The Bare Essentials

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The Bare Essentials

• Week 4 Christology

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What is Christology

• The Study of the Natures of Jesus Christ
• Humanity
• Deity

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The Mystery of the Messiah Revealed

• John 11
• John 114-15

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The Christological Controversies

• The Docetists
• Jesus appeared to be human but was in actuality
  wholly deity.

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• The basic principle of Docetism was refuted by
  the Apostle John in 1 John 42-3.  "By this you
  know the Spirit of God every spirit that
  confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh
  is from God 3and every spirit that does not
  confess Jesus is not from God and this is the
  spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard
  that it is coming, and now it is already in the
  world."      

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The Christological Controversies

• The Ebionites
• Jesus was human and had the Spirit after his
  baptism, but was not pre-existent.

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The Christological Controversies

• Apollinarianism
• The Divine Logos took the place of the human mind
  in the person of Jesus

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The Christological Controversies

• Arianism
• Jesus was the first and highest of all creation.
  But he was and is not eternal God.

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The Christological Controversies

• Nestorianism
• The being Jesus was made up of two persons
  the human person who was controlled by the divine
  person.

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The Christological Controversies

• Eutychianism
• In Jesus, the human nature was swallowed by the
  divine nature, thus creating a unique third
  nature.

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Modalism
Modalism is probably the most common theological
error concerning the nature of God.  It is a
denial of the Trinity which states that God is a
single person who, throughout biblical history,
has revealed Himself in three consecutive modes,
or forms.  Thus, God is a single person who first
manifested himself in the mode of the Father in
Old Testament times.  At the incarnation, the
mode was the Son.  After Jesus' ascension, the
mode is the Holy Spirit.  These modes are
consecutive and never simultaneous.  In other
words, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
never all exist at the same time, only one after
another.  Modalism denies the distinctiveness of
the three persons in the Trinity even though it
retains the divinity of Christ.     Present day
groups that hold to this error are the United
Pentecostal and United Apostolic Churches.  They
deny the Trinity, teach that the name of God is
Jesus, and require baptism for salvation.  These
modalist churches often accuse Trinitarians of
teaching three gods.  This is not what the
Trinity is.  The correct teaching of the Trinity
is one God in three eternal coexistent persons 
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 
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Jesus' Two Natures

• Jesus is God in human flesh. He is not half God
  and half man. He is fully divine and fully man. 
  That is, Jesus has two distinct natures  divine
  and human.  Jesus is the Word who was God and was
  with God and was made flesh, (John 11,14).  This
  means that in the single person of Jesus is both
  a human and divine nature.  The divine nature was
  not changed.  It was not altered.  He is not
  merely a man who "had God within Him" nor is he a
  man who "manifested the God principle." He is
  God, second person of the Trinity. "The Son is
  the radiance of God's glory and the exact
  representation of his being, sustaining all
  things by his powerful word," (Heb. 13, NIV).
  Jesus' two natures are not "mixed together," nor
  are they combined into a new God-man nature. They
  are separate yet act as a unit in the one person
  of Jesus. This is called the Hypostatic Union.

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   Two natures of Jesus "in action"
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GOD

• He is worshiped (Matt. 22,11 1433).
• He was called God (John 2028 Heb. 18)
• He was called Son of God (Mark 11)
• He is prayed to (Acts 759).
• He is sinless (1 Pet. 222 Heb. 415).
• He knows all things (John 2117).
• He gives eternal life (John 1028).
• All the fullness of deity dwells in Him (Col.
  29).

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MAN

• He worshiped the Father (John 17).
• He was called man (Mark 1539 John 195).
• He was called Son of Man (John 935-37)
• He prayed to the Father (John 17)
• He was tempted (Matt. 41).
• He grew in wisdom (Luke 252).
• He died (Rom. 58).
• He has a body of flesh and bones (Luke 2439).

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Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D)

• Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all
  with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and
  the same
• Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in
  Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and
  truly
• man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and
  body of one substance with the Father as regards
  his
• Godhead, and at the same time of one substance
  with us as regards his manhood like us in all
  respects,
• apart from sin as regards his Godhead, begotten
  of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards
  his manhood
• begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of
  Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer one and the same
• Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in
  two natures, without confusion, without change,
  without
• division, without separation the distinction of
  natures being in no way annulled by the union,
  but rather the
• characteristics of each nature being preserved
  and coming together to form one person and
  subsistence, not
• as parted or separated into two persons, but one
  and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word,
  Lord
• Jesus Christ even as the prophets from earliest
  times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ
  himself
• taught us, and the creed of the fathers has
  handed down to us.