We need to look into the uses of the Greek word "LOGOS" and how it relates to Jesus Christ.  The word "logos" is "never" found in the Greek text as being used to denote reason or the function of the mind.  Whenever the Greeks decided to describe these concepts they used terms such as "PNEUMA" (which meant the spirit or mind of man), or "CARDIA" (which referred to the heart or emotions of man).  "Logos" was "never used" in reference to the created being in the Greek manuscripts.

     In classical literature "logos" is never used to denote the "subjective" faculty of reason, but is used to designate "the reason to be given, in an objective manner, to anyone else".  "Logos" means, literally, "speech or word".

John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word,  [logos]  and the Word  [logos]  was with God, and the Word  [logos]  was God."

     Who is the "logos" John is talking about in the above text?  From our study of the history of the word "logos" above we already know that the word is "never used" to describe a "created being".

John 1:14, 29 "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.  ...  The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

     It is obvious from the context of these verses that the "logos" is Jesus Christ.  Yet even with the context of these verses can we prove that Jesus Christ is Divine?  Let's look at John 1:1 in detail:

"In the beginning":  This phrase is similar to the Hebrew "reshith" found in:

Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

     This phrase shows that Christ was with the Godhead at the beginning of time, yet does not "successfully" show that Christ was with the Father "before" this time.

".. was the Word, and the Word was with God":  The latter part of this phrase is the Greek "Pros Ton Theon", which shows that the "logos" was "not only" coexistent with God in the beginning, but "face-to-face" with the Father so that He communicated with Him as an equal.  Yet even here we do not see the Christ pre-existing before the "reshith".  Is He truly infinite, or only a Created Being like man and the angels?

".. and the Word was God":  In this last phrase we see the ultimate truth about our Lord Jesus Christ.  The word "was" in this phrase is the Greek "EN", which is an Imperfect tense of the Greek "EIMI", which means "to be".  Whenever the "eimi" is used or placed between two nouns, according to the Greek laws of grammar the two nouns are parallel in meaning in "both" essence as well as in nature.  This law is only in effect in the event that an article is placed on the first noun (which is the case in this instance).

     The "logos" is Christ, according to the Greek laws of grammar.  The "logos" equals God and God equals the "logos" exactly.  Christ is Divine with all of the attributes of the other members of the Godhead.  This is the essence of what John is telling us in his introductory passage.

Jesus Himself testified that He was God in John 8.58:

John 8:58 "Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. [ego eimi]"

     How does this passage verify the Deity of Christ?  The Greek for "I am" in the passage is "ego eimi".  These words clearly show that Christ was saying He was God because:

1. "EGO EIMI" is a Present Tense Double Nominative.  In this construction it shows a "beginning" for the existence of the subject (Abraham), yet shows "no beginning" nor end for the object of the construction (Christ).

2. "I AM" is out of context with the rest of the sentence.  Christ is not illiterate, for when He was young His wisdom was such that He taught the wise men of His time.

   Luke 2:46-47 "And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.  And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers."

     With the knowledge that Christ possessed (and has even now), would He be so "ignorant" as to not know proper grammar?  In order to form the sentence properly He could have said:

     Yet Jesus used extremely bad Greek grammar and said, "Before Abraham was, I am".  The only possible explanation for Jesus' faux pas was that He "wanted" to draw attention to the phrase "I am".  He used the phrase "I am" as the personal name of God, just as it is found in:

Exodus 3:14 "And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM:  and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."

     And Jesus applied that Holy, Sacred name of God to Himself.  The Jews who heard Jesus understood that He used the Holy name of God and applied it to Himself.

John 8:59 "Then took they up stones to cast at him:  but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by."

     After hearing His statement these Pharisees pick up stones in order to kill Jesus for blasphemy, in accordance with Jewish Law.  Jesus called Himself God, the Jews recognized this, and it's high time that we ourselves acknowledge that He was and is God in the flesh.

     "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic, on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell.  Either this man was and is the Son of God;  or else a mad man or something worst.  You can shut Him up for a fool;  you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon;  or you can fall at His feet and call Him the Lord God.  But let us not come out with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us, He did not intend to ..."  -  C.S. Lewis

Matthew 16:16-17 "And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.  And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven."

     Who can truly understand Jesus, the ("CHRISTOS" = anointed one) Christ?  We have never experienced the union of pure sinless humanity and pure Deity in one Person, until we experienced it in Jesus Christ.

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."

     Earlier we saw that the "logos", the Word, is Jesus Christ, and He was and is fully God in the flesh.  In John 1:14 the King James team "missed the mark" when they translated this verse.  They render the passage "Word was made flesh", suggesting that there was a time when Jesus was not in existence.  A better rendering from the Greek text would be "Word became flesh".  The "logos" was already pre-existent in another form as God in eternity past, and took on another form (humanity) in order to become our Savior.  In Phillipians we see:

Philippians 2:6 "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:"

Taking this verse section by section from the Greek text, we see the following teaching:

"Who, being"... being is the Greek "HUPARCHO", which means "to exist".

"in the form of God" ... form is the Greek "MORPHE", which means "the exact shape or nature of".

"thought it not robbery to be equal with God" ... is best translated from the Greek text as "did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped".

     Put it all together and we see that Jesus pre-existed in the exact same nature and Being as the other members of the Godhead, therefore He did not have to "seek" Deity, nor pretend to be God.  He was and is God from eternity past and into eternity future.  Christ was not only fully God, but He walked the earth as fully man, as witnessed by His own words and the words of the prophets:

John 8:40 "But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God:  this did not Abraham."

Romans 1:3-4 "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;  And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:"

Romans 9:5 "Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.  Amen."

Philippians 2:8 "And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

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;"

     There was confusion over the exact nature of Christ in the organized Church until the council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.).  At this council the Church leaders conferred and agreed on the following:

     "(Christ is) known to be in two natures, unchangeable and indivisible.  The distinction of the natures being in no wise being taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Substance;  not pointed or divided into two persons.."

     The Council decided that, Scripturally, Christ is not God "in" man, but a Member of the Godhead who possessed a fully operating Human nature.  The two natures in Christ, both God and Man, are called by theologians a "Hypostatic Union".  Whenever we use the term "Hypostatic Union" throughout the rest of this study we are talking about the unique union of both Man and God in the one Person, Jesus Christ.

     When we understand the Hypostatic Union of Christ we understand why He was impeccable (unable to sin and able not to sin).  Though Christ was human, He was sinless human, without any trace of the Old Sin Nature that we have.  It was and is essential that Christ be in Hypostatic Union in order that we be saved.  "Why?"

     Between God and His creation there was a wall of sin erected from the time Adam made his decision to turn his back on God in the Garden.  This wall grew greater and larger each year that creation existed as we move farther and farther from our Creator.  God's love wanted to find a way to heal this breech, yet His righteousness demanded that the sinner (mankind) pay the penalty.  Yet the one who paid the penalty could not be bogged down in sin himself, for then the sacrifice would be tainted and unacceptable to God.  An innocent and sinless man who, representative of humanity, would have to be offered as a substitutionary atonement for the sins of mankind.  The substitute had to be willing to make this offer, not be forced into it.

Why wouldn't an animal sacrifice work?

1. The Jewish nation performed frequent and yearly sacrifices, yet by the very fact of their "repetition" we see that these sacrifices were ineffective.  If they were effective, they would "not" have been repeated year after year.  The animals used were ineffective substitutes because:

   1. They were "not" on the same level with those they were substituting for

   2. They were not truly "willing" to accept their role as sacrifices as they were senseless animals

   3. These animals were "not sinless", as when Adam fell all of creation was also tainted by his act of sin.  Animals were placed in the care of mankind, were dependent on man.  When we fell, the animals fell as well.

2. After the act of atonement by animal sacrifice the people fell back into unnatural sin patterns.  "No person" can live perfect according to the Laws of God, for there are thousands of ramifications and degrees within this Law.  If a man breaks one of the points of the Law he breaks all them.

   James 2:10 "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all."

3. There was also "no animal or human" sacrifice that could live in substitute for the people because:

   1. The guilt and transgression of sin are passed down from human to human "in the blood" of the person.  For this reason there are no sinless humans born.  We are all sinful as our Father Adam made us.

      Leviticus 17:11-15 "For the life of the flesh is in the blood:  and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls:  for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.  Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood.  And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten;  he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust.  For it is the life of all flesh;  the blood of it is for the life thereof:  therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh:  for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.  And every soul that eateth that which died of itself, or that which was torn with beasts, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger, he shall both wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even:  then shall he be clean."

   2. Even if there were a sinless animal somewhere on the earth it could not live in man's behalf, as it is not on the "same level" with men.  Thus we have a dilemma seemingly without solution.  How does the Hypostatic Union of Christ solve this dilemma?

      Christ was innocent, born free from sin.  He was born of the virgin Mary, yet His Father was God Almighty.  In the normal creation of the child the ovum of the mother contributes to the development of the body of the child.  The sperm of the father contributes to the formation of the blood of the child.  The blood contains both the physical life and the spiritual death of man.  If the blood of the father is contaminated with sin, then the child will, by genetic necessity, be sinful.  When Adam fell his soul was tainted with sin and the soul is contained within the blood of man (see the verse above).  In Jesus' birth, He came into humanity completely pure.  No man contributed to the formation of the blood in the baby Jesus.  Mary became "with child" by the supernatural power of the sinless Holy Spirit, and the curse of Adam was not imputed to Christ through a human father's sperm.  "The fertilized egg was put into Mary" so that sin could also not be imputed through her line.  Jesus was and is a sinless, holy atonement for our sins.

      Christ was willing to die for the people God.  He was "not forced" against His will to do that which He came for.

      Christ was resurrected so He could sit on the right hand God the Father to forever make intercession for us when we fail in Godly living.

     Had Christ been merely man He could "not" have been a "living sacrifice" for the believer.  Had He been purely God, He would not have been an acceptable sacrifice, for He would not be on the same level as the people He was to represent.  Christ was "fully God and fully man" so He could be our Redeemer.

Because of the Hypostatic Union of Christ, His work accomplished three objectives:

1. His atonement met the "demands" of the Law for the sinner once and for all.

2. His atonement appeased the "wrath and justice" of God.

3. His atonement met the demands of the Law of God, yet at the same time showed forth the "mercy" of God.

     The theological term "satisfaction of Christ" indicates that Christ not only did a "good work" on earth, but that this work was both "perfect and eternal".  The work was finished, so salvation is "not" what we do "in addition" to Christ, but our salvation is based on what Christ "alone" did for us.  Can we prove the Satisfaction of Christ is a Biblical doctrine?

     The saving power of the Satisfaction of Christ works in "three" simultaneous aspects toward the believer:

1. Christ saves us as our High Priest:

   Hebrews 10:1-10 "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.  For then would they not have ceased to be offered?  because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.  But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.  For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.  Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:  In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.  Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.  Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein;  which are offered by the law;  Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.  By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

   Hebrews 10:11-12 "And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:  But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God"

        Christ's offering was accepted by the Almighty as a one time "eternal work".  The Christian does "not" have to fear the loss of his salvation, for the work of Christ was and "is" a finished work.  Can we ever forget the last words Christ on the Cross:

   John 19:30 "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished:  and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."

        Jesus was not referring to His life, for it was not really ended.  He was referring to the work of the Cross:  "It is finished".  Praise God for His mercies!

   
   

2. Christ saves us as our sacrifice:

   Ephesians 5:2 "And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour."

        The offering of Christ was and is a one time, eternal work.  It was pleasing to God because it "not only" paid for sin, but also released the believer from the bondage of guilt.

   Leviticus 17:11 "For the life of the flesh is in the blood:  and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls:  for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."

        Blood may make "an" atonement for the soul, but only the blood of the pure and perfect creature may make "the" atonement for the believer.  Such was the sacrifice of Christ.

   
   

3. Christ saves us as our Redeemer:

   Galatians 3:13 "Christ hath redeemed  [exagorazo]  us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:"

        The Greek word for "redeemed" in this passage is  "EXAGORAZO",  which means "To buy from or pay the price for". Christ put Himself forward as "our payment" for sin, took the penalty of the wrath of God that we all richly deserved. Mercy is abundant in salvation, not justice, for we did not get the justice we so richly deserved.

        We are all like blind men, walking the wrong way down a one way street.  We should not be on that street, but we are because of the disobedience so rich within us.  A truck careens around the corner (the Law), and barrels our way, ready to crush us.  Yet Christ reached out, pulled us out of the way, and took the crushing weight of the Law on Himself.  He "exagorazo" us, paid the penalty in our stead.

     The payment Christ made was full, perfect, and harsh.  To merely say "He paid the penalty" is to oversimplify what Jesus did for us.  Prior to crucifixion the victim was "scourged".  This is not an ordinary whipping by any means, it is simply horrible torture.  The victim was strapped to a vertical post so that his feet barely touched the ground.  The executioner then lashed the man with a whip interlaced with razors or broken pottery.  Of the scourging of Christ it is written that "no part" of His body was left untortured, His very "beard" was ripped from His face:

Isaiah 50:5-6 "The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.  I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair:  I hid not my face from shame and spitting."

     Next the victim was to carry the mode of His death, a 70 pound post grinding into his wounded shoulders.  The original Cross was not that which the Christian Church today knows.  The Greek word for Cross is "STAUROS", which means a "pole or post".  The " t " shaped Cross infiltrated Christianity when paganism was allowed into the early Church during it's "Dark Ages".  The worshippers of the bull god Tammuz entered the Church.  As they worshipped the Tau (a symbol of Tammuz), they worshipped his symbol which was " t ".  Once they were forced into Christianity they carried this symbol with them which later became known as the Christian Cross.  (see W.E. Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Fleming H Revell Company, page 256 "Cross, Crucify", A.Noun).  However, the Bible is very plain that Jesus died on the "tree":

Galatians 3:13 "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us:  for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:"

     Historically Jesus had to carry this post approximately 660 yards from Antonia to Golgotha, the "refuse pile" of the city.  Here He was nailed to the post in such a way that every breath He took was excruciatingly painful.  In this humiliating manner Christ died for us.  This was the redemption.  This was the "exagorazo".

     "You must show a man he is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong." - C.S. Lewis

     The world has viewed Christ in many various forms and persons for many many years now.  In this section we will study the various cultic views of Christ, and seek to explain why they deviate from the Biblical view of Jesus.

     "Ebionism" literally means "the poor ones".  This early cult sprang up in the first and second centuries after the death of Christ.  The Ebionites were a branch of Christio-Judaism which today we would classify as "Galatian" believers.

     There were both Christian and non Christian Ebionites.  These people denied the Deity of Christ because of Deuteronomy 6:3-4 (which we have studied before. See our studies on the Trinity of God).  The Ebionites believed that Jesus became God only when the Holy Spirit descended on Him at His Water Baptism.  In the same way the Ebionites believed that "all believers are a little God" just like Jesus was.  In reality we all are "only men", not God.  Jesus was and is the only Man who ever walked the earth who could be rightfully called "God in the Flesh".

     We have already refuted all of Ebionism's claims except one:  that we become God-like at the point of salvation.  This is a confusion of the ministry of the Indwelling of the Spirit.  True, we do receive the Holy Spirit of God at the point of salvation.  But the Spirit "indwells or lives" in us, yet distinctly separate from our souls.  The Spirit "does not mix" with our souls, but works in union with us.  Even God "does not have the power to re-create Himself":  He cannot make other Gods out of mortal man, even with His infinite power.  Christ was and is God, not because He was created to be so, but because He self existed as God from infinity to infinity.

     Sorinthianism is very close in theology to Ebionism.  The Sorinthians believed that there was "no real Godhood in Christ" until after His Water Baptism.  After Water Baptism the Sorinthians believed that Jesus possessed "two distinct personalities" in one body.  They believed there was both a Divine and a human person living in the same shell, that Christ was a type of schizophrenic.  This cult never really took hold in the Eastern world, dying out shortly after it's birth, yet it's doctrine lives on in several of our "modern day" cults.

     Another cult that was prominent in the first century was Dolcitism.  This cult takes it's name from the Greek "DOKETOI", meaning "to seem or to think". Dolcitism was the direct antithesis of Ebionism.  They believed that Christ was "fully God", and in His Deity only "seemed" to be like man.  The Apostle John dealt with this group quite extensively. He wrote in response to their false doctrine:

I John 4:2-3 "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God:  Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:  And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God:  and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come;  and even now already is it in the world."

     This heresy was widespread in the world in the time of the Apostles.  Sabellius, a heretic condemned at the council of Rome (253 AD), extended this doctrine so that it also perverted the doctrine of the Trinity of God.  Sabellius held that God was not in three Persons.  God was only one Person who showed Himself to man in "three manifestations".  Sabellius claimed that "Jesus was the one true God" who manifested Himself as Father, Spirit, and Son.  Though Dolcitism  is no longer known by its original name, its theories live on among the "Christian Monotheistic" cults.  The most popular of the modern "Jesus Only" cults is the "United Pentecostal Church".

     In the fourth century A.D. Arianism came into being.  This cult reached its height of power in 325 A.D.&  In that year the cult's leader, Arius, was called to stand before the Church council at Nicea. Arisists "denied the Deity" of Christ.  They believed that, rather than being self existent, Christ was "a created being" from God.  It goes without saying that Arianism also denied the Doctrine of Trinity.  Arius' reasoning was:

1. If it Christ was the "only begotten of God" then there must have been a time when He was not begotten.

2. The Son possessed a nature like the Father's yet "not the same" nature as the Father's.

Arius based his arguments on two texts:

John 14:28 "Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you.  If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father:  for my Father is greater than I."

     Arius reasoned that, " if " Jesus said the Father "was greater" than Himself then He was lesser than the Father and a created being.  But he failed to take the verse in its proper historical context.  As Calvin stated:

     "Christ does not here compare the Divinity of the Father with his own, neither His own human nature with the Divine essence of God, but rather His present state with the celestial glory to which He must shortly be received..."

     When Jesus walked the earth He walked it as a Man.  This is because the Plan of God required that He live, work, and die as Man to atone for our sins.  This was the "only way" He could be a proper redemptive sacrifice for us.  Arius failed to recognize this because he failed to recognize Christ's Hypostatic Union.

The second verse Arius used was:

Matthew 19:16-17 "And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?  And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good?  there is none good but one, that is, God:  but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."

     Arius felt that Jesus, by rejecting the title of "good" and applying it only to God, Jesus was directly stating that He was not God.  There is nothing farther from the truth.

     First, "look at the context".  In the background a young man is coming to Christ to "earn his way" into eternal life.  This young man has rejected Jesus as the way unto life (John 14:6).  The young man has determined that he can be "good enough on his own" to get into Heaven without the help of the Son.  He further recognizes Jesus as "mere man only", with no power to help him obtain salvation.  This is seen through the title RABBI or Master.  RABBI is a term applied to a "human teacher", and by using this term to Christ the young men shows he was rejecting the Hypostatic Union of Christ.

     So the young man comes to Christ, refers to Him as a "mere human teacher", and dresses up the title with the adjective "Good".  Jesus rejects this adjective, not because He is not God, but because He is trying to prove a point.  No "mere man" is ever good, for "all men" are dead in their sins (Romans 3:1-13; Ephesians 2:1-3).  Jesus teaches, "If you are going to recognize Me as a mere man rather than your Savior, do not call Me 'Good'.   There are no 'Good' people.  All men are dead in their sins."  The young man obviously missed the doctrinal point (as did Arius), because Jesus went on and explained how hard it would be to "get into Heaven using works".  If Jesus was a mere man saying that the things He said, then He could not be good.  As C.S. Lewis stated, He was either a demon from hell or a madman.  Jesus is either in Hypostatic Union and "Good", or out of Union and possessed.  "There is no midpoint!"

     Apollos developed another twist that rejected the Hypostatic Union.  He and his followers believed that Christ was "fully God" with "only a semblance of humanity".  Apollos held that Jesus possessed only the body and soul of the man, but had "no human spirit".  The human spirit of Christ, Apollos asserted, was "destroyed and replaced" by the Holy Spirit when He was baptized.  This early cult still has a small following today under different names.

     Nestorius (the Bishop of the Church at Constantinople, 4th century A.D.) led a group of followers who believed that Jesus had "two natures" in His Hypostatic Union, which is correct.  But Nestorius also believed that Jesus possessed "two personalities" to go along with the two natures.  Again we have a cult that believed our Lord Jesus was a schizophrenic.  This heresy was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D.

     Eutikese (an Abbot at the Church of Constantinople, 5th century A.D.) invented yet another twist.  Eutikese held that Jesus had "three natures and one personality".  He said Jesus had a Divine Nature, a Human Nature, and a mixed Humano-Divine Nature.  This cult was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D.

     One liberal theologian, Shlarmaker, mixed Buddhism with Christianity.  This was no worse than the early cults mixing Judaism with Christianity.  What made Shlarmaker's Theology so bad was that he taught that Christ was "exactly equal" to the created being, man.  The only real difference between Christ and us, he contended, was that Christ reached a higher God consciousness than we have.  He said anyone can reach what Christ was with "hard work and dedication to good deeds".  This is a particularly blasphemous doctrine as it not only denies the Hypostatic Union, but also de-emphasizes the work of Christ on the Cross.  The Cross no longer stands for atonement to pay for our sins, but is now an "unfortunate event" brought on by those jealous of Christ's created Divinity.  Shlarmaker's Theology is not taught or condoned by the Scripture.  "Mormonism" contains elements of this theology.

     Another theologian, Ritchell, introduced what he called "German Radical Criticism" of the Bible.  He taught that Christ had no Hypostatic Union, that it was "impossible" for any man to have two natures.  Ritchell declared that Christ was "merely a man" who totally submitted Himself to the will of God.  In the same sense, according to this teaching, any of us today could reach what Christ did by exhibiting the same submission to God.

     Harry Emerson Fosdick taught that every Christian has the "same amount" of Divinity that Christ had:  "only in degree do we differ" from what Christ possessed before God.

     Joseph Settler (a quasi-Lutheran theologian), taught that Christ was "not preexistent with God" literally, but Christ was "only foreknown" in the mind of the one true God.  Settler emulated his mentor Arius in most of his doctoral views.  Settler, as did Arius, denied both the Hypostatic Union as well as the Trinity of God.

     Professor Henry Van Doussan, a quasi-Presbyterian theologian, used a slightly different twist to reject the Hypostatic Union.  He held that Christ was "not fully God", but that God was fully present in Christ as He would be "in any man".  God and Christ were one only in the sense of their "unity of purpose", but Christ was certainly not the equal of God.  Doussan stated:

     "Unless God is present in the life of every man, then He cannot become present in the life of Jesus of Nazareth .."

     Doussan did not create a new Theology, but only emulated his earlier cultic mentors.  There are many different cultic views concerning the person of Jesus Christ today.  All such views are inspired by Satan, the Father of lies.  Satan tried to trick our Lord Jesus (Matthew 4) into turning away from His Hypostatic Union and the Plan of God.  When this failed Satan convinced unbelievers of both yesterday and today that Jesus was no more than a mere man.  If such attacks succeed then there can be no salvation for these people, because the heart of salvation is to accept the "historic Jesus Christ as your personal Savior".  We cannot work our way into salvation: we must rely on what Jesus did for us at the Cross and beyond within His Hypostatic Union.

     If Satan can trick the believer into minimizing or disregarding the unique Person of Christ he can cause:

1. Stunted growth in the believer:  This doctrine is pivotal to so many other Bible doctrines that to reject the unique Person of Christ leads to deeper and deeper departures from the truth.

2. An idea that we can work our way to Heaven:  The witness of the Cross is destroyed when we tell the unbeliever "you must accept Christ and do this, or do that" to be saved.  Unbelievers become believers when we tell them of their hopeless situation and show them that Jesus is the way out of Hell.  Unbelievers stay unbelievers when we tell them to work their way to Heaven, to work their own way out of this hopeless situation.

     Too often we hear the mantra, "It's just an opinion, a harmless way of belief".  There is nothing harmless in rejecting the Hypostatic Union of Christ.  The Apostle John didn't seem to think that such deception was "harmless opinion", and neither should any right thinking Christian.

John 14:6 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life:  no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

     When Jesus spoke these words He effectively divided the world, with all of it's false gods and goddesses, asunder.  His statement was both negative as well as positive.  In the negative sense, Jesus is the "only" way to God.  Christ, and Christianity, are exclusive concepts.  There is no other way to God "but" through Jesus.  In the positive sense we see that, if we put away our blind stabs at seeking God, there is one "sure" way to God, and that way is Jesus Christ.

     This was not the only statement that Jesus made about being the exclusive way unto God. Jesus is the "only Begotten" of God:

John 3:18 "He that believeth on him is not condemned:  but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

     Who better to lead man to God than the only Son of God?  Jesus is also the "only mediator" between God and man:

I Timothy 2:5 "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;"

     Who better to talk on our behalf than the "only Mediator"?  In our society people often become wishy-washy when they talk about religion.  "Can't we just all love one another and be in one accord?".  But when you read the Foxes Book of Martyrs you see that the early Christians, strong in the faith, were fein to forsake Christ in either word or deed.  They held up the exclusiveness of Christianity for all to see, and in so doing kept the Church alive when it would have otherwise been blotted out by "religious people".

     Paul's letter to the Galatians emphasizes, over and over again, the exclusiveness of Jesus Christ.  The Jewish Christians wanted to add in the rituals of the Temple with their Christian worship, and to this Paul replied "God forbid".  It is true that all other religions carry, to a small degree, some elements that are parallel to Christianity.  The Moslems believe that there is one God;  so do we.  Yet should the Christian compromise the exclusiveness of Christ in order to accommodate the religions of the world?  Is it right to allow the Buddhist, in ignorance, to starve himself to death seeking Heaven and, after dying, only finding Hell?  "I don't think so, and neither does our God!"

     There are many verses of Scripture that we can look at topically to prove the Deity in Christ's perfect union.  For instance, we can look at an Old Testament quotation that ascribes a certain attribute to God, then find the parallel verse in the new Testament that ascribes the same attribute to Christ.  This clearly shows the Deity of Christ in Hypostatic Union.

God is the only Savior of the world.

     If God is the only Savior, and Christ is declared to be the Savior, then Christ "must be equal" to God.

Hosea 13:4 "Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me:  for there is no saviour beside me."

John 4:42 "And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying:  for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world."

God is declared to be the Creator of all things.

     If God is the Creator, and Christ is declared to be the Creator in parallel, then "Christ must be God".

Isaiah 40:28 "Hast thou not known?  hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?  there is no searching of his understanding."

John 1:3 "All things were made by him (Christ);  and without him was not any thing made that was made."

God is declared to be the Judge of all.

     If the Judge, and Christ is declared to be the Judge in parallel, then "Christ must be God".

Joel 3:12 "Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat:  for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about."

John 5:26-27 "For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;  And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man."

God is declared to be the believer's Shepherd.

     If the Shepherd, and Christ is declared to be the Shepherd in parallel, then "Christ must be God".

Psalms 23:1 "The LORD is my shepherd;  I shall not want."

John 10:11 "I am the good shepherd:  the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."

God is declared to be the believer's Rock and Fortress.

     Since God is the Rock, if Christ is declared to be the Rock in parallel, then "Christ must be God".

Psalms 18:2 "The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust;  my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower."

1 Corinthians 10:4 "And did all drink the same spiritual drink:  for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ."

God alone is to be worshipped.

     If God only is to be worshipped, and Christ in parallel is worshipped, then "Christ must be God".  Not even the Archangels are allowed to be worshipped.

Psalms 148:1-5 "Praise ye the LORD.  Praise ye the LORD from the heavens:  praise him in the heights.  Praise ye him, all his angels:  praise ye him, all his hosts.  Praise ye him, sun and moon:  praise him, all ye stars of light.  Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.  Let them praise the name of the LORD:  for he commanded, and they were created."

Hebrews 1:6-8 "And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.  And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.  But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever:  a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom."

Matthew 8:2-3 "And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.  And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will;  be thou clean.  And immediately his leprosy was cleansed."

     The Matthew passage is particularly telling.  Jesus was "worshipped" by the leper.  The word in the original tongue is "PROSCHUNEO", which means "to lay prostrate before an object of worship, to kiss or fawn over an object of greater Deity".  In Judaism it was "blaspheme" to worship a mere man;  to do so would subject you to immediate death by stoning.  Yet Jesus, a Orthodox Jew, did not discourage the leper;  He merely accepted the worship given as if it were His due (and it was).  If Jesus were not God then He contributed to blasphemy by His own actions, and was "not" a "good" man or a prophet:  He would indeed be a sinner.  That Jesus believed Himself to be God is obvious.  He "WAS" and "IS" God.

     "Proschuneo" is a word used "only" for worship of God.  The same word is used in the following context:

John 4:20-24 "Our fathers worshipped  [proschuneo]  in this mountain;  and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship  [proschuneo].  Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship  [proschuneo]  the Father.  Ye worship  [proschuneo]  ye know not what:  we know what we worship:  for salvation is of the Jews.  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth:  for the Father seeketh such to worship  [proschuneo]  him.  God is a Spirit:  and they that worship  [proschuneo]  him must worship  [proschuneo]  him in spirit and in truth."

     Furthermore the leper addressed Jesus with the title "Lord", "ADONAI", which is one of the holy names of God. Jesus was not only addressed as "Adonai" in this one passage, but over 200 times in the Gospels alone.  In each instance Jesus "accepted" the title as His rightful due, never rebuked the speaker.  This is carried forward in the following text:

John 5:23 "That all men should honour  [timao, To prize or show reverence to]   the Son, even as they honour  [timao, To prize or show reverence to]  the Father.  He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him."

     Jesus expected the same honor attributed to the Father, for He was and is equal in power and authority to the Father. "Jesus Christ is God!"

God alone is to be called "Lord".

     God alone is to be called the Lord  [KURIOS]  as this is a title of Deity.  But Christ is referred to in the new Testament "exclusively" as the Lord.  This is the New Testament equivalent to the Old Testament "YHWH", the Divine name of God.  Cults usually try to play down the use off "kurios" when applied to Jesus by noting that many Kings and Rulers were also called "kurios" in the ancient Greek literature.  This is because many Rulers of this era set themselves up as gods.  Many believers were martyred in the early Christian Church because they called Jesus "kurios", refusing to bow down and worship Caesar as God.  KURIOS is a title of Deity, and though wrongly applied to carnal Rulers, it "was rightly applied" to Jesus Christ in the Scripture.

The Prophetic Word of Christ

     Jesus' manner of Prophecy points out the fact that He is God.  Whenever the Prophets gave a message from God they preceded the message with "Thus saith the Lord".  For example:

Exodus 4:22 "And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:"

Joshua 24:2 "And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods."

     This phrase is found 415 times in the Bible uttered by the Prophets, prior to making a proclamation from God.  Whenever Jesus prophesied He "never" used these words, as if He were saying "I am the source of this message, I am the Divine Son of God".

The "oneness" of Christ and God

John 10:30-33 "I and my Father are one  [eis].  Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.  Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?  The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not;  but for blasphemy;  and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God."

     "one" in the above passage is the Greek "EIS", which not only refers to oneness "of purpose", but also oneness "of being and substance".  The Jews understood that Jesus was declaring Himself to be "equal with God" because, they immediately picked up stones in order to execute Him for blasphemy.  Jesus knew what He was saying: "He is God"!

I Corinthians 8:5-6 "For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him;  and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him."

     In contrast this passage shows that both Christ and the Father, though co-equal, are unique within the Godhead.  Each Member have their own specific functions, each their own place without struggling for supremacy.  The name and title "Lord Jesus Christ" even points out the Deity of Christ.  "Lord" is the Greek parallel to the Hebrew "YHWH", meaning "I AM", the Divine name of God.  "Jesus" comes from the Hebrew "YEHOSHUA", translated "God with us".  "Christ" is "CHRISTOS", meaning "The Anointed One, the Messiah".  Jesus' name and title could literally be rendered, from the original languages, as: "I am God the Anointed One".

     Thus do we see the Scripture unequivocally declares the Deity of Christ, fully co-equal with both God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.  "He IS Lord!"