The Slippery areas
As a human, we are too over smart and quicker to project our
understanding rather than being understood from what we have been revealed and
taught. Trinity, theophany, incarnation and Hypostatic Union are more cautious
areas for our smart mind.
As Christianity spread in the early decades of the church,
it encountered competing views of God in paganism. And it wrestled with false
teachings that assaulted the church from within.[i]
Let us be aware in these areas:
ü
If we think that Jesus is Son of God and hence,
he is also God, it can suffer tritheism heresy.
ü
If we think Jesus is Son of God in sense of
lesser than God in essence, we commit subbordinism heresy.
ü
If we think Jesus is Son of God just as we are
sons and daughters of God then we totally miss Jesus' identity and his unique
relationship with Father.
ü
If we think Jesus is God but in NT he came as
Son of God, this opens the gate of Modalism.
ü
If we think its meaning is related with sexual
union, we are light years far away from the Biblical ground.
Next, for a faith like Islam, there is no concept of
incarnation. Jesus is highlighted as one of many prophets but not Son of God.
For core Buddhism, there is no place for divine being, no Savior (and even if
it is, the category simply is agnosticism). They cannot even digest the
incarnation concept.
Common objections can be heard like:
1.
Incarnation compromises God’s nature,
2.
God cannot take upon a body of fallen human
nature because he is holy,
3.
Humanity did mistake, they need to pay for it.
4.
Incarnation makes worship of embodiment valid
rather than God,
5.
God, an infinite being, cannot be a man who is
finite being,
6.
The eternal one cannot be temporal,
7.
The creator cannot be created being,
8.
Why didn’t God the Father and God the Holy
Spirit incarnate?
9.
Incarnation
makes no sense if God is omnipresent.
10. If
God is on the earth, who is then running the universe?
These are few general objections that flows against the
doctrine of incarnation. The question attacks over God’s nature.
Next, what about cults within alleged counterfeit Christian
communities and churches? There are several heresies on incarnation within counterfeit
Christians and many believers are misled into them[ii].
1.
Arianism: It is denial of true deity of Jesus
Christ proposed by Arius (ca. 250-336). According to him, Jesus was the first
and greatest creation of God. Jesus was of “like substance” (Greek:
homoiousios) with the Father but not the “same substance” (Greek: homoousios). Proverb
8:22 served his argument as core milestone but failed to realize it speaks
typologically of Christ as God’s wisdom. This view predominated until refuted
by Athanasius and Council of Nicea (A.D. 325). Meanwhile, JW today propagates a
similar kind of view using re-projection of verse such as John 1:1-3, 4:6,
14:28; Col. 1:15, 18, Matthew 24:36; Romans 8:29; etc. This heresy prevents
worship of Jesus, praying in his name and ending his Savior game.
2.
Docetism: Opposite to Arianism, it denies Jesus’
true humanity by teaching he only appeared to be human. The root Greek word
‘Dokeo’ means ‘to seem’. This means to say Jesus had phantom-like body. This
was early form of Gnosticism. It focused that spirit is good while matter is
evil. Today, divorcing Historical Jesus from Christ of faith is in ditch of
this heresy. This heresy makes Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection tasteless
or illusion i.e. we have no salvation but countered by 1 John 4:1-3 and 2 John
1:7. Jesus even allowed skeptic Thomas to touch him and ensure his physical
body. Early church Fathers such as Ignatius of Antioch (c. AD 35-107) fought
against it. This heresy prevents Jesus from being a Savior and a Mediator.
3.
Apollinarianism: Propounded by Apollinaris, a
fourth-century bishop of Laodicea, it states Jesus had human body but a divine
soul or mind. The misconception rises when we fail to understand Jesus’
humanity and try to preserve his divinity on one side because he thought Jesus
must have sinned as a human and a sinful nature cannot share the same body with
divine. Hence, Logos of God replaced Jesus’ human mind with God’s. Thus, fully
humanity of Jesus is rejected here. In another sense, Jesus was neither fully
God nor fully human i.e. divine and human couldn’t co-exist in a same person. He
fought against Arius but he put together divine nature with a human body
generating an alloy of God and Man. The First Council of Constantinople (A.D.
381) condemned it. Few scholars are closer to this position stating divine mind
inhabits human Jesus. This heresy is so much closer to Avatar concept or for
instance, Christ Consciousness kind of belief promoted by ISCKON. Jesus cannot
be a Savior and a mediator in this scenario and this heresy cancels out the
atonement that he provided. John 1:14, Col. 2:9, 1 John 4:1-3, 2 John 1:7, Phil.
2:5-11, etc. refutes this heresy.
4.
Nestorianism: Nestorius, a 5th
century theologian, made Christ two separate persons: Jesus the God and Jesus
the Man. It provides two natures but disunity in person of Jesus who has always
been one. He saw the union of Christ’s two natures as moral, or sympathetic,
rather than as a real, personal union. The Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431)
condemned this as heresy.
5.
Eutychianism: Eutychius was a fifth century
theologian who responded to Nestorius, and conceived of Christ’s incarnation as
mixture of divine and human i.e. only one nature. This is closer to concept of
Superman: half God and half Man. This is to say Jesus was a mutant like Superman
or modern DC and MARVEL superhero characters, a new form of God. For a better
understanding, Hindu avatar Narashimha can be taken or any mythological
creatures. Eutyches said that Jesus’ humanity was essentially dissolved or
obliterated by His divine nature, describing it as being “dissolved like a drop
of honey in the sea.” It’s like a drop of ink put into a glass of water and the
result is a mixture that is not pure water or pure ink but a third substance, a
mixture of the two in which both the ink and water are changed in some way. The
Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) and the Third Council of Constantinople (A.D.
680) condemned this view as heretical. Had Jesus not been truly and fully man,
then He could not have been a true substitute for humanity; had He not been
truly and fully God, then His death could not have atoned for our sins.
There can be more salt to this list. A brief list from https://carm.org/heresies/ are enlisted
as:
Adoptionism: God granted Jesus powers and then adopted him
as a Son
Albigenses: Reincarnation and two gods: one good and other
evil
Apollinarianism: Jesus’ divine will is overshadowed and
replaced the human
Arianism: Jesus was a lesser, created being
Cerinthianism: “The Christ” came upon Jesus at baptism, left
before the crucifixion
Docetism: Jesus was divine but only seemed to be human.
Donatism: Validity of sacraments depends on the character of
the minister
Eutychianism: Jesus’ finite human nature is swallowed up in
His infinite divine nature
Gnosticism: Dualism of good and bad and special knowledge
for salvation
Kenosis: Jesus gave up some divine attributes while on earth
Marcionism: An evil God of the O.T., good God of the N.T.
11, books in the Canon
Monarchianism: God is one person
Monophysitism: Jesus had only one nature: divine
Nestorianism: Jesus was two persons
Patripassionism: The Father suffered on the cross
Socinianism: Denial of the Trinity. Jesus is a deified man
Subordinationism: The Son is lesser than the Father in
essence and or attributes
Tritheism: The Trinity is really three separate Gods
Now relax and don’t bang your head on wall. When we observe
all these heresies, the only cause is fallen attempts to understand Christ’s
nature and incarnation using human intelligence. You can analyze yourself, even
today we may have some pinch of salt from any of these heresies. We can see how
human intellectual struggle to understand God’s interaction with this world.
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