the theories on the incarnation
TRANSCRIPT
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THE THEORIES OF
THE INCARNATION
WENDT’S THEORY OF ETHICAL UNION
Hans Wendt, in his The Teaching Of Jesus, proposes a
theory, which is very reminiscent of the ancient
adoptianist teaching.
According to Wendt, the relation between Christ and God was
an “ethical, filial relation only”. His theory is that
there is a “spiritual union” only between Jesus and God the
Father. It is difficult for Wendt to believe that there
could be a “union of two natures, the human and divine, inone person”.
Wendt’s theory is not a theory of the incarnation at all,
but rather as R.J. Cooke, a Methodist writer, says (The
Incarnation And Recent Criticism, New York: Eaton and
Mains, 1907), a substitute for it of some kind of “a divine
inhabitation”.
TWO CONSCIOUSNESSES IN ONE PERSON?
As Cooke notes, this theory supposes that there must
necessarily be two consciousnesses in the one person, if
there are two natures, the divine nature and the humannature. We are then faced with one person having what Cooke
calls “a double consciousness”. Is this contradictory?
Cooke’s own idea is that there was “never an independent
personality of the human Jesus” apart from what he says is
“the Logos”. There was never solely and only a human Jesus,
“but always a God-human being”. But this is an awkward type
of phraseology,since it sounds somewhat like the “demigod”
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(half-god and half-man) terminology of pagan mythology.
Moreover, taken to its ultimate, it seems to compromise the
genuine humanity of Jesus. And to this characterization,
Cooke seems to assent, since he continues to say of the
Lord:
A being not wholly and only God nor wholly and only man, but a union of the twonatures in one God-man. The self-consciousness of Jesus always is that he is
one, and not two. He knows himself to be a divine-human personality.
In Cooke’s opinion, our “ignorance” of how two
consciousnesses could be in one person- without there being
two persons- does not render such an apparent contradiction
“an utter impossibility”. He notes that two “Egos”, each
being conscious of itself, and living apart from one
another, could never be conceived as being “one
consciousness”.
On the other hand, two “Egos”, having such a common ground
that neither is conscious of itself as being distinct fromthe other, without also being conscious at the same time of
the other, could be possible. A human analogy would be the
ability of the mind (the subject) to be conscious of both
the subject (one’s own self) and an object simultaneously.
This human analogy, however, fails since it does not even
demonstrate two consciousnesses.
Cooke, who apparently is an Athanasian trinitarian, speaks
of another German theologian, Beyschlag, who is toying with
a form of adoptianism, in that he sees Jesus simply as a
“God-filled man”, who was not born of a virgin, but who,
before his birth, was in the mind of the Father as simply apre-existing idea. Beyschlag taught that:
with all the sublimity and uniqueness of his consciousness of Sonship Jesus
felt and confessed that he was a man in God’s presence. He repeatedly calls God his Lord, and acknowledges the universal human obligation of praying to him,
expressions which cannot possibly be harmonized with a consciousness of being
God himself. -New Theology
Notice that this German author is using the term “Sonship”,
which, the oneness reader will see, is not, after all,
solely a product of oneness theology.
Beyschlag rejects the pre-existence of Christ as a separate
divine Person, but he does so at the expense of thedivinity of Christ and the truth of the virgin birth. He
calls the ideas of the “eternal Son” (and, in essence, the
Trinity) “trinitarian notions of the fourth and fifth
centuries, which are certainly unknown to the New
Testament”. Moreover, Beyschlag does not seem to have
accounted for the times when Jesus spoke as God, commanding
the elements and raising the dead, etc. Nor when he
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identified himself with the Father.
But the only way to explain the unique qualities and person
of Jesus Christ is to return to a genuine faith in the
virgin birth. Only God could adequately reveal God. As John
wrote of Jesus, after he had ascended into Heaven:
No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosomof the Father, he hath declared him. -John 1:18
The man Jesus is the Image of the invisible God (2
Corinthians 4:4; Colossian 1:15, and Hebrews 1:3). He is
more than just an adopted Son, and more than just a “God-
filled man”.
THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF JESUSMuch discussion has ensued concerning the extent of Jesus’
consciousness, not only of His deity (from His humanity
side), but of when He became aware of His deity, as a humanbeing. And to what extent he was able to operate in both
spheres of human and divine consciousness. Did a dual-
consciousness operate simultaneously? Was the divine
superimposed over the human?
Horace M. Du Bose (The Consciousness of Jesus, New York:
Methodist Book Concern, 1917) believes that the
consciousness of Jesus:
is the identification of the life of that harmonious personality resulting from
the unity of Godhood and manhood, whereof is one Christ...the explication of
humanity and the manifestation of divinity.
And DuBose notes that “Tokens of the human are abundant andsympathetic; tokens of the divine are signal and
overmastering”. There is no dissonance,
incongruity...confusion of ideas” in the reported words or
thoughts of Jesus.
The consciousness of Jesus developed normally. And he says:
To the human side of his life the divine side was uncovered as his human powers
ripened; but at each stage the exercise of those powers was full and the unity
of the consciousness complete.
A CONSCIOUSNESS GROUNDED IN TWO NATURES
And, DuBose adds, “here was a consciousness grounded in two
natures, yet expressed through an indivisible personality”.
He continues this synergistic approach by saying:
To its capacity, the human consciousness could no more escape knowledge of the
divine identity than could the divine escape its impinging human complement.
A COALESCENCE OF GODHOOD AND HUMANITY
Du Bose does not seem to be affected by the pagan “demi-
god” influence since he writes:
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In this union there was a coalescence, but not an identification, of Godhood
and humanity.
But, nonetheless, Du Bose suffers from the confusion
generated by the trinitarian church councils. For him,
Jesus is the Son, “very God of very God...who came down and
was incarnate and was made man”. The Nicean theology. He
rejects the idea of the incarnation of God the Father, and
assigns the incarnation to a second divine Person in the
Godhead.
AN EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS?
But when he returns to his examination of the consciousness
of Jesus, he is plain enough. He reflects upon a noticed
expansion in the consciousness of Jesus:
The last earthly experiences of Jesus, notably the passion, the ordeals before
Pilate, and the long agony of the crucifixion, perfected his consciousness as
to its compass, both in emotion and thought, of the elements of the absolute.
Three antecedent events show the manner of this process while under way. These
were the baptism, the temptation, and the transfiguration. At the baptism of
Jesus the consciousness of Messiahship may be said to have been perfected, the
subjective maturity being verified by the words and signs of Paternal
recognition. In the struggles of the temptation the knowledge of sufficiency
was subjectively confirmed, while in the transfiguration the whole Personality
stood self-revealed, the diaphanous body not only testifying its subserviency
to the Messianic consciousness, but rising to its office of participation
therein.
And Du Bose goes one step further in this “evolution” of
consciousness by examining it in the light of the
resurrection. The remarks by the apostles concerning the
resurrection show:
how fully the divine consciousness had been attained by, and was expressed inthe risen Christ, and how boundless had become the mastery of his powers.
But Du Bose’s review of this expansion of consciousness, in
which Jesus declares that “all power is given unto me in
heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18), is colored by his
trinitarian thinking.
He sees the full revealing of divinity in Christ after the
resurection as “the uncovering of the divine nature which
was his by inheritance”. But he fails to see God the
Father. To him, it is rather a Father passing His divine
nature on to a Son. Jesus is God only by virtue of his
virgin birth. He is not God because he has always been Godthe Father, but rather his divine nature has been
bequeathed to him by another divine Person. He is placed in
a “subordinate” position even in the Godhead.
SIGNS OF GODHEAD HIDDEN IN FLESHLY UNMATURITY
Melito of Sardis, in his writings (see Melito of Sardis, On
The Pascha, and Fragments, tr. Stuart G. Hall, Oxford:
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Clarendon Press, 1979), c.160 AD, wrote that Christ “proved
his manhood in the thirty seasons before the baptism, when,
because of fleshly unmaturity, he hid the signs of his
Godhead”. Notice that the word “unmaturity” is purposely
used, and not the word “immaturity”. Christ proved his
Godhead “through the signs in the three years after
baptism”.
GODHEAD MANIFESTED AFTER BAPTISM?
In this manner, concluded Melito, Christ “assured us of his
two essences (tas duo autou ousias)”. After his baptism,
Christ “manifested the Godhead...hidden in flesh, and
assured the world of it”.
As George Park Fisher notes (History of Christian Doctrine,
New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1896), Melito early recognized
the two natures in Christ, “perfect God and perfect man”.
Concerning these two natures, which somehow were thefountain of consciousness in Jesus Christ, David Bernard
(Oneness of God, Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press, 1983),
has written:
the two natures (divine and human) were not actually separated in him. ith our
finite minds, we can make only a distinction and not a separation in the two
natures that blended perfectly in him.
However, some separation has to exist for the purpose of
the Lord’s genuine humanity. How could he die without a
separate genuine human nature?
Bernard does see a distinction between God and the Son
(Oneness and Trinity AD 100-300, Hazelwood, MO: Word AflamePress, 1991):
There is a real distinction between God and the Son-not a distinction of two
divine persons, but a distinction between the eternal Spirit of God and the
authentic human being in whom God was fully incarnate.
WORD IS THOUGHT, PLAN, REASON BEFORE INCARNATION
Jesus, according to Bernard, was both God and man at the
same time, and “sometimes He spoke or acted from the human
viewpoint and sometimes from the divine viewpoint”. The
Lord, as Father, sometimes “spoke from His divine self-
awareness”. Then, as Son, “He sometimes spoke from His
human self-awareness”.
The Word, according to Bernard, was “God’s self-revelation,
self-expression, or self-disclosure”. Before the
incarnation, the Word was the thought, plan, reason, or
mind of God. Not a separate divine Person. The Word
pertained to God, much as a “man and his word”. When it is
time for the incarnation, Bernard notes:
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In the fulness of time, God put flesh on the Word; He revealed Himself in
flesh. In the person of Jesus Christ, ‘the Word was made flesh’...the eternal
Word was revealed in the begotten Son.
I might add that this explains away much of the trinitarian
theory of a pre-existent separate divine Person. For
example, when Paul, in Colossians 1:15,16 states that all
things were created by “the image of the invisible God”,and “the firstborn of every creature”, he is actually
giving glory to what God did in the beginning through the
spoken Word. This is before the Word was later made flesh
in the womb of the virgin.
Then the writer of Hebrews (Hebrews 1:3) states that it is
the Son “by whom also he made the worlds”. Again, we know
that the writer means that God created the heavens and the
earth earlier by his spoken word, and we clearly see this
in Genesis 1:3, as well as in Psalms 33:6-9. We know that
the Word was later made flesh in the womb of the virgin.
These passages do not mean that the man Christ Jesus, the
Image of God, the firstborn of every new creature, pre-
existed (except as God). We understand that the Word was
made flesh, and that this is when the only begotten Son
came into existence.
THE VIRGIN BIRTHThe virgin birth, of course, is a critical doctrine in
reference to the unique status of Jesus. Without the virgin
birth, the sinless humanity of Christ is put into question
(in other words, he still would have received the sinnature of Adam with two human parents). This is the error
of true adoptianism.
Luke’s Gospel, therefore, plays a vital role in the
establishment of the virgin birth, as, of course, does
Matthew. Mark makes no reference to it.
ONLY-BEGOTTEN
John makes oblique references to the virgin birth by using
the phrase “the only-begotten of the Father”, and “the Word
was made flesh”- although he does not mention the role of
Mary.It is important, in the case of John, to realize that a
modern-day linguistic assault has been made upon the
translation of monogenes, “only-begotten”, by modern
trinitarian writers. Liddell and Scott’s Dictionary (1889)
simply translates monogenes as “only-begotten”. But Vine’s
Dictionary (1996, q.v.), after dutifully listing monogenes
as “only-begotten”, devotes several paragraphs attempting
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to “destroy” the simple translation of “only-begotten”,
which we find in the King James Version of the Bible.
In Vine’s, the purpose of attempting to do away with the
translation of “only-begotten” becomes clear. We are made
to understand that monogenes, when it refers to Jesus, must
be understood differently:We can only rightly understand the term ‘the only begotten’ when used of the
Son, in the sense of unoriginated relationship.
And then the writer quotes Moule, making it quite clear
that monogenes, in his opinion, cannot possibly be related
to the virgin birth:
The begetting is not an event in time, however remote, but a fact irrespective
of time. The Christ did not become, but necessarily and eternally is the Son.
He, a Person, possesses every attribute of pure Godhood. This necessitates
eternity, absolute being; in this respect He is not ‘after’ the Father.
And, in his interpretation of John 3:16, the intent of the
writer in Vine’s is further revealed. This statement, henotes, must “not be taken to mean that Christ became the
only begotten son by incarnation”. Why not?
Obviously we have here a theologically biased
interpretation, and not a purely linguistic interpretation.
The theology of the Logos teaching of a pre-existent Son,
born before the ages, wrests the clear meaning of the
scripture that Jesus, born of a virgin, is thereby the
only-begotten Son of God. It is true that he will later be
“begotten from the dead”, becoming the firstborn among many
brethern. But he alone is the “only-begotten” from a
virgin, the incarnated God, or God manifest in the flesh.To translate monogenes as simply “only” (as in John 1:18,
New International Version; and John 3:16, The New English
Bible) is simply a theological decision. God has many
“sons”. The angels are declared to be his “sons”. Adam is
called “the son of God”. To do away with the term “only-
begotten” is indirectly an attack upon the virgin birth.
The meaning of “only-begotten”, in this case, is generally
understood to mean that the only man born of a virgin, with
God as his Father, is Jesus Christ. It refers to the virgin
birth, plain and simple. All of God’s children are
“unique”. Therefore, the term “unique” is not acceptable,and is a far cry from the simple meaning of monogenes. Only
one has ever been (and ever will be) begotten by God of a
virgin-Jesus Christ.
JEWISH ROOTS OF LUKE?
Luke was possibly written as early as 63 AD, while Paul was
still alive. Marcion made an attack upon the virgin birth
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by omitting from his text of Luke the first three chapters
(c.140 AD).
But R.J. Cooke (q.v.) notes that Luke obviously made use of
far older Aramaic documents, dating back many years prior
to the date of his gospel. He notes that this is the
opinion of such scholars as Sanday, Weiss, Godet, and “manyother New Testament critics”. Weiss declares that:
the Hebraistic diction of these documents presents such a striking contrast to
the classical Greek of the preface (of Luke) that the use of a written source
can hardly be denied.
Gunkel, says Cooke, is of the opinion that Luke is drawn
from a “translation of a ‘Hebrew’(Aramaic) original”, which
he refers to as “a genuine document of a very primitive
Jewish-Christian type” (q.v.). And Godet notes that “in the
use of these early documents Luke faithfully preserved
their Aramaic coloring” (q.v.).
According to Cooke, C.A. Briggs (North American Review,June, 1906), felt the Aramaic narratives, from which Luke
drew, were dated prior to the fall of Jerusalem (70 AD),
during the lifetimes of James and Jude, the half-brothers
of Christ (q.v.). Cooke speculates that the information
could have even originally come from the lips of Mary
herself.
And Cooke (q.v.) argues convincingly that Paul had either
copies of both Matthew and Luke in his possession, or at
least a common Aramaic source that each used. Paul accepted
the virgin birth, as a review of his epistles will
demonstrate (e.g., Galatians 4:4, and his acceptance of thesinless nature of Christ).
G.C. Morgan (The Gospel According To Luke, New York:
Fleming H. Revell, 1931), taking a cue from an
interpretation of Paul in Colossians 4:10-14, believes that
Luke was a Gentile and not a Jew. But this is a tenuous
interpretation at best, attempting to interpret what Paul
actually did not say. Moreover, to say that Luke has a
Gentile name and therefore cannot be a Jew, is of doubtful
importance. Mark, the author of the gospel,was a Jew.
Romans 3:1,2 states that the “oracles of God” wereentrusted to the Jews. It would be strange, but perhaps not
impossible, that God entrusted a book of the Bible to a
Gentile in view of Paul’s statement. It would be the only
one of the 66 books of the Bible written by a Gentile, if
this is the case.
VIRGIN BIRTH ESSENTIAL TO THE INCARNATION
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Without the virgin birth, it is difficult to imagine the
incarnation. As Cooke notes, every birth, by ordinary
generation, is “the coming into this life of a new
personality”. Christ cannot have been born of ordinary
human parents, because the conclusion would then be that
the “eternally existing Logos (Word)” first came into
“personal being” by such human means.
Cooke notes the difficulty in assuming that the “ego” or
“self” of the pre-existing Logos united with the “ego” or
“self” of the human child, which was born of two human
parents. This would be a form of adoptianism.
A CONJUNCTION OF PERSONALITIES?
He rejects this, since “we shall have two egos in two
persons”, which, he declares “is a mere conjunction of
personalities and is not an incarnation at all”. There is,
says Cooke (q.v.), a union (henosis) of two natures in
Christ, “though not a conjunction (synatheia), as Nestorius
declared” (q.v.).
And this union (henosis) must also be distinguished from
krasis or sygchysis, a mere “blending” of natures. Sygchysis
means “a mixing together, a blending”, while krasis
likewise means “a mixing, a blending”, but with the added
element of “a compounding” (“composed of, or resulting from
the union of separate elements, ingredients, or parts”). Of
course, this is consilar theology, stemming from
trinitarianism.
UNION DISTINGUISHED FROM INDWELLING
Furthermore, notes Cooke, this union (henosis) must also be
distinguished from enoikesis (from enoikeo, “to dwell, to
inhabit”), “an indwelling of God in the human nature”
(q.v.).
Hebrews 2:14 states that, “as the children are partakers of
flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the
same”. And Hebrews 2:16 is even more explicit, “he took not
on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of
Abraham”.
God, then, in the incarnation, became a “partaker” (“totake a part of, or share”, “to have some of the qualities
or attributes of something”)of flesh and blood, of the
“seed of Abraham”. It was more than just a mere
“indwelling”.
This has to qualify John 1:14, “the Word (Logos) was made
(or became) flesh”. God, through his Word, did more than
just inhabit, or dwell in, a sinless human being, who was
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virgin born, he actually became a “partaker of flesh and
blood”, and took upon himself “the seed of Abraham”. This
is why the word “union” (henosis) is being put forward. The
manner of “partaking”, and the degree of “union” is what is
mysterious.
TWO DISTINCT NATURESAnd this “union” is so powerful and so unique, that the man
Jesus, retained his own genuine humanity, while actually
being the Mighty God himself, manifest in the flesh, with
two distinct natures, human and divine.
The human nature was not divine, and the divine nature was
not human. There is a real, simultaneous existence of God
the Father, in heaven, demonstrated alongside the existence
of the man Jesus, on earth, since a genuine relationship is
shown between the man and his God. This relationship is a
fact of the gospels.
Nevertheless, the incarnation is also revealed more fully
in the progressive revelation of the Mighty God in Christ
(2 Corinthians 5:19).
Jesus is confirmed by the Father as the Messiah at the
baptism, his anointing (as the Christ or Messiah) is
confirmed in his successful endurance of the wilderness
temptation, when he returns in the power of the Spirit. His
deity is seen in the transfiguration. And it is even more
fully declared in his glory following the triumphant
resurrection (Thomas acknowledges him as “my Lord and my
God” in John 20:28).
Jesus identifies himself as God in a number of ways. In
John 10:30, he speaks of his identity, or oneness, with the
Father. In John 14:7-9, he reveals himself as the Father
manifest in the flesh. The relationship of the Son and the
Father demonstrate the genuine humanity of the Son, and the
need of all humanity for God the Father, while, at the same
time, the works of Jesus demonstrate the reality of the
incarnation, and that the Deity is indeed resident in the
man Jesus. At no time, does the relationship of the Father
and the Son ever demonstrate the existence of two divine
Persons.
This is, in part, because of the reality of the existing
incarnation, and the genuine humanity of Christ. But we do
not have simply one “nature” talking to another “nature”.
This is too simplistic. We have a genuine human being
talking to his God and to his Father. This is only possible
due to the mystery of the incarnation. Only the omnipotence
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and the omnipresence of Almighty God could bring about such
a logic-defying, seeming contretemps. But no one should say
that the conversations of the Father and the Son were
“rigged”,or that “ventrilloquism” was involved.
But then again, no separate “divinity” was imparted
additionally to the man Jesus. The divinity of Jesus Christis indeed the divinity of God the Father. The virgin birth
did not bring about the production, or the revelation, of
another divine Person. Nor did another divine Person, other
than God the Father, come from heaven to rescue mankind.
It is true that the Father sent his Word from heaven, which
was made flesh, and “dwelt (tented) among us” (John 1:14).
John says, “we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-
begotten of the Father” (vs 14). He is speaking of the
virgin born man here, and not of a second divine Person
from heaven.
But John 1:14 must be understood in the light of Hebrews
2:14 and 2:16. The phrase the “word was made (or became)
flesh” cannot fully be understood without interpreting the
statements that he (God) “became a partaker of “flesh and
blood”, and that he “took on him the seed of Abraham”.
To become a “partaker of flesh and blood”, and to “take on
the seed of Abraham” implies more than simply the “word was
made flesh”. It expands upon that thought, and it clarifies
the need for the idea of some kind of a sacred “union”. It
is more than just saying that God spoke a human being into
existence, and then He (God) entered into that body. It is
not saying that God Himself was made flesh either. He
became a partaker of flesh and blood. He took upon himself
the seed of Abraham.
THE “EMPTYING” (KENOSIS)
THEORYPhilippians 2:5-9 reads:
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form
of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no
reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in thelikeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and
became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also
hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.
The first interpretation of this passage hinges upon
Christ, “being in the form of God” (morphe theou). The verb
used for “being” is the present participle hyparcho,
“existing”. Vine’s Dictionary insists, without evidence,
that this always means to “pre-exist” (Vine’s Complete
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Expository Dictionary, Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Pub.,
1996). However, other Lexicons, such as Liddell and Scott’s,
do not say this.
Concerning the noun morphe (that is, morphe theou, “the
form of God”), Vine’s again insists that this use of morphe
is the nature or essence actually subsisting in theindividual, and is retained “as long as the individual
exists”. It cannot be “in the abstract”.
But yet we are told that the noun morphe (used by Paul in
the next verse as morphe doulou, “the form of a servant”)
must have the same sense:
It is universally admitted that the two phrases are directly antithetical, and
that “form” (morphe) must therefore have the same sense in both.
But this cannot be true, if, as Vine’s states, that morphe
theou cannot be used in an abstract sense - especially
since morphe doulou (“the form of a servant”) can indeed be
construed in an abstract sense. Why then cannot morphe
theou? Thus, it would seem clear that the apostle Paul is
not declaring any pre-existent equality of Christ with God,
with Christ being in the “form of God” alongside of God the
Father before the ages. Rather, Paul is speaking of
conditions prevailing during the incarnation (“in the days
of his flesh”).
Jesus, as the Image of God (the Son of God), being in the
form of God, on earth, did not think it robbery to be equal
with God. We have further confirmation of this
interpretation in John 5:18. We remember that man was made
in the image, or likeness, of God (Genesis 1:26).
In John 5:18, the apostle John informs us that Jesus said
that God was his Father, “making himself equal with God”.
In other words, in Philippians 2:6, Paul is not speaking of
some pre-existent, separate divine Person, but rather he is
speaking of the man Christ Jesus, who “thought it not
robbery to be equal with God”. This is the way in which
John explains the phrase “equal with God”. It has to do
with the incarnation, and not with the internal workings of
the divine Godhead.
The phrase that has been controversial is heauton ekenosen,“made himself of no reputation” (Philippians 2:7), from
whence the kenosis theory, “he emptied himself”.
Whereas the King James Version translation leaves this
activity of the Lord’s (“made himself of no
reputation”)within the sphere of the incarnation, or,
rather, in the earthly life of the savior, others have
lighted upon the translation “he emptied himself”, and have
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involved the meaning of the phrase in the actual process of
the incarnation itself.
The strength of the phrase “he emptied himself” also seems
to hang upon the subsequent translation, “was made in the
likeness of men” (en homoiomati anthropon genomenos). The
literal translation of the phrase “was made in the likenessof men” is “in the likeness of men having become”, which
would seem to take away from the force of the involvement
of the phrase “he made himself of no reputation” with the
actual process of the incarnation itself. Rather this would
represent a conscious action by the Lord after he was on
earth.
“Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and
became obedient unto death”. All of these decisions were
made by the man Jesus on earth, who, after all, was God
manifest in the flesh.
This would make it seem likely that the phrase “he emptied
himself” has nothing to do with the actual mechanics of the
incarnation itself, but rather the Greek phrase heauton
ekenosen would make more sense as either “he drained
himself”, or even, “made himself of no reputation (or
account)”.
That all of this passage refers to the man Christ Jesus is
confirmed in Philippians 2:9, where Paul, with his famous
“wherefore”, states: “God also hath highly exalted him...”.
THEORIES OF THE KENOSIS
This phrase “he emptied himself”, or the kenosis theory,
has spawned untold pages of speculation by theologians as
to what God did, and how it was done.
One German theologian, Meyer, according to R.J. Cooke
(q.v.) wrote:
What the divine Logos laid aside in the incarnation was the form of God; the
divine glory, as a form of existence; but not his equality with God, which
constituted and was essential to his nature. This he retained, and to this
belonged essentially and necessarily the divine consciousness, and in the
incarnation consequently the divine-human self-consciousness.
First of all, not everyone agrees that the “Logos” was
incarnated. The Bible states that the Word (Logos) was madeflesh (John 1:14). It is God (the Father) who was manifest
in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16). It is God (the Father) who
was in Christ. The Logos did not lay aside the “form of
God”. God is a Spirit. A spirit does not have a form in its
natural state. The “equality with God”, as we have seen
from the apostle John, refers to the sphere of the
incarnation, and not to the sphere of the divine Godhead
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itself. This excludes a co-equal divine Person, and would
exclude the incarnation of a co-equal divine Person.
And then another theologian, Ellicott, states:
Of what did he empty himself? Not exactly of the morphe theou...but of that
which he had in that form, that Godlike majesty and visible glory which he had
from all eternity.
Obviously, this author is leaning upon a misinterpretation
of John 17:5. In the high priestly prayer of the man Jesus,
he requests that the Father glorify him “with thine own
self with the glory which I had with thee before the world
was”.
Ellicott is undoubtedly supposing that there are two divine
Persons here (Father and Son). One divine Person emptied
himself of his glory (and “Godlike majesty”) in the process
of the incarnation, and now he is supposedly praying to the
other co-equal, co-eternal divine Person (the Father) to
give him back his pre-existent glory!
THE PRAYER OF A HUMAN BEING
But this is not the case. Jesus is praying as a human being
in John 17:5. He did not have any pre-existent glory, which
he divested himself of, because, as a human being, he did
not exist “before the world was”, except in the mind of God
the Father.
Furthermore, he is asking the Father to “glorify thou me
with thine own self”. If Jesus were indeed the second
divine Member of the Godhead, he should not be asking the
first divine Member (the Father) to re-glorify him with his(the Father’s) own (divine) self, since surely, pre-
existing co-eternally and co-equally, he would have equal
glory. Since he supposedly, as Ellicott presumes, possessed
equal “Godlike majesty” and “visible glory” from “all
eternity”.
The actual truth is that Jesus, as God the Father, did
possess God-majesty (not just “God-like” majesty), and had
“visible glory” from all eternity. But the glory was not
given to the resurrected Christ until he came out of the
grave. It was only in the mind of God the Father before the
ages. Just as the crucifixion was in the mind of the Father.
Alford, following Ellicott in misinterpreting John 17:5,
states incorrectly that:
He emptied himself of the morphe theou-not his essential glory, but its
manifested possession...the glory which he had with the Father before the world
began (John 17:5) and which he resumed at his glorification. He ceased while in
this state of examination to reflect the glory which he had with the Father.
This does some damage to the trinitarian model, and, of
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course, misinterprets Paul.
Notice that Jesus, as the divine second Person (even before
he “emptied himself” supposedly) only “reflects” the glory
(as the lesser moon does that of the sun) that he had “with
the Father” before the ages. This is certainly not “co-
equality” among the members of the Trinity!
Furthermore, Alford says that Jesus “emptied himself of the
form of God (morphe theou). We have already shown that
Jesus claimed equality with God on earth. The scripture
explicitly states “making himself equal with God” (John
5:18). This would seem to be a contradiction of “my Father
is greater than I”(John 14:28). But this need not be so, if
we examine the context. Also, we remember that Jesus has
both a divine and a human nature.
MORE ON KENOSIS
G. Vance Smith (The Bible And Its Theology, London: SwanSonnenschein, 1892) examines some of the theories of kenosis
with a jaundiced eye.
In a reference to Mark 13:32, in which the Son declares
that he-at least in his then present human state-does not
know the day or the hour of his return, Smith quotes bishop
O’Brien as commenting:
All things the Omniscient Father knows...doubtless were known to the Son when
He was in “the form of God”. But it appears that when He became man, and dwelt
among us, of this infinite knowledge, He only possessed as much as was imparted
to Him.
Smith believes that O’Brien here is actually, implicitlythinking of “two Gods”! Because he definitely conveys the
idea of two (divine) minds. One mind possessed all
knowledge, while the other, during a particular interval of
his existence only receives, as Smith notes, what “the
former (mind)...imparts to him”. “Yet”, Smith continues,
“these writers profess to be monotheists, and to believe in
the existence of only one God” (q.v.).
This type of thinking was common in the pagan world. The
Greek god Apollo served the human shepherd Admetus for nine
years, and kept his deity in “abeyance”. And this is
exactly the terminology that bishop O’Brien uses of Christ,according to Smith, when he writes, “His (Christ’s)
infinite attributes and powers seem...to have been in
abeyance, so to speak” (q.v.).
And Smith also believes that a grave injustice has been
done to the translation of morphe theou (“the form of God”)
in Philippians 2:6 by insisting, as J.B. Lightfoot, that
the phrase actually means “essential nature”. Smith holds
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that the phrase refers to “outward condition and
circumstances only” (q.v.). The term morphe cannot refer to
“essential nature”, because the Lord is said to have also
taken upon himself “the form of a servant” (morphe doulou).
Surely, this does not mean “the essential nature of a
servant”. If so, was his “essential nature” changed at the
resurrection?
Morphe is used in one other place in the New Testament
(Mark 16:12), where the resurrected Christ appears in
“another form” to his followers. Obviously, it is not used
in the sense of “essential nature” in this passage either.
It is clear that the phrase “form of God” has nothing to do
with Christ as a separate divine Person. It refers only to
the sphere of the incarnation.
J.B. Lightfoot (in Cooke, q.v.) states that Jesus “divested
himself, not of his divine nature, for this was impossible,
but of the glories, the prerogatives, of deity”. This seemsto be the prevailing view today.
Gwynn (in Cooke, q.v.) taught that he did not lay aside the
essence of his Godhead, but “that which is relative to
finite perceptions, its outward manifestations”.
Some are perplexed that Paul does not define exactly what
the Lord supposedly “emptied himself of”. Cooke believes
there could be a “definite genitive” following the verb
ekenosen, but there is not. Some speculate that a phrase
such as “his equality with God” would be more appropriate
than the phrase “the form of God”. But all of this hinges
upon the proper translation of heaton ekenosen!
Some of these theories of kenosis have erred so far from
reality that they actually, in essence, deny the
incarnation. Godet (again, Cooke, q.v.), for example, held
that the Son, “laid aside the attributes of deity and
became man”. The Son, he says, even allowed “his personal
consciousness as the eternal Son” to be extinguished,
retaining (in the incarnation) only “his inalienable
personality” (his “Ego”). He became “absolutely unconscious
of his divinity”(q.v.).
This, Cooke rightly discerns, is not an “incarnation” atall, but it is rather a metamorphosis of God into man. God
becomes man. God “turns into” man.
Schmieder (Cooke, q.v.) says, “The Son of God became man”.
Hoffman wrote (Cooke, q.v.) that the Logos did not “cease
to be God”. He remained “who he was, though he...ceased to
be what he was”.
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The danger these ideas bring forth are stemming from the
incorrect theory of a pre-existent separate divine Person
(the Logos), who is eternal alongside God the Father.
THE VIEW OF JOHN KNOX ON KENOSIS
John Knox (The Humanity And Divinity Of Christ, Cambridge:
University Press, 1967), who views “adoptianism” as the
first phase of the development of Christian theology-a view
which he takes from such passages as Acts 2:36, and other
passages in Acts and Hebrews-holds that the second “phase”
of this development was the view that a pre-existent divine
being “emptied himself”, and became a man.
Knox wants morphe in Philippians 2:5-11 to mean “nature”,
even though we have seen this is not a valid translation,
according to recognized dictionaries. But it fits the
trinitarian “theology” of kenosis.
And where Paul writes that Christ “was made in the likeness(homoiomati) of men” (vs. 7), and “being found in fashion
(schema)as a man”, Knox feels this is almost “docetic”(like
teaching that Christ only appeared to be a genuine human).
As Knox admits, homoiomati could, however, simply mean that
Christ was a man “like other men”. But the word schema
(fashion), he says, is hard to reconcile with a belief in a
full and unqualified humanity” (q.v.). He stops short of
attributing docetism to the apostle Paul! He even questions
whether this passage is an interpolation!
Nevertheless, schema, in Liddell and Scott’s Dictionary
(q.v.) has a first meaning of “form, shape, outward
appearance, the figure, person”. It need not throw doubt
upon the genuine humanity of the Lord. It has lesser shades
of meaning, but Paul’s other teaching on Christ should
direct the interpretation of these meanings. An explanation
of how Paul viewed homoiomati can be seen in Romans 8:2,
where he wrote that God sent his own Son “in the likeness
(homoiomati) of sinful flesh”. Here, he is using
“likeness”-not to cast doubt on the genuine humanity of
Christ- but rather to differentiate between the sinful
nature of all of the other children of Adam and the pure
human nature of Christ. Christ aged in his human body. Hewas able to die. Yet he had no sinful nature.
Knox admits that the theory of kenosis is inextricably
attached to the doctrine of trinitarian Logos supporters.
When I write “Logos supporters”, I am referring to those
who believe that the “Logos” is actually a separate,
distinct Person from God the Father (i.e., trinitarians in
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most cases).
He writes concerning this group of scholars:
In our own period a number of distinguished theologians, holding firmly and
strongly to the belief that Jesus was pre-existent as the Logos, but being most
eager to maintain the truth and importance of his manhood, have seized on the
word ‘kenosis’ to explain how this could be.
The problem, as Knox sees it, is the “kenosis” has to be so
qualified with reservations and exceptions as “not to be
kenosis at all” (q.v.). He explains some of the
difficulties:
The divine being does not fully surrender his divine nature (as, of course, in
reality he could not): he gives up some its attributes, but keeps others; or,
according to an alternative explanation, he surrenders the actuality of deity
but retains the potentiality of it, thus continuing to possess as a man a
latent, one might almost say, a suppressed, divinity.
Thus, according to Knox, the critics of the theory of
kenosis point to what he calls “the depotentiation of
deity”. A divinity that is “hidden” or, as he stated,“suppressed” in Christ.
For Knox, the “orthodox” trinitarian view of Chalcedon is
difficult to understand. A Christ with “two natures”, both
belonging to Jesus, one Person.
Knox admits that this hinges on understanding what the
ancient trinitarians meant by the term “person”. But he
questions: how can two “natures” (“each presumably
involving consciousness and will”) belong to one person
“inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, and
inseparably”(q.v.)?
Knox’s conclusion: “of no normal human being could such
things be truly said” (q.v.).
He lends some support to those theologians who are
attempting to find ways to “harmonize” divinity and
humanity in such a way that they can virtually “identify”
humanity with divinity. H.R. Mackintosh wrote, “...all that
is divine in Christ is human, and all that is human,
divine”. This almost sounds “New Age”-to blend humanity and
divinity in such a way that the distinctions are blurred.
Leonard Hodgson portrayed Christ as “truly human whereas
the rest of us are in process of becoming such”. Jesus
alone, in his view, is fully and truly man. According to
Hodgson, then, the only genuine humanity is the “divine
humanity of the incarnate Lord” (in q.v.). Again, an
attempt to blur the differences between the divine and
human nature.
Also, there is the Son of Mary, and then again there is the
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glorified Christ.There is the Son of man, who was “made a
little lower than the angels for the suffering of death”
Hebrews 2:9). It is disturbing to attempt to explain the
incarnation by redefining the natures of humanity and
divinity, so that one may “merge” them through such a
“definition”.
Knox argues, “there is no way of distinguishing Jesus’
humanity from ours which does not deny the reality of his
manhood”. But Knox has already pointed out that he has
difficulty accepting the sinless nature of Christ (through
the virgin birth), since he seems to feel that to accept
the fact that Jesus was sinless would detract from his
genuine humanity!
For Knox, it seems, the theories of kenosis are generally
abridging the humanity of Christ by introducing his “pre-
existence”, which, in his opinion, “distinguishes his
humanity from ours”. But then, Knox declares, “kenosis isexcluded; we are restricted to adoptionism and docetism”:
We can have the humanity without the pre-existence and we can have the pre-
existence without the humanity. There is absolutely no way of having both.
But adoptionism (the theory that Jesus was selected from
men born of human parents to become the Messiah) and
docetism (the theory that Jesus was not truly human) were
rejected by the church long ago. What remains is the
incarnation and not necessarily the kenosis theory.
Knox’s dilemma is really that he must maintain the doctrine
of the Trinity. He states that “any doctrine of the
incarnation must presuppose the Trinity”. He does qualify
this with, “or, at any rate, some complexity (if that can
be the word) in God”. And he writes:
In no serious theology, ancient or modern, has the Pre-existent Christ been
identified with God, simply and absolutely. In the very earliest period, as we
have seen, the pre-existing being was pictured as the Son of Man or possibly
sometimes as an angelic being of the highest order...But never (sic) was he
identified with God in any simple or exhaustive sense. It must needs be so
because God (understood in this unitary way) could not become incarnate and
still be God.
Thus, Knox preemptorily excludes the oneness position
concerning the incarnation. “God could not become incarnate
and still be God”. Thus is the mystery of the incarnationswept aside, it almost seems, because it is supposedly
“impossible” for it to occur.
Since ancient Ebionites and dynamic monarchians are all
erroneously lumped together as “adoptionists”, their views
of the incarnation are not apparently considered. What
about the modalistic monarchians, with their pneumatic
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Christology? They would seem to be more likely to embrace
some kind of a “kenotic” theory.
When we conclude an examination of these theories of
kenosis, however, we perceive that they are almost all
connected to the trinitarian theory rather than to a simple
of view of the incarnation. There would be no kenosistheory without the doctrine of the Trinity.
THE INCARNATION IN THE
COUNCILSThere are seven Catholic ecumenical church councils, which,
all but one, dealt, in one way or another, with teachings
about the “nature” of Jesus. They are: (1) Nicea 325 AD,
(2) Constantinople I 381 AD, (3) Ephesus 431 AD, (4)
Chalcedon 451 AD,(5) Constantinople II 553 AD, (6)
Constantinople III 680 AD, and (7) Nicea II,787 AD.
THE CREED OF THE NICENE COUNCIL (325 AD)
Of course, the primary purpose of the Council of Nicea (325
AD) was not to define the incarnation. The Catholic
bishops, who were allied with Alexandria and Athanasius,
were anxious to show, against the views of Arius and his
followers, that Christ was of “one substance (homoousios)”
with the Father.
Christ was identified as “the Son of God, the only-begotten
of his Father, and of the substance of the Father”.
He was called “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very
God”, and “begotten, not made”.
Concerning the incarnation, the creed simply states, “Who
for us men and for our salvation came down (from heaven)
and was incarnate and was made man”. Anathemas were
pronounced upon all who would say “there was a time when
the Son was not”, or “that before He was begotten He was
not”. That “He was made of things that were not”, or “that
He is of a difference substance or essence from the
Father”, or “that He is a creature, or subject to change or
conversion”.
No mention is made of the kenotic theory; however, the
pneumatic Christology (a heavenly being who comes down from
heaven) is mentioned, as is the “incarnation”, and “was
made man”. The pre-existent Christ, a separate divine
Person, is the being who becomes “incarnate”, and “was made
man”.
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One small statement is given to the Holy Ghost, “And (we
believe) in the Holy Ghost”. The deity of the Holy Ghost is
not mentioned.
The virgin birth is not mentioned, although it could be
implied in the term “Son of God”, but rather the emphasis
seems to be upon a pre-Bethlehemic birth and not the virginbirth. In a diocesan epistle of Eusebius of Caesarea (265-
339 AD), presumed to have been part of a draft of the
Nicene credal statement, he added, “firstborn of all
creatures, begotten of the Father before all time”. But
again there is no mention of the virgin birth.
THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (381 AD)
The Creed of Constantinople adds the words “begotten of his
Father before all worlds”.
When it speaks of the incarnation, it states, “was
incarnate by the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, and wasmade man”. Thus, the role of the virgin in the incarnation
is clearly enunciated, while the pre-existent
“begetting...before all (ages)” is still held.
The role of the Holy Ghost is expanded, and He is titled
“the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the
Father”. And, the Holy Ghost, who “with the Father and the
Son together is worshipped and glorified”. The Holy Ghost
is also He “who spake by the prophets”.
Baptism “for the remission of sins” is acknowledged. This
is contrary to the teaching of most Protestant groups
today, who reject baptism “for the remission of sins”. In
doing so, they apparently reject the authority of the
ecumenical council (and the word of God, in this case).
Epiphanius(315-403 AD), bishop of Salamis, adds this on the
incarnation:
Who for us men and for our salvation came down, and was incarnate, that is to
say was conceived perfectly through the Holy Ghost of the holy ever-virgin
Mary, and was made man, that is to say a perfect man, receiving a soul, and
body, and intellect, and all that made up a man, but taking flesh to himself
into one holy entity...was perfectly made man, for the Word was made flesh;
neither did he experience any change, nor did he convert his divine nature into
the nature of man, but united it to his one holy perfection and divinity. For
there is one Lord Jesus Christ, not two (“The Seven Ecumenical Councils”,Nicene And Post Nicene Fathers, Vol. 15, Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans Pub, 1983).
Apollinaris of Laodicea (310-390 AD), a contemporary of
Epiphanius, held a somewhat different view of the
incarnation. He was accused of maintaining the deity of
Christ at the expense of Christ’s humanity.
J.W.C. Wand says it was he who instituted the “kenotic
theory” (The Four Great Heresies, London: Mowbray, 1967).
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He said that Christ had only one nature. For this he was
condemned at the Council of Constantinople (381 AD).
It was Rufus Jone’s observation (The Church’s Debt To
Heretics, London: James Clarke Ltd, 1924) that nobody
“could deal profoundly with the problem of Christ’s nature
without being regarded a heretic from one side or theother”. This is probably still true today!
Philip Schaff (“The Seven Ecumenical Councils”, q.v.) says
that Apollinaris
had a fear of teaching a “double personality” for Christ,
and therefore “he fell into the error of a partial denial
of his true humanity”.
Adopting the trichotomy of Plato (body, soul, spirit), as
in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Galatians 5:17, Apollinaris
attributed to Christ a human body (soma),and a human soul
(psyche), but not a rational spirit (pneuma, nous, orpsychelogike). In the place of the rational spirit he put
the divine Logos.
In what Schaff calls “opposition to the idea of a mere
connection of the Logos with the man Jesus” (as in
Nestorianism), Apollinaris wished to “secure an organic
unity of the true incarnation. But he sought this at the
expense of what Schaff calls “the most important
constituent of man”.
Schaff says Apollinaris reached a theos sarkophoros, “a
God-bearing flesh”.
Nestorius, Schaff states, had an anthropos theophoros, “a
God-bearing man”, instead of what Schaff says ought to be
“the proper theandrotos” (“God-man”). This, of course, is
the trinitarian idea of the “God-man”, which borders on the
pagan “demigod” (half-god and half-man).
Apollinaris appealed to John 1:14, “the Word was made
flesh” (“flesh”, as he argued, not “spirit”). And 1 Timothy
3:16, “God was manifest in the flesh”. But Gregory
Nazianzen (329-390 AD) countered that the term “flesh” was
used to actually mean “the whole human nature”.
By having the Logos (which Apollinaris, as alltrinitarians, held to be the second divine Person in the
Godhead) assume the place of the human nous (what he called
the “rational spirit”), he was able to establish so close a
connection of the Logos with human flesh that all of the
attributes (divine and human) were interchangeable and the
two “merged in one nature in Christ” (q.v.).
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Christ, according to Apollinaris, was neither whole man nor
God, but a mixture (mixis) of God and man. A mixing or a
“mingling”. This type of thinking is only possible if one
holds a “second divine Person” to have been incarnated.
On the other hand, Apollinaris called the “orthodox” view
of a union of full humanity with a full divinity in oneperson (“two wholes in one whole”) an “absurdity” (q.v.).
He called the result of this construction anthropotheos
(“man-God”), and put it in the same category of the
mythical Minotaur (“half bull and half man”).
Schaff says that Apollinaris’ idea of the Christ was that
of the union of the Logos with a “truncated human nature”.
Arianism had also put the Logos in the place of the human
spirit; however, Apollinaris stood for the
“unchangeableness” of the Logos (in the incarnation), while
the Arians did not.
Ralph Woodhall (The Theology of The Incarnation, Notre
Dame, IN: Fides Pub., 1968) notes that Apollinaris held
that the mind of the Logos replaced the human mind of
Christ in order to safeguard Christ’s sinless nature.
It is Schaff’s opinion that the modern theologians, who
initiated the current theory of “kenoticism”, Gess and
Ebrard, were “Apollinarians”. Gess taught that:
The only difference between the Logos and a human soul was, that he became
human by voluntary kenosis, while an ordinary human soul derives its existence
from a creative act. And Ebrard (Christliche Dogmatik, in q.v.) held: That a
genuine human soul was in Jesus is self evident, otherwise, he would not have
been a real human being.
But Ebrar seems to have questioned whether the indwelling
Logos took the place of the human soul at the incarnation,
or whether the indwelling Logos was in some way, alongside
a “special human soul” in Jesus.
Albrecht Ritschl called the whole kenotic theory “Shameless
Socinianism”.
Aloys Dirksen (Elementary Patrology, St. Louis: B. Herder,
1959) stated that Apollinarianism “paved the way for
monophysitism”, the teaching that Christ possesses only one
nature.
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS (431 AD)
This council was convened to discuss the matter of
Nestorius (c.381-451 AD), the charismatic Persian bishop of
Constantinople, who, according to Dirksen (q.v.), “reduced
the incarnation to a mere moral union between a human being
and the second Person of the Trinity”. Nestorius reportedly
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held Jesus to be a “mere human being in whom the Son of God
was present as in a house” (q.v.).
While Nestorius reportedly held that Christ was “morally”
one person, he believed that in reality there were two
persons, and that a “strict distinction” had to be made
between the two (persons).
He therefore held that Mary was not “theotokos” (“the
mother of God”), but rather only the mother of the man
Jesus. It was not the “Son of God”(the Logos), referring to
the “second divine Person” who redeemed man, but rather the
man Jesus, who died. Nestorius was eventually thrown out of
his bishopric, and later died in exile in the country of
Egypt.
There are only fragments of Nestorius’ writings remaining,
but the “Epistle of Cyril To Nestorius” (“Seven Ecumenical
Councils”, q.v.) gives us an idea of the Nestorian
teaching, and the “orthodox” teaching on the incarnation,
during this period.
Cyril (d.444 AD),bishop of Alexandria, chaired the Council
of Ephesus (431 AD), and was vehemently opposed to
Nestorius.
Briefly, this is what Cyril held “considering what is meant
by the Word of God being incarnate and made man” (a
reference to the Council of Nicea):
Cyril held that the “nature of the Word was not changed”
when made flesh, nor was the Word (Logos) “converted” into
a “whole man, consisting of soul and body”. Rather, Cyril
said, “the Word personally united to Himself flesh animated
by a rational soul”, and did “in an ineffable and
inconceivable manner become man”. He (the Logos) was not
called a man “because He was willing or pleased to be so
called”, and He (the Logos) was not called a man “on
account of taking to Himself a person”, but rather He (the
Logos) was called a man “because two natures were brought
together in a true union”. Yet there is one Christ, one Son.
But Cyril held, as the “orthodox” position, that “the
difference of the (two) natures is not taken away by the
union”. The “divinity and the humanity make perfect for us
the one Lord Jesus Christ by their ineffable
(indescribable) and inexpressible union”.
Concerning the- for lack of a less crude term - “mechanics”
of the incarnation itself, Cyril held that the “union” was
“made in the womb (of the virgin) itself”. He (the Logos)
“was not first born a common man of the holy virgin, and
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then the Word (the Logos) came down and entered into him”.
The Logos (Word) did not suffer on the cross, but rather “
that which had become His own body suffered in this way”.
He (the Logos) “who is in himself incapable of suffering
was in a suffering body”.
Cyril, then, has descended two steps from the older
“patripassians”, who were accused of having the Father
suffer. Now, Cyril would have a “second divine Person” (the
Logos) unable to suffer, but His fleshly body could suffer.
If the Logos was unable to suffer, then why the furor over
another co-equal member of the Trinity (the Father)
suffering? Actually, the early trinitarians maintained that
the Father could not suffer, but the Logos could.
To reject this “union”, according to Cyril, is to hold to
“two Sons”. He said, “We must not divide the one Lord Jesus
Christ into two Sons”. Nor did he hold a “union of two
persons”, since the scripture did not say that the Word
(Logos) “united to himself the person of man, but that he
was made flesh” (John 1:14). But Cyril qualifies the “Word
was made flesh” (perhaps thinking of Hebrews 2), and says
that it can mean nothing else than “he partook of flesh and
blood like to us”. And he presages the kenotic theory,
stating:
he (the Logos) made our body his own, and came forth man from a woman, not
casting off his existence as God, or his generation of God the Father, but even
in taking to himself flesh remaining what he was (“Epistle To Nestorius”, “The
Seven Ecumenical Councils, q.v.)
This certainly sounds like the kenotic theory, althoughCyril makes no reference to Philippians 2. Admittedly,
there does not seem to be any “divesting” or “emptying”, as
in the modern kenotic theory. The Logos, in the
incarnation, did not “cast off his existence as God”. He
remained “what he was”.
However, in a subsequent epistle, “The Twelve Anathemas”,
to Nestorius, Cyril does use the phrase “katheis heauton
eis kenosen”, or “made himself of no reputation” (an
obvious reference to Philippians 2:7), and he connects this
exactly with the moment of the incarnation, “taking flesh
of the holy virgin”,
and “having made it (the flesh) his own from the womb, he
subjected himself to birth for us”. In another place, “he
humbled himself to a voluntary abasement” for us.
There is no apparent “emptying”, however, since Cyril
affirms that “he (the Logos) remained what he was, God in
essence and in truth”. Cyril rejected saying that “his
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(Christ’s) flesh was changed into the nature of divinity”,
or that “the ineffable nature of the Word (Logos) of God
was laid aside for the nature of the flesh”:
For although visible and a child in swaddling clothes, and even in the bosom of
his virgin mother, he (the Logos) filled all creation as God, and was a fellow-
ruler with him who begat him, for the Godhead is without quantity and
dimension, and cannot have limits (“Twelve Anathemas”, in “Seven EcumenicalCouncils”, q.v.).
Other than the small reference to “subjected himself to
birth”, there is seemingly no thought here of “divesting”
or “emptying” in Cyril. The Logos remains God (“as the
second divine Person”), a “fellow-ruler” with God the
Father, and “filled all creation as God”, even while
incarnated.
Apparently, Nestorius, on the other hand, taught that the
Word (Logos) “dwelt” in the man Jesus, who was born of the
virgin, and considered Christ to be “a God-bearing man”,
with the Logos dwelling in Him in some way similar(although much more intimate) to the Spirit dwelling in the
saints.
Nestorius preferred the word synatheias (“conjunction”)
rather than the term “union”(henosen). Cyril disagreed with
thinking of Christ as being “double” (i.e., having a double
personality, or being two persons), because “he (God) has
joined them in an indivisible union”. He said, “we transfer
the human and the divine to the same person”.
Nestorius was of the school of the Antiochenes (Antioch),
who emphasized the genuine humanity of Christ. Heapparently had problems with the teaching that the Logos
“united human flesh to Himself”. In his view, this type of
“union” still denigrated the pure humanity of the Son, even
though it did not go as far as Apollinarianism.
Having the Logos as a “second divine Person”, distinct from
the Father, it was possible for the “orthodox” to not
involve the Father in the incarnation, and to continue to
ascribe what I would call “the reservations of divinity” to
Him. Since the scripture said “the Word was made flesh”,
they were perhaps forward to push too far the “union” of
the divine and the human. Nestorius seems to have attemptedto avoid this, but did so apparently at the expense of the
unity of the Father and the Son (in the incarnation).
Nestorius reputedly taught that God “indwelt a man with a
human personality of his own distinct from the personality
of the indwelling God”, and that “God assumed to himself
human nature, that is a human body and a human soul, but
without human personality” (Henry Percival, “Seven
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Ecumenical Councils”, q.v.). He seems to have held a
separate “human” person along with a “divine” person.
Nestorius also seems to have held that “Christ was one with
the Word by participation in dignity” (William Bright,
“Seven Ecumenical Councils”, q.v.).
“The man” Jesus was a “partaker of divine power” (Ibid). I
note that this, coming out of Antioch, harkens back to the
accusations against the dynamic monarchian, Paul of
Samosata, who was bishop of Antioch in the third century.
Jesus,according to Nestorius, in the sense of being a
“partaker of divine power”, was more than a mere man, and
was therefore “adored” together with the Logos (Word).
Nestorius is reported to have said at the Council of
Ephesus, “I can never allow that a child of three months
old was God”. This type of thinking, again, is reminiscent
of the old Ebionite and dynamic monarchian teaching thatthe moment of the incarnation was not at conception or
birth, but rather later at the baptism, or even at the
resurrection. Obviously, though, Nestorius was a
trinitarian, and held that it was the Logos (second divine
Person), who was incarnated, and not God the Father.
Nestorius’ old instructor, Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428
AD), of the school of Antioch, had stated, “Mary bare
Jesus, not the Word (Logos)...the Word was and remained
omnipresent, although from the beginning he dwelt in Jesus
in a peculiar manner” (q.v.). And that, “she bare a man, in
whom the union with the Word (Logos) was begun, but wasstill so little completed, that he was not yet called the
Son of God”. This also is reminiscent of the charges made
against Paul of Samosata, that the Word dwelt in Jesus “in
a peculiar manner”.
It is easy to see the influence of Theodore upon Nestorius.
While we remember that both of these men believed in the
incarnation of the second divine Person, their approach to
the incarnation reminds one of that of the Ebionites in the
first and second centuries. They seemed to have believed
that there was not a union in the womb (to the degree
professed by the “orthodox”), but that there was a“relative union” of the Father and Son, which, it appears,
they actually believed came “later” (at the baptism?).
Theodore of Mopsuestia (and Nestorius, following him)
taught that “The two natures united together make only one
person, as man and wife are only one flesh”. There was a
distinct Logos (second divine Person), perfect and
complete, “and so also his person”. And “the nature and
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person of the man as perfect and complete”. Theodore
concluded, “If, on the other hand, we have regard to the
union (synatheia, “connection”), we say it is (only) one
person”. Two persons, but they were one in unity.
Theodore uses the term synatheia for “union” rather than
henosen. This is said to express only an “externalconnection”, a “fixing together” (q.v.). He
writes, “The Logos dwells in the man assumed as in a
temple”. In other words, the divine person and the human
person outwardly seem to be only one person (Christ), but
inwardly they remain “essentially two persons” (q.v.).
The “orthodox”, on the other hand, went to the other
extreme, denying the working of the Holy Spirit within the
man Jesus:
If any man shall say that the one Lord Jesus Christ was glorified by the Holy
Ghost, so that he used through him a power not his own and from him received
power against unclean spirits and power to work miracles before men and shallnot rather confess that it was his own Spirit through which he worked these
divine signs; let him be anathema (“Twelve Anathemas Against Nestorius”, q.v.).
Jesus professed to cast out devils by “the Spirit of God”
(Matthew 12:28), and He also said, “the Father that
dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 14:10). If we are
to logically follow the argument of the “orthodox”, then we
must identify the Holy Spirit as the Father, and then again
the Logos as the Holy Spirit (as the apostle Paul did).
In a letter to bishop John of Antioch,following the Council
of Ephesus, Cyril called the incarnation an “unmixed
union”, in which “God the Word was incarnate and becameman, and from this conception he united the temple taken
from her (Mary) with himself” (“The Seven Ecumenical
Councils”, q.v.). He repeats his theory of the kenosis:
God the Word (Logos) came down from above and from heaven. He ‘made himself of
no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant,’ and was called the Son
of Man, yet remaining what he was, that is to say God. (q.v.)
Cyril denies having said that a krasis (“mingling” or
“mixture”) took place between the Word (Logos) and flesh.
We find that Cyril’s letter to bishop John of Antioch (433
AD) restored some peace among the Catholics because Cyril
agreed that the union in Christ was a “union of natures”,thus clearing himself from charges of Apollinarianism
(Christology of The Later Fathers, Vol. 3, ed. Edward
Hardy, Philadelphia: Westminister Press, n.d.).
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON (451 AD)
The Council of Chalcedon was convened to settle a dispute
brought about by an abbot at Constantinople, Eutyches, who
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claimed that there were “two natures in Christ before the
union, but only one afterward”. These two natures were “in
divine foreknowledge of the incarnation...but only one
nature” (after the incarnation actually took place),
apparently a result of some sort of a “mixture” of human
and divine (Christology of The Later Fathers, Vol. 3, q.v.).
According to bishop Leo of Rome (episcopate 440-461 AD),
Eutyches held that the flesh of him whom the virgin
conceived “was not of the nature of her that conceived him”
(“The Letter of Leo To Flavian”, The Seven Ecumenical
Councils,
q.v.). But Leo maintained, “it was the Holy Ghost who gave
fecundity (fertility) to the virgin, but it was from a body
that a real body was derived” (q.v.). The Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us “that is, in that flesh which he
assumed from a human being, and which he animated with the
spirit of rational life” (q.v.).
Leo adds, “the inviolable nature (i.e., divine) was united
to the passible (i.e., human)” (q.v.).
Christ was “whole in what was his, whole in what was ours”.
And Leo noted:
By ‘ours’ we mean what the Creator formed in us at the beginning and what he
assumed in order to restore; for of that which the deceiver brought in, and
man, thus deceived, admitted, there was not a trace in the Savior; and the fact
that he took on himself a share of our infirmities did not make him a partaker
of our transgressions.
And Leo does not seem to see much of a problem with
interpreting Philippians 2:5-11 to apply it to themechanics of the incarnation itself:
He assumed ‘the form of a servant’ without the defilement of sin, enriching
what was human, not impairing what was divine: because that ‘emptying of
himself’, whereby the Invisible made himself visible, and the Creator and Lord
of all things willed to be one among mortals, was a stooping down in
compassion, not a failure of power. Accordingly, the same who, remaining in the
form of God, made man, was made man in the form of a servant.(q.v.)
But Leo, while preserving the dignity of the Divinity,
nevertheless insists upon following the Logos doctrine and
assigning the duty of salvation to another divine Person
other than God the Father:
the Son of God, descending from his seat in heaven, and not departing from the
glory of the Father, enters this lower world, born after a new order, by a new
mode of birth. (q.v.)
Leo held that the “properties of the divine and human
nature” remained in Jesus without “causing a division”
(q.v.).
Eutyches, however, held that the Son had a new “mixed”
nature. Leo rightly responded that this type of nature
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denied the efficacy of the cross.
Leo either paraphrases 1 John 4:2,3, or else quotes from a
different ancient version:
Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God;
and every spirit which dissolveth Jesus is not of God, and this is Antichrist
(q.v.).
But Eutyches is accused of not believing that Christ had a
genuine human body.
He believed that the “union” (of humanity and deity)
produced only “one nature”. He did believe that this mixed
nature was capable of suffering. Leo stated that Eutyches
said that the pre-existent Son, already before the
incarnation, possessed both human and divine natures
(apparently, as stated, “in the divine foreknowledge of
God”).
THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE II (553 AD)
At the Council of Constantinople II (553 AD), a posthumous
attack was made upon the Antiochene Theodore of Mopsuestia,
the teacher of Nestorius.
Many of the accusations made by the Council of
Constantinople II are said to have been fabrications or
interpolations of Theodore’s writings.
Among other things he was accused of teaching that the
Logos was one person and Christ was another person.
He was said to have taught that Christ “became better by
the progress in good works”, As a “mere man”, Jesus wasbaptized in the “name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”.
And he obtained by his baptism “the grace of the Holy
Spirit”, and “became worthy of Sonship” (q.v.). That the
incarnated Christ was worshipped only out of regard for
“God the Word”, just as one worships the “image of the
emperor” (q.v.).
Also, Theodore is accused by the Council of stating that
the union of God the Word with Christ was “like to that
which...exists between a man and his wife” (q.v.).
Another “blasphemy” which Theodore was accused of was that
he said that when the resurrected Jesus breathed upon his
disciples and said “Receive the Holy Ghost” (John 20:22),
that he breathed upon them only “as a sign” (q.v.).
Theodore seems correct, since the apostles did not actually
receive the Holy Spirit until the day of Pentecost (Acts
2:4).
As the bishop of Rome, Vigilius (d.554 AD), wrote
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“(Theodore) did not believe that Christ was God” (q.v.).
Again, this is the strain of theology seen in the school of
Antioch, which strongly emphasized the genuine humanity of
Christ. It is possible, however, that the Council was
attempting to “tarbrush” Theodore of Mopsuestia with the
“heresy” of Paul of Samosata.
THE SECOND COUNCIL OF NICEA (787 AD)
This Catholic Ecumenical Council was called by the Emperor,
with the acknowledgment and the approval of the bishop of
Rome, and was attended by 350 bishops. Therefore, it is
called an “ecumenical” council.
It did not concern itself with the theology of the
incarnation, but rather with reversing the effects of the
so-called “mock synod” of Constantinople (754 AD), which
outlawed images and pictures in churches or in worship.
The council of 787 AD decreed that it was alright to“salute”, or to “honor” images and pictures, but “worship”
was reserved for God alone.
The upheaval created in the Byzantine empire by this issue
is scarcely imaginable. Following the “mock synod” of 754
AD, which anathematized images and pictures, the Emperor
Copronymus began to persecute those Catholics who were in
favor of the images. He singled out the more noted monks
and required them to comply with the decrees of the synod
(q.v.).
Copronymus forced monks to appear in the hippodrome at
Constantinople, hand in hand with harlots, while the
“populace spat at them” (q.v.). Monasteries were destroyed,
turned into barracks, with the property going into the
hands of the state.
One of Copronymus’s governors, Lachonodraco, collected a
number of monks onto a broad plain, dressed them in white,
presented them with wives, and forced them to choose
between marriage and loss of sight.
The imperial police stormed the churches, and “destroyed
those images and pictures which had not been secured”
(q.v.). It was only the death of the Emperor Copronymus in775 AD, which saved those Catholic clergy who believed in
the use of images and pictures from being extirpated. Under
the Empress Irene, the use of images and pictures was
gradually revived. The Second Council of Nicea in 787 AD
confirmed the “orthodoxy” of this position.
A SUMMARY OF THE SEVEN ECUMENICAL COUNCILS
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The Catholic church took the position that there was a
genuine and ineffable “hypostatic” union of the human
nature and divine nature in one Person, Christ. It was the
second divine Person (the Logos), who was incarnated. The
Logos took flesh unto himself. The Word was not converted
into flesh, but rather he (the Word) united the flesh to
his divinity. He was conceived of the Holy Ghost through
the virgin Mary, and was made perfect man, with a human
soul, a human body, and a human intellect.
The Catholics rejected the Apollinarian concept that the
human nature and the divine nature were “mixed” in Christ.
They held to the distinctness of the human and divine
natures, even though there was what they called a
“hypostatic union” (“hypostatic”, in this instance, seeming
to refer to the term “being”).There were not two “beings”,
but rather one “being”. They rejected the Nestorian concept
of “two persons”, and a mere “conjunction” of naturesrather than a “union”.
This “union” did not take place after the conception in the
womb, but was part and parcel of the conception itself. In
other words, the Logos did not unite himself to a ready-
made human being, but rather took unto himself “flesh”
during the process of the “ineffable and inconceivable
union” during the conception itself. These Catholic
fathers, then, apparently considered that the phrase “the
Word was made flesh” (or “became flesh”) to mean that Mary
supplied the flesh in the “ineffable union” of the two
natures. The two natures remained distinct in one person. There was no confusion or mixing of the two natures. There
was not a resultant “one nature” as Eutyches had
incorrectly taught.
They also rejected the “monothelite” (one will) teaching
concerning Christ. Christ has two wills (human and divine),
which were in complete harmony, since Christ subjected his
human will to the divine in all things.
THE INCARNATION IN THE ANCIENT FATHERS
WHAT EUSEBIUS, THE “OFFICIAL” CATHOLIC CHURCH HISTORIAN,
THOUGHT
We have seen some of the theories concerning the
incarnation in the Catholic fathers, since we have examined
the seven Catholic Ecumenical Councils. There are other
writings,however, in which we can examine incarnational
views in both Apostolic and Catholic fathers.
Eusebius of Caesarea (265-339 AD), for example, one of the
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prime movers in the Council of Nicea (325 AD), was of the
Arian persuasion.
In his sermon celebrating the 30th year of the Emperor
Constantine’s reign, he made Arian references concerning
the Logos:
the Supreme God...is unbegotten, above and beyond all creation, ineffable,inaccessible, unapproachable...dwelling in the light which none can enter...
(creation is) infinitely far removed from his unbegotten essence, (but) the
Almighty God (has) interposed ...an intermediate Power between himself and
them, even the divine omnipotence of his only-begotten Word (Logos) (“The
Oration of Eusebius”, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. l, Grand Rapids: Wm.
Eerdmans, 1986).
Eusebius considered the pre-existent Word (Logos), which he
personified, to have been begotten of the Father. He used
the terms logos endiathetos (the word internalized or
“thought”) and logos prophorikos (the word externalized or
“speech”), as the early Catholic fathers had done. The
Word, however, is more than just divine speech. The Word isa separate personal being, subsisting alongside with the
Father, and “proceeds from his Father’s deity and kingdom”
(q.v.).
He also wrote, however, that:
(The Word) showed them God in human form...he performed all his works through
the medium of that body which he had assumed for the sake of those who else
were incapable of apprehending his divine nature. In all this he was the
servant of his Father’s will, himself remaining still the same as when with the
Father; unchanged in essence, unimpaired in nature, unfettered by the trammels
of mortal flesh, nor hindered by his abode in a human body from being elsewhere
present.
In this passage, Eusebius is apparently referring to thetheory of kenosis, without, however, quoting from
Philippians 2:5-11. Notice that the incarnation does not
“change” Christ’s “essence” or “impair” his “nature”. He is
not “fettered” by his flesh, and his omnipresence is not
hindered by the incarnation. His views on the incarnation,
of course, are flawed in that he accepted the theory of the
incarnation of a second divine Person.
Aloys Dirksen (q.v.) states that Eusebius was an
“Origenist”, and that he regarded the Holy Ghost as a
“creature”, and considered the Son “as inferior to the
Father”. He was even “ex-communicated” at one council(Antioch, 325 AD) for “Arianism”. He wrote in a letter to
Euphration the words, “Since the Son is himself God, but
not true God”. This would put him in the Arian camp. But
the matter is very confused, since he seems to have been on
“both sides of the fence” during his life.
Socrates Scholasticus (c.380-450 AD), in his
Eccleisiastical History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
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Vol. 2, q.v.), defends Eusbeius from the accusations of
Arianism.
THE EARLIER FATHERS
Athenagoras of Athens, one of the earliest known
trinitarians, reportedly wrote “The Epistle To Diognetus”
(c.130 AD). In this epistle, Athenagoras displayed early
the Logos doctrine. God the Father sent the Word (Logos),
who was the Creator and “Fashioner of all things” from
Heaven. God the Father “formed in his mind a great and
unspeakable conception, which he communicated to his Son
alone” (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, Grand Rapids: Wm.
Eerdman,
1987). While Athenagoras does not mention the specifics of
the incarnation, it is obvious that he believes in the
Logos doctrine, and that he believed it was the Son that
was incarnated, and not God the Father.
IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH
Ignatius of Antioch (c.30-115 AD), a reputed disciple of
the apostle John and the apostle Peter, held the high
monarchian view of the incarnation. He did not teach that a
second divine Person had become incarnated, but rather that
it was God the Father himself.
In his Ephesians 18, Ignatius wrote:
For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment (dispensation) 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
(q.v.).
Notice that Ignatius identifies the one “conceived in the
womb by Mary...by the Holy Ghost” as “our God Jesus
Christ”. Moreover, Jesus is “of the seed of David”. He
obviously held Jesus to be sinless, since the Savior was
baptized that he might “purify the water” by his passion
(crucifixion), and not because he himself needed baptism.
In Ephesians 19, Ignatius writes of the incarnation, “God
himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of
eternal life”. He also seems to hold two natures in Christ
(human and divine), since he writes, “Jesus Christ, who was
of the seed of David according to the flesh, being both the
Son of man and the Son of God” (Ephesians 20, q.v.).
In his epistle to the Magnesians, chapter 6, Ignatius
writes, “Jesus Christ, who was the Father before the
beginning of time (the ages)”. In Wakes’s translation (from
the text of Vossius), it is “who was the Father”, thus
identifying Jesus as the pre-existent Father. However,
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there are other texts which have “who was with the Father”.
It seems, however, that Ignatius knew nothing of the Logos
doctrine of a second divine Person becoming incarnated.
Later, in Magnesians (7), Ignatius speaks of “one Jesus
Christ, who came forth from one Father, and is with one,
and has gone to one”. This undoubtedly speaks of the manJesus (“the Word made flesh”). It does not speak of another
heavenly being sent down from Heaven by the Father, since
we do not see this teaching elsewhere in Ignatius.
Ignatius does not use the phrase “eternal Son” (as the
later trinitarians were to do). He does, however, use the
phrase “eternal Word” (Magnesians 8).
Ignatius did not observe the sabbath (Magnesians 9), but
rather observed what he called “the Lord’s day” (see
Revelation 1:10).
He calls Jesus “our only Master” (Magnesians 9). He alsoseems to have believed that Matthew 27:52 indicated the
resurrection of Old Testament prophets. He apparently also
believed that Jesus had gone in the Spirit and preached to
those in Sheol (1 Peter 3:19), as he says in Philadelphians
5.
In Magnesians 15, Ignatius identifies the Holy Spirit as
Jesus Christ.
And in the epistle to the Trallians, he speaks of “Jesus
Christ, who was descended from David, and was also of Mary;
who was truly born, and did eat and drink” (Trallians 9).
Ignatius wrote that Jesus raised himself from the grave in
Smyrnaens 2 (see also the Gospel of John 2:19). Moreover,
he believed in a genuine resurrection of the body, as he
writes, “For I know that after his resurrection also he was
still possessed of flesh (“in the flesh”), quoting Luke
24:39, in Smyrnaeans 3.
And, “after his resurrection”, writes Ignatius, “he did eat
and drink with them, as being possessed of flesh, although
spiritually he was united to the Father” (Smyrnaeans 3).
In conclusion, it can be said that Ignatius seems to have
believed in the incarnation, with Jesus having two natures,human and divine. He seems to have believed that the
incarnation itself took place in the womb of the virgin at
conception.
THE SPURIOUS EPISTLE OF BARNABAS
This epistle is estimated to have been written as early as
100 AD, and perhaps as late as 150 AD (A. Cleveland Coxe,
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Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, q.v.).
The epistle shows little respect for Judaism, and contains
numerous inaccuracies with “respect to Mosaic enactments
and observances”, and cannot be ascribed to Barnabas, the
great companion to the apostle Paul. The writer speaks as a
Gentile. Most likely, this epistle would have a much laterdate, since it shows trinitarian doctrine, and does not
even appear to represent the simple style of the early half
of the second century.
For example, in chapter 5, it speaks of Christ as a second
divine Person:
He being Lord of all the world, to whom God said at the foundation of the
world, ‘Let us make man after our image and after our likeness’. (q.v.)
This, of course, is a trinitarian interpretation of Genesis
1:26. The incarnation is ascribed not to God the Father,
but rather to “the Son of God”,
who “came in the flesh” (chapter 5, q.v.).
The epistle contains fantastic notions about animals,
affirming that the hyena is able to change its sex from
male to female! The weasel “conceives by the mouth”!
Also, “Barnabas” seems to quote from the first century
“Gospel of The Egyptians”:
And when shall these things be accomplished? And the Lord saith, When a tree
shall be bent down, and again arise, and when blood shall flow out of (the)
wood. (q.v.)
The Gospel of the Egyptians is probably out of the first
half of the second century. Clement of Alexandria knew ofit. This familiarity with this Gospel-assuming it is the
same Gospel- may actually place this writer in the area of
north Africa (Alexandria?).
JUSTIN MARTYR AND THE INCARNATION
Justin Martyr (c.114-165 AD), was apparently the son of a
Roman and a Samaritan mother. He was born in Neapolis
(Nablus) in Samaria. He studied in Athens, becoming a
philosopher. He was converted to Catholic Christianity
about 133 AD. He died a martyr in Rome 165 AD. Justin
claimed to have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit(“Dialogue With Trypho” 29, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1,
q.v.). He was baptized by immersion for the remission of
sins, using a type of an early trinitarian formula, which
contained the name of Jesus Christ.
In his “First Apology” (c.140 AD), he asserted that it was
the Word (Logos) which was incarnated:
the Logos himself, who took shape, and became man, and was called Jesus
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Christ...the Son who came forth from him (God the Father)...and the host of the
other good angels who follow and are made like to him. (Ante-Nicene Fathers,
Vol. l, q.v.)
Like Philo, Justin seems to have identified the “pre-
existent Logos” as an
archangel. Jesus is also called “Angel” in chapter 43, and
in “Dialogue With Trypho 34”. Interestingly, Justin uses
the phrase “prophetic Spirit” for the Holy Spirit. While
this may have just been a common name used in that period,
it is noteworthy that it was a trademark of the Montanists
to designate the Holy Spirit as “the prophetic Spirit”.
Moreover, Justin was associated in Rome with Christians
from Phrygia, the place of origin of the Montanists, during
his last years alive.
Justin held Jesus “in the second place” to God the Father,
and the “prophetic Spirit” (Holy Spirit) “in the third”
(q.v.). God the Father he calls “the only unbegotten God”.We might contrast this with the variant, “the only begotten
God” in John 1:18.
The Logos is the “firstborn” of God, produced “without
sexual union” (q.v.).
He was born “in a peculiar manner, different from ordinary
generation”. He was born (also) of a virgin, “the only
proper Son who has been begotten of God”. “He became a man
among men” (q.v.).
The Son “took flesh and became man” (q.v.). “The power of
God having come upon the virgin, overshadowed her, and
caused her while yet a virgin to conceive” (q.v.). She
conceived “of the Holy Ghost”. It is interesting that, in
at least one place (perhaps early), Justin equates the Holy
Spirit with the Word (q.v.). This was common in the first
half of the second century until the Montanist emphasis
upon the Holy Spirit as the “third person”.
Justin, in his “Second Apology”, continues to insist that
God the Father has no name:
But to the Father of all, who is unbegotten, there is no name given. For by
whatever name he be called, he has as his elder the person who gives him the
name...his Son, who alone is properly called Son, the Word, who also was with
him and was begotten before the works, when at first he created and arranged all things by him (the Word)... (q.v.)
This, of course, is in direct opposition to the scriptures
of the Old Testament (e.g., see Exodus 3:13,14). The Logos,
as Justin seems to teach, was “begotten before the works
(of creation)”. He was a strong subordinationist, whose
doctrine subsequent trinitarians have unsuccessfully tried
to disavow, even though it is part and parcel of the
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trinitarian model.
Justin says:
For next to God, we worship and love the Word (Logos) who is from the
unbegotten and ineffable God, since also he became man for our sakes...(q.v.).
And, in chapter 45 (“The Dialogue With Trypho”, q.v.), he
refers to Christ and the incarnation:
Christ, Son of God, who was before the morning star and the moon, and submitted
to become incarnate, and ... born of this virgin of the family of David...
(q.v.).
Much is made by Justin on a variant reading in the Psalms,
which says “before the morning star I have begotten thee”
(Psalms 110:3).
The Son, in Justin’s view, “was begotten of the Father by
an act of will” (before the ages) (q.v.). This is obviously
contrary to the biblical account of the birth of the Lord
Jesus, which describes the virgin birth and not some
nebulous pre-existent birth.
IRENAEUS AND THE INCARNATION
Irenaeus of Lyons (120-202 AD), one of the respected
earlier Catholic fathers, wrote extensively.
In his Against Heresies (I.ix.3) he identifies Christ as
“the Word of the Father”, and the one who “descended
(as)..the same also who ascended”. And he states:
He...the only-begotten Son of the only God, who, according to the good pleasure
of the Father, became flesh for the sake of men...(q.v.).
And, to counter docetism, Irenaeus says that the Savior’s
flesh was “that which was of old formed for Adam by God out
of the dust”. And it is this (flesh) “that John declared
the Word of God became”.
In his statement of a creed, Irenaeus (q.v., I.x.1) says,
“Christ Jesus, who became incarnate for our salvation”.
Thus, we see that he also holds to a Logos interpretation
of a second divine Person becoming incarnate.
In another place, Irenaeus writes, “the Word of God became
flesh and suffered” (I.x.3).
Irenaeus quotes copiously from the gospels. He mentions
that Matthew wrote a gospel for “the Hebrews, in their own
dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome”.
After their departure (we assume in the AD 60’s), Irenaeus
reports that Mark, “the disciple and interpreter of Peter”,
wrote another gospel from the words of Peter. This would
place the Gospel of the Hebrews by Matthew earlier than the
gospel of Mark. Then Irenaeus mentions Luke’s gospel. The
last gospel was written by John in Ephesus (III.1.1).
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Irenaeus is quite insistent that the church of Rome was
founded and organized by both Peter and Paul (III.3.2).
Concerning the incarnation, Irenaeus writes, “ Jesus
Christ, the Son of God...condescended to be born of the
virgin”.
Irenaeus writes that “the Word...did also take upon Him
flesh, and was anointed by the Spirit from the Father”
(III.ix.3).
In a passage in Against Heresies (III.xvi.6), Irenaeus
seems to affirm his belief in a union of divinity and
humanity in the incarnation:
(He) who is truly God... His only-begotten Word, who is always present with the
human race, united to and mingled with His own creation, according to the
Father’s pleasure, and who became flesh, is Himself Jesus Christ our Lord.
And this incarnation, according to Irenaeus, fulfilled “all
the conditions of the human nature” (III.xvii.4).
During the incarnation, Irenaeus says this about the Word
(since he believes that it was the Word or Logos which was
incarnate): “the Word (remained) quiescent”.
He exlains that this “quiescence” was so that the man Jesus
might be tempted, might suffer death. But in the
resurrection, “the human nature...(was) swallowed up in the
divine (nature)”.
And Irenaeus is careful to assert that flesh was taken from
the virgin in the incarnation, when he says, “Those...who
allege that He took nothing from the virgin do greatly err”
(III.xxii.1). He maintained that God (which He maintains is
the Word in this instance) received “the substance of flesh
from a human being” (that is, from Mary)(q.v.). And
Irenaeus asked the question, “Why did He come down into
her, if he were to take nothing of her?” (III.xxii.2).
Again, in Against Heresies (IV.xxxiii.11), Irenaeus speaks
of “the union of the Word of God with His own workmanship,
declaring that the Word should become flesh, and the Son of
God the Son of man”.
The Son, according to Irenaeus, was pre-existing as a
separate person, assisting the Father:...the Father planning everything well and giving His commands, the Son
carrying these into execution and performing the work of creating, and the
Spirit nourishing and increasing (what is made)...(IV.xxxviii.3).
In this particular triad, we notice that “the Father” is
the brains of the operation (“planning...giving His
commands”), while the Son actually “performs” the work. The
Holy Spirit also has a function. He is a “nourisher” and an
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“increaser”.
In Book V (V.i.1) Irenaeus describes the incarnation in
this manner, “our Master, existing as the Word, had become
man”. What “other person”, Irenaeus asks, “knew the mind of
the Lord” (and now we know why the translator uses the word
“master” to translate the Latin “dominus” rather than Lord-since he would be forced to write that only the “Lord”
could know “the mind of the Lord”!).Then the thought of
“two divine persons” would be destroyed!
We could go on examining the early Catholic fathers only to
see that the idea of the Logos doctrine was implanted in
the first quarter of the second century. While, for some
time, these Catholic theologians struggled with the
doctrine of co-equality and co-eternality, by the early
third century, they had established the “triunity” of God,
and some had elevated the Holy Spirit to the status of full
deity.
THE THIRD PERSON-TERTULLIAN AND THE MONTANISTS
Tertullian (145-220 AD) is called “the founder of Latin
(Catholic) Christianity” by A.C. Coxe (The Ante-Nicene
Fathers, Vol. III, q.v.). While this may be true in part,
it is a great deception in the sense that Tertullian
formulated his views on the Godhead and the incarnation
after he became a follower of Montanus, who was not
considered “orthodox” by the Catholics, although a great
deal of apologetical writing has “spruced up” the image of
Montanus somewhat in the twentieth century, since it isapparent that he held a trinitarian viewpoint on the
Godhead.
Tertullian was an attorney. He did not become a Christian
until he was about 40 years old (185 AD). Some scholars
acknowledge that he probably became a Montanist before 200
AD. It cannot have been too many years later. It is not
known whether he was a trinitarian before he became a
Montanist or not. Therefore, then, it is unlikely that
Tertullian ever was indeed a Catholic! And yet he is
heralded as a “Catholic father”, one of the great
architects of the Trinity.Tertullian was a native of the African city of Carthage,
the son of a proconsular centurion. He was apparently
educated in Rome.
Jerome, in his Catalogus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum, wrote
this about Tertullian:
After remaining a presbyter of the church until he had had attained the middle
age of life, Tertullian was, by the envy and contumelious treatment of the
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Roman clergy, driven to embrace the opinions of Montanus...
Unfortunately, we do not have the view of the Roman
“clergy” concerning what happened. It is rather doubtful
that a man of Tertullian’s apparent intelligence and social
position was “driven to embrace the opinions of Montanus”.
The “envy and contumelious treatment” reportedly receivedat the hands of the Roman district has not been confirmed
in history.
The truth of the matter is that the Roman church leadership
during this time period (180-225 AD)was monarchian or
oneness.
Bishop Victor, the Roman bishop who was in office 189-198
AD, seems to have infuriated Tertullian because he recalled
recognition of the Montanists in Asia minor, who had
usurped authority in a number of churches in that province.
Tertullian would not have been any more fond of bishop
Zephyrinus (198-217 AD), the successor to bishop Victor,
because Zephyrinus had no sympathy for those who worshipped
two or three gods, as in the case of Hippolytus, another
trinitarian, and Tertullian.
And Tertullian seems also to have despised bishop Callistus
(217-222 AD).
Moreover, Jerome, who relates how badly the Roman ministry
treated Tertullian,
thus driving him into Montanism, had little sympathy for
the Roman prelates himself, dismissing bishop Victor’s
writings (which have been either lost or conveniently
destroyed), as being “mediocre” (R.B. Tollinton, Clement of
Alexandria, Vol. l, London: Williams & Norgate, 1914).
Jerome tells us that this Roman bishop wrote “treatises on
the question of Easter (Christian Passover) and other
matters (italics mine)”. It is my opinion that these
writings of Victor on “other matters” were monarchian or
oneness, and would be very damaging to Catholic claims were
they to be discovered.
As J.Estlin Carpenter says, “Tertullian...was led to
formulate his views on the Trinity and the Person of Christ
in controversy with Praxeas” (The Early Phases of
Christianity, London: Knickerbocker Press, 1916). “Praxeas”
(“Busybody”) was a very well-known minister, who was
influential with bishop Victor of Rome. Praxeas was a
modalistic monarchian (oneness).
In his argument with Praxeas, Tertullian was led to adopt
gnostic emanation concepts in constructing the doctrine of
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the Trinity. For example, he appropriated the gnostic term
probole (emanation) as a designation describing the divine
Son, begotten of God the Father. Tertullian knew that he
had adopted a gnostic concept, and “he was reproved for it
by his modalist opponents” (Martin Werner, The Formation of
Christian Dogma, Boston: Beacon Press, 1957).
Concerning the incarnation, Tertullian did not believe that
it was God the Father who was incarnated. He wrote in
reference to John 1.1, “There is one who was, and another
with whom He was” (Alvan Lamson, The Church of The First
Three Centuries, Boston: Walker, Wise & Co., 1860).
Friedrich Ueberweg believes that Tertullian was converted
to Montanism c.197 AD (History of Philosophy, Vol. l, NY:
Scribner’s Sons, 1909). This date may be a little early,
however.
R.S. Franks admits that Tertullian wrote against Praxeas,
the modalist, AFTER Tertullian had become a Montanist (The
Doctrine of The Trinity, London: Duckworth & Co., 1953).
Other modern trinitarian scholars, such as the noted
Jaroslav Pelikan (The Finality of Jesus Christ In An Age of
Universal History, Richmond: John Knox Press, 1966),
realized how damaging to Catholic “orthodoxy” it was to
have a Montanist Tertullian known as one of the great
architects of the Catholic Trinity, have attempted to
mitigate the uncontrovertible evidence of Tertullian’s
Against Praxeas by unsuccessfully claiming that Tertullian
was an orthodox Catholic when he held his trinitarian views.
But R.S. Franks admits that “no one has exercised more
influence on the actual shape taken by the doctrine of the
Trinity than Tertullian, except only Origen” (q.v.). And
Franks added, “Tertullian has greatly influenced the
doctrine of the incarnation” (q.v.).
Franks maintained that Tertullian taught that “the distinct
existence of the Spirit began when the exalted Christ
poured out the gift which He had received from the Father”.
And Tertullian called the Spirit, “the Holy Spirit, the
third name in the Godhead (Against Praxeas, c.213 AD).
And Tertullian wrote, “The Spirit is third from the Fatherand the Son, as the fruit from the stem is third from the
root. The monarchia is preserved since there is no
separation”.
H.J. Carpenter well notes that:
...the popular faith, concerned for its firmly held belief in the unity
(oneness) of God and the deity of Christ, might well recoil in deep suspicion
from Tertullian’s doctrine of extended divine substance and subordinate
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Sonship, and feel better satisfied with the simpler modalist statement.
Tertullian was well aware that he was fighting against the
orthodox view of oneness (the monarchy) in his day. He
projects his guilt in the question: “how can I be possibly
destroying the Monarchy from the faith”? (Against Praxeas
4.1). He perversely argued that the oneness teachers weretrying “to destroy the truth by defending it” (Against
Praxeas 1). Praxeas had “fabricated a heresy out of (the)
doctrine of unity (oneness)” (q.v.).
Tertullian admits that the Roman ministers said that those,
who were attacking the oneness of God were “preachers of
two gods and three gods, while they take to themselves pre-
eminently the credit of being worshippers of the One God”
(Against Praxeas 3).
This was the issue, then, during the period of 189-222 AD
in Rome: the oneness of God versus two gods and three gods.
The phrase “two gods” referred to those “trinitarians”(Catholics) who had not yet accepted the separate Person of
the Holy Spirit (and probably still identified the Logos or
Son and the Holy Spirit), and the phrase “three gods”
referred to the trinitarian Montanists such as Tertullian,
who were promoting the Holy Spirit as the “third Person”.
Tertullian acknowledged that most Christians did not share
his trinitarian views:
The simple, indeed (I will not call them unwise and unlearned), who always
constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the
Three in One)... (Against Praxeas 3).
The reaction of the common Christian upon hearing
Tertullian’s ideas of the Trinity was to be “startled”.
The doctrine of the Trinity denied the incarnation of God
the Father, proposing instead, that another divine Person
(existing eternally alongside of God the Father), had come
down to earth and was incarnated. Instead of using the
title of “Son of God” exclusively for the child born of
Mary, they manufactured a separate divine Person from God
the Father, which they identified as the Word, pre-existing
in a filial relationship to God the Father. By doing this,
they “refuted” the incarnation of God the Father.
Once they had established a second divine Person, whom they
identified as the Son, the next step was to manufacture a
“third divine Person”, the Holy Spirit. The development of
the Holy Spirit as a the third divine Person in the Godhead
was undertaken by Tertullian after he became a Montanist.
It was the Montanists who exalted the “place” of the Holy
Spirit in their New Prophecy.
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Tertullian, before he became a Montanist, does not seem to
reflect strong trinitarian views. For example, in his
Prescription Against Heretics, which most assign to his
“pre-Montanist” days, we do not find solid trinitarian
views. Tertullian quotes from the rule of faith as follows:
...there is one only God, and that He is none other than the Creator of theworld, who produced all things out of nothing through His own Word, first of
all sent forth; that this Word is called His Son, and, under the name of God,
was seen ‘in diverse manners” by the patriarchs, heard at all times in the
prophets, at last brought down by the Spirit and Power of the Father into the
Virgin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, and, being born of her, went forth as
Jesus Christ (xii).
While this view seems to indicate the pre-existence of the
Son in the Old Testament, it is not clear since Tertullian
uses the phrase “under the name of God”. The antecedent of
that which was made flesh in the womb of the virgin is “the
Word” and not “the Son”. Certainly, this creed is not
blatantly trinitarian in the sense in which we see in
Against Praxeas. A more fully developed trinitarian
doctrine would not normally identify the “one only God” as
the “Creator” without distinguishing the “two divine
Persons”.
The Montanists believed they were upholding the third
divine Person, the Holy Spirit, which they called “the
prophetic Spirit”.
Montanus (130-170 AD) appeared in Ardaban in Phyrgia c.156
AD. Jerome says that he was formerly a eunuch priest, while
others say he was a former priest of Cybele or Apollo. He
was converted to Christianity, and, as a new convert, beganto prophesy “in a kind of an ecstatic trance”, and,
Eusebius says, “to babble in a jargon, prophesying in a
manner contrary to the custom of the church, which had been
handed down by tradition” (Eccleisiastical History,
V.XVI.7). Eusebius says that Montanus also involved two
female prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla (who died
c.179 AD).
The Montanists were expelled from the churches c.177 AD,
with church councils in Asia minor held against them.
What is unusual is that they seemed to have received much
sympathy from Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian (who
openly became a Montanist around the turn of the century).
These men are the so-called “architects of the Trinity”.
Montanus himself never claimed to be the Paraclete (Holy
Spirit), but he prophesied so often apparently in the
“first person” voice that many were deceived into thinking
so.
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He reportedly said, “I am the Father and the Son and the
Paraclete” (Jules LeBreton & Jacques Zeiller, The History
of The Christian Church, Vol. III, London: Burns, Oates &
Washbourne, 1942).
In another trinitarian sounding phrase he said, “For God
brought forth the Logos (Word) as a root brings forth atree, and a spring a river, and the sun a ray” (A History
of Christianity, ed. Ray Petry, Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 1962).
Archibald Robertson agrees that Montanism contributed
indirectly to bishop Polycarp’s death in c.156 AD. The
Montanists apparently stirred up the city of Smyrna against
the Christians, and this involved the old bishop of Smyrna
(Archibald Robertson, The Origins of Christianity, NY:
International Pub., 1962).
SUMMARYIt can be seen that many theories abound concerning the
incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of then are
rather far-fetched. They delve into areas that are
seemingly beyond the ken of mere mortal man.
THE INCARNATION IS IDENTIFIED IN SCRIPTURE AS A MYSTERY
The apostle Paul identified the incarnation as a mystery:
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in
the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles,
believed on in the world, received up into glory. -1 Timothy 3.16
Paul nowhere says “great is the mystery of the Trinity”.
Jesus, in John 4.24, identifies God as “a Spirit” (not “a
Trinity”). But Paul says “great is the mystery of
godliness”. This mystery of “godliness” is the incarnation,
since Paul follows with the expression of the incarnation
that “God was manifest in the flesh”.
We may not know all of the details of the incarnation, but
we do know a few things that are given to us.
Deuteronomy 29.29 states:
The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are
revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all thewords of this law.
We may not be permitted to understand many of the details
concerning the incarnation. As we have seen in this study,
there is much speculation. No subject has brought forth
more error than this subject. But there are many things
given to us in the word of God concerning the incarnation.
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GOD WAS IN CHRIST
1. 2 Corinthians 5.19, “To wit, that God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word
of reconciliation”.
2. Matthew 3.17 “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”.
We can know, then, that God the Father was in the man
Christ Jesus, and that He claimed this man as His “beloved
Son”. This in itself is amazing that the Almighty God, who
is omnipresent, could signify that He was dwelling in, that
He was “in Christ”.
THE WORD WAS MADE (OR BECAME) FLESH
1. John 1.14 “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among
us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the onlybegotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth”.
2. Hebrews 2.14 “Forasmuch then as the children are
partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took
part of the same; that through death he might destroy him
that had the power of death, that is, the devil”.
3. Hebrews 2.16 “For verily he took not on him the nature
of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham”.
HIS HUMAN CREDENTIALS ARE IMPECCABLE AND HE IS FOREVER
RELATED TO THE JEWS
And we also know that God partook of flesh and blood in the
incarnation. In fact, God took upon Himself the particular
“seed of Abraham”. He did not just, in a general way,
become a member of the human race by means of the
incarnation, but he precisely entered into a particular
blood line, the “seed of Abraham”. This has forever set
apart the blood line from other blood lines.
While the ancestry of Jesus Christ is traced by Luke all
the way back to Adam, making Jesus a descendant of the
first Adam, the writer of Hebrews tells us that the blood
line was further restricted to “the seed of Abraham”. We
later learn that our Lord “sprang out of Judah” (Hebrews
7.14). And we know that He was also of “the seed of David”
(Romans 1.3).
THE METHOD OF HIS INCARNATION IS RELATED TO HIS METHOD OF
CREATION BY THE WORD
We know that creation was by means of the word of God. For
example, Genesis 1.3 states, “And God said, Let there be
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light: and there was light”.
Psalms 33.6 says “By the word of the LORD were the heavens
made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth”.
Psalms 33.9 further elaborates this, “For he spake, and it
was done; he commanded and it stood fast”.
Therefore, we see that creation was accomplished by the
spoken word of God. It was not done by a second divine
creative Agent or Person. God merely spoke in some powerful
divine way and things came into existence.
Genesis 1.1 is very simple, “In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth”. There is no divine committee of
persons.
Isaiah 44.24 certifies that only one divine Individual
created all things:
Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am
the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; thatspreadeth abroad the earth by myself. -Isaiah 44.24
And this one Creator, who stretched forth the heavens
“alone”, and who spread abroad the earth “by (himself)”,
states explicitly that there are no other divine
Individuals or Persons besides Himself:
I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me; I girded
thee, though thou hast not known me. -Isaiah 45.5
John, the apostle, harkens back to this idea of a single
divine Person creating by the use of His word in John 1.1-3:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
We have already seen that God created all things by His
spoken word and not by the activity of a separate divine
Person called “the Word”. In fact, John identifies the Word
as God Himself. This identity should not by violated by
attempting to make the Word someone separate from God the
Father. No one would dare to attempt to make the word of a
mere human a separate person from that individual. The
early Jewish Christians would not hear of giving a separate
personal identity to the Word.
Thus, the incarnation is actually the creative power of Godin action, just as His creative power worked in the
“beginning”. He spoke the baby in the womb of Mary into
existence. He Himself partook of flesh and blood through
His creative power. John wrote in John 1.14, “And the Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his
glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,)
full of grace and truth”.
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Luke 1.35 states, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and
the power of the highest shall overshadow thee: therefore
also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be
called the Son of God”. This again is reminiscent of the
creation in Genesis 1.3, which says, “the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the deep”. This is the same
combination that we see in the beginning: (1) the Spirit of
God, and (2) the speaking of the Word in creation.
John 1.14, as we saw, declares that it was “the only
begotten of the Father”, which is “the Word...made flesh”.
He is identifying the term “only begotten” (monogenes) with
the flesh and blood baby that was born of Mary. It is not
some pre-existent separate divine Person from God the
Father that is termed the “only begotten”, but rather the
baby born of Mary, since there was no begetting until the
“Word was made flesh”.
When we come to John 1.18, “No man hath seen God at anytime; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the
Father, he hath declared him”, we are talking about the man
Jesus, who ascended into heaven with John as a witness,
after His resurrection. John is affirming that God Himself
is an invisible Spirit. The “only begotten Son”, who was
“made of a woman, made under the law” when “the fulness of
the time was come” (Galatians 4.4), died at Calvary and
rose from the dead. But now, John writes, He (this
glorified human being), is “in the bosom of the Father”. He
has ascended into heaven. It is he, John says, “who hath
declared (revealed)” the Father.John is not saying that the “only begotten Son” was
eternally in “the bosom of the Father”, but rather he is
saying, “I saw him ascend up into heaven”. I know that He,
just as He said that Lazarus was “in the bosom of Abraham”
is in “the bosom of the Father”. Thus, the incarnation is
not a Son manifested in the Son, but rather is the Father
manifested in the flesh (as the Son).
When we say the “Word was made flesh”, we are not saying
that God was made flesh. Rather we are saying that God was
manifest in the flesh through the mystery of the union that
was effected (that is, the incarnation).
CHRIST WAS GOD
1. John 20.28 “And Thomas answered and said unto him, My
Lord and my God”.
2. Acts 2.36 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know
assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have
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crucified, both Lord and Christ”.
3. Romans 9.5 “Whose are the fathers, and of whom as
concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God
blessed forever. Amen”.
4. Titus 2.13 “Looking for that blessed hope, and the
glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus
Christ”.
5. Revelation 1.8 “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and
the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and
which is to come, the Almighty”.
The apostles never understood or taught that the person or
being of God could be differentiated into “three divine
Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit”. The writer of
Hebrews tells us that Jesus is “the express image of his
(God’s) person (being or hypostasis)”. In other words,
Jesus is not a separate, distinct “being” (person orhypostasis) from God the Father, but rather the man Jesus
is actually “express image” of the invisible God. That is,
He is God manifest in the flesh. When an individual looks
in a mirror, the image that they see is not another person!
All of God that we shall ever see is Jesus Christ. He is
the one seated upon the throne in heaven. He will hold out
his nail-scarred hands to us (the only man-made thing in
heaven).
Many theologians and scholars have attempted to understand
who Jesus is, but we can have a revelation of His oneness,
the mighty God in Christ.
Matthew 11.27 “All things are delivered unto me of my
Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither
knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to
whomsoever the Son will reveal him”.
Only God really knows the Son. Only the Son knows His
Father, but the Son is able to reveal the Father to us. And
so it is. We can only come to God through Jesus Christ. He
is the way. God was manifest in the flesh so that we might
have fellowship with Him. When we look at Jesus we see God
in the flesh.
It is God manifest in the flesh (Jesus) who died for us and
shed His blood. That is why we need to have faith in Him
alone (Jesus). There is no salvation outside of His name.
We need to fully repent of our sins (metanoia, a complete
about face and change in the direction of our lives toward
God and not away from Him). Then we need to be baptized by
immersion in the saving name of the Lord Jesus Christ for
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the remission of sins. Finally, in order to truly live for
God the way He wants, we need to expect and to receive the
baptism (the infilling) of the glorious Holy Ghost, with
the initial sign or evidence of speaking in tongues, as the
early Christians did in the Book of Acts.
It is only in the book of Acts that we see actual instancesof people being saved. We do not see one example of anyone
being saved in the epistles. We don’t see an example of
anyone being saved in the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John), since the church had not yet been founded on the
day of Pentecost. The thief on the cross was still until
the Old Covenant. He needed faith in God, repentance, and a
blood sacrifice. He turned to Jesus in faith, and repented
there on the cross. His blood sacrifice (Jesus) was hanging
next to him. Had the thief been alive on the day of
Pentecost, then he would have had to obey Acts 2.38. I have
often been asked why was the thief saved and he wasn’t evenbaptized. My answer is the above. I also ask another
question back: how do you know the thief was not baptized?
Do you have his entire life’s history available? Perhaps
John the baptist had baptized him! Anyway, it doesn’t
matter because the thief was not in the church age.
Everyone in the church age must be baptized in Jesus’ Name
in order to partake of the New Covenant by faith.