Rev. David Holwick Y After Acts: Early Church series #7
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
July 18, 2004
1 Timothy 2:5
ARIANISM - WHAT IS JESUS?
I. A Jesus test.
A. Ancient questions:
1) Could Jesus sin?
2) Did Jesus have a human will?
3) Where was Jesus before he was born?
4) Is Jesus eternal?
5) Is Jesus God, or something less?
B. We've always been trying to figure Jesus out.
1) Gospels - who is Jesus?
a) Conclusion: He is the Messiah, the Son of God.
2) Early church - what is Jesus?
a) Is he God, or man, or both?
b) How ccould he be both at the same time?
II. Arius, a church leader in the Fourth Century.
A. His teaching: Jesus is somewhere between God and man.
1) Supernatural creature.
2) Easier to understand.
3) Defends monotheism (one God).
a) Some thought the Trinity encouraged three gods,
which is polytheism.
B. Politics gives its two cents.
1) Emperor Constantine seemed to have sympathies with Arius.
a) The empire was divided between orthodoxy and Arius.
b) German tribes were largely Arian.
2) The emperor called synods and enforced their conclusions.
a) Losing bishops were exiled.
(at various times, both sides!)
b) Popular novel by Dan Brown, "The Da Vinci Code," makes
the claim that the idea of the Trinity was invented
in the Fourth Century under Constantine.
c) This theory is popular in our universities.
About a decade ago, a former nun named Karen Armstrong
wrote an unlikely bestseller called A History of God.
The book purported to tell readers how modern religions
have "shaped and altered the conception of God."
The book has been turned into a television show -- one
that manages to get some very important questions
very wrong.
The Arts & Entertainment network's presentation of "A
History of God" didn't feature a single evangelical
or conservative Catholic scholar.
Instead, viewers got the story of Christianity from
people famous for their rejection of Christian
orthodoxy - people like Princeton's Elaine Pagels.
Viewers were told that the Christian belief in the
divinity of Christ was something essentially
invented by the fourth-century church.
Viewers were assured that "Jesus never claimed to be
God."
Nor, for that matter, did St. Paul believe in Jesus'
divinity.
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d) Not so. Deity of Jesus was taught in the 2nd century,
from data found in the New Testament.
C. Arianism persists to this day.
1) Jehovah Witnesses and Unitarians accept Arian position.
a) Jesus was created and he is not God.
b) Their options: he was as close to God as a man can get,
or he was a supernatural creature between God and
humans.
2) Critical verse: John 1:1.
a) JW's have to translate it "the Word was [a] god."
1> It is true that "God" does not have a definite
article ("the") in the Greek.
2> The reason is called Colwell's Rule of the Predicate
Nominative.
A> John definitely intended to identify the Word
with God.
B> And in verse 14, he indentifies the Word with
Jesus.
b) The testimony of a rabbi.
Back when Stephen Murray was a seminarian at Yale
Divinity School, he had a discussion with a rabbi.
This rabbi was studying for his Ph.D. in New Testament,
an unusual combination!
The rabbi mused that if Christians had just stuck with
the gospel of Mark, Jews (who are willing to
recognize Jesus as a great teacher) and Muslims (who
recognize Jesus as a great prophet, perhaps second
only to Mohammed) could probably get along with us
Christians a lot better.
His rabbi friend suggested that while Matthew and Luke
pushed the line, John stepped across the line with
impunity by equating Jesus with God.
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III. The church grapples with paradox.
A. More heresies developed concerning Jesus than anything else.
1) Whatever option could be thought up, someone did.
2) Much research and debate was generated.
B. The nature of Jesus must come from the Bible.
1) Problems in accepting Jesus as divine.
a) 1 Timothy 2:5 - is Jesus just a man?
1> He is positioned between God and humans, and is
explicitly called a "man."
b) If Jesus is God, why does he pray to God?
c) If Jesus is God, did God die on the cross?
2) No passages lay out the Trinity succinctly.
a) 1 John 5:7-8 in King James Version:
For there are three that testify in heaven:
the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit,
and these three are one.
And there are three that testify on earth:
the Spirit, the water and the blood;
and the three are in agreement.
1> Only four Greek manuscripts (out of thousands)
have the extra words.
2> Two of them have the words written in the margin.
3> The two that have the words within the main text
are very late: from the 1500s.
4> So don't use this verse with Jehovah's Witnesses.
b) The Trinity and deity of Jesus are supported by a
variety of other verses.
3) Conclusions about Jesus from the New Testament:
a) Jesus himself said, "I and the Father am one."
b) The New Testament assigns to Jesus all the attributes
of God.
-Omniscience: In John 16:30 the apostle John affirms
of Jesus, "Now we can see that you know all things."
-Omnipresence: Jesus said in Matthew 28:20, "Surely I
am with you always, to the very end of the age" and
in Matthew 18:20, "Where two or three come together
in my name, there am I with them."
-Omnipotence: "All authority in heaven and on earth
has been given to me," Jesus said in Matthew 28:18.
-Eternality: John 1:1 declares of Jesus, "In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God."
-Immutability: Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the
same yesterday and today and forever."
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c) Jesus is explicitly declared to be God in John 1:1.
d) He contains the fullness of God in human form. Col 2:9
e) Every knee will bow and acknowledge him as Lord - in
the Old Testament verse behind this, God is the one
acknowledged as Lord.
f) Many verses refer to the Father, the Spirit, and Jesus
together.
g) Individuals like Doubting Thomas refer to Jesus as God.
C. The conclusions of the early Church.
1) Jesus is fully God (=divine), and fully human.
2) He had both a human and divine will and nature.
a) (some groups said his will was only divine.)
3) He is eternal, and existed with his Father before Creation.
a) Several verses say Jesus was the means of creation.
b) Before he was born on earth, he would have been with
his Father in heaven.
4) Could Jesus be really tempted, or sin?
a) In that he was a man, yes. Heb 4:15
b) In that he was God, no.
c) Both are true together.
5) When Jesus died on the cross, God the Son died but God
the Father and God the Holy Spirit did not die.
IV. Leave room for mystery.
A. The human mind cannot fully comprehend Jesus.
1) Daniel Webster's explanation:
Daniel Webster, who lived in the 1700s, was the compiler of
America's most famous dictionary and was known as a
devout Christian.
Webster was asked by some writers if he could comprehend
how Jesus Christ could be both God and man.
"No, sir," he replied, and added, "I should be ashamed to
acknowledge Him as my Savior if I could comprehend Him.
If I could comprehend Him, He could be no greater than
myself.
"Such is my sense of sin, and consciousness of my
inability to save myself, that I feel I need a
superhuman Savior,
one so great and glorious that I cannot comprehend Him."
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2) But this doesn't mean we don't try to confront it.
B. Being fully God and fully human is a paradox.
1) Concept can be believed by faith, but not explained
adequately by the mind.
V. Jesus matters.
A. His deity is often considered an esoteric non-issue.
1) Like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
a) This is actually a significant issue.
Does the supernatural realm take up "space" in our
dimension?
If so, only a set number of angels can fit on a pinhead.
But if they take up no space, and an unlimited number
can fit there, how do they interact with our realm?
2) All the creeds and heresies of the early Church can seem
like they were splitting hairs.
B. Our salvation depends on Jesus.
1) Must be God to be perfect & meet the Father's requirements.
2) Must be man to understand us and feel our pain.
3) Imperfect beliefs about Jesus can affect our salvation.
C. What do you think of Jesus?
1) You don't have to understand him to believe in him.
2) You can know him personally.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#18654 "The Divine Attributes Of Jesus," by Lee Strobel. Found in Dynamic
Preaching newsletter, www.sermons.com, March 6, 2003. Original
source is Strobel's "The Case For Christ" (Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1998), page 169.
#19462 "A History Of God: Who's Got It Right?" BreakPoint Commentary by
Charles Colson, June 26, 2001. Copyright (c) 2001 Prison Fellowship
Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck
Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
#21139 "The Incomprehensible Christ," in the Gerald Rodgers Collection in
the Kerux Database.
#25200 "John Stepped Over The Line," by Rev. Stephen Butler Murray,
Rev. Brett Blair's Illustrations by Email for July 22, 2003,
www.sermonillustrations.com
These and 25,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/illust.html
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