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. 

Beyond Christianity

We are living in a day when many are trying to move beyond Christianity.

The word "beyond" has a certain appeal. Something that is forever fixed and changeless in the minds of some seems to be stodgy and undynamic. Things must forever progress in order to avoid boredom. We demand new fascinations to feed our ever-shortening spans of interest.

This demand for new fascinations has led many to try to move beyond the faith once delivered to the saints to something newer (and therefore presumably truer) and more exciting. Wise words that apply in this situation are "if it's new, it isn't true; and if it's true, it isn't new."

Christianity should not be thought of as a stone wall behind which we cannot get. It is rather the highest mountain-top beyond which it is downhill no matter which way one goes. There is nothing greater, nothing higher, and certainly nothing more magnificient than the mountain-top of divine revelation in Scripture and in Jesus Christ. To move beyond that mountain-top in the pursuit of something better is to lose ones self in the crags and crevices of the slopes that fall away from real Christianity. Beyond the crevices of heresy are the fever swamps of the cults, where the serpents and the scorpions wait.

Beyond Christianity is death, hopelessness, darkness, and heresy. (David Breese)

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."