[Angel Christology][Flesh Christology][Word-Flesh Christology][Modalistic Monarchianism] [Economic Trinitatianism][Dynamic Monarchianism] [Arianism][Athanasian Trinitarianism][Summary]

The figure of Jesus Christ is the most important in all human history.  The counting of time literally is determined by his birth; there is an epoch before Christ "B.C." and "The Year of Our Lord - A.D."  Images of Christ have comforted, provoked, and sustained countless millions of people for the last two millennia.  Still, there is little understanding as to the identity of Christ.  Most Christians would believe that He is the Son of God who saved us from our sins, but there remains considerable diversity of opinion as to the exact relationship of Christ to God the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Since there is diversity of opinion among churches regarding this relationship, there certainly is confusion among individual church members.  Most members have a false understanding as to the doctrine of the Trinity - or if asked to explain this doctrine simply could not.  It is sometimes difficult for the ordinary person to obtain an objective description of their beliefs and so they remain confused as to the identity of their Savior.  Certainly, there are many different views; we will here try to identify some of these views along with their historical context to understand other's beliefs.

Christ referred to himself most often as "Son of Man" (John 12:343); a term probably taken from Daniel 7.  This figure in Daniel's prophecy receives a kingdom but only after much tribulation and suffering.  However, the "son of man" is eventually vindicated and glorified through this suffering.  Similarly, Christ, the Son of Man, identified himself with this figure, and had to suffer and die before going back to God the Father in glory with the angels.  Christ was more than just a man certainly - for He was the Messiah of God (John 1:41).  The idea of "Messiah" has strong political overtones, particularly in ancient Israel under Roman captivity.  Many ordinary Jews viewed their Messiah as a apocalyptic figure who would free them from the Romans and lead them back to their lost prior glory.  The men and women who more closely interacted with Christ were all profoundly changed by this relationship.  When Christ rose from the dead, they also received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, an experience shared by all who identified themselves with Christ and who chose to follow Him in discipleship.  They came to understand that Christ was more than just a man, as he alone lived a sinless life and was intertwined with the very power of God.  He was able to produce miracles, heal the sick and cure the lame.  However, it was the nature of this relationship with God that has come to be so challenging to believers throughout the intervening years.  Some view Christ as totally separate from God - a separate being with separate free will and existence, while others view Christ as the same as the Father so that they are merely different manifestations of the same entity.  We will now examine some of these beliefs and how they influence historical Christianity.

The New Testament Christology tells us that Jesus was uniquely "from God" and was at the same time fully human - born one of us.  It was through this identity with humanity that His sacrifice becomes a sacrifice for us, and yet it was through His identity with the Father that this sacrifice has any merit.  Yet, apart from the news of Christ's divine origins and unqualified humanity there is little more revealed leaving considerable reflection.

Angel Christology

It is difficult for most evangelical Christians to believe, but there has been a vast literature on the possibility that Jesus Christ was an angel.  Perhaps the hypothesis that Christ was an angel from heaven might arise from the pictoral ideology of Christ being seen in the heavens being surrounded by Angels.  The Greek text of Isaiah 9:6 furthermore identifies the Messiah as "the angel of great counsel."  Traces of this christology might be found in a second century Christian book (which never became canonized) called The Shepherd of Hermas.  One passage identifies Christ with Michael the archangel.  Certainly, this identity did not become part of historical Christology, although some would use the term "angel" in a more generic sense to identify Christ as a heavenly messenger from God, but not as a way to describe Christ's nature.

Flesh Christology

Another means to describe the unique combination of divinity and humanity rests upon a distinction between "flesh" and "spirit."  For example, 2 Clement - one of the earliest surviving sermons - tells us that "we ought so to think of Jesus Christ, as of God, as of the Judge of quick and dead ... If Christ the Lord who saved us, being first spirit, then became flesh, and so called us, in like manner also shall we in this flesh receive our reward."  Similarly, The Shepherd of Hermas notes "the Holy Spirit that spake with you in the form of the Church ... for that Spirit is the Son of God."

"The holy, pre-existent Spirit, that created every creature, God made to dwell in flesh, which He chose.  The flesh, accordingly, in which the Holy Spirit dwelt, was nobly subject to that Spirit, walking religiously and chastely, in no respect defiling the Spirit; and accordingly, after living excellently and purely, and after labouring and co-operating with the Spirit, and having in everything acted vigorously and courageously along with the Holy Spirit, He assumed it as a partner with it.  For this conduct of the flesh pleased Him, because it was not defiled on the earth while having the Holy Spirit.  He took, therefore, as fellow-councilors His Son and the glorious angels, in order that this flesh, which had been subject to the body without a fault, might have some place of tabernacle, and that it might not appear that the reward [of its servitude had been lost], for the flesh that has been found without spot or defilement, in which the Holy Spirit dwelt [will receive a reward]." (Sim. 6:5).

Word-Flesh Christology

During the second century, Christianity was experiencing significant growth despite severe persecution, taking it from the confines of Palestine into the then known world.  The tenants of Christianity were being translated into the Greek language - the language of the learned Gentile - so that it could be understood by the learned philosopher as well as by the pagan.  Thus, Christian doctrines were being systematized, and treated in a sophisticated way.  The writers who were accomplishing this translation are called the Apologists.

The Apologists sought to explain the relationship between God and Christ by appealing to the imagery of the Word or Rational Principles.  In this relationship, the Apologists distinguished between the immanent Word (logos endiathetos) and the expressed Word (logos prophorikos).  Thus, they would nearly differentiate between two stages in the existence of the Word; first existing within God (immanent) and then as a distinct person who had been begotten (not created) by God (expressed).  Theophilus of Antioch writes, for example, that "God, then, having His own Word internal within His own bowels, begat him, emitting him along with His own wisdom before all things" (Autol. 2.10) and also of "the Word that always exists, residing within the heart of God.  For before anything came into being He had him as a counselor, being His own mind and thought.  But when God wished to make all that He determined on, He begat His Word, uttered, the first-born of all creation, not Himself being emptied of the Word, but having begotten Reason, and always conversing with His Reason."

These concepts formalized in a more precise way a "Word-flesh" Christology.  Justin Martyr seems to have believed that the Word took the place of the rational soul in Jesus.  Additionally, Martyr believed that even before the advent of Christ, men had within their souls the seeds of that Reason within them; therefore, fragments of the truth could be reached by even pagans.  Justin claimed that the philosopher Socrates was a Christian, and that many of the Greek philosophers copied ideas from the books of Moses.

The Word of God was more fully revealed in the personhood of Christ.  The Word was required for man to be drawn to God as Justin believed, like the Middle platonists of his day, that God was completely transcendent and beyond comprehension.

Justin advanced three arguments that the Word was distinct from the Father.  First, while the Old Testament consistently described God as appearing to men such as Abraham, it was incredible that the "master and Father of all things should have abandoned all supercelestial affairs and made Himself visible in a minute corner of the world"; therefore, "below the creator of all things, there is Another Who is, and is called, God and Lord" (Trypho 60.2, 56.4).  Second, texts such as Genesis 1:26 ("Let us make man in our own image") implies that God talked with a fellow being (62.2).  Thirs, Justin compared the Word to the Wisdom figure, an agent of creation who was distinct from God (so it was understood).  His description of the Word is well put in his Dialogue with Trypho,

"God begat before all creatures a Beginning, [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos [Word} ... For He can be called by all these names, since He ministers to the Father's will, and since He was begotten of the Father by an act of will; just as we see happening among ourselves: for when we give out some word, we beget the word; yet not by abscission, so as to lessen the word [which remains] in us, when we give it out; and just as we see happening in the case of a fire, which is not lessened when it has kindled [another], but remains the same; and that which has been kindled by it likewise appears to exist by itself, not diminishing that from which it was kindled." (Chapter 61).

Modalistic Monarchianism

Throughout this discussion, Christian writers were so occupied with discussing the identity and role of the Son that relatively little attention was given to the role of the Holy Spirit, or to the interrelationships between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Theophilus first used the word "trinity" when he wrote "of the trinity of God, and His Word, and His wisdom" (Austol. 2.15).  However, the first Apologist to wrestle with the concept of the Trinity was the rather uninfluential Athenagoras.

Many Christians of this time were also concerned about preserving traditional monotheism - and how to accommodate monotheism within the context of a triune God.  These Christians were known as Monarchians because they wanted to defend the divine "monarchy" of the one God.  Today, they are called modalistic Monarchians to distinguish them from the dynamic Monarchians (see below).  The modalistic Monarchians denied any division within God; the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are merely different "modes' of the one God's operation.  Put differently, God is seen as fulfilling certain roles, much like one man might be an employee, a husband, and a father.  God becomes that one person, indivisible, who is at the same time Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  Another term for this is "Sabellianism" named after the third-century teacher Sabellius.  It is also known as "patripassianism" - a term that implies the Father suffered on the cross.

Modern-day modalists are found in Pentecostal groups, such as the United Pentecostal Church Internal and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World.  They rely heavily on Isaiah 9:6 which calls the Messiah not only "Mighty God" but also "Everlasting Father," and on John 10:30 in which Jesus said, "I and the Father are one."

Economic Trinitarianism

Tertullian, a second and third century theologian, took exception to modalism.  Like his fellow Apologists, he drew arguments from the Bible as well as from traditional Judaism, Stoicism, and other sources; however, he also introduced Latin legal terminology.  Tertullian argued that although God is one substance, He exists in three distinct persons.  He was also the first author to use the Latin term "trinitas" (Trinity).  Tertullian's book, Against Praxeas, contains arguments against modalistic Monarchians.  For example,

"The simple, indeed (I will not call them unwise and unlearned,) who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the Three in One), on the ground that their very rule of faith withdraws them from the world's plurality of gods to the one only true God; not understanding that, although He is the one only God, He must yet be believed in with His own dispensation.  The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity they assume to be a division of the Unity (Adv. Prax. 3)."

Like other Apologists, Tertullian proposed a two-stage existence of the Word; first, as within the Father, then as expressed at the Son's generation (being "begotten"),

"There are some who allege that even Genesis opens thus in Hebrew: "In the beginning God made for Himself a Son."  As there is no ground for this, I am led to other arguments derived from God's own dispensation, in which He existed before the creation of the world, up to the generation of the Son.  For before all things God was along - being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things.  Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself.  Yet even not then was He alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is to say, His own Reason.  For God is rational, and Reason was first in Him; and so all things were from Himself.  This Reason is His own Thought (or Consciousness) which the Greeks call logos, by which term we also designate Word or Discourse and therefore it is now usual with out people, owing to the mere simple interpretation of the term, to say that the Word was in the beginning with God; although it would be more suitable to regard Reason as the more ancient; because God had not Word from the beginning, but He had Reason even before the beginning; because also Word itself consists of Reason, which it thus proves to have been the prior existence as being its own substance ... He became also the Son of God, and was begotten when He proceeded forth from Him."

"Everything which proceeds from something else must needs be second to that from which it proceeds, without being on that account separated.  Where, however, there is a second, there must be two; and where there is a third, there must be three.  Now, the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son; just as the fruit of the tree is third from the root, or as the stream out of the river is third from the fountain, or as the apex of the ray is third from the son.  Nothing, however, is alien from that original source when it derives its own properties.  In like manner the Trinity, flowing down from the Father through intertwined and connected steps, does not at all disturb the Monarchy, whilst at the same time guards the state of the Economy."

"The Father 9is not the same as the Son, since the differ one from another in the mode of their being.  For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledged: "My Father is greater than I" (John 143:28).  In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being "a little lower than the angels" (Ps. 8:5).  Thus, the Father is distance from the Son, being greater than the Son, inasmuch as He whole begets is one, and He who is begotten is another ... the Son is also distance from the Father; so that He showed a third degree in the Paraclee, as we believe the second degree is in the Son, by reason of the order observed in the Economy."

Origin differed significantly with Tertullian in this matter.  While he also believed in a hierarchical Trinity with the Son and Spirit being subordinate to the Father, Origin believed the Trinity was God's eternal form of being.  Thus, the Son and Spirit did not derive from the Father.  Origin held that the Word was eternally present with the Father and refused to postulate two stages in the Word's existence.  The idea of subordination within the Trinity has surfaced throughout the history of the Church, especially with the Arminians in Europe.  However, most modern Christians do not hold the Son and Spirit to have inferior positions and status to the Father, but all are considered as having equal status.  The Son, however, is described as voluntarily subordinating himself to the Father at the time of the Incarnation, but is not in essence inferior to the Father.

Dynamic Monarchianism

The modalistic Monarchians sought to defend the unity of the Godhead by asserting that the three personages were separate manifestations of the Father thereby denying any real distinctions between the three Persons.  However, the dynamic Monarchians defined the Godhead in a totally different manner by asserting that God the Father was wholly separate from the Son and Spirit.  Rather than a separate manifestation of God, the Word was an attribute of God that dwelt in a man, Jesus.  Paul of Samosata, the bishop of Antioch from 260 to 272 AD, at the synod of Antioch in 268 noted that he was "unwilling to acknowledge that the Son of God has come down from heaven."  Photinus, the Bishop of Sirmium, also taught that the Word was not a Person.  He believed "that the Word is an energy, and that it was this energy that dwelt in Him who was of the seed of David, and tno a personal substance."  According to Sozomen, he "acknowledged that there was one God almighty, by whose own word all things were created, but would not admit that the generation and existence of the Son was before all ages; on the contrary, he alleged that Christ derived His existence from Mary."

Photinians cited 1 Corinthians 1545 to support their contention that Christ did not exist before His birth.  This passage suggests that Christ was preceded by Adam.  They cited Isaiah 443:6 to support their strict monotheism, "This is what the Lord says - Israel's King and Redeemer, the Lord almighty: I am the first and the last; apart from me ther eis no God." (NIV).  This strict Monarchianism along with Arianism, is known historically as the Unitarian view as opposed tot he Trinitarian view.  Modern-day dynamic Monarchians include some Adventist churches as the Church of God General Conference, as well as the Christadelphians, the Way International, and various ministries that have grown out of the Way, such as the Christian Educational Services in Indianapolis, IN.

Arianism

The Arians, named after Arius of Alexandria, taught that the Word was not eternal (much like the dynamic Monarchians).  They did not believe that the Son was God, but rather some form of an intermediately divine being - both in His creation and redemption.  The heated debate about the character of Christ broke out between Arius and his bishop Alexander early in the fourth century, and became the major subject of the Council at Nicaea in AD 325.  It would be at this council that the ideas of Arius were condemned as heresy.  Athanasius, a deacon to Alexander, continued to oppose the ideas of Arianism throughout the rest of the fourth century.  Some of the ideas of Arius ironically have been preserved in the writing of Athanasius as these several statements from Arius' Thalia:

"'God was not always a father;' but 'once God was alone, and not yet a Father, but afterwards He became a Father.' 'The Son was not always;' for, whereas all things were made out of nothing, and all existing creatures and works were made, so the Word of God Himself was 'made out of nothing,' and 'once He was not,' and 'He was not before His origination,' but He as others 'had an origin of creation.' 'For God,' he says, 'was alone, and the Word as yet was not, nor the Wisdom.  Then, wishing to form us, thereupon He made a certain one, and named Him word and Wisdom and Son, that He might form us by means of Him' ... Moreover he has dared to say, that 'the Word is not the very God;' 'though He is called God, yet He is not very God,' but 'by participation of grace, He, as others, is God only in name.' And, whereas all beings are foreign and different from God in essence, so too is 'the Word alien and unlike in all things to the Father's essence and propriety,' but belongs to things originated and created, and is one of these."

Arianism has been the most common form of non-Trinitarianism in Church history, and has claimed many noble adherents such as John Locke, John Miltons, many Unitarians, and several Adventist groups today - including the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Athanasian Trinitarianism

The controversy over Arius' views prompted the Emperor Constantine to arrange the first Ecumenical Council in Nicaea in AD 325.  At this meeting, over 300 bishops were gathered to discuss the Arian issue and to develop a creed.  Arius maintained that the Son was a created being and therefore had a different substance (heteros0 from the father, but Athanasius maintained that the Son was of the same substance (homoousia).  A compromise offered by Eusebius of Caesarea that the Son be considered of similar substance (homoiosia) was in the end rejected.  The final creed (which differs slightly from the revised creed of 4381) reads,

"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 the 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 our salvation came down [from heaven] and was incarnate and was made man.  He suffered and the third day he rose again, and ascended into heaven.  And he shall come again to judge the quick and the dead.  And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost. And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence [from the Father] or that he is a creature, or subject to change or conversion - all that say so, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them."

Athanasius promoted and defended this idea of the Trinity primarily on soteriological grounds; it was necessary for the Word to be God and die on the cross for mankind to be saved; nothing less than a perfect sacrifice would be satisfactory.  God Himself had to come to earth and die on the cross - nothing else could bridge the gap between God and man.  For Trinitarians, the Son is the Word of God who was God (John 1:1) and yet became flesh (John 1:14).

Summary

The concepts of the nature of Christ and the Holy Spirit mentioned above all have some merit, although in my opinion some have more merit than others.  Unfortunately, these concepts became dividing lines along which Christianity splintered into many groups, and for which many people died.  But they are all attempts by man to understand God better.  It is difficult to believe that finite man who is most certainly very limited in understanding of God, can ever come to a truly meaningful understanding of Him in this life; He cannot ultimately be reduced to a formula or creed.  What does matter is that we come to know Christ as the righteous Son of God who gave His life for us, and that He becomes the Lord of our life and ultimately our Savior in death.  This is all that God requires we understand (1 Cor. 2:2, 1 Cor 15:1-3); the rest is left up to interpretation.

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