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Topic: already a 370s A.D. question: in what way was Jesus Christ both divine and human?
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Primoa1970
Advanced Member
Member # 1016
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posted
Nice posts, Eden....
Now if we could only get our Jehovah's Witnesses folks to believe all of this....
Of course, it's the Holy Spirit of God who must enlighten them to the truth....we could argue until we're blue in the face (which I've done, by the way...although it was more of a shade of tope)
but ultimately....God is the one who reveals truth.
God bless....
-Primo
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1 John 1
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Posts: 639 | From: Orlando, FL | Registered: Feb 2003
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Eden
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The clearest picture of Arian beliefs on the nature of the Trinity: God the Father ("unbegotten"), always existing, was separate from the lesser Jesus Christ ("only-begotten"), born before time began and creator of the world. The Father, working through the Son, created the Holy Spirit, who was subservient to the Son as the Son was to the Father. The Father was seen as "the only true God." I Corinthians 8:5-6 was cited as proof text:
"Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth — as in fact there are many gods and many lords — yet for us there is one God (theos), the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord (kyrios), Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist." (NRSV)
The Nicene Creed's central term, used to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son, is homoousios, meaning "of the same substance" or "of one being".
After Constantine's death in 337, open dispute resumed again. As debates raged in an attempt to come up with a new formula, three camps evolved among the opponents of the Nicene creed.
The first group mainly opposed the Nicene terminology and preferred the term homoiousios (alike in substance) to the Nicene homoousios, and accepted the equality and coeternality of the persons of the Trinity.
The second group in large part followed Arius' teachings and, in another attempted compromise wording, described the Son as being like (homoios) the Father.
A third group explicitly agreed with Arius and described the Son as unlike (anhomoios) the Father.
Eden
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Eden
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in the 370s A.D. this already became a question: "in what way was Jesus Christ both divine and human?"
That very question began the heresy of Arius (or the Arian heresy), who claimed that the second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, was not really God in the same sense that the Father was God.
But the problem with that is that, if God the Son was not really divine in the same way as the Father was God, then what of Jesus's redemptive sacrifice?
Or conversely, if Jesus was only a creature, how could He have risen into the air at Bethany by the mount of Olives until He disappeared from sight into the clouds?
If He was merely a creature, how could He have risen from the dead on the third day?
This is an important question, "In what way was Jesus Christ both divine and human?"
The council of Constantinople of 381 A.D. gathered to decide the matter. And out of that council came the famous homoöusion to describe the relation of God the Son to God the Father, namely, of one substance {with the Father}.
Eden
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