5. The Divinity of Christ
The primary doctrine of Scripture is the doctrine of redemption. The person and work of the Redeemer is therefore the great theme of sacred writers. Due to the nature of work that He was to accomplish, it is necessary that He be both God and man. He must participate in the nature of those He came to redeem, and also have the power to subdue evil. From the beginning of the Bible to the end, this Godman Redeemer is exalted above all else and is the supreme object of reverence, love, and confidence to the dying sons of Adam in this world. Throughout the centuries men have fought and died over the debate of Christ’s divinity. His humanity is generally always accepted, because that is the part of him that we can identify with and understand. Men like Arius, who lived in the 4th century A.D., argued that Jesus was in fact divine, but God created Him, so He was not subsistent with the Father in a hypostatic union of the divine essence. This movement was deemed heresy by the council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. The Council wrote a Creed, which affirmed the deity of Christ, so that the generations to follow would know the truth, passed down for ages to come. The Nicene Creed is linked to the right, for future reference, under “Statement of Faith,” or you can go HERE. The biblical teaching about the person of Christ is as follows: Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man in one person, and will be so forever. We will prove this by first proving Jesus’ humanity, then His deity, then show how these two persons are tied together in the Godman.The Humanity of Christ-
The humanity of Christ begins with the virgin birth. The Bible is very clear that Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit, not of a human father (Matt. 1:20; Matt. 1:24-25; Luke 1:25; Luke 3:23). It is very important that this doctrine be upheld as truth, because it shows three things. (1.) Salvation comes ultimately from the Lord. In Genesis 3:15, God declares that the woman’s “seed” will ultimately destroy the serpent. So, God brought this about by His own power, not human effort. (2.) The virgin birth made possible the uniting of full deity and full humanity in one person. Were God to merely create Jesus as a person in heaven, and send Him to earth, we would doubt that he was as “human” as we are. Were He to have two human parents, how are we to be convinced of His eternal deity? God could have done it either way, or any other way, but to most effectively transmit to us Jesus’ deity and humanity, the virgin conception is the way which removes all doubt in our human minds. (3.) The virgin birth also allows for Christ’s true humanity without inherited sin. All men have sin inherited to them from their first father, Adam. Jesus did not descend from Adam the same way all other men descend from Adam, so we can understand why He is sinless. Gabriel the angel indicated this to Mary in Luke 1:35 when He said, “therefore, the child will be called Holy.” Because the Spirit brought the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary, the child was to be called HOLY. Why did Jesus not receive sin from His mother, Mary? The Catholics answer this with the deduction that Mary was herself sinless. But, the Bible nowhere teaches this, and if this were true, How did Mary’s mother attain sinlessness so she wouldn’t pollute Mary? A God who created the universe could choose to allow His Son to be born sinless even if the mother were a sinner. The Holy Spirit must have blocked the transmission of sin from Mary just as He did from Joseph. This belief of the perfection of Mary assumes that (1.) God is not able to produce perfection out of sin, i.e. He is not omnipotent, or (2.) that Mary was in some way deity, and God completely left her out of the Bible in all its sufficiency and perfection because He forgot to include it. Therefore, we can easily conclude that Mary was not deity (perfect) and she conceived Jesus immaculately (free from sin) by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Another evidence of Christ’s humanity was His human weaknesses. He had a human body. He was born just all human babies are born (Luke 2:7). He grew as all children grow (Luke 2:40). He grew in “stature” (Luke 2:52). He became tired just as we do (John 4:6). He became thirsty (John 19:28). He became hungry after fasting for forty days (Matt 4:2). The culmination of His human limitations can be seen at the cross. He died, His body ceased to have life in it, and ceased to function, just as ours does when we die (Luke 23:46). Jesus also had a human mind. Luke 2:52 says he increased in wisdom, meaning He went through the process of learning just like all other children do. Another evidence of His human mind is in Mark 13:32, which says that His knowledge is limited (more on this topic later). He had a human body, mind and also human emotions. There are several indications in the Bible that Jesus had a human soul (or spirit). (John 12:27; John 13:21) In both of these verses the word for troubled is taravssw, (tarasso) which is used to convey when someone is anxious or surprised by danger. He also was sorrowful over His death (Matt 26:38), He “marveled” at the centurion’s faith (Matt 8:10). He wept with sorrow over Lazarus (John 11:35), and He prayed full of emotion (Heb 5:7). Even though He was completely human, He was also sinless. Some say that Jesus wasn’t fully human because He did not have sin, which is indicative of humanity. However, sin is not the “norm” for humans. God created us without sin. Sin is now normal, but it was originally abnormal. Adam and Eve were truly human. As humans are now, we are not what God intends for us (i.e. Not what He desired us to be) so we do not match His patter until perfection is restored to us. The scriptures collectively teach of Jesus’ perfection. Luke 2:40 says that He had the “favor of God” upon Him. After Satan unsuccessfully tried to tempt Jesus for forty days, He left Him (Luke 4:13). At Jesus’ trial, He asks which can accuse Him of sin (John 8:46), and received no answer. In all the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) there is no account of Him sinning. In John 8:12, Jesus says “I am the light of the world.” We understand light to mean truthfulness and moral purity, so Jesus is claiming to be the source of truth and purity. With regard to His Father, Jesus said, “I am always doing (present tense, i.e. Continual action) what is pleasing to Him” (John 8:29). At the end of Jesus’ life He could say “I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (John 15:10). There are tons of references to His perfection in the Bible besides these, but I will stop there.
The Deity of Christ-
To accept and teach that Jesus was fully human apart from the truth that He was and is fully God is heretical and blasphemous. He was fully human and also fully divine. The word incarnation is used by the church to refer to the fact that Jesus was God in human flesh. The Latin incarnare means “to make flesh.” The incarnation was the act of God the Son whereby he took to himself a human nature.
One of the evidences of Jesus’ Deity is the direct scriptural claims.
1. The Word Theos (God) Used of Christ: Although this Greek word is used to refer to the Father the most in scripture, there are several passages that use it to refer to Jesus. (John 1:1; John 1:18; John 20:28; Romans 9:5; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8; 2 Peter 1:1). Therefore, if the Bible is truly infallible, since Jesus and God are referred to with the same word- Theos, they are the same in essence. The old Testament also attributes the title of “God” to the coming Messiah, Jesus (Isa. 9:6).
2. The Word Kyrios (God, Lord, Master, Sir) Used of Christ: (Matt 13:27; Matt 21:30; Matt 27:63; John 4:11). This same word translates into the Hebrew word of the Old testament YWHW which was used specifically about God. The scholars of Jesus day studies the septuigant which was a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Therefore, when they referred to Jesus as Kyrios or Lord, they were consciously calling Him God. The angels referred to Jesus as the “Savior, who is Christ the Lord (Kyrios) (Luke 2:11). This word was so powerful to them that it was like saying, “A baby is born today who is also God Himself.” It is no surprise, therefore, that “all who heard it wondered at what the shepherd’s told them” (Luke 2:18).
3. Many other references in Scripture teach us of Jesus’ deity as well. One example is in John 1:1, John not only calls Jesus “God” but also the “Word” (GR: logos). The people then would have understood this title as a dual reference. One to the powerful creative hand in the Old Testament by which the world was created, and the hand that upholds all of life in the present. In Greek thinking, Jesus was therefore the same as the God who created all things, and the God who sustains all things, proving His deity.
Another of the evidences of Christ’s deity were the direct evidences.
In addition to the many specific affirmations of Jesus’s deity in the above passages, we see many examples of His deity in His actions that point to his divine character. He illustrated His omnipotence when He calmed the storm with a word (Matt. 8:26-27), multiplied loves of fish (Matt. 14:19), and changed water to wine (John 2:1-11). He also claims to be deity when He says, Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58), and “I am the Alpha and Omega” (Rev. 22:13). His omniscience is demonstrated in his knowledge of people’s thoughts: (Mark 2:8; John 1:48; John 6:64). John 2:25 says that “He knew all men and needed no one to bear witness of man.” The disciples said that He “knew all things” (John 16:30). After His resurrection, He asked Peter if he loved Him, and Peter replied, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you” (John 21:17). Other attributes like sovereignty, immortality, etc, present in Jesus’ life are all evidences of His deity.
The GodMan-
Jesus was clearly 100% God and 100% man, so how can 200% equal the whole? Throughout the centuries people have tried to understand this, and have developed many theories concerning the relation between these two natures. There are three main theories which we will discuss:
1. Apollinarianism:
 |
| Figure 1 |
Apollinaris, bishop of Leadicea about A.D. 361, taught that the one person of Christ had a human body but not a human mind or spirit, and that the mind and spirit of Christ were from the divine nature of God. This view can be represented in figure 1. The church soon rejected this teaching because man needs to be redeemed in all areas including the mind and spirit; therefore, if Jesus was to be the atonement, He must be FULLY and TRULY man.
2. Nestorianism:
 |
| Figure 2 |
3. Monophysitism:
 |
| Figure 3 |
The truth about Christ’s person was accepted at the council of Chalcedon near Constantinople in A.D. 451. The resulting statement, called the Chalcedonian Definition, guarded against these previous heresies. You can read it HERE, and it will be listed under the “Statement of Faith” to the right of the page.
 |
| Figure 4 |
In opposition to the Nestorian belief that Christ has two persons united in one body, we have the words “indivisibly, inseperably . . . Concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons.”
Against the view of Monophysticism that Christ had only one nature, therefore diluting the two natures, we have the words “to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably. . . The distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved.” Figure 4 illustrates this true understanding of Christ’s character as the GodMan. This final sentence is sometimes used to understand this relationship of natures. “Remaining what He was, He became what He is not.” In other words, remaining what He was (fully divine), He also became what he previously had not been (fully human as well.)
Blogging for His glory, Adam Setser
No comments:
Post a Comment