{"id":13282,"date":"2023-12-31T10:14:49","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T09:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/?page_id=13282"},"modified":"2024-03-15T09:03:48","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T08:03:48","slug":"heresies-2-arianisme","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/studies\/heresies-2-arianisme\/","title":{"rendered":"Heresies all Around us \u2013 Arianism"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"iframe-container\"><iframe id=\"lbry-iframe\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/odysee.com\/$\/embed\/@apologeet:3\/what-if-jesus-was-just-a-mere-created:9?r=Dsga2TMCaV6XJmznpAR28pnJHQPPW7jD\" allowfullscreen frameBorder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<img style=\"display: none;\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.apologeet.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/studies\/heresies-gb-2.jpg?w=625&#038;ssl=1\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\">\n\n<h2>Part 2 \u2013 Arianism<\/h2>\n\n<p class=\"\">\u279c \u279c \u279c PS. Who noticed the mistake at the end of the video? No, it wasn&#8217;t a slip of the tongue. It was really in my head&#8230;. But what?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">A Christian believes that salvation cannot come through works or by another created being. We believe that we can only be saved by a perfect sacrifice. Per definition, no created being can be perfect like God the Creator. Why not? Because all creation \u2018groaneth and travaileth in pain.\u2019<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\"><b>Romans 8:22<\/b><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin-left: 1.25cm\" class=\"textq leftq\"> For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.<span class=\"rightq\"><\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">So, how could Jesus be the perfect sacrifice if He was merely a created being? He could not just be created, He had to be God Himself. In our confession of faith, we say that Jesus wasn\u2019t created. Orthodoxy dictates now that Jesus is both man and God, uncreated, perfect.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">However, Arianists struggled with this statement. They wonder: Does this mean that we worshipped two gods? They came with a different solution.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Arius of Alexandar<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\">The Arianistic position is that Jesus, as the Son of God, was created by God. This concept was proposed early in the 4<sup>th<\/sup> century by the Alexandrian presbyter Arius of Alexandar. In other words, his foundational ideology was that Christ did not always exist. Incidentally, this also applies to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was either an impersonal force or a created spirit. But in this video, I mainly discuss what was and is said about Jesus.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">It was one of the biggest heresies within the early church, and it had a huge following. However, you might remember that, in the introduction video, I said that the word heresy wasn\u2019t a bad word p\u00e8rse. You could find many so-called heresies n the early church. But that just meant there were many opinions and parties. Because the church fathers didn\u2019t establish orthodoxy yet, these opinions and parties couldn\u2019t be labelled as false teachings yet. Arius\u2019 idea was just one of the many ideas being discussed.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Arius\u2019 Teaching<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\">Arius taught that only God the Father was eternal. He said that God was too perfect and infinite to appear on the earth. This was the reason, according to Arius, that God created Jesus out of nothing as the firstborn and greatest creation. Jesus was the first creation of God, and the rest of creation was created by Jesus. Arius continued by saying that, because Jesus wasn\u2019t naturally born out of God, God the Father adopted Him as Son.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">Arius didn\u2019t mind worshipping Jesus because Jesus was high above everything else and thus worthy of worship. In that sense, Arius taught that, in a way, we could see Jesus as God\u2014but strictly spoken He wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">When God sent His Son to be born as a human\u2014what we call the incarnation of Christ\u2014Arius believed that divine quality took up all aspects of the human. In other words, Jesus had no real human spirit.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Problematic<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\">The fact that Arians teach that Jesus in essence wasn\u2019t fully human (because His spirit wasn\u2019t), is problematic because this would mean that Jesus never was a real complete human. Just like the sacrifices of animals in the Old Testament, which could never took the place of a human, this meant that Jesus could neither take the place of us.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">But also, in insisting that Christ the Son, as a created thing, was to be worshipped, the Arians were basically preaching idolatry. The Bible teaches clearly that we are only allowed to worship God.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Council at Nicaea and Constantinople<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\">Arius was exiled to Illyria in 325 after the first big council at Nicaea. His party, or heresy, was too elusive. It opened the door to all sorts of problematic ideas about the person of Christ.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">According to Arius\u2019 adversaries, mostly the bishop St. Athanasius, his teaching reduced the Son to a demigod. They also argued that it reintroduced polytheism because the worship of the Son was not abandoned. And finally, the idea undermined the Christian concept of salvation. This was, as I said earlier, because only he who was truly God could be deemed to have reconciled humanity to the Godhead. Salvation can only come from God and through God.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">At the council of Nicaea it was agreed upon that the Son is <i>homoousion t\u014d Patri<\/i>. That means that Christ is of one substance with the Father. Christ is to be all that the Father is: Christ is completely divine.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">However, the issues were far from being settled. The Arians didn\u2019t give up and throughout the 4<sup>th<\/sup> century there have been many theological (and physical) battles about this issue. It was only in 381AD during the second ecumenical council at Constantinople that Arianism was thrown out of the windows, and a statement of faith, the Nicene Creed, was approved.<\/p>\n\n<h3>It is still Here<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\"><i>Unitarians<\/i><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">All this doesn\u2019t mean that Arianism disappeared. You\u2019ll find this teaching throughout the centuries. More recently, we had the so-called Unitarians in England and America. Especially in the 18<sup>th<\/sup> and 19<sup>th<\/sup> centuries, these Unitarians were unwilling either to reduce Christ to a mere human being or to assign to him a divine nature exactly alike that of the Father.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\"><i>Watchtower Bible and Tract Society<\/i><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">Probably the most known example of Arianism is the group known as Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses. They, too, believe that Jesus was a created being. They teach that Jesus is the archangel Michael, and was the first created being. Like Arius, they believe that God created Christ, and Christ created everything else. They are hard-working when it comes to evangelising. However, how admirable this may be, their theology has been condemned throughout the ages, and the creeds of Nicaea still apply to their view.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\"><i>The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints<\/i><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">Mormonism, is another derivative from Arianism. Their view is even more corrupt than that of the Jehovah\u2019s witnesses. They teach that Jesus is the son of God and that he is fully divine, but not always eternal. Their theology says that Jesus was created and Jesus and Satan are brothers. Christ was the <i>\u2018the firstborn spirit son of God\u2019<\/i>. The founder, Joseph Smith, said, <i>\u2018Among the spirit children of Elohim, the firstborn was and is Jehovah, or Jesus Christ, to whom all others are juniors\u2019<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">Mormonism\u2019 view on Jesus is so extremely off the chart that the Roman Catholic Church decided not to accept their baptism as valid. They say the following<a class=\"sroll tooltip\" title=\"Go to the endnotes\" id=\"sdendnote1anc\" href=\"#sdendnote1sym\"><sup><b>i<\/b><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin-left: 1.25cm\" class=\"textq leftq\">As is easily seen, to the similarity of titles there does not correspond in any way a doctrinal content which can lead to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The words Father, Son and Holy Spirit, have for the Mormons a meaning totally different from the Christian meaning. The differences are so great that one cannot even consider that this doctrine is a heresy which emerged out of a false understanding of the Christian doctrine. The teaching of the Mormons has a completely different matrix. We do not find ourselves, therefore, before the case of the validity of Baptism administered by heretics, affirmed already from the first Christian centuries, nor of Baptism conferred in non-Catholic ecclesial communities, as noted in Canon 869 \u00a72.<span class=\"rightq\"><\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">So, even though the Roman Catholic Church is willing to except baptisms from other groups, they clearly state that Mormonism\u2019s idea of baptising in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit has no similarity at all. With other words, their baptism has nothing to do with the Christian baptism and for that reason completely invalid.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Knowledge Among Christians Today<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\">I looked up the annual State of Theology survey. And guess what? Of the five most commonly mistaken beliefs held by evangelicals, two are directly tied to modern Arianism. In 2022, 78% agreed with the statement that<i> \u2018Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.\u2019<\/i> Of that 78%, 70% strongly agreed, 5% somewhat agreed and 3% were not sure.<a class=\"sroll tooltip\" title=\"Go to the endnotes\" id=\"sdendnote2anc\" href=\"#sdendnote2sym\"><sup><b>ii<\/b><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">In this same survey, 38% strongly affirmed that \u2018<i>Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.\u2019<\/i> 5% somewhat agreed with this statement and 3% wasn\u2019t sure.<a class=\"sroll tooltip\" title=\"Go to the endnotes\" id=\"sdendnote3anc\" href=\"#sdendnote3sym\"><sup><b>iii<\/b><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">You might start wondering why Jesus even bothered saying, \u201cI and the Father are one\u201d (John 10:30). You see, when unbelievers come up with these ideas, I can understand. But these are the answers of Evangelicals. You know, Evangelicals are the ones who pride themselves in being the real Christians. Something is very wrong here. There is clearly missing in our education. No wonder we are becoming the laughingstock of atheists.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Why it Matters<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\">As I already said, we can only be saved by someone who is perfect in all of his ways. Only God is absolutely perfect. Also, something else cannot take our place. An animal is not able to carry our guilt. That\u2019s why our Saviour had to be 100% God and at the same time 100% human.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">If the early Christians had lost their boldness and agreed with the \u2018lesser divinity\u2019 of Christ, the act of God in Jesus Christ for our salvation would have been rendered meaningless. It is impossible for a mere man, or a half god, to step in to save humanity, let alone restore all creation. Only the Creator Himself can come into creation to repair its brokenness and restore the honour or worth of its original purpose. Only the Creator can recreate. Only the Maker can remake. Only God can save us from our sins.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">It is because God the Father and Jesus the Son are of one substance, we can actually know God. When we look at Jesus, we look at the Father.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\"><b>Hebrews 1:3<\/b><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin-left: 1.25cm\" class=\"textq leftq\">who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person [&#8230;]<span class=\"rightq\"><\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\"><b>John 14:8-11<\/b><\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin-left: 1.25cm\" class=\"textq leftq\">Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works&#8217; sake.<span class=\"rightq\"><\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">Because Jesus is God\u2014united in substance with the Father thus fully one\u2014we can be sure that He speaks for God, that He can forgive our sins for God, that He is able to hold us righteous for God, and that He can make us children of God. He can do all this because He is God!<\/p>\n\n<h3>Outro<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\">In any case, let me know what you think in the comments. Maybe you disagree on certain things? Just leave a comment. Remember! I am mostly active on my Odysee channel. You\u2019ll find a link to that channel in the description of this video or on my website. Don\u2019t forget to subscribe if you want to receive a notification every time I upload a new video!  <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">I very much appreciate your prayers and support! Please have a look in the description of this video to find out how you can help me. Also, I\u2019ll place a link there to both the Dutch and English transcripts of this video.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">God bless you, thank you for watching, and, Lord willing, we\u2019ll see each other in the next video!<\/p>\n\n<h3>Endnotes<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\"><a class=\"scroll tooltip\" title=\"Go back to the text\" id=\"sdendnote1sym\" href=\"#sdendnote1anc\">i<\/a>   Fr Luis Ladaria, S.J., THE QUESTION OF THE VALIDITY OF BAPTISM CONFERRED IN THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, [internet] <a class=\"tooltip\" title=\"Note! This link opens in a new window\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vatican.va\/roman_curia\/congregations\/cfaith\/documents\/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20010605_battesimo_mormoni-ladaria_en.html\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.vatican.va\/roman_curia\/congregations\/cfaith\/documents\/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20010605_battesimo_mormoni-ladaria_en.html<\/a> accessed 26-12-2023.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\"><a class=\"scroll tooltip\" title=\"Go back to the text\" id=\"sdendnote2sym\" href=\"#sdendnote2anc\">ii<\/a>   The State of Theology, 2022 \u2013 Statement 6, Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God, [internet] <a class=\"tooltip\" title=\"Note! This link opens in a new window\" href=\"https:\/\/thestateoftheology.com\/data-explorer\/2022\/6?AGE=30&amp;MF=14&amp;REGION=30&amp;DENSITY=62&amp;EDUCATION=62&amp;INCOME=254&amp;MARITAL=126&amp;ETHNICITY=62&amp;RELTRAD=62&amp;EVB=2&amp;ATTENDANCE=254\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/thestateoftheology.com\/data-explorer\/2022\/6<\/a> accessed 26-12-2023.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\"><a class=\"scroll tooltip\" title=\"Go back to the text\" id=\"sdendnote3sym\" href=\"#sdendnote3anc\">iii<\/a>   The State of Theology, 2022 \u2013 Statement 7, Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God, [internet] <a class=\"tooltip\" title=\"Note! This link opens in a new window\" href=\"https:\/\/thestateoftheology.com\/data-explorer\/2022\/7?AGE=30&amp;MF=14&amp;REGION=30&amp;DENSITY=62&amp;EDUCATION=62&amp;INCOME=254&amp;MARITAL=126&amp;ETHNICITY=62&amp;RELTRAD=62&amp;EVB=2&amp;ATTENDANCE=254\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/thestateoftheology.com\/data-explorer\/2022\/7<\/a> accessed 26-12-2023.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Part 2 \u2013 Arianism \u279c \u279c \u279c PS. Who noticed the mistake at the end of the video? No, it wasn&#8217;t a slip of the tongue. It was really in my head&#8230;. But what? A Christian believes that salvation cannot come through works or by another created being. We believe that we can only be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13293,"parent":1147,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[225,307],"tags":[303,268,272,240],"folder":[305,102],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13282"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13282\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13282"},{"taxonomy":"folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/folder?post=13282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}