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HERESIES AGAINST THE UNION
OF THE DIVINE AND HUMAN NATURES IN CHRIST
One
of the doctrines that distinguishes Christianity from all other
religions is the affirmation of both the transcendence and immanence
of God. We affirm that God is wholly other,
set apart from creation by an unbridgeable gap (Isa
55:8-9),
but we also affirm that God is near to us—He watches us, cares
about us, and involves Himself in our lives. This synthesis of the
transcendence and immanence of God is embodied perfectly in Christ,
because in Him, both the divine and human natures exist in one
person. To put it in another way that we are more familiar with,
Christ is 100% God and 100% man. This doctrine is a non-negotiable of
Christian faith, and we must seriously doubt the salvation of anyone
who denies or twists it.
Docetism
– Jesus only appeared human. Like
gnosticism, docetism is a broad category that refers to the belief
that Jesus' body was either absent or illusory. It existed in Asia
Minor by the late 2nd
century and became popular in
the 3rd
among those committed to Greek philosophy.
- Q: Does it matter whether Christ died as a human?
- If Christ only appeared human, but was not actually human, then His redemptive work is undermined. If He did not die as a human being, then He did not resurrect as a human being, and He is not really the firstfruits of the resurrection from the dead (Col 1:18; 1Co 15:20). Also, if Christ's suffering was a sham, then there is no theological meaning to the suffering of the saints (Jn 15:20; Gal 6:17; Col 1:24).
Apollinarianism
– One half God, one half man. Apollinarius
(4th
cent.) was
Bishop of Laodicea from 362 onward. He argued that
“The flesh, being dependent for its motions on some other principle of movement and action…is not of itself a complete living entity, but in order to become one enters into fusion with something else. So it united itself with the heavenly governing principle [the LogoV] and was fused with it…Thus out of the moved and the mover was compounded a single living entity—not two, nor one compound of two complete, self-moving principles.”
If this view were correct, then
Christ did not have a human soul and mind, and was therefore not
fully human.
Nestorianism
– Two natures, two persons.
Nestorius
was Bishop of Alexandria from 428 onward. He taught that Christ had
two natures, the divine and the human, and that these two natures
could not be united. Consequently, the Christ he believed in seemed
to be two separate persons. He was anathematized and the Chalcedonian
Creed was formulated in order to correct his teaching.
The resistance against
Nestorius revolved largely around his refusal to use the title
theotokos ("mother of God") for Mary, because he
believed that God as an eternal being could not be born. Instead, he
preferred to use the title Cristotokos ("mother of Christ"),
since he believed that Mary was the mother of the human nature of
Christ. However, this was unacceptable to his opponents, who argued
that the title theotokos came part and
parcel with accepting the presence of both the divine and human
nature in the single person of Christ. On the surface, it would seem
that Evangelicals agree with Nestorius on this issue because we also
shy away from calling Mary the “Mother of God.” After all, we
have witnessed the consequences of this exaltation of Mary, to the
point wherein Roman Catholics even call her the Co-Redemptrix! That
being said, the greater error actually lay with Nestorius than with
Cyril, because Nestorius' error was a direct denial of the personhood
of Christ.
Monophysitism
– A third nature.
Eutychus (378-454),
who was in charge of the monastery at Constantinople, taught that the
unity of the divine and human nature in Jesus at the incarnation
resulted in a “third thing,” a third nature. Logically, this
meant that Christ was neither God nor
man, but a new kind of being!
DEFENSE
OF CHRIST'S TWO NATURES IN ONE PERSON
In order to combat the
abovementioned heresies and clarify the Scriptural teachings about
the union of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ,
the Church formulated the Chalcedonian Creed. The creed said that
Christ was
“to be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; 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 in two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
- Q: Why is it so important to affirm the full divinity as well as the full humanity of Christ?
- Christ is the only one qualified to mediate between God and man precisely because He is both fully God and fully man.
HERESIES
AGAINST THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF CHRIST
The
earliest heresies were actually recorded in the Bible, and they are
against the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.
Gnosticism.
Gnosticism sought enlightenment by the obtaining of “secret
knowledge” and thought of the soul as good and the body as evil,
among other things. Because
the gnostics thought of the body as evil, they despised the idea of
resurrection. But that's exactly what Acts
1:3
tells us, right? “He
presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs,
appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of
God.” And this is so important, as Paul explains in 1
Corinthians 15:
“16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. … 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
The
Judaizers.
They were converts from Judaism (particularly ex-Pharisees) that
sought to impose Jewish law upon Gentile Christians. The book of Acts
(Acts
15)
and a portion of Paul's writings (ex. Romans
and Galatians)
record this heresy and the apostolic response. The
Judaizers taught that Gentiles had to be circumcised and observe the
Mosaic Law in order to be saved (Acts
15:5).
The apostles corrected this teaching by reaffirming salvation by
grace through faith in Christ, not by works (Acts
15:11;
Gal
2:16).
HERESIES AGAINST THE WORK
OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Pelagianism
– the Holy Spirit downgraded. Pelagius
(c.390-418) was monk who came to be respected in Rome as a moral
reformer. His views were opposed vehemently by Augustine of Hippo,
however, and were eventually condemned by the Council of Ephesus.
Pelagius
denied that man was born sinful due to the Fall of Adam and Eve. He
insisted that at birth, a person was a clean slate, with the ability
to do either good or bad. However, a great majority of people choose
to sin, and do so increasingly, thus becoming addicted to it and
creating the appearance
of sinful nature. Sinners could indeed be forgiven by faith in
Christ, but after conversion the responsibility of obedience and
sanctification rested primarily
on the Christian.
Pelagius said that there were
some people who never sinned, and therefore merited heaven. This was,
of course, pure speculation on his part.
Does
God have the right to command man to do what he is morally incapable
of doing? Augustine affirmed this in his prayer, “grant what You
command, and command what You will.” Pelagius, however, dennounced
this truth, saying that
“To
call a person to something he considers impossible does him no good.”
(Letter
to Demetrias,
I)
Instead, he said that God grace lay in the enabling
of people to obey.
- Q: Should we really consider Pelagianism a heresy? If so, why?
- Pelagius insisted that people needed “the Spirit of grace” (Heb 10:29), but in fact his teaching was moralistic, not evangelical. God's grace was an ever-present reality that was to be formally acknowledged, but not sought out. His system had no place for spiritual regeneration (Jn 3:5-8; Rom 8:2), because man was not “dead in trespasses and sin” (Eph 2:1). In the place of the Spirit's “sealing” of believers for the day of redemption (Eph 4:30; 1:13; cf. Jud 1:24), Pelagius exalted the strength of the human will. Instead of calling Christians to “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5:18), Pelagius called them to exercise free will. Increasing Christlikeness in the believer was the fruit of moral choice, not as the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22-23).
Challenge.
The Christian begins his spiritual life by the Holy Spirit, and
continues walking by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit therefore has to
have a considerable place in our theology and practical living. We
see this clearly in the first two chapters of the book of Acts. We
don't have time now, but we'll take a closer look at those chapters
once we're done talking about heresies.
HERESIES AGAINST SCRIPTURE
The final type of heresy we'll
discuss is heresy against Scripture. Although we're discussing this
last, this may actually be the most dangerous kind of heresy of all,
because it attacks the very source of all Christian knowledge.
Marcion's
Canon.
In order to support his dualistic theology and anti-Semitic
sentiments, Marcion created his own canon. This included Paul's
Epistles (excluding the Pastoral Epistles), Marcion's version of
Luke, which he attributed to Paul, and the “Letter to the
Alexandrians” and the “Letter to the Laodiceans,” which were
forged documents falsely attributed to Paul. Marcion rejected any
Scripture that was oriented towards the Jews: the entire Old
Testament, the Letter to the Hebrews, and Peter's letters.
By presuming to use his own
theological criteria in the selection of scriptures, Marcion placed
himself above the apostles.
Challenge.
Now,
isn't this the same principle being applied implicitly
by individuals, churches, and organizations who highlight only some
parts of Scripture and ignore others? Take for example the tendency
among many Christians to sugar-coat the gospel. They don't like to
talk about sin and hell, because they prefer to talk about the love
and forgiveness of God. They talk so much about free grace but give
only a passing mention to repentance and Lordship. They don't deny
sin, hell, repentance and obedience, they just don't talk about it
that much. But isn't that being selective? Sure, they won't go to the
extent of creating their own canon, like Marcion did, but practically
speaking, they're doing the same thing he did.
I'll give another example.
There are preachers, Bible study leaders, and writers who take a
text, and make it to mean whatever they want it to mean. They're more
interested in promoting their agenda than simply explaining the
Bible. I once heard a sermon on the FEBC station by a pretty
well-known pastor and author. He used the first chapter of Exodus to
talk about OFWs. I was appalled! The Exodus is about God's unfolding
plan of redemption, not about steps you need to take to protect
yourself in a foreign land! Now, I don't know what goes on from week
to week in evangelical churches across the country, but from the
little I've seen throughout the years, I fear that this kind of abuse
of Scripture is fairly common.
Open
Theism's Undermining of Inerrancy.
Another kind of heresy against Scripture is the denial of its
inerrancy. Liberals have been doing thisWhile
open theists affirm the inerrancy of Scripture, their theological
system places them on shakey ground. To my mind, their notion of a
God who refuses to override human will is incompatible with 2
Peter 1:19-21,
which is the clearest biblical statement on the absolute reliability
of Scripture. Moreover, prophetic passages that discuss future events
can be understood as God's informed guess at
best,
since the future is beyond the bounds of His knowledge. Following the
logic of open theism therefore leads to this conclusion: it is
possible
that Scripture just happens to be innerant, but there is no
certainty. In fact, it is very
unlikely
that Scripture is inerrant, considering all the human and non-human
factors in the formation of the canon.
I like what John MacArthur said
about the Scriptures:
“If you were to back me to the wall and say, “What is the most important important thing that you believe?” … I'll tell you this: the authority of Scripture. That has to be it, because if I equivocate at all on the authority of the Scripture, than anything in the Scripture is up for grabs. The most important doctrine that you will ever hold is your conviction that the Bible is the word of God.
Challenge.
So how do we apply this information to our situation today,
particularly with regards to ecumenism? Simply put, we have to be
quick to identify people who have a high view of Scripture and those
who do not. And of those who say that Scripture is infallible,
inerrant, sufficient and relevant, we need to identify quickly
whether they really
believe
that, or are just paying lip service. This is important, because once
a person's doctrine of Scripture goes downhill, everything else is
sure to follow. So we should think twice about joining hands with
such a person in fellowship and ministry. What he/she needs is not to
be given false assurance, but to be instructed in the most basic
tenets of the faith.
(To be continued...)
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(To be continued...)
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