The deity of Christ
APOLOGIES- Scratching surface; hard thing is not how to find info, it’s what to select and cut to make digestible.
1. TRINITY & INCARNATION
WHY the Trinity/Incarnation? Huge subject, possibly the hugest. What could be bigger than GOD (i.e. the Creator of all men) becoming MAN (i.e. just like one of His creatures)? Tony Hart & Morph! Don’t study this = don’t study anything!
WHAT is the Trinity/Incarnation? The second person of the Trinity becoming and remaining Man. Below is a very crude and not necessarily 100% accurate diagram. The titles & verses given to each Person are not necessarily exclusive to the ‘time categories’ they are placed in (e.g. God is always YHWH, not just BC). The Bible verses are all true and reliable though, obviously!
(If we could fully understand the Trinity and the Incarnation within our created minds, we would be equal to or greater than the Creator, which would mean He would be less than omnipotent Sovereign, which is impossible and paradoxical. “No servant is greater than his master.” Therefore don’t feel bad if you don’t ‘get it’. Just be humble, trust, obey and worship. Psalm 131, Matthew 18:1-5.)
WHEN? WHERE? WHO? HOW??!
Further study points: John 1; the Creeds, especially the Athanasian; various systematic theologies (e.g. Grudem, Berkhof, Hodge).
Question: how would you answer a Jehovah’s Witness who quotes 1 Cor.14:33 to you as an argument against the mystery of the Trinity?
2. God, Lord and other claims
Jesus is God
The word theos is used normally to describe God the Father in the NT, but check these passages: John 1:1, 1:18, 20:28; Romans 9:5; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8 (Ps.45:6); 2 Peter 1:1 amongst others.
Jesus is Lord, kyrios (as the Father is Lord)
Matthew 3:3 (applied to Jesus but quoted from Isaiah 40:3 which refers to Jehovah); Luke 1:43; 2:11; 1 Cor.8:6, 12:3; Hebrews 1 (cf.Ps102); Revelation 19:16 (cf. Isaiah 9:6).
Other claims to deity
• “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58, cf. Ex 3:14)
• Alpha and Omega (Rev 1:8 cf. Rev. 22:13)
• The Word (John 1:1 cf. Ps 33:6)
• Son of Man (Daniel 7:13, Matthew 26:64- eternal ruler)
• Son of God (Matt 11:25-30; 17:5; 1 Cor.15:28; Heb 1)
Question: Can you list any other titles of Jesus here which suggest His deity? How does knowing this about Jesus help you to tell not-yet-Christian friends about Him?
3. Evidence of attributes of deity
• Omnipotence over storm, multiplying fish, changing water into wine, casting out demons, raising the dead, walking on water
• Eternal nature- see first two of ‘other claims’
• Omniscience- he knew people’s thoughts (Mark 2:8) and saw them far away (John 1:48)
• Omnipresence- where two or three are gathered (Matt.18:20) even to the end (Matt.28:20)
• Authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:5-7) and to make “I say to you” statements with divine power (Matt 5:22)
• Immortality- John 2:19, Heb 7:16
• Worthy to be worshipped- only God (Rev.19:10; Phil 2:9-11; Heb 1:6, Rev.5:12-13)
Question: Can you find any really good examples in Scripture of Jesus showing some of God’s characteristics? How does knowing this about Jesus help you to tell not-yet-Christian friends about Him?
4. Why did He need to be God?
• Only infinite God could take the penalty of all the trillions of sins committed by us, causing infinite, eternal and humanly irreparable damage to our relationship with an infinite-personal Creator. Because God is infinite, sins committed against His character are as well, so they can only be dealt with by an infinite-finite, immortal-mortal, God-man.
• salvation is from the Lord (Jonah 2:9), not from any created thing. How could a creature save other creatures from the Creator of all?
• to bring God to man and man to God (John 14:9; 2 John 9
Question: why do you think it is important that our Saviour is very God? Imagine if He wasn’t. What difference would it make to you?
5. Heresies- what are they, why do they exist and why are they serious?
a. Apollinarianism- 33% human (body, but not mind or spirit), 67% God (mind and spirit). X- Not just body needs redeeming.
b. Nestorianism- 100% human, 100% divine, TWO persons. X- Jesus always speaks of “I”, not “we”; all His actions have integrity and wholeness and unity; He is not a split personality, though he does have two ‘parallel’ natures, they are perfectly at harmony and constitut the one person, just as God has three persons and yet is one in nature and substance.
c. Monophysiticsm (Eutychianism)- 50:50 mixture of human and divine to bring a new, single nature. X- in this view, Jesus is neither God nor man, not able to reveal the former or represent the latter.
d. Kenosis. Jesus gave up some of the attributes of divinity? No- he took on humanity, and thereby humbled himself, explaining Phil. 2:7.
e. Ebionism. 100% human, not divine, only divinely appointed. X- still massive gap between God and man.
f. Docetism. 100% divine, not human, only seemed human. X- cuts bridge off from other end.
g. Gnosticism. Christ-spirit unites himself with a body- not fully human or divine. Weird and still around today as New Age Christ-consciousness or gaia or karma or whatever.
h. Arianism. Divine but not God, i.e. Jesus was first created being (see Jehovah’s Witnesses and many other cults).
The Chalcedonian definition: “[Jesus is] consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood…two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably, the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the Son, and only begotten, God, the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
ONE person, TWO natures, FULLY God, FULLY Man. The natures are distinct- the divine does things the human cannot- classic example being the tired man asleep in the boat and the omnipotent God who calms the storm; or the weeping man who has lost his friend Lazarus and the sovereign Lord who raises him from the dead. Tired yet omnipotent?! Learning yet omniscient?! Travelling from place to place, yet omnipresent?! Tis mystery all, the immortal dies (you know the song, ‘And can it be’).
For some reason, the devil seems to think fiddling around with Jesus’ identity is a good idea for him, so he invents all these bizarre off-shoots of true Christology. John was already dealing with this in his gospel and letters: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world” (1 John 4:1-3). The come indicates that Jesus is God coming down, and the flesh indicates that he has become man. Nearly all heresies, cults and false religions mess around with Jesus’ humanity or deity in some way. The only cult that doesn’t, as far as I can tell, is Catholicism. And they interfere with the Second Person of the Trinity by adding two more persons to the three- the Pope and Mary (the former said to be infallible and the latter said to be perfect and without sin, immaculate conceived).
So why is it important to know the truth and discern heresies? Because Jesus is important, and if we don’t really know what he’s like, we don’t really know him, we can’t have a relationship with him, and the devil’s won the battle.
DOCTRINE IS NOT THE OPPOSITE OF RELATIONSHIP! It is simply teaching about what God is like. Don’t let anyone tell you that determination for true doctrine is a barrier to love, peace or spiritual unity. All of those things are bogus is you can’t agree with your fellow worshippers what the kind of person you are worshipping is! There is no unity in all praising different false gods, all called ‘Jesus’. See John Blanchard’s Will the real Jesus please stand up? And Francis Schaeffer’s Escape from Reason.
Question: what heresies about Jesus’ nature are prevalent today? And what popular heresies abound (e.g. Jesus was just a good teacher- why do people want to believe that)?
