Posts tagged ‘Tertullian’
“For Thine Is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory” – Where Did That Come From?
“Sermon on the Mount” by Carl Heinrich Bloch
This past weekend in worship, we studied the most famous prayer of all time: the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus offers this model prayer as part of His Sermon on the Mount:
This, then, is how you should pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Matthew 6:9-13)
Whenever I teach on the Lord’s Prayer, someone inevitably notices that, in Matthew’s account, the doxology often included in traditional versions of this prayer – “For Thine is the kingdom and the power and glory, forever and ever. Amen” – is missing. Where did it go?
Interestingly, the old King James Version includes the doxology because the Greek manuscripts from which the translators of that day were working incoporated it. As biblical textual criticism has advanced over the past four hundred years, however, we have learned that the doxology is absent from the most ancient and significant manuscripts of the Bible, including Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, both from the fourth century, and is also omitted in early patristic commentaries on the Lord’s Prayer including those of Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian.[1] Thus, these words are not included in more modern translations with the understanding that they were probably not a part of the original biblical text.
It is important to understand that the exclusion of the doxology as part of the biblical text does not mean that it is errant or inappropriate to the prayer. Quite the contrary. It reflects the spirit of 1 Chronicles 29:11: “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is Yours.” Moreover, the doxology has been included as a liturgical strophe from the earliest days of the Christian Church. The Didache, a manual of church practice from the turn of the second century, includes a truncated version of the doxology: “For Yours is the power and the glory for ever.” The Didache goes on to encourage the faithful to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day.[2] Christians, then, were speaking these words from the earliest days of the church…a lot!
More than likely, this doxology began as a response of the people, gathered for worship, to the words of the Lord in this prayer. It is much like, at the end of a Scripture lesson in worship today, the reader will sometimes conclude, “This is the Word of the Lord” and the people will sometimes respond, “Thanks be to God.” The doxology, then, was a way for those assembled to praise God for the prayer His Son had given them. With time, however, the liturgical function of this doxology was forgotten and people began to assume that the words were part of the prayer itself.
We, along with many others, continue to pray these words because, finally, they are a statement of faith in the heavenly Father to whom we are praying. We believe that the reason He can bring His kingdom to pass, give us our daily bread, forgive our trespasses, and deliver us from the evil one is because the Kingdom, power, and glory are at His disposal to do with as He wishes. And His wish, as we delightedly learn from the Lord’s Prayer, is to bless and save us. And so, we continue to praise God with this doxology and pray as Christ has taught us.
ABC Extra – The Descent Into Hell
This past weekend in worship and ABC, we continued our “Credo!” series with a look at the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus, based on this line from the Apostles’ Creed: “Christ descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead.” The fact that Christ “rose again from the dead” is the linchpin of our faith. Indeed, the apostle Paul says it is “of first importance” (1 Corinthians 15:3). Without the resurrection, our “faith is futile” (1 Corinthians 15:17). Thus, in ABC, I spent a great deal of time defending the resurrection’s historicity against skeptics would try to undermine this cornerstone of Christian doctrine.
Blessedly, most Christians believe in Christ’s resurrection. And they appreciate its centrality to our faith. Thus, Christians proudly confess, “The third day He rose again from the dead.” What many Christians do not understand, however, is the line that comes before this: “Christ descended into hell.” In fact, the most common question I receive concerning the Apostles’ Creed is, “Does the Bible really teach that Christ descended into hell?” And, if so, “Where does the Bible teach this?” Though I touched on it in ABC, I wanted to take a slightly more in-depth look at the doctrine of Christ’s descent into hell in today’s blog.
The line, “He descended into hell,” is a relatively late addition to the Apostles’ Creed. It first appears as part of the Symbol of Sirmium in 359 and reads, “Christ died, and descended to the underworld, and regulated things there, whom the gatekeepers of hell saw and shuddered.” It first appears in the Apostles’ Creed in 570. However, just because it appears in the Creed at a late date does not mean it does not have an early origin. Consider, for instance, these quotes, from Irenaeus (c. 180) and Tertullian (c. 200):
It was for this reason, too, that the Lord descended into the regions beneath the earth, preaching His advent there also. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.27.2)
But it was for this purpose, say they, that Christ descended into hell, that we might not ourselves have to descend thither. (Tertullian, A Treatise on the Soul, 55)
Clearly, the church fathers had no problem with the notion that Christ descended into hell. Nevertheless, because of its late incorporation into the Creed, the phrase, “He descended into hell,” has caused much controversy among Christians. Indeed, some even go so far as refusing to speak this line when they recite the Creed. For those who do speak this line, there are multiple interpretations as to what this line means.
Some interpret this line simply as meaning that Christ descended into the grave, that is, He was buried and truly dead. The Greek of the Creed reads, “Christ descended into ta katotata,” meaning, “the lowest.” These interpreters take this phrase simply to mean not the lowest place of hell, but the low place of a grave in the ground. Roman Catholic interpreters believe that Christ did indeed descend into hell in the traditional sense, but did so to free virtuous people who had gone before Him, but nevertheless could not be saved because they had been born before His advent. The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church explains: “In His human soul united to His divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven’s gates for the just who had gone before Him” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 637).
Finally, it is probably best to understand Christ’s descent into hell as it is explained in 1 Peter 3:18-19: “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison.” The phrase “spirits in prison” is often taken to refer to the eternal prison of hell. As I mentioned in ABC, the Greek word for “preached” is kerysso, a word that was used in ancient Greek games to declare the victor of a contest. Thus, when Christ descended into hell, He did not do so to free the virtuous who had come before Him, for they had already received their salvation through faith in the promise of a coming Messiah (cf. Romans 4:3-8, 18-25). Rather, He descended into hell to kerysso Himself the victor over sin, death, and the devil. The descent into hell is Christ’s victory tour, for through the cross, He has conquered all things wicked. And this is good news!
At Jesus’ empty tomb, the angels sing, “Christ has risen” (Luke 24:6)! Perhaps it is appropriate to add as well, “Christ has descended!” For His descent gives a reason for us to celebrate and for hell to shudder. For Christ’s descent and resurrection, finally, point to the same promise: Christ has conquered the cross and has secured for us eternal life. Praise be to the One who descended and resurrected!
Want to learn more on this passage? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Tucker’s
message or Pastor Zach’s ABC!
Pastor Zach's Blog 