Christian Beliefs and Convictions Exam #2

Son of Man

The one who has been "given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship shall never be destroyed" (Dan. 7:14). Jesus is the "Son of God," who is so intimate with the Father, so beloved by the Father, that we know Him to be "the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being" (Heb. 1:13).

Immutability

God's unchanging nature, i.e. He doesn't change

Son of Man

The one who has been "given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship shall never be destroyed" (Dan. 7:14). Jesus is the "Son of God," who is so intimate with the Father, so beloved by the Father, that we know Him to be "the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being" (Heb. 1:13).

Immutability

God's unchanging nature, i.e. He doesn't change

Impassibility

God's nature is not subject to the passions or suffering, i.e., Augustinian view point. This is not saying that God doesn't have emotions, rather that God does not have emotions that "disturb the mind."

Apollinarianism

Suggests that Jesus must have been less than fully human.

Eutychianism

Presents a Jesus whose humanity has been undone by God, that "Christ is of two natures before the Incarnation, of only one afterwards."

Monophysitism

The incarnate Jesus only has one nature.

Monothelitism

Christ had no human will

Incarnation

Divinity unites with humanity while allowing it to be truly human. Divinity cherishes humanity.

Nestorian

Saw that Jesus is divine and human, but he wanted to keep the two natures separate, insisting that certain actions were from Jesus' "divine" nature, while others were from His "human" nature.

Theotokos

"The one who gave birth to God"

Council of Chalcedon

Worked through the questions raised by the christological heresies, and it resulted in a doctrinal statement defining boundaries for Christian speech about and understanding of the identity of Jesus, affirming that Jesus has two natures, a fully divine nature and a fully human nature, and that those two natures are truly united in one person.

Person

Names both the Second Person of the Trinity and the historical person Jesus of Nazareth, God in the flesh.

Two natures

Affirming that Jesus is both divine and human.

Hypostatic union

The unity of the divine and human natures in the person Jesus, which can only be applied to the incarnation.

Communication of Attributes

Shows us how to think about the things that are appropriate to God and the things that are appropriate to humanity when we meet those qualities in the incarnate Jesus.

Iconography

Due to the incarnation of Jesus, God becoming flesh and giving us a physical example of Himself, God can therefore be represented. As John of Damascus says, "I worship Him clothed in the flesh, not as if it were a garment... That flesh is divine, and endures."

Particularity

Used in theology to point to the goodness of a God whose love extends to specifics.

Soteriology

The Doctrine of Atonement, attending to the interconnections between who Jesus is and what He has done, especially. in the cross and resurrection, to bring about salvation.

Contrition

The step on the way of salvation when we feel sorry for our sin, when we wish that it could be made right.

Repentance

We turn away from sin and toward God.

Justification

God's work in validating sinners---forgiving our sins and making us right with God.

Indulgences

Catholic Church granted these for "a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven." One is thus understood to cover punishment for sins---punishment that would have to be paid by the individual. This punishment is to be covered by the merits of Christ and of the saints, held. in treasury and administered by the Catholic Church.

Imputed righteousness

God assigns Christ's virtue to us; the virtue of Christ is reckoned or credited to us and becomes the legal basis for our acquittal.

Sanctification

God's work in making us godly, holy, and like Christ and it is a gift of grace.

Works righteousness

Legalism, a doomed Pelagianism. in which we attempt to be our own saviors.

Antinomianism

Acting as if God's law had nothing to say to the Christian life, as if it didn't matter how we lived.

Calvinist

Focuses on the priority and sovereignty of God's grace by emphasizing God as the sole agent of salvation.

Arminian

Focuses on God's loving desire to be in saving relationship with humanity and connects to God's opening up space for human agency alongside divine grace, in salvation.

Prevenient grace

A gift of grace from God that comes before us, preceding anything we do.

Monergistic

Calvinistic soteriology, meaning that God is the only actor in salvation.

Synergistic

Arminian soteriology, meaning that God works together with human beings in the process of salvation

Atonement

The way Christ's work bridges the separation between humans and God, opening up the possibility that we may again be reconciled to, or made one with, God.

Deification

"Christ, indeed, assumed humanity, that we might become God." Atonement involves a double movement" 1) God comes to us, in incarnate unity with us, in order to 2) bring us to God, in unity with the divine life.

Christus Victor

The idea of the Atonement is a Divine conflict and victory; Christ fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the 'tyrants' under which mankind is in bondage and suffering, and in Him, God reconciles the world to Himself.

Substitute

Christ's role in taking our place to pay the price of sin.

Satisfaction

Posits that Christ's death on the cross functioned as a gift to God on behalf of humanity to restore the order of justice subverted by sin.

Forensic

Shifting the metaphor from the feudal context to the court of law, God as judge, us as the guilty defendants with Christ taking the punishment on our behalf.

Moral Example

The perfect love of Christ. Abelard suggests that in seeing the love of Christ, especially on the cross, we are moved by love to love in turn.

Sacraments

Baptism and communion, recognized by the whole church, commanded by Jesus, are central, formative, and communal practices often defined as "outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace."

Pneumatology

The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

Filioque

"and from the Son", phrase that was added to the Nicene Creed by the Western Church to affirm the full divinity of both Spirit and Son in their eternal relationship to each other, and it fits with a tendency to see the three persons of the Trinity in mutuality and coequality

Proceeds

A signpost for the eternal relatedness of Father and Spirit (Think of Begotten, but with the Spirit)

Anthropomorphize

Forming God into our own image instead of remembering that it is the other way around

Holiness

Divine righteousness, the standard of goodness and justice and truthfulness.

Cessationism

The belief that the special gifts of the Spirit ended with the New Testament age

Continuationism

Recognizing that such spiritual gifts are available in every age

Ecclesiology

The Doctrine of the Church

Marks of the Church

"One, holy, catholic, and apostolic."

Catholic

Implies both universality and wholeness

Apostolic

Authority and truth, the same church as that of the eye-witnesses of Jesus Christ in the flesh

Donatist Controversy

They wanted a pure church and demanded holiness from their leaders. They objected to the possibility that people who had betrayed the church might be able to repent and be reinstated. Thus they formed a separatist church.

Constantinianism

Used to point to church collusion with and corruption by the state, to the bride trading Christ's love for worldly power and wealth

Sacrament

A visible sign of spiritual grace, connecting visible, material creation and the grace of the Spirit. They share three features: they are tangible, they are communal, and God has made gracious promises about them. Outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace.

Mixed Body

The church is full of both the wheat and the tares of Jesus's parable

Sacramental

Things are are like a ceremony, but aren't community-oriented or promises of God

Eucharist

Another word for communion, from the Greek word for giving thanks

Priesthood of all believers

Protestant theology that limits sacraments to church practices that truly belong to all Christians

Consubstantiation

Christ is truly present in and with the bread, affirming that Christ's body is present with the substance of the bread.

Real substance

Christ's genuine presence in communion, which can be seen as a further affirmation of justification by grace

Ordinances

Something done in obedience, with our participation. in baptism and the supper as obedient responses to grave that has already been given, not as means of grace in and of themselves.