God – Who He Is Not

The Foundations of understanding the Trinity are in green. In red, are the likely errors we will fall into if we forget the opposite Foundation. The blue text shows the specific Foundational Truth. For example, if we forget about the Foundation of Monotheism, then we may fall into a form of Polytheism.

Common Trinitarian Heresies:

They all are condemned by the believing Church.

Modalism

A modalist views God as one Person instead of three Persons. The modalists say that the Father, Son, and Spirit are different modes or forms of the same Person. They do not deny the divine nature of God. According to modalism, God switches between the three different manifestations of himself.

Sabellianism

Named for a third-century elder of his church (thought to be Rome), Sabellius. He over-emphasized the oneness of God. He declared there to be a lack of distinction between the “persons” of the Godhead. In his teachings, God manifested the Father at creation. He manifested the Son in redemption. He manifested the Holy Spirit in sanctification. In short, it is a form of Modalism.

Monarchianism

Monarchianism takes oneness a step further. It denies the triune nature of God altogether. To the Monarchian, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are different names for the same person. Oneness Pentecostalism is a current-day form of Monarchianism.

Patripassianism

Patripassianism is a 25-cent word for a simple error. It is the belief that God the Father suffered and died on the cross along with God the Son. To be precise, the Father suffered as the Son. The word Patripassianism means “Father’s suffering.” In 50+ years of following Christ, I have never run into a Patripassionist. They may be out there though. In case you ever time-travel back to third-century Rome, you may run into Praxeas. He and his followers liked the doctrine. So, keep your eyes peeled, and do not fall for it.

Nestorianism

Nestorius (c. AD 386–451), who was Archbishop of Constantinople taught a heresy named after him. Nestorianism believes his assertion which emphasizes a lack of unity in Christ. The split is between the human and divine natures of Christ. Nestorians teach that, Christ exists as two persons sharing one body. His divine and human natures are completely distinct and separate. This idea is not scriptural. It goes against the biblical doctrine of the hypostatic union. Christ is fully God and fully man in one indivisible Person. Jesus always had been God (John 8:58; 10:30). At the Incarnation Jesus also became a human being (John 1:14).

Socinianism

Socinianism is a heresy that developed about the time of the Protestant Reformation. Named for the humanist Lelio Sozzini and popularized by his cousin, Fausto. Today we call it psilanthropism. It must have needed a 25-cent word to meet the standards of Academia. It is a view that Jesus was only human. It derives from the Greek psilo and anthropos. psilo means “merely/only”. Anthropos means “man/human being.” The First Council of Nicaea rejected this view. This is how we get in trouble in our theology. The Socinians held to a rationalistic approach to Scripture and faith. For them, biblical doctrine must be reconcilable with human reason, with no gaps. Theological matters about the nature of God cannot be beyond understanding by humans. Hmmm, wasn’t that the problem in the Garden in the beginning? This idea contradicts the Scripture. The Bible affirms the supernatural essence of God. The finite mind cannot fully understand the infinite (Job 9:10; Isaiah 55:8-11; Romans 11:33). I ask the question. Is a god that can be fully understood and categorized by a finite, created being truly a god? No! It is a creation of the imagination of an idolater.

Docetism

Docetists fell off the rail on the other side. They allow for at least a measure of the divinity of Jesus but deny his humanity. Dinner at a table that seats half Socinians and half Docetists must be fun. Think of the opportunity to get all the good dishes while they duke it out. The word Docetism comes from the Greek dokein, which means “to seem.” According to Docetism, Jesus Christ only seemed to have a human body like ours. Hyper-docetists teach that Jesus is (or was) a hallucination. We could see his image, but he had no physical body. Moderate docetism tells us that Jesus had some kind of heavenly body but not a body of natural flesh and bone. Docetism is a form of Gnosticism. It views the physical realm to be evil and the spiritual realm to be good. So, what is the big deal, you might ask? This is a big deal. It denies the essential truths of the gospel, to wit, the death and resurrection of Christ. In what way could Jesus have died if he had no fleshy body? Docetism teaches that Christ’s suffering on the cross was a mere illusion. If Jesus had no physical body and did not die, how could he rise from the dead? The Bible is very pretty clear that if Jesus did not die and rise from the dead, then we are still in our sin. (1 Corinthians 15:17). And to cap it off, Docetism also denies the ascension of Christ (since He had no real body to make the ascent).

Arianism

Arius was a priest and false teacher of the fourth century from Alexandria, Egypt. Arianism derives its name from the heresy he taught. It stems from an early and crucial point of debate among early Christians. Was Jesus a created being? Was Jesus God incarnate? Arius denied the deity of the Son of God. His teaching was that God created Jesus as the first act of creation. The nature of Christ was (anomoios – Greek), “unlike” that of God the Father. Arius taught that Jesus was a finite created being. God gave him some divine attributes. But he is not eternal and not divine in his own being. Arianism suffers a similar shortcoming to all other heresies. It tries to reduce God to human categories so that we can manage him. Arianism misunderstands biblical references to:

• Jesus being tired (John 4:6)
• and not knowing the date of His return (Matthew 24:36).

I grant that these are difficult concepts to comprehend. How can a divine being get tired or not know something? These verses speak of Jesus’ human nature. Jesus is fully God, but He is also fully human. The Son of God is always, was always, and always will be — God. He did not become a human being until a specific moment in time called the Incarnation. Jesus’ limitations as a human being have no impact on His divine nature or His eternality. They are pre-existent and eternal. Here is a second major misinterpretation in Arianism. It concerns the meaning of firstborn as applied to Christ. Romans 8:29 speaks of Christ as “the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (see also Colossians 1:15–20). Arians understand firstborn in these verses from a “time” perspective. Because of that, they say he was “created” as the first act of creation. This is not the case. Jesus Himself proclaimed His self-existence and eternality (John 8:58; 10:30). Firstborn used about Christ is a term of preeminence. In the Ancient Near East, the firstborn son of a family a position held in great honor. (Genesis 49:3; Exodus 11:5; 34:19; Numbers 3:40; Psalm 89:27; Jeremiah 31:9). This is the sense in which Jesus is the “firstborn.” Jesus is the:

• Wonderful Counselor,
• Mighty God,
• Everlasting Father,
• Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
• Preeminent Person in God’s plan and the Heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2).

Today you will run into a form of Arianism in both the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is a basis on which both groups are non-Christian in their theology. They do not worship the Jesus of the Bible. They assert and teach that Jesus is a created being. Created beings are sinners. Sinners cannot redeem anyone.

Dynamic Monarchianism / Adoptionism

The heresy of Dynamic Monarchianism or Adoptionism is like Arianism. The similarity comes from the denial of the deity of Christ. But there is a spin to it. Dynamic Monarchianism gets its name from the source of Jesus’ miracles (Greek, dynameis). The reasoning goes as follows: Jesus of Nazareth was virgin-born. He was a mere man whose piety got rewarded with special attention from God. When Jesus got baptized, God came upon Him and filled Him with such supernatural wisdom and power. From this point forward, Jesus was a miracle worker. Adoptionism comes from the view that Jesus was “adopted” as God’s Son at the moment of His empowerment. But it goes a bit further than that. The idea is that, before His adoption, Jesus was a mere man, although sinless. That is why he got adopted at his baptism. We know, from the Bible:

• That all men are under the curse of Adam and there are no sinless men (Romans 5:12–14).
• Further, the works of the Law justify no man (Romans 3:19–20).
• Jesus was sinless (2 Corinthians 5:20–21).
• But that was because He was not a mere man; He was fully God, as well (John 1:1, 14).

The following all bear witness to the divine nature of the Lord:

• His pre-existence
• the titles applied to Jesus,
• the worship He received.

Thus, according to Dynamic Monarchianism, Jesus is not God’s “only begotten Son”. He is merely God’s “adopted.” Some Dynamic Monarchians believed that Jesus never was divine. Others believed that Jesus became God after His resurrection. There is a phrase “only begotten son” (Greek, monogenes), which only appears in John 3:16. It can lead to a misconception. Let me clear up some confusion here. The word “begotten” only appears in the KJV, NKJV, and NASB95 versions of the English Bible. All other English translations, including NASB2020 use “only Son.” I have a vague recollection that it also appeared in the original publication (1971) of the NASB. I cannot confirm that since I no longer have my copy of the 1971 version. Here is the problem. False teachers have latched onto this phrase. They try to prove their false teaching that Jesus Christ isn’t God. That Jesus isn’t equal in being to God as the Second Person of the Trinity. The reasoning goes like this. They look at the word “begotten”. They say that Jesus is a created being because only someone who had a beginning in time can be “begotten.” This is a classic exegetical mistake. They take an English word, from Greek, and apply an archaic English meaning to the Greek word. It is not a legitimate exegetical practice to do that. We have to look at the original meaning of the Greek word and apply that meaning. According to the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament [i], monogenes has two primary definitions.

① pert. to being the only one of its kind within a specific relationship, one and only, only (so mostly, … of children: of Isaac, Abraham’s only son (…) By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only begotten son (Heb 11:17 KJV). ② pert. to being the only one of its kind or class, unique (in kind) of something that is the only example of its category … “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 KJV).

It is in the second sense that “only begotten Son” John 3:16 uses the word. So when someone tries to tell you that John 3:16 proves that Jesus is a created being, you know the answer:

monogenes doesn’t demote Jesus to created being. It exalts Jesus to a higher status. His status is “unique in kind and the only example of his category. He is Son of God, the second person of the Trinity.”

The KJV and NASB95 use an archaic translation of monogenes by translating it “begotten.” It has provided fodder for the false teachers. It should be reason enough to drop attachments to the KJV and NASB95 versions of the English Bible.

Pelagianism

Pelagianism is not a heresy that is against the proper understanding of the Trinity. It is an assault on the sovereignty of God and an exaltation of sorts of the pride of man. And it is a misunderstanding of the true state of man and his standing with God. It is also “alive and well” in our culture today. For those reasons, I include it in this post. Pelagianism is at its core a denial of original sin. It undermines the truth of the sinful nature inherited because of Adam’s fall. The premise is that Adam’s descendants did not inherit a sinful nature. Sin was not passed down to them, but that each person born is a unique creation of God and, He is born good. Pelagius, the namesake of the heresy, was a monk living on the cusp of the fourth and fifth centuries. He was born in Britain. He traveled throughout the Mediterranean area, including Rome, Jerusalem, and Carthage. He got tired of seeing and hearing about people hiding behind their fallen nature. Many used it as an excuse for their inability to live a sanctified life. he didn’t encourage people to apprehend the grace of God to live a godly life. He decided to redefine the problem. Pelagius exalted the freedom of Man’s will. He taught that all sin is the consequence of Man choosing to sin rather than do good. He denied the reality of original sin and the inherited sin nature. His view was we cannot place any blame on Adam. If we are not successful at living a godly life it is because we are not trying hard enough. This notion is wrong at so many levels:

• About being born with a sinful nature, see Ps 51:5
• About human freedom and willpower, see Eph 2:1
• About sin being the cause of death, see Ezk 18:20, Rom 6:23, Rom 5:12
• About the universal sin nature, see Rom 3:10-18
• About hostility toward God, see Col 1:21, Rom 5:10

I could go on, but you can already see how wrong-headed Pelagius and his teachings were. He got excommunicated (barred from the Church) in 418 AD. These are some of the major battles for the truth that the Church has fought throughout its history. Do not ignore or agree with these sorts of doctrines. They are pernicious.