The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

II. Arguments Based on Natures of Creator and Creature

Novatian’s well-known Treatise Concerning the Trinity, written about A.D. 257, comprises thirty-one chapters. The first portion deals with the “Rule of Truth or Faith”—really his creed, in which God is set forth as the “absolutely perfect Creator of all things.” Novatian ascribes to Him the attributes of eternity, unity, goodness, immutability, immortality, and spirituality. The second and major section concerns Jesus Christ, promised in the Old Testament and manifested in the New, and proving that He is truly God and truly man. The closing section treats on the Holy Spirit and His operations. Man is then discussed in his relation to the Deity. CFF1 904.2

1. MAN’S DISOBEDIENCE BROUGHT “MORTALITY.”

Chapter one describes God as the “absolutely perfect Founder of all things,” showing the “intelligence of the Artificer.” And at the close of the manifold works of Creation, man was brought forth, “made in the image of God,” with “mind, and reason, and foresight,” and an “earthly” body. God willed and provided “that he alone should be free.” But, lest he through “unbounded freedom should fall into peril,” God “laid down a command” concerning the fruit of one tree. And man “was forewarned that evil would arise if perchance he should exercise his free will, in the contempt of the law that was given.” CFF1 904.3

So the law was “added,” that “an unbridled liberty might not break forth even to a contempt of the Giver.” Thus man was given complete power of choice, with resultant “worthy rewards and a deserved punishment” for his conduct. But because of his wrong choice “mortality” came upon him, for he had sought to be as God, under the influence of “perverse counsel.” ² CFF1 905.1

2. EXPELLED FROM EDEN TO FORESTALL “IMMORTALITY OF GUILT.”

Next, man’s hope of future recovery and “salvation in Christ” are presented. ³ Man was expelled from Eden to prevent any further access to the tree of life, so as to forestall “immortality of guilt,” or immortal sin. In Novatian’s words: CFF1 905.2

“Lest, living for ever without Christ’s previous pardon of his sins, he should always bear about with him for his punishment an immortality of guilt.” ⁴ CFF1 905.3

Novatian then discusses the “higher regions,” declared to be the abode of the angels, while “beneath the earth,” he adds, “there is a place whither the souls of the just and the unjust are taken, conscious of the anticipated doom of future judgment.” ⁵ CFF1 905.4

3. GOD, WITHOUT BEGINNING OR END, IS CONSEQUENTLY “IMMORTAL.”

Chapter two deals with God as “pervading all things, and moving all things, and quickening all things,” and “transcending the mind of man.” God is without “any beginning,” so consequently He is without “an ending.” He is “always eternal,” and “unbounded.” Being “without beginning,” He “has no time.” Thus Novatian concludes, “He is on that account immortal,” and does “not come to an end.” ⁶ After an apostrophe of praise that is ornately eloquent, ⁷ Novatian closes by repeating that God, “without any beginning or end of time, controls, by the highest and most perfect reason, the naturally linked causes of things, so as to result in benefit to all.” ⁸ CFF1 905.5

4. GOD “INCORRUPTIBLE” AND THEREFORE “IMMORTAL.”

Chapters three and four are devoted to proving from Scripture the Creatorship and other attributes of God. In this connection Novatian cites 1 Timothy 1:17—“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God.” Again he stresses the fact that “because He is incorruptible, He is therefore immortal.” ⁹ Here, in Novatian’s involved description, he elaborates on the “incorruptibility” and “immortality” of God: CFF1 906.1

“Because He is incorruptible, He is therefore immortal; and because He is immortal, He is certainly also incorruptible,—each being involved by turns in the other, with itself and in itself, by a mutual connection, and prolonged by a vicarious concatenation to the condition of eternity; immortality arising from incorruption, as well as incorruption coming from immortality.” ¹⁰ CFF1 906.2

Chapter five touches on God’s wrath against the sin of fallen and corrupted man. When He “threatens” it is that “by these threats men are recalled to rectitude.” So Novatian insists that those things which in men are “faulty and corrupting,” “cannot exert the force of corruptibility” upon God. ¹¹ CFF1 906.3

5. MAN MADE WITH “MATERIALS OF MORTALITY.”

Turning now, in chapter ten, to Jesus Christ our Lord, the Creator of all things, Novatian holds that He is both “Son of God and truly man.” ¹² And referring to the “law of resurrection” for man, Novatian shows that Christ arose with the “very body” with which He went into the tomb. Thus a “law of resurrection is established.” In this way the “mortality of guilt is put away” for us. ¹³ But Christ, in contrast, has “life in Himself,” which man cannot have “in him after the example of God the Father, because he [man] is not glorious in eternity, but made with the materials of mortality.” ¹⁴ CFF1 906.4

6. WORD OF CHRIST “AFFORDS IMMORTALITY” FOR MAN

Another argument, in chapter fifteen, for the immortal deity of Christ and the mortality of finite man, is presented in the following significant statement: CFF1 907.1

“If Christ is only man, how does He say, ‘If any man shall keep my word, he shall not see death for ever?’ Not to see death for ever! what is this but immortality? But immortality is the associate of divinity, because both the divinity is immortal, and immortality is the fruit of divinity. For every man is mortal; and immortality cannot be from that which is mortal. Therefore from Christ, as a mortal man, immortality cannot arise. ‘But,’ says He, ‘whosoever keepeth my word, shall not see death for ever’; therefore the word of Christ affords immortality, and by immortality affords divinity. But although it is not possible to maintain that one who is himself mortal can make another immortal, yet this word of Christ not only sets forth, but affords immortality: certainly He is not man only who gives immortality, which if He were only man He could not give.” ¹⁵ CFF1 907.2

Novatian’s definition of “immortality” is to be noted: it is, “not to see death for ever,” and this condition is conferred on mortal man by Christ. That, of course, is the essence of Conditionalism. CFF1 907.3

7. MAN “DESTINED” FOR “ATTAINMENT” OF EVERLASTING LIFE

In meeting a “common heresy” of his time—that Christ “was only man”—Novatian asks, “If Christ was only man, how is it that He Himself says, ‘And every one that believeth in me shall not die for evermore?’” This he follows up with the statement: CFF1 907.4

“Whence, if on the one hand He is man only, as the heretics will have it, how shall not anybody who believes in Him die eternally, since he who trusts in man is held to be accursed? Or on the other, if he is not accursed, but rather, as it is read, destined for the attainment of everlasting life, Christ is not man only, but God also, in whom he who believes both lays aside all risk of curse, and attains to the fruit of righteousness.” ¹⁶ CFF1 907.5

So in this connection, to “die eternally” is set forth as the fate of the unrepentant wicked. CFF1 908.1

8. HUMANITY DIED, NOT DEITY, ON THE CROSS

Novatian’s closely reasoned yet elaborate argument for the eternal preexistence and complete deity of Christ extends over many chapters, and compasses the whole range of Scripture. But in chapter twenty-five Novatian introduces another argumentthat while Christ died for us, the Deity in Christ did not die, because “God cannot be admitted to have died.” ¹⁷ Then he draws the conclusion: CFF1 908.2

“But when Scripture determines, as we have frequently shown, that He is not only God, but man also, it follows that what is immortal may be held to have remained uncorrupted.” ¹⁸ CFF1 908.3

This contention Novatian restates in a slightly different phrasing: “It was not that in Christ that died which is God, but that in Him died which is man.” Next he refers to man, and the fact that a fellow man cannot kill the soul (Matthew 10:28). Then Novatian adds that it would be impossible to slay the “Word of God.” So it was the “human nature in Christ that was put to death,” but “the Word in Him was not drawn down into mortality.” So the divine and immortal part of Christ, as God, was not “extinguished” while His body died. Then he concludes, “For the power of death is broken when the authority of immortality intervenes.” ¹⁹ CFF1 908.4

Such was another of Novatian’s interesting arguments for the deity of Christ. Then he adds, in chapter twenty-nine, that the eternal Holy Spirit can “produce our bodies at the resurrection of immortality.” For by Him (the Holy Spirit) our bodies “advance to immortality.” ²⁰ Thus the conferring of immortality is the combined work of each Person of the Godhead. CFF1 908.5

Some may question the propriety of including Novatian here, inasmuch as he is commonly regarded as a “heretic.” But his “heresy,” it is to be remembered, consisted of his determined opposition to Cornelius, bishop of Rome, over the readmission of unrepentant deserters (lapsi) into the church—not over Novatian’s doctrinal beliefs. Furthermore, the charges of heresy came from Cornelius, and Novatian’s enemies. Many, like Neander, have doubted their validity. CFF1 908.6

It is also to be remembered that Novatian was chosen by the entire clergy of Rome to write in their name the “Letter” addressed to Cyprian about A.D. 250. ²¹ This Cyprian himself states. ²² It was written during the vacancy in the Roman bishopric, after the death of Fabian and before the election of Cornelius. ²³ This shows the confidence of the clergy in him at that time. Novatian’s “heresy” was therefore not over doctrine, but over discipline in relation to the bishop of Rome. And Novatian was a Conditionalist. CFF1 909.1