Pass it On

“It only takes a spark to get a fire going…” I have old memories of singing Pass it On as a wee lad in church. It’s got this 70s vibe to it, invoking memories of the older kids with long hair, bellbottoms and acoustic guitars. On a more serious note, the song does speak to the value of passing on something of great value to the next generation.

This Pass it On thing can be compared to traditioning. For example, when Paul writes, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received” (1 Cor. 15:3), the apostle is signifying that he is passing on what he had been taught by others. “Jewish teachers would pass on their teachings to their students, who would in turn pass them on to their own students,” writes Craig Keener.¹ 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 actually preserves a Christian creed which is believed to date “from three to eight years after Jesus’ crucifixion,”² or perhaps even earlier, like months after Jesus’ death.³ The gospel of Jesus Christ’s death, burial, resurrection was passed on to Paul, and Paul was passing it on to the Corinthians.

The same kind of traditioning played a significant role in the first millennium of church history. I was listening to a Hank Unplugged podcast wherein the host, Hank Hanegraaff, interviewed Nathan Jacobs, a Christian thinker with specialization in modern philosophy and Eastern patristic thought. On the significant role the church fathers played in the passing on of the faith delivered by Christ and the apostles, Jacobs said,

When we are talking about the church fathers, this is a term that recognizes the fact that Paul identifies certain people as his spiritual children. He is identifying himself as their spiritual father (1 Corinthians 4:14; Galatians 4:19; 2 Timothy 1:2). John, when he is writing to people, he identifies this hierarchy of spiritual growth: some of them are little children and others are full grown (1 John 2:12–14).

One of the things that the church — the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Christian church historically — in the first millennium recognized was that there were certain people who went before us who were fully spiritually mature, who received and lived out the things handed down to them, and they were the ones who spiritually nurtured and cared for us, and we look to them as spiritual guides and spiritual fathers. When we look at that term “patristic,” this term is derived from patros (Greek) or pater (Latin), we are referring to those Christian writers who went before us, who received, lived out, and handed down to the next generation those things that they received in turn, which is what tradition refers to — that which is handed down.

When I am referring to the church fathers, I am referring to those folks, largely and usually, those from the first millennium. That is how church fathers is typically used. These are the folks who were early Christian writers, who defended core doctrines of the faith. Oftentimes this is related to people like those at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325), who received, defended, and upheld against heretics, the Arians,⁴ the doctrine of the Trinity. Church fathers at Constantinople defended Christology and the full humanity of Christ over and against the Apollinarian⁵ heresies. Church fathers defended the doctrine that He was truly incarnate. At Ephesus, church fathers defended over and against the Nestorian⁶ heresies, concluding that Christ is only one person and that there is only one Son of God, the one who is with the Father, and the one who dwelt among us.

These individuals who defended the faith and handed on to us the faith that they received, those are the church fathers. This is one of the things that I think is sometimes misunderstood. In the first millennium you had ecumenical councils. Ecumenical refers to the whole house. These councils happened only seven times in the first millennium prior to the Great Schism between the Western church and the Eastern church.

You had these seven ecumenical councils — and lots of folks are unaware that there were seven ecumenical councils (that’s seven times on seven core doctrines). The Church said this is the faith that was handed down to us. Those councils form the basis for what is typically called Nicaean Trinitarianism and Chalcedonian Christology, these core doctrines of the Trinity and Christology.

One of the things that is interesting is, for whatever reason, the presumption is when you hear the word “council,” it must have been a bunch of academics or something like that, or bishops sitting around hashing out what they thought was the best answer to a given question. But when you look at those councils and what they have to say, what is fascinating is that the question is never “What is the most philosophical savvy answer?” or “What is the latest trend in the academy?” The question is always “What is the faith we received?” “What did the apostles hand down?” That is why the declaration is always This is the faith of Peter. This is the faith that Cyril taught. They always deferred back to the prior generations who had received and handed down the faith. They never saw themselves as academics trying to solve riddles or come up with new, innovative, and creative insights. The question has always been “What have we received?” They were curators, which is the best way to put it.

We are soon to be entering into the Advent season, where Christians all over the world will be celebrating the incarnation of the Son of God, afterwards our worship will focus upon the problem of sin (Lent), Christ death upon the cross for the redemption of sinners (Good Friday), and the resurrection on the third day, which gives us the blessed hope of everlasting life (Easter). Just as the Lord ascended to heaven, He will appear again to judge the living and the dead, and all things will be set to right. All this is far from just ideas invented in the minds of mere men; rather, it is something passed on to us from Christ and the Apostles.

The fire which was lit by Christ over two thousand years ago has not been extinguished. Christians have been blessed by its warmth and illumination. What we received is to be faithfully passed on to the next generation.

— WGN

Notes:

1. Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 1 Co 15:3.
2. Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company, 1996), 124.
3. Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, InterVaristy Press, 2010), 234.
4. Arians were those embracing the false teaching of Arius of Alexandria (AD 246–336). Arius taught that the Son was created, and that there was a time when Christ was not. This was a denial of Christ’s full divinity.
5. Apollinarian refers to the false teachings of Apollinarius or Apollinaris (AD 310–390). Apollinarius taught that the eternal Logos (Word), i.e., God the Son, replaced the human soul of Jesus. In other words, the Lord was the divine Word residing in a soulless human body. This was a denial of Christ’s full humanity.
6. Nestorian refers to the false teaching of Nestorianism, which is the idea that the two natures in Christ were separate. In other words, the God-man was two persons as opposed to one. Nestorianism denied the unity of Christ, who is one person as opposed to two. Nestorianism is associated with Nestorius of Syria (386–450), Archbishop of Constantinople. While Nestorius was opposed