Христос Родився! Славімо Його!
As we draw nearer to the celebration of the Birth of Christ I wanted to examine in this month’s article the Natures of Christ, how He fits into the Holy Trinity, and the heresies that have come up in our history. When we call Jesus, “Christ”, we are recognizing that he is of two generations, or two births, the birth from “His eternal Father, an eternal generation, begotten before time, cause and reason”[1] and from the “Virgin Mary, in time and for our sakes”[2]. However, through history not everyone had the same point of view in regards to the understanding of how we now see the Natures of Christ. These heresies were formulated by different people at different times and many if not all these heresies was eventually disproved.
A. Docetism – They did not believe that Jesus the man was really incarnate. They believed that the human body was not worthy to be a vessel for the divine and that Christ only appeared to be Human. So if they were right, it would be impossible for Jesus to have bled, to have been crucified, to have died, and if there is no death then that means there is no resurrection.
B. Gnosticism – is a belief that the supernatural realm was filled with not just one God, but numerous gods. They believed that through “knowledge” came salvation, not by the grace of God.
C. Arianism (separate not Aryanism) – Arius taught that Christ was not God until he came to this earth. We know that each Person of the Holy Trinity is co-eternal with the Father and Arians believed that there was a time when Christ did not exist, and that he was created as God the Son when the Virgin Mary gave birth to Him. We know this to be false because the three persons of God are all equal, and one in essence.
D. Apollinarianism – Apollinarios denied that Christ had a true humanity, by saying that when Jesus was on earth that His mind was that of God the Word. By saying this he stated that when Jesus became man, he took the human body but the human mind was replaced by the divine Mind.
E. Nestorianism – Nestorius believed that there were definitely two natures of God, but that they were completely separate from each other so that when Christ was on earth He was only human and not at all divine. By saying this we would then have to look at the Virgin Mary not as Theotokos, the Mother of God but Christotokos, the Mother of Christ.
F. Monophystism – This heresy is the exact opposite end of the spectrum from Nestorius. It denied that Christ had two natures and believes that He regained His divine nature even while in human form. This is of course is false because we know that God has the Divine Nature, and because God and Jesus are equal and one in essence consequently means that Jesus has the Divine Nature.
When we look at the two natures of Christ, we must be careful in how we present the orthodox view of Christ. We know that Christ has two natures; he has the nature of truly man, and the nature of truly god. Everything that Christ did has a meaning, and everything Christ did he did for us, for mankind. He suffered tortures, ridicule, being nailed on the cross, and death on the cross just so that we may have the chance at salvation. His resurrection and ascension is what we all strive for in our Christian lives, and we live in a constant state of anticipation for Christ’s second coming. None of this could have happened without the Incarnation and as we gather together to celebrate His birth, either on the 25th or the 7th, let us truly remember what that day is and Who we are celebrating!
Christ is Born! Let us Glorify Him!
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Peter Haugen
Source used: Fr. Michael Azkoul, The Teachings of the Holy Orthodox Church, Vol. 1 (God, Creation, Old Israel, Christ). Buena Vista, Colorado: Dormition Skete, 1986.
