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Church Fathers below onThe
Supremacy of Christ
John 1:17 "...For the law was given through Moses; grace and
truth came through Jesus Christ."
We
can only come to know grace and truth, on the other hand Jesus is Grace
and Truth.
Jesus is one Spirit with God, God is Spirit, we on the other hand have
been gifted this Spirit in us.
Philippians 2:9-11
Therefore GOD also has exalted
Him and has bestowed upon Him the name
that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bend
of those in Heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of GOD the
Father
Saint
Athanasius (aprox. AD 373) "...the son of God became the Son of Man so
that sons of men could become sons of God..."
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth,
visible
and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all
things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in
him all things
hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the
beginning
and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might
have
the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in
him,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on
earth
or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the
cross.
John 8:58, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I
Am" ... "So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself,
and went out of the temple" (John 8:59).
In John 20:28, "My Lord and my God!"
In Philippians 2:6, "Who, being in very nature God, did not
consider equality with God something to be grasped"
I am the First and I am the Last; besides me there is no god’" (Is.
44:6; cf. 41:4, 48:12).
"When I saw him, Christ, I fell at his feet as though dead. But
he laid his right hand upon me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the First and
the Last’" (Rev. 1:17). "And to the angel of the church in Smyrna
write: ‘The words of
the First and the Last, who died and came to life’" (Rev. 2:8).
"Behold, I
am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay every one for what he
has
done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the
beginning and the end" (Rev. 22:12–13).
Ignatius of Antioch
"Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the Church at Ephesus in Asia . .
. predestined from eternity for a glory that is lasting and unchanging,
united and chosen through true suffering by the will of the Father in
Jesus Christ our God" (Letter to the Ephesians 1 [A.D. 110]).
"For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God’s
plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit"
(ibid., 18:2).
"[T]o the Church beloved and enlightened after the love of Jesus
Christ, our God, by the will of him that has willed everything which
is" (Letter to the Romans 1 [A.D. 110]).
Aristides
"[Christians] are they who, above every people of the earth, have found
the truth, for they acknowledge God, the Creator and maker of all
things,
in the only-begotten Son and in the Holy Spirit" (Apology 16
[A.D.
140]).
Tatian
the Syrian
"We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when
we report that God was born in the form of a man" (Address to the
Greeks 21 [A.D. 170]).
Melito
of Sardis
"It is no way necessary in dealing with persons of intelligence to
adduce the actions of Christ after his baptism as proof that his soul
and his body, his human nature, were like ours, real and not
phantasmal. The activities of Christ after his baptism, and especially
his miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the deity
hidden in his flesh. Being God and likewise perfect man, he gave
positive indications of his two natures: of his deity, by the miracles
during the three years following after his baptism, of his humanity, in
the thirty years which came before his baptism, during which, by reason
of his condition according to the flesh, he concealed the signs of his
deity, although he was the true God existing before the ages" (Fragment
in Anastasius of Sinai’s The Guide 13 [A.D. 177]).
Irenaeus
"For the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world even to
the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and from their
disciples the faith in one God, Father Almighty, the creator of heaven
and earth and sea and all that is in them; and in one Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit,
who announced through the prophets the dispensations and the comings,
and the birth from a Virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from
the dead, and the bodily ascension into heaven of the beloved Christ
Jesus our Lord, and his coming from heaven in the glory of the Father
to reestablish all things; and the raising up again
of all flesh of all humanity, in order that to Jesus Christ our Lord
and
God and Savior and King, in accord with the approval of the invisible
Father,
every knee shall bend of those in heaven and on earth and under the
earth
. . . " (Against Heresies 1:10:1 [A.D. 189]).
"Nevertheless, what cannot be said of anyone else who ever lived, that
he is himself in his own right God and Lord . . . may be seen by all
who
have attained to even a small portion of the truth" (ibid., 3:19:1).
Clement
of Alexandria
"The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient
beginning—for he was in God—and of our well-being. And now this same
Word has appeared as
man. He alone is both God and man, and the source of all our good
things" (Exhortation to the Greeks 1:7:1 [A.D. 190]).
"Despised as to appearance but in reality adored, [Jesus is] the
expiator, the Savior, the soother, the divine Word, he that is quite
evidently true God, he that is put on a level with the Lord of the
universe because he was his Son" (ibid., 10:110:1).
Tertullian
"God alone is without sin. The only man who is without sin is Christ;
for Christ is also God" (The Soul 41:3 [A.D. 210]).
"The origins of both his substances display him as man and as God: from
the one, born, and from the other, not born" (The Flesh of Christ 5:6–7
[A.D. 210]).
"That there are two gods and two Lords, however, is a statement which
we will never allow to issue from our mouth; not as if the Father and
the Son were not God, nor the Spirit God, and each of them God; but
formerly two were
spoken of as gods and two as Lords, so that when Christ would come, he
might
both be acknowledged as God and be called Lord, because he is the Son
of
him who is both God and Lord" (Against Praxeas 13:6 [A.D.
216]).
Origen
"Although he was God, he took flesh; and having been made man, he
remained what he was: God" (The Fundamental Doctrines 1:0:4
[A.D. 225]).
Hippolytus
"Only [God’s] Word is from himself and is therefore also God, becoming
the substance of God" (Refutation of All Heresies 10:33 [A.D.
228]).
Hippolytus
of Rome
"For Christ is the God over all, who has arranged to wash away sin from
mankind, rendering the old man new" (ibid., 10:34).
Novatian
"If Christ was only man, why did he lay down for us such a rule of
believing as that in which he said, ‘And this is life eternal, that
they should know you, the only and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent?’ [John 17:3]. Had he not wished that he also should be
understood to be God, why did he add, ‘And Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent,’ except because he wished to be received as God also? Because if
he had not wished to be understood to be God, he would have added, ‘And
the man Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent;’ but, in fact, he neither
added this, nor did Christ deliver himself to us as man only, but
associated himself with God, as he wished to be understood by this
conjunction to be God also, as he is. We must therefore believe,
according to the rule prescribed, on the Lord, the one true God, and
consequently
on him whom he has sent, Jesus Christ, who by no means, as we have
said,
would have linked himself to the Father had he not wished to be
understood
to be God also. For he would have separated himself from him had he not
wished to be understood to be God" (Treatise on the Trinity 16
[A.D. 235]).
Cyprian
of Carthage
"One who denies that Christ is God cannot become his temple [of the
Holy Spirit] . . . " (Letters 73:12 [A.D. 253]).
Gregory
the Wonderworker
"There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is his subsistent
wisdom and power and eternal image: perfect begetter of the perfect
begotten,
Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one Lord, only of the only,
God
of God, image and likeness of deity, efficient Word, wisdom
comprehensive
of the constitution of all things, and power formative of the whole
creation,
true Son of true Father, invisible of invisible, and incorruptible of
incorruptible, and immortal of immortal and eternal of eternal. . . .
And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit
to the Son; but without variation and without change, the same Trinity
abides ever" (Declaration of Faith [A.D. 265]).
Arnobius
"‘Well, then,’ some raging, angry, and excited man will say, ‘is that
Christ your God?’ ‘God indeed,’ we shall answer, ‘and God of the hidden
powers’" (Against the Pagans 1:42 [A.D. 305]).
Lactantius
"He was made both Son of God in the spirit and Son of man in the flesh,
that is, both God and man" (Divine Institutes 4:13:5 [A.D.
307]).
"We, on the other hand, are [truly] religious, who make our
supplications to the one true God. Someone may perhaps ask how, when we
say that we worship one God only, we nevertheless assert that there are
two, God the Father and God the Son—which assertion has driven many
into the greatest error . . . [thinking] that we confess that there is
another God, and that he is mortal. . . . [But w]hen we speak of God
the Father and God the Son, we do not speak of them as different, nor
do we separate each, because the Father cannot exist
without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from the Father" (ibid.,
4:28–29).
Council
of Nicaea I
"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not
made, one in being with the Father. Through him all things were made" (Creed
of Nicaea [A.D. 325]).
"But those who say, ‘There was a time when he [the Son] did not exist,’
and ‘Before he was born, he did not exist,’ and ‘Because he was made
from
non-existing matter, he is either of another substance or essence,’ and
those
who call ‘God the Son of God changeable and mutable,’ these the
Catholic
Church anathematizes" (Appendix to the Creed of Nicaea [A.D.
325]).
Patrick
of Ireland
"Jesus Christ is the Lord and God in whom we believe, and whose coming
we expect will soon take place, the judge of the living and the dead,
who
will render to everyone according to his works" (Confession of St.
Patrick 4 [A.D. 452]). |
