Friends, my mentor George knew the Christian mistakes of the old days, and a decade ago had some correctives for the modern Coptic Church. Part 2 of the series ... Bob

Spirituality Column #868

July 4, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

‘Whoever Says …’ Part 2

By Bob Walters

“I have not written anathemas, but warnings.” George Bebawi to the Coptics, 2012

This is the second installment of our look into Dr. George Bebawi’s 12 modern warnings to the Coptic Church.  We explained the exercise last week (#867, scroll down HERE), and today we deal with warnings 2-3-4, the Church as Christ’s Body.

It is fair to say that George harbored little doubt.  Here’s George, then my notes.     

“Second: Whoever says that the phrase and name ‘Body of Christ’ is an analogy or symbol that has no significance to the divine life, then he has divided the Head from the Body; that is, he has divided Christ from the Church, and as such no longer has hope in the new life that has conquered death.”

Here we must encounter our participation and membership as the eternal Body of Jesus, the Church, within the reality of God, Christ, and Spirit.  We must not apply to the mystery of this Body an earthly explanation – or evasion – that satisfies “God as falsehood” scientists, secularists, and philosophers. Our true life is our true membership in the living Body of Christ, the capital C Church.  It extends eternally beyond the walls we occupy on Sundays and cannot be divided; God cannot be divided.

“Third: Whoever denies the holiness of the Church, and that it is the gift of God the Father in the Son through the Holy Spirit, because the Church, that is, the Body of Jesus who was christened by the Holy Spirit so that we may be christened by Him, as St. Athanasius said (Contra Arianus, 2:37-38); [that person] denies the economy of the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection as the foundations of the Church, and has divided the Spirit of God the Father from the Son, thus losing eternal life.”

We err to think the true Church is a human institution created by and for humans.  Yes … humans do the best we can organizing ourselves around the truth of Jesus Christ: fully God and fully human; lived, crucified, died, resurrected. Athanasius (c.325 A.D.) wrote vigorously Against the Arians to defeat a heresy that denies the divinity of the man Jesus.  It is His divinity that makes the Church His eternal body.  “Economy” is a common term describing the divine relationship and actions of the Trinity.  If the Church is not eternal, our life is not eternal. Key George note: Love cannot be divided.

“Fourth: Whoever says that he communes of the Body and Blood of the Lord without his divinity has fallen into the condemnation of the anathemas listed in the Council of Ephesus (431 A.D.), and has become a partner with Nestorius.”

Nestorius, fifth century archbishop of Constantinople, errantly taught that God imprinted himself on the human Jesus, rather than Jesus being the actual Son of God, i.e., two separate persons rather than the dual natures of fully God / fully man. Nestorius did not believe Mary could have given birth to God.  The point here is that the bread and cup of communion – still – must be taken with the faith that Jesus was in fact God and man; that our human body is in communion with God as Jesus was in communion with God.  We are in communion with Christ’s Body, the Church – i.e., each other – as well.

Please know your thoughts are welcome.  And for those who knew George, I hope you have the same comfort I enjoy in again hearing his idiom.  No one like him.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has thousands of pages of notes from George’s classes and prays George’s critique of these current musings would be gentle.