2nd Person of the Trinity: Jesus Christ, Pt. 3 Christological Controversies & Heresies

Knowing Christ v. Explaining Christ

Saying the word “Christ” must mean something…it is not just an utterance, but a confession. Jesus never asked anyone to explain what they meant, but he did demand that they have faith in what they said.

Jesus is not some get-out-of-jail-free card, but so much more– exactly how much more, well, frankly ALL. And that’s what we must mean when we say it.

Pinning down Jesus, like pinning down the Trinity = tricky business. Human thought lends itself to categorizing and pigeon-holing, which the mystery of the Incarnation is beyond– “My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts.” Isaiah.

+ / - statements

Jesus has TWO natures forever since the Incarnation.

Jesus Christ

True God True Man

The Lineage of Confusion:

Attempts to Assert Divinity at the expense of His humanity.

Attempts to Assert His humanity at the expense of His Divinity

Or attempts to strike a balance in his nature.

THERE IS NO BALANCE IN CHRIST’S NATURE: HE IS 1 PERSON WITH TWO TOTALITIES.

And we take the time to understand these historical errors not because it is fun calling people heretics or pointing out others shortcomings, but because we must be sure what we mean when we answer His question about “Who do you say that I am?” Because we must know not only what we mean, but what we don’t mean.

Gnosticism

1 Century Problem, an immediate following that denied Christ’s Humanity.

They thought too highly in a sense of Jesus that He was really a man. They believe this was revealed to them in secret (gnosis).

Ebionism (1st Cent.): that when the Spirit of Christ rested upon the Man Jesus.

Adoptionsism/Monarchianism (2nd & 3rd Cent.)= Spirit anoints and adopts.

Docetism and Manichaeism (2nd & 3rd Cent): phantom body who acts like in pain

Possession of the Man: Gospel of Peter (3rd Cent).

Modalism

The belief that God assumes different forms over the eternal course of His life.

Jesus, thus, becomes one of those forms.

However this is clearly erroneous on two grounds:

First, God cannot change.

Second, it denies any humanity being Christ, but only a human “form.”

Not Divine & Arianism

2nd & 3rd Century

Belief that Jesus is a Creature. A thing. A form between the human and the divine.

Claims to have proceeded from nothing into something unique and new, and does not share the same substance as the Father– the Divine.

Semi-Ariansism

4th Cent

Similar essence of the Father, but subordinate, to the Father. But this totally misunderstands the divine essence whose existence is substantially the same in each person.

To be ‘subordinate’ might sound attractive when thinking in Father/Son context, but the real problem with semi-Arianism is the SIMILAR ESSENCE is not the same as saying the SAME ESSENCE.

Sparks the Council of Nicea (325): which denies Ariansim by saying Jesus is coeternal with the Father, and of the SAME substance…homoousios versus homoiousios. 1 & 2 Art. Of Nicene Creed

Not Fully Human…

Apollinariansim (4th &5th Cent): Jesus Humanity is absorbed by the divine. He has the appearance of a man, but inwardly simply is not.

Cncl of Const. I 381: Jesus is fully human and has a spirit. Denies publically Apollinarianism.

Nestorianism: The title of the Blessed Mother as theotokos: the Mother of God.

If we say that Jesus is God and Man, can we call Mary the Mother of God.

Nestorian said, “No.” That Mary is the mother of Jesus, who had within him the in-dwelling of the Second Person of the Trinity. It was Jesus who was God-bearing, not Mary. The Jesus that Mary bore was a human substance that contained divine substance. She bore a man who bore divinity. But the man and the divinity were not identical.

Denied by Council of Ephesus, 431): Jesus had two natures—divine and human—united hypostatically in one person. Mary is therefore the Theotokos.

Monophysitism & Mixtures

That the Human and Divine come together and mingle in the person of Jesus creating a new substance that is capable of being a composite, a mixture.

Muddles the hypostatic union.

Council of Chalcedon: 451: reiterates the hypostatic union and says it means God is unmixed, unchanged, undivided, inseperable: TRUE GOD AND TRUE MAN.

Monothelitism (7th Cent):

reductionsim begins…Jesus is human in appearance and inwardly EXCEPT for His lacking a human will.

COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE III: 680-681: Said that Jesus had two wills– a divine and a human will, that were united in the hypostatic union.

COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE II: 553: Jesus is the Second Person of the Trinity, and it is therefore to say of God whatever can be said of Jesus.

TRUE GOD & TRUE MAN WHY, WHY, WHY?! Why must Jesus be this way? Let us first ask ourselves why must Jesus even be to begin with…what did he come for?

TO SAVE US: 1 john 4:10,14: …he sent his son as expiation for our sins…the Father sent his son as savior of the world.

Nicene Creed: “…for us men and for our salvation…”

St. Gregory of Nazianzus: That which was not assumed is not healed; but that which is united to God is saved.

“Jesus” means “God saves,” named this by St. Gabriel in Luke 1:31

“He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still…to the womb…dow to the very roots and sea-bed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him.”

TO KNOW GOD’S LOVE: John 3:16, “For God so loved the World.”

His perfect idea, His own self given up.

MODEL FOR HOLINESS: John 15:12-20 “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends…if the world hates you realize that it hated me first…if they persecuted me, they will also persecute you…”

Matthew 10:38: “Take up the Cross and follow me.”

2 Peter 1:4:

“Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.”

Mixture of water & Wine at Mass, priest prays, “by the mystery of this water joined with the wine, may we come to share in the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, who humbled himself to share our humanity.”

Psalm 82:6 “You are gods,” all of you children of the Most High.

CCC460: The Incarnation makes us partakers of the divine nature.

St. Athanasius: “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”

With Jesus, as Jesus, like Jesus: by first being loved, then loving back, unreservedly.

WHAT IS NOT ASSUMED IS NOT REDEEMED.

Sin affects the whole human person…body & soul, intellect, will, appetites, everything!

If we deny His Humanity: we loose the example of holiness that we as men are capable of; and we deny Jesus can really sympathize with us (and thus he lacks real suffering…)

If we deny His Divinity: we undermine his entire message, and we are left with the perplexing vacancy: who then is the Second Person of the Trinity?