 Division of Heresies Historically there are three main heresies. There have been and with slight variations today: 1. Those who Deny Christ's Divinity - Ebonism, Arianism, Nestorianism, Socinianism, Liberalism, Humanism, Unitarianism. Deny Christ's two natures - Monophysitism, Eutychianism, Monothelitism. 2. These confused the two natures of Christ; i.e., absorbed one of His natures into the other. 3. Deny Christ's humanity - Docetism, Marcionism, Gnosticism, Apollinarianism, Monarchianism, Patripassianism, Sabellianism, Adoptionism, Dynamic Monarchianism. All of these heresies in some way ended up by ‘dividing’ the theanthropic (which means the ‘God-Man’) Jesus Christ! The
Christological Zig-Zag: The
great biblical scholar and theologian, Dr. Benjamin B. Warfield,
summarized the rising and falling of these various early heresies as
follows:- "To
the onlooker from this distance of time, the main line of progress of
the debate takes on an odd appearance of a steady zig-zag advance. Arising out of the embers of the Arian controversy, there is
first vigorously asserted, over against the reduction of our Lord to the
dimensions of a creature, the pure Deity of His spiritual nature (Apollinarianism).
By this there is at once provoked, in the interests of the
integrity of our Lord's humanity, the equally vigorous assertion of the
completeness of His human nature as the bearer of His Deity (Nestorianism).
This in turn provokes, in the interest of the oneness of His
person, and equally vigorous assertion of the conjunction of these two
natures in a single individual (Eutychianism); from all of which there
gradually emerges at last, by a series of corrections, the balanced
statement of Chalcedon, recognizing at once in its "without
confusion, without Deity conversion, eternally and inseparably",
the union in the person of Christ of a complete Deity and a complete
humanity constituting a single person without prejudice to the continued
integrity of either nature. The
pendulum of though had swung back and forth in ever-decreasing arcs
until at last it found rest along the line of action of the fundamental
force. Out of the
continuous controversy of a century, there issued a balanced statement
in which all the elements of the biblical representation were taken up
and combined. Work so done
is done for all time; and it is capable of ever-repeated demonstration
that in the developed doctrine of the Two Natures and in it alone, all
the biblical data are brought together in a harmonious statement in
which each receives full recognition, and out of which each may derive
its sympathetic exposition. This
key unlocks the treasures of the biblical instruction on the person of
Christ as none other can, and enables the reader as he currently scans
the sacred pages to take up their declarations as they meet him, one
after the other, into an intelligently consistent conception of his
Lord. (Christology and Criticism, p264). |
