THE THEORIES ON THE INCARNATION

7/28/2019 THE THEORIES ON THE INCARNATION

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-theories-on-the-incarnation 1/50

THE THEORIES OF

THE INCARNATION

WENDT’S THEORY OF ETHICAL UNION

Hans Wendt, in his The Teaching Of Jesus, proposes a

theory, which is very reminiscent of the ancient

adoptianist teaching.

According to Wendt, the relation between Christ and God was

an “ethical, filial relation only”. His theory is that

there is a “spiritual union” only between Jesus and God the

Father. It is difficult for Wendt to believe that there

could be a “union of two natures, the human and divine, inone person”.

Wendt’s theory is not a theory of the incarnation at all,

but rather as R.J. Cooke, a Methodist writer, says (The

Incarnation And Recent Criticism, New York: Eaton and

Mains, 1907), a substitute for it of some kind of “a divine

inhabitation”.

TWO CONSCIOUSNESSES IN ONE PERSON?

As Cooke notes, this theory supposes that there must

necessarily be two consciousnesses in the one person, if

there are two natures, the divine nature and the humannature. We are then faced with one person having what Cooke

calls “a double consciousness”. Is this contradictory?

Cooke’s own idea is that there was “never an independent

personality of the human Jesus” apart from what he says is

“the Logos”. There was never solely and only a human Jesus,

“but always a God-human being”. But this is an awkward type

of phraseology,since it sounds somewhat like the “demigod”



(half-god and half-man) terminology of pagan mythology.

Moreover, taken to its ultimate, it seems to compromise the

genuine humanity of Jesus. And to this characterization,

Cooke seems to assent, since he continues to say of the

Lord:

A being not wholly and only God nor wholly and only man, but a union of the twonatures in one God-man. The self-consciousness of Jesus always is that he is

one, and not two. He knows himself to be a divine-human personality.

In Cooke’s opinion, our “ignorance” of how two

consciousnesses could be in one person- without there being

two persons- does not render such an apparent contradiction

“an utter impossibility”. He notes that two “Egos”, each

being conscious of itself, and living apart from one

another, could never be conceived as being “one

consciousness”.

On the other hand, two “Egos”, having such a common ground

that neither is conscious of itself as being distinct fromthe other, without also being conscious at the same time of

the other, could be possible. A human analogy would be the

ability of the mind (the subject) to be conscious of both

the subject (one’s own self) and an object simultaneously.

This human analogy, however, fails since it does not even

demonstrate two consciousnesses.

Cooke, who apparently is an Athanasian trinitarian, speaks

of another German theologian, Beyschlag, who is toying with

a form of adoptianism, in that he sees Jesus simply as a

“God-filled man”, who was not born of a virgin, but who,

before his birth, was in the mind of the Father as simply apre-existing idea. Beyschlag taught that:

with all the sublimity and uniqueness of his consciousness of Sonship Jesus

felt and confessed that he was a man in God’s presence. He repeatedly calls God his Lord, and acknowledges the universal human obligation of praying to him,

expressions which cannot possibly be harmonized with a consciousness of being

God himself. -New Theology

Notice that this German author is using the term “Sonship”,

which, the oneness reader will see, is not, after all,

solely a product of oneness theology.

Beyschlag rejects the pre-existence of Christ as a separate

divine Person, but he does so at the expense of thedivinity of Christ and the truth of the virgin birth. He

calls the ideas of the “eternal Son” (and, in essence, the

Trinity) “trinitarian notions of the fourth and fifth

centuries, which are certainly unknown to the New

Testament”. Moreover, Beyschlag does not seem to have

accounted for the times when Jesus spoke as God, commanding

the elements and raising the dead, etc. Nor when he



identified himself with the Father.

But the only way to explain the unique qualities and person

of Jesus Christ is to return to a genuine faith in the

virgin birth. Only God could adequately reveal God. As John

wrote of Jesus, after he had ascended into Heaven:

No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosomof the Father, he hath declared him. -John 1:18

The man Jesus is the Image of the invisible God (2

Corinthians 4:4; Colossian 1:15, and Hebrews 1:3). He is

more than just an adopted Son, and more than just a “God-

filled man”.

THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF JESUSMuch discussion has ensued concerning the extent of Jesus’

consciousness, not only of His deity (from His humanity

side), but of when He became aware of His deity, as a humanbeing. And to what extent he was able to operate in both

spheres of human and divine consciousness. Did a dual-

consciousness operate simultaneously? Was the divine

superimposed over the human?

Horace M. Du Bose (The Consciousness of Jesus, New York:

Methodist Book Concern, 1917) believes that the

consciousness of Jesus:

is the identification of the life of that harmonious personality resulting from

the unity of Godhood and manhood, whereof is one Christ...the explication of

humanity and the manifestation of divinity.

And DuBose notes that “Tokens of the human are abundant andsympathetic; tokens of the divine are signal and

overmastering”. There is no dissonance,

incongruity...confusion of ideas” in the reported words or

thoughts of Jesus.

The consciousness of Jesus developed normally. And he says:

To the human side of his life the divine side was uncovered as his human powers

ripened; but at each stage the exercise of those powers was full and the unity

of the consciousness complete.

A CONSCIOUSNESS GROUNDED IN TWO NATURES

And, DuBose adds, “here was a consciousness grounded in two

natures, yet expressed through an indivisible personality”.

He continues this synergistic approach by saying:

To its capacity, the human consciousness could no more escape knowledge of the

divine identity than could the divine escape its impinging human complement.

A COALESCENCE OF GODHOOD AND HUMANITY

Du Bose does not seem to be affected by the pagan “demi-

god” influence since he writes:



In this union there was a coalescence, but not an identification, of Godhood

and humanity.

But, nonetheless, Du Bose suffers from the confusion

generated by the trinitarian church councils. For him,

Jesus is the Son, “very God of very God...who came down and

was incarnate and was made man”. The Nicean theology. He

rejects the idea of the incarnation of God the Father, and

assigns the incarnation to a second divine Person in the

Godhead.

AN EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS?

But when he returns to his examination of the consciousness

of Jesus, he is plain enough. He reflects upon a noticed

expansion in the consciousness of Jesus:

The last earthly experiences of Jesus, notably the passion, the ordeals before

Pilate, and the long agony of the crucifixion, perfected his consciousness as

to its compass, both in emotion and thought, of the elements of the absolute.

Three antecedent events show the manner of this process while under way. These

were the baptism, the temptation, and the transfiguration. At the baptism of

Jesus the consciousness of Messiahship may be said to have been perfected, the

subjective maturity being verified by the words and signs of Paternal

recognition. In the struggles of the temptation the knowledge of sufficiency

was subjectively confirmed, while in the transfiguration the whole Personality

stood self-revealed, the diaphanous body not only testifying its subserviency

to the Messianic consciousness, but rising to its office of participation

therein.

And Du Bose goes one step further in this “evolution” of

consciousness by examining it in the light of the

resurrection. The remarks by the apostles concerning the

resurrection show:

how fully the divine consciousness had been attained by, and was expressed inthe risen Christ, and how boundless had become the mastery of his powers.

But Du Bose’s review of this expansion of consciousness, in

which Jesus declares that “all power is given unto me in

heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18), is colored by his

trinitarian thinking.

He sees the full revealing of divinity in Christ after the

resurection as “the uncovering of the divine nature which

was his by inheritance”. But he fails to see God the

Father. To him, it is rather a Father passing His divine

nature on to a Son. Jesus is God only by virtue of his

virgin birth. He is not God because he has always been Godthe Father, but rather his divine nature has been

bequeathed to him by another divine Person. He is placed in

a “subordinate” position even in the Godhead.

SIGNS OF GODHEAD HIDDEN IN FLESHLY UNMATURITY

Melito of Sardis, in his writings (see Melito of Sardis, On

The Pascha, and Fragments, tr. Stuart G. Hall, Oxford:



Clarendon Press, 1979), c.160 AD, wrote that Christ “proved

his manhood in the thirty seasons before the baptism, when,

because of fleshly unmaturity, he hid the signs of his

Godhead”. Notice that the word “unmaturity” is purposely

used, and not the word “immaturity”. Christ proved his

Godhead “through the signs in the three years after

baptism”.

GODHEAD MANIFESTED AFTER BAPTISM?

In this manner, concluded Melito, Christ “assured us of his

two essences (tas duo autou ousias)”. After his baptism,

Christ “manifested the Godhead...hidden in flesh, and

assured the world of it”.

As George Park Fisher notes (History of Christian Doctrine,

New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1896), Melito early recognized

the two natures in Christ, “perfect God and perfect man”.

Concerning these two natures, which somehow were thefountain of consciousness in Jesus Christ, David Bernard

(Oneness of God, Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press, 1983),

has written:

the two natures (divine and human) were not actually separated in him. ith our

finite minds, we can make only a distinction and not a separation in the two

natures that blended perfectly in him.

However, some separation has to exist for the purpose of

the Lord’s genuine humanity. How could he die without a

separate genuine human nature?

Bernard does see a distinction between God and the Son

(Oneness and Trinity AD 100-300, Hazelwood, MO: Word AflamePress, 1991):

There is a real distinction between God and the Son-not a distinction of two

divine persons, but a distinction between the eternal Spirit of God and the

authentic human being in whom God was fully incarnate.

WORD IS THOUGHT, PLAN, REASON BEFORE INCARNATION

Jesus, according to Bernard, was both God and man at the

same time, and “sometimes He spoke or acted from the human

viewpoint and sometimes from the divine viewpoint”. The

Lord, as Father, sometimes “spoke from His divine self-

awareness”. Then, as Son, “He sometimes spoke from His

human self-awareness”.

The Word, according to Bernard, was “God’s self-revelation,

self-expression, or self-disclosure”. Before the

incarnation, the Word was the thought, plan, reason, or

mind of God. Not a separate divine Person. The Word

pertained to God, much as a “man and his word”. When it is

time for the incarnation, Bernard notes:



In the fulness of time, God put flesh on the Word; He revealed Himself in

flesh. In the person of Jesus Christ, ‘the Word was made flesh’...the eternal

Word was revealed in the begotten Son.

I might add that this explains away much of the trinitarian

theory of a pre-existent separate divine Person. For

example, when Paul, in Colossians 1:15,16 states that all

things were created by “the image of the invisible God”,and “the firstborn of every creature”, he is actually

giving glory to what God did in the beginning through the

spoken Word. This is before the Word was later made flesh

in the womb of the virgin.

Then the writer of Hebrews (Hebrews 1:3) states that it is

the Son “by whom also he made the worlds”. Again, we know

that the writer means that God created the heavens and the

earth earlier by his spoken word, and we clearly see this

in Genesis 1:3, as well as in Psalms 33:6-9. We know that

the Word was later made flesh in the womb of the virgin.

These passages do not mean that the man Christ Jesus, the

Image of God, the firstborn of every new creature, pre-

existed (except as God). We understand that the Word was

made flesh, and that this is when the only begotten Son

came into existence.

THE VIRGIN BIRTHThe virgin birth, of course, is a critical doctrine in

reference to the unique status of Jesus. Without the virgin

birth, the sinless humanity of Christ is put into question

(in other words, he still would have received the sinnature of Adam with two human parents). This is the error

of true adoptianism.

Luke’s Gospel, therefore, plays a vital role in the

establishment of the virgin birth, as, of course, does

Matthew. Mark makes no reference to it.

ONLY-BEGOTTEN

John makes oblique references to the virgin birth by using

the phrase “the only-begotten of the Father”, and “the Word

was made flesh”- although he does not mention the role of

Mary.It is important, in the case of John, to realize that a

modern-day linguistic assault has been made upon the

translation of monogenes, “only-begotten”, by modern

trinitarian writers. Liddell and Scott’s Dictionary (1889)

simply translates monogenes as “only-begotten”. But Vine’s

Dictionary (1996, q.v.), after dutifully listing monogenes

as “only-begotten”, devotes several paragraphs attempting



to “destroy” the simple translation of “only-begotten”,

which we find in the King James Version of the Bible.

In Vine’s, the purpose of attempting to do away with the

translation of “only-begotten” becomes clear. We are made

to understand that monogenes, when it refers to Jesus, must

be understood differently:We can only rightly understand the term ‘the only begotten’ when used of the

Son, in the sense of unoriginated relationship.

And then the writer quotes Moule, making it quite clear

that monogenes, in his opinion, cannot possibly be related

to the virgin birth:

The begetting is not an event in time, however remote, but a fact irrespective

of time. The Christ did not become, but necessarily and eternally is the Son.

He, a Person, possesses every attribute of pure Godhood. This necessitates

eternity, absolute being; in this respect He is not ‘after’ the Father.

And, in his interpretation of John 3:16, the intent of the

writer in Vine’s is further revealed. This statement, henotes, must “not be taken to mean that Christ became the

only begotten son by incarnation”. Why not?

Obviously we have here a theologically biased

interpretation, and not a purely linguistic interpretation.

The theology of the Logos teaching of a pre-existent Son,

born before the ages, wrests the clear meaning of the

scripture that Jesus, born of a virgin, is thereby the

only-begotten Son of God. It is true that he will later be

“begotten from the dead”, becoming the firstborn among many

brethern. But he alone is the “only-begotten” from a

virgin, the incarnated God, or God manifest in the flesh.To translate monogenes as simply “only” (as in John 1:18,

New International Version; and John 3:16, The New English

Bible) is simply a theological decision. God has many

“sons”. The angels are declared to be his “sons”. Adam is

called “the son of God”. To do away with the term “only-

begotten” is indirectly an attack upon the virgin birth.

The meaning of “only-begotten”, in this case, is generally

understood to mean that the only man born of a virgin, with

God as his Father, is Jesus Christ. It refers to the virgin

birth, plain and simple. All of God’s children are

“unique”. Therefore, the term “unique” is not acceptable,and is a far cry from the simple meaning of monogenes. Only

one has ever been (and ever will be) begotten by God of a

virgin-Jesus Christ.

JEWISH ROOTS OF LUKE?

Luke was possibly written as early as 63 AD, while Paul was

still alive. Marcion made an attack upon the virgin birth



by omitting from his text of Luke the first three chapters

(c.140 AD).

But R.J. Cooke (q.v.) notes that Luke obviously made use of

far older Aramaic documents, dating back many years prior

to the date of his gospel. He notes that this is the

opinion of such scholars as Sanday, Weiss, Godet, and “manyother New Testament critics”. Weiss declares that:

the Hebraistic diction of these documents presents such a striking contrast to

the classical Greek of the preface (of Luke) that the use of a written source

can hardly be denied.

Gunkel, says Cooke, is of the opinion that Luke is drawn

from a “translation of a ‘Hebrew’(Aramaic) original”, which

he refers to as “a genuine document of a very primitive

Jewish-Christian type” (q.v.). And Godet notes that “in the

use of these early documents Luke faithfully preserved

their Aramaic coloring” (q.v.).

According to Cooke, C.A. Briggs (North American Review,June, 1906), felt the Aramaic narratives, from which Luke

drew, were dated prior to the fall of Jerusalem (70 AD),

during the lifetimes of James and Jude, the half-brothers

of Christ (q.v.). Cooke speculates that the information

could have even originally come from the lips of Mary

herself.

And Cooke (q.v.) argues convincingly that Paul had either

copies of both Matthew and Luke in his possession, or at

least a common Aramaic source that each used. Paul accepted

the virgin birth, as a review of his epistles will

demonstrate (e.g., Galatians 4:4, and his acceptance of thesinless nature of Christ).

G.C. Morgan (The Gospel According To Luke, New York:

Fleming H. Revell, 1931), taking a cue from an

interpretation of Paul in Colossians 4:10-14, believes that

Luke was a Gentile and not a Jew. But this is a tenuous

interpretation at best, attempting to interpret what Paul

actually did not say. Moreover, to say that Luke has a

Gentile name and therefore cannot be a Jew, is of doubtful

importance. Mark, the author of the gospel,was a Jew.

Romans 3:1,2 states that the “oracles of God” wereentrusted to the Jews. It would be strange, but perhaps not

impossible, that God entrusted a book of the Bible to a

Gentile in view of Paul’s statement. It would be the only

one of the 66 books of the Bible written by a Gentile, if

this is the case.

VIRGIN BIRTH ESSENTIAL TO THE INCARNATION



Without the virgin birth, it is difficult to imagine the

incarnation. As Cooke notes, every birth, by ordinary

generation, is “the coming into this life of a new

personality”. Christ cannot have been born of ordinary

human parents, because the conclusion would then be that

the “eternally existing Logos (Word)” first came into

“personal being” by such human means.

Cooke notes the difficulty in assuming that the “ego” or

“self” of the pre-existing Logos united with the “ego” or

“self” of the human child, which was born of two human

parents. This would be a form of adoptianism.

A CONJUNCTION OF PERSONALITIES?

He rejects this, since “we shall have two egos in two

persons”, which, he declares “is a mere conjunction of

personalities and is not an incarnation at all”. There is,

says Cooke (q.v.), a union (henosis) of two natures in

Christ, “though not a conjunction (synatheia), as Nestorius

declared” (q.v.).

And this union (henosis) must also be distinguished from

krasis or sygchysis, a mere “blending” of natures. Sygchysis

means “a mixing together, a blending”, while krasis

likewise means “a mixing, a blending”, but with the added

element of “a compounding” (“composed of, or resulting from

the union of separate elements, ingredients, or parts”). Of

course, this is consilar theology, stemming from

trinitarianism.

UNION DISTINGUISHED FROM INDWELLING

Furthermore, notes Cooke, this union (henosis) must also be

distinguished from enoikesis (from enoikeo, “to dwell, to

inhabit”), “an indwelling of God in the human nature”

(q.v.).

Hebrews 2:14 states that, “as the children are partakers of

flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the

same”. And Hebrews 2:16 is even more explicit, “he took not

on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of

Abraham”.

God, then, in the incarnation, became a “partaker” (“totake a part of, or share”, “to have some of the qualities

or attributes of something”)of flesh and blood, of the

“seed of Abraham”. It was more than just a mere

“indwelling”.

This has to qualify John 1:14, “the Word (Logos) was made

(or became) flesh”. God, through his Word, did more than

just inhabit, or dwell in, a sinless human being, who was



virgin born, he actually became a “partaker of flesh and

blood”, and took upon himself “the seed of Abraham”. This

is why the word “union” (henosis) is being put forward. The

manner of “partaking”, and the degree of “union” is what is

mysterious.

TWO DISTINCT NATURESAnd this “union” is so powerful and so unique, that the man

Jesus, retained his own genuine humanity, while actually

being the Mighty God himself, manifest in the flesh, with

two distinct natures, human and divine.

The human nature was not divine, and the divine nature was

not human. There is a real, simultaneous existence of God

the Father, in heaven, demonstrated alongside the existence

of the man Jesus, on earth, since a genuine relationship is

shown between the man and his God. This relationship is a

fact of the gospels.

Nevertheless, the incarnation is also revealed more fully

in the progressive revelation of the Mighty God in Christ

(2 Corinthians 5:19).

Jesus is confirmed by the Father as the Messiah at the

baptism, his anointing (as the Christ or Messiah) is

confirmed in his successful endurance of the wilderness

temptation, when he returns in the power of the Spirit. His

deity is seen in the transfiguration. And it is even more

fully declared in his glory following the triumphant

resurrection (Thomas acknowledges him as “my Lord and my

God” in John 20:28).

Jesus identifies himself as God in a number of ways. In

John 10:30, he speaks of his identity, or oneness, with the

Father. In John 14:7-9, he reveals himself as the Father

manifest in the flesh. The relationship of the Son and the

Father demonstrate the genuine humanity of the Son, and the

need of all humanity for God the Father, while, at the same

time, the works of Jesus demonstrate the reality of the

incarnation, and that the Deity is indeed resident in the

man Jesus. At no time, does the relationship of the Father

and the Son ever demonstrate the existence of two divine

Persons.

This is, in part, because of the reality of the existing

incarnation, and the genuine humanity of Christ. But we do

not have simply one “nature” talking to another “nature”.

This is too simplistic. We have a genuine human being

talking to his God and to his Father. This is only possible

due to the mystery of the incarnation. Only the omnipotence



and the omnipresence of Almighty God could bring about such

a logic-defying, seeming contretemps. But no one should say

that the conversations of the Father and the Son were

“rigged”,or that “ventrilloquism” was involved.

But then again, no separate “divinity” was imparted

additionally to the man Jesus. The divinity of Jesus Christis indeed the divinity of God the Father. The virgin birth

did not bring about the production, or the revelation, of

another divine Person. Nor did another divine Person, other

than God the Father, come from heaven to rescue mankind.

It is true that the Father sent his Word from heaven, which

was made flesh, and “dwelt (tented) among us” (John 1:14).

John says, “we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-

begotten of the Father” (vs 14). He is speaking of the

virgin born man here, and not of a second divine Person

from heaven.

But John 1:14 must be understood in the light of Hebrews

2:14 and 2:16. The phrase the “word was made (or became)

flesh” cannot fully be understood without interpreting the

statements that he (God) “became a partaker of “flesh and

blood”, and that he “took on him the seed of Abraham”.

To become a “partaker of flesh and blood”, and to “take on

the seed of Abraham” implies more than simply the “word was

made flesh”. It expands upon that thought, and it clarifies

the need for the idea of some kind of a sacred “union”. It

is more than just saying that God spoke a human being into

existence, and then He (God) entered into that body. It is

not saying that God Himself was made flesh either. He

became a partaker of flesh and blood. He took upon himself

the seed of Abraham.

THE “EMPTYING” (KENOSIS)

THEORYPhilippians 2:5-9 reads:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form

of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no

reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in thelikeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and

became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also

hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.

The first interpretation of this passage hinges upon

Christ, “being in the form of God” (morphe theou). The verb

used for “being” is the present participle hyparcho,

“existing”. Vine’s Dictionary insists, without evidence,

that this always means to “pre-exist” (Vine’s Complete



Expository Dictionary, Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Pub.,

1996). However, other Lexicons, such as Liddell and Scott’s,

do not say this.

Concerning the noun morphe (that is, morphe theou, “the

form of God”), Vine’s again insists that this use of morphe

is the nature or essence actually subsisting in theindividual, and is retained “as long as the individual

exists”. It cannot be “in the abstract”.

But yet we are told that the noun morphe (used by Paul in

the next verse as morphe doulou, “the form of a servant”)

must have the same sense:

It is universally admitted that the two phrases are directly antithetical, and

that “form” (morphe) must therefore have the same sense in both.

But this cannot be true, if, as Vine’s states, that morphe

theou cannot be used in an abstract sense - especially

since morphe doulou (“the form of a servant”) can indeed be

construed in an abstract sense. Why then cannot morphe

theou? Thus, it would seem clear that the apostle Paul is

not declaring any pre-existent equality of Christ with God,

with Christ being in the “form of God” alongside of God the

Father before the ages. Rather, Paul is speaking of

conditions prevailing during the incarnation (“in the days

of his flesh”).

Jesus, as the Image of God (the Son of God), being in the

form of God, on earth, did not think it robbery to be equal

with God. We have further confirmation of this

interpretation in John 5:18. We remember that man was made

in the image, or likeness, of God (Genesis 1:26).

In John 5:18, the apostle John informs us that Jesus said

that God was his Father, “making himself equal with God”.

In other words, in Philippians 2:6, Paul is not speaking of

some pre-existent, separate divine Person, but rather he is

speaking of the man Christ Jesus, who “thought it not

robbery to be equal with God”. This is the way in which

John explains the phrase “equal with God”. It has to do

with the incarnation, and not with the internal workings of

the divine Godhead.

The phrase that has been controversial is heauton ekenosen,“made himself of no reputation” (Philippians 2:7), from

whence the kenosis theory, “he emptied himself”.

Whereas the King James Version translation leaves this

activity of the Lord’s (“made himself of no

reputation”)within the sphere of the incarnation, or,

rather, in the earthly life of the savior, others have

lighted upon the translation “he emptied himself”, and have



involved the meaning of the phrase in the actual process of

the incarnation itself.

The strength of the phrase “he emptied himself” also seems

to hang upon the subsequent translation, “was made in the

likeness of men” (en homoiomati anthropon genomenos). The

literal translation of the phrase “was made in the likenessof men” is “in the likeness of men having become”, which

would seem to take away from the force of the involvement

of the phrase “he made himself of no reputation” with the

actual process of the incarnation itself. Rather this would

represent a conscious action by the Lord after he was on

earth.

“Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and

became obedient unto death”. All of these decisions were

made by the man Jesus on earth, who, after all, was God

manifest in the flesh.

This would make it seem likely that the phrase “he emptied

himself” has nothing to do with the actual mechanics of the

incarnation itself, but rather the Greek phrase heauton

ekenosen would make more sense as either “he drained

himself”, or even, “made himself of no reputation (or

account)”.

That all of this passage refers to the man Christ Jesus is

confirmed in Philippians 2:9, where Paul, with his famous

“wherefore”, states: “God also hath highly exalted him...”.

THEORIES OF THE KENOSIS

This phrase “he emptied himself”, or the kenosis theory,

has spawned untold pages of speculation by theologians as

to what God did, and how it was done.

One German theologian, Meyer, according to R.J. Cooke

(q.v.) wrote:

What the divine Logos laid aside in the incarnation was the form of God; the

divine glory, as a form of existence; but not his equality with God, which

constituted and was essential to his nature. This he retained, and to this

belonged essentially and necessarily the divine consciousness, and in the

incarnation consequently the divine-human self-consciousness.

First of all, not everyone agrees that the “Logos” was

incarnated. The Bible states that the Word (Logos) was madeflesh (John 1:14). It is God (the Father) who was manifest

in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16). It is God (the Father) who

was in Christ. The Logos did not lay aside the “form of

God”. God is a Spirit. A spirit does not have a form in its

natural state. The “equality with God”, as we have seen

from the apostle John, refers to the sphere of the

incarnation, and not to the sphere of the divine Godhead



itself. This excludes a co-equal divine Person, and would

exclude the incarnation of a co-equal divine Person.

And then another theologian, Ellicott, states:

Of what did he empty himself? Not exactly of the morphe theou...but of that

which he had in that form, that Godlike majesty and visible glory which he had

from all eternity.

Obviously, this author is leaning upon a misinterpretation

of John 17:5. In the high priestly prayer of the man Jesus,

he requests that the Father glorify him “with thine own

self with the glory which I had with thee before the world

was”.

Ellicott is undoubtedly supposing that there are two divine

Persons here (Father and Son). One divine Person emptied

himself of his glory (and “Godlike majesty”) in the process

of the incarnation, and now he is supposedly praying to the

other co-equal, co-eternal divine Person (the Father) to

give him back his pre-existent glory!

THE PRAYER OF A HUMAN BEING

But this is not the case. Jesus is praying as a human being

in John 17:5. He did not have any pre-existent glory, which

he divested himself of, because, as a human being, he did

not exist “before the world was”, except in the mind of God

the Father.

Furthermore, he is asking the Father to “glorify thou me

with thine own self”. If Jesus were indeed the second

divine Member of the Godhead, he should not be asking the

first divine Member (the Father) to re-glorify him with his(the Father’s) own (divine) self, since surely, pre-

existing co-eternally and co-equally, he would have equal

glory. Since he supposedly, as Ellicott presumes, possessed

equal “Godlike majesty” and “visible glory” from “all

eternity”.

The actual truth is that Jesus, as God the Father, did

possess God-majesty (not just “God-like” majesty), and had

“visible glory” from all eternity. But the glory was not

given to the resurrected Christ until he came out of the

grave. It was only in the mind of God the Father before the

ages. Just as the crucifixion was in the mind of the Father.

Alford, following Ellicott in misinterpreting John 17:5,

states incorrectly that:

He emptied himself of the morphe theou-not his essential glory, but its

manifested possession...the glory which he had with the Father before the world

began (John 17:5) and which he resumed at his glorification. He ceased while in

this state of examination to reflect the glory which he had with the Father.

This does some damage to the trinitarian model, and, of



course, misinterprets Paul.

Notice that Jesus, as the divine second Person (even before

he “emptied himself” supposedly) only “reflects” the glory

(as the lesser moon does that of the sun) that he had “with

the Father” before the ages. This is certainly not “co-

equality” among the members of the Trinity!

Furthermore, Alford says that Jesus “emptied himself of the

form of God (morphe theou). We have already shown that

Jesus claimed equality with God on earth. The scripture

explicitly states “making himself equal with God” (John

5:18). This would seem to be a contradiction of “my Father

is greater than I”(John 14:28). But this need not be so, if

we examine the context. Also, we remember that Jesus has

both a divine and a human nature.

MORE ON KENOSIS

G. Vance Smith (The Bible And Its Theology, London: SwanSonnenschein, 1892) examines some of the theories of kenosis

with a jaundiced eye.

In a reference to Mark 13:32, in which the Son declares

that he-at least in his then present human state-does not

know the day or the hour of his return, Smith quotes bishop

O’Brien as commenting:

All things the Omniscient Father knows...doubtless were known to the Son when

He was in “the form of God”. But it appears that when He became man, and dwelt

among us, of this infinite knowledge, He only possessed as much as was imparted

to Him.

Smith believes that O’Brien here is actually, implicitlythinking of “two Gods”! Because he definitely conveys the

idea of two (divine) minds. One mind possessed all

knowledge, while the other, during a particular interval of

his existence only receives, as Smith notes, what “the

former (mind)...imparts to him”. “Yet”, Smith continues,

“these writers profess to be monotheists, and to believe in

the existence of only one God” (q.v.).

This type of thinking was common in the pagan world. The

Greek god Apollo served the human shepherd Admetus for nine

years, and kept his deity in “abeyance”. And this is

exactly the terminology that bishop O’Brien uses of Christ,according to Smith, when he writes, “His (Christ’s)

infinite attributes and powers seem...to have been in

abeyance, so to speak” (q.v.).

And Smith also believes that a grave injustice has been

done to the translation of morphe theou (“the form of God”)

in Philippians 2:6 by insisting, as J.B. Lightfoot, that

the phrase actually means “essential nature”. Smith holds



that the phrase refers to “outward condition and

circumstances only” (q.v.). The term morphe cannot refer to

“essential nature”, because the Lord is said to have also

taken upon himself “the form of a servant” (morphe doulou).

Surely, this does not mean “the essential nature of a

servant”. If so, was his “essential nature” changed at the

resurrection?

Morphe is used in one other place in the New Testament

(Mark 16:12), where the resurrected Christ appears in

“another form” to his followers. Obviously, it is not used

in the sense of “essential nature” in this passage either.

It is clear that the phrase “form of God” has nothing to do

with Christ as a separate divine Person. It refers only to

the sphere of the incarnation.

J.B. Lightfoot (in Cooke, q.v.) states that Jesus “divested

himself, not of his divine nature, for this was impossible,

but of the glories, the prerogatives, of deity”. This seemsto be the prevailing view today.

Gwynn (in Cooke, q.v.) taught that he did not lay aside the

essence of his Godhead, but “that which is relative to

finite perceptions, its outward manifestations”.

Some are perplexed that Paul does not define exactly what

the Lord supposedly “emptied himself of”. Cooke believes

there could be a “definite genitive” following the verb

ekenosen, but there is not. Some speculate that a phrase

such as “his equality with God” would be more appropriate

than the phrase “the form of God”. But all of this hinges

upon the proper translation of heaton ekenosen!

Some of these theories of kenosis have erred so far from

reality that they actually, in essence, deny the

incarnation. Godet (again, Cooke, q.v.), for example, held

that the Son, “laid aside the attributes of deity and

became man”. The Son, he says, even allowed “his personal

consciousness as the eternal Son” to be extinguished,

retaining (in the incarnation) only “his inalienable

personality” (his “Ego”). He became “absolutely unconscious

of his divinity”(q.v.).

This, Cooke rightly discerns, is not an “incarnation” atall, but it is rather a metamorphosis of God into man. God

becomes man. God “turns into” man.

Schmieder (Cooke, q.v.) says, “The Son of God became man”.

Hoffman wrote (Cooke, q.v.) that the Logos did not “cease

to be God”. He remained “who he was, though he...ceased to

be what he was”.



The danger these ideas bring forth are stemming from the

incorrect theory of a pre-existent separate divine Person

(the Logos), who is eternal alongside God the Father.

THE VIEW OF JOHN KNOX ON KENOSIS

John Knox (The Humanity And Divinity Of Christ, Cambridge:

University Press, 1967), who views “adoptianism” as the

first phase of the development of Christian theology-a view

which he takes from such passages as Acts 2:36, and other

passages in Acts and Hebrews-holds that the second “phase”

of this development was the view that a pre-existent divine

being “emptied himself”, and became a man.

Knox wants morphe in Philippians 2:5-11 to mean “nature”,

even though we have seen this is not a valid translation,

according to recognized dictionaries. But it fits the

trinitarian “theology” of kenosis.

And where Paul writes that Christ “was made in the likeness(homoiomati) of men” (vs. 7), and “being found in fashion

(schema)as a man”, Knox feels this is almost “docetic”(like

teaching that Christ only appeared to be a genuine human).

As Knox admits, homoiomati could, however, simply mean that

Christ was a man “like other men”. But the word schema

(fashion), he says, is hard to reconcile with a belief in a

full and unqualified humanity” (q.v.). He stops short of

attributing docetism to the apostle Paul! He even questions

whether this passage is an interpolation!

Nevertheless, schema, in Liddell and Scott’s Dictionary

(q.v.) has a first meaning of “form, shape, outward

appearance, the figure, person”. It need not throw doubt

upon the genuine humanity of the Lord. It has lesser shades

of meaning, but Paul’s other teaching on Christ should

direct the interpretation of these meanings. An explanation

of how Paul viewed homoiomati can be seen in Romans 8:2,

where he wrote that God sent his own Son “in the likeness

(homoiomati) of sinful flesh”. Here, he is using

“likeness”-not to cast doubt on the genuine humanity of

Christ- but rather to differentiate between the sinful

nature of all of the other children of Adam and the pure

human nature of Christ. Christ aged in his human body. Hewas able to die. Yet he had no sinful nature.

Knox admits that the theory of kenosis is inextricably

attached to the doctrine of trinitarian Logos supporters.

When I write “Logos supporters”, I am referring to those

who believe that the “Logos” is actually a separate,

distinct Person from God the Father (i.e., trinitarians in



most cases).

He writes concerning this group of scholars:

In our own period a number of distinguished theologians, holding firmly and

strongly to the belief that Jesus was pre-existent as the Logos, but being most

eager to maintain the truth and importance of his manhood, have seized on the

word ‘kenosis’ to explain how this could be.

The problem, as Knox sees it, is the “kenosis” has to be so

qualified with reservations and exceptions as “not to be

kenosis at all” (q.v.). He explains some of the

difficulties:

The divine being does not fully surrender his divine nature (as, of course, in

reality he could not): he gives up some its attributes, but keeps others; or,

according to an alternative explanation, he surrenders the actuality of deity

but retains the potentiality of it, thus continuing to possess as a man a

latent, one might almost say, a suppressed, divinity.

Thus, according to Knox, the critics of the theory of

kenosis point to what he calls “the depotentiation of

deity”. A divinity that is “hidden” or, as he stated,“suppressed” in Christ.

For Knox, the “orthodox” trinitarian view of Chalcedon is

difficult to understand. A Christ with “two natures”, both

belonging to Jesus, one Person.

Knox admits that this hinges on understanding what the

ancient trinitarians meant by the term “person”. But he

questions: how can two “natures” (“each presumably

involving consciousness and will”) belong to one person

“inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, and

inseparably”(q.v.)?

Knox’s conclusion: “of no normal human being could such

things be truly said” (q.v.).

He lends some support to those theologians who are

attempting to find ways to “harmonize” divinity and

humanity in such a way that they can virtually “identify”

humanity with divinity. H.R. Mackintosh wrote, “...all that

is divine in Christ is human, and all that is human,

divine”. This almost sounds “New Age”-to blend humanity and

divinity in such a way that the distinctions are blurred.

Leonard Hodgson portrayed Christ as “truly human whereas

the rest of us are in process of becoming such”. Jesus

alone, in his view, is fully and truly man. According to

Hodgson, then, the only genuine humanity is the “divine

humanity of the incarnate Lord” (in q.v.). Again, an

attempt to blur the differences between the divine and

human nature.

Also, there is the Son of Mary, and then again there is the



glorified Christ.There is the Son of man, who was “made a

little lower than the angels for the suffering of death”

Hebrews 2:9). It is disturbing to attempt to explain the

incarnation by redefining the natures of humanity and

divinity, so that one may “merge” them through such a

“definition”.

Knox argues, “there is no way of distinguishing Jesus’

humanity from ours which does not deny the reality of his

manhood”. But Knox has already pointed out that he has

difficulty accepting the sinless nature of Christ (through

the virgin birth), since he seems to feel that to accept

the fact that Jesus was sinless would detract from his

genuine humanity!

For Knox, it seems, the theories of kenosis are generally

abridging the humanity of Christ by introducing his “pre-

existence”, which, in his opinion, “distinguishes his

humanity from ours”. But then, Knox declares, “kenosis isexcluded; we are restricted to adoptionism and docetism”:

We can have the humanity without the pre-existence and we can have the pre-

existence without the humanity. There is absolutely no way of having both.

But adoptionism (the theory that Jesus was selected from

men born of human parents to become the Messiah) and

docetism (the theory that Jesus was not truly human) were

rejected by the church long ago. What remains is the

incarnation and not necessarily the kenosis theory.

Knox’s dilemma is really that he must maintain the doctrine

of the Trinity. He states that “any doctrine of the

incarnation must presuppose the Trinity”. He does qualify

this with, “or, at any rate, some complexity (if that can

be the word) in God”. And he writes:

In no serious theology, ancient or modern, has the Pre-existent Christ been

identified with God, simply and absolutely. In the very earliest period, as we

have seen, the pre-existing being was pictured as the Son of Man or possibly

sometimes as an angelic being of the highest order...But never (sic) was he

identified with God in any simple or exhaustive sense. It must needs be so

because God (understood in this unitary way) could not become incarnate and

still be God.

Thus, Knox preemptorily excludes the oneness position

concerning the incarnation. “God could not become incarnate

and still be God”. Thus is the mystery of the incarnationswept aside, it almost seems, because it is supposedly

“impossible” for it to occur.

Since ancient Ebionites and dynamic monarchians are all

erroneously lumped together as “adoptionists”, their views

of the incarnation are not apparently considered. What

about the modalistic monarchians, with their pneumatic



Christology? They would seem to be more likely to embrace

some kind of a “kenotic” theory.

When we conclude an examination of these theories of

kenosis, however, we perceive that they are almost all

connected to the trinitarian theory rather than to a simple

of view of the incarnation. There would be no kenosistheory without the doctrine of the Trinity.

THE INCARNATION IN THE

COUNCILSThere are seven Catholic ecumenical church councils, which,

all but one, dealt, in one way or another, with teachings

about the “nature” of Jesus. They are: (1) Nicea 325 AD,

(2) Constantinople I 381 AD, (3) Ephesus 431 AD, (4)

Chalcedon 451 AD,(5) Constantinople II 553 AD, (6)

Constantinople III 680 AD, and (7) Nicea II,787 AD.

THE CREED OF THE NICENE COUNCIL (325 AD)

Of course, the primary purpose of the Council of Nicea (325

AD) was not to define the incarnation. The Catholic

bishops, who were allied with Alexandria and Athanasius,

were anxious to show, against the views of Arius and his

followers, that Christ was of “one substance (homoousios)”

with the Father.

Christ was identified as “the Son of God, the only-begotten

of his Father, and of the substance of the Father”.

He was called “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very

God”, and “begotten, not made”.

Concerning the incarnation, the creed simply states, “Who

for us men and for our salvation came down (from heaven)

and was incarnate and was made man”. Anathemas were

pronounced upon all who would say “there was a time when

the Son was not”, or “that before He was begotten He was

not”. That “He was made of things that were not”, or “that

He is of a difference substance or essence from the

Father”, or “that He is a creature, or subject to change or

conversion”.

No mention is made of the kenotic theory; however, the

pneumatic Christology (a heavenly being who comes down from

heaven) is mentioned, as is the “incarnation”, and “was

made man”. The pre-existent Christ, a separate divine

Person, is the being who becomes “incarnate”, and “was made

man”.



One small statement is given to the Holy Ghost, “And (we

believe) in the Holy Ghost”. The deity of the Holy Ghost is

not mentioned.

The virgin birth is not mentioned, although it could be

implied in the term “Son of God”, but rather the emphasis

seems to be upon a pre-Bethlehemic birth and not the virginbirth. In a diocesan epistle of Eusebius of Caesarea (265-

339 AD), presumed to have been part of a draft of the

Nicene credal statement, he added, “firstborn of all

creatures, begotten of the Father before all time”. But

again there is no mention of the virgin birth.

THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (381 AD)

The Creed of Constantinople adds the words “begotten of his

Father before all worlds”.

When it speaks of the incarnation, it states, “was

incarnate by the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, and wasmade man”. Thus, the role of the virgin in the incarnation

is clearly enunciated, while the pre-existent

“begetting...before all (ages)” is still held.

The role of the Holy Ghost is expanded, and He is titled

“the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the

Father”. And, the Holy Ghost, who “with the Father and the

Son together is worshipped and glorified”. The Holy Ghost

is also He “who spake by the prophets”.

Baptism “for the remission of sins” is acknowledged. This

is contrary to the teaching of most Protestant groups

today, who reject baptism “for the remission of sins”. In

doing so, they apparently reject the authority of the

ecumenical council (and the word of God, in this case).

Epiphanius(315-403 AD), bishop of Salamis, adds this on the

incarnation:

Who for us men and for our salvation came down, and was incarnate, that is to

say was conceived perfectly through the Holy Ghost of the holy ever-virgin

Mary, and was made man, that is to say a perfect man, receiving a soul, and

body, and intellect, and all that made up a man, but taking flesh to himself

into one holy entity...was perfectly made man, for the Word was made flesh;

neither did he experience any change, nor did he convert his divine nature into

the nature of man, but united it to his one holy perfection and divinity. For

there is one Lord Jesus Christ, not two (“The Seven Ecumenical Councils”,Nicene And Post Nicene Fathers, Vol. 15, Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans Pub, 1983).

Apollinaris of Laodicea (310-390 AD), a contemporary of

Epiphanius, held a somewhat different view of the

incarnation. He was accused of maintaining the deity of

Christ at the expense of Christ’s humanity.

J.W.C. Wand says it was he who instituted the “kenotic

theory” (The Four Great Heresies, London: Mowbray, 1967).



He said that Christ had only one nature. For this he was

condemned at the Council of Constantinople (381 AD).

It was Rufus Jone’s observation (The Church’s Debt To

Heretics, London: James Clarke Ltd, 1924) that nobody

“could deal profoundly with the problem of Christ’s nature

without being regarded a heretic from one side or theother”. This is probably still true today!

Philip Schaff (“The Seven Ecumenical Councils”, q.v.) says

that Apollinaris

had a fear of teaching a “double personality” for Christ,

and therefore “he fell into the error of a partial denial

of his true humanity”.

Adopting the trichotomy of Plato (body, soul, spirit), as

in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Galatians 5:17, Apollinaris

attributed to Christ a human body (soma),and a human soul

(psyche), but not a rational spirit (pneuma, nous, orpsychelogike). In the place of the rational spirit he put

the divine Logos.

In what Schaff calls “opposition to the idea of a mere

connection of the Logos with the man Jesus” (as in

Nestorianism), Apollinaris wished to “secure an organic

unity of the true incarnation. But he sought this at the

expense of what Schaff calls “the most important

constituent of man”.

Schaff says Apollinaris reached a theos sarkophoros, “a

God-bearing flesh”.

Nestorius, Schaff states, had an anthropos theophoros, “a

God-bearing man”, instead of what Schaff says ought to be

“the proper theandrotos” (“God-man”). This, of course, is

the trinitarian idea of the “God-man”, which borders on the

pagan “demigod” (half-god and half-man).

Apollinaris appealed to John 1:14, “the Word was made

flesh” (“flesh”, as he argued, not “spirit”). And 1 Timothy

3:16, “God was manifest in the flesh”. But Gregory

Nazianzen (329-390 AD) countered that the term “flesh” was

used to actually mean “the whole human nature”.

By having the Logos (which Apollinaris, as alltrinitarians, held to be the second divine Person in the

Godhead) assume the place of the human nous (what he called

the “rational spirit”), he was able to establish so close a

connection of the Logos with human flesh that all of the

attributes (divine and human) were interchangeable and the

two “merged in one nature in Christ” (q.v.).



Christ, according to Apollinaris, was neither whole man nor

God, but a mixture (mixis) of God and man. A mixing or a

“mingling”. This type of thinking is only possible if one

holds a “second divine Person” to have been incarnated.

On the other hand, Apollinaris called the “orthodox” view

of a union of full humanity with a full divinity in oneperson (“two wholes in one whole”) an “absurdity” (q.v.).

He called the result of this construction anthropotheos

(“man-God”), and put it in the same category of the

mythical Minotaur (“half bull and half man”).

Schaff says that Apollinaris’ idea of the Christ was that

of the union of the Logos with a “truncated human nature”.

Arianism had also put the Logos in the place of the human

spirit; however, Apollinaris stood for the

“unchangeableness” of the Logos (in the incarnation), while

the Arians did not.

Ralph Woodhall (The Theology of The Incarnation, Notre

Dame, IN: Fides Pub., 1968) notes that Apollinaris held

that the mind of the Logos replaced the human mind of

Christ in order to safeguard Christ’s sinless nature.

It is Schaff’s opinion that the modern theologians, who

initiated the current theory of “kenoticism”, Gess and

Ebrard, were “Apollinarians”. Gess taught that:

The only difference between the Logos and a human soul was, that he became

human by voluntary kenosis, while an ordinary human soul derives its existence

from a creative act. And Ebrard (Christliche Dogmatik, in q.v.) held: That a

genuine human soul was in Jesus is self evident, otherwise, he would not have

been a real human being.

But Ebrar seems to have questioned whether the indwelling

Logos took the place of the human soul at the incarnation,

or whether the indwelling Logos was in some way, alongside

a “special human soul” in Jesus.

Albrecht Ritschl called the whole kenotic theory “Shameless

Socinianism”.

Aloys Dirksen (Elementary Patrology, St. Louis: B. Herder,

1959) stated that Apollinarianism “paved the way for

monophysitism”, the teaching that Christ possesses only one

nature.

THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS (431 AD)

This council was convened to discuss the matter of

Nestorius (c.381-451 AD), the charismatic Persian bishop of

Constantinople, who, according to Dirksen (q.v.), “reduced

the incarnation to a mere moral union between a human being

and the second Person of the Trinity”. Nestorius reportedly



held Jesus to be a “mere human being in whom the Son of God

was present as in a house” (q.v.).

While Nestorius reportedly held that Christ was “morally”

one person, he believed that in reality there were two

persons, and that a “strict distinction” had to be made

between the two (persons).

He therefore held that Mary was not “theotokos” (“the

mother of God”), but rather only the mother of the man

Jesus. It was not the “Son of God”(the Logos), referring to

the “second divine Person” who redeemed man, but rather the

man Jesus, who died. Nestorius was eventually thrown out of

his bishopric, and later died in exile in the country of

Egypt.

There are only fragments of Nestorius’ writings remaining,

but the “Epistle of Cyril To Nestorius” (“Seven Ecumenical

Councils”, q.v.) gives us an idea of the Nestorian

teaching, and the “orthodox” teaching on the incarnation,

during this period.

Cyril (d.444 AD),bishop of Alexandria, chaired the Council

of Ephesus (431 AD), and was vehemently opposed to

Nestorius.

Briefly, this is what Cyril held “considering what is meant

by the Word of God being incarnate and made man” (a

reference to the Council of Nicea):

Cyril held that the “nature of the Word was not changed”

when made flesh, nor was the Word (Logos) “converted” into

a “whole man, consisting of soul and body”. Rather, Cyril

said, “the Word personally united to Himself flesh animated

by a rational soul”, and did “in an ineffable and

inconceivable manner become man”. He (the Logos) was not

called a man “because He was willing or pleased to be so

called”, and He (the Logos) was not called a man “on

account of taking to Himself a person”, but rather He (the

Logos) was called a man “because two natures were brought

together in a true union”. Yet there is one Christ, one Son.

But Cyril held, as the “orthodox” position, that “the

difference of the (two) natures is not taken away by the

union”. The “divinity and the humanity make perfect for us

the one Lord Jesus Christ by their ineffable

(indescribable) and inexpressible union”.

Concerning the- for lack of a less crude term - “mechanics”

of the incarnation itself, Cyril held that the “union” was

“made in the womb (of the virgin) itself”. He (the Logos)

“was not first born a common man of the holy virgin, and



then the Word (the Logos) came down and entered into him”.

The Logos (Word) did not suffer on the cross, but rather “

that which had become His own body suffered in this way”.

He (the Logos) “who is in himself incapable of suffering

was in a suffering body”.

Cyril, then, has descended two steps from the older

“patripassians”, who were accused of having the Father

suffer. Now, Cyril would have a “second divine Person” (the

Logos) unable to suffer, but His fleshly body could suffer.

If the Logos was unable to suffer, then why the furor over

another co-equal member of the Trinity (the Father)

suffering? Actually, the early trinitarians maintained that

the Father could not suffer, but the Logos could.

To reject this “union”, according to Cyril, is to hold to

“two Sons”. He said, “We must not divide the one Lord Jesus

Christ into two Sons”. Nor did he hold a “union of two

persons”, since the scripture did not say that the Word

(Logos) “united to himself the person of man, but that he

was made flesh” (John 1:14). But Cyril qualifies the “Word

was made flesh” (perhaps thinking of Hebrews 2), and says

that it can mean nothing else than “he partook of flesh and

blood like to us”. And he presages the kenotic theory,

stating:

he (the Logos) made our body his own, and came forth man from a woman, not

casting off his existence as God, or his generation of God the Father, but even

in taking to himself flesh remaining what he was (“Epistle To Nestorius”, “The

Seven Ecumenical Councils, q.v.)

This certainly sounds like the kenotic theory, althoughCyril makes no reference to Philippians 2. Admittedly,

there does not seem to be any “divesting” or “emptying”, as

in the modern kenotic theory. The Logos, in the

incarnation, did not “cast off his existence as God”. He

remained “what he was”.

However, in a subsequent epistle, “The Twelve Anathemas”,

to Nestorius, Cyril does use the phrase “katheis heauton

eis kenosen”, or “made himself of no reputation” (an

obvious reference to Philippians 2:7), and he connects this

exactly with the moment of the incarnation, “taking flesh

of the holy virgin”,

and “having made it (the flesh) his own from the womb, he

subjected himself to birth for us”. In another place, “he

humbled himself to a voluntary abasement” for us.

There is no apparent “emptying”, however, since Cyril

affirms that “he (the Logos) remained what he was, God in

essence and in truth”. Cyril rejected saying that “his



(Christ’s) flesh was changed into the nature of divinity”,

or that “the ineffable nature of the Word (Logos) of God

was laid aside for the nature of the flesh”:

For although visible and a child in swaddling clothes, and even in the bosom of

his virgin mother, he (the Logos) filled all creation as God, and was a fellow-

ruler with him who begat him, for the Godhead is without quantity and

dimension, and cannot have limits (“Twelve Anathemas”, in “Seven EcumenicalCouncils”, q.v.).

Other than the small reference to “subjected himself to

birth”, there is seemingly no thought here of “divesting”

or “emptying” in Cyril. The Logos remains God (“as the

second divine Person”), a “fellow-ruler” with God the

Father, and “filled all creation as God”, even while

incarnated.

Apparently, Nestorius, on the other hand, taught that the

Word (Logos) “dwelt” in the man Jesus, who was born of the

virgin, and considered Christ to be “a God-bearing man”,

with the Logos dwelling in Him in some way similar(although much more intimate) to the Spirit dwelling in the

saints.

Nestorius preferred the word synatheias (“conjunction”)

rather than the term “union”(henosen). Cyril disagreed with

thinking of Christ as being “double” (i.e., having a double

personality, or being two persons), because “he (God) has

joined them in an indivisible union”. He said, “we transfer

the human and the divine to the same person”.

Nestorius was of the school of the Antiochenes (Antioch),

who emphasized the genuine humanity of Christ. Heapparently had problems with the teaching that the Logos

“united human flesh to Himself”. In his view, this type of

“union” still denigrated the pure humanity of the Son, even

though it did not go as far as Apollinarianism.

Having the Logos as a “second divine Person”, distinct from

the Father, it was possible for the “orthodox” to not

involve the Father in the incarnation, and to continue to

ascribe what I would call “the reservations of divinity” to

Him. Since the scripture said “the Word was made flesh”,

they were perhaps forward to push too far the “union” of

the divine and the human. Nestorius seems to have attemptedto avoid this, but did so apparently at the expense of the

unity of the Father and the Son (in the incarnation).

Nestorius reputedly taught that God “indwelt a man with a

human personality of his own distinct from the personality

of the indwelling God”, and that “God assumed to himself

human nature, that is a human body and a human soul, but

without human personality” (Henry Percival, “Seven



Ecumenical Councils”, q.v.). He seems to have held a

separate “human” person along with a “divine” person.

Nestorius also seems to have held that “Christ was one with

the Word by participation in dignity” (William Bright,

“Seven Ecumenical Councils”, q.v.).

“The man” Jesus was a “partaker of divine power” (Ibid). I

note that this, coming out of Antioch, harkens back to the

accusations against the dynamic monarchian, Paul of

Samosata, who was bishop of Antioch in the third century.

Jesus,according to Nestorius, in the sense of being a

“partaker of divine power”, was more than a mere man, and

was therefore “adored” together with the Logos (Word).

Nestorius is reported to have said at the Council of

Ephesus, “I can never allow that a child of three months

old was God”. This type of thinking, again, is reminiscent

of the old Ebionite and dynamic monarchian teaching thatthe moment of the incarnation was not at conception or

birth, but rather later at the baptism, or even at the

resurrection. Obviously, though, Nestorius was a

trinitarian, and held that it was the Logos (second divine

Person), who was incarnated, and not God the Father.

Nestorius’ old instructor, Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428

AD), of the school of Antioch, had stated, “Mary bare

Jesus, not the Word (Logos)...the Word was and remained

omnipresent, although from the beginning he dwelt in Jesus

in a peculiar manner” (q.v.). And that, “she bare a man, in

whom the union with the Word (Logos) was begun, but wasstill so little completed, that he was not yet called the

Son of God”. This also is reminiscent of the charges made

against Paul of Samosata, that the Word dwelt in Jesus “in

a peculiar manner”.

It is easy to see the influence of Theodore upon Nestorius.

While we remember that both of these men believed in the

incarnation of the second divine Person, their approach to

the incarnation reminds one of that of the Ebionites in the

first and second centuries. They seemed to have believed

that there was not a union in the womb (to the degree

professed by the “orthodox”), but that there was a“relative union” of the Father and Son, which, it appears,

they actually believed came “later” (at the baptism?).

Theodore of Mopsuestia (and Nestorius, following him)

taught that “The two natures united together make only one

person, as man and wife are only one flesh”. There was a

distinct Logos (second divine Person), perfect and

complete, “and so also his person”. And “the nature and



person of the man as perfect and complete”. Theodore

concluded, “If, on the other hand, we have regard to the

union (synatheia, “connection”), we say it is (only) one

person”. Two persons, but they were one in unity.

Theodore uses the term synatheia for “union” rather than

henosen. This is said to express only an “externalconnection”, a “fixing together” (q.v.). He

writes, “The Logos dwells in the man assumed as in a

temple”. In other words, the divine person and the human

person outwardly seem to be only one person (Christ), but

inwardly they remain “essentially two persons” (q.v.).

The “orthodox”, on the other hand, went to the other

extreme, denying the working of the Holy Spirit within the

man Jesus:

If any man shall say that the one Lord Jesus Christ was glorified by the Holy

Ghost, so that he used through him a power not his own and from him received

power against unclean spirits and power to work miracles before men and shallnot rather confess that it was his own Spirit through which he worked these

divine signs; let him be anathema (“Twelve Anathemas Against Nestorius”, q.v.).

Jesus professed to cast out devils by “the Spirit of God”

(Matthew 12:28), and He also said, “the Father that

dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 14:10). If we are

to logically follow the argument of the “orthodox”, then we

must identify the Holy Spirit as the Father, and then again

the Logos as the Holy Spirit (as the apostle Paul did).

In a letter to bishop John of Antioch,following the Council

of Ephesus, Cyril called the incarnation an “unmixed

union”, in which “God the Word was incarnate and becameman, and from this conception he united the temple taken

from her (Mary) with himself” (“The Seven Ecumenical

Councils”, q.v.). He repeats his theory of the kenosis:

God the Word (Logos) came down from above and from heaven. He ‘made himself of

no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant,’ and was called the Son

of Man, yet remaining what he was, that is to say God. (q.v.)

Cyril denies having said that a krasis (“mingling” or

“mixture”) took place between the Word (Logos) and flesh.

We find that Cyril’s letter to bishop John of Antioch (433

AD) restored some peace among the Catholics because Cyril

agreed that the union in Christ was a “union of natures”,thus clearing himself from charges of Apollinarianism

(Christology of The Later Fathers, Vol. 3, ed. Edward

Hardy, Philadelphia: Westminister Press, n.d.).

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON (451 AD)

The Council of Chalcedon was convened to settle a dispute

brought about by an abbot at Constantinople, Eutyches, who



claimed that there were “two natures in Christ before the

union, but only one afterward”. These two natures were “in

divine foreknowledge of the incarnation...but only one

nature” (after the incarnation actually took place),

apparently a result of some sort of a “mixture” of human

and divine (Christology of The Later Fathers, Vol. 3, q.v.).

According to bishop Leo of Rome (episcopate 440-461 AD),

Eutyches held that the flesh of him whom the virgin

conceived “was not of the nature of her that conceived him”

(“The Letter of Leo To Flavian”, The Seven Ecumenical

Councils,

q.v.). But Leo maintained, “it was the Holy Ghost who gave

fecundity (fertility) to the virgin, but it was from a body

that a real body was derived” (q.v.). The Word was made

flesh and dwelt among us “that is, in that flesh which he

assumed from a human being, and which he animated with the

spirit of rational life” (q.v.).

Leo adds, “the inviolable nature (i.e., divine) was united

to the passible (i.e., human)” (q.v.).

Christ was “whole in what was his, whole in what was ours”.

And Leo noted:

By ‘ours’ we mean what the Creator formed in us at the beginning and what he

assumed in order to restore; for of that which the deceiver brought in, and

man, thus deceived, admitted, there was not a trace in the Savior; and the fact

that he took on himself a share of our infirmities did not make him a partaker

of our transgressions.

And Leo does not seem to see much of a problem with

interpreting Philippians 2:5-11 to apply it to themechanics of the incarnation itself:

He assumed ‘the form of a servant’ without the defilement of sin, enriching

what was human, not impairing what was divine: because that ‘emptying of

himself’, whereby the Invisible made himself visible, and the Creator and Lord

of all things willed to be one among mortals, was a stooping down in

compassion, not a failure of power. Accordingly, the same who, remaining in the

form of God, made man, was made man in the form of a servant.(q.v.)

But Leo, while preserving the dignity of the Divinity,

nevertheless insists upon following the Logos doctrine and

assigning the duty of salvation to another divine Person

other than God the Father:

the Son of God, descending from his seat in heaven, and not departing from the

glory of the Father, enters this lower world, born after a new order, by a new

mode of birth. (q.v.)

Leo held that the “properties of the divine and human

nature” remained in Jesus without “causing a division”

(q.v.).

Eutyches, however, held that the Son had a new “mixed”

nature. Leo rightly responded that this type of nature



denied the efficacy of the cross.

Leo either paraphrases 1 John 4:2,3, or else quotes from a

different ancient version:

Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God;

and every spirit which dissolveth Jesus is not of God, and this is Antichrist

(q.v.).

But Eutyches is accused of not believing that Christ had a

genuine human body.

He believed that the “union” (of humanity and deity)

produced only “one nature”. He did believe that this mixed

nature was capable of suffering. Leo stated that Eutyches

said that the pre-existent Son, already before the

incarnation, possessed both human and divine natures

(apparently, as stated, “in the divine foreknowledge of

God”).

THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE II (553 AD)

At the Council of Constantinople II (553 AD), a posthumous

attack was made upon the Antiochene Theodore of Mopsuestia,

the teacher of Nestorius.

Many of the accusations made by the Council of

Constantinople II are said to have been fabrications or

interpolations of Theodore’s writings.

Among other things he was accused of teaching that the

Logos was one person and Christ was another person.

He was said to have taught that Christ “became better by

the progress in good works”, As a “mere man”, Jesus wasbaptized in the “name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”.

And he obtained by his baptism “the grace of the Holy

Spirit”, and “became worthy of Sonship” (q.v.). That the

incarnated Christ was worshipped only out of regard for

“God the Word”, just as one worships the “image of the

emperor” (q.v.).

Also, Theodore is accused by the Council of stating that

the union of God the Word with Christ was “like to that

which...exists between a man and his wife” (q.v.).

Another “blasphemy” which Theodore was accused of was that

he said that when the resurrected Jesus breathed upon his

disciples and said “Receive the Holy Ghost” (John 20:22),

that he breathed upon them only “as a sign” (q.v.).

Theodore seems correct, since the apostles did not actually

receive the Holy Spirit until the day of Pentecost (Acts

2:4).

As the bishop of Rome, Vigilius (d.554 AD), wrote



“(Theodore) did not believe that Christ was God” (q.v.).

Again, this is the strain of theology seen in the school of

Antioch, which strongly emphasized the genuine humanity of

Christ. It is possible, however, that the Council was

attempting to “tarbrush” Theodore of Mopsuestia with the

“heresy” of Paul of Samosata.

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF NICEA (787 AD)

This Catholic Ecumenical Council was called by the Emperor,

with the acknowledgment and the approval of the bishop of

Rome, and was attended by 350 bishops. Therefore, it is

called an “ecumenical” council.

It did not concern itself with the theology of the

incarnation, but rather with reversing the effects of the

so-called “mock synod” of Constantinople (754 AD), which

outlawed images and pictures in churches or in worship.

The council of 787 AD decreed that it was alright to“salute”, or to “honor” images and pictures, but “worship”

was reserved for God alone.

The upheaval created in the Byzantine empire by this issue

is scarcely imaginable. Following the “mock synod” of 754

AD, which anathematized images and pictures, the Emperor

Copronymus began to persecute those Catholics who were in

favor of the images. He singled out the more noted monks

and required them to comply with the decrees of the synod

(q.v.).

Copronymus forced monks to appear in the hippodrome at

Constantinople, hand in hand with harlots, while the

“populace spat at them” (q.v.). Monasteries were destroyed,

turned into barracks, with the property going into the

hands of the state.

One of Copronymus’s governors, Lachonodraco, collected a

number of monks onto a broad plain, dressed them in white,

presented them with wives, and forced them to choose

between marriage and loss of sight.

The imperial police stormed the churches, and “destroyed

those images and pictures which had not been secured”

(q.v.). It was only the death of the Emperor Copronymus in775 AD, which saved those Catholic clergy who believed in

the use of images and pictures from being extirpated. Under

the Empress Irene, the use of images and pictures was

gradually revived. The Second Council of Nicea in 787 AD

confirmed the “orthodoxy” of this position.

A SUMMARY OF THE SEVEN ECUMENICAL COUNCILS



The Catholic church took the position that there was a

genuine and ineffable “hypostatic” union of the human

nature and divine nature in one Person, Christ. It was the

second divine Person (the Logos), who was incarnated. The

Logos took flesh unto himself. The Word was not converted

into flesh, but rather he (the Word) united the flesh to

his divinity. He was conceived of the Holy Ghost through

the virgin Mary, and was made perfect man, with a human

soul, a human body, and a human intellect.

The Catholics rejected the Apollinarian concept that the

human nature and the divine nature were “mixed” in Christ.

They held to the distinctness of the human and divine

natures, even though there was what they called a

“hypostatic union” (“hypostatic”, in this instance, seeming

to refer to the term “being”).There were not two “beings”,

but rather one “being”. They rejected the Nestorian concept

of “two persons”, and a mere “conjunction” of naturesrather than a “union”.

This “union” did not take place after the conception in the

womb, but was part and parcel of the conception itself. In

other words, the Logos did not unite himself to a ready-

made human being, but rather took unto himself “flesh”

during the process of the “ineffable and inconceivable

union” during the conception itself. These Catholic

fathers, then, apparently considered that the phrase “the

Word was made flesh” (or “became flesh”) to mean that Mary

supplied the flesh in the “ineffable union” of the two

natures. The two natures remained distinct in one person. There was no confusion or mixing of the two natures. There

was not a resultant “one nature” as Eutyches had

incorrectly taught.

They also rejected the “monothelite” (one will) teaching

concerning Christ. Christ has two wills (human and divine),

which were in complete harmony, since Christ subjected his

human will to the divine in all things.

THE INCARNATION IN THE ANCIENT FATHERS

WHAT EUSEBIUS, THE “OFFICIAL” CATHOLIC CHURCH HISTORIAN,

THOUGHT

We have seen some of the theories concerning the

incarnation in the Catholic fathers, since we have examined

the seven Catholic Ecumenical Councils. There are other

writings,however, in which we can examine incarnational

views in both Apostolic and Catholic fathers.

Eusebius of Caesarea (265-339 AD), for example, one of the



prime movers in the Council of Nicea (325 AD), was of the

Arian persuasion.

In his sermon celebrating the 30th year of the Emperor

Constantine’s reign, he made Arian references concerning

the Logos:

the Supreme God...is unbegotten, above and beyond all creation, ineffable,inaccessible, unapproachable...dwelling in the light which none can enter...

(creation is) infinitely far removed from his unbegotten essence, (but) the

Almighty God (has) interposed ...an intermediate Power between himself and

them, even the divine omnipotence of his only-begotten Word (Logos) (“The

Oration of Eusebius”, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. l, Grand Rapids: Wm.

Eerdmans, 1986).

Eusebius considered the pre-existent Word (Logos), which he

personified, to have been begotten of the Father. He used

the terms logos endiathetos (the word internalized or

“thought”) and logos prophorikos (the word externalized or

“speech”), as the early Catholic fathers had done. The

Word, however, is more than just divine speech. The Word isa separate personal being, subsisting alongside with the

Father, and “proceeds from his Father’s deity and kingdom”

(q.v.).

He also wrote, however, that:

(The Word) showed them God in human form...he performed all his works through

the medium of that body which he had assumed for the sake of those who else

were incapable of apprehending his divine nature. In all this he was the

servant of his Father’s will, himself remaining still the same as when with the

Father; unchanged in essence, unimpaired in nature, unfettered by the trammels

of mortal flesh, nor hindered by his abode in a human body from being elsewhere

present.

In this passage, Eusebius is apparently referring to thetheory of kenosis, without, however, quoting from

Philippians 2:5-11. Notice that the incarnation does not

“change” Christ’s “essence” or “impair” his “nature”. He is

not “fettered” by his flesh, and his omnipresence is not

hindered by the incarnation. His views on the incarnation,

of course, are flawed in that he accepted the theory of the

incarnation of a second divine Person.

Aloys Dirksen (q.v.) states that Eusebius was an

“Origenist”, and that he regarded the Holy Ghost as a

“creature”, and considered the Son “as inferior to the

Father”. He was even “ex-communicated” at one council(Antioch, 325 AD) for “Arianism”. He wrote in a letter to

Euphration the words, “Since the Son is himself God, but

not true God”. This would put him in the Arian camp. But

the matter is very confused, since he seems to have been on

“both sides of the fence” during his life.

Socrates Scholasticus (c.380-450 AD), in his

Eccleisiastical History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,



Vol. 2, q.v.), defends Eusbeius from the accusations of

Arianism.

THE EARLIER FATHERS

Athenagoras of Athens, one of the earliest known

trinitarians, reportedly wrote “The Epistle To Diognetus”

(c.130 AD). In this epistle, Athenagoras displayed early

the Logos doctrine. God the Father sent the Word (Logos),

who was the Creator and “Fashioner of all things” from

Heaven. God the Father “formed in his mind a great and

unspeakable conception, which he communicated to his Son

alone” (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, Grand Rapids: Wm.

Eerdman,

1987). While Athenagoras does not mention the specifics of

the incarnation, it is obvious that he believes in the

Logos doctrine, and that he believed it was the Son that

was incarnated, and not God the Father.

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH

Ignatius of Antioch (c.30-115 AD), a reputed disciple of

the apostle John and the apostle Peter, held the high

monarchian view of the incarnation. He did not teach that a

second divine Person had become incarnated, but rather that

it was God the Father himself.

In his Ephesians 18, Ignatius wrote:

For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment (dispensation) of

God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy

Ghost. He was born and baptized, that by his passion, he might purify the water

(q.v.).

Notice that Ignatius identifies the one “conceived in the

womb by Mary...by the Holy Ghost” as “our God Jesus

Christ”. Moreover, Jesus is “of the seed of David”. He

obviously held Jesus to be sinless, since the Savior was

baptized that he might “purify the water” by his passion

(crucifixion), and not because he himself needed baptism.

In Ephesians 19, Ignatius writes of the incarnation, “God

himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of

eternal life”. He also seems to hold two natures in Christ

(human and divine), since he writes, “Jesus Christ, who was

of the seed of David according to the flesh, being both the

Son of man and the Son of God” (Ephesians 20, q.v.).

In his epistle to the Magnesians, chapter 6, Ignatius

writes, “Jesus Christ, who was the Father before the

beginning of time (the ages)”. In Wakes’s translation (from

the text of Vossius), it is “who was the Father”, thus

identifying Jesus as the pre-existent Father. However,



there are other texts which have “who was with the Father”.

It seems, however, that Ignatius knew nothing of the Logos

doctrine of a second divine Person becoming incarnated.

Later, in Magnesians (7), Ignatius speaks of “one Jesus

Christ, who came forth from one Father, and is with one,

and has gone to one”. This undoubtedly speaks of the manJesus (“the Word made flesh”). It does not speak of another

heavenly being sent down from Heaven by the Father, since

we do not see this teaching elsewhere in Ignatius.

Ignatius does not use the phrase “eternal Son” (as the

later trinitarians were to do). He does, however, use the

phrase “eternal Word” (Magnesians 8).

Ignatius did not observe the sabbath (Magnesians 9), but

rather observed what he called “the Lord’s day” (see

Revelation 1:10).

He calls Jesus “our only Master” (Magnesians 9). He alsoseems to have believed that Matthew 27:52 indicated the

resurrection of Old Testament prophets. He apparently also

believed that Jesus had gone in the Spirit and preached to

those in Sheol (1 Peter 3:19), as he says in Philadelphians

5.

In Magnesians 15, Ignatius identifies the Holy Spirit as

Jesus Christ.

And in the epistle to the Trallians, he speaks of “Jesus

Christ, who was descended from David, and was also of Mary;

who was truly born, and did eat and drink” (Trallians 9).

Ignatius wrote that Jesus raised himself from the grave in

Smyrnaens 2 (see also the Gospel of John 2:19). Moreover,

he believed in a genuine resurrection of the body, as he

writes, “For I know that after his resurrection also he was

still possessed of flesh (“in the flesh”), quoting Luke

24:39, in Smyrnaeans 3.

And, “after his resurrection”, writes Ignatius, “he did eat

and drink with them, as being possessed of flesh, although

spiritually he was united to the Father” (Smyrnaeans 3).

In conclusion, it can be said that Ignatius seems to have

believed in the incarnation, with Jesus having two natures,human and divine. He seems to have believed that the

incarnation itself took place in the womb of the virgin at

conception.

THE SPURIOUS EPISTLE OF BARNABAS

This epistle is estimated to have been written as early as

100 AD, and perhaps as late as 150 AD (A. Cleveland Coxe,



Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, q.v.).

The epistle shows little respect for Judaism, and contains

numerous inaccuracies with “respect to Mosaic enactments

and observances”, and cannot be ascribed to Barnabas, the

great companion to the apostle Paul. The writer speaks as a

Gentile. Most likely, this epistle would have a much laterdate, since it shows trinitarian doctrine, and does not

even appear to represent the simple style of the early half

of the second century.

For example, in chapter 5, it speaks of Christ as a second

divine Person:

He being Lord of all the world, to whom God said at the foundation of the

world, ‘Let us make man after our image and after our likeness’. (q.v.)

This, of course, is a trinitarian interpretation of Genesis

1:26. The incarnation is ascribed not to God the Father,

but rather to “the Son of God”,

who “came in the flesh” (chapter 5, q.v.).

The epistle contains fantastic notions about animals,

affirming that the hyena is able to change its sex from

male to female! The weasel “conceives by the mouth”!

Also, “Barnabas” seems to quote from the first century

“Gospel of The Egyptians”:

And when shall these things be accomplished? And the Lord saith, When a tree

shall be bent down, and again arise, and when blood shall flow out of (the)

wood. (q.v.)

The Gospel of the Egyptians is probably out of the first

half of the second century. Clement of Alexandria knew ofit. This familiarity with this Gospel-assuming it is the

same Gospel- may actually place this writer in the area of

north Africa (Alexandria?).

JUSTIN MARTYR AND THE INCARNATION

Justin Martyr (c.114-165 AD), was apparently the son of a

Roman and a Samaritan mother. He was born in Neapolis

(Nablus) in Samaria. He studied in Athens, becoming a

philosopher. He was converted to Catholic Christianity

about 133 AD. He died a martyr in Rome 165 AD. Justin

claimed to have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit(“Dialogue With Trypho” 29, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1,

q.v.). He was baptized by immersion for the remission of

sins, using a type of an early trinitarian formula, which

contained the name of Jesus Christ.

In his “First Apology” (c.140 AD), he asserted that it was

the Word (Logos) which was incarnated:

the Logos himself, who took shape, and became man, and was called Jesus



Christ...the Son who came forth from him (God the Father)...and the host of the

other good angels who follow and are made like to him. (Ante-Nicene Fathers,

Vol. l, q.v.)

Like Philo, Justin seems to have identified the “pre-

existent Logos” as an

archangel. Jesus is also called “Angel” in chapter 43, and

in “Dialogue With Trypho 34”. Interestingly, Justin uses

the phrase “prophetic Spirit” for the Holy Spirit. While

this may have just been a common name used in that period,

it is noteworthy that it was a trademark of the Montanists

to designate the Holy Spirit as “the prophetic Spirit”.

Moreover, Justin was associated in Rome with Christians

from Phrygia, the place of origin of the Montanists, during

his last years alive.

Justin held Jesus “in the second place” to God the Father,

and the “prophetic Spirit” (Holy Spirit) “in the third”

(q.v.). God the Father he calls “the only unbegotten God”.We might contrast this with the variant, “the only begotten

God” in John 1:18.

The Logos is the “firstborn” of God, produced “without

sexual union” (q.v.).

He was born “in a peculiar manner, different from ordinary

generation”. He was born (also) of a virgin, “the only

proper Son who has been begotten of God”. “He became a man

among men” (q.v.).

The Son “took flesh and became man” (q.v.). “The power of

God having come upon the virgin, overshadowed her, and

caused her while yet a virgin to conceive” (q.v.). She

conceived “of the Holy Ghost”. It is interesting that, in

at least one place (perhaps early), Justin equates the Holy

Spirit with the Word (q.v.). This was common in the first

half of the second century until the Montanist emphasis

upon the Holy Spirit as the “third person”.

Justin, in his “Second Apology”, continues to insist that

God the Father has no name:

But to the Father of all, who is unbegotten, there is no name given. For by

whatever name he be called, he has as his elder the person who gives him the

name...his Son, who alone is properly called Son, the Word, who also was with

him and was begotten before the works, when at first he created and arranged all things by him (the Word)... (q.v.)

This, of course, is in direct opposition to the scriptures

of the Old Testament (e.g., see Exodus 3:13,14). The Logos,

as Justin seems to teach, was “begotten before the works

(of creation)”. He was a strong subordinationist, whose

doctrine subsequent trinitarians have unsuccessfully tried

to disavow, even though it is part and parcel of the



trinitarian model.

Justin says:

For next to God, we worship and love the Word (Logos) who is from the

unbegotten and ineffable God, since also he became man for our sakes...(q.v.).

And, in chapter 45 (“The Dialogue With Trypho”, q.v.), he

refers to Christ and the incarnation:

Christ, Son of God, who was before the morning star and the moon, and submitted

to become incarnate, and ... born of this virgin of the family of David...

(q.v.).

Much is made by Justin on a variant reading in the Psalms,

which says “before the morning star I have begotten thee”

(Psalms 110:3).

The Son, in Justin’s view, “was begotten of the Father by

an act of will” (before the ages) (q.v.). This is obviously

contrary to the biblical account of the birth of the Lord

Jesus, which describes the virgin birth and not some

nebulous pre-existent birth.

IRENAEUS AND THE INCARNATION

Irenaeus of Lyons (120-202 AD), one of the respected

earlier Catholic fathers, wrote extensively.

In his Against Heresies (I.ix.3) he identifies Christ as

“the Word of the Father”, and the one who “descended

(as)..the same also who ascended”. And he states:

He...the only-begotten Son of the only God, who, according to the good pleasure

of the Father, became flesh for the sake of men...(q.v.).

And, to counter docetism, Irenaeus says that the Savior’s

flesh was “that which was of old formed for Adam by God out

of the dust”. And it is this (flesh) “that John declared

the Word of God became”.

In his statement of a creed, Irenaeus (q.v., I.x.1) says,

“Christ Jesus, who became incarnate for our salvation”.

Thus, we see that he also holds to a Logos interpretation

of a second divine Person becoming incarnate.

In another place, Irenaeus writes, “the Word of God became

flesh and suffered” (I.x.3).

Irenaeus quotes copiously from the gospels. He mentions

that Matthew wrote a gospel for “the Hebrews, in their own

dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome”.

After their departure (we assume in the AD 60’s), Irenaeus

reports that Mark, “the disciple and interpreter of Peter”,

wrote another gospel from the words of Peter. This would

place the Gospel of the Hebrews by Matthew earlier than the

gospel of Mark. Then Irenaeus mentions Luke’s gospel. The

last gospel was written by John in Ephesus (III.1.1).



Irenaeus is quite insistent that the church of Rome was

founded and organized by both Peter and Paul (III.3.2).

Concerning the incarnation, Irenaeus writes, “ Jesus

Christ, the Son of God...condescended to be born of the

virgin”.

Irenaeus writes that “the Word...did also take upon Him

flesh, and was anointed by the Spirit from the Father”

(III.ix.3).

In a passage in Against Heresies (III.xvi.6), Irenaeus

seems to affirm his belief in a union of divinity and

humanity in the incarnation:

(He) who is truly God... His only-begotten Word, who is always present with the

human race, united to and mingled with His own creation, according to the

Father’s pleasure, and who became flesh, is Himself Jesus Christ our Lord.

And this incarnation, according to Irenaeus, fulfilled “all

the conditions of the human nature” (III.xvii.4).

During the incarnation, Irenaeus says this about the Word

(since he believes that it was the Word or Logos which was

incarnate): “the Word (remained) quiescent”.

He exlains that this “quiescence” was so that the man Jesus

might be tempted, might suffer death. But in the

resurrection, “the human nature...(was) swallowed up in the

divine (nature)”.

And Irenaeus is careful to assert that flesh was taken from

the virgin in the incarnation, when he says, “Those...who

allege that He took nothing from the virgin do greatly err”

(III.xxii.1). He maintained that God (which He maintains is

the Word in this instance) received “the substance of flesh

from a human being” (that is, from Mary)(q.v.). And

Irenaeus asked the question, “Why did He come down into

her, if he were to take nothing of her?” (III.xxii.2).

Again, in Against Heresies (IV.xxxiii.11), Irenaeus speaks

of “the union of the Word of God with His own workmanship,

declaring that the Word should become flesh, and the Son of

God the Son of man”.

The Son, according to Irenaeus, was pre-existing as a

separate person, assisting the Father:...the Father planning everything well and giving His commands, the Son

carrying these into execution and performing the work of creating, and the

Spirit nourishing and increasing (what is made)...(IV.xxxviii.3).

In this particular triad, we notice that “the Father” is

the brains of the operation (“planning...giving His

commands”), while the Son actually “performs” the work. The

Holy Spirit also has a function. He is a “nourisher” and an



“increaser”.

In Book V (V.i.1) Irenaeus describes the incarnation in

this manner, “our Master, existing as the Word, had become

man”. What “other person”, Irenaeus asks, “knew the mind of

the Lord” (and now we know why the translator uses the word

“master” to translate the Latin “dominus” rather than Lord-since he would be forced to write that only the “Lord”

could know “the mind of the Lord”!).Then the thought of

“two divine persons” would be destroyed!

We could go on examining the early Catholic fathers only to

see that the idea of the Logos doctrine was implanted in

the first quarter of the second century. While, for some

time, these Catholic theologians struggled with the

doctrine of co-equality and co-eternality, by the early

third century, they had established the “triunity” of God,

and some had elevated the Holy Spirit to the status of full

deity.

THE THIRD PERSON-TERTULLIAN AND THE MONTANISTS

Tertullian (145-220 AD) is called “the founder of Latin

(Catholic) Christianity” by A.C. Coxe (The Ante-Nicene

Fathers, Vol. III, q.v.). While this may be true in part,

it is a great deception in the sense that Tertullian

formulated his views on the Godhead and the incarnation

after he became a follower of Montanus, who was not

considered “orthodox” by the Catholics, although a great

deal of apologetical writing has “spruced up” the image of

Montanus somewhat in the twentieth century, since it isapparent that he held a trinitarian viewpoint on the

Godhead.

Tertullian was an attorney. He did not become a Christian

until he was about 40 years old (185 AD). Some scholars

acknowledge that he probably became a Montanist before 200

AD. It cannot have been too many years later. It is not

known whether he was a trinitarian before he became a

Montanist or not. Therefore, then, it is unlikely that

Tertullian ever was indeed a Catholic! And yet he is

heralded as a “Catholic father”, one of the great

architects of the Trinity.Tertullian was a native of the African city of Carthage,

the son of a proconsular centurion. He was apparently

educated in Rome.

Jerome, in his Catalogus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum, wrote

this about Tertullian:

After remaining a presbyter of the church until he had had attained the middle

age of life, Tertullian was, by the envy and contumelious treatment of the



Roman clergy, driven to embrace the opinions of Montanus...

Unfortunately, we do not have the view of the Roman

“clergy” concerning what happened. It is rather doubtful

that a man of Tertullian’s apparent intelligence and social

position was “driven to embrace the opinions of Montanus”.

The “envy and contumelious treatment” reportedly receivedat the hands of the Roman district has not been confirmed

in history.

The truth of the matter is that the Roman church leadership

during this time period (180-225 AD)was monarchian or

oneness.

Bishop Victor, the Roman bishop who was in office 189-198

AD, seems to have infuriated Tertullian because he recalled

recognition of the Montanists in Asia minor, who had

usurped authority in a number of churches in that province.

Tertullian would not have been any more fond of bishop

Zephyrinus (198-217 AD), the successor to bishop Victor,

because Zephyrinus had no sympathy for those who worshipped

two or three gods, as in the case of Hippolytus, another

trinitarian, and Tertullian.

And Tertullian seems also to have despised bishop Callistus

(217-222 AD).

Moreover, Jerome, who relates how badly the Roman ministry

treated Tertullian,

thus driving him into Montanism, had little sympathy for

the Roman prelates himself, dismissing bishop Victor’s

writings (which have been either lost or conveniently

destroyed), as being “mediocre” (R.B. Tollinton, Clement of

Alexandria, Vol. l, London: Williams & Norgate, 1914).

Jerome tells us that this Roman bishop wrote “treatises on

the question of Easter (Christian Passover) and other

matters (italics mine)”. It is my opinion that these

writings of Victor on “other matters” were monarchian or

oneness, and would be very damaging to Catholic claims were

they to be discovered.

As J.Estlin Carpenter says, “Tertullian...was led to

formulate his views on the Trinity and the Person of Christ

in controversy with Praxeas” (The Early Phases of

Christianity, London: Knickerbocker Press, 1916). “Praxeas”

(“Busybody”) was a very well-known minister, who was

influential with bishop Victor of Rome. Praxeas was a

modalistic monarchian (oneness).

In his argument with Praxeas, Tertullian was led to adopt

gnostic emanation concepts in constructing the doctrine of



the Trinity. For example, he appropriated the gnostic term

probole (emanation) as a designation describing the divine

Son, begotten of God the Father. Tertullian knew that he

had adopted a gnostic concept, and “he was reproved for it

by his modalist opponents” (Martin Werner, The Formation of

Christian Dogma, Boston: Beacon Press, 1957).

Concerning the incarnation, Tertullian did not believe that

it was God the Father who was incarnated. He wrote in

reference to John 1.1, “There is one who was, and another

with whom He was” (Alvan Lamson, The Church of The First

Three Centuries, Boston: Walker, Wise & Co., 1860).

Friedrich Ueberweg believes that Tertullian was converted

to Montanism c.197 AD (History of Philosophy, Vol. l, NY:

Scribner’s Sons, 1909). This date may be a little early,

however.

R.S. Franks admits that Tertullian wrote against Praxeas,

the modalist, AFTER Tertullian had become a Montanist (The

Doctrine of The Trinity, London: Duckworth & Co., 1953).

Other modern trinitarian scholars, such as the noted

Jaroslav Pelikan (The Finality of Jesus Christ In An Age of

Universal History, Richmond: John Knox Press, 1966),

realized how damaging to Catholic “orthodoxy” it was to

have a Montanist Tertullian known as one of the great

architects of the Catholic Trinity, have attempted to

mitigate the uncontrovertible evidence of Tertullian’s

Against Praxeas by unsuccessfully claiming that Tertullian

was an orthodox Catholic when he held his trinitarian views.

But R.S. Franks admits that “no one has exercised more

influence on the actual shape taken by the doctrine of the

Trinity than Tertullian, except only Origen” (q.v.). And

Franks added, “Tertullian has greatly influenced the

doctrine of the incarnation” (q.v.).

Franks maintained that Tertullian taught that “the distinct

existence of the Spirit began when the exalted Christ

poured out the gift which He had received from the Father”.

And Tertullian called the Spirit, “the Holy Spirit, the

third name in the Godhead (Against Praxeas, c.213 AD).

And Tertullian wrote, “The Spirit is third from the Fatherand the Son, as the fruit from the stem is third from the

root. The monarchia is preserved since there is no

separation”.

H.J. Carpenter well notes that:

...the popular faith, concerned for its firmly held belief in the unity

(oneness) of God and the deity of Christ, might well recoil in deep suspicion

from Tertullian’s doctrine of extended divine substance and subordinate



Sonship, and feel better satisfied with the simpler modalist statement.

Tertullian was well aware that he was fighting against the

orthodox view of oneness (the monarchy) in his day. He

projects his guilt in the question: “how can I be possibly

destroying the Monarchy from the faith”? (Against Praxeas

4.1). He perversely argued that the oneness teachers weretrying “to destroy the truth by defending it” (Against

Praxeas 1). Praxeas had “fabricated a heresy out of (the)

doctrine of unity (oneness)” (q.v.).

Tertullian admits that the Roman ministers said that those,

who were attacking the oneness of God were “preachers of

two gods and three gods, while they take to themselves pre-

eminently the credit of being worshippers of the One God”

(Against Praxeas 3).

This was the issue, then, during the period of 189-222 AD

in Rome: the oneness of God versus two gods and three gods.

The phrase “two gods” referred to those “trinitarians”(Catholics) who had not yet accepted the separate Person of

the Holy Spirit (and probably still identified the Logos or

Son and the Holy Spirit), and the phrase “three gods”

referred to the trinitarian Montanists such as Tertullian,

who were promoting the Holy Spirit as the “third Person”.

Tertullian acknowledged that most Christians did not share

his trinitarian views:

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)... (Against Praxeas 3).

The reaction of the common Christian upon hearing

Tertullian’s ideas of the Trinity was to be “startled”.

The doctrine of the Trinity denied the incarnation of God

the Father, proposing instead, that another divine Person

(existing eternally alongside of God the Father), had come

down to earth and was incarnated. Instead of using the

title of “Son of God” exclusively for the child born of

Mary, they manufactured a separate divine Person from God

the Father, which they identified as the Word, pre-existing

in a filial relationship to God the Father. By doing this,

they “refuted” the incarnation of God the Father.

Once they had established a second divine Person, whom they

identified as the Son, the next step was to manufacture a

“third divine Person”, the Holy Spirit. The development of

the Holy Spirit as a the third divine Person in the Godhead

was undertaken by Tertullian after he became a Montanist.

It was the Montanists who exalted the “place” of the Holy

Spirit in their New Prophecy.



Tertullian, before he became a Montanist, does not seem to

reflect strong trinitarian views. For example, in his

Prescription Against Heretics, which most assign to his

“pre-Montanist” days, we do not find solid trinitarian

views. Tertullian quotes from the rule of faith as follows:

...there is one only God, and that He is none other than the Creator of theworld, who produced all things out of nothing through His own Word, first of

all sent forth; that this Word is called His Son, and, under the name of God,

was seen ‘in diverse manners” by the patriarchs, heard at all times in the

prophets, at last brought down by the Spirit and Power of the Father into the

Virgin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, and, being born of her, went forth as

Jesus Christ (xii).

While this view seems to indicate the pre-existence of the

Son in the Old Testament, it is not clear since Tertullian

uses the phrase “under the name of God”. The antecedent of

that which was made flesh in the womb of the virgin is “the

Word” and not “the Son”. Certainly, this creed is not

blatantly trinitarian in the sense in which we see in

Against Praxeas. A more fully developed trinitarian

doctrine would not normally identify the “one only God” as

the “Creator” without distinguishing the “two divine

Persons”.

The Montanists believed they were upholding the third

divine Person, the Holy Spirit, which they called “the

prophetic Spirit”.

Montanus (130-170 AD) appeared in Ardaban in Phyrgia c.156

AD. Jerome says that he was formerly a eunuch priest, while

others say he was a former priest of Cybele or Apollo. He

was converted to Christianity, and, as a new convert, beganto prophesy “in a kind of an ecstatic trance”, and,

Eusebius says, “to babble in a jargon, prophesying in a

manner contrary to the custom of the church, which had been

handed down by tradition” (Eccleisiastical History,

V.XVI.7). Eusebius says that Montanus also involved two

female prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla (who died

c.179 AD).

The Montanists were expelled from the churches c.177 AD,

with church councils in Asia minor held against them.

What is unusual is that they seemed to have received much

sympathy from Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian (who

openly became a Montanist around the turn of the century).

These men are the so-called “architects of the Trinity”.

Montanus himself never claimed to be the Paraclete (Holy

Spirit), but he prophesied so often apparently in the

“first person” voice that many were deceived into thinking

so.



He reportedly said, “I am the Father and the Son and the

Paraclete” (Jules LeBreton & Jacques Zeiller, The History

of The Christian Church, Vol. III, London: Burns, Oates &

Washbourne, 1942).

In another trinitarian sounding phrase he said, “For God

brought forth the Logos (Word) as a root brings forth atree, and a spring a river, and the sun a ray” (A History

of Christianity, ed. Ray Petry, Englewood Cliffs, NJ:

Prentice Hall, 1962).

Archibald Robertson agrees that Montanism contributed

indirectly to bishop Polycarp’s death in c.156 AD. The

Montanists apparently stirred up the city of Smyrna against

the Christians, and this involved the old bishop of Smyrna

(Archibald Robertson, The Origins of Christianity, NY:

International Pub., 1962).

SUMMARYIt can be seen that many theories abound concerning the

incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of then are

rather far-fetched. They delve into areas that are

seemingly beyond the ken of mere mortal man.

THE INCARNATION IS IDENTIFIED IN SCRIPTURE AS A MYSTERY

The apostle Paul identified the incarnation as a mystery:

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in

the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles,

believed on in the world, received up into glory. -1 Timothy 3.16

Paul nowhere says “great is the mystery of the Trinity”.

Jesus, in John 4.24, identifies God as “a Spirit” (not “a

Trinity”). But Paul says “great is the mystery of

godliness”. This mystery of “godliness” is the incarnation,

since Paul follows with the expression of the incarnation

that “God was manifest in the flesh”.

We may not know all of the details of the incarnation, but

we do know a few things that are given to us.

Deuteronomy 29.29 states:

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are

revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all thewords of this law.

We may not be permitted to understand many of the details

concerning the incarnation. As we have seen in this study,

there is much speculation. No subject has brought forth

more error than this subject. But there are many things

given to us in the word of God concerning the incarnation.



GOD WAS IN CHRIST

1. 2 Corinthians 5.19, “To wit, that God was in Christ,

reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their

trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word

of reconciliation”.

2. Matthew 3.17 “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This

is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”.

We can know, then, that God the Father was in the man

Christ Jesus, and that He claimed this man as His “beloved

Son”. This in itself is amazing that the Almighty God, who

is omnipresent, could signify that He was dwelling in, that

He was “in Christ”.

THE WORD WAS MADE (OR BECAME) FLESH

1. John 1.14 “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among

us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the onlybegotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth”.

2. Hebrews 2.14 “Forasmuch then as the children are

partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took

part of the same; that through death he might destroy him

that had the power of death, that is, the devil”.

3. Hebrews 2.16 “For verily he took not on him the nature

of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham”.

HIS HUMAN CREDENTIALS ARE IMPECCABLE AND HE IS FOREVER

RELATED TO THE JEWS

And we also know that God partook of flesh and blood in the

incarnation. In fact, God took upon Himself the particular

“seed of Abraham”. He did not just, in a general way,

become a member of the human race by means of the

incarnation, but he precisely entered into a particular

blood line, the “seed of Abraham”. This has forever set

apart the blood line from other blood lines.

While the ancestry of Jesus Christ is traced by Luke all

the way back to Adam, making Jesus a descendant of the

first Adam, the writer of Hebrews tells us that the blood

line was further restricted to “the seed of Abraham”. We

later learn that our Lord “sprang out of Judah” (Hebrews

7.14). And we know that He was also of “the seed of David”

(Romans 1.3).

THE METHOD OF HIS INCARNATION IS RELATED TO HIS METHOD OF

CREATION BY THE WORD

We know that creation was by means of the word of God. For

example, Genesis 1.3 states, “And God said, Let there be



light: and there was light”.

Psalms 33.6 says “By the word of the LORD were the heavens

made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth”.

Psalms 33.9 further elaborates this, “For he spake, and it

was done; he commanded and it stood fast”.

Therefore, we see that creation was accomplished by the

spoken word of God. It was not done by a second divine

creative Agent or Person. God merely spoke in some powerful

divine way and things came into existence.

Genesis 1.1 is very simple, “In the beginning God created

the heaven and the earth”. There is no divine committee of

persons.

Isaiah 44.24 certifies that only one divine Individual

created all things:

Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am

the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; thatspreadeth abroad the earth by myself. -Isaiah 44.24

And this one Creator, who stretched forth the heavens

“alone”, and who spread abroad the earth “by (himself)”,

states explicitly that there are no other divine

Individuals or Persons besides Himself:

I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me; I girded

thee, though thou hast not known me. -Isaiah 45.5

John, the apostle, harkens back to this idea of a single

divine Person creating by the use of His word in John 1.1-3:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

We have already seen that God created all things by His

spoken word and not by the activity of a separate divine

Person called “the Word”. In fact, John identifies the Word

as God Himself. This identity should not by violated by

attempting to make the Word someone separate from God the

Father. No one would dare to attempt to make the word of a

mere human a separate person from that individual. The

early Jewish Christians would not hear of giving a separate

personal identity to the Word.

Thus, the incarnation is actually the creative power of Godin action, just as His creative power worked in the

“beginning”. He spoke the baby in the womb of Mary into

existence. He Himself partook of flesh and blood through

His creative power. John wrote in John 1.14, “And the Word

was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his

glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,)

full of grace and truth”.



Luke 1.35 states, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and

the power of the highest shall overshadow thee: therefore

also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be

called the Son of God”. This again is reminiscent of the

creation in Genesis 1.3, which says, “the Spirit of God

moved upon the face of the deep”. This is the same

combination that we see in the beginning: (1) the Spirit of

God, and (2) the speaking of the Word in creation.

John 1.14, as we saw, declares that it was “the only

begotten of the Father”, which is “the Word...made flesh”.

He is identifying the term “only begotten” (monogenes) with

the flesh and blood baby that was born of Mary. It is not

some pre-existent separate divine Person from God the

Father that is termed the “only begotten”, but rather the

baby born of Mary, since there was no begetting until the

“Word was made flesh”.

When we come to John 1.18, “No man hath seen God at anytime; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the

Father, he hath declared him”, we are talking about the man

Jesus, who ascended into heaven with John as a witness,

after His resurrection. John is affirming that God Himself

is an invisible Spirit. The “only begotten Son”, who was

“made of a woman, made under the law” when “the fulness of

the time was come” (Galatians 4.4), died at Calvary and

rose from the dead. But now, John writes, He (this

glorified human being), is “in the bosom of the Father”. He

has ascended into heaven. It is he, John says, “who hath

declared (revealed)” the Father.John is not saying that the “only begotten Son” was

eternally in “the bosom of the Father”, but rather he is

saying, “I saw him ascend up into heaven”. I know that He,

just as He said that Lazarus was “in the bosom of Abraham”

is in “the bosom of the Father”. Thus, the incarnation is

not a Son manifested in the Son, but rather is the Father

manifested in the flesh (as the Son).

When we say the “Word was made flesh”, we are not saying

that God was made flesh. Rather we are saying that God was

manifest in the flesh through the mystery of the union that

was effected (that is, the incarnation).

CHRIST WAS GOD

1. John 20.28 “And Thomas answered and said unto him, My

Lord and my God”.

2. Acts 2.36 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know

assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have



crucified, both Lord and Christ”.

3. Romans 9.5 “Whose are the fathers, and of whom as

concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God

blessed forever. Amen”.

4. Titus 2.13 “Looking for that blessed hope, and the

glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus

Christ”.

5. Revelation 1.8 “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and

the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and

which is to come, the Almighty”.

The apostles never understood or taught that the person or

being of God could be differentiated into “three divine

Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit”. The writer of

Hebrews tells us that Jesus is “the express image of his

(God’s) person (being or hypostasis)”. In other words,

Jesus is not a separate, distinct “being” (person orhypostasis) from God the Father, but rather the man Jesus

is actually “express image” of the invisible God. That is,

He is God manifest in the flesh. When an individual looks

in a mirror, the image that they see is not another person!

All of God that we shall ever see is Jesus Christ. He is

the one seated upon the throne in heaven. He will hold out

his nail-scarred hands to us (the only man-made thing in

heaven).

Many theologians and scholars have attempted to understand

who Jesus is, but we can have a revelation of His oneness,

the mighty God in Christ.

Matthew 11.27 “All things are delivered unto me of my

Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither

knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to

whomsoever the Son will reveal him”.

Only God really knows the Son. Only the Son knows His

Father, but the Son is able to reveal the Father to us. And

so it is. We can only come to God through Jesus Christ. He

is the way. God was manifest in the flesh so that we might

have fellowship with Him. When we look at Jesus we see God

in the flesh.

It is God manifest in the flesh (Jesus) who died for us and

shed His blood. That is why we need to have faith in Him

alone (Jesus). There is no salvation outside of His name.

We need to fully repent of our sins (metanoia, a complete

about face and change in the direction of our lives toward

God and not away from Him). Then we need to be baptized by

immersion in the saving name of the Lord Jesus Christ for



the remission of sins. Finally, in order to truly live for

God the way He wants, we need to expect and to receive the

baptism (the infilling) of the glorious Holy Ghost, with

the initial sign or evidence of speaking in tongues, as the

early Christians did in the Book of Acts.

It is only in the book of Acts that we see actual instancesof people being saved. We do not see one example of anyone

being saved in the epistles. We don’t see an example of

anyone being saved in the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke

and John), since the church had not yet been founded on the

day of Pentecost. The thief on the cross was still until

the Old Covenant. He needed faith in God, repentance, and a

blood sacrifice. He turned to Jesus in faith, and repented

there on the cross. His blood sacrifice (Jesus) was hanging

next to him. Had the thief been alive on the day of

Pentecost, then he would have had to obey Acts 2.38. I have

often been asked why was the thief saved and he wasn’t evenbaptized. My answer is the above. I also ask another

question back: how do you know the thief was not baptized?

Do you have his entire life’s history available? Perhaps

John the baptist had baptized him! Anyway, it doesn’t

matter because the thief was not in the church age.

Everyone in the church age must be baptized in Jesus’ Name

in order to partake of the New Covenant by faith.

THE THEORIES ON THE INCARNATION

Documents

Transcript of THE THEORIES ON THE INCARNATION