LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

WINGER: WHY MEN ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE NICENE CREED 15
Notice how Loy has used the three distinct meanings of “man” in this one
stanza in order to draw a connection between them.
Now, to return to the Creed, we find that this is precisely the teaching
expressed in the centre of the Second Article. The Son of God “was made
man [evnanqrwph,santa] … for us men [avnqrw,pouj] and for our salvation.”
“Men” is clearly used here in the sense of meaning two above: all members
of the human race who are descended from the first man, Adam. The ICET
and ELLC ecumenical versions, however, remove “men” on the grounds that
it excludes women, and assume that it is enough simply to say “us”. But in
so doing, they destroy the connection between Adam, us, and Christ, that the
Creed has so carefully drawn. The problem is exacerbated when “man” as a
description of Christ is replaced by a coldly biological and abstract term like
“human”.
The point of the Creed is that Christ became what we are in order to
redeem us and what we are. Only as true God and a real man could He be a
true Mediator between both: “For there is one God, and there is one
Mediator between God and men [avnqrw,pwn], the man [a;nqrwpoj] Christ
Jesus” (I Tim. 2:5). 7 In the early centuries of the Christian Church, the most
common false teaching concerning Christ was the denial of His human
nature, rather than His divine nature (as is commonly denied today). Greek
philosophy and religion, with its disdain for the material world, had
difficulty imagining that God (or a god) would wish to assume the lowly
flesh of this world. It is likely that both the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds
formulated their second articles specifically to combat these heresies. The
anti-gnostic writings of Irenaeus, the 2 nd -century Church Father, give us a
contemporary insight into the meaning of this section of the Creed. In oftquoted
words that surely derive from I Tim. 2:5, Irenaeus explains:
… He caused man to become one with God. For unless a man had overcome
the enemy of man, the enemy would not have been legitimately vanquished.
… And unless man had been joined to God, he could never have become a
partaker of incorruptibility. For it was incumbent upon the Mediator between
God and men, by His relationship to both, to bring both to friendship and
concord, and present man to God, while He revealed God to man. For, in
what way could we be partakers of the adoption of sons … unless His Word,
made flesh, had entered into communion with us (Irenaeus, Against
Heresies III.xviii:7)
7 Even the NIV, which uses inclusive language extensively, retains “men” in this crucial
passage. The new revision of the RSV, the English Standard Version [ESV], introduces the
inclusive term “people” in I Tim. 2:4; but it is significant to note that it retains “men” and
“man” in the next verse in order to maintain its meaning faithfully. At this point the ESV adds
the explanatory note: “*men and man render the same Greek word that is translated people in
verses 1-4.”