When people criticize the Orthodox Church for Her insistence upon precision around Christology, the charge is usually made that the Orthodox are being “overly philosophical,” “Greek,” “splitting theological hairs,” or something along those lines.

However, Christology — that is, proper Christology — is at the heart of all religion and our relationship with the All-Holy Trinity. How one views Christ determines everything else, and the Fathers in their wisdom — guided by the Holy Spirit (cf Acts of the Apostles 15) — assembled some seven times over the course of several centuries in catholic, universal Councils to refute heresies and errors surrounding how we view our God and Savior Jesus Christ. The tragedy is that many miss this very point when attempting to downplay the importance of these Councils and their authority within the Church. People focus on why the Councils are unnecessary or not binding on our consciences rather than the importance of the issues they discussed. To emphasize, the reason someone would deny the authority of an ecumenical Council is the result of their faulty Christology (leading to erroneous ecclesiology, or how one views the Church)!

It is through incorrect Christology that people came to believe that God punished Jesus on the Cross in order to “pay for” our sins; that people came to believe there was no one, visible Church on this earth; that people can “earn” their salvation or that perhaps Christ “earned” it for us; that it is impossible to visibly portray the Lord Jesus Christ; that human nature is “sinful” and that all mankind inherits an “original sin” through birth; that hell is a place of eternal punishment through the violent and unrelenting outpouring of God’s wrath on sinners; that God desires to punish sinners and even hates them; that only certain of the Scriptures are binding and capable of teaching us about Christ; and so on.

Without proper Christology, the purpose of the Cross is lost and our way of salvation is perverted into something wholly outside of us and judicial.

Without knowing who Christ is, and what He has accomplished, we have no Faith.

It is not enough to say “I love Jesus” or “I know Jesus, and believe in Him and His Word.” Many people can say this, but will then disagree as to who Jesus is and what He taught. This is why we need Christ’s Body — the Church — with Him as Head, to explain the Scriptures and the wisdom of all the Apostles and their successors to us.

We are called to encounter God mystically through the Church and Her Sacraments and Theology, not merely “learn about” Jesus’ teachings from a set of books or even what some may consider to be “the Bible.” As the Ethiopian eunuch confessed, “How can I understand, unless someone explains it to me?” we also must be taught of God by Christ and His Apostles (and those who succeeded them faithfully in the teaching of the Gospel), through the wisdom of our Fathers (guided by the Holy Spirit) and the “breaking of bread.”  Only then will we see Christ rightly and know the meaning of His life, death and resurrection.

“As God, Thou didst rise from the tomb in glory, raising the world with Thyself.
Human nature praises Thee as God, for death has vanished.
Adam exults, O Master! Eve rejoices, for she is freed from bondage, and cries to Thee:
Thou art the Giver of Resurrection to all, O Christ!”
The Divine Liturgy, Resurrectional Kontakion – Tone 1