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 In the previous post I described how any-and-all deity of Christ interpretations of Scripture dishonor the only true God, the Father.  Because, if Jesus is also God, then the Father is not the only true God. Either the Father is the one and only true God, or a multi-person god is. The Father and a multi-person god can’t both be the only God.  The high cost to pay for any deity of Christ belief is to deny that the Father is the only true God.


In this current podcast we discuss another HIGH cost to pay for any deity of Christ interpretation of Scripture.  All deity of Christ claims not only dishonor the Father, but they also dishonor the Christ, the man Jesus of Nazareth, the Jew who was born in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago.  In fact, all deity of Christ claims in the end deny that the human person Jesus Christ ever existed.

I know, I know. Most deity of Christ believers don’t think they are denying that the human person Jesus of Nazareth ever existed. But this is mostly because they don’t know or haven’t really thought through their deity of Christ claims. Mainstream Christians have been told and repeat things like this: “Jesus was fully god and fully man” and they insist they believe that Jesus was a man. But “fully God and fully man” is just a vague, hand-waving statement that avoids and clouds the real issue about who Jesus was and is. The real issue is that the deity of Christ “fully man Jesus” was never a human person.

 

I’m not saying that deity of Christ believers don’t believe that Jesus didn’t exist. What I am saying, actually, what deity of Christ leaders say, is that no human person Jesus ever existed.
To repeat the high cost: all deity of Christ claims are a denial that there ever was a human person, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah. According to Trinitarian and deity of Christ claims, there is no human person Jesus described in the Gospel of John, Philippians 2, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, etc.

 

The cost for interpreting parts of John 1:1 and John 1:14 as “God became man” is the elimination of the human person, Jesus of Nazareth. Deity of Christy believer - you should be sure you want to pay that cost.

 

OK, so how and why are all “deity of Christ” claims a denial that Jesus is a human person? Because if Jesus was God and a human person Jesus would be two persons – a God person and a human person. But the church decided a long time ago that Jesus is not two persons, but one person, the eternally divine person, the so-called “God the Son”. As the Council of Chalcedon in Constantinople stated in AD 451, some four hundred years after the Jewish Messiah Jesus was on earth – the human and divine natures of Jesus existed “in one Person and one Personhood, not parted or divided into two persons”.

 

So, if Jesus is only one person, and that one person is the “eternal divine person” - then Jesus is not a human person. Jesus is one person, the god-person who supposedly took on an abstract, person-less, human nature.  According to mainstream Christian theology no human person Jesus of Nazareth ever existed - the divine person, the so-called “God the Son” only took on “an impersonal human nature”.

 

The non-human personhood of Jesus is not just an old church doctrine that isn’t important anymore that Christians can just ignore and don’t have to believe. The non-human personhood of Jesus is essential to deity of Christ belief, and has been given a fancy name by deity of Christ theologians: “the Anhypostasis of Jesus.” Find that one in the Bible (the “non-human personhood of Jesus). If you don’t think that deity of Christ belief attempts to eliminate the human person Jesus of Nazareth, google “Anhypostasis of Jesus.” And keep listening/reading.

 

The belief in the non-human person Jesus is described by modern theologians like the general editor of the Desiring God website in this article called, Anhypostasis: What King of Flesh Did Jesus Take:

 

“…considered on its own (apart from his divinity), Jesus’ humanity is impersonal. In other words, Jesus took a fully human nature, but he did not take a human person.”[1]  So, Jesus is “a fully human nature” but he is not a “fully human person”.  Got it.

 

Or, listen to well-known Christian apologist William Lane Craig:

 

“…there is only one person in Christ. There is not a human person. There is no man Jesus of Nazareth who is a human person. You have a divine person who has a human nature.”[2]

 

Did you catch that?  According to mainstream Christianity “There is no man Jesus of Nazareth who is a human person.” The non-binary “fully God and fully man Jesus” is not a human person.

 

If you are a deity of Christ believer, you should know about the non-human personhood of your Jesus. If you are a deity of Christ believer and you believe Jesus is a human person, please feel free to explain the the comment section on Youtube how that is, and how ancient and modern Christian doctrine has been wrong.

 

One more testimony, from Professor Philip Schaff, a 19th century Protestant theologian, church historian and professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, who wrote the magnum opus, The History of the Christian Church:

 

“The centre of personal life in the God-Man resides unquestionably in the Logos, who was from eternity the second person in the Godhead, and could not lose his personality. He united himself, as has been already observed, not with a human person, but with human nature.” [3]

 

The deity of Christ claim that “Jesus is fully human” is just a smokescreen. Someone is not “fully” or “truly human” if he (it) is only a human nature, and not a human person. Does speculating that a god- person has become or taken on an impersonal, non-personal human nature sound like good biblical teaching, or pagan Greek philosophical speculation -- a cleverly devised myth, a fairy tale?

 

Like the modern non-binary gender person who claims he or she is one person but both genders, the deity of Christ believers claim that Jesus is one person who is non-binary with two natures.

 

Let me challenge you to take this little quiz to see if, as a deity of Christ believer, you believe that Jesus was and is a human person:

How many persons were the triune god before Jesus became “fully human”. Trinitarian answer: 3

 

How many persons are the triune god now, after Jesus became man and rose from the dead? Answer: 3

 

Oh, oh. So, no new person, no human person, came into being at the so-called “incarnation”, when Jesus supposedly “took on flesh” and became “fully human”. No human person came into being and became a member of the triune God. Otherwise, there would be four persons in the triune god, and god wouldn’t be a trinity anymore. They would be three divine persons, and one human person.[4]

 

Instead, as with all deity of Christ belief, a supposedly previously existing, eternally existing “god person” infused himself into impersonal human flesh. Or, if you prefer to describe it a different way, an eternally existing god person “took on” person-less human nature. If, as any incarnation doctrine must insist, no human person came into being at the flesh conception (or any other time) of Jesus -- there never was a human person, Jesus of Nazareth – only human flesh that a god person came into or took on.

 

Therefore, the deity of Christ belief is a denial that the human person, Jesus of Nazareth, is the Christ, because according to the deity of Christ believer, that human person Jesus of Nazareth never existed.

 

This is the spirit of antichrist - a denial that the human person Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ.

 

Summary:

These are a couple (and there are more) HIGH costs of deity of Christ interpretations of Scripture.

1.       A denial that the Father is the only true God, the one God. Instead, a multi-person god is the one God.

2.       A denial that the man Jesus of Nazareth is a human person who came to be some 2000 years ago. Instead, an eternally existing god-person took on impersonal human flesh.

The high cost of any and all deity of Christ claims and interpretations of Scripture dishonor the one true God, the Father, and dishonor the man Christ Jesus of Nazareth. Are you willing to pay that cost, or are you willing to reconsider the few scriptures (or few philosophical claims) you think are evidence for the deity of Christ, and understand those Scriptures to be describing the man, the human person, Jesus the Christ from Nazareth.

One of these two persons is an imposter. One of these two person never existed. Either the god-person-Jesus never existed, or the human-person-Jesus never existed. In the Bible, the human person Jesus is the real person.

Let me finish with one Scripture:

Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2:4-6 that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all…”

The one mediator between God and men is a man, Christ Jesus. Not a god or a being who is fully god and fully man”, but a man. A god-man is not a man. To insist that a god-man is a man is a delusion, like a man insisting he is a woman.

But let’s look closely again at this Scripture: who is the “himself”, the person, who gave himself as a ransom?  A “divine person” who took on a human nature, or the human person, the man Christ Jesus?  The Apostle Paul says it is a man, the human person Christ Jesus who gave himself. If you think it is a divine person who gave himself as a ransom, then you are dishonoring the human person Jesus who is the real person who gave himself. Crediting a god-person as the one who gave himself is to give honor where honor is not due, and fails to give honor where honor is due.

“There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all…”  Which person gave himself for others?  A divine person, or the human person Jesus of Nazareth who came to be some 2000 years ago. It can’t be both. A divine person and a human person are not the same person. If you insist a divine person gave himself for you, you are dishonoring the human person Jesus of Nazareth whom the Bible says gave himself for you.

The humble will hear and rejoice!

 

[1] Mathis, David. Anhypostasis: What King of Flesh Did Jesus Take. Cf. Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church, #1653-1655.

[4] The modalist/oneness “one-self God” belief also eliminates the human person Jesus of Nazareth. A question for the modalist/oneness believer: “Was Jesus a human person distinct from the Father, and is there a human person (not just a human nature) at the right hand of God now?”  Like Trinitarianism, modalist/oneness belief also attempts to eliminate the human person, Jesus of Nazareth.

 

Comments

Anonymous said…
I believe that in all of this discussion we are missing the important link that who the original first Man Adam is and what his original status was. This piece of puzzle should be in conjunction with the Second Adam - the Man Jesus Christ. The Oneness is the final realization of all of these debates.
March 24, 2025 at 10:05 AM
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