Journal: Global Journal of Classical Theology
Volume: GJCT 08:3 (Jan 2011)
Article: Christology And The Christian Life In The Preaching Of John Chrysostom
Author: Ashish J. Naidu

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Christology And The Christian Life In The Preaching Of John Chrysostom

Ashish J. Naidu

Introduction

The present study examines John Chrysostom’s incarnational theology and its relation to his soteriological thought with particular reference to his understanding of baptism as it pertains to the Christian life. The first subsection will investigate the ontological aspects of Chrysostom’s incarnational thought as it emerges in his polemic preaching against the Neo-Arians in his commentary on John, and will demonstrate that he views the Logos-Son as the single subject in Christ, underscoring his personal continuity in and after the incarnation. It will be pointed out that Chrysostom’s Christological thought is undergirded by the idea of God’s personal involvement in the economy of salvation: only if Christ is the natural Son of God can be make us by grace what he is by nature.

The second subsection will examine the soteriological implications of Chrysostom’s Christological thought. Here the study will highlight two inter-related soteriological motifs that are characteristic of his incarnational theology: restoration of human nature and adoption as sons. It will be shown that Chrysostom’s understanding of the Christian life is underpinned by a soteriology that is relational in nature. In Chrysostom’s view, the soteriological ideas of the gift of adoption and the conforming of the Christian to the likeness of Christ are one and the same, and the baptismal context is where they are actualized. Chrysostom’s understanding of the Christian life, it will be argued, is the outworking of his unitive Christology. 1

The Ontology Of The Incarnation

The polemic tone of Chrysostom’s statements on the person of the Logos is unmistakable in his homilies on the prologue to John’s Gospel. Although his refutation of Neo-Arian doctrine of the essential dissimilarity (ἀνόμοιος) of the Logos and the Father is scattered and unsystematic, he consistently underscores the divinity and consubstantiality of the Logos by pointing out his co-eternality and equality with the Father.2 In a critical passage he distinguishes the person of the Logos from the Father, mentioning his eternal nature, his consubstantiality and his procession. Chrysostom maintains that the Logos is:

A Being, a distinct Person, proceeding from the Father Himself without alteration. He (John) has indicated this, as I have said, by his appellation “the Word.” Therefore, just as the expression “In the beginning was the Word” reveals His eternity, so “He was in the beginning with God’ has revealed to us His co-eternity.”3

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