Doctrine of Jesus

Opening Questions

How do people around you who do not know Jesus personally tend to think about Him?

Why might they respect Him?

What aspects of His identity might they reject?

Read John 1:1-18.

Break it up 1-8 & 9-18

What do these verses tell us about the role of Jesus in creation?

What do they tell us about His eternal existence, as well as His identity as God?

Incarnation

Tonight we dig a bit deeper into the incarnation as we pursue a doctrine of Jesus or otherwise known as a Christology.

Here was the outline from our study this morning from the Incarnation.

Jesus was and is:

God Revealed in human form

Our Model of Righteousness

The Judge of Unrighteousness

Our Great High Priest

The Destroyer of Evil

The Forgiver Sin

Questions of Christology

Why does it matter that Jesus was God?

The early church had to deal with several heresies that threatened to split the church over the exact nature of God. There were many in the early church just as there are today who are willing to call Jesus a good teacher but refuse to give Jesus His due as it concerns His Godhood. One of the earliest of these movements was called Arianism named for Arius. “Arianism is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius, a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt.

Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God the Father and not co-eternal with God the Father.

Arius taught that Christ was a created being—the first one created by God the Father. This view made Christ subordinate to the Father.” (Lexham Bible Dictionary)

What is the problem as you see it with Arianism?

This came to a head at what has become known as the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Now Arius was not trying to divide the church over this but instead only wanted to clarify the idea that God was singular not plural. The concept of the Trinity had not yet been fully established therefore the idea of adding Jesus to the Godhead looked a lot like adding a second God. However, the major issue with this is that it denies the full divinity of Jesus. This lead the counsel to adopt for the church the Nicene creed which starts:

“We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven; he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and was made human.”

You can hear the arguments being fought out in the words of the creed and yet even this did not finish the argument as they continued to fight the Arian controversy until another Council was held in 381 AD called the Council of Constantinople. Here the church formally approved the Nicene Creed and defended it against Arianism and once it was the official position of the Church Arianism gradually died out.

Now these Heresies on the Godhood of Jesus weren’t done as there were others like the Nestorian heresy that believed that Jesus had two separate personalities inside him, one God and one Human, and another Eutychian heresy that believed that Jesus may have been born human but was in actually completely God as His divinity had swallowed up his humanity. These were countered at yet another council called the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. They once again affirmed Jesus’ full deity and that Jesus was dualistic in personality.

What is the problem with saying that Jesus had two personalities?

What is the problem with saying that Jesus Divinity swallowed His Humanity?

Here is how JI Packer described this, “the council affirmed that Jesus is one divine-human person in two natures (i.e., with two sets of capacities for experience, expression, reaction, and action); and that the two natures are united in his personal being without mixture, confusion, separation, or division; and that each nature retained its own attributes. In other words, all the qualities and powers that are in us, as well as all the qualities and powers that are in God, were, are, and ever will be really and distinguishably present in the one person of the man from Galilee. Thus the Chalcedonian formula affirms the full humanity of the Lord from heaven in categorical terms.” Packer, J. I. Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs. Tyndale House, 1993, p. 105.

Why does it matter that Jesus was Human?

The problem with calling Jesus fully human is that you have to place Jesus as human and as human the sin nature of man comes into effect. Also there are those who would say that all things that are physical are evil. The first of these heresies was the Ebionites.

The Ebionites believed Jesus was the Messiah, but according to their understanding, the Messiah was merely a man.

He was a great man, even the greatest possible man, anointed by the Spirit of God for the messianic office. Nevertheless, He was only a man, possessing only a human nature.

The Ebionite heresy did not stick around long because they didn’t have much Biblical support.

What is the problem with saying that Jesus was only a great Man but not God?

Here is another Heresy: DOCETISM A theological outlook in the early Christian period that maintained that Jesus did not take on a physical body, and thus only appeared to live a bodily existence and to die on the cross. Perhaps most foundationally, docetic theology rejects the notion that Jesus Christ actually lived in a physical, human body. Instead, docetic theology asserts that Jesus only appeared to take on a human body during His earthly life. The denial of Jesus’ bodily existence likely emerged from a dualistic view common in the Hellenistic period that considered physical matter (including the human body) to be inferior to spiritual matter. Brown, Derek. “Docetism.” The Lexham Bible Dictionary, edited by John D. Barry et al., Lexham Press, 2016.

This docetic philosophies were later used in Gnosticism which believed that they could only be saved through revealed knowledge, gnosis, or a mystery that only they could interpret. This lead them to have a negative view of the physical world as the spiritual world was the means of salvation. Gnosticism and Docetism maintained being a huge heresy throughout much of the early church and had to be battled by many of the early church fathers.

What are the main problems with Docetism and Gnosticism?

What are some ways in which Jesus and His teachings have shaped or affected the culture we live in today?

If Jesus were not alive today, how would that affect your perspective on Christianity, especially in relationship to other world religions?

Important Truths we believe about Jesus:

Jesus never ceased being God.

According to Jon Nielson, whose outline we are following in this study, “It is important to realize that Jesus, even during his time on earth, never ceased to be fully God. He chose to set aside the glories of His eternal reign for a time (Phil. 2) and take on the weakness of human flesh, but He never ceased to be the God of the universe. This fact is proved by Jesus’ miracles, such as when He calmed the storm (Mark 4) or raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11). Even in His humble descent to humanity, Jesus never stopped being fully God.” Knowing God’s Truth pgs 126-127.

Jesus’ divinity means our salvation.

Equally to His humanity we need Jesus to be divine. As I stated this morning, we believe that Jesus had the ability to be tempted meaning that Jesus could have chosen to rebel against God in the same way we can but He chose obedience and righteousness over rebellion. This means that in Jesus’ humanity; temptation to sin was possible but in His Godhood the ability to obey won out. Let me again quote Jon Nielson, “If Jesus were not fully God, he could never have actually paid the infinite and eternal price for sin that human beings deserve… This is important: only God Himself could actually pay an infinite and complete price for sin. Jesus did this on the cross; He was able to do it because He is God.” Knowing God’s Truth pg 127

Jesus had the authority to teach

Read Matt. 7:28-29

The words of Jesus not only taught the people how to live a righteous life but they showed them a relationship with the Father that they did not know was possible.

Jesus was sinless.

Read 1 Peter 2:22.

JI Packer said, This means not only that he never disobeyed his Father but that he loved God’s law and found wholehearted joy in keeping it. Packer, J. I. Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs. Tyndale House, 1993, p. 116.

Jesus Died on the Cross and was Raised from the Dead.

Read John 10:17-18

We base our entire hope of eternal life on this statement. There is no more important doctrine for us to believe in because without it we are lost.

Jesus is coming AGAIN!

Read Revelation 19:11-21.