The third-century heresy known as Arianism (which has views in common today with Unitarians, Unitarian-Universalists, Modalists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Oneness Pentecostals and all other non-Trinitarians) derives its theological origins from Arius of Alexanderia in Egypt (256-336 CE), teaching falsely that Jesus did not pre-exist (contra John 1:1 NLT), but was a created being through whom God created everything else. Hence God is one in Essence and in Person. Kevin J. Conner explains that, in this view, though the Son is called God, Jesus is not really "God in the fullest sense of the word, but was the highest of all created beings. He was divine, but not deity, a demigod half-way between man and God."1 This is flagrant and damnable heresy. Jesus Himself admits that if a person will not recognize Him as the Great I Am then such a person will die in his sins and cannot be saved (John 8:24, 28, 58 CEB, ISV, NABre, NASB 2020, TLV, WYC; cf. Ex. 3:14, 15; John 17:5). This denial of Jesus' Deity / Divinity also betrays the very definition of Divine: having the nature or essence of or being a deity.
CONTRARY EVIDENCE
Though other versions of this heresy exist, the core of this teaching remains the same: Jesus is not eternal and thus part of the Trinity (there is no Trinity), and Jesus is not the divine Son of God, who always existed as God, as explicitly stated "in the very form of God" (Phil. 2:6), with God the Father and with God the Holy Spirit, as Scripture so obviously teaches: "In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God and the Word was God" (John 1:1 NLT). The temptation is to proof-text our way through the internal evidence of the scriptures to prove otherwise; and such a task would not at all be difficult to prove, given that Scripture everywhere explicitly assumes Jesus'
THE AUTHORS
Certainly, so we imagine, the apostle John views Jesus in terms of absolute deity when he writes: "In the beginning was [ην] the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). The Greek verb ην refers to that which is already in existence (cf. John 1:1 NLT). We know from this chapter that the Word refers to Jesus (John 1:1, 4, 7, 8, 14, 16, 17), the Word which puts on flesh and lives among us, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth (John 1:14)--this Person is "God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart [κόλπον], who has made Him known" (John 1:18). Jesus already exists--"In the beginning was the Word"--i.e., the Word is already existing with God the Father in eternity ("with" denoting more than one Person--Person but not more than one God: one God in Three Persons) and that Jesus is counted as being Himself God in God's own Self. That the apostles Peter and Paul view Jesus as deity incarnate should be obvious from any cursory reading of their own statements (Matt. 16:16; John 6:68, 69; Rom. 1:4; Phil. 2:5-11; Col. 1:15-18; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:3, 6, 8). Shall we reject their words and even the testimony of Jesus Himself (God Himself forbid!)? How could we?
If you argue that "beginning" (John 1:1) does not refer back to eternity but to the beginning of the creation of the world (cf. Gen. 1:1) then we will answer you that the prophesied Messiah is known as existing from all eternity--from eternity past to eternity future--and therefore was not created in time. "From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago--from the days of eternity" (Micah 5:2 NASB). Messiah Jesus exists, like Melchizedek, "without father, without mother [whose spiritual origins are not generated by anyone], without genealogy, He has neither beginning of days nor end of life but is like the Son of God, and He remains a priest for all time" (Heb. 7:3 NET, emphasis added; Heb. 7:18, 19, 20, 21). Of the prophesied Messiah, Jesus, God Himself says: "Your throne, O God [God referring to Jesus as God], is forever and ever" (Heb. 1:8). Hence Jesus is, as is His throne admitted by God founded from all realm of eternity past.
When Matthew opens the narrative of the life of Jesus, he identifies Him as the long-awaited Jewish Messiah (Matt. 1:17, 18), who is named Jesus, Ἰησοῦν, a transliteration of the Hebrew name for Joshua (Yeshua), a name which refers to "the LORD [YHWH--the tetragrammaton--the four-lettered Name of God, Yahweh, Creator, Sovereign] is salvation." Matthew then quotes Isaiah: "'Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and they shall name Him Emmanuel,' which means, 'God is with us'" (Matt. 1:23; John 1:1, 14). This is the significance of the incarnation: God, in the form of Jesus, is with us, always, and even to the end (Matt. 28:20). Both is and with are emphasized in order to draw attention to the present indicative nature of the statement: in Jesus, God is and continues to be with us--now, and forever, world without end.3 He is not merely an angel to show us the way to God (Heb. 1:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). Jesus is in nature God, God in flesh, and God (God the Father and God the Holy Spirit) is with us in Jesus. God in Three Persons lives within the believer (John 14:16-23; 15:26).
THE INCARNATION
Why must Jesus be incarnated--come from Heaven and put on flesh--and what significance does the incarnation hold for the Deity / Divinity of Christ? God confirms covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The incarnated Jesus comes to fulfill these covenants: He comes to fulfill the Law, as the Perfect Adam, in a moral and ethical sense; He fulfills the Law also in a typical sense [as a type of Perfect Human]; and He fulfills all that is prophesied of Him in all of the Psalms and in all of the Prophets (cf. Matt. 5:17-20).4 The incarnate Jesus also gives us a revelation of God, as Jesus claims, "Whoever has seen Me has [virtually] seen the Father" (John 14:9), because and to which the author of Hebrews declares, "He [Jesus] is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being" (Heb. 1:3 NRSV).
No mere human or angel can communicate these attributes of God other than the deified and eternal Son Jesus Christ. Kevin Conner writes: The Old Testament saints and prophets gave but "fragmentary revelations of God and were not able to give a full or perfect revelation. Only the Son of God, who was God incarnate, could do this. In Christ God was clothed with the flesh of man. The distinctive revelation of God in the New Testament is that of the Father. Jesus Christ was the fullest and clearest revelation of the Father and Son relationship that God desires the redeemed to come into by the new birth [of the Holy Spirit: Titus 3:5]."5 In order for sinful humans to obtain salvation, they must have a Savior, One who is both human and deity incarnate. The problem with theologies that deny the deity of Jesus is that they do not themselves have, nor can they offer others, a Savior, since the Savior of humanity must be both human (Heb. 2:14) and deity incarnate (Rom. 8:34; 1 Tim. 2:5, 6; Heb. 5:5-10; 9:11-15). No one can deny the deity of Jesus and think that he or she will spend eternity with God or be counted righteous and enter heaven. One's Savior must be both human and divine--deity incarnate: "You will die in your sins [and spend eternity in Hell] if you do not believe that I Am [the Great I Am, LORD, YHWH]" (John 8:24, 28, 58; cf. Exodus 3:14).
JESUS CHRIST SPEAKS
Though Jesus at times confesses His relationship to His Father in deferential terms--i.e., "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28; cf. 10:29)--He not only equates Himself with the Father (John 10:30), but He also allows others to do the same (John 6:69), and to grant Him worship (cf. John 10:28). Jesus speaks, at times, in deferential terms with the Father in denoting His humanity and not in order to betray His eternal deity. If Jesus is not deity incarnate, the divine Son of God, equal with God the Father as well as with God the Holy Spirit, then He is no greater than the most notorious blasphemer in all of world history. Whatever people claim of Him--teacher, moralist, social ethicist, prophet or revolutionary--without His deity Jesus is self-deceived and the greatest deceiver to ever exist, overshadowing even Satan, in terms of pure deception, for He Himself has led us to believe that He is God incarnate, worthy to be our atoning Savior, worthy of all worship as God.
Jesus knows this as well. When charged with blaspheming God by the Jewish leaders, as He makes Himself equal with God (John 10:33; cf. Phil. 2:5-6 NIV; Phil. 2:7, 8, 9, 10, 11), Jesus does not correct His many accusers, He does not qualify His statements, and He does not repent. Robert Morey comments: "When Jesus said [at John 10:30], 'I and the Father, we are One,' the Jews rightly understood that He was saying that He and the Father were one in nature and essence. The Jews logically deduced from this that Jesus was claiming to be God."6 Those who clamor that Jesus never confesses Himself to being God, or to being equal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, are not reading Scripture properly. Once one acknowledges the reaction of those to whom Jesus is speaking, the correct interpretation will follow, that He most certainly claims to be equal in nature with God His Father and with God the Holy Spirit. The Jewish leaders attest to this and Jesus does as well in not correcting them. His silence should speak volumes. But atheists use His silence against Him.
This is repeated at His trial. Quoting Daniel 7:13, Jesus tells the High Priest that He is the long-awaited Messiah, and "You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power [God the Father], and coming with the clouds of heaven" (Mk. 14:62). At this, the high priest "tore his clothes and said, 'Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard His blasphemy! What is your decision?'" (Mk. 14:63). Again, Morey responds by quoting Marcus Dods, "It was blasphemy for a man to claim to be God [or to be equal with God]. And it is noteworthy that Jesus never manifests indignation when charged with making Himself God; yet were He a mere man no one could view this sin with stronger abhorrence."7 Jesus is either Deity or Deceiver. There is no middle ground here. There is, and can only be, one truth: Jesus is God the Son.
CONCLUSION
The Chief Priests are about to have Jesus put to death. Here is Jesus' opportunity to set the record straight--to tell them how He has been misunderstood, and that He never considered Himself to being equal with God, worthy to be worshiped like deity. This He does not do; this He cannot do; for He is--in all reality that no one can rightly deny--the divine Son of God the Father, worthy of worship as deity incarnate, the only Savior for humanity. Who in his right mind would imagine that Jesus is willing to experience the horrors of Roman crucifixion and eternal death for the charge of blaspheming God in making Himself equal with God if He is a mere man? Who would die for that false claim? The notion is inconceivable unless, that is, Jesus is a lunatic--or He really believes Himself to be Messiah, Son of God, deity incarnate. He is, then, either deceived, self-deceived, a deceiver of humanity or divine (Matt. 16:13-18). His miraculous works testify to His divinity (John 14:11), as does His resurrection (John 2:19)--He laid down His own life and He Himself raised it up again (John 10:18).
"All authority has been given to Me in Heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:20). If this is not true then He is a deceiver. If the Person of God the Father alone is Sovereign then this statement proves that Jesus is either a self-deceived liar and a deceiver of all humanity or He is God Incarnate (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23; John 1:1, 2, 3, 14, 18). These are our only options. This confession, that Jesus is the Son of God and God Incarnate, is Christian orthodoxy, rendering Arianism, Unitarianism, Modalism and all other anti-Trinitarian views masquerading as Christian as, in reality, unChristian, anti-Christian, anti-Christ. Trinitarianism is required to be called a redeemed Christian.
__________
1 Kevin J. Conner, The Foundations of Christian Doctrine: A Practical Guide to Christian Belief (Portland: City Christian Publishing, 1980), 156.
2 Ibid., 168.
3 Robert Morey underscores the scriptural tradition of Jesus' incarnation at 1 John 4:1-3 thusly: the perfect participle denotes, as quoted by R.C.H. Lenski, "Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh and remaining so" (emphasis original). For John, the fact of Jesus' incarnation being both fleshly (of human nature) and deity (of divine nature) is of utmost significance--eternally so. For him, if one denies this aspect of Jesus' reality, then that one cannot be saved. See Robert Morey, The Trinity: Evidence and Issues (Iowa Falls: World Bible Publishers, Inc., 1996), 296.
4 Conner, 165.
5 Ibid.
6 Morey, 327.
7 Ibid., 328.
CONTRARY EVIDENCE
Though other versions of this heresy exist, the core of this teaching remains the same: Jesus is not eternal and thus part of the Trinity (there is no Trinity), and Jesus is not the divine Son of God, who always existed as God, as explicitly stated "in the very form of God" (Phil. 2:6), with God the Father and with God the Holy Spirit, as Scripture so obviously teaches: "In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God and the Word was God" (John 1:1 NLT). The temptation is to proof-text our way through the internal evidence of the scriptures to prove otherwise; and such a task would not at all be difficult to prove, given that Scripture everywhere explicitly assumes Jesus'
- existence from eternity past (Matt. 3:11; 10:40; 16:16; Mk. 1:38; Luke 12:49-51; John 1:1-3, 27, 30; 6:33, 38, 41, 50, 51, 57, 58, 62; 8:28, 38, 56-58; 16:26, 28; 17:3-5; Heb. 7:1-4; Rev. 1:8, 11);
- self-existence (John 1:4; 5:21-26; 14:16; Heb. 7:16; 1 John 5:11-12);
- deity (Matt. 1:23; John 1:1, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18; 20:28; Acts 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Phil. 2:5, 6, 7, 11; Col. 1:19; 2:9; 1 Tim. 3:16; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8, 10; 2 Pet. 1:1; 1 John 5:20; Jude 1:25; Rev. 19:13); and
- sovereign attributes (Matt. 8:23-27; Luke 4:35-41; John 2:24-25; 16:30; 17:2; Eph. 1:20-22; Col. 2:3; Heb. 1:3; 1 Pet. 3:22; Rev. 2:23).2
THE AUTHORS
Certainly, so we imagine, the apostle John views Jesus in terms of absolute deity when he writes: "In the beginning was [ην] the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). The Greek verb ην refers to that which is already in existence (cf. John 1:1 NLT). We know from this chapter that the Word refers to Jesus (John 1:1, 4, 7, 8, 14, 16, 17), the Word which puts on flesh and lives among us, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth (John 1:14)--this Person is "God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart [κόλπον], who has made Him known" (John 1:18). Jesus already exists--"In the beginning was the Word"--i.e., the Word is already existing with God the Father in eternity ("with" denoting more than one Person--Person but not more than one God: one God in Three Persons) and that Jesus is counted as being Himself God in God's own Self. That the apostles Peter and Paul view Jesus as deity incarnate should be obvious from any cursory reading of their own statements (Matt. 16:16; John 6:68, 69; Rom. 1:4; Phil. 2:5-11; Col. 1:15-18; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:3, 6, 8). Shall we reject their words and even the testimony of Jesus Himself (God Himself forbid!)? How could we?
If you argue that "beginning" (John 1:1) does not refer back to eternity but to the beginning of the creation of the world (cf. Gen. 1:1) then we will answer you that the prophesied Messiah is known as existing from all eternity--from eternity past to eternity future--and therefore was not created in time. "From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago--from the days of eternity" (Micah 5:2 NASB). Messiah Jesus exists, like Melchizedek, "without father, without mother [whose spiritual origins are not generated by anyone], without genealogy, He has neither beginning of days nor end of life but is like the Son of God, and He remains a priest for all time" (Heb. 7:3 NET, emphasis added; Heb. 7:18, 19, 20, 21). Of the prophesied Messiah, Jesus, God Himself says: "Your throne, O God [God referring to Jesus as God], is forever and ever" (Heb. 1:8). Hence Jesus is, as is His throne admitted by God founded from all realm of eternity past.
When Matthew opens the narrative of the life of Jesus, he identifies Him as the long-awaited Jewish Messiah (Matt. 1:17, 18), who is named Jesus, Ἰησοῦν, a transliteration of the Hebrew name for Joshua (Yeshua), a name which refers to "the LORD [YHWH--the tetragrammaton--the four-lettered Name of God, Yahweh, Creator, Sovereign] is salvation." Matthew then quotes Isaiah: "'Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and they shall name Him Emmanuel,' which means, 'God is with us'" (Matt. 1:23; John 1:1, 14). This is the significance of the incarnation: God, in the form of Jesus, is with us, always, and even to the end (Matt. 28:20). Both is and with are emphasized in order to draw attention to the present indicative nature of the statement: in Jesus, God is and continues to be with us--now, and forever, world without end.3 He is not merely an angel to show us the way to God (Heb. 1:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). Jesus is in nature God, God in flesh, and God (God the Father and God the Holy Spirit) is with us in Jesus. God in Three Persons lives within the believer (John 14:16-23; 15:26).
THE INCARNATION
Why must Jesus be incarnated--come from Heaven and put on flesh--and what significance does the incarnation hold for the Deity / Divinity of Christ? God confirms covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The incarnated Jesus comes to fulfill these covenants: He comes to fulfill the Law, as the Perfect Adam, in a moral and ethical sense; He fulfills the Law also in a typical sense [as a type of Perfect Human]; and He fulfills all that is prophesied of Him in all of the Psalms and in all of the Prophets (cf. Matt. 5:17-20).4 The incarnate Jesus also gives us a revelation of God, as Jesus claims, "Whoever has seen Me has [virtually] seen the Father" (John 14:9), because and to which the author of Hebrews declares, "He [Jesus] is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being" (Heb. 1:3 NRSV).
No mere human or angel can communicate these attributes of God other than the deified and eternal Son Jesus Christ. Kevin Conner writes: The Old Testament saints and prophets gave but "fragmentary revelations of God and were not able to give a full or perfect revelation. Only the Son of God, who was God incarnate, could do this. In Christ God was clothed with the flesh of man. The distinctive revelation of God in the New Testament is that of the Father. Jesus Christ was the fullest and clearest revelation of the Father and Son relationship that God desires the redeemed to come into by the new birth [of the Holy Spirit: Titus 3:5]."5 In order for sinful humans to obtain salvation, they must have a Savior, One who is both human and deity incarnate. The problem with theologies that deny the deity of Jesus is that they do not themselves have, nor can they offer others, a Savior, since the Savior of humanity must be both human (Heb. 2:14) and deity incarnate (Rom. 8:34; 1 Tim. 2:5, 6; Heb. 5:5-10; 9:11-15). No one can deny the deity of Jesus and think that he or she will spend eternity with God or be counted righteous and enter heaven. One's Savior must be both human and divine--deity incarnate: "You will die in your sins [and spend eternity in Hell] if you do not believe that I Am [the Great I Am, LORD, YHWH]" (John 8:24, 28, 58; cf. Exodus 3:14).
JESUS CHRIST SPEAKS
Though Jesus at times confesses His relationship to His Father in deferential terms--i.e., "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28; cf. 10:29)--He not only equates Himself with the Father (John 10:30), but He also allows others to do the same (John 6:69), and to grant Him worship (cf. John 10:28). Jesus speaks, at times, in deferential terms with the Father in denoting His humanity and not in order to betray His eternal deity. If Jesus is not deity incarnate, the divine Son of God, equal with God the Father as well as with God the Holy Spirit, then He is no greater than the most notorious blasphemer in all of world history. Whatever people claim of Him--teacher, moralist, social ethicist, prophet or revolutionary--without His deity Jesus is self-deceived and the greatest deceiver to ever exist, overshadowing even Satan, in terms of pure deception, for He Himself has led us to believe that He is God incarnate, worthy to be our atoning Savior, worthy of all worship as God.
Jesus knows this as well. When charged with blaspheming God by the Jewish leaders, as He makes Himself equal with God (John 10:33; cf. Phil. 2:5-6 NIV; Phil. 2:7, 8, 9, 10, 11), Jesus does not correct His many accusers, He does not qualify His statements, and He does not repent. Robert Morey comments: "When Jesus said [at John 10:30], 'I and the Father, we are One,' the Jews rightly understood that He was saying that He and the Father were one in nature and essence. The Jews logically deduced from this that Jesus was claiming to be God."6 Those who clamor that Jesus never confesses Himself to being God, or to being equal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, are not reading Scripture properly. Once one acknowledges the reaction of those to whom Jesus is speaking, the correct interpretation will follow, that He most certainly claims to be equal in nature with God His Father and with God the Holy Spirit. The Jewish leaders attest to this and Jesus does as well in not correcting them. His silence should speak volumes. But atheists use His silence against Him.
This is repeated at His trial. Quoting Daniel 7:13, Jesus tells the High Priest that He is the long-awaited Messiah, and "You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power [God the Father], and coming with the clouds of heaven" (Mk. 14:62). At this, the high priest "tore his clothes and said, 'Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard His blasphemy! What is your decision?'" (Mk. 14:63). Again, Morey responds by quoting Marcus Dods, "It was blasphemy for a man to claim to be God [or to be equal with God]. And it is noteworthy that Jesus never manifests indignation when charged with making Himself God; yet were He a mere man no one could view this sin with stronger abhorrence."7 Jesus is either Deity or Deceiver. There is no middle ground here. There is, and can only be, one truth: Jesus is God the Son.
CONCLUSION
The Chief Priests are about to have Jesus put to death. Here is Jesus' opportunity to set the record straight--to tell them how He has been misunderstood, and that He never considered Himself to being equal with God, worthy to be worshiped like deity. This He does not do; this He cannot do; for He is--in all reality that no one can rightly deny--the divine Son of God the Father, worthy of worship as deity incarnate, the only Savior for humanity. Who in his right mind would imagine that Jesus is willing to experience the horrors of Roman crucifixion and eternal death for the charge of blaspheming God in making Himself equal with God if He is a mere man? Who would die for that false claim? The notion is inconceivable unless, that is, Jesus is a lunatic--or He really believes Himself to be Messiah, Son of God, deity incarnate. He is, then, either deceived, self-deceived, a deceiver of humanity or divine (Matt. 16:13-18). His miraculous works testify to His divinity (John 14:11), as does His resurrection (John 2:19)--He laid down His own life and He Himself raised it up again (John 10:18).
"All authority has been given to Me in Heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:20). If this is not true then He is a deceiver. If the Person of God the Father alone is Sovereign then this statement proves that Jesus is either a self-deceived liar and a deceiver of all humanity or He is God Incarnate (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23; John 1:1, 2, 3, 14, 18). These are our only options. This confession, that Jesus is the Son of God and God Incarnate, is Christian orthodoxy, rendering Arianism, Unitarianism, Modalism and all other anti-Trinitarian views masquerading as Christian as, in reality, unChristian, anti-Christian, anti-Christ. Trinitarianism is required to be called a redeemed Christian.
__________
1 Kevin J. Conner, The Foundations of Christian Doctrine: A Practical Guide to Christian Belief (Portland: City Christian Publishing, 1980), 156.
2 Ibid., 168.
3 Robert Morey underscores the scriptural tradition of Jesus' incarnation at 1 John 4:1-3 thusly: the perfect participle denotes, as quoted by R.C.H. Lenski, "Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh and remaining so" (emphasis original). For John, the fact of Jesus' incarnation being both fleshly (of human nature) and deity (of divine nature) is of utmost significance--eternally so. For him, if one denies this aspect of Jesus' reality, then that one cannot be saved. See Robert Morey, The Trinity: Evidence and Issues (Iowa Falls: World Bible Publishers, Inc., 1996), 296.
4 Conner, 165.
5 Ibid.
6 Morey, 327.
7 Ibid., 328.
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