testimony of Old Testament Scripture and non-scriptural Tradition. One cannot be a “Bible-believing” Christian without implicitly accepting the authority of the early Church Tradition which informed the making of that Bible. [5] 

Sola scriptura 

One of the clarion calls of the Protestant Reformation was “Scripture alone”, or “only Scripture” (in Latin, sola scriptura): the Bible as the sole arbiter of faith. And I know many Christians who will swear to me that they only believe what they read in the Bible, and that it is entirely wrong for our faith to encompass anything which is not overtly expressed in Scripture. “Only Scripture” is an attractive and noble concept, but cannot be taken in its bare literal meaning, for four main reasons. 

First, “Scripture alone” is not itself a scriptural concept. The Bible, as we have seen, is full of verses extolling the virtues of Scripture, but there is not a single verse suggesting that God intends us to derive our Christian truth from Scripture alone. Indeed, we have seen how Paul says exactly the opposite, explicitly linking Scripture to verbal Tradition by saying: “Stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.” (2 Thess. 2:15, RSV) In doing so, he was, like Jesus (Matt. 23:2-3), merely validating the way in which God’s truth had always been handed down among God’s people. 

Second, at least until the year 382 A.D., “Scripture alone” could not have existed, even if anyone had wanted it to. The canon of the New Testament, and therefore many of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith which have roots in the Bible, depend at least partly upon the unwritten Tradition of the Church. “Scripture alone” begs the question: How do we know which books are “Scripture”? The only answer is: We recognise Scripture because it is in accord with the Tradition of the Catholic Church of the fourth century A.D. 

Third, given that “Scripture alone” is not a scriptural concept, the only basis for anyone believing that the fullness of Christian truth can be arrived at without the participation of Tradition is: tradition. “Scripture alone” is a Protestant tradition, a noble and praiseworthy tradition to be sure, but something arguably quite “beyond the Bible”. 

Fourth, I would suggest that the first Protestant reformers such as Luther and Calvin, who were wiser men than many Christians who have followed in their footsteps, meant something far more subtle and important when they proclaimed the principle of “only Scripture”. They were certainly alarmed by the non-scriptural customs which had crept into aspects of Catholic practice of the time, and were keen to find a way to counteract them. Calling for a return to the incontrovertible text of the Bible was certainly worthwhile and necessary, and has been beneficial for all Christians in so many ways. However, even the reformers did not abandon Tradition. They accepted the vast majority of the non-biblical Tradition which the historical Church had bequeathed to them, most notably the contents of the Bible and the texts of the ancient Creeds. They did this because they recognised that Scripture and Tradition were partners. 

Sola scriptura, then, is not a phrase to be taken literally and in isolation. It is what Christian writer and lecturer David Bailey calls “theological shorthand” – 

pivotal words that are full of theological meaning but can operate as simplified… fragments of a deeper and richer theological story… Theological shorthand operates like the icons on a tablet or smart phone; the icons are the theological shorthand… – the words we sometimes use without thinking… Just as when you press an icon and explore the richer, deeper, wider world of the app, if you explore and reflect on key words… they may lead you to a more profound understanding of the Christian story. [6] 

So, let us press the sola scriptura icon, and see where it leads us. Let us look in more detail at exactly how this partnership between Scripture and Tradition is supposed to work. How and why can we trust it? And why do we need to? 

Scripture and Tradition 

Let us recall what we said in the first three chapters of this book about how the Jewish faith developed during the centuries when the Old Testament was being written. We spent some time tracing the development of the religious tradition of the Jews, i.e. their things “passed on” and “of first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3), through the pages of the Old Testament. God’s self-revelation to the Jews was, and remains, like everything in Jewish history, a long on-going journey. And whilst that revelation, like Jewish history itself, is punctuated by moments of great significance, much of it unfolds slowly and patiently, never quite coming to a final conclusion: the process is at least as important as the product. During the course of this national faith journey, old stories take on new meanings, concepts develop and change, and the same ideas are subject to multiple interpretations (midrash & pesher). This absence of finality is not a flaw: rather, it is an essential characteristic of a faith whose defining images include the on-going journey to the Promised Land, and the on-going expectation of a Messiah. The Jewish understanding of their faith develops, as result of the changing experience of the nation of Israel, and under God’s guidance. God teaches the Jews what kind of God He is through the events of their history. And out of those events, out of those stories, develops a rich kaleidoscope of faith in which they grow as God’s people. 

If this is how God teaches His first chosen people, then we should not be too surprised if He chooses to teach Christians in a similarly gradual and multi-faceted way, inseparable from our own history as God’s people. Let us see now how He does this, by taking a good look at some of the non-scriptural testimony of both Jews and Christians of the first centuries A.D., so that we can see how this testimony, in conjunction with Scripture, helped the early Church to develop its understanding of Christ’s revelation. 

We are, happily, able to trace the development of Jewish oral Tradition over the centuries because much of it, ironically, has been written down. The Jews have always proclaimed the existence of an “oral Torah” – those teachings which Moses received from God at Sinai but which were not written down in the books of the Law. [7] Jesus Himself confirmed the importance of fidelity to this Jewish oral Tradition, saying: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you” (Matt. 23:2-3) – and the apostles incorporated parts of this non-biblical teaching into the New Testament. [8] During the course of the first couple of centuries A.D., particularly in response to the destruction of the Temple, the rabbis began to write down their oral Tradition. Much of this teaching found its way into the Mishnah and the Talmud, large collections of Jewish teachings and scriptural interpretations. Some of these interpretations are also evident in the Targumim, which are ancient Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible which incorporate a certain amount of additional commentary. Whilst these writings were committed to paper over a period of several centuries, parts of them incorporate oral Jewish tradition dating from the period surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Therefore they are useful guides to how the Jews interpreted their Bible during the time of Jesus and the apostles. 

There are also a large number of extant non-biblical Christian writings from the early centuries A.D. Some of these, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, were for a long time accepted by some Christian congregations as Holy Scripture – though they were eventually not included in the official canon of the New Testament. Some, such as the Didache, were written very early in the history of the Church – probably as early as, or earlier than, some of the canonical gospels and letters. Others were written later, by various holy and zealous episkopoi of the early Church, many of whom personally knew and worked with the apostles: Clement (fellow-worker of the apostle Paul – Phil. 4:3), Polycarp and Ignatius (both disciples of the apostle John). [9] We cannot regard their writings as infallible, and they were not included in the canon of Scripture in 382 A.D. However, they were written by, referred to, and quoted by many of the great leaders of the early Church. Therefore, they are worth taking seriously. 

The writings of the early Church leaders, like the writings of the apostles contained in the New Testament, are full of variety. They have different styles, different priorities, and different points of view. They also, sometimes, disagree with each other in a number of different ways – rather as apostles like Paul and Peter and James in the New Testament clearly had differences of opinion on a number of issues. They and their followers must have argued into the wee hours of the morning on various points of doctrine, rather as the New Testament apostles surely did. However, one thing which shines through when one reads these writers is that they were, without any doubt, Christians. Their Lord and Saviour was Jesus Christ; to Him they dedicated their lives, and for Him, often, they lost their lives. They were men of Scripture, men of prayer, men of learning, men of devotion. We can be confident that in their writings we find ourselves face to face with testimonies which, when taken together, are authentically representative of the Christian faith of their age – in other words, reliable reflections of the early Tradition of the worldwide Christian Church. [10] As Baptist theologian Timothy George explains: 

The consensus of thoughtful Christian interpretation of the Word down the ages (and on most matters of importance there is such a thing) is not likely to be wrong, and evangelicals, no less than other Christians, have much to learn from the church fathers, schoolmen, and theologians of ages past. [11] 

Jesus: Man and God 

There were some things in this early Christian Tradition which were incontrovertible right from the start – usually because both the Scriptural testimony and the verbal apostolic preaching were very clear. There is a clear and unmistakeable deposit of faith which runs through the New Testament, sometimes referred to by Paul as “the gospel” (1 Cor. 15:1): 

that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. (1 Cor. 15:3-5) 

Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit… Water symbolises baptism that now saves you also… by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand. (1 Pet. 3:18,21-22) 

Other aspects of the Christian faith were present in Scripture in an embryonic form, but took some time to be fleshed out and clarified. For example, it seemed from Scripture and apostolic testimony that Jesus claimed to be divine: 

“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father… I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.” (Jn. 14:9-10) 

even using the forbidden name of God, “I AM”, to refer to Himself (Jn. 8:58, cf. Ex. 3:14). On the other hand there were some passages which suggested that He was made perfect through His earthly suffering, rather than from eternity: [12] 

We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death. (Heb. 2:9) 

He was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek. (Heb. 5:7-10) 

and Jesus sometimes seemed to suggest that He was less than God: 

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No-one is good – except God alone.” (Mk. 10:18) 

            “The Father is greater than I.” (Jn. 14:28) 

It took the worldwide Christian Church many years, much argument, and the threat of many heresies, to work out how they could reconcile these apparent contradictions. They did so as Christ does, by taking apparent opposites and seeing that, like Jew and Greek, like Peter and Paul, they can be unified in Christ. And so the episkopoi of the worldwide Church met at Nicaea, in modern-day Turkey, in 325 A.D. and declared:

            We believe… 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,
            becoming man. [13] 

The Trinity 

Other things were apparently less clear to the early Christians, principally because the testimony of Scripture could be interpreted in a number of ways. Often the early Church leaders struggled toward an understanding of these matters, and only reached a conclusion after deliberating upon them for years. For example, it took nearly four centuries for the Church to explicitly agree upon the full divinity of the Holy Spirit, and thereby to come to a complete understanding of the Trinity. Both Old and New Testaments are full of references to the Spirit of God, but few of them explicitly refer to Him as anything more than an aspect or function of the Father or the Son: 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Gen. 1:1-2) 

The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him –
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD. (Is. 11:2) 

I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions. (Jo. 2:28) 

As soon as Jesus was baptised, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. (Matt. 3:16-17) 

 “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Lk. 1:35) 

Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:2-4) 

And whilst Jesus’s great commission instructs his disciples to baptise “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19), the Spirit’s identity as a co-equal to the Father and the Son, and worthy of worship as God in the same way as the Father and the Son, is not made explicit. It is only in the Gospel of John that the Spirit is described in explicitly personal terms, and even there there is no mention of worshipping Him as God: 

Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment. (Jn. 16:7-8) 

The Church’s understanding of the Holy Spirit developed slowly from this ambiguous scriptural base. Whilst the Trinitarian formula was regularly used for baptism, there was, during the first couple of centuries A.D., a tendency to identify the Holy Spirit with Christ (i.e. Hokhmah [Wisdom] and Logos [Word]), instead of recognising Him as a distinct person. [14] So, for example, Theophilus, bishop of Antioch (c. 115-181 A.D.) wrote: 

God, then, having His own Word internal within His own bowels, begat Him, emitting Him along with His own wisdom before all things. He had this Word as a helper in the things that were created by Him, and by Him He made all things… He rules, and is Lord of all things fashioned by Him. He, then, being Spirit of God, and governing principle, and wisdom, and power of the highest, came down upon the prophets, and through them spoke of the creation of the world and of all other things. [15] 

The Athenian Christian writer Athenagoras, in c. 177 A.D., wrote to Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, pleading for clemency for Christians by refuting the Roman charge that Christians were “atheists”. He went a bit further than Theophilus in his assessment of the Holy Spirit, but still fell short of calling the Him “God”: 

The prophetic Spirit also agrees with our statements. “The Lord,” it says, “made me, the beginning of His ways to His works.” [Prov. 8:22] The Holy Spirit Himself also, which operates in the prophets, we assert to be an effluence of God, flowing from Him, and returning back again like a beam of the sun. Who, then, would not be astonished to hear men who speak of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare both their power in union and their distinction in order, called atheists? [16] 

The word “Trinity” was originally coined by Theophilus, [17] but it was not until the late second century that some Christians began to float the idea of a triune God in which the Holy Spirit was an equal but distinct Person. The great North African Christian scholar Tertullian (c. 145-220 A.D.) wrote: 

This rule of faith has come down to us from the beginning of the gospel…: All are of One, by unity of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. [18] 

A great and long debate ensued, to which the great Christian leader Athanasius (c. 293-373 A.D.), bishop of Alexandria, was one of the most brilliant contributors: 

We acknowledge the Trinity, holy and perfect, to consist of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In this Trinity there is no intrusion of any alien element or of anything from outside, nor is the Trinity a blend of creative and created being. It is a wholly creative and energizing reality, self-consistent and undivided in its active power, for the Father makes all things through the Word and in the Holy Spirit, and in this way the unity of the holy Trinity is preserved. Accordingly, in the Church, one God is preached, one God who is “above all things and through all things and in all things” [Eph. 4:6]. God is “above all things” as Father, for he is principle and source; he is “through all things” through the Word; and he is “in all things” in the Holy Spirit. [19] 

It was not until 381 A.D. that a Church council was held at Constantinople, which made the divine Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit official, and declared that the Spirit was “with the Father and the Son... together worshipped and together glorified”. [20] The Holy Spirit was, at last, “officially” God! 

It is possible, but unwise, for us to look back on all this with cynicism. The development of our understanding of the Holy Spirit took a long time because the leaders of the Church were grappling with complex and difficult issues which Scripture hinted at but was not explicit about. The hostilities entailed in these discussions so distressed Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329-390 A.D.), bishop of Constantinople and chairman of the council, that he resigned his post, [21] declaring: 

We tore apart Christ, we who love God and Christ so well, and deceived one another in the name of truth, and in the name of love fostered hatred…; because in the name of peace we warred more than honor allowed. [22] 

To a certain extent, the necessity of all these debates and verbose definitions were forced upon the Church by the challenge posed by heresies which, by denying the full divinity of Christ or the Holy Spirit, threatened to scupper the gospel. The “Athanasius of the West”, Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300-368 A.D.), bemoaned: 

Believers have always found their satisfaction in that Divine utterance, which our ears heard recited from the Gospel: “Go now and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” [Matt. 28:19]… What element in the mystery of man’s salvation is not included in those words? What is forgotten, what left in darkness? All is full, as from the Divine fulness; perfect, as from the Divine perfection… But the errors of heretics and blasphemers force us to deal with unlawful matters, to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words, to trespass on forbidden ground. Faith ought in silence to fulfil the commandments, worshipping the Father, reverencing with Him the Son, abounding in the Holy Ghost, but… the error of others compels us to err in daring to embody in human terms truths which ought to be hidden in the silent veneration of the heart. [23] 

You can see from these examples that Church Tradition is not something which popes and bishops glibly make up on the spur of the moment. It takes time for all the implications of a doctrine to become clear, and during that time there is a deep concern to be faithful to the Holy Spirit and to the meaning that God intended Scripture to have for us. Hilary suggests, in fact, that sola scriptura (“What element in the mystery of man’s salvation is not included in those words?”) would not be a bad idea if it were possible. But the “errors of heretics” mean that truth often cannot come to us unadorned, straight from the verses of Scripture. Sometimes, as the great Catholic theologian Hans Küng explains, to counteract the weight of a heresy, the Church 

concentrates all its energy at the point where divine revelation is in jeopardy, illuminating the dark spot with its searchlight and unambiguously exposing everything through a sharp, clear and universally intelligible formulation. [24] 

In the fourth century the doctrines which were in the spotlight were those touching on the nature of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Trinity. And how much has the life of the Church been enriched by our gradually developing, relatively late-found understanding of the full divinity of Holy Spirit, “the Lord and life-giver”! [25] Though rooted in Scripture, it is not an explicitly scriptural belief: it developed by letter and word of mouth, under the guidance of the Spirit Himself, moving slowly “beyond the Bible” though never contradicting the Bible. It has become part of our Tradition: therefore we guard it with as much zeal as we guard the Holy Scriptures, and we pass it on, as Paul said we should, to succeeding generations. What Christian of any denomination would now wish to question the lordship of the Holy Spirit – even though it is not a “biblical” teaching? 

The “order of theology” 

So what then can we conclude about Christian Tradition from our examination of the development of this doctrine? First, Tradition always starts from the seed of Scripture, and never loses sight of, denies or contradicts its origins in Scripture. Therefore, Tradition cannot invent new revelations which have no origin in either Scripture or the verbal teaching of the apostles. Second, Tradition is not, however, static: it develops and gestates, slowly and cautiously, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, towards greater and deeper understanding and richness. As Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware explains: 

Tradition is far more than a set of abstract propositions – it is a life, a personal encounter with Christ in the Holy Spirit. Tradition is not only kept in the Church – it lives in the Church, it is the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church. [26] 

Loyalty to Tradition means not primarily the acceptance of formulae or customs from past generations, but rather the ever-new, personal and direct experience of the Holy Spirit. [27] 

Therefore, authentic Christian Tradition requires the careful preservation of a delicate balance between continuity and development. So, for example, Tertullian (above) is able to say, with honesty, that the doctrine of the Trinity “has come down to us from the beginning of the gospel.” [28] By contrast, but with equal honesty, Gregory of Nazianzus emphasises the newness of the Church’s understanding of the divinity of the Spirit: 

The Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly, and the Son more obscurely. The New manifested the Son, and suggested the Deity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit Himself dwells among us, and supplies us with a clearer demonstration of Himself. For it was not safe, when the Godhead of the Father was not yet acknowledged, plainly to proclaim the Son; nor when that of the Son was not yet received to burden us further (if I may use so bold an expression) with the Holy Ghost; lest perhaps people might, like men loaded with food beyond their strength, and presenting eyes as yet too weak to bear it to the sun's light, risk the loss even of that which was within the reach of their powers; but that by gradual additions… the Light of the Trinity might shine upon the more illuminated. [29] 

Both Tertullian and Gregory are right, of course, because both their views, though apparently contradictory, enunciate essential aspects of how Christian Tradition works: old and new, like Jew and Greek, like Peter and Paul, are, in Christ, not enemies, but equally essential aspects of the truth. That which is old never refuses the possibility of admitting the new, and that which is new always holds to its roots in the old. 

We have already seen how this gradual gestation of the Christian faith is merely a continuation of how the Jewish faith developed: God’s preferred way of revealing Himself to His people, whether in the old or the new covenant, is, as Gregory of Nazianzus says, “by gradual additions”. Gregory goes on to point out another parallel to this, which is the manner in which the Holy Spirit came to the Twelve during the course of their earthly discipleship: The Holy Spirit, he suggests, 

gradually came to dwell in the Disciples, measuring Himself out to them according to their capacity to receive Him, at the beginning of the Gospel, after the Passion, after the Ascension, making perfect their powers, being breathed upon them [Jn. 20:22-23], and appearing in fiery tongues [Acts 2]… You see lights breaking upon us, gradually; and the order of Theology, which it is better for us to keep, neither proclaiming things too suddenly, nor yet keeping them hidden to the end… Our Saviour had some things which, He said, could not be borne at that time by His disciples [Jn. 16:12]…; and therefore they were hidden. And again He said that all things should be taught us by the Spirit when He should come to dwell amongst us [Jn. 16:13-14]. [30] 

As Gregory points out in the last quotation but one, there is a beautiful two-part symmetry to what Gregory calls “the order of theology” – the way in which God has chosen to reveal Himself to the world. First, “the Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly, and the Son more obscurely.” Yet the living example of Christ enabled the first Christians to interpret the Old Testament, find Christ there, and cleave to Him. That is how the New Testament came about. Next, “the New [Testament] manifested the Son, and suggested the Deity of the Spirit.” So now, in the same way, the living presence of the Holy Spirit (promised in Jn. 14:26 & 16:13) supplies us with “a clearer demonstration of Himself”, enabling the Church to interpret the New Testament, find the Holy Spirit there, and cleave to Him. And that is how authentic Church Tradition comes about. [31] 

The New Testament, therefore, is the fruit of the encounter between the Old Testament and God the Son, in the context of God’s first people; and authentic Christian Tradition is the fruit of the meeting of the New Testament and the Holy Spirit, in the context of the God’s new people, the Church. Old and New Testaments, Old and New Israel, Scripture and Tradition: all these belong to each other, and reveal truths about each other, as much as do Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Just as the Son reveals the Father (Jn. 14:9) and the Spirit reveals the Son (Matt. 3:16-17), Scripture and Tradition reveal each other – if we are not too fearful to allow them to do so. 

Several scriptural accounts shed light on these two stages in Gregory’s “order of theology”. Here is a passage which illustrates the first stage: how the Church reveals Christ in the Old Testament: 

Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
“How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
            “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
            and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
            so he did not open his mouth…” [Is. 53:7]
The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. (Acts 8:30-32,34-35) 

The Ethiopian eunuch is studying the word of God assiduously – but does not understand it. “How can I unless someone explains it to me?” he says. [32] And, if we are honest, we face the same question every day in our Christian journey – for sometimes “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6). The Ethiopian was well aware that “Scripture alone” did not answer his questions. He needed the testimony of the Church (personified in Philip) to open the Scriptures up to him, and to show him Christ, hidden therein. 

To illustrate the second stage of Gregory’s order of theology, try reading in your own Bible Luke 1:26-56. Here, in response to the angel, Mary accepts the Holy Spirit (Lk. 1:35-38) and receives the Word of God into her womb. But He does not simply stay there, unchanging. He gestates and grows, and as He does so she rejoices, praising God (Lk. 1:46-55). Mary guards and nurtures her baby, knowing that He will someday grow into something great (Lk. 1:32-33). And she ponders all these things and treasures them up in her heart (Lk. 2:19, 51). And lo, the child grows in wisdom and stature (Lk. 2:52). 

And so there is a parallel between what happens to Mary and what happens to the Church. The Church receives the Holy Spirit, as Gregory explains, “gradually,… according to [its] capacity to receive Him.” [33] It receives the Word of God in Scripture, but that Word does not lie unexplored, fixed and unchanging on the page. Instead, the Church ponders it and treasures it, rejoicing and praising God, as slowly the Word of God develops, whilst never contradicting or forgetting its origins as the fruit of the Spirit. And out of the Church’s pondering and treasuring of the Word of God, the faith grows in wisdom and stature. This is how the Church goes “beyond the Bible” – in the same way that Jesus went “beyond the womb”. And that is how it should be, for, as Yves Congar explains, 

by meditating on the texts and events, by examining the implications of her experience of the sacred truths she possesses, by re-reading the texts once more in the light of this experience, the Church gradually recognizes in the divine Word a richer content than that which had been revealed by a merely historical interpretation of the texts alone. [34] 

Or, as Evangelical theologian Peter Enns puts it, “The Spirit leads the church to truth – he does not simply drop us down in the middle of it.” [35] 

Anglican theologian Tom Wright’s favoured analogy for this kind of developmental theology is of a group of actors having to improvise the final act of a Shakespeare play, given the text of the first four: 

Part of the initial task of the actors… will be to immerse themselves with full sympathy in the first four acts, but not so as merely to parrot what has already been said. They cannot go and look up the right answers. Nor can they simply imitate the kinds of things that their particular character did in the early acts. A good fifth act will show a proper final development, not merely a repetition, or what went before. Nevertheless, there will be a rightness, a fittingness, about certain actions and speeches, about certain final moves in the drama, which will in one sense be self-authenticating, and in another gain authentication from their coherence with, their making sense of, the “authoritative” previous text. [36] 

Wright identifies the first four acts of the biblical drama: “1-Creation; 2-Fall; 3-Israel; 4-Jesus”. [37] The fifth act has begun, but it is not over yet; its first scene has been written in the New Testament letters, and there are hints about how it might go from there – but its text is not fixed. “We are his workmanship” (Eph. 2:10, RSV) – and the word translated here as “workmanship” is poiema – which can mean “work of art” or “composition”; it is where we get the word “poem” from… 

Whether you prefer Tom Wright’s analogy of a poetic drama, or Gregory of Nazianzus’s “lights breaking on us gradually”, [38] the fact is that this developmental partnership between Scripture and Tradition continues to this day – in all denominations, whether they admit it or not. Without this partnership, we might not now all believe in the Holy Trinity, or recognise Christ as the incarnate Word of God! We stand on the shoulders of the episkopoi of the ancient Church, whose authoritative testimony, inspired by the Holy Spirit, has contributed to making our faith what it is. To deny this, as Frank Beckwith, former President of the Evangelical Theological Society explains, is to be like “a rich nephew who finds himself with a full bank account, not knowing he inherited it from his uncle’s fortune”! [39] This does not mean that there has ever been a time when everyone in the Church agreed upon everything – nor indeed does it mean that we should ever expect to agree upon everything. When Christian traditions differ to no greater extent than, say, Peter and Paul, then we are clearly not in any great difficulty: they are both apostles of the unified worldwide apostolic Church, and their differences can therefore be reconciled in Christ. And when the traditions are as different as, say, Christianity and Gnosticism, then we can be equally clear: Gnostic Christianity was so utterly different from the Christianity of the ancient worldwide Church that it was easily recognisable as heresy, and irreconcilable with the true faith. However, when we are talking about the difference between twenty-first century Evangelical and Catholic traditions, then we are dealing with differences too subtle to settle in a hurry. 

Moving on 

We have spent the past five chapters discussing where our Christian beliefs come from. And, largely, I have tried to stick to matters which are accepted by a good majority of Christians. However, not all matters of Christian belief are like that. And so we will shortly be starting to discuss some matters on which Christendom is not so united. That I will be presenting the Catholic interpretation of these matters does not mean that I think that the Evangelical interpretation is untenable, or impossible, or worse, “unbiblical”. Nor does it mean that the Catholic interpretation is inevitable, or intrinsically superior, or can learn nothing from its Protestant counterparts. Differences of opinion proceed from differences of interpretation, which often proceed from differences of mindset. So, before we start to investigate some of these areas of difference, it would be good for me try to explain in a bit more depth some of the most distinctive characteristics of the Catholic theological mindset – which I hope will help you to understand where some of the Catholic-Evangelical differences of opinion come from. God willing, by understanding the source of these differences, they will cease to seem – if they ever did – quite so frightening. 

You may be sceptical. “Hang on,” you may say, “look at the ‘strange’ teachings the Catholic Church has come up with in its time. Some of these seem to have nothing to do with the ancient Christian faith. Where on earth did they come from?” The short answer is: They come from the same place that everything else we have discussed so far comes from: the partnership of Scripture and Tradition, authoritatively interpreted by the apostles of God’s household and their rightfully appointed successors, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This does not mean that we must not be careful in our assessment of the traditions that present themselves to us. Quite the contrary: we must evaluate all claims of Tradition against the gold standard of Scripture, just as we must evaluate all interpretations of Scripture against the gold standard of apostolic Tradition. Let us now proceed to do so.

BIBLICAL SUMMARY of Chapter Five 

We find truth in both written and oral Tradition.
Matt. 23:2-3; Jn. 16:13, 21:25; 1 Cor. 15:3, 2 Thess. 2:15, 2 Tim. 2:2 

The apostles inherited a special authority from Christ...
Matt. 10:40, Jn. 20:21-23, 1 Thess. 5:12-13 

... and pass on that authority through appointment and inheritance.
            Gen. 17:7, Ps. 110:4, 2 Sam. 7:16, 1 Chr. 17:14; Acts 1:21-26, 14:23, 20:28; Tit. 1:9 

We recognise truth by its fidelity to the Tradition of the apostles...
2 Cor. 11:4-13, Gal. 1:6-9 

... some of which may not be explicitly attested to in Scripture as coming from Christ.
            1 Cor. 7:10-11, 9:14, 11:23-25; Gal. 1:11-12, 1 Thess. 4:15-17 

Who is Jesus?
Ex. 3:14, Mk. 10:18; Jn. 8:58, 14:9-11, 14:28; 1 Cor. 15:1-5; Heb. 2:9, 5:7-10; 1 Pet. 3:18-22 

Who is the Holy Spirit?
Gen. 1:1-2, Is. 11:2, Jo. 2:28-29; Matt. 3:16-17, 28:19; Lk. 1:35; Jn. 16:7-8, 20:22-23; Acts 2:2-4 

Just as the Son reveals the Father, and the Spirit the Son, so do Scripture and Tradition reveal each other.
Matt. 3:16-17, Lk. 1:26-56; Jn. 14:9-11, 16:12-15; Acts 8:30-35, 2 Cor. 3:6

---

[1] e.g. Matt. 15:1-9, Mk. 7:8-13, Col. 2:8

[2] Harold O. J. Brown, “Proclamation and Preservation: The Necessity and Temptation of Church Tradition”, in Reclaiming the Great Tradition: Evangelicals, Catholics & Orthodox in Dialogue, ed. James S. Cutsinger (InterVarsity, Downers Grove, 1997), pp. 83 & 85

[3] Oscar Cullmann, The Early Church (SCM, London, 1966), pp. 60-75

[4] Oscar Cullmann, The Early Church (SCM, London, 1966), p. 61

[5] Here and elsewhere, I use the word “Tradition” because, as we have seen, it is a highly biblical one. Others prefer to use a term such as “rule of faith” (regula fidei) to mean the same thing, following e.g. Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics XII-XIV, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org

[6] David Bailey, “Grace, Theological Shorthand and Icons of Discovery”, on www.oasiscollege.org

[7] The Mishnah says: “Moses received the Law from Sinai and handed it down to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders [Judges], and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Assembly [Neh. 10].” [Mishnah Nezikin: Avoth 1:1, in Mishnayoth vol. IV, ed. Philip Blackman (Mishna, London, 1954), on www.hebrewbooks.org]

[8] e.g. 1 Cor. 10:4 refers to a story recorded in the Targums [see Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Num. 19-22, on targum.info]; 2 Tim. 3:8 quotes a non-canonical book referred to by Origen [see The Apocryphon of Jannes and Jambres the magicians, ed. A. Pietersma (Brill, Leiden, 1994), on books.google.co.uk]; Jude 1:9 refers to events alluded to in Jewish midrash [Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Sotah 13b, on www.come-and-hear.com; The Assumption of Moses, ed. R. H. Charles (A&C Black, London, 1897), on archive.org]. For other examples, see Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Baker, Grand Rapids, 2015), pp.132-141.

[9] Irenaeus, To Florinus, on Sole Sovereignty, or God Is Not the Author of Evil, quoted in Eusebius, The History of the Church V.20 (Penguin, London, 1989); Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics XXXII, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org

[10] For a comprehensive overview of the early development of Christian doctrine, see J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (A. & C. Black, London, 1965).

[11] Timothy George, “Toward an Evangelical Ecclesiology”, in Catholics and Evangelicals: Do They Share a Common Future?, ed. Thomas P. Rausch (Paulist, New York, 2000), p. 140

[12] See also e.g. Lk. 2:52, Acts 2:36, Rom. 8:29, Heb. 3:2.

[13] from J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (Longmans, London, 1967), pp. 215-216

[14] following Bible verses such as e.g. 2 Cor. 3:18: “the Lord, who is the Spirit”. Certain verses of Scripture seemed, indeed, to give triadic significance to Father, Son and angels, e.g. Mk. 13:32, Lk. 9:26, 1 Tim. 5:21!

[15] Theophilus to Autolycus II.X, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org

[16] Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians X, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org

[17] Theophilus of Antioch, Theophilus to Autolycus II.XV, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org

[18] Tertullian, Against Praxeas II, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org

[19] Athanasius, First Letter to Serapion 28, on www.crossroadsinitiative.com

[20] from J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (Longmans, London, 1967), p. 298

[21] See Gregory Nazianzen, Oration XLII, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Ser. II vol. 7, ed. Philip Schaff (CCEL, Grand Rapids), on www.ccel.org

[22] Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 6.3, in Select Orations, trans. Martha Vinson (Catholic University of America, Washington, 2003), on books.google.co.uk

[23] Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity II.1-2, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Ser. II vol. 9, ed. Philip Schaff (CCEL, Grand Rapids), on www.ccel.org

[24] Hans Küng, Justification (Burns & Oates, London, 1981), p. 103

[25] from J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (Longmans, London, 1967), p. 298

[26] Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (Penguin, London, 1964), p. 206

[27] Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way (St. Vladimir’s, Crestwood, 2001), p. 8

[28] Tertullian, Against Praxeas II, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org

[29] Gregory Nazianzen, The Fifth Theological Oration: on the Holy Spirit XXVI, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Ser. II vol. 7, ed. Philip Schaff (CCEL, Grand Rapids), on www.ccel.org

[30] Gregory Nazianzen, The Fifth Theological Oration: on the Holy Spirit XXVI-XXVII, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Ser. II vol. 7, ed. Philip Schaff (CCEL, Grand Rapids), on www.ccel.org

[31] cf. Joseph Ratzinger, “On the Interpretation of the Tridentine Decree on Tradition”, in Revelation and Tradition (Herder & Herder, New York, 1966), pp. 50-72, referred to in Thomas G. Guarino, “Catholic Reflections on Discerning the Truth of Sacred Scripture”, in Your Word is Truth, ed. Charles Colson & Richard John Neuhaus (William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2002), p. 94

[32] echoing Paul: “How can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Rom. 10:14)

[33] Gregory Nazianzen, The Fifth Theological Oration: on the Holy Spirit XXVI, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Ser. II vol. 7, ed. Philip Schaff (CCEL, Grand Rapids), on www.ccel.org

[34] Yves Congar, The Meaning of Tradition, trans. A. N. Woodrow (Ignatius, San Francisco, 2004), p. 153

[35] Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Baker, Grand Rapids, 2015), p. 38

[36] N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (SPCK, London, 1992), p. 141

[37] N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (SPCK, London, 1992), p. 141

[38] Gregory Nazianzen, The Fifth Theological Oration: on the Holy Spirit XXVII, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Ser. II vol. 7, ed. Philip Schaff (CCEL, Grand Rapids), on www.ccel.org

[39] Francis J. Beckwith, Return to Rome: Confession of an Evangelical Catholic (Brazos, Grand Rapids, 2009), p. 76