Doctrines of Christ Throughout History
The dual nature of Christ has been viewed in many different ways throughout church history. I will discuss these various views in a brief and general way. For the sake of reference and further study, I have included in parentheses various historical names associated with these beliefs. For more on these terms and doctrines, see any good work on the history of dogma, especially the history of trinitarianism and Christology.
Some believe that Jesus was only a man who was greatly anointed and used by the Spirit (Ebionitism; see also Unitarianism). This erroneous view completely ignores His Spirit nature. Others have said that Jesus was a spirit being only (Docetism—a doctrine in Gnosticism). This view ignores His human nature. John wrote that those who deny that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh are not of God but have an antichrist spirit (I John 4:2-3).
Even among those who believe in the dual nature of Jesus Christ, there are many erroneous beliefs. Some have tried to distinguish between Jesus and Christ, saying that Christ was a divine being who temporarily dwelt in Jesus beginning at His baptism but withdrew from the man Jesus just before death (Cerinthianism— a doctrine in Gnosticism). In a similar vein, some say Jesus was a man who became God only at some point in His adult life—such as at His baptism—as a result of an adoptive act by God (Dynamic Monarchianism, Adoptionism). In other words, this view contends that Jesus was a human who was eventually deified. Others regard Jesus as a created deity, a deity like the Father but inferior to the Father in deity, or a demigod (Arianism). Then, some believe that Jesus is of the same essence as the Father, yet not the Father but subordinate to the Father in deity (Subordinationism).
Jesus is fully God (as demonstrated by Colossians 2:9) and that Jesus was fully God from the beginning of His human existence (as demonstrated by the virgin birth and Luke 1:35).
The Spirit inspired John and Paul to refute many of these erroneous doctrines, particularly the Gnostic beliefs that Christ was a spirit being only and that Christ was a being inferior to the supreme God. Among other things, Gnostics believed that all matter was evil. Therefore, they reasoned, Christ as a divine spirit could not have had a real human body. Since they held that the supreme God was so transcendent and holy that He could not make direct contact with the evil world of matter, they taught that from God came a series of emanations, one of whom was the spirit-being Christ, who came to this world. Of course, the Book of Colossians refutes these doctrines and establishes that Jesus is the Almighty God in the flesh.
While the Bible is clear in emphasizing both the full deity and full humanity of Jesus, it does not describe in detail how these two natures are united in the one person of Jesus Christ. This, too, has been the subject of much speculation and debate. Perhaps there is room for divergent views on this issue since the Bible does not treat it directly. Indeed, if there is to be any mystery about the Godhead, it will be in determining precisely how God manifested Himself in flesh. (See I Timothy 3:16.) The study of the nature or natures of Christ is called Christology.
One way to explain the human and divine in Christ is to say He was God living in a human house. In other words, He had two distinct natures unified not in substance but only in purpose, action, and appearance (Nestorianism). This view implies that Christ is divided into two persons and that the human person could have existed in the absence of the divine. The Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 condemned Nestorius’s view as heresy.
Many theologians, however, including Martin Luther, have thought that Nestorius, the chief exponent of this doctrine, did not really believe in such a drastic separation but that opponents distorted and misrepresented his views. Apparently, he denied that he divided Christ into two persons. The main concern Nestorius expressed was this: he wanted to so differentiate between the two natures of Christ that no one could call Mary the mother of God, which was a popular practice in his day.
Another Christological view holds that the human and divine aspects of Christ were so intermingled that there was really only one dominant nature, and it was divine (Monophysitism). A similar belief is that Jesus did not have two wills but only a divine-human will (Monothelitism). Others believe that Jesus had an incomplete human nature (Apollinarianism); that is, Jesus had a human body but instead of a human spirit He had only the Spirit of God dwelling in Him. Other ways to state this belief are that Jesus was a human body animated solely by the Spirit of God, or that Jesus did not have a human mind but only the divine mind (the Logos).
On the one hand we have a view that emphasizes the separation between the two natures of Christ. On the other hand, we have several views that describe one totally dominant divine nature, a totally unified nature, or an incomplete human nature.
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