THE DEITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST

Historical Heresies and Biblical Evidence for the Deity of Christ

by Eric Strother

One of the most unique and essential tenets of New Testament Christianity is the certainty of the deity and humanity of Christ. The fact that God condescended to the earth as a man, while simultaneously retaining the characteristics of deity, separates Christianity from every other major world religion. In general terms, other world religions are a function of man reaching up to god(s). Christianity, through the deity and humanity of Christ, uniquely shows God reaching down to man. And yet, not surprisingly, Christ’s deity and humanity has been the source of much confusion and heresy over the centuries. Some believed that Jesus was truly human but not truly God. Others believe He was truly God but not truly human. New Testament Christians believe, as the Bible clearly shows, that Jesus was both truly God and truly man. This article will briefly examine a few of these heresies that have arisen over the past 2000 years and then Biblically prove the deity and humanity of Christ.

Historical Heresies

From the time that Jesus walked the earth, there has been confusion about His true nature and identity. This confusion began during Jesus’ public ministry and is reflected in Jesus’ question to His disciples in Matthew 16:13-14, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (New King James Version). At that time, some believed Jesus was someone other than who He was. Even though these people could see, hear and touch Him, they still did not believe Jesus was God in human form. Therefore, we should not be surprised that after Jesus left the earth, the confusion continued regarding His true nature.

One of the earliest heresies concerning the nature of Christ originated from a group within the church known as the Gnostics. The word Gnostic comes from the Greek word gnosis meaning “to know”. The Gnostics claimed to possess special human knowledge and they believed that only those with this special knowledge would be saved. Basically, Gnosticism is a dualism that pronounces the material world evil and the spiritual world good.¹ Because of this belief, the Gnostics rejected the deity and humanity of Christ. In their view, God is spirit and therefore could not have made a material world. They did, however, believe God created a hierarchy of lesser gods, or “emanations”, which include Jehovah of the Old Testament, Jesus, the angels, and many others, who in turn created the material world.

Gnosticism had many branches, but its’ beliefs regarding the nature of Christ can be separated into two main groups. The first was a group of Judaizing Christians known as the Ebionites who held that Moses was equal in authority to Christ. The Ebionites taught that Jesus was only a man who became the Christ by His perfect observance of the Law of Moses.² As a result, the Ebionites denied the deity of Christ. At the other end of the spectrum were the Docetics. The Docetics taught that Jesus was truly God in the flesh, but He was not really a human being, he only “seemed” to be a man.³ Based on the Gnostic belief that matter is essentially evil, the Docetics believed that Christ was not corrupted with anything of the material world. Therefore, Docetism held that neither the incarnation nor the crucifixion were actual facts, but only the semblance of reality. This led to their belief that Christ did not really suffer on the cross, but rather that He just “seemed” to suffer.

These differing views originated in the late first century, and although they were rejected as heresies, they continued to grow throughout the next 200 years. The Catholic church attempted to address these issues in AD 325 at the Ecumenical Council of Nicea with the statement:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten of his Father, of the substance of thee Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father. By whom all things were made, both which be in heaven and in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and took our nature, and became man; suffered, and rose again the third day; he ascended into heaven, and will come to judge the living and the dead.⁴

The Council concluded that Jesus was both “very God” and “made man”. But Nicea had not adequately answered how this could be so. The issue was addressed again by the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. This Council concluded that Jesus was one person with two natures:

we teach with one voice that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same [Person], that he is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and [human] body consisting, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood . . . This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son [of God] must be confessed in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united], and that without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union⁵

While this confession did not specifically address how Jesus could have both natures at the same time, it did respect both aspects of Jesus’ identity and it stood as the fundamental statement of Christology for both Catholics and Protestants for many centuries.

The Effects of Skepticism

The 18^th century spawned several influential movements that, among other things, brought the nature of Christ again under attack. The individualistic and humanistic climate produced by the Renaissance, the rationalism and individualism of the 18^th century, the historical outlook of the Romantic Movement, and the skepticism of German idealistic philosophy all combined to undermine the Bible as the absolute standard of authority. This, combined with the theory of evolution, when applied to the Bible by analogy, made Christianity nothing more than the product of a system of religious evolution.⁶ Within this, not surprisingly, the Biblical nature of Christ was again the subject of heretical teachings.

The beginning of the skeptical “higher criticism” of the New Testament is usually associated with the name of Hermann S. Reimarus (1694-1778), who taught Oriental languages at Hamburg. In his Fragments (1778) he denied the possibility of Biblical miracles and advanced the idea that the writers of the New Testament with their stories of miracles were pious frauds. Gotthold Lessing (1729-81), who published Reimarus’s Fragments, argued that the Scriptures served man as a guide during the primitive phase of his religious development but that reason and duty were sufficient guides in the more advanced state of religion.⁷ It was Reimarus who also first suggested that the “historical Jesus” was a very different person from “Christ of faith” described in the Gospels (and subsequent human creeds). Liberal scholarship of the last 200 years has largely taken this view, thus again denying the deity and humanity of Christ.

THE BIBLICAL FACTS

Christ as God

The Scriptures clearly teach that Jesus possessed two natures – He was fully God and fully man. Many passages describe Jesus’ divine nature. For example, Isaiah 9:6 states, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” The prophet Micah said, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting” (Mic. 5:2). Psalm 110:1 says, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.’” Jesus later explained in Luke 20:42 that this verse pictures the Father addressing the Christ.

In the New Testament, the apostle John stated, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2). In addition, Jesus spoke and acted like God. For example, Jesus clearly stated in John 10:30, “I and My Father are one.” In Mark 2:5,7, Jesus forgave sins, a prerogative of God alone. In John 9:38, Jesus accepted the worship of men, which is due only to God (Matt. 4:10), and which is refused by good angels (Rev. 22:8-9) and good men (Matt. 4:10).

Later, in John 20:28, when Thomas, one of the disciples, met the resurrected Jesus face to face, Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” Significantly (and appropriately), Jesus accepted Thomas’ designation. In addition, many other passages refer to Christ as God, such as Philippians 2:5ff., 2 Corinthians 4:4, Colossians 1:15, and others.

Christ as Man

Clearly, Jesus was God, yet the scriptures also show that He became man. The apostle John states in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Guy N. Woods notes, “The change in the verb here from that of John 1:1 (was, became) is of immeasurable significance. Here, ‘became’ translates the Greek verb egeneto, an event occurring at a definite point in time; there it is een, ‘was,’ evermore being. He who was eternal became flesh in the incarnation.”⁸

Regarding Jesus’ humanity, the apostle Paul stated that Jesus was made in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3), though without sin (Heb. 4:15). The prophet Isaiah observed that Christ would be “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”, who would grow up “as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground” (Isa. 52:2-3).⁹

The prophets also gave other details of Jesus’ humanity. Prophecy shows that Jesus would to be the seed of woman (Gen. 3:15), and a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David (Gen. 22:18; 26:4; 28:14; 2 Sam. 7:12-13). The New Testament confirms these prophecies, showing that Jesus was born of a woman (Gal. 4:4), and this woman was a virgin (Matt. 1:23). The New Testament genealogies in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 both show Jesus to be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. Further, the New Testament shows that Jesus was able to learn (Heb. 5:8), He experienced hunger (Matt. 4:2), thirst (John 19:28), weariness (John 4:6), anger (Mark 3:5), frustration (Mark 9:19), joy (John 5:11), sadness (John 11:35), and grief (Luke19:41; Heb. 5:7).¹⁰ In all these things, the Hebrew writer stresses that Jesus was “in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). Most importantly, Jesus was able to die (Mark 15:44). Therefore, in every way, He was fully human, which explains why He referred to Himself as the “Son of Man” (Matt. 1:20; 9:6; etc.)

Conclusion

Despite the various heresies that have arisen over the years, the Biblical record clearly shows the dual nature of Christ. We must be sure not to follow the extremes of the early Gnostics and emphasize one part of Christ’s nature to the exclusion of the other. In addition, the errors produced by modern skepticism resulting in a dismissal of Biblical authority in favor of a “historical Jesus” are also to be avoided. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, Christ’s dual nature is clearly shown in many different aspects. While we may not understand completely how one person can be both fully God and fully man, we may confess it confidently, based upon the words of the apostle John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-2,14).