Recently, while having a conversation with my Church History/Historical Theology professor about the changes in theology that Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430) either brought into or caused to become far more widespread in the church, I expressed the idea that we need to examine and carefully consider what the church believed on various articles of belief prior to the time of Augustine, because the basic contents of the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3), and “the rule of faith” were formed and delivered to the early church before Augustine had even been born. My professor responded by saying that the problem with such an idea is that defining exactly what the “rule of truth” or “rule of faith” consisted of in the church of the first three centuries was like trying to nail jelly to the wall—meaning that it was no easy task, or that it was something very difficult or something next to impossible to accomplish. And while I believe there is some truth to what he said (because the rule of truth was variously stated depending on both who the writer and what the circumstance was), I also believe that there is still a great deal of value in our knowing what the most universal consensus was in the church of the first three centuries on how to understand or interpret the Scriptures as a whole and especially the various passages on which there are so many different and even contradictory interpretations floating around within Christianity today.

The reason I say it is so valuable for us to know what the earliest Christians believed and practiced (especially those Christians who lived during the first three centuries of the church) is because there are a handful of popular beliefs in the Christian world today, some of which are even held to be true by the majority of Christians, that would have been considered to be serious departures from the Christian faith had they been openly proclaimed in the pre-Nicene church. In other words, some beliefs that have become very prominent in the Christian world today would have been (or maybe I should say were) considered to be dangerous doctrinal errors or heresy in the minds of the Christians who lived closest in time to the first-hand teachings of the Apostles.

Upon examining the writings of the Christians who lived prior to the Council of Nicea in 325, it can be seen that there was a clear consensus among these early Christian writers on some very basic teachings of the faith that are now commonly denied or disbelieved by many Christians and even some major denominations that are in existence today. The interpretation of the Scriptures has clearly been proven to be a bigger problem than the translation of the Scriptures, and there is far more disagreement nowadays amongst Bible-believing Christians than there was in the first few centuries of the church.

So how can knowing the basics of what the pre-Nicene Christians believed help us? For example, let us consider the subject that I believe is one of the most helpful and illuminating discrepancies of belief between what many Christians believe today versus what the Christians of the first few centuries believed: Free-will. The early church believed that we have free will both before and after initial salvation. They did not believe in the popular doctrine of Eternal Security or Once Saved Always Saved. In other words, they did not believe that the Apostle Paul taught determinism; they did not hold to the determinism that is commonly associated with some of the teachings of Augustine of Hippo, Martin Luther, and John Calvin. In fact, one 2nd century Christian writer named Irenaeus clearly labeled such deterministic teachings as heresy in his book Against Heresies when writing against the Gnostics.

As far as I can discern, all of the Christian writers & writings[1] that touch on the topic of “The Rule of Faith” and that are dated prior to the time of Augustine of Hippo all clearly demonstrate a belief in the concept of free will. One of these writers (Origen) expressly lists a belief in human free will regarding our salvation (as opposed to the determinism that was apparently held to by some Pharisees, Gnostics and by Augustine himself) as being a basic, clear and necessary part of the original Christian faith. It is significant that Origen, of all people, would insist on free will as being a necessary article of the original Christian faith because he was a scholar and a thinker who was very tolerant of intellectual speculation and who himself indulged in speculation on certain items of belief without dogmatizing on such “non-essential” thoughts or trying to bind them on others. But yet he very firmly asserts that it is a necessary item of the ancient faith to believe that humans have free will; he says that such an article of faith is part of “The Rule.”

Therefore, if we can clearly see that a belief in free will was a “common-core” doctrine amongst the pre-Augustinian Christians, we can safely conclude that Origen was correct in listing it as being a basic, necessary part of orthodox Christian belief—human free will is an essential element of “The Rule of Faith.” While Augustine himself also wrote about “The Rule,” it is also pretty clear that he (toward the end of his life or career) imported his deterministic Gnostic/Manichean interpretations of Scripture into the Christian church, and prominent Christian writers who were contemporaries of Augustine objected to him bringing such interpretations into the church.

As for obtaining helpful guidance on various other items of belief, it is interesting and illuminating that Irenaeus (in his book Against Heresies) also labeled as heretics those who denied the necessity of baptism. Similarly, amongst the early Christians, anyone who denied that there would be a bodily resurrection of the dead were either referred to as being heretical or as not even being Christians at all, no matter what they might claim—it was that important of a doctrine to them. Concerning their view of sin, they taught that, generally speaking, sin leads to death (eternal death), but yet they did not view every particular sin as being alike; some sins were more serious than others, but none have a good effect on the soul—and some are deadly and will prevent us from living eternally with God (if they are not repented of). An associated belief was that they believed in varying degrees of reward and punishment. Concerning their views on the Trinity, they were not modalists/Sabellians and neither did they see the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as being equal in every way. They believed that all three of the divine persons/personas shared the nature of God, being equal according to nature, but they saw differences in personal attributes and a hierarchy of order or a chain of command—and the Father was always at the top. But yet, they worshipped Jesus, and they saw both Jesus and the Holy Spirit as being divine; they saw them as being distinct from the Father, while sharing His deity or Godhood and being inseparably connected to and intermingling with the Father. Concerning their practice of the faith, generally speaking, they received communion (or shared in the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist) at least on a weekly basis—on Sunday, which was the special day on which they all made a point of it to assemble together because it was the day of the week on which Jesus rose from the dead.

Also, concerning the lifestyles of the early Christians, the spiritual leaders of the pre-Nicene church were committed to living out & teaching others that Christians are called to follow Jesus in the way of righteousness & peace, meaning nonresistance, nonviolence, non-retaliation, or pacifism as some people call it. They shunned worldliness, believing in being separate from the sinful world around them as much as possible. They condemned all sorts of sexual immorality, whether it was fornication or adultery (and they considered it adultery for a couple to enter into a covenant of marriage, and then later divorce & remarry another person while the original spouse was still alive). And of course, homosexuality was considered to be an abomination and a monstrosity.

Such items of belief & practice were held to be basic, general truths amongst the Christians of the first few centuries; such beliefs & practices were considered to be part of orthodoxy, but yet I have met many Protestants who do not believe and practice these things. For example, many Protestants are determinists who deny that we have free will; they say that a person plays no part in either becoming a Christian or remaining one—that they can never lose their salvation once they have been regenerated. I have met many Protestants who deny that baptism is necessary and who—instead of practicing baptism as the central act of initiation into the Christian faith (being baptized into Christ)—say that all you need to do is “invite Jesus into your heart” (praying their way into Christ). I have met Protestants who do not believe that there will be a bodily resurrection of the dead at the end of time. Many Christians believe that all sins are the same and that all will receive the same degree of either eternal reward or eternal punishment. Many Christians—especially Western Christians—will describe the relationship that exists between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as if they are three brothers who are equal in every way. Many Christians wholeheartedly embrace the use of violence in some form or another. Many Christians do not receive communion/the Lord’s Supper every Sunday, and some do not even believe that Sunday is the day we ought to meet on, and then some (or many) professing Christians do not believe we need to gather together at all, regardless of the day! After all, why would they want to bother with getting together with other believers when they can just sit at home and watch Joel Osteen and the rest of the “Health and Wealth” preachers on Trinity Broadcasting Network—which disseminates a very different message than what the early Christians preached.

Many Christians see no moral problem at all with resorting to violence, whether it be on a personal level or on behalf of a kingdom of the world during a time of national war. Christians often practice fornication as if it were not even a sin. They divorce & remarry at an alarming rate, and the churches not only tolerate it, but they even have “singles groups” to assist the divorcees to “move on” by finding another person to marry, paving the way for them to enter into what Jesus said was a state of adultery. Homosexuality is openly practiced, supported and even celebrated by individual professing Christians and even by entire congregations & denominations. These are just some examples of the differences between many modern Christians and the Christians of the first two or three centuries. But one of the sad things about all of this is that there is simply no need for all this confusion and disagreement. I believe that so much of this disagreement could be solved if we would humble ourselves and use a different approach to determining what we ought to believe.

There are many Protestant churches that would have us believe that all we need to do is to read the Bible in order to arrive at the basic contents of “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), and I suppose that they would be correct, if we were able to read the Bible as if our minds were blank slates. But that is extremely difficult to do. We have all been influenced to some extent, and therefore we come to the pages of the Bible with presuppositions concerning what we believe it actually means or teaches. The truth of this is easy to see in that differing Christian denominations will all make the claim that their beliefs and practices are based solely on what they read in the Bible, but yet the different denominations have some very different teachings and practices! Many people have claimed that the Holy Spirit has revealed a certain truth to them, only to have someone oppose them who is making the same claim to divine enlightenment but yet they are believing something different!

Evidently, we need some help with arriving at the correct interpretation of what the faith consists of. The big problem is not: “What does the Bible say?” The main problem is: “What does the Bible mean?” Again, I strongly believe that it would be helpful for us to know the basics of what the Christians believed who lived closest to the time of the Apostles. I believe it would be helpful if we would at least listen to what they have to say. They are not just a bunch of old dead guys; they are our fellow Christians who are part of that great “cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1). We need to give a listening ear to our fellow Christians whether they are dead or alive—especially those who thought in Greek and either listened to the first-hand teachings of the Apostles or were one or two generations away from those who did.

The “rule of truth” or “rule of faith” was a phrase used for doctrinal statements that contained the basic teachings of the Christian faith even before the New Testament (as we know it today) had been formed into a complete and closed cannon. The “rule of truth/faith” may have been stated a little bit differently by different writers, but these formulas of belief were all meant to serve as a plumb line of truth in a situation of religious pluralism, and these “rules” contained common elements. The earliest Christian baptismal confessions, statements of faith and creeds were efforts to sum up the very, very basics of what a Christian is supposed to believe, and while the most ancient statements served an extremely valuable purpose in their day (and can still be helpful to us today), I am of the opinion that we need to go further than that in order to get back to the basic common core teachings of the original Christian faith. The pre-Nicene Christians did not agree on every little detail, or on what the correct interpretation was of every verse in the Bible, and so I am under no illusion that we Christians will ever all be in complete and utter agreement on all issues, but as for the areas in which the earliest Christians were all in agreement, I believe we need to take careful note of these understandings of Scripture & be very slow to depart from them. We need to be wary of trusting in our own insulated, private judgment without taking into account what other mature, approved Christians who have gone on before us have said concerning the issue at hand. Although I realize that we will always have different ways of looking at things, I am convinced that much of the diversity of opinion that currently exists can be brought to a greater conformity of opinion, if:

• We adopt an attitude of humility, instead of an attitude of pride.
• We are willing to grow, to be stretched, to learn aspects of the faith that we may have missed or misunderstood in the past.
• We resolve to exercise intellectual honesty and spiritual integrity.
• We adopt and implement the following seven “common sense” principles of Scripture interpretation:[2]

1. As much as possible, begin by allowing the mind to be as a blank slate.
2. Begin at the foundation: with the teachings of Jesus, using His teachings as our reference point. Do our conclusions square with what He taught?
3. Give first preference to the most literal interpretation of each verse.
4. Look at every statement in Scripture that applies, or could apply, to the topic being considered.[3]
5. Any interpretation that leaves parts of Scripture void or unreasonable should be rejected.
6. When Scripture is ambiguous, look at the “course of performance”: how did the first several generations of Christians understand that passage?
7. When researching what the “course of performance” actually is, always go to primary (original) sources—not secondary sources.

Finally, let us be willing to follow the truth wherever it may lead, even if it means forsaking our long-held sectarian doctrinal confessions and/or cherished beliefs. If any of the beliefs that you hold do not stand up to this “truth test” and especially if they are not in accord with godliness (1 Tim 6:3), then they are not worth holding onto anyway. But let us not fall into exclusivism and the accompanying spiritual pride in which we begin to think that we are the only Christians, but let us instead strive to be simply Christians—plain old simple Christians and Christians only—holding onto the faith that was once for all delivered, and/or seeking to preserve the basic, commonly held elements of the ancient & historic Christian faith while trying to walk in the steps of the Savior.

[1] Such as Justin Martyr (c. 100-165), Irenaeus (c. 130-200), Tertullian (c. 160-230), Hippolytus (c. 170-236), the Didascalia Apostolorum (the first six books of the Apostolic Constitutions were written in the 1^st half of the 3^rd century), Origen (c. 185-255), Novatian (fl. c. 235-258), and Victorinus of Pettau (d. c. 304).

[2] David W. Bercot, Common Sense: A New Approach to Understanding Scripture (Tyler, TX: Scroll Publishing, 1992), 72.

[3] While also recognizing the differences in dispensation between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and that Jesus clearly overruled some of the methods and commands in the Old Testament by some of the commands He gave in the New Testament.