When we read one of the Earliest Christian letters Ignatius of Antioch wrote to the Church at Ephesus we see that quite a few Doctrines were firmly established. Equally interesting is to see how these Early Church Fathers affirmed that the Scriptures of Old and the Pauline text affirmed the Orthodox teaching within the Early Church. Here is what you will find when you read the Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians. Ignatius affirmed:

Ignatius affirmed:

  • Jesus was God.
  • Jesus was the Sacrifice for our Sins and the the blood of “god”[Jesus] was spilled.
  • Jesus is the expressed will of God and the source of life.
  • Jesus is to be Worshiped as God.
  • Jesus is to be Worshiped as the head and the protector of His Church.
  • Our petitions in prayer should be directed & obedience given to Christ.
  • We need to adhering to Christ’s Truth.
  • Jesus is the Shepherd & Teacher of the Church.
  • Jesus is Our Healer, Eternal, God, Life and our Lord.
  • Jesus was Revealed, Died, Suffered and resurrected from the dead.
  • Jesus reveals the Biblical concept of the Trinity [Father,Son,Spirit].

Muslim Apologist Paul Williams challenge my friend Jonathan McLatchie to show if Jesus was God or the Trinity mentioned in the “Penguin Classics” which is fair? So here we go! This is what the Penguin Classic show clearly in its own pages!

“being united and elected through the true passion by the will of the Father, and Jesus Christ, our God: Abundant happiness through Jesus Christ, and His undefiled grace.”

(Jesus = God). Pg 75.

“according to the faith and love in Jesus Christ our Saviour. Being the followers of God, and stirring up yourselves by the blood of God, you have perfectly accomplished the work which was beseeming to you. For, on hearing that I came bound from Syria for the common name and hope, trusting through your prayers to be permitted to fight with beasts at Rome, that so by martyrdom I may indeed become the disciple of Him who gave Himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God, (Eph 5:2).”

(Jesus = Saviour by the “blood of God & a Sacrifice for our Sins). Pg 75

” For though I am bound for the name [of Christ], I am not yet perfect in Jesus Christ. For now I begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as fellow-disciples with me. For it was needful for me to have been stirred up by you in faith, exhortation, patience, and long-suffering. But inasmuch as love suffers me not to be silent in regard to you, I have therefore taken upon me first to exhort you that ye would all run together in accordance with the will of God. For even Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the [manifested] will of the Father; as also bishops, settled everywhere to the utmost bounds [of the earth], are so by the will of Jesus Christ.”

(Jesus = is his very life and the expressed will of God). Pg 76

“For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. Therefore in your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung.”

(Jesus = being Worship). Pg 76

“Jesus Christ is the Captain and Guardian”

(Jesus = Worshiped as the head and the protector). Pg 76

“ascending up in harmony to God, prevail for the granting of all their petitions in Christ! He, therefore, that separates himself from such, and does not meet in the society where sacrifices are offered, and with “the Church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven,” is a wolf in sheep s clothing, while he presents a mild outward appearance. Do ye, beloved, be careful to be subject to the bishop, and the presbyters and the deacons. For he that is subject to these is obedient to Christ”

(Jesus = petitions in prayer directed to Christ & Obedience given to Christ). Pg 76.

“Onesimus himself greatly commends your good order in God, that ye all live according to the truth, and that no sect has any dwelling-place among you. Nor, indeed, do ye hearken to any one rather than to Jesus Christ speaking in truth”.

(Jesus = Adhering to Christ’s Truth).

“Nor indeed do ye hearken to any one rather than to Jesus Christ, the true Shepherd and Teacher.”

(Jesus = Shepherd & Teacher). Pg 77

“There is one Physician who is possessed both of flesh and spirit; both made and not made; God existing in flesh; true life in death; both of Mary and of God; first passible and then impassible, [534] even Jesus Christ our Lord”.

(Jesus = Our Healer, Eternal, God, Life our Lord). Pg 77

“ye might not receive those things which were sown by them, as being stones of the temple of the Father, prepared for the building of God the Father, and drawn up on high by the instrument of Jesus Christ, which is the cross, making use of the Holy Spirit as a rope, while your faith was the means by which you ascended, and your love the way which led up to God. Ye, therefore, as well as all your fellow-travellers, are God-bearers, temple-bearers, Christ-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, in whom also I exult that I have been thought worthy, by means of this Epistle, to converse and rejoice with you, because with respect to your Christian life ye love nothing but God only.”

(One God = Trinity). Pg 78 

“Only [in one way or another] let us be found in Christ Jesus unto the true life. Apart from Him, let nothing attract you, for whom I bear about these bonds, these spiritual jewels, by which may I arise through your prayers, of which I entreat I may always be a partaker, that I may be found in the lot of the Christians of Ephesus, who have always been of the same mind with the apostles through the power of Jesus Christ.”

(Jesus = Fullness of our lives & Power in our lives). Pg 78

“Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God”

(Jesus = God and God the Son) Pg 80

“our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost. He was born and baptized, that by His passion He might purify the water. The cross of Christ is indeed a stumbling-block to those that do not believe, but to the believing it is salvation and life eternal.”

(Jesus = God,Virgin-Born, Descendant of David, Died on the Cross for our Eternal Life and was the propitiation of our sins). Pg 81

“God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life. And now that took a beginning which had been prepared by God. Henceforth all things were in a state of tumult, because He meditated the abolition of death.”

(Jesus = God, Eternal Life) Pg 81.

“Jesus Christ, in His faith and in His love, in His suffering and in His resurrection. Especially [will I do this] if the Lord make known to me that ye come together man by man in common through grace, individually, in one faith, and in Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David according to the flesh, being both the Son of man and the Son of God, so that ye obey the bishop and the presbytery with an undivided mind, breaking one and the same bread, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying, but [which causes] that we should live for ever in Jesus Christ.

(Jesus = Were Resurrected from the dead, Son of Man & Son of God, the Life Giver). Pg 82

“Stand fast, brethren, in the faith of Jesus Christ, and in His love, in His passion, and in His resurrection.”

(Jesus = Revealed, Died, Suffered and resurrected from the dead). Pg 82

“Fare ye well in God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our common hope, and in the Holy Ghost. Fare ye well. Amen. Grace [be with you]”.

(Jesus = Reveals the Biblical Trinity [Father,Son,Spirit]) Pg 82

Source: Early Christian Writings by M. Staniforth.