Dear brothers in Christ,

Luke 24:25–27, 44–48

²⁵ He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶ Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" ²⁷ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

⁴⁴ He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." ⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. ⁴⁶ He told them, "This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷ and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things."

— Luke 24:25–27, 44–48

When Jesus met the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they were confused and discouraged. They knew what had happened in Jerusalem. They knew that Jesus had been crucified. They had heard reports that the tomb was empty. They possessed many pieces of information, but they did not yet understand what these events meant.

Jesus answered their confusion in a remarkable way. He directed them back to the Scriptures.

Later, when Jesus appeared to his disciples, he said again:

These words remind us of something fundamental to our work as pastors and theological educators: the Christian faith begins not with human speculation about God, but with God's revelation of himself in his Word. And at the center of that Word stands Jesus Christ.

The Scriptures Point Us to Christ

The Old Testament is not simply the religious history of ancient Israel. Nor is it merely a collection of moral examples, laws, poetry, and prophecy. Jesus teaches us to recognize that the Scriptures testify about him.

God's promise of salvation runs through the whole history of Scripture.

The offspring of the woman would crush the serpent's head. Abraham's offspring would bring blessing to all nations. A son of David would reign forever. Isaiah spoke of the Servant who would be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.

These promises did not remain promises forever.

They were fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

This is why the coming of Christ is Gospel. God did what he had promised to do. The Son of God entered our human history, took upon himself our flesh, lived under the Law in our place, carried our sins to the cross, died our death, and rose again for our justification.

Our faith therefore does not rest upon our ability to find God.

It rests upon the God who has come to us.

The Church Confesses the Christ Revealed in Scripture

But Luke 24 does not end with Jesus explaining the Scriptures.

Jesus also tells his disciples:

The Word that reveals Christ also creates witnesses who confess Christ.

This helps us understand the importance of the Church's confession throughout history.

Three centuries after the apostles, Christians gathered at Nicaea in AD 325 amid serious controversy concerning the identity of Jesus Christ. The central question was not merely philosophical: Who is this Jesus whom the Scriptures proclaim?

The Church confessed that Jesus Christ is:

The Nicene fathers did not intend to create a new Christ. They sought to confess faithfully the Christ whom the apostles proclaimed and whom the Scriptures reveal.

This distinction remains important for us.

The Church does not create the truth. The Church receives the truth from God's Word and confesses it.

Scripture therefore comes first. Confession follows.

Yet faithful confession matters because every generation must answer Jesus' question:

We Stand in the Same Confession

This is especially meaningful for us in the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference.

We come from different countries. We speak different languages. We teach in different seminaries. Our students live in different cultural settings. Our churches face different challenges.

Yet our confession is one.

We do not have an Asian Christ, an African Christ, a European Christ, or an American Christ. We confess the one Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed by the prophets and apostles.

This also gives theological education its purpose.

Our task is not merely to transfer theological information from one generation to another. It is not simply to preserve an institution or maintain an academic tradition.

Our task is to help prepare servants of the Word who know the Scriptures, proclaim Christ, distinguish Law and Gospel, administer Christ's Sacraments faithfully, and confess the apostolic faith clearly in their own contexts.

That is an enormous responsibility.

And it should also make us humble.

Christ Remains the Center

Those of us who teach theology can easily become occupied with many things: curriculum development, accreditation, administration, academic research, language instruction, meetings, papers, assessments, and institutional planning.

All these things may be necessary.

But Luke 24 calls us back to the center.

Christ opens the Scriptures.

Christ fulfills the Scriptures.

Christ suffers for sinners.

Christ rises from the dead.

Christ sends his witnesses.

And Christ remains the content of the Church's proclamation.

The history of the Church is valuable precisely because it allows us to see generations of Christians wrestling with the same responsibility entrusted to us: How do we confess faithfully what God has revealed?

Sometimes the Church has confessed faithfully. Sometimes Christians have failed badly. Therefore, history itself can never become our final authority.

We continually return to the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures.

And there we meet the same Christ whom the Church confessed at Nicaea and whom Luther and the Lutheran Confessions proclaim: true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary—our Lord.

Most importantly, he is not merely the Christ whom we study.

He is the Christ for us.

He was crucified for us.

He rose for us.

He forgives us.

And through his Word and Sacraments, he continues to strengthen and preserve his Church.

So as we work together in theological education, may we never lose sight of why we study Scripture and why we study history.

We study Scripture because there God reveals his saving work in Christ.

We study history because the Church is continually called to confess that Christ faithfully.

And we teach the next generation so that this same Gospel may continue to be proclaimed until Christ comes again.

The Scriptures promise Christ. Christ fulfills the Scriptures. The Church confesses Christ. And we are called to continue that confession.

May God keep us faithful to his Word and bold in our confession of his Son.

Amen.

Rev. Dr. Angus K. F. Cheung serves as Academic Dean and Professor of Historical Theology and Hermeneutics at Asia Lutheran Seminary (ALS). He also serves as the Asian representative on the Global Theological Education Committee (GTEC) of the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference (CELC). In addition to his theological education responsibilities, he serves as a pastor of a local Lutheran congregation in Guangzhou, China. In Hong Kong, he is a member of the South Asia Lutheran Evangelical Mission (SALEM) and currently serves as Deacon Chairman of SALEM Yau Oi Congregation.

Eyewitnesses to History: The Council of Nicaea in the Ancient Sources

Since some recent claims have been made about what really happened at the Council of Nicaea, or whether we can actually do more than guess at the proceedings, the following study is intended to examine the firsthand accounts to see what they tell us about what took place. In his Dialogue Against the Luciferians, written about 380, St. Jerome wrote that a person could “read the acts [acta] and the names of the bishops of the Council of Nicaea.” About seventy-five years later, the church historian Sozomen, writing of events in the years after the council, relates an incident in which the two pro-Arians, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea, “bribed the notary to whom the emperor had entrusted the custody of the documents of the Council of Nicaea and erased their [own] signatures.” These notices imply that some sort of minutes or official records of the famous council were kept, and that these had some circulation after 325. Unfortunately, however, they have disappeared over the centuries. What we do have are accounts and reminiscences of three individual participants—Emperor Constantine, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Athanasius of Alexandria—as well as a very brief notice from Eustathius of Antioch. We also have a letter written in the name of the council itself. Besides some additional scattered notices, historians must fill in the rest of the story of this important event from narrative accounts of various lengths by seven ancient Christian historians who lived and wrote in the century and a half following the council.

Our three main eyewitnesses make for a strange trio, and this can be illustrated by speaking of their roles at the council. Constantine had called the council, but was obviously not a normal participant. While he was present for the opening and for other parts of the proceedings, he was not a voting member. And yet it is clear that he made his presence felt, and his opinion did matter. Athanasius was a youthful deacon at the time, so he served only as an advisor, and perhaps as an amanuensis, for his bishop Alexander. Thus his influence may not have been in the official sessions of the council. Finally, we have Eusebius of Caesarea, the only one of the three who was an official participant and who appears as one of the most important figures in the proceedings. However, as we shall see, he was already under suspicion of Arianism when the council began, and was only eventually able to clear his reputation after agreeing to sign the newly composed creed. Thus, none of the three was numbered among the 250 or more “normal” participating bishops who attended. In what follows we will concentrate our attention on what the surviving writings of each of these three tell us about the council.

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The Rev. Dr. Glen L. Thompson was assigned to Lusaka, Zambia, where he served for 6 years (1977–1983). While studying ancient history at Columbia University, he started the first WELS church in New York City. His twin loves (missions/evangelism and scholarly study) would continue to guide his career as he taught at Michigan Lutheran Seminary and Wisconsin Lutheran College, and began what is now the WLS Pastoral Studies Institute. In 1999 he was invited to lecture for SALEM in Hong Kong, and this began a series of teaching visits that ended with his serving full-time at Asia Lutheran Seminary as Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament and Church History (2011–2020). In retirement he continues to teach in world missions and the WLS Grow in Grace program, as well as research and write and operate his www.fourthcentury.com and www.PaulineRoads.com websites. His many books can be seen on his Amazon author page.

He Came in Fulfillment of Prophecy

Christians have this in common. They know that the Lord Jesus Christ is their all. His first coming makes sense of everything. His second coming will resolve every matter. From eternity God the Father planned the coming of his Son. The Son obediently followed the Father’s script. God the Holy Spirit keeps the world informed through human mouthpieces. The apostles “did not follow cleverly invented stories when [they] told… about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Pe 1:16). As eyewitnesses, they give us the certain facts “about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen” (Ac 1:1,2). This apostolic eyewitness, however, is but one of the two that we have to strengthen and confirm our faith. “We have the word of the prophets made more certain” (2 Pe 1:19). We have fulfilled prophecy.

Prophecy proclaims and anticipates, hence the aphorism prophets tell forth and prophets foretell. When prophecy proclaims, it is rock solid. It embraces the grand truths of man’s sin and God’s grace. When prophecy anticipates, however, it is incomplete, even though it remains every bit as solid. Prophecy requires fulfillment. Until Jesus was born, his life and work was “not yet.” It was enough for the prophets to believe that God’s love, yet to be revealed in all of its fullness, was as certain as God’s existence itself.

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The Rev. Dr. John C. Lawrenz (1943–2024) began his ministry as pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Gainesville, Florida. He went on to serve as president of Michigan Lutheran Seminary and of Dr. Martin Luther College and as professor of Old Testament at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. At Brandeis University he earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in foreign language, followed by a PhD in Mediterranean studies. He finished his ministry as the founding president of Asia Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong, where he also taught. He participated in several important archaeological digs in Israel, travelled with his Hebrew and Old Testament students to Israel, served sabbaticals in a variety of world mission settings, and was a popular speaker throughout the CELC. Dr. Lawrenz was called home to glory on September 22, 2024.