Many believers today assume that truth must always sound exactly like the language developed in the fourth and fifth centuries. Yet when we examine the earliest post-apostolic writers—men such as Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, and Papias of Hierapolis—we find something much more organic, scriptural, and Hebraic in tone than the later theological systems that eventually emerged.
This does not mean the early believers denied any truths later codified by “orthodox Christianity” under the Catholic umbrella. Rather, these men lived before many of the doctrinal controversies that helped to cause the Catholic Church to define new terms with increasing philosophical influence and precision. The earliest generations of believers were not yet responding to later systems such as Arianism, modalism, medieval scholasticism, Enlightenment rationalism, modern secularism, or contemporary distortions of biblical monotheism and Messiah’s identity. Because of this, the language of 2nd Century believers was often simpler, far more relational like the Scriptures regarding the Father and the Son, and more directly rooted in the vocabulary of Scripture itself.
Our beliefs stand comfortably within that early stream of faith. Other than Ignatius’ stance on the Sabbath, according to modern scholarship, which is debatable, our position on most critical doctrine fits comfortably within late 1st and early 2nd century commentarians. We affirm the Father as the one true God, as Scripture repeatedly declares, while also affirming the full authority, exaltation, Messiahship, and divine appointment of Yeshua the Messiah, the Son of God. Like the earliest believers, we distinguish between the Father and the Son without diminishing either the Divine Nature of or the glory given to the Son, or the supremacy consistently attributed to the Father in the apostolic writings.
Where our language may appear more granular or carefully qualified than some early writers, especially in regard to Yeshua’s Nature, this is not because we have departed from the apostolic faith, but quite the contrary, because we face theological categories and assumptions that they did not face. The early assemblies were not debating later metaphysical formulations using Greek philosophical terminology in the way later centuries would. Their primary concern was proclaiming the God of Creation to a pagan world, proclaiming the Man risen from the dead as Son of God and Messiah, and calling men to repentance, and living in covenant faithfulness before God. They did so within the confines and under the leadership of Jewish Messianic believers.
In the modern world, however, believers are often forced to answer questions framed by centuries of accumulated doctrinal development and denominational conflict. As a result, we sometimes clarify distinctions that earlier believers could leave unstated because their audiences shared a more biblical worldview. Our goal is not to create something new, but to be precise in our interpretation of Scripture in the face of confusion.
The same principle applies to matters such as Torah, Sabbath, and covenant life. The earliest generations of believers existed in a world where the apostles, Jewish disciples, synagogue life, and biblical patterns were still living realities. They did not always write extended defenses of practices that many communities simply assumed. Over time, as the Faith became increasingly Gentile and distanced from its Jewish roots, especially with Justin Martyr and later, positions hardened and new traditions developed. Recognizing this historical process does not place us outside historic faith; rather, it reflects a desire to understand the apostolic world in its original context. Every Apostle was Jewish.
For this reason, we do not claim that the believers who came after John the Apostle perfectly articulated every modern doctrinal concern exactly as we would today. Nor do we claim that all later doctrinal development was corrupt or malicious. Instead, we recognize that faithful believers across history have often used different vocabularies to defend the same core truths under different historical pressures. But, there does also seem to be a tendency to drift away from the authority of Scripture to that of man. That is our issue.
Our aim is therefore neither novelty nor rebellion against historic Biblical Faith, but continuity with the apostolic faith as expressed in Scripture and reflected, however imperfectly, in the earliest generations of believers who stood closest to the apostles themselves.