Questions of Divinity

            The question came up recently, “If Jesus is God, then who was Jesus praying to in the Garden?”  I can answer that one of two ways, and I’m not sure myself which is the better answer.  Let me start by saying that Jesus was our perfect example, and so, as silly as it may seem for Jesus to be praying to Himself, if He hadn’t gone on record at least once as having prayed, there would be some people who would use that as an excuse not to pray.  This prayer also served as a reminder that God is not like a genie in a bottle; sometimes you don’t get what you want, and we should pray that His will be done, not ours.  Secondly, let me remind you that at the time that He was praying in the garden, Jesus was in the flesh.  Granted, in Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, but He was a flesh and blood being.  Scripture also teaches us that unto Thee (God) shall all flesh come.  His Spirit, being the Spirit of God, may not have needed to pray, but His flesh did.

Another question raised recently was, “Doesn’t the Holy Ghost coming down in the form of a dove, and the Father’s voice from Heaven at Jesus’ baptism prove that there are three separate Gods?”  God is God; He is infinite, almighty, all-knowing…  If He chooses to appear in two different forms, and speak from a third location all at the same time, that isn’t hard for Him to do.  Let me take a moment here for a side bar.  I had heard that before, and when I first started writing this, I looked for the appropriate passage, and came up with tow others that are somewhat ambiguous.  Matthew 3:16 says, “And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him.”  Now, that last “he,” is that referring to Jesus?  If you read that verse by itself, it certainly seems like it is, because Jesus is the only “he” in the verse.  If you read it in context, of course, John the Baptist was there, too.  Now, whatever position you believe Jesus held, it doesn’t really make sense for God to show Him a sign of His calling; Jesus knew who He was.  John the Baptist had already proclaimed Jesus the Lamb of God, but, being somewhat more human, may have needed a little more encouragement.  Mark 10:10 is similar, “And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him:”  Luke 3:22 says, “And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a voice from heaven, which said, Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee am I well pleased.”  Now, in John 1:32, it says, “And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him.”  That makes it clear, at least, that John was the one who saw the dove.  It seems to me that if the entire crowd had seen the dove, and heard the voice, then it would have been very hard to keep talk of that event from spreading far and wide before Jesus even started His ministry.  If you’re going to ask questions about this event, perhaps the question you should be asking is, “How did John know it was the Holy Ghost, and not just a dove?”  The answer to that is that it was divinely revelated to Him.

            Another question that comes up occasionally is, “Why did John the Baptist doubt that Jesus was the Christ?”  It seems pretty silly, considering the powerful confirmation that John got at Jesus’ baptism, but John was only human.  Everyone has doubts.  Still, I can’t help but notice that the Bible doesn’t ever actually say that John had doubts; only that he sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus if He was the One.  Many people interpret that as an expression of John’s doubt, but I’m not convinced.  It’s easy for me to imagine John getting frustrated as he was trying to scale down his own operation, and direct people to his cousin, only to have his followers question the wisdom of such a shift.  “Look, you’ve followed me this long; I’m telling you that you’re supposed to follow Him now.  You don’t believe that He’s the One?  But I’ve told you that He is.  If you won’t believe me, then go ask Him yourselves!”  John probably did have his doubts, but I have a hard time believing that he would express those doubts to the people that were following him, and that he believed should be following Jesus.

 

The Council of Nicea (Part II)

I blogged last week about the Council of Nicaea, and I pointed out that one of the big discussions centered around the divinity of Christ, what I didn’t say was that the two sides were: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost were the three persons of the Godhead, or that God the Father and God the Holy Ghost were the two persons of the Godhead, and that Christ could not be considered co-eternal (and therefore not co-equal) with them.

It occurs to me to wonder why it is that, in discussing a religion that bills itself as monotheistic, the argument was not so much about the nature of our one God, but, it seems, more along the lines of, does our God have two persons or three? I am reminded that some years back, a good friend of mine asked the question, “Are you created in God’s image?” Upon receiving an affirmative response, he went on, “Are you three persons? Wouldn’t that make you schizophrenic?” It’s an amusing set of questions, but it does bring up an interesting point. Many of us are both fathers and sons and have spirits in us, but we don’t consider ourselves to be three people. Sigmund Freud developed the idea that we each have an id, an ego, and a super-ego. Do these three components of our psyche correspond to the three persons of the Trinity? I would venture to say no, for the following reasons: The id, as defined by Freud, was concerned with basic human needs, it is an urge-driven, primal, instinctual part of the brain. The super-ego is the result of outside influences, such as environment, upbringing, and social values. The ego bridges the gap between the gap between the id and the super-ego. Now, other than the fact that the sacrifice of Christ bridges the gap between what we should do and what we actually end up doing (provided that we live faithful lives), I see only one similarity between Freud’s three components of human psychology and the three persons of the Trinity: the number three.

I can’t help but wonder if Emperor Constantine presiding over the Council may not have had an effect on the discussion. He had been raised a polytheist, and might have had a difficult time accepting a single God. Then again, he was exploring new possibilities, and he may very well have been completely dissuaded from the religion(s) of his upbringing; we have no way of knowing. It’s possible that he was more ready to accept such a thing than any of the bishops present were willing to believe. It’s difficult to say how many of those present actually bought into the idea of God in three persons and how many just felt that, after so many years of state-sponsored persecution, they could finally catch a break, if only they could make their beliefs palatable to the emperor. Obviously, I don’t know one way or the other, but it does seem that the Trinity was a convenient compromise between monotheism and polytheism.

In any case, Christianity is a monotheistic religion. Scripture teaches us, time and time again, that God is One. In Isaiah 29:23, God is referred to as the Holy One of Jacob; Isaiah refers to God as the Holy One of Israel several times (Isaiah 1:4, Isaiah 10:20, Isaiah 12:6, Isaiah 17:7, Isaiah 30:15, Isaiah 43:3, Isaiah 48:17, Isaiah 54:5, Isaiah 55:5, and Isaiah 60:9); God is also referred to as the Holy One in 2 Kings 19:22, Job 6:10, Psalms 16:10, Psalms 71:22, Psalms 78:41, Psalms 89:18, Isaiah 10:17, Isaiah 40:25, Mark 1:24, Luke 4:34, Acts 3:14 (although that passage specifically refers to Jesus), and 1 John 2:20; God is referred to as One Lord in Deuteronomy 6:4, Zechariah 14:9, and Ephesians 4:5 (also, in Mark 12:29, Jesus quotes Deut. 6:4). There are many other passages that refer to God as being One, besides those I have mentioned here.

The Council of Nicea (Part I)

In A.D. 325, Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine called a council of bishops to determine, once and for all, what exactly was the core belief of Christianity. Whether he had any business calling such a council could be questionable, but, he may have been the only interested party with the resources to do so. He offered to cover travel expenses for all the bishops that attended, along with a limited number of staff. He had some experiences with Christianity; in A. D. 312, he is said to have had a vision of a cross and the words, “In hoc signo vinces” (under this standard {or ‘in this sign’}, thou shall be victorious {or ‘thou shall conquer’}). Constantine had crosses painted onto the shields and breastplates of his troops, and they were, indeed, victorious. His mother, Helena, is said to have been a very devout and generous Christian. Some believe that she, during a pilgrimage, discovered the cross with the sign still on it saying, “King of the Jews.” There is, however, no indication that she herself ever made such a claim.

Anyway, Constantine invited over three thousand bishops of the church to attend this council. It’s hard to say how many of them showed up. One of the attendees, Athanasius, wrote a letter in which he asserts that there were 318. Some other estimates are less. The point is, only about ten percent of the known church bothered to attend. I can imagine that there were probably many that prayed about it, and felt that God was leading them not to go. I can imagine that there were many who simply thought about it, and, realizing that the Roman Empire was, traditionally, not a friend to the church, could not see any wisdom in going. In point of fact, Constantine had only outlawed persecution against Christianity two years earlier. Now, why does an Emperor, marching troops under the standard of the cross, allow the church to be persecuted? Hard to say, but one can certainly understand the trepidation of the church leaders, and their reluctance to put themselves in Constantine’s hands. Having said that, many of those bishops who attended the council had personally suffered persecution, but they came anyway.

One of the big points of discussion was the deity of Christ. One of the bishops, Arius, contended that, since Jesus was begotten of the Father, he had a definite beginning, and therefore could not be considered co-eternal with the Father, and, furthermore, should not be deified. Arius was very much in the minority. In the initial vote, four other bishops voted with Arius; after some discussion, only two continued with Arius. It should be noted that Arius had been anathematized (excommunicated) by a vote of approximately 100 Egyptian bishops about four years earlier. The Council eventually settled on verbiage that said that Jesus was homoousios, or consubstantial, with the Father, that is, that Jesus and the Father were of one substance, because Colossians 2:9 says that in Him (in Jesus) dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

If you stop and think about it, though, the confusion seems to come from the idea that before Mary became pregnant, Jesus didn’t exist. That’s easy to think that way, since we don’t really know at what point a person’s life begins. Some people say that a life doesn’t begin until the baby draws its first breath, others say life begins at conception, while others say that there are a number of lives waiting for conception so that they can obtain a physical body to go with their essence. The last group, understandably, preaches that contraception is therefore a sin, because one is preventing a living soul from obtaining a flesh-and-blood body. I don’t know that I would go that far, at least, not for most of us, but there are a number of Scriptural passages that indicate that Jesus existed long before Mary did.

John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:14 goes on to say, “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.” In his first epistle, John writes to the church, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. “ Let me first point out that John 1:14 refers to Jesus as the only begotten of the Father, but it also says that He was made flesh, which suggests that He was something else before. Of course, John 1:1 says that Jesus (or the Word) was in the beginning. So, in verse fourteen, John isn’t so much suggesting, as alluding to his earlier point. Now, in 1 John 5:7, he again refers to Jesus as the Word, rather than the Son, because at that time, Jesus had returned to His earlier state. He was no longer the flesh-and-blood Son, He was again the Word.

To be continued…