Christological Heresies

The fourth and fifth centuries proved to be critical for the development of the Christian church.  Central to theological debate was the issue of the person of Christ: Who is this Person whom we worship as God?

The Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) defined Christ for all time as "truly man, truly God."  In other words, the Person of Christ was seen as involving one person with two natures, a divine and a human.

On the one hand, the church had to combat the monophysite heresy, and on the other hand, the Nestorian.  The Monophysites believed that Jesus was one person with one nature.  This single nature was neither divine nor human.  It was a blend or mixture of the two.   The confusion of the two natures into one involved a transfer of divine attributes to the human or human attributes to the divine.

The Nestorian heresy, on the other hand, wanted two natures with two distinct personalities.  Here the unity of Christ was separated or divided.

The church rejected Monophysism and Nestorianism as heresies, just as it had rejected the Arian heresy in the fourth century.  The Arian heresy denied the eternal deity of Christ.  In 1965, Professor G.C. Berkhouwer lectured on "The History of Heresy" at the Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.  In that lecture he pointed out the tendency in church history of reactionism to breed heresy; that is, when one heresy emerges, the zeal to combat that heresy often produces another heresy.

For example, when the church was faced with the heresies that denied the true humanity of Jesus, as the Docetic heresy did, the tendency was to so emphasize the humanity of Christ that the deity of Christ was threatened, as in the Arian heresy.  When the deity of Christ was threatened, the reaction was to so emphasize the deity, that the humanity of Christ was threatened, as in the Monophysite heresy.  Reaction tends to breed more reaction.

During the second half of the third century the church was faced with the Sabellian heresy.  Sabellius had a gnostic view of Christ.  He taught that Christ was of the same substance or essence as God but was less than God.  The analogy was like that of the sun and its rays.  The rays that emanate from the sun are of the same essence as the sun but may be distinguished from the sun.  The further the sunbeam extends away from the sun, the more dissipated it becomes.

With the rise of the Arian crisis in the fourth century the situation changed dramatically.  The Sabellian threat had faded and the church was faced with a different heresy.  Arius taught that Jesus was not divine but instead was adopted by God and was merely of like essence with the Father.

To combat the Arian heresy, the Council of Nicea insisted that Jesus and the Father were one in essence, sharing the divine nature.  That view was sustained later and become the classical, orthodox formulation of the Trinity.  Orthodox Christianity affirms that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons but with one essence.

This view of the Trinity has been the orthodox view of all Christian bodies since the fourth century.  It is denied by Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses and also by individuals from time to time.

Another crucial point of orthodoxy has to do with uniqueness of Christ's incarnation (conception and birth).  Christ alone is the God-Man.  His person and work effect marvelous benefit for us.  They secure our redemption.  They are the basis for our receiving the indwelling Holy Spirit.  Christ redeems our humanity but in no way deifies it.  Christ shares His humanity with us, but not His deity.  He does not impart deity to His people.  The Spirit dwells in us and works in us, but that indwelling does not make us gods-incarnate.  

The crass view that salvation imparts some measure of deity to us is a popular conception with many television teachers.  Known historically as the heresy of Apotheosis ("becoming god"), many modern Gnostics appear to think they have found something everybody else has failed to notice.  Evidently, they either do not know or do not care that these flashes of insight have been articulated by heretics from time to time for two thousand years.

Copeland writes:  "Every man who has been born again is an incarnation and Christianity is a miracle.  The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth."

And again:  "God has been reproduced on the inside of you."

This view of Apotheosis is echoed by both Kenneth Hagen and Paul Crouch.  Hagen writes, "This eternal life He came to give us is the nature of God."

Again:  "It is, in reality, God imparting His very nature, substance, and being to one human spirit, then means eternal life, or God's life.  This new kind of life is God's nature."

Hence, Hagen views himself as a God-Man in the same sense as the only eternally begotten son of the Father.  In a televised interview with Kenneth Copeland, Trinity Broadcasting Network's, Paul Crouch made the following comment:

Do you know what else has settled in tonight?  This hue and cry and controversy that has been spawned by the devil to try to bring dissension within the body of Christ that we are gods.  I am a little god.  I have His name.  I am one with Him.  I am in covenant relation.  I am a little god.  Critics be gone!

I am a critic that refuses to be gone.  The heresy of Apotheosis threatens the very essence of Christianity.  Crouch apparently sees orthodox criticisms against this ghastly heresy as being stirred up by Satan.  What seems to be happening here is not a wilful, informed attack on orthodox Christianity.  The heresies of T.V. preachers like Crouch seem to follow more from ignorance than from malice.  Very little evidence of any significant knowledge of either church history or theology is displayed by Copeland, Hagen, Tilton, Crouch, and others.  These men are not scholars.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Not all Christian ministers are called to be technical theologians.  There are other Godly vocations to be pursued than scholarly ones.  What is alarming, however, is the attitude with which these "teachers" assert their novelties, claiming divine authority for charting a new course.  Some of them (Paul Crouch, for example) have been approached charitably and privately by theologians warning of these heresies, but to no avail.

Though neither scholars or theologians, these men have assumed the role of teachers.  Their "classroom" attendance numbers in the millions.  They have become the populous teachers of this generation, perceived by the secular media as the spokespersons of evangelical Christianity.  Yet, though these T.V. preachers, are evangelistic, they are not evangelical.  Evangelical Christianity affirms the Trinity and eschews all forms of Apotheosis.  Those teachers who deny these classical, evangelical and catholic doctrines misrepresent themselves when they call themselves evangelicals.

There is such a thing as heresy.  The tragedy is that it pervades the electronic church, the Faith Movement, and Victory Churches.

-By:   R. C. Sproule

For more information on Victory Churches and the Faith Movement, go to the Reference Library.  Click on any book title to get a brief overview of the book.  All books on the list are available through www.amazon.com. 

A Serious Charge

Heresy.

The word has a chilling ring to it, evoking images of ecclesiastical torture chambers and zealous witch-hunts.  It smacks of intolerance and rigid, unyielding dogmatism.  Indeed, in our relativistic age, the word itself has outlived its function.  Heresy trials are virtually non-existent in the contemporary church.

Historically, the church distinguished between "heresies" and "errors," indicating a difference in degree rather than in kind.  That is, though all heresies are errors, not all errors are elevated to heresy.  That heinous word heresy is reserved for an error of a most severe sort.  All errors of truth matter, but not all errors threaten the very substance of the truth.

Error invades the thinking of every Christian.  None of us is infallible. None of us is omniscient -- not only because we are sinners but because we are creatures -- inherently limited and finite. The finite cannot comprehend the infinite.  Omniscience is a divine attribute.  God does not impart it to us.  We concur with the adage "to err is human."

Our error, however, is not limited to our human boundaries of finite limitations as human beings.  Errors are also a real and often deadly result of our sin.  We wonder, for example, why there are so many diverse views as to what the Bible teaches.  God is neither the author of confusion nor of error.  The fault does not lie with Him or with the Bible, but with us.  We are the ones who are guilty of distorting what the Bible teaches.  To distort the Word of God is no small matter.  It does violence to the very Author and Spirit of truth.


For more information on Victory Churches and the Faith Movement, go to the Reference Library.  Click on any book title to get a brief overview of the book.  All books on the list are available through www.amazon.com. 

Satan's Ten Most Believable Lies by Dave Breese

From the Introduction

There is a form of satanic activity that is more deadly than witchcraft. Serious damage has been done in naive personalities because of overt spiritualist activity, but far greater havoc has been wrought by another kind of satanism, the covert production and propagation of false doctrine. The enemy has produced a significant triumph when he can spread in our society a broad set of false views about God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, sin, the purpose of life, and other imperative parts of Christian doctrine. For every one person who is subverted by Satan worship, thousands are enmeshed in Satan's more deadly trap: doctrinal error. People who are otherwise perfectly rational, who would not dream of attending a seance, are, nevertheless, the more thoroughly undermined simply because they believe the wrong thing.

Satan's trafficking in false doctrine is more dangerous than spiritism. Few inquiries could then be more helpful than to examine the doctrines of Satan in the hope of deliverance from his mind-destroying theology.

From the Back Cover

Satanic activity on earth takes many forms. His overt activities -- witchcraft, sorcery, and related occult practices -- are well-known in many circles. But more devastating may be his covert attacks on unsuspecting victims. While Satan's public activity has deceived millions, he has led astray other millions with false doctrine.

Satan's Ten Most Believable Lies describes ten of the enemy's false doctrines. Each chapter defines a satanic lie and compares it to the truth found in Scripture. Learn to avoid falling into the pit of deception, as well as how to fight each lie. Author Dave Breese reveals the truth about these ten satanic lies:

• God Is a Cosmic Sadist
• God Is a Liar
• Man Is God's Slave
• Man Serves God Only for Human Rewards
• Adversity Results in Turning from God
• This Life Is Everything
• God Is a Magician Working Miracles on Demand
• God's Promises Are for Our Worldly Profit
• Satan's Way Is the Best Way
• God Has No Purpose for Your Life

Active, strong resistance is the way to defeat Satan. Strengthen your faith and put on the armour of God to resist the pervading influence of false doctrine from the prince of darkness.

From Chapter 12 - The Question That Remains

...while evangelical Christianity has grown commendably in these years, it still possesses a major problem, spiritual vulnerability. Dozens of well-promoted cults and sects are experiencing a field day, in that they are able to beguile thousands of immature and naive Christians into their simplistic and pseudo-authoritarian religions. Spiritual carnage has resulted in the lives of multiplied thousands of babes in Christ, for want of a development in the use of the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. They have been subverted by Satan into sweet-sounding but false religions, only because of their lack of biblical knowledge.

Indeed, this is becoming a most serious problem within the church. Ours has been a generation of evangelism...today's media have made it possible for the eternal message to be brought to major segments of the population of the world...the problem is that the wide dissemination of seed sowing evangelism has been but fractionally matched by an equally wide teaching of sound, biblical doctrine. The consequence is that among the masses who claim to know Christ, there are relative few who are able to give a reason for the hope that is in them.

The presence of spiritual quickening along with the absence of strong doctrine has created the great problem in the church of our present age, cultic vulnerability. Like the Galatians, who began well in the faith but soon became re-enslaved to the law of Moses, Christians today are in danger of being victimized by one of the many clever systems that claim to be the full or the complete version of Christianity. Only a solid program of Bible study can prevent the spiritually naive from being beguiled away from the simplicity that is in Christ...

In whatever circumstances, the Christian watches and prays, for he knows that he is being relentlessly stalked by Satan, his determined foe. Transforming himself into a roaring lion, an angel of light, a grievous wolf, or even a loving friend, his enemy is the fateful hunter so long as this human life shall last -- which is not forever. We are taught that the day is coming in which Satan and his cohorts shall be cast into the lake of fire, forever banished from the presence of God and from the possibility of plaguing the steps of the Christian...

This book may be purchased at www.amazon.com.

Where Are They Now?

It seems a mounting number of evangelical Christian congregations are increasingly concerned over the disappearance from their midst of whole families who have slipped away from the faith into an unheard-of religion. "What strange new cults are assaulting the minds of people?"

A cult is a religious perversion. It is a belief and practice in the world of religion which calls for devotion to a religious view or leader centered in false doctrine. It is an organized heresy.

A cult may take many forms but it is basically a religious movement which distorts or warps orthodox faith to the point where truth becomes perverted into a lie. A cult is impossible to define except against the absolute standard of the teaching of Holy Scripture. When contrasted to biblical truth, a cult is seen to have distinguishing marks by which it can be labelled as being fatally sub-Christian.

There is no question but that one of the most interesting and dangerous developments of our time is the rise of aberrative religions. The promoters of old and new cults are active and their works are growing as never before. Emboldened by easy successes, they have been able to capture new multitudes of followers.

The result is that millions of simple souls are being beguiled into following religious notions that are nothing but false and Satanic cults. The old cults are experiencing a remarkable resurgence, and curious new "faiths" are spawning in profusion.

1 Timonthy 4:1 "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times, some shall depart from the Faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils."