“False Jesuses”

A Lecture for the White Horse Inn Weekend (August 1, 2015)

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Given the limited amount of time we have, my approach will be to identify those things we must believe about Jesus, and after having done so, will then turn to representative examples of false Jesuses which have arisen across the centuries. Sadly, given two thousand years of church history, and the large number of TV-evangelists, spiritual gurus, and cult leaders running around, all of whom seem bent on conjuring up tailor-made Jesuses to suit their purposes, there are plenty of false Jesuses to for us to discuss. Dr. Rosenbladt will be speaking on our Lord’s person and work, Dr. Godfrey is covering the early church’s Christology, and Dr. Horton is wrapping up, so my focus this morning will be very basic and introductory–“how do we tell the true Jesus from the legion of false Jesuses who have arisen across the centuries?”

We begin by noting that the nature of our Lord’s incarnation almost guarantees the presence of false Jesuses. The very idea of God taking to himself a true human nature is in and of itself a unique and somewhat mysterious historical event. That Jesus was a real flesh and blood human, who is also the second person of the Holy Trinity, and nevertheless remains one person, raises many profound and important questions. Questions regarding Jesus’ person and his origin are closely related, and arise throughout the ministry of Jesus as recounted in the gospels.

Those who actually heard Jesus preach about the kingdom of God, were said to marveled at his words, for Jesus spoke as someone having authority–unlike anyone they had heard preach previously. Jesus performed miraculous signs and wonders which were obviously not trickery or chicanery. He instantaneously healed people well-known to crowds who were following him. Jesus even raised the dead–several times. All of this was to confirm that the content of his preaching had its origins in the will of YHWH. The buzz surrounding Jesus was that he might be the long-expected messianic prophet, and some among his followers understood Jesus to claim he was older than Abraham or Moses.

It was impossible to hear or see Jesus and not ask, “who is this?” “Where is he from?” In Matthew 16:13–15 we read of an interesting exchange between Jesus and his disciples regarding this very matter. “When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, `Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ They said, `Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, `But who do you say that I am?’” People have been attempting to answer Jesus’ question ever since.

Some answer Jesus’ question in light of a particular agenda–they define Jesus so that he can be enlisted to justify all sorts of causes–political, religious, or personal. Others who answer Jesus’ question, do so with an anti-supernatural bias which prevents them from seriously considering any answer given in the New Testament, by Jesus or his earliest disciples. Whoever Jesus was–such folk reason–he cannot be who Christians claim him to be. He might be a Jewish apocalyptic prophet, perhaps some sort a miracle worker, or a political zealot (or anti-zealot), as the case may be. But God in human flesh? That’s impossible, critical scholars reason.

Then there are others who are convinced that the Bible is God’s word, and who are so zealous to defend one point of doctrine to the exclusion of all others that they formulate an answer to Jesus’ question by considering only one slice of New Testament teaching. One example is those who seek to preserve the unity of God while allowing for a special role for Jesus. Others develop their Christology so as to satisfy prevailing philosophical considerations. The most famous of such groups, the so-called Arians, identify Jesus as God’s first and preeminent creature, the “firstborn of all creation,” who, in turn, created everything else. All of these answers are wrong. Profoundly and dangerously wrong.

We must not overlook the fact that when Jesus asked Peter and his disciples the question “who do you say that I am,” Jesus accepted Peter’s answer before going on to answer his own question. “Simon Peter replied, `You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, `Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.’” Jesus accepts Peter’s answer as a confession of faith and an acknowledgment that Jesus is the Christ (Israel’s Messiah) as well as the Son of the living God (a reference to Jesus’ eternal relationship to the Father, which, at the very least implies that Jesus shares in the Father’s divine essence, i.e., Jesus is in some sense God). After accepting Peter’s answer, Jesus tells the disciples that his true identity is known only through God’s revelation–i.e., only through God’s revealed word. If we want to know who Jesus is, we must go to the one place where the question “who do men say that Jesus is?” is definitively answered, the testimony of New Testament to Jesus’ true identity.

There are three inescapable conclusions which arise from even a brief survey of the pages of the New Testament regarding the person of Jesus: 1). Jesus is fully human, and at the same time, 2). Jesus is truly God. 3). These two natures are united in such a way that Jesus remains one true human person. Therefore, the sure-fire way to spot a “false Jesus” is to determine whether either Jesus’ true deity, or his true humanity, is in any way denied, compromised, or ignored. Any so-called “Jesus” who is not fully human, nor truly God, is a false Jesus. But these two natures–one human and one divine–co-existing in one person, raises an additional question, and reveals yet another other way in which a false Jesus can be identified. How do these two natures relate to one another? Are they blended into one? Are they united like two boards glued together? Are they arranged in such a way that we can determine from the gospel accounts whether Jesus does something acting as God, or only as a man? If Jesus has two natures united in one person, how does this work? Is he really one person?

This is why the very nature of the incarnation generates “false Jesuses.”

We begin with the affirmation that Jesus is truly human as any one of us, and then consider some of the ways in which our Lord’s humanity is denied by false teachers. As for his true humanity, the New Testament everywhere and in many ways affirms this to be the case. The New Testament writers universally (and routinely, I might add) describe Jesus as demonstrating real human needs and attributes. The gospels speak of Jesus’ birth as natural–it was his conception by the Holy Spirit that was miraculous. Although the New Testament does not say so explicitly, Jesus nursed at his mother’s breast, and filled his diaper. In Luke’s account of Jesus’ early life, Luke tells us that Jesus grew in wisdom and knowledge just as any human does (Luke 2:40, 52). The author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus experienced temptation as any human does–with the exception that Jesus did not have a sinful nature, as we do (Heb. 2:10; 18). Jesus learned obedience through suffering (Heb. 5:8), which tells us that his growth and development is as necessary and important to his personality as it would be for any human. The implication of this is that Jesus was once a toddler. Jesus was once a kid. Jesus was once a teenager. Jesus had friends, played, learned, and grew to adulthood–just as every one of us has done.

We read of Jesus being hungry, growing weary, and of needing sleep. We read of Jesus weeping angrily at the sight of the tomb of his friend Lazarus, and then suffering a deep anguish of soul while praying in Gethsemane (when he was praying for himself, for his disciples, and for us). We read of Jesus experiencing human emotions such as anger (Mark 3:5). Yet Jesus did not experience anger the way sinful humans do, but a righteous and holy anger. We read of Jesus’ great compassion during his mission in Galilee as he witnessed mobs of sick and suffering, seeking him out for healing, to the point of bringing him to complete exhaustion. While in Jerusalem, we read of Jesus healing a man who had been lame for years, and responding to those who called out to him when he passed. Jesus was moved by the sight of such people suffering the ravages of Adam’s fall and the curse.

The question remains however, was Jesus truly human? Was he divine, yet merely appeared to be human? Is Jesus God in a human costume–God disguised as a man? I ask this particular question because there have been notable but infrequent occasions throughout church history when certain teachers, especially those influenced by Greek thought or proto/full-blown Gnosticism, denied that Jesus was truly human. The ancient version of this is the heresy of docetism–which comes to us from the Greek word dokein (to seem) or dókesis (apparition, phantom). Operating on the assumption that there is an absolute dualism between pure spirit and matter, if Jesus is God in some sense, then he must be as to his essence, pure spirit. Since matter is defective–a flawed copy of the ideal form–how can God ever be united in any real sense to human flesh–which, being material, is flawed, if not positively evil. For those readers of Plato stumbling over Christ’s true human nature, one answer is that Jesus only appeared to be human–docetism. God manifest in the flesh is understood as God’s presence among us, his divinity veiled or concealed by a physical appearance or form, but Jesus does not possess a true human nature, so these teachers claim.

Knowing my interest in family history and DNA research, not long ago someone asked me, if Jesus took a DNA test what be would the outcome? The question is profound because if Jesus swabbed his cheek and had the cells analyzed, his maternal line (mitochondrial DNA), no doubt, would take us back to Eve, just as Luke reports in his genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3:23-38. As for Jesus’ paternal line, Jesus’ y-DNA must be miraculously created and then united to Mary’s. Although the exact nature of Jesus’ paternal DNA remains a mystery to us, in his gospel, Matthew traces Jesus’ historical (and legal) family tree from Joseph back to Abraham. The question seems speculative on its face, but actually raises an important theological point–God incarnate had human DNA, just as he had RH-typable blood, shed for the complete remission of our sins. If Jesus could submit his cheek swab to one of the DNA companies, he would have gotten a concrete result. Jesus is not God in human disguise. Jesus is fully human.

The New Testament specifically addresses this particular heresy (docetism). In the prologue to John’s gospel, John speaks of Jesus as becoming flesh and dwelling among us (the human race). In John 8:40, Jesus identifies himself as a man. In 1 John 1:1–3, the Apostle John takes direct aim at those who question Jesus’ true humanity. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” John spent three years with Jesus. He saw Jesus in the flesh, doing all the things humans do. John touched Jesus–he wasn’t a phantom. Jesus heard Jesus speak, preach, and teach, and his voice didn’t sound like it had been modulated by reverb unit. Jesus is truly human in every sense of the word.

In fact, it is John (2 John 7) who goes on in his second epistle to warn the apostolic church, “for many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.” To deny the human nature of Jesus is to imbibe from the spirit of Antichrist. That is a strong and serious charge. The prophecy pundits have done us a massive disservice by playing “pin the tail on the antichrist,” instead of focusing upon what John actually says about Antichrist. John uses the term “antichrist” not of a future ruler who makes a peace treaty with Israel, but of anyone who denies that Jesus has a true human nature–in other words, anyone who teaches the docetic heresy.

I’ve long thought that Bible believing Christians have a much harder time with Christ’s humanity than with his deity. We grasp–as best humans can–God coming to us in the flesh. This is easier for us to embrace because of our reverence for Jesus as our Lord, Savior, Redeemer, Creator, friend. We have a harder time thinking of Jesus needing to eat, sleep, and to go to the bathroom. The very nature of the incarnation forces us to wrestle with the question, “just how human is Jesus.” The answer given by Jesus himself, and as he is described in the New Testament, is that he is fully human–a man. To deny this is to preach a false Jesus. It is to do the work of antichrist.

As for Jesus’ divine nature, there will be much discussion of this point by speakers later this morning, and I spent a fair bit of time on this at last year’s WHI weekend, so this morning, I will make reference to but several passages at this point–specifically assertions made by Jesus himself as to his divine nature. There are the seven “I am” statements in John’s Gospel, where Jesus speaks of himself as “I am” (ego emi)–a direct allusion to YHWH, the great “I Am.” The most famous of these “I am” sayings is Jesus’ declaration in John 8:58. After accusing Jesus of being demon possessed, we read the following exchange beginning in verse 53, when the Jewish bible scholars asked him, “Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?” Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

In these words, Jesus is claiming to be the I AM (YHWH) who spoke Moses from the burning bush as recounted in Exodus 3:14. We know that this how the Jews understood Jesus’ words, because we read in verse 59, “they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.” The penalty for blasphemy was death by stoning. If Jesus was not one with YHWH, the death penalty was completely appropriate. If Jesus is not who he claims, he is blaspheming! But from the Jew’s immediate reaction it is pretty clear that Jesus was claiming he is the one who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. In other words, he is God.

And then there is Jesus’ question and answer as recounted in Matthew 16, which we mentioned a bit ago. Jesus accepts Peter’s assertion that he [Jesus] is both Israel’s Messiah and the Son of God (i.e., that in some way, Jesus is identified as one with YHWH). In other words, Jesus is God in human flesh. Peter believes as much, confesses it, and more importantly, Jesus accepts his answer and gives it his blessing.

If few today preach a false Jesus of the Gnostics and docetics, many of our contemporaries flat-out deny that Jesus was truly God in human flesh because in their estimation such a thing is impossible–given their anti-supernatural bias–and not worth serious consideration. But the real reason why people deny Jesus’ divine nature is virtually self-evident. If Jesus is God in human flesh, then he is the only Savior, his words are God’s words, and all other religions and religious claims are false. Jesus has a remarkable way of opening the ground under the feet of all those who encounter him. When he declares that he is God in human flesh– “before Abraham was, I am”–you must either jump into his arms, or fall into the chasm, now open under your feet. You cannot hear Jesus’ claim, ignore it, and then go merrily on your way.

So, if on the one hand we can spot a “false Jesus” when people deny his true human nature, we can also spot a false Jesus whenever we encounter a Jesus who is truly human, but only human. There are Jesuses who possess certain divine attributes, or who even exercise divine powers and prerogatives usually associated with God. But any Jesus who is not eternally one with the Father (i.e., has no true divine nature, or a semi-divine nature, or a temporary external gift of divinity), is but a mere creature, and therefore a “false Jesus.”

The Jews of Jesus’ day knew exactly what Jesus was claiming–that he was God. They rejected his claim and put him to death. In light of the difficulties Jews faced in accepting the fact that YHWH–the one true and living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob–took to himself a true human nature in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, we should not be surprised that one of the earliest “false Jesuses” arose early in the second century among a sect of Jewish Christians called Ebionites. Ebionites were Jews who believed that Jesus was Israel’s Messiah, and that he was given God’s Spirit at his baptism. The Ebionites believed that Jesus had no pre-existent divine nature, and was merely human until “adopted” by God. This is known as “adoptionism,” in which it is argued that God “divinized” the man Jesus through the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit given to him at his birth, or his baptism, and which departed from Jesus before his crucifixion–leaving Jesus to die as a mere man.

The appeal of the Ebionite or adoptionist versions of Jesus, is this notion allows the adherent to defend monotheism by stressing Jesus is not eternally God, even if, for a time, Jesus functions as a semi-divine figure with divine attributes. Ebionites held tight to Jewish monotheism and ritual customs, yet allowed for Jesus’ messianic office by–ironically–denying his eternal relationship to the Father. Adoptionists are reacting against the problem supposedly created by affirming the deity of Jesus. If the Father is God, and Jesus is also God, then why are there not two Gods? If the Holy Spirit is also God, then are there not three Gods? Defenders of adoptionist Christologies explain references to Jesus’ deity and manifestations of divine attributes as temporary endowments added to the man Jesus, and then taken away from him, also explaining Jesus’ death, because God cannot die, even if the man Jesus did.

False Jesuses most often arise within the Christian community because the advocates are trying to protect something they think vital–in the case of the Ebionites, they were protecting monotheism, over against what they perceived to be a denial of monotheism, namely the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. If the Ebionites and adoptionist Christologies were among the earliest “false Jesuses,” surely the most pernicious false Jesus was that of the Arians and other so-called subordinationists arising a century or so later.

Arianism comes to us from its principle teacher–Arius (c. AD 250–336), a Christian presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt. You’ll hear much more about Arius and the crisis his teaching provoked in the church throughout the course of the day. Arius argued that Jesus (the son of God) did not always exist (he was not eternal), but was created by, and is therefore, different from the Father. Arius and his followers appealed to John 14:28 (as well as other texts affirming that God is one) as biblical support for his view. In John 14, Jesus is recorded as saying “You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” For Arius, Jesus’ assertion that the Father is greater meant that Jesus is subordinate to the Father as to Jesus’ very nature, and therefore in a profound sense inferior to the Father in essence.

The most notable feature of Arianism is the idea that long ago, in ages past, Jesus (as Son) was created by the Father, and then Jesus, in turn, created everything which now exists–Arius notoriously affirming that “the Father is God when the Son does not exist.” Jesus, therefore, occupies some sort of a intermediary role between God and his creation, fitting nicely with the pagan Greek notion (neo-platonic) of a demiurge, a semi-divine figure who mediates between pure Spirit (God) and matter (creation).

The logical consequence of Arianism is that Jesus is understood to be a creature (albeit the greatest creature), who has his origin in a moment in time, however long ago, and who possesses a different and inferior essence from that of the Father. As Christians began to realize the depths and extent of Arius’ error, some (the orthodox) rejected this notion altogether, correctly renouncing Arianism as a heresy. Others attempted to synthesize Arianism (which was surprisingly popular) with the orthodox view by moderating Arius’ teaching slightly, and affirming that Jesus possessed a similar essence with the Father (homoiousia), not the same essence (homoousia) as the orthodox affirmed.

The effect of all forms of subordinationism–which place the Son under the Father (Jesus subordinate as to his divine essence) is to deny that Jesus is fully God. Whether Arianism or Sabellianism (from the false teacher Sabellius, who lived a bit earlier than Arius), the basic idea is that Jesus is inferior to the Father as to his essence, and although possessing divine attributes and exercising divine prerogatives, Jesus is not eternal. This arose largely in an attempt to preserve the oneness of God, and to explain Jesus’ exalted nature against the backdrop of Greek thought–which permeated North Africa, where Arius lived. But the result is that Arians reject the fully deity of the Son. The Arian Jesus is a false Jesus. The subordinationist Jesus is a false Jesus. Whenever anyone denies Jesus’ eternal divine essence, and contends that Jesus is inferior to the Father and/or a creature (no matter how exalted), you can be sure, you have encountered a false Jesus.

The third way to spot a false Jesus is to look closely to see how the two natures of Jesus are related to one another. One group (the Apollinarians of the 4th century) argued that while Jesus was truly human in most ways, in the incarnation the divine Logos took the place of Jesus’ rational nature (his mind). The goal here was to explain the incarnation to Greeks, who believed that the Logos was the universal principle of human reason. Physically, Jesus was a true human–he had kidneys, a heart, etc., but the Logos (reason) took the place of Jesus’ soul/spirit. The divine Logos then provided Jesus with his thinking, rational nature. But as Gregory of Nazianzus once affirmed, that which Jesus did not assume he did not redeem. If Jesus did not possess human reason (a true human mind), well then he wasn’t fully human.

Another controversial group, known as the Nestorians–a fifth century heresy taught by Nestorius, who was bishop Constantinople–argued that the divine Logos indwelt Jesus in a moral sense, but not essentially. Nestorians were seeking to explain how Jesus could die, when God cannot die. But the Nestorian answer to this conundrum was to erroneously affirm that Jesus’ human nature was completely distinct from, and completely controlled by the divine nature, making the man Jesus essentially like us, only that he–being possessed by the Logos–was completely submissive to the divine will, unlike the rest of humanity. In other words, we understand the divine and human natures in Jesus like two boards glued together. As Nestorius put it, there is a difference between the temple and the one who lives in it. Jesus is that one person in whom God manifests himself more than all others. Nestorius famously refused to refer to Mary as theotikos, the “God-bearer” or “mother of God.” For Nestorius, Christians could only properly refer to Mary as the mother of Jesus, because there was no union of any kind between Jesus’ divine and human natures.

One additional group worth mentioning are the Eutychians, from about the same time as the Nestorians. The Eutychians affirmed that our Lord’s true human nature was swallowed up by the divine nature, so as to create what amounts to a third thing–a tertuim quid–a unique nature composed of Jesus’ divine and human natures. The goal here was to reject and prevent the error made by the Nestorians. But the consequence was to create a new error–a Jesus who was truly one person, but with no real distinction between the divine and human natures. Rejecting the Nestorian idea of two boards glued together, Jesus two natures are to understood like particle board–a mixture of two different things (wood and glue), forming a new third kind of thing.

It fell to the Council of Chalcedon in 451 to offer the classic definition regarding the way in which Christians ought to understand how Christ’s two natures relate to one another. The Chalcedonian Creed affirmed, against the Nestorians, that “the union of the divine and the human nature in Christ was without division (ἀδιαιρετος) and without separation (ἀχωριστος).” Against the Eutychians, the union was without change (ἀτρεπτος) and without confusion (ἀσυγχυτος). Against the Appollinarians, the Creed also affirmed that Jesus possessed a both rational soul and body consubstantial (of same essence) with the Father as to the Godhead, and consubstantial to us as to Jesus’ manhood. The Creed acknowledges that it is preferable to reject obvious error–dividing the two natures, separating them, changing them, confusing them–than it is to attempt plumb the depths of what in realty is a profound mystery (how the two natures are united in a single person).

Although, it should be clear now that any discussion of Jesus’ two natures can quickly become quite complicated, we can keep the matter relatively simple. Whatever attributes we ascribe to either nature (divine or human), we simply affirm of the person. For example, we know that God cannot die. We also know that God cannot be hungry or tired. We also know that humans cannot raise the dead, or die a death which can save others from their sins. So we simply affirm that Jesus died on the cross. Jesus was tired. Jesus grew to manhood. We do not divide Jesus in two, nor do we mix the two natures, nor do we try to identity which nature was active–even though such implications do arise from within the accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. But we do acknowledge that both natures are present in one person–Jesus of Nazareth, who is Israel’s Messiah and the Son of God.

If there are three sure signs to identify false Jesuses, it would be useful for us to rehearse them as we conclude.

Those who deny Jesus’ true human nature (i.e., docetists, and Gnostics) teach a false Jesus.

Those who deny Jesus’ eternal and divine nature (Ebionites, Adoptionists, Arians, and subordinationists) teach a false Jesus.

Those who divide or separate (i.e., Nestorians), who change or confuse (i.e., Eutychians) these two natures in regards to their union in the person of Jesus, along with those who deny Jesus has a rational human soul (Appollinarians), teach a false Jesus.

So, when we are asked “who is Jesus?” we answer by affirming that he is the Christ (Messiah) and the Son of the living God. He has two nature (one divine, one human) and exists as one person (Jesus of Nazareth). Deny his humanity, his deity, or distort the union of the natures, and you have a false Jesus.