How Not to Be an Arian

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During my sophomore year of college I took a semester off from school, and I worked at Christie's Auction House here in New York. And it was one of those jobs that was all about the experience. Guess how much they paid me? Six dollars a day. It barely covered the subway. But it was a great experience, and here's why. I worked in the 20th Century Art Department, and many people would send paintings that they hoped to sell at auction, and they would arrive at our warehouse in Long Island City. And one of the first things that we had to do was to verify whether or not these paintings were real. And they often tasked me, as the young intern, with researching the provenance of these paintings, to study the history of who had owned them in the past. And then on more than a few occasions, I got to accompany the specialists to the warehouse as they inspected these paintings firsthand. So many people claimed that what they had on their hands was a Picasso or a Modigliani or a Mark Rothko. Maybe they did; maybe they didn't. But here's what impressed me: These specialists could look at these paintings in person, and they could tell in minutes, literally minutes, whether that painting was real or a fake.

The reason why I share that story is because, as important as it may be to know whether or not you have a Picasso, it's even more important to know whether or not the Jesus you're dealing with is real. I mean, if you find out that your Picasso is a fake, you might be out a couple million bucks, but what happens if you're wrong about Jesus? So as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ at Christmas, we're using this Advent season to determine the meaning and the significance of the Incarnation. What does it mean to say that God became a human being in the person of Jesus, and why does it matter? I would suggest that if we don't stop to consider these serious questions, it's very likely that we could slip into embracing ancient heresies that were rejected centuries ago, like a bad, fake painting.

So during this Advent series, we are considering (only sort of tongue in cheek) how not to be a heretic. So far we've considered how not to be an Adoptionist or how not to be a Docetist. I'm imagining that at Christmas cocktail parties, you're going to start talking about your favorite ancient heresy. So here's the heretic of the week: Arius. Today we'll talk about how not to be an Arian. Arius was a priest who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, in the fourth century, and I'll come back to him in a minute. But let's begin with John 1, the opening prologue of the Gospel of John. And as we do, let's consider three things. What does John tell us about: 1) Who Jesus is not, 2) Who Jesus is, and 3) Why it matters?

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things were made through him, and without him was not anything that was made. ⁴In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. ⁸He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

⁹The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. ¹¹He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. ¹²But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

¹⁴And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵(John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

John 1:1-18

Who Jesus Is Not

First, let's consider what John tells us about who Jesus is not. Now the most important thing you need to know about Arius is that he once slapped and perhaps punched — or was once slapped or punched by — Santa Claus. I'm not kidding. That's true. So now that I've gotten your attention, let me tell you the back story for Arius. Arius was an ambitious priest with a charismatic personality, and he attracted a strong and devoted following. At one point he challenged the Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt, perhaps because he wanted to become the bishop himself. And so the way that you would do this in the fourth century is by showing off what you know, showing off your theological prowess in order to present yourself as the real defender of the truth. So Arius was someone who studied the Scriptures, and he looked at all the places where Jesus was referred to as “the only begotten of the Father.” And He concluded, well, if Jesus was begotten, then that must mean that he was made at some point in time. And if Jesus was made, well then he is not equal with the Father, because that would suggest that there was a time when Jesus did not exist. And so he suggested that Jesus may have shared certain attributes with God, but he couldn't have been equal with God because he wasn't of the same essence or the same substance. So Arius pegged Jesus as being a little bit higher than human beings, but he was less than God. He wasn't equal with the Father.

Now when he challenged the Bishop of Alexandria with his views, his supporters rallied to his cause, and they literally started rioting in the streets. They started carrying signs, and they started shouting out slogans. And one of their favorite slogans was, “There was a time when the son was not.” That was their way of suggesting that Jesus had a beginning, he was made, and therefore he was not equal with God the Father. Well, Arius ended up losing this debate, and he was forced out of the city, but he didn't give up so easily. Instead, he began to engage in a letter writing campaign. He started writing to all the bishops in the Mediterranean world in order to win people to his side. Now, if he'd lived a couple centuries later, he would have engaged in social media. He basically became an Internet troll. He started trolling his theological opponents, and things got so out of hand that Constantine called a council in order to try to bring some order to the chaos. Now, don't believe what they tell you if they say that Constantine invented historic Christianity. It's just not true. But it is true that the Emperor called this council, because things were getting really messy. So he calls the Council of Nicaea in Nicaea, a town on the western coast of Turkey, exactly 1700 years ago this spring. The Council of Nicaea took place in 325 AD. And here all these bishops — 300 bishops from the entire known world — spend two months trying to hammer out who Jesus really is.

So in the one corner you've got Arias, and then in the other corner you've got this unusually short, young, 20-something from Alexandria named Athanasius, who carries the day. But Athanasius was also accompanied by a bishop from the Turkish city of Myra whose name was Nicholas, whom we affectionately know as St. Nicholas. So at the Council of Nicea, we've got Arius, Athanasius, and Santa Claus. And things got so heated that at one point apparently Santa Claus slapped, perhaps punched Arius in the face. Now, I'm sorry if that messes up your conception of Jolly Old St. Nick, but at least you know this, that even Santa Claus was committed to defending the historic Christian faith. Now I have to say my presbytery meetings are pretty boring. If I knew that presbytery meetings would end in a fist fight, I might go to more of them.

This might be hard for us to imagine, but this was literally all people could talk about in the fourth century. All they could talk about was who is Jesus really, and what difference does it make? For better or for worse, that's all they could discuss, and it drove some of the defenders of the historic Christian faith a little bit crazy because they'd been overly influenced by Arius’ views. So here's another bishop, Gregory of Nyssa. Listen to his complaint. He says:

If you ask for change, someone philosophizes to you on the begotten and the unbegotten. If you ask the price of bread, you're told the Father is greater and the son is inferior. Or if you ask if the bath is ready, someone answers that the sun was created from nothing.

So that tells you a little bit about what the fourth century was like. Now we might wonder, was this just a waste of time? I mean, were these just ridiculous debates? Were these theologians just splitting hairs? Were they asking speculative, inconsequential questions like, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” And I would say no, these were not ridiculous debates. No, they were of real, practical value and of urgent concern, because what they really wanted to know was who is Jesus really? It's one thing to get a painting wrong; it's another thing to get Jesus wrong.

Who Jesus Is

So if Arius represented who Jesus is not well, then Athanasius and St. Nick and Gregory of Nyssa represent who Jesus is. And the key passage is the opening prologue to John's Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him.” So based on John and other writings in the New Testament, the council hammered out the first draft of what became known as the Nicene Creed. I'd like to draw your attention to three lines in the Nicene Creed which emphasize who Jesus really is. You might be familiar with some of these lines if you've come to Central for any length of time, and yet maybe even you have wrestled with what these words actually mean. Well, they all came out of this Arian controversy. So let's focus for a brief moment on these three clauses: Jesus is 1) begotten not made, 2) of one being with the Father, and 3) through Him all things were made.

Begotten Not Made

First, the Creed tells us that Jesus is begotten, not made. The confusion has to do with what this Greek word behind our English word “begotten” actually means. So “begotten” doesn't appear in our English translation, but you do find it in the King James Version. So if you read John 1:14 in the King James, it says, “we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” Or if you read John 1:18 in the King James, it says, “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Or perhaps you could consider the most famous verse in the whole Bible, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

So what does this word, “Begotten” mean? It doesn't necessarily imply that someone or something was made. The Greek word is literally Monogenés. Mono (one), genus (kind). So the word is not suggesting that Jesus was made; rather, it's telling us that Jesus is one of a kind. He's in the category all to himself. In Latin, we would say that Jesus is Sui Generis. And so we're not being told that Jesus was made at some point in time by the Father but rather that he's in a category all his own. He is the one and only Son of the Father, and that's why the council insisted that Jesus was begotten, not made. One of a kind, not created. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him.”

Of One Being with the Father

The second clause is Jesus is “of one being with the Father.” Arius claimed that Jesus was a little bit less than God. He represented the pinnacle of creation. He was the first and the best of the created order, and therefore he was similar to God but not the same. But that's not what John says. Jesus was not only with God, he was God. And so the council insisted that Jesus was of one being, of one substance, of one essence with the Father. And so the debate actually centered around two words in Greek: homoousios versus homoiousios. And the difference between those two words was just one little letter, one little iota. Homoousios: same substance; Homoiousios: similar substance. But at the council, these early Christians affirmed that Jesus was not merely of similar substance to the Father, but of the same substance. Athanasius talked about how the relationship between the father and the son is like the relationship between the physical sun and its rays, or between the light and its brightness. They're of the same essence. They're of the same substance. They are of one being.

Through Him All Things Were Made

And then finally, the council affirmed that through him, all things were made. Arius suggested that Jesus may have represented the height of creation, but as a result of that, he was still part of creation. But that's not what John tells us here. Not only was Jesus there at the beginning of time, but get this, in verse 3, “all things were made through him.” Paul says the same thing in Colossians 1:16, saying “by him, all things were created.” So have you ever stopped to think about that? It wasn't just the Almighty God, the Father, who created heaven and earth and brought everything that is into being, but Jesus was there at the beginning. Jesus is the Word who spoke the world into existence. All things were made through Him.

So who is Jesus? He was begotten, not made, of one being with the Father, and through him all things were made. Meaning that he's always existed, that Jesus and the Father are one, and everything that exists was made through him. So I tell you what, take this to heart, and the next time you're in the checkout line at the grocery store and you're waiting for your change, why don't you strike up a conversation with the cashier about what it really means to be begotten. And when you're at a cocktail Christmas party, as you're sipping on your eggnog, why don't you look your conversation partner dead in the eye and tell him, “Jesus is of one substance with the Father.” Let's see how that goes this Advent season.

Why It Matters

Well, we've considered who Jesus is not. We've considered who Jesus is. But the money question is, so what? Who cares? What difference does this actually make? So let's spend a little more time on this. Now, as my seminary professor George Hunsinger taught me, there is a world of difference between Arianism on the one hand and Orthodoxy on the other, especially when it comes to three major categories: 1) revelation, 2) salvation, and 3) adoration. Here's what I mean.

Revelation

The first point may be the most helpful, deep down at a practical and experiential level. Because if what John is telling us about Jesus is true, then it shows us that God can be known. We can know him personally, intimately, as he really is. You see, Arius said that God is absolutely transcendent, so much so that he suggested that God is utterly unknowable. That God the Father remains ineffable, even to Jesus, even to the Son — that not even Jesus can explain God. But no, that's not what Jesus said about himself. In John 10:30, Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.”

You may know this passage from John 14, where one of Jesus' disciples, Philip, comes up to Jesus and says, you know, Jesus, like, all this theological talk is just making my head spin. I can't handle this. Just show us the Father, and that'll be enough for us. Just tell us, show us what the father is like. That seems like a legitimate question, right? How does Jesus respond? Jesus responds by saying, Philip, buddy, where have you been all this time? Don't you know what I've been talking about? I've been telling you that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. So when you tell me, “show me the Father,” I've been showing you the Father all this time! If you're looking at me, you're looking at the Father. If you're listening to me, you're listening to the Father. And if you know me, you know the Father. Because I and the Father are one. We are of the same essence, the same substance, the same reality. The Father is the Son and I am the ray. The Father is the light and I am the brightness. You can no more separate the Father and the Son than you can separate the physical sun from its rays. And the author of Hebrews says much the same thing in Hebrews 1: Jesus is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.”

So what does that show us? What does that tell us? Well, what it reveals to us is that God isn't playing some kind of cruel joke on us. He really is making himself really, actually known to u in and through Jesus. You see, there is a clarity, a simplicity, a sincerity to God. What you see is what you get. We talked about this this past week at our staff Bible study. We talked about how there's a clarity to God. He wants to be known, and therefore what you see is what you get. And therefore God is kind of like the clear lake waters of a glacial lake. He's clear. We can see.

Our family often spends time up in the Adirondacks, and those mountains and lakes were formed by glaciers, and so the water is just crystal clear. Especially if you're standing near the shore, you can see right through to the bottom. But at the same time, there are places where those lakes go 150, 200 feet deep. And so if you're sitting out there in the middle of the lake, no, you can't see all the way to the bottom because it goes so far down. And yet the water is all the same. It's clear. And so it is with God's being, with his with his essence. We can see who God really is in the person of Jesus. And of course there's always going to be more for us to discover, like sitting in the middle of that lake. There are always going to be depths that we're never going to quite plumb. But what we know is that no matter what we discover about God, he will never be different from how he has revealed himself in the person of Jesus. No matter how much more we discover of the depth of the richness of God, we will never find him to be different than how He has revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus. What you see is what you get, and therefore God can really be known.

Arius had these certain ideas of what God could be like, and so he constrained God by his own rational concepts. Therefore he said, well, God just can't be a human being. He ruled it out as impossible from the beginning because he thought God was utterly, absolutely transcendent. And Arius, in a way, is like so many intellectuals today who tell us that God is so far beyond us that it would be arrogant to claim that we could ever really know what God is like. We're just pipsqueak human beings. But you know what? The reality is that it's the intellectual who's being arrogant by trying to squeeze God into his tiny, little box. Yes, it's true. God is absolutely transcendent. But you know what? At the same time, he's also free. He's free. And that means that God can be known if he wants to. God is God. He can do whatever he wants. He can make himself known. He can become a human being if he wants to. Nothing is preventing him. And that's why John writes in John 1:18 that no one has ever seen God except for the one and only Son who is at the Father's side. He has made him known.

Now literally, the Greek word there forms the root of the English word “exegete.” Have you ever had to exegete, to interpret, a little piece of prose or poetry? Well, Jesus is saying, no one else can exegete, explain, interpret God except for me, and that's why I've come. I and the Father are one, and therefore I can explain him to you. I can exegete him to you. I can show you what the Father is really like. Do you realize what this means? It means that God is not giving us some indirect, secondhand, shadowy knowledge of himself in and through Jesus, based on Jesus' own limited personal experience or perspective. No, Jesus gives us the real deal. And so if you want to know what God is really like, you don't need to look any farther than Jesus.

Now, why does this matter? See the difference this makes? I know right now some of you are hurting. Some of you are suffering pain and loss. You're lonely. You're afraid. For many people, Christmas is not the happiest time of the year. For many people, it's the saddest time of the year, because Christmas reminds you of painful memories, of broken relationships, of all that you've lost. And therefore, the real question that's always in the back of our minds at Christmas time is, can God really be trusted? Can I trust him with my problems? Can I trust him with my life? And the answer, because of the Incarnation, is yes. You can trust God. You can know Him. You can entrust your very life to him, because God doesn't want you to have to guess what he's like. He's shown you, so much so that he was willing to become like you.

You know, people say that if you want to speak to a child — a young two-, three-year-old child — if you want to connect with a child, if you want to communicate, you shouldn't loom above them, and you shouldn't shout at them in your loud adult voice. But if you really want to connect, what should you do? Well, you should lower yourself. You should get down at their level so that you're looking at them, eye-to-eye. You remove the intimidation factor, and you don't have to shout. No, you can whisper. And that's how you can communicate with a child. Do you realize that that's what God has done for us in the Incarnation? He doesn't loom above us. He doesn't shout at us. He lowers himself. He stoops down to our level to be able to see us eye-to-eye and to whisper to us, even in his weakness, by becoming a human being. Imagine the condescension of God. But that's what he's done in and through Jesus. Why? Because he wants to be known — and he can be.

Salvation

Well, that's revelation. How about salvation? Well, I took my time with the first one. I'll go a little faster with the second. But the second reason why we should care about Orthodoxy versus Arianism is because our very salvation depends upon it. Now let me explain why.

See, Arius didn't believe that Jesus was actually God. He was just the first and the best of created beings. And you know what? That's what a lot of people today would say as well. They would say, I don't have a problem with Jesus. I mean, Jesus is sublime. Jesus was more in touch with the divine than the rest of us. Jesus was connected. He had a special connection with God. He had a special something that we don't. But therefore, Jesus gives us something to emulate, something to follow. We should really strive to become more and more like him, to try to find that divine connection, to become a god-like being like Jesus himself. So for Arius, there was really no need for salvation because he didn't think that we needed to be rescued from anything, and therefore Jesus just provides us with an example to follow. He just shows us the path that we can walk down, like him. But if that's true, then it's all up to you. You have to bridge the gap between created beings and God. You have to bridge that gap by your own willing and your own virtuous striving. You can turn yourself into a god-like being like Jesus if you just try hard enough. So let me just stop and ask you, how's that going for you? How are you doing becoming a god-like being like Jesus by your own virtuous striving? Well, I don't know about you, but most of the rest of us are just as self-absorbed, just as overly sensitive, just as small-minded as we were yesterday. And my bet is that you are too.

The older I get, the more convinced I am of the reality of sin. It's real, it's nasty, and it's pervasive. It's everywhere. We have to acknowledge the fact that there is something lurking within each and every one of our hearts that distorts who we are as human beings and leads us to be people we don't want to be. And there's nothing we can do about that. It's there, and it needs to be lifted out of us. It needs to be eradicated. We need to be transformed. We need to be changed. We need to be rescued. And you see, real Christianity doesn't tell you to buck up and just try harder as a human being to climb your way up into God's good graces, to become more like Jesus. No, it tells you that God loves you so much that he was willing to lower himself, to give up his glory in order to become like you, to do for you what you could never do for yourself.

Jesus lived a life that we should have lived, but he doesn't just give us an example; he also died the death that we deserve to die for all of our shortcomings, all of our failures, all of our transgressions, in order to forgive us and to make us new. Jesus became like us so that he might make us like him. He doesn't just show you the way; he is the way. And you see, that's the difference between Christianity and every other religion in the world. Jesus doesn't just say, well, here's the path. Walk down this path and you'll be good. No, Jesus says, I am the path. I am the life. Come to me and I will give you life. And he does it all by sheer grace. You see, Christianity is a rescue religion. And if Jesus doesn't rescue us, then there's really nothing worth emulating in him in the first place.

Adoration

But the third reason why you should care about Orthodoxy is because it will lead you to real adoration. You know, it's hard to find any discussion of worship within Arianism. Why? Because within Arias’ view of the world, there's not really anything to get all that excited about. Arius’ God doesn't get involved in human affairs. No, he's absolutely transcendent. Arius’ God doesn't sacrifice anything. Arias’ God doesn't take any risks. No, Arius’ God just tells us to work hard. He just sends us an example. But that's not the case when it comes to real Christianity.

Just think about what we're saying here. Jesus — the only begotten, the one and only Son of the Father, the one who was there when the world began, the one through whom everything that was made was made — this is the one (and no other) who is one with the Father, who actually became not only a helpless, weak, vulnerable little baby, but this is also the same one, the infinite one, who handed himself over willingly to the authorities. This is the one who was deserted and betrayed by his own friends. This is the one who is publicly flogged and humiliated, and this is the one who is stripped naked and then nailed, bloody and wounded, to a cross. I mean, have you ever really stopped to consider the wonder of the Incarnation: The infinite not only became finite, but the almighty, the all-powerful, not only became weak and vulnerable, but he actually suffered and died, and he did for you and for me, so that we might know God, so that we might be forgiven of our past, so that we might be made new, so that we might become like Jesus himself by sheer grace. He did it all for you — not to give you an example, but to provide you with a rescue. And if that doesn't cause you to drop down on your knees in worship, I don't know what will.

So who is Jesus? He's the only begotten — begotten, not made, of one being with the Father, and through him all things were made. So see Jesus this Christmas for who he really is. Recognize him for what he's actually done by sheer grace. And then come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.

Let me pray for us.

Father, we acknowledge that there are many things in life that don't really bear many consequences if we're right or if we're wrong. But nothing could be more important than getting Jesus right. And so we pray that you would help us to see anew the reality of who Jesus is and all that he has accomplished for us, so that we might receive the rescue that he offers us this Christmas, so that we might know him for who he really is, and so that we might become more and more like you. And as we consider all these things, Father, we pray that in a fresh new way, you would lead us to worship you. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.

Sermons

How Not to Be a Heretic: How Not to Be an Arian

Related Resources

Who Jesus Is Not

Who Jesus Is

Why It Matters