Introduction
"A Stone of stumbling and
a Rock of offense"
Faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ is the
foundation of our religious convictions. This faith gives
us spiritual strength, in-spires us to do good, and gives
direction to our efforts and to our expectations. Without
it Christianity loses its inspirational power and is
reduced to a collection of ancient myths and unfulfilled
promises.
Though of great importance, Christ’s divinity is not
self-evident. There are even some passages in the Gospels
which seem to contradict it. Therefore, those who dispute
the divinity of Christ have no difficulty in finding
biblical texts which supposedly support their opinion that
Jesus Christ was either a man or some incarnate spiritual
creature and therefore cannot be called God in the true
sense of the word. At the same time opponents of the faith
of the divinity of Christ point to the absence of biblical
texts in which Jesus called Himself God, and from this
they draw the incorrect conclusion that this title was
given to Him later.
Contradictory opinions concerning the nature of Christ
began to spring up from the very first days of
Christianity. Quite serious disputes and disturbances were
caused in the fourth century A.D. by the Arian heresy,
which taught that Jesus Christ was only a creature,
although the most perfect and powerful one ever created.
This heresy was thoroughly discussed by the First
Ecumenical Council which was held in the city of Nicaea in
325. The Fathers of this Council rejected arianism and
composed a Symbol of Faith, or Creed, in which, using very
precise statements, they expressed the true teaching
concerning Jesus Christ. This Creed has been used by the
Eastern Orthodox Church to this very day.
In our time the sect of Jehovah’s Witnesses has
resurrected the defeated Arian heresy from the dust of
history. Their variation of it teaches that Jesus Christ
is the incarnation of a spirit-son or an angel-like
creature (perhaps of the Archangel Michael). The danger
posed by the sect of Jehovah’s Witnesses comes from
the fact that they possess seemingly unlimited financial
reserves and thus flood the world with their literature
and their preachers. A particularly aggressive missionary
work is being carried on in Russia, where they have caught
thousands of trusting people in the nets of their cult.
Orthodox people in Russia are in particular danger from
these sectarian preachers because, not being use to the
vagaries of living in a pluralistic society, they do not
know how to defend their faith, and the majority of them
are not very familiar with the Sacred Scriptures. On the
other hand, the sectarian preachers are well versed in the
texts that are useful to them, so that they can glibly
overwhelm with quotations that suit their purpose.
The Scriptures on Jesus
Although the Holy Spirit scriptures repeatedly call Jesus
Christ the Son of God, those who would discredit His
divinity cite the fact that the Scriptures use the term
"sons of God" not only to refer to Jesus Christ,
but also to angels and people. In order to clarify this
question, we should remember that when referring to people
or angels as sons of God, the Holy Scriptures always use
the plural form, and never the singular.
This makes it evident that they are "sons" not
by nature but by the grace of adoption.
(Otherwise, for example, the designation of the ungodly as
"sons of the Devil" would lead to the absurd
conclusion that they have a different origin than the
faithful). The Holy Scriptures use the singular form of
the Son of God only when speaking of Jesus Christ. It is
only to Him that the Holy Scriptures adds clarifying terms
such as the Only Begotten, Beloved
Son, Son of the Living God,
True Son — all of which unambiguously
indicate that, unlike us , He is the Son
in the true sense of the word and by His
divine nature. That is
why the Mormons grossly err by claiming that Jesus Christ
had other god-brothers like Lucifer (Satan!) and others.
The Holy Scriptures clearly distinguish between the Son
and the sons: the first is begotten; all the others were
created.
At the very onset of Jesus Christ’s preaching, God
the Father testified about Him saying, "This is
My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" (Matt.
3:17) Later, on Mount Tabor, the Father repeated these
words adding: "Hear ye Him" (Matt.
17:5). This commands us to accept every word of Christ as
complete and infallible truth.
But how can we respond to those who deny Christ’s
divinity, when He Himself said: "My Father is
greater than I … Of that day and of that hour
(the end of the world) knoweth no man — no, not
the angels who are in Heaven, neither the Son, but only
the Father… The Son can do nothing of
Himself , but what He seeth the Father do… My soul
is exceedingly sorrowful, unto to death … not My
will, but Thine be done" (John 14:28; Mark
13:32; John 5:19; Mark 14:34; Luke 22:42). Besides, if
Jesus Christ truly regarded Himself as God, then why did
He not announce this clearly and unambiguously? By doing
so, He would have dispelled all doubts about Himself.
The purpose of this article is to help the reader deal
with these questions and to give him the necessary
information to defend his faith in the divinity of Christ.
In order to understand why Our Lord Jesus Christ did not
announce publicly His divinity, let us mentally transport
ourselves to the time of Jesus.
Imagine how people in the time of Jesus would have reacted
to the words of a man who walked around declaring, "I
am God!" Undoubtedly the crowd would have ridiculed
Him as being out of His mind, while the zealots of the
Jewish religion would have jumped at the chance to declare
Him a blasphemer and demanded his execution. Only the
pagans, who acknowledged many gods, might have accepted
such a claim more seriously than the Jews, understanding
it of course in terms of their superstitions. (Recall the
reaction of the pagans to the miracles of the Apostle Paul
as they were ready to declare him one of their gods and
offer sacrifices to him, Acts 14:11). In our time people
would turn away with scorn from any preacher who declared
himself to be God. In any case, a direct declaration by
the Savior regarding His divinity would not have had the
desired result.
In fact, the Son of God did not come into our world to
amaze His contemporaries with His omnipotence or to
subject them to His divine power, but rather to
incite them to righteousness. People had become
so alienated from spiritual things and so morally corrupt
that they were unfit to understand the truth of the
divinity of Christ correctly. Let us recall from the
Gospels how difficult it was for Christ to preach among
the Jews and how much mockery He had to endure from the
evil-minded scribes who strived to distort the meaning of
His words and to prevent simple people from believing in
Him. Therefore, the first thing that our Lord Jesus Christ
had to do was to convince people to turn to God in
repentance, reject their own religious prejudices, and sow
in themselves the seeds of the true faith. In order to
accomplish this, it was necessary to inspire them toward a
righteous way of life, teach them to forgive, have
compassion and love one another.
Such a deep spiritual shift in society could not have been
accomplished by either threats or miracles. In fact, the
manifestations of Christ’s divine nature, brought
about by His performing miracles, stirred up in the Jewish
people unhealthy ideas about the coming of a glorious and
mighty messianic kingdom on earth, in which they would
rule over other nations. For this reason they were
forbidden by our Lord to talk about the miracles He
performed.
In order to accomplish the spiritual renewal of men and to
make them receptive to the true faith, Christ chose to use
gentle and inspiring words and His personal
example. Out of compassion for a perishing human
race, He undertook to share their poverty, burdens and
sorrows. In order to heal their moral ulcers, He took upon
Himself their sins and washed them away with His precious
Blood on the Cross. The saving of the sinful human race,
from the moment of Christ’s incarnation to His
suffering on the Cross, was a work of extreme voluntary
self-abasement. In the words of the Apostle Paul,
"(Christ) 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"(Philippians 2:6-7).
This voluntary self-abasement of the Messiah is thus
described by the prophet Isaiah: "He hath no form
nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no
beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and
rejected of men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief … and we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath
borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed
Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was
wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our
iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him,
and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have
gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and
the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was
oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His
mouth … He was taken from prison and from judgment;
and who shall declare His generation?" (Isaiah
53:2-8). With these concluding words the prophet was
addressing the consciences of those who were to reject
their Saviour, as if saying to them: You turn away in
contempt from Jesus as He is mocked and beaten, but
understand this, it is because of you sinners that He
suffers so grievously. Contemplate His spiritual beauty,
and maybe then you will be able to comprehend that He came
to you from heaven.
While voluntarily abasing Himself for the sake of our
salvation, Christ nevertheless gradually
revealed the mystery of His oneness with God the Father to
those who were capable of rising above the crude ideas of
their contemporaries. Thus, for instance, He said to the
Jews: "I and My Father are one … He that
hath seen Me hath seen the Father … I am in the
Father and the Father in Me … all Mine are Thine,
and Thine are Mine … We will come unto him and make
our abode with him" (John 10:30, 14:9, 14:10,
17:10 and 14:23). These and other similar expressions all
indicate His divine
nature. In addition, Christ gradually revealed
those characteristics of His which no one but God can
possess. For instance He referred to Himself as the
Creator when He said: "My Father
worketh hither to, and I work " (John 5:17). It
is significant that the Jews hearing these words wanted to
stone Christ as a blasphemer, "because He not
only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was
His Father, making Himself equal with God" (John
5:18). By not correcting their interpretation of His
words, the Lord confirmed that they understood Him
properly.
At other times, the Lord Jesus Christ referred to Himself
as being eternal. For instance when the
Jews asked Him "who art Thou?", Jesus
replied "Even the same that I said unto you from
the beginning" (John 8:25). Shortly after this
He added: "Verily, verily I say to you, before
Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58). Here it must be
noted that Jesus had not said "I was," as would
have been grammatically correct in the context, but rather
used the present tense "I am," or more
exactly, "I am He who is." The deep
meaning of these words becomes clear when one considers
the Hebrew original meaning. When Moses asked God’s
name at the burning bush, the Lord answered: "I
am He who is" (YHWH). The very name "He
who is" (YHWH) indicates the distinguishing
characteristic of God. He is the One who always
exists; He is the Eternal One. In referring to
Himself as "He who is" (YHWH), Jesus
Christ used the Hebrew name for God. It should be
remembered that the name YHWH was held in such esteem by
the Jews that they used it only on the most important and
solemn occasions, while in ordinary speech they used the
names Lord, Creator, Most High, the Blessed One, and so
forth.
After His resurrection from the dead, Christ again
referred to Himself as eternal:
"‘I Am the Alpha and the Omega, the
Beginning and the End,’ saith the Lord who is and
who was and who is to come, the Almighty" (Rev.
1:8). On other occasions He called Himself
omniscient (all-knowing), saying
"As the Father knoweth Me, even so I know the
Father" (John 10:15). Truly the essence of God
is beyond the comprehension of finite beings. Only God can
know His own nature perfectly. The Lord Jesus Christ also
called Himself omnipresent when He said:
"No man hath ascended up to heaven but He that
came down from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in
heaven … For where two or three are gathered
together in My name, I am there in the midst of
them" (John 3:13, Matt. 18:20). Here again
Christ used the word is, meaning that not only
was He or will He be in heaven, but He also abides there
constantly.
Thus, since He shares with the Father all the divine
attributes (creation, eternity, omniscience, omnipresence,
etc.), Jesus Christ must be acknowledged by all as being
equal to the Father as well.
"All men should honor the Son, even as they honor
the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the
Father who sent Him" (John 5:23). All that has
been said here should convince an unprejudiced person of
the unquestionable truth, that Jesus Christ is
true God of true God, equal to the Father
by nature.
Although Jesus Christ avoided calling Himself God directly
so as not to incite the people unnecessarily, He did
commend those who were able to lift themselves up to the
acceptance of this truth. Thus, for example, when the
Apostle Peter said in the presence of other Apostles:
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God," the Lord approved his confession of faith
and added that Peter had come to such a conviction not
simply by his own observations but by a special
enlightenment from on high."Blessed art thou,
Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed
this to thee, but My Father who is in heaven"
(Matt. 16:16-17). Similarly, when the Apostle Thomas,
seeing the risen Savior, exclaimed: "My Lord and
my God!" (John 20:28), Christ did not reject his
addressing Him in this way but mildly reproached Thomas
for being slow to believe. "Thomas, because thou
hast seen Me (risen), thou hast believed. Blessed
are those who have not seen and yet have
believed" (John 20:29).
Finally let us remember that Christ was condemned to be
crucified precisely because He formally admitted His
divinity. Indeed, when the high priest Caiaphas asked
Christ under oath: "Art Thou the Christ, the Son
of the Blessed?", Christ responded: "It
is as you said" (Mark 14:61, Matt. 26:64, Luke
22:70, John 19:7). Here Christ had responded using the
prescribed form of an affirmative answer.
Now where did Caiaphas, many of the Jews, and even demons
(!) get the idea that the Messiah was to be the Son of
God? There is just one answer: from the Holy Scriptures of
the Old Testament. Its intent was to prepare the Jews and
the whole world for this belief. Indeed, King
David, who lived a thousand years before
the birth of Christ, referred to the Messiah as God in
three of his psalms; Psalms 2, 54 (55), and 108 (109). The
prophet Isaiah, who lived seven-hundred
years before the birth of Christ, revealed this truth even
more clearly. Foretelling the miracle of the Incarnation
of the Son of God, Isaiah wrote: "Therefore the
Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall
conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name
Immanuel" (which means "God with
us," Isaiah 7:14). A little later the prophet
reveals more precisely the character of the Son who would
be born: "and His name shall be called Wonderful,
Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The
Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). These titles
cannot apply to anyone other than God. The prophet
Micah also wrote of the eternal character
of the Child who was to be born: "But thou
Bethlehem Ephrathah, though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth unto
Me He that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth
have been from of old, from everlasting" (Micah
5:2).
The prophet Jeremiah, who lived about two
hundred years after Isaiah’s time, calls the Messiah
Lord: "The Lord is our righteousness"
(Jer. 23:6, 33:16). Surmising Him to be the same Lord who
called him to preach, Jeremiah’s disciple, the
prophetBaruch, wrote these remarkable
words about the Messiah: "This is our God, and no
other can be found to compare to Him. He has found the
complete way of knowledge and has given it to Jacob His
servant, and to Israel His beloved. Afterward He was seen
upon earth, and spoke with men" (Bar. 3:35-37).
In other words God Himself would come to earth and live
among men!
Given these definite indications in the Holy Scriptures,
the more perceptive of the Jews could without hesitation
recognize in Christ the true Son of God. (For further
details on this subject see our booklet "The Old
Testament on the Messiah"). It is noteworthy that
even before the birth of Christ the righteous
Elizabeth greeted the Virgin Mary who was
expecting the Infant with these exultant words:
"Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the
fruit of thy womb. And why is it granted to me that the
mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Luke
1:42-43). Clearly, St. Elizabeth could have had no other
Lord than Him whom she had served from her childhood. As
St. Luke the Evangelist explains in these words, Elizabeth
spoke them not on her own but through the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Having acquired a firm belief in the divinity of Christ,
the Apostles planted this belief in Him throughout all
nations. St. John the Theologian begins his Gospel with
the revelation of the divine nature of Jesus Christ:
"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 anything made that was
made…
And the Word was made flesh,
and dwelt amongst us;
and we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth…
No man hath seen God at any time;
the only begotten Son,
who is in the bosom of the Father,
He hath declared Him"
(John 1:1-18).
The name Word bestowed upon the Son of God
reveals better than any other name the mystery of the
inner relationship between the First and Second Persons of
the Holy Trinity, God the Father and God the Son. A
thought and a word are distinct from each other in that
the thought dwells in the mind, whereas the word is the
expression of the thought; yet the two are inseparable.
The thought does not exist without the word, nor does the
word without the thought. A thought is like a word which
is concealed within, and a word is that which gives
expression to the thought. The thought takes the form of a
word to convey the content of the thought to its hearers.
Looked at in this way, the thought, being an independent
principle, is the father of the word, and the word is the
son of the thought. The word cannot exist prior to the
thought, yet it does not originate from without; it comes
from the thought and remains inseparable from the thought.
Similarly, the Father, the supreme and all-encompassing
Thought, produced from His bosom the Son, the Word, His
first Interpreter and Herald (from St. Dionysius of
Alexandria).
The Apostles spoke of the divinity of
Christ with complete clarity: "And we know that
the Son of God is come and hath given us understanding,
that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that
is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John
5:20)… "of whom are the fathers, and from
whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over
all, God blessed for ever" (Romans 9:5) …
"Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious
appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus
Christ" (Titus 2:13) … "Had they
(the Jews) known (the wisdom of God), they would not have
crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor.
2:8)… "For in Him (Christ) dwelleth all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. 2:9)
… "And beyond controversy, great is the
mystery of godliness" (1 Timothy 3:16). And in
the first and second chapters of his epistle to the
Hebrews, St. Paul the Apostle proves conclusively that the
Son of God is not a creature but the Creator and that He
is immeasurably superior to all beings created by Him.
Angels are simply ministering spirits.
One Person, Two Natures
It must also be kept in mind that calling the Lord Jesus
Christ God (Theos) in itself
speaks of the fullness of divinity. From
a logical, philosophical point of view, there cannot be a
"second class" God, a God "lower in
rank," a "limited" God. The attributes of
the divine nature are not subject to conditionality or
lessening. If He is God, then He is so completely, not
partially.
Only if we assume a unity of Persons in God is it possible
to join in one sentence the names of the Son and the Holy
Spirit on an equal basis with the name of the Father:
"Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19). "The grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all" (2
Cor. 13:14). "For there are three that bear
record in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy
Spirit; and these three are one" (1 John 5:7).
Here the Apostle John emphasizes that the three
are one — i.e., one in essence.
One must clearly differentiate between the understanding
of person (hypostasis) and the understanding of
nature or essence (ousia). The word
person refers to personality, to the
"I," and self-consciousness. The old cells of
our organism die and are replaced constantly, but the
self-consciousness remains throughout our whole life. The
word "essence" speaks of nature and
constitution. In God there is one nature
but three Persons. Because of this, God
the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit communicate
with each other and decide together. Each Person of the
Trinity retains His individual properties which
distinguish Him from the other Persons. But all the
Persons of the Trinity share the same divine nature. The
Son has the same essence as His Father and the Holy
Spirit. The teaching about the Holy Trinity reveals to us
the inner and hidden life in God, which
actually is inaccessible to our understanding, but at the
same time is absolutely indispensable for the correct
faith in Christ.
Jesus Christ has one Person — that
of the Son of God, but two natures
— divine and human. In His divine nature He is equal
to the Father — eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent,
etc.; in His assumed human nature He resembles us in every
way: He grew, developed, suffered, rejoiced, vacillated in
decisions, and so on. Christ’s human nature includes
both the body and the soul. The
difference is, that His human nature is totally free of
sinful pollution. Since one and the same Christ is
simultaneously God and man, the Holy Scriptures refer to
Him sometimes as God and other times as a man. Even more
so, sometimes human attributes are assigned to His
divinity (1 Cor. 2:8), and divine attributes to His
humanity. And there is no contradiction here, since all
these attributes belong to the same
Person. .
Taking into account the clear teaching of the Holy
Scriptures regarding the divinity of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council
decided to put a stop to all the misapplications of the
term "Son of God" that lessened His divine
dignity, and they therefore decreed that Christians
believe: "In one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, the only begotten, begotten of the Father before
all ages. Light of Light, true God of true God; begotten,
not made; of one essence with God the Father, by Whom all
things were made."
The Arians heatedly objected to the Greek word meaning
"one essence" (homousios) because it
could not be explained in any other sense than the
Orthodox one, meaning that Jesus Christ is recognized as
true God, equal in everything to God the
Father. For this reason the Fathers of the Council
insisted that this particular word be used in the text of
the Creed.
Conclusion
In summing up what has been said, we must remember that
be-lief in the divinity of Christ cannot be planted in
men’s hearts simply by scriptural citations or
philosophical reasoning. What is needed is a
willful acceptance of
this God-revealed truth. It pleased God to uncover the
hidden inclination of each person’s heart by their
attitude toward Christ; "Thou hast hid these
things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them
unto babes" (Matt. 11:25). So in this regard,
till the end of the world, things will be the same as they
were two thousand years ago: for many people Christ will
remain "A stone of stumbling and a rock of
offense … that the thoughts of many hearts may be
revealed" (1 Peter 2:8; Luke 2:35).
There are many, even among the Jews and Moslems, who would
recognize Jesus Christ as a great person and even a
prophet, but could never accept Him as true God. Precisely
because of the personal effort required to accept the
divinity of Jesus, faith in Him is rewarded with eternal
life: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned
" (Mark 16:16).
This article does not attempt to "prove" that
Christ is God because this truth requires faith. The
purpose here is to help the Christian
clarify his belief in our Lord and God
and Saviour Jesus Christ; namely, that He is the Creator,
and we are His creatures.
Two Ancient Prayers to Jesus
O Gentle Light
O Gentle Light of the holy glory of the immortal,
heavenly, holy, blessed Father: Jesus Christ. Now that we
have come to the setting of the sun, and behold the light
of evening, we praise the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:
God! For meet it is at all times to worship Thee with
voices of praise, O Son of God and Giver of life;
therefore, all the world doth glorify Thee.
Only Begotten
Only Begotten Son and immortal Word of God, Who for
our salvation didst will to be incarnate of the holy
Theotokos and ever-Virgin Mary. Who without change didst
become man and wast crucified. Who art one of the Holy
Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit: O
Christ, our God, trampling down death by death, save
us!
18 / 10 / 2014
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