Main news for 29 August 2021

Paul says of the Church that it is the "pillar and foundation of the truth." How should his words be understood? And what does he mean by the Church? In Christian history these words of the apostle were often used to assert the authority of one or another religion that grew up on Christian soil, and of many different church structures and institutions that claimed to be the final expressers and bearers of Christian truth.

Paul quite obviously does not have in mind any religions or any church institutions: for him Christianity was never a religion, and church institutions in their medieval form simply did not exist in his time. For the apostle, the Church is something completely different. This is not surprising, for Paul never perceived Christianity as a new religion either; for him it was always not religion, but life, life with Christ in His Kingdom.

It is in Him, in Christ, that Paul sees the living truth. And not Paul alone: the first two, or even three, generations of Christians looked at Christ as the living Torah, and therefore as the living truth. The Savior Himself also said of Himself that He is the way, the truth, and the life. But such truth can exist only as the person of the Messiah, who revealed the living Torah to the world. A person can know Christian truth only by becoming a living Torah in Christ. There can be no abstract, formulated Christian truth: no words and no formulas can contain it by definition.

There are, of course, church creeds, but they have never claimed to be a complete expression of Christian truth. They only mark out the space of opinions possible for a Christian on fundamental questions; by leaving that space, a person effectively ceases to be a Christian in the sense in which the first Christians were Christians. But for a person to become a living Torah is possible only on the condition of personal relationships both with God and with the Messiah sent by Him. More precisely, it is possible within these relationships, the relationships of the Father and the Son, in the spiritual space that they form.

All who find themselves in this space and participate in the process of spiritual formation are also bound to one another, forming that spiritual whole which in another letter the apostle calls the body of Christ. This is precisely the Church, the "pillar and foundation of the truth." Of course, such unity always has some outward dimension connected with the life of its age, but it is never fully identical with any of the forms in which it exists. The Church as the body of Christ is always greater not only than any church structure and any institution, but also than any particular church community. And only she, in her spiritual dynamic, is the "pillar and foundation of the truth." This is the Church of which Paul speaks in his letter to Timothy.

When did the first creed appear in the Church? And what should count as one? Of course, in our present understanding, a creed is primarily a confession and a witness to the orthodoxy of the person who proclaims it. But was it always so?

The original meaning of the word "orthodoxy" is connected with the idea of correct views or, more precisely, correct opinions ("orthodoxy" literally means "right opinion"). It follows that, by proclaiming, for example, the Nicene Creed, we thereby declare that our opinions about certain foundational Christian matters are correct, that they do not differ from the opinions shared by all Christians or at least by the majority of them.

But what does God care about our opinions? On the way to the Kingdom, what matters is not opinions or theories, but actions; orthopraxy on this way is more important than orthodoxy. Differences of opinion on the overwhelming majority of theological problems, from the point of view of the Kingdom, are only ripples on the water; for the Kingdom only one distinction is essential: the distinction between sin and righteousness.

So then, are creeds unnecessary? They are, after all, needed: otherwise Paul would not have proclaimed his creed so decisively. But his creed has practical significance for spiritual life: it contains a brief witness to what forms the basis of the spiritual life of every Christian. And its main question, like the main question of any other creed, comes down to Who Jesus of Nazareth is for the one confessing it. It is the same question He asked Peter: who do people say that I am? And who do you say that I am? Here we are no longer dealing with opinions on abstract theological questions, but with the expression of a relationship to a concrete Person. A relationship that either opens the path to the Kingdom for the one who confesses, or closes it.

The last verse of today’s reading is the most ancient Creed, for it fully expresses the essential core of the Christian faith. “In the flesh,” that is, as a human being—and this is a very important point. God took upon Himself the full burden of existence by coming into the world as a human being. “Vindicated by the Spirit,” or, in another translation, “revealed His righteousness” through the descent of the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus. “Seen by angels” means that redemption was accomplished for the sake of creation as a whole. Christ’s sacrifice destroyed the death sown by original sin.