03.05. Christ's Two Forms (Part II)

Chapter 5 - CHRIST’S TWO FORMS (Part II) The “form of God” refers to who Jesus Christ is essentially, and the “form of a servant” points to His assumption of the human nature in the incarnation. Assumption of the human nature may be illustrated by man’s contact with the sun. Should the sun descend to earth absolutely, none could bear its light and heat. Men’s eyes would not be enlightened but blinded by its glory. Furthermore, they would be consumed by the greatness of its heat. God is not only the Light of the world, but He is a consuming fire (1 John 1:5; John 8:12; Hebrews 12:29). If Jesus Christ had not veiled Himself with human nature, man would have been both blinded and consumed by God’s essential glory. However, since He veiled Himself with human nature, man can withstand and benefit from the rays proceeding from the Son of Man’s official and moral glory. What condescension to associate with the misery of the elect by becoming their Kinsman-Redeemer in the form of a servant!

We are not living in a time of orthodoxy but heterodoxy. There are more persons propagating unorthodox than orthodox views about the Person of Christ. The church has never been without conflict concerning the most important principle of the Christian faith, namely, the Person of Jesus Christ. It seems that, in the last of the last days, believers are bombarded not only with a revival of old heresies but also some new ones.

Some of the heresies concerning the Person of Jesus Christ in the first five centuries have been exposed.
(1) The Ebionites (A.D. 107?) denied the reality of Christ’s Divine nature. They believed Jesus Christ was nothing more than a man, and their history can be traced back before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D. The Ebionites could not be classified as Judaic Christians but simply Judaizers within the Christian church.
(2) Docetism (A. D. 70-170) denied the reality of Christ’s human body. This was a pagan philosophy introduced into the church. Docetism comes from the Greek word dokeo which means “to appear, to seem.”
(3) Monarchianism (second and third centuries A. D.) denied the Trinity. It was a form of Unitarianism which emphasized the unity of God by maintaining that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three manifestations or aspects of God. There were two schools of Monarchianism. First, the Dynamic school was represented by Theodetus who denied the incarnation of the Logos and said that Jesus Christ was a mere man. Divine power and wisdom were bestowed upon Christ at His baptism and operated in Him as in no other man. Second, the Modalistic school was represented by Sabellius who accepted the divinity of Christ but denied His independent and preexistent personality. The life of Christ was only a theophany to this school. To this school God was one, and the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit signified no more than different manifestations of the Divine essence. Both schools were condemned by the Synod of Antioch in A. D. 268.
(4) Arianism was a reaction from Sabellianism in the fourth century. Arius denied the Deity of Christ. He taught that Jesus Christ was not consubstantial with the Father. This heresy was condemned in 325 A. D. at Nicea.
(5) In the same century, at Constantinople in 381 A. D., the heresy of Appollinaris was condemned. Appollinarianism denied the completeness of Christ’s human nature. He taught that Christ had no human spirit; He had only a human body and soul. Hence, he taught the Divine Logos assumed not a complete human nature, but was only an irrational human animal.
(6) In the fifth century, Nestorius denied the real union between the Divine and human natures in Christ. He separated the two natures into two persons. He was removed from the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 431 A. D.
(7) Eutychianism was condemned at Chalcedon in 451 A. D. Eutyches denied the distinction and coexistence of Christ’s two natures. He mingled both into one which constituted a third nature different from the original natures. The fourth and fifth centuries revealed the Christological conflict that has not subsided. To summarize the heresies of that period, it may be said Arianism denied the true Godhead of Christ, Apollinarianism denied the true humanity of Christ, Nestorianism denied the unity of the two natures of Christ, and Eutychianism denied the distinction of the two natures of Christ. The heresies of our time are just as blatant, but it must be acknowledged that they are more subtly stated.

During the first five centuries of the Christian church, Christology was a subject of great conflict; but out of that period of controversy came the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A. D. The four Chalcedonian adverbs point out how essential it is to the Person of Christ that one must believe that He possesses both Divine and human natures “without mixture,” “without change,” “without division,” and “without separation.” This formula has dominated the orthodox exegetes to the present day. Hence, Chalcedon has been called the terminal point of Christology. For Christians, however, there is but one terminal point in the study of Christology, and it is given in the words of Christ Himself: “...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” (Matthew 11:27). God manifest in the flesh is both a mystery and a manifestation (1 Timothy 3:16). We must not become so occupied with its mystery that we overlook its manifestation. On the other hand, we must not become so enamored with the manifestation that we fail to understand that it remains a mystery. The Person of Christ is a mystery to the elect. Although they know Him to some degree, they do not know Christ as the Father knows Him. Christ said, “...no man knoweth the Son, but the Father....”

Reaction to the Chalcedonian Christology has been varied. At the end of the eighth century, some Spanish theologians contended there were two modes of sonship in Christ, one natural and the other adoptive. As the Son of Mary, Christ was the adopted son of God; as the second Person in the Trinity, He was the only begotten of the Father. Hence, they believed that Christ as the adopted Son was subordinate, and as the only begotten He was equal with the Father. Adoptionism was a reaction to various monophysite tendencies. A monophysite was one who maintained that Christ has one nature, partly divine and partly human. Scripture does not represent Jesus Christ being adopted as the Son of God as a reward for His faithfully performing a task. The Divine quality of Christ’s work is seen in the fact that He who is David’s Son is also David’s Lord
(Matthew 22:41-46; Luke 20:41-44). Adoptionism was condemned at Regensburg in 792 A. D., Frankfort in 794 A. D., and Aachen in 799 A. D.

History was quiet in her Christological conflict until the sixteenth century. There were two interesting developments in this century. First, there was Martin Luther and his new development of Christology. In his teaching on the two natures, he believed they interpenetrated one another in such a way that the attributes of the Divine nature were communicated to the human. During His earthly ministry, Christ veiled the Divine perfections of His human nature, but they are now manifested in His exaltation. This was a natural corollary that the physical body was considered omnipresent, and the real presence of Christ’s body and blood are in the elements of the Lord’s Supper. Secondly, during this same period, Socinus, an Italian Protestant Reformer (1539-1604), denied the Trinity. He taught that Christ was only a man with no existence before His birth. He taught that Christ was miraculously conceived by the virgin Mary, and He was peccable but sinless. He was baptized by the Spirit and caught up into heaven to be taught of God before He began His public ministry. At His exaltation, Christ was given power and is now worshipped as God. Socinians flourished in Poland until 1658. Socinianism led to the modern Unitarianism.

During the Reformation, great emphasis was placed on the Person and Work of Christ. Some have criticized the reformers for lack of emphasis concerning Christ’s humanity, but such criticism is without foundation. Many strong confessions on the Divine and human natures united in the Person of Christ were made during this period. The spirit of Chalcedon is reflected in the Christological confessions. The Westminster Confession is a good example. It states:
“The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance, and equal with the Father, did, when the fulness of time was come, take upon Him man’s nature, and all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin: being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man.” The eighteenth century was marked by Rationalism. Emmanuel Kant was a rationalistic philosopher. He believed God was inscrutable, and the historical Christ was an ideal set before the mind as the perfect man. Therefore, when the mind had formed the ideal He represented, then He ceased to be the object of veneration. To Kant, Christ was the inward idea of a perfect man. Hence, Christ’s mission was to awaken the dormant God-consciousness in men; and redemption meant the awakening of the God-consciousness, thus elevating them to the level of Christ, the ideal man. In the nineteenth century, there was the emergence of what is called the Kenosis-Christology. Thomasius said, “Kenosis is the exchange of one form of existence for another.” He appealed to Php 2:7 for his Biblical support, and the Kenosis became the point of departure for a new Christological formula. Those who were dissatisfied with dualism went for the view of Thomasius. For the Word to become flesh meant to them that the Godhead was transmuted into humanity. They believed the Kenosis refuted the dualism of the Chalcedon formula. A transition from the form of God to the form of a servant by
self-emptying replaced the union of the two natures. The Kenosis theory continues to be taught in the present century, but there are some modified versions. The twentieth century is marked by the rise of Neo-orthodoxy. It is religious liberalism whose defenders accept nothing as truth but what is acceptable to human reason. This is the age of existentialism. Existentialism is a humanistic philosophy that makes human experience the norm for judging reality. This philosophy denies that Scripture provides the norm for belief or action. To the existentialist, theology must rely on existentialism rather than on Biblical supernaturalism. Man, therefore, is severed from any objective, supernatural support. Theology is turned into anthropology. To the existentialist, God is known in the Word, but he has only a subjective standard for the Word. He talks about demythologization. All mythological attributes must be removed in order to accurately appraise the Word. Thus, he looks through naturalistic eyes as though they would give him Biblical truths. This, however, is in direct contradiction to Scripture: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). There is no inner light or revelation given above that which is written. Subjective revelation is without a standard: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). In closing this lesson, a limited list of heresies concerning the Person of Christ are given to show what the Christian has to battle in these last of the last days:

FIRST-Roman Catholics advocate the Deity of Christ, but they deny His humanity by their doctrine of Mariolatry and the saints. If Christ assumed a human nature, why do they appeal to Mary and to the saints for understanding our infirmities? (See Hebrews 4:15). Furthermore, the Mass completely undermines the work of Calvary (Hebrews 10:10-14).

SECOND-Unitarians deny the Deity of Christ. They believe in the divinity of mankind. They say their differences with the Orthodox Church is not that it made Jesus God but that it stopped there.

THIRD-Christian Scientists teach that “Jesus is the human, and Christ is the divine idea; hence the duality of Jesus Christ....Jesus was the offspring of Mary’s conscious communion with God” (Mary Baker Eddy).

FOURTH-Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that Christ existed as a spirit being before He was made flesh, and was properly known as “a god” -a mighty one. As chief of the angels and next to the Father, He was known as the Archangel-the highest messenger. They teach that Jesus was not a combination of two natures, human and spiritual; that the blending of the two natures produces neither the one nor the other but an imperfect, hybrid thing, which is obnoxious to the divine arrangement.

FIFTH-Mormons believe the Persons of the Trinity are not three Persons in one Being but three separate beings. They believe in a plurality of gods. Furthermore, they believe God was a man and He became god; so men may become gods. They also believe Christ was a polygamist whose wives were Mary, Martha, Mary Magdalene, and the sisters of Lazarus; and the feast in Canaan was the occasion of one of His marriages.

SIXTH-The World Wide Church of God (Herbert W. Armstrong) teaches that Jesus was, in the human flesh, a descendant of David; but in His resurrection He was born again. Armstrong says that Jesus alone of all humans has, so far, been saved. He does not say He was saved from sin, but he does say Jesus was the first to achieve it-to be perfected, finished as a perfect character. Armstrong asserts that no Scripture says that Jesus Christ could not sin.

SEVENTH-The Kenosis-Christology (Christ emptying Himself) has four different views:
(1) The absolute dualistic concept teaches a twofold division of attributes. Christ’s eminent attributes are related to Deity, and His relative attributes are related to humanity. The former are essential to the Godhead and the latter to the physical.
(2) The absolute metamorphic theory believes Christ emptied Himself of all Divine attributes. His eternal consciousness ceased and was gradually regained until He attained again the completeness of Divine life.
(3) The semimetamorphic concept contends the eternal Son in becoming a man underwent not a loss but a disguise of His Deity. He exchanged the eternal manner of being for the temporal manner of being.
(4) The real and relative view teaches the Divine Logos retained His Deity, but He did so within the restricted confines of His human consciousness. The properties of the Divine nature were not present in their infinitude but were changed into properties of human nature.

EIGHTH-The doctrine of peccability has been embraced by many in a large number of religious denominations. This man-made doctrine states that the historical Christ had the capacity to sin.