Heretical Views On The Person of Jesus Christ

TheBibleSays · Mar 4, 2019

THE EBOINTES

This group was a remnant of extreme Judaizing Christianity. They taught that Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph, so fulfilled the Mosaic law that God chose him to be his Messiah. The consciousness that God chose him to be the Messiah came at his baptism, when he received the Holy Spirit. The deity and virgin birth of Christ were denied. The belief of Christ's deity seemed to be incompatible with monotheism. The heresy in this view is obvious.

THE GNOSTICS

Whereas the Ebionites demonstrated a Jewish perversion from the truth, the Gnostics represent a Gentile perversion. This system had a basic dualism running through it: the higher and the lower, the spirit and the flesh, the good and the evil. Because flesh was considered evil, surely God could not become flesh, at least not in the orthodox interpretation of the incarnation. Thus, the person of Christ was approached in one of two ways. Cerinthian Gnosticism taught that the divine Christ came upon the human Jesus at his baptism and departed shortly before Jesus' death. Docetic Gnosticism held that Jesus was actually a kind of phantom, and only had the appearance of flesh.

THE ARIANS

In the early fourth century, Arius of Alexandria championed the position that though Christ may be called God, he was not true God and in no way equal with God in essence or eternity. Before time was, Christ was created. He, the Logos of God, was the first-born of all creation, and the agent in fashioning the world. In the incarnation, the Logos entered a human body, taking the place of the human spirit. Thus, Christ was neither fully God nor fully man.

THE APPOLARIANS

The Nicean Council did not bring the controversy to an end, for the relation-ship of the two natures of Christ to one another was not clarified. There was a danger of two extremes; on the one hand, the divine nature could so absorb the human that the human would lose its identity, or on the other hand, the Identities of the two natures could be so separate that Christ virtually would he two persons. Apollinaris, taking the former position, argued that Jesus had a true body and animal soul, but not a rational spirit or mind. The Logos filled the place of human intelligence. This view did honor to the deity of Christ, but it had the effect of destroying his full humanity.

THE SABELLIANS

Also known as modalism, is a heresy which states that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are different modes or aspects of one God, rather than Three distinct Persons.

THE NESTORIANS

Nestorius denied the real union of the two natures of Christ into one person, implied a twofold personality. The Logos dwelt in the man Jesus, so that the union between the two natures was somewhat analogous to the indwelling of the Spirit. This endangered the true deity of Christ, since he was from other men in whom God dwelt only by the plenitude of his presence and the absolute control that the divine in Christ exercised over the human.

THE EUTYCHIANS

The Eutychians were led to the opposite extreme from the Nestorians. They held that there were not two natures but only one nature in Christ. All of Christ was divine, even his body. The divine and the human in Christ were mingled into one, which constituted a third nature. The Eutychians were often called Monophysites because they virtually reduced the two natures of Christ to one.

Are there any in the church today that believe in, and teach any of these views?

tampasteve · Mar 4, 2019

TheBibleSays said:
Are there any in the church today that believe in, and teach any of these views?

That depends on how you desire to define "in the church". If you mean people that believe these views, then yes, there most certainly are people that believe these views. Add Modalism to the mix and there are MANY people that believe in that heresy - even if they do not know it as that name and think they are standard Trinitarians. However, in theory there are not people "in the church" if they believe these old heresies as they would be outside of the church by believing in them.

All that said, there are many people that believe that some of these heresies were really just misunderstandings and power grabs by certain factions, Nestorianism and Monophysites being two of these. Modern Arians are sometimes identified with Jehovah's Witnesses. There are all sorts of modern Gnostic groups around, but there is no real Gnostic church with any sway over large numbers of people. Sometimes Mandaens are called Gnostics, but they are really localized and a small community.

TheBibleSays · Mar 4, 2019

tampasteve said:
That depends on how you desire to define "in the church". If you mean people that believe these views, then yes, there most certainly are people that believe these views. Add Modalism to the mix and there are MANY people that believe in that heresy - even if they do not know it as that name and think they are standard Trinitarians. However, in theory there are not people "in the church" if they believe these old heresies as they would be outside of the church by believing in them.

All that said, there are many people that believe that some of these heresies were really just misunderstandings and power grabs by certain factions, Nestorianism and Monophysites being two of these. Modern Arians are sometimes identified with Jehovah's Witnesses. There are all sorts of modern Gnostic groups around, but there is no real Gnostic church with any sway over large numbers of people. Sometimes Mandaens are called Gnostics, but they are really localized and a small community.

Thanks, good points. I have now added the teaching of the heretic, Sabellius, the "father" of Modalism.

Dave-W · Mar 4, 2019

You left off the Marcions.

Dave-W · Mar 4, 2019

TheBibleSays said:
Thanks, good points. I have now added the teaching of the heretic, Sabellius, the "father" of Modalism.

Good call.

What I have found is while most of these heresies do not exist in their full form any more, (exception being modalism in the “Jesus Only” “Oneness” groups) some of their teachings slip into otherwise orthodox groups.

TheBibleSays · Mar 4, 2019

Dave-W said:
You left off the Marcions.

Marcion, as far as I am aware, did not taech a heretical view on the Person of Jesus Christ.

Dave-W · Mar 4, 2019

TheBibleSays said:
Marcion, as far as I am aware, did not taech a heretical view on the Person of Jesus Christ.

He did actually. He believed the God of the NT (Christ) was totally in opposition to the God of the OT. Christ was all-forgiving and would save everyone; and defeated (killed) the OT God of creation and law.

tampasteve · Mar 4, 2019

Yes, as Dave mentions, Modalistic Monarchianism or "Oneness", more or less a form of Modalism - this has millions of adherents, including members of this forum.

Marcion taught a form of Christianity that separated the "god of the Jewish scriptures" from the "god that sent Jesus", his teachings also imply a Decetic Christology, denying the humanity of Christ.

TheBibleSays · Mar 4, 2019

Dave-W said:
Good call.

What I have found is while most of these heresies do not exist in their full form any more, (exception being modalism in the “Jesus Only” “Oneness” groups) some of their teachings slip into otherwise orthodox groups.

you are very right. There is much heresy that has crept into the Church on the Person of Jesus Christ, even among those who are "Orthodox and Evangelical", especially the "subordination" of Jesus to the Father within the Godhead, as Deity, which of course is quite impossible. Another is as some "Creeds" have it, that the Father somehow "generated" the Deity of Jesus, which is another impoissibility, because Jesus is as much Almighty God, as the Father and Holy Spirit are.

TheBibleSays · Mar 4, 2019

Dave-W said:
He did actually. He believed the God of the NT (Christ) was totally in opposition to the God of the OT. Christ was all-forgiving and would save everyone; and defeated (killed) the OT God of creation and law.

Thanks, but this is not a attack on the Person (Two Natures) of Jesus Christ?

tampasteve · Mar 4, 2019

TheBibleSays said:
Another is as some "Creeds" have it, that the Father somehow "generated" the Deity of Jesus, which is another impossibility, because Jesus is as much Almighty God, as the Father and Holy Spirit are.

Would you mind pointing out which Creed has this? It seems most of the main church creeds do not have this, or perhaps there is a misunderstanding in the Creed?

tampasteve · Mar 4, 2019

TheBibleSays said:
Thanks, but this is not a attack on the Person (Two Natures) of Jesus Christ?

Marcionism was pretty out there, he also denied the humanity of Christ - or at least that is what we believe.

History is written by the victors, for the most part. Sometimes these heresies are not as clear cut as we believe now.

Dave-W · Mar 4, 2019

TheBibleSays said:
Thanks, but this is not a attack on the Person (Two Natures) of Jesus Christ?

Not on the 2 person nature, but on the person of Christ within the Godhead.

TheBibleSays · Mar 4, 2019

Dave-W said:
Not on the 2 person nature, but on the person of Christ within the Godhead.

can you please expand on this?

Dave-W · Mar 4, 2019

TheBibleSays said:
can you please expand on this?

Sure. Marcion apparently hated the Jews and removed anything from the Bible that was Jewish. He believed Christ to be loving and all forgiving, requiring no action on our part whatsoever. (A very untrue picture of our Lord) So He was entirely at odds with the Father making laws for people to live by, and killed off the God of the OT, the God of creation and laws.

How is that a true picture of the Person of Christ the Son?

hedrick · Mar 4, 2019

tampasteve said:
All that said, there are many people that believe that some of these heresies were really just misunderstandings and power grabs by certain factions, Nestorianism and Monophysites being two of these.

It depends upon what status you think the creeds have. Nestorians were mostly in a culture with a different language and different philosophical terminology than the tradition out of which Chalcedon came. It is still debated just how to translate between the two, and thus whether it was fair to condemn the Nestorians.

I think the underlying question is whether Christianity mandates a specific philosophy. Is Chalcedon an attempt to summarize what Scripture says in one specific philosophical framework? If so, then people using a different framework might well come up with their own approach, and translating between the two might be difficult. In fact I would point out that Chalcedon itself comes out of a rather different approach than the NT writers (and they were not all working within precisely the same one either). Are we allowed to observe that Chalcedon has both strengths and weaknesses as a summary of the NT?

But if you think the creeds are inspired by the Holy Spirit in a stronger sense, you might think (or at least act like) they are normative, and either other philosophical systems aren't permissible, or Christology in those frameworks had better be an exact translation of Chalcedon. Since exact translation between very different ways of thinking is almost impossible, that would make any attempt to speak of Christ in other terms heretical. Indeed it would make use of much of NT Christology dangerous.

This is not just a theoretical question. Modern theology works within a very different conceptual framework than late antiquity. The approach to theology there really doesn't translate, though it's arguably closer to the NT approach. Many Christians would regard it as heretical.

Indeed you're probably aware that Lutherans accused Reformed of being Nestorian, an accusation that you will occasionally see even in CF.

tampasteve · Mar 4, 2019

hedrick said:
It depends upon what status you think the creeds have. Nestorians were mostly in a culture with a different language and different philosophical terminology than the tradition out of which Chalcedon came. It is still debated just how to translate between the two, and thus whether it was fair to condemn the Nestorians.

I think the underlying question is whether Christianity mandates a specific philosophy. Is Chalcedon an attempt to summarize what Scripture says in one specific philosophical framework? If so, then people using a different framework might well come up with their own approach, and translating between the two might be difficult. In fact I would point out that Chalcedon itself comes out of a rather different approach than the NT writers (and they were not all working within precisely the same one either). Are we allowed to observe that Chalcedon has both strengths and weaknesses as a summary of the NT?

But if you think the creeds are inspired by the Holy Spirit in a stronger sense, you might think (or at least act like) they are normative, and either other philosophical systems aren't permissible, or Christology in those frameworks had better be an exact translation of Chalcedon. Since exact translation between very different ways of thinking is almost impossible, that would make any attempt to speak of Christ in other terms heretical. Indeed it would make use of much of NT Christology dangerous.

This is not just a theoretical question. Modern theology works within a very different conceptual framework than late antiquity. The approach to theology there really doesn't translate, though it's arguably closer to the NT approach. Many Christians would regard it as heretical.

Indeed you're probably aware that Lutherans accused Reformed of being Nestorian, an accusation that you will occasionally see even in CF.

I do not think I disagree with any of this. You are right, some Lutherans misunderstand Reformed theology, ironically Luther had quite good relations with some of the reformers that brought Reformed theology about, even if they disagreed.

NeedyFollower · Mar 4, 2019

TheBibleSays said:
THE EBOINTES

This group was a remnant of extreme Judaizing Christianity. They taught that Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph, so fulfilled the Mosaic law that God chose him to be his Messiah. The consciousness that God chose him to be the Messiah came at his baptism, when he received the Holy Spirit. The deity and virgin birth of Christ were denied. The belief of Christ's deity seemed to be incompatible with monotheism. The heresy in this view is obvious.

THE GNOSTICS

Whereas the Ebionites demonstrated a Jewish perversion from the truth, the Gnostics represent a Gentile perversion. This system had a basic dualism running through it: the higher and the lower, the spirit and the flesh, the good and the evil. Because flesh was considered evil, surely God could not become flesh, at least not in the orthodox interpretation of the incarnation. Thus, the person of Christ was approached in one of two ways. Cerinthian Gnosticism taught that the divine Christ came upon the human Jesus at his baptism and departed shortly before Jesus' death. Docetic Gnosticism held that Jesus was actually a kind of phantom, and only had the appearance of flesh.

THE ARIANS

In the early fourth century, Arius of Alexandria championed the position that though Christ may be called God, he was not true God and in no way equal with God in essence or eternity. Before time was, Christ was created. He, the Logos of God, was the first-born of all creation, and the agent in fashioning the world. In the incarnation, the Logos entered a human body, taking the place of the human spirit. Thus, Christ was neither fully God nor fully man.

THE APPOLARIANS

The Nicean Council did not bring the controversy to an end, for the relation-ship of the two natures of Christ to one another was not clarified. There was a danger of two extremes; on the one hand, the divine nature could so absorb the human that the human would lose its identity, or on the other hand, the Identities of the two natures could be so separate that Christ virtually would he two persons. Apollinaris, taking the former position, argued that Jesus had a true body and animal soul, but not a rational spirit or mind. The Logos filled the place of human intelligence. This view did honor to the deity of Christ, but it had the effect of destroying his full humanity.

THE SABELLIANS

Also known as modalism, is a heresy which states that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are different modes or aspects of one God, rather than Three distinct Persons.

THE NESTORIANS

Nestorius denied the real union of the two natures of Christ into one person, implied a twofold personality. The Logos dwelt in the man Jesus, so that the union between the two natures was somewhat analogous to the indwelling of the Spirit. This endangered the true deity of Christ, since he was from other men in whom God dwelt only by the plenitude of his presence and the absolute control that the divine in Christ exercised over the human.

THE EUTYCHIANS

The Eutychians were led to the opposite extreme from the Nestorians. They held that there were not two natures but only one nature in Christ. All of Christ was divine, even his body. The divine and the human in Christ were mingled into one, which constituted a third nature. The Eutychians were often called Monophysites because they virtually reduced the two natures of Christ to one.

Are there any in the church today that believe in, and teach any of these views?

I am re-reading " Christianity , the First Three Thousand Years " by Diarmaid Macculloch . What a mess Christianity soon become after Paul . I would consider myself Orthodox but what does Jesus consider me ? I grew up reciting the apostles' creed and the Lord's Prayer every Sunday and I believed them ...Only one problem . I was lost .
Some time ago , I saw a group of evangelical pastors /ministers gathered together reading a book called , " Understanding the Trinity " and I thought ..Two Thousand years later and we still don't understand . I try to do truth and since God knows everything about me , the truth is " There is much I don't understand ." ...and orthodoxy never kept Christians from killing one another and hating one another . so what good is it ? When Philip joined the eunuch in the chariot , the question was posed " If thou believe with all thine heart , thou mayest and he answered Him " I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God . " ...and from the gospel of John 10:32 ...for a good work , we do not stone you but for blasphemy for thou being a man , make yourself God. ( Because Jesus called God his Father . )
And what did the eunuch believe about the trinity ? I do not believe that believing in the trinity will save a person . I do believe that striving about words will work more ungodliness and subvert the hearers . I believe that Jesus came forth from God, the Father ..that He was sent and that He was the visible image of the invisible Father . That if we saw Jesus , we saw the Father . Much more than that and it is holy wars all over again .
Obviously there are enough verses to support a multitude of belief systems ...( The Father is greater than I , I can do nothing of myself ...Lord , show us the Father ..I have been with you all this time and you have not seen the Father ? ...Howbeit , not my will but thy will be done . "
Maybe these things were written in order to work humility in us so that God may give us grace ...it does not seem to have always worked , knowing the histories of the "churches " .

Bible Highlighter · Mar 5, 2019

Bible Highlighter · Mar 5, 2019

Heretical Views On The Person of Jesus Christ

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