Athanasius Still Teaches

He must have asked himself a thousand times why––and how––he, a young Egyptian pastor of an Egyptian congregation, had ended up exiled 1,700 miles away in Germany, of all places. The year was A.D. 336––around three hundred years had passed since the life of Christ. The place was ancient Trier, a large city in Germania, the northernmost corner of a newly Christianized Roman Empire. The name of the pastor was Athanasius of Alexandria. There, forcibly separated from his beloved church, he would learn the true cost of standing for the truth. Infamously, Athanasius would be exiled no less than five times, a total of seventeen years out of his forty-five years of ministry.

Barely over a decade earlier, Emperor Constantine had led the church to convene an impressive council of 318 bishops from around the empire. The aim of the council was to settle a major dispute that had erupted throughout the eastern empire and was now causing chaos. An Alexandrian deacon by the name of Arius had raised an issue concerning the biblical phrase “the Son of God.” If he truly was a son, reasoned Arius, he must have had a beginning, and there must have been a time, therefore, when he did not exist. Because of his views, Arius himself was later excommunicated by the church. However, the controversy did not die out as might be expected but rather exploded into a full-blown conflict in the eastern empire. 

The Council met at Nicaea, a town located in northwestern Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), and therefore became known in church history as the council of Nicea. The identically named “Nicene Creed” was the fruit of months of careful attention to precise wording in order to formulate a theologically accurate statement of Christ’s true nature. All but a few bishops signed this document, and with that, it seemed that the conflict had been settled. Nothing, however, was further from the truth. It turned out that many of the bishops had signed this document in duplicity, justifying this act by claiming to accept its careful language, while holding onto a different interpretation. More dangerously for orthodox Christianity, at numerous occasions in the succeeding decades, it would begin to look like the entire world, with the backing of a succession of emperors, had either turned Arian, or didn’t care about what was at stake. Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria who had embraced the Nicene Creed more enthusiastically than anyone else, would be ruthlessly persecuted and accused of upsetting the peace of the empire. Thus it was that Athanasius stood contra mundum––“against the world.”

Biblical truth is more than just a feeling

Increasingly, we are hearing calls from more progressive Adventists for unity not only within the denomination, but also with Christians. Theological common ground is stressed, while differences are downplayed. For example, in 2016 then Adventist pastor Alex Bryan penned an open letter to Donald Trump in defense of Adventism. The letter was occasioned by a disparaging remark about Seventh-day Adventism made by the presidential candidate. In his appeal, Bryan stressed: “Seventh-day Adventism is a Christian denomination. We are Christians. Presbyterians (your tribe) and Adventists share about 98 percent of the same beliefs and values.” 

Likewise, it is not difficult at all to find plenty of talk placing emphasis on “Jesus” in recent Adventist literature and conferences. Consider, for example, The One Project’s slogan: “Jesus. All.” This entire approach could be boiled down to the popular notion that it is Christ who unites, while doctrine divides. Unfortunately, calls to unite around a name will do nothing to bridge a serious divide. It does no good to name the name of Christ without filling that term with content. Which Jesus are we talking about?

In his second epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul makes it clear that there is not just one conception of Jesus floating out there; rather, there are competing claims about the person of Christ, just as there are multiple spirits and multiple versions of the gospel (2 Cor 11:4). Both Athanasius and the bishops who opposed him equally proclaimed Christ as Lord. Yet the very fact that he encountered such severe opposition from them and others demonstrates that both sides were upholding very different notions of who Jesus was. It’s fascinating to consider the language Paul uses in his condemnation of sensuality and impure living in Ephesians: “That is not the way you learned Christ!” (Eph 4:20). Evidently, Christ must be “learned” from some source; moreover, there are competing approaches (not all of them valid).

We must clearly make a choice as to which Jesus we believe and proclaim. Is it the Jesus who “voluntarily limited Himself in this respect [omnipresence]” and chose “to be omnipresent through the ministry of the Holy Spirit”? (Seventh-day Adventists Believe, p. 43). Did man, caught in the middle of the “Great Controversy” need “a perfect revelation of God’s character in order to develop a personal relationship with Him [the Father]” (Seventh-day Adventists Believe, p. 39) or rather, did he need a Substitute to decisively and finally bear the penalty for his sins?

Biblical truth sometimes requires more than just biblical language

This is perhaps one of the most counter-intuitive notions Bible-believing Christians will encounter. Nevertheless, if we are to be honest about church history and aware of the issues at stake, we cannot avoid embracing it. The use of biblical language alone is often not enough, simply because we have to define precisely what we mean by the words we encounter in Scripture. 

The framers of the Nicene Creed discovered to their horror that almost any language they used to describe the person of Christ could be, and was, accepted by the Arian party with duplicity. Much of the debate settled around two Greek words, which were nigh identical in pronunciation: homoiousios and homoousios. Was the nature, the essence (ousia) of Jesus Christ similar (homoi(o)-) to that of the Father, or identical (homo-) to his? Deep divisions were created in the church over the meaning and validity of these two adjectives, applied to Christ. Centuries later, the humanistic Enlightenment historian Edward Gibbon sneered that Athanasius’ almost single-handed theological battle was nothing more than “a furious contest over a diphthong [a single sound].” And yet, that single iota would eventually turn out to be the very difference between orthodoxy and heresy. The absence or presence of one letter would come to clearly define Christ either as a creature (however lofty and divine), or as the eternal God himself.

In its history, the Seventh-day Adventist church has repeatedly claimed that it avoids creeds, often proudly so. For example, the preface of Seventh-day Adventists Believe boldly states, “We have not written this book to serve as a creed—a statement of beliefs set in theological concrete. Adventists have but one creed: ‘The Bible, and the Bible alone.’ ” 

While this statement might sound lofty and noble to an outside observer (and of course, one sometimes hears similar statements in other, non-Adventist churches), it is in fact a cloak for deception.  

A simple examination of various statements made by Adventist leaders in the church’s history will amply illustrate this. In the November 1893 issue of Signs of the Times, Ellen G. White wrote: “Jesus said, ‘I and my Father are one.’ The words of Christ were full of deep meaning as he put forth the claim that he and the Father were of one substance, possessing the same attributes.” The reader, upon seeing the word “substance,” might be led to believe that this was an orthodox statement. 

Later, however, in Testimonies for the Church (1907/8, p. 62–63) the prophetess clarified: “The Father is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and is invisible to mortal sight. The Son is all the fullness of the Godhead manifested. The Word of God declares Him to be ‘the express image of His person.’… There are three living persons of the heavenly trio; in the name of these three great powers—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—those who receive Christ by living faith are baptized.” 

White directly contradicts Scripture (Colossians 2:9 plainly states that the fullness of deity dwells bodily in Christ, not the Father), and in so doing, introduces eternal substantial distinctions between the Son and the Father. This is made clear by her use of terms like “heavenly trio” and “three great powers.” 

Similarly, a phrase in the statement of Adventist fundamental beliefs in 1931 sounds relatively benign, considered in isolation: “Jesus Christ is very God, being of the same nature and essence as the Eternal Father.” When, however, it is read in combination with the rest of the statement, a radically different picture emerges: “[T]he Godhead, or Trinity, consists of the Eternal Father, a personal, spiritual Being, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, infinite in wisdom and love; the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father, through whom all things were created and through whom the salvation of the redeemed hosts will be accomplished; the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, the great regenerating power in the work of redemption.”

The life and times of Athanasius powerfully teaches us that clear statements of belief and precise language are vital to maintaining biblical truth. In fact, to the degree that our statements are more unambiguous and precise, the less “wiggle room” we will leave for theological fudging. As Christians, we are duty-bound to stand for the truth of the Word of God by using clear language that everyone can understand.

What Athanasisus can teach to former Adventists

We may not encounter the same kind of severe persecution that Athanasius of Alexandria did, having been exiled no less than five times. And yet the opposition (sometimes, it seemed, from all sides) will be somewhat familiar. In a postmodern, post-Christian West, we need to be prepared to face the fact that sometimes both evangelicals and Adventists will oppose our stand (even if for somewhat different reasons). Adventists will, of course, oppose efforts to define Adventism as non-biblical. On the other hand, some Christians will see former Adventists as divisive, picking theological fights and dividing the body of Christ. Others will be exasperated and question what the big fuss is, either minimizing differences, or seeing them as being somehow complementary. 

The defense of the faith “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) is not an attempt to create needless division, nor does it indicate an attitude of superiority or arrogance (even though that is sadly sometimes true of believers). Rather, it is the duty of every born-again Christian who loves the truth, loves the person and work of Jesus Christ, and cares for the church, which was purchased with God’s own blood (Acts 20:28). May Athanasius spur us to speak the truth in love and boldly, yet humbly, defend the precious Word of God. †

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Kaspars Ozolins

Kaspars Ozolins was born in Latvia to an Adventist family. They moved to Los Angeles where Kaspars attended Adventist elementary and high schools in Glendale, California, and his father was an Adventist pastor. He met Ieva, his wife, while studying in Latvia before pursuing a doctorate at UCLA in historical linguistics. After Kaspars completed an M. Div. at The Master’s Seminary in Sun Valley, California, he served as a research associate at Tyndale House in Old Testament and the Ancient Near East. He is now on the faculty at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary as Assistant Professor of Old Testament Interpretation.

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