The Incarnation of Christ Part Three: Son of God AND Son of Man

The Incarnation of Christ Part Three:
Son of God AND Son of Man

Years ago I taught a series for our church on the Incarnation of Christ, which covered such difficult subjects as the Trinity and Jesus being both God AND Man.

To appreciate the astonishing message of Christmas--"God with Us"--we must first attempt to better understand (better, but not fully, of course) the Trinity.

Part I addressed the Trinity, and how Jesus
represents God to man.

Part II--His representation of Man (Adam II) to God
Part III--Son of God And Son of Man

Part IV--Christ in You, the Incarnation Continues!

"For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily."  (Colossians 2:9)

Church teaching interpreted the above verse to mean that the divine nature penetrates and perfects every aspect of the human; and the human is diffused by the divine. (John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith, 111.8)

Jesus' conception was supernatural--exceeding natural explanation. His birth was natural.

Thomas Oden, Methodist theologian and author, comments: “The deity participated in the Passion of the humanity and the humanity in the majesty of the deity without blurring or confusing either.” (Systematic Theology, Vol. II, the Word of Life)

Lewis Sperry Chafer, evangelical theologian, stated in his Systematic Theology: "The Incarnation introduced the unique situation in which God and man became one without depriving either of their essential qualities...Jesus Christ was perfect God and became perfect man--being all that God in His deity and all that man is apart from sin."

"Jesus did not temporarily become man, but his divine nature was permanently united to his human nature...

"And He lives forever NOT JUST as the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity...but also as Jesus, the man who was born of Mary, and as Christ, the Messiah and Savior of his people. Jesus will remain fully God and fully man, yet one person, forever." (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology)

Theologians call these two natures of Christ occurring together in one Person the Theandric Union.  Theandric is a contraction of theanthropos or "God-man".

Christ is one person, two natures. God is three persons, once essence!

His union, contends Oden, was not like a physical union, as when form and matter are united. Nor is it like a union of friends. "It is a more profound union than two people in marriage, for the unity of marriages leaves husband and wife, even after their union, two persons, nor is it one nature being mingled and absorbed by the other.

"Rather, Christ's personal union is a union that can only exist in one distinctive person in who there is an intimate and perpetual conjunction of divine and human natures in one individual, wherein the human nature was ASSUMED by the Logos so as to be the WORD IN PERSON." (Systematic Theology, Vol. II, The Word of Life)

As mentioned in previous notes, many heresies arose that either rejected Christ's humanity or deity, or dualized the one person. Here's a simple breakdown:

Heresies against Christ's humanity:

Docetists-Christ as not fully in flesh

Apollinarians-Logos replaces human spirit

Eutychians-Christ as a single mixed nature

Heresies against Christ's divinity:

Eutychians-Christ not fully divine, but mixed nature

Ebionites-Jesus as the natural son of Joseph and Mary

Arians-Christ as creature, not eternal

Heresy that rejects Christ's person union:

Nestorians-Christ as two persons

Early Church Father Novatian warned, "He is a man who is of man and He is a God who is of God...however, when you read about both these truths, there is a danger that you will believe not both them, but only one." (Trinity 11)

In order to attempt to solve the problems raised by the controversies over the person of Christ, a large church council was convened in the city of Chalcedon near Constatinople (modern Istanbul) in A.D. 451.

The result was the Chalcedon Creed, which has been taken as the standard, orthodox definition of the biblical teaching on the person of Christ since that day by Catholic, Protestant, and most Orthodox branches of Christianity.

The Chalcedonian Definition declares that our Lord Christ is to be acknowledged in two natures:

Inconfusedly--no mixing of the two natures, which remain distinct even while they are in communion

Unchangeably--the deity is not transmuted in humanity, nor humanity into deity

Indivisibly--unable to be divided--the personal union is never at any point split apart

Inseparably--undissolved through eternity and perpetual

(We must rigorously examine what we believe about Christ in the honest light of Scriptures and in the clarity brought forth from the early church fathers. These heresies are STILL around--parading under different names, of course, and deceiving many well-intentioned converts!)

"And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." (Luke 2:52)

"Much discussion has arisen in theology over the question of Christ's self-consciousness. How could He know and sense the infinite might and wisdom of God, and at the same time appear with normal human weaknesses and limitations apart from complications with immorality?

"How could He know and not know? How could He be the source of all power and yet be prone and exposed to human frailty?

"The answer to the problem is that Christ operated in the human sphere to the extent it was necessary for Him to accomplish His earthly purpose, but at the same time continued operating in the divine sphere to the extent that it was possible in the period of His humiliation." (Chafer)

As God, the Son knew He was human. As human, He knew that He was God.

Thomas Oden further explains: “The Logos is united not with an individual person that existed prior to the God/man, but with a human nature that had no separate identity before union with the divine, for Jesus' human body had not existed eternally, but was born in time.

“Hence, there are not two conscious persons, but a single conscious person uniting the divine and human natures. It is not one or the other nature that speaks when Jesus Christ speaks, but one person bearing the harmonious imprint of two natures.”

I do not think of Christ as God alone, or man alone, but both together.

For I know He was hungry, yet I know that with five loaves He fed 5,000.

I know He was thirsty, and I know He turned water into wine.

I know that He was carried in a ship, yet I know that He walked upon the sea.

I know that He died, yet I know that He raised the dead Himself.

I know that He was set before Pilate, and I know that He sits with the Father in His throne.

I know that He was worshiped by angels, yet He was scourged by man." (John Chrysostom)

THE TEMPTATIONS OF CHRIST

"The questions of sin and temptation in Christ from an orthodox point of view should be answered by the statement that He could not sin. As far as the divine nature is concerned, it is clear that God could not sin and that God cannot be tempted.

"On the human side it is obvious that Christ could be tempted, and the human nature by itself could sin. But when the human and divine natures were united in Christ, that left the person of Christ in a situation where the Person can be tempted but where the Person cannot sin because of the presence of the divine nature.

"The doctrine is not simply that Christ was able not to sin but that Christ was not able to sin because He is God." (Chafer)

"Then Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but  what He sees the Father do; for whatever he does, the Son also does in like manner'." (John 5:19)

At the sixth ecumenical council (Constantinople III in 681), the undivided Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human; and they are not opposed to each other, but cooperate in such a way that Christ's human will submits to His divine will.

Oden comments that the divine will always went before (lead the way) for the human will, so that the human will chose freely in accord with the divine will. The pattern is the Gethsemane prayer, in which is faced and resisted in a way fitting to the human nature and then freely offered up to God.

"...And so, the Lord's soul was freely moved to will, but it freely willed those things which His divine will willed." (John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith, 111.18)

"For I have come down from Heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day." (John 6:38-39)

Although Christ has retained His human body, He has not added to the Godhead, but simply enriched it forever.

Part IV will show us how to take the truths of the Incarnation out of the theology book and into the practicalities of everyday life as Christians.

The Incarnation of Christ Part Two:Declaring Man to God

The Incarnation of Christ Part Two: Declaring Man to God

Several years ago, I taught a series for our church on the Incarnation of Christ. It covered such challenging subjects as the Trinity and Jesus being both God AND Man.

To appreciate the astonishing message of Christmas--"God with Us"--we must first attempt to better understand (better, but not fully, of course) the Trinity.

Part I addressed the Trinity, and how Jesus represents God to man.

Part II--His representation of Man to God

Part III--Son of God AND Son of Man

Part IV--Christ in You, the Incarnation Continues!

"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous."  Roman 5:19

The Word became incarnate not only to manifest God to man, but man to God!

Adam failed in the stewardship of his humanity but the last Adam, Jesus Christ, is the all-satisfying ideal of what mankind should be--perfectly tuned to God's will and living in unbroken, joyful fellowship with Him.

God, the Son arrived legally into the world through a human birth canal and first shed His blood UNDER (or to) to Law, served it flawlessly throughout His life, and then shed His blood one final time to gain our freedom FROM the Law.

You see, Jesus had no need to earn righteousness for Himself. He did so out of love as our representative. He gave us the benefits of His obedient life and substitutionary death. The sins of all men were paid by one Man…and He did it in a way where justice could still be served.

His payment cleansed and continues to cleanse us from sin; His unblemished life covers us before the Father. No longer estranged, we can enter into God’s family by grace…"that He (Jesus) might be the firstborn among many brethren." (Romans 8:29b).

"For it was fitting for Him, for whom all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

"For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren." (Hebrews 2:10-11)

The late, reformed theologian R.J. Rushdoony observed in his Systematic Theology that the most common title of and reference to Jesus Christ in Scripture is LORD, "Kurios".

The term is used perhaps 6,700 times; it means absolute property owner, God, and sovereign. St. Paul ties the Lordship of Jesus Christ to His office as covenant man, and as head of the new humanity which He, as the second Adam, generates by grace. (Romans 14:7-9)

Here's the bottom-line meaning: We are born in the earth of Adam I, but he does not own us nor is he our lord. We are born again in Adam II.

"By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God."   (1 John 4:2-3)

In contrast with today, the early church had more difficulty believing in the full humanity of Christ than in His deity.

The Fourth Council of Chalcedon censured the claims of Apollinarius, who taught that Christ had no human soul. The Scriptures clearly reveal a Savior who experienced a whole range of human emotions.

Therefore, the council affirmed that Jesus was true God, truly human, with soul and body, of one essence with the Father as touching His Godhead, and of one essence with us as touching our humanity--like us in all things except sin.

The Creed of Epiphanius in A.D. 374 declared that the Logos "assumed a perfect man--soul and body and mind (spirit), and all that belongs to man, without sin."

"The mediator between God and humanity would have to be nothing less than God and nothing less than fully human; otherwise, this mediatorship would have been impossible. How can one mediate in a conflict in which one has no capacity to empathize with one or the other side?" (Thomas Oden, Systematic Theology, Vol. II-The Word of Life)

Church Father Ambrose stated that since God, the Son was standing in legally as Adam again..."If He lacked anything as man, then he did not redeem all (that pertains to our humanity)..." (Letters 48)

Indeed, Church Father Gregory Nazianzen remarked, "For that which He has not assumed He has not healed, but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved. If only half of Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a whole." (Epistle 101)

Hebrews 4:15, 16 tells us: "For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

Rushdoony cautioned that stressing only the deity of Christ--His sovereign being, His eternal decree, His magnificent glory and eternity--can result in an indifference to history and a lack of cultural consciousness. Similarly, focusing only on Christ's humanity results in a loss of perspective and a rapid decline into humanism.

We must realize there is a delicate, divine balance. Jesus is not just a good man or wise prophet, nor is He an unapproachable, distant deity. A correct understanding of the Incarnation helps us worship the Lord in spirit and truth.

"Remember, Christ was not a deified man, neither was He a humanized God. He was perfectly God and, at the same time, perfectly man."  Charles Spurgeon

Regardless of postmodern attempts to diminish the deity of Christ while overemphasizing His human nature, it is still important for us to acknowledge and rejoice in the full humanity of Jesus Christ.

"...For the MAN will not rest until He has concluded the matter this day." Ruth 3:18b 

The Old Covenant beautifully spoke of our coming Kinsman-Redeemer through the lives of Boaz, a type of Christ, and Ruth, a stranger in need of a God, a new life, and a home. She represents fallen humanity.

As Kinsman-Redeemer, Christ fulfilled what the Old Testament required:

1. The Redeemer must be a kinsman (Lev. 25:48-49; Ruth 3:12-13).

2. The Redeemer must be able to redeem (Ruth 4:4-6).

3. The redemption must be accomplished by the Redeemer paying the righteous demands involved (Lev. 25:27)

Gnostics, whose beliefs were condemned in the early church, believe that Jesus did not have a physical body. Rather, his apparent physical body was an illusion; hence, His crucifixion was not bodily.

They consider the human body evil and strive for higher, spiritual enlightenment that can "free" them from such a prison during their earthly existence. Most sects practice strict asceticism (body denials and punishments), while others defile their bodies, believing such indulgences do not matter since the body is already corrupt.

During the Dark Ages, even the Church-at-large sadly developed a negative view of the human body. Many leaders taught that one must tame its God-given passions and appetites through extreme measures of neglect or abuse.

This focus on dualism led to a perceived "split" from that which was done in the body as natural (and therefore considered ungodly) versus the spiritual (godly). Man was not viewed holistically. Akin to Gnostic thinking, Christians believed they were shamefully imprisoned in weak, sinful bodies that could not possibly please God. All the attention, therefore, was focused on Heaven and the future promise of perfection in a glorified body. Gradually, the Church returned to a more Biblical view of human existence.

"Flesh" and "spirit" are not two parts of man, but the whole man seen from two different aspects. All that man does in his natural state is "flesh" and is not necessarily associated with sin. It's the normal, day-to-day functions of mind, body, and soul which make us human. All that which man does under the control of the Spirit is "spiritual". Therefore, even the mundane things can be raised to a spiritual level if done for the glory of God.

"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.  (I Corinthians 6:15, 19-20).

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Think upon this magnificent truth: It pleased the Son of God to live in His human body--not only on earth, but forever!

Yes! The Son of God determined to identify eternally with humanity. In this, He enhances the glory of being human...for "He chose to be what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself." (Irenaeus, Against Heresies)

"The glory of God is a human being fully alive"! (St. Irenaeus)


Part III is the apex of the series."Son of God AND Son of Man" will examine the expressions of Christ's humanity and divinity during His earthly life and ministry, and attempt to clear misconceptions about His self-knowledge and the genuineness of His earthly temptations.

The Incarnation of Christ Part One: Declaring God to Man

The Incarnation of Christ Part One :
Declaring God to Man

Several years ago, I taught a series for our church on the Incarnation of Christ. It covered such challenging subjects as the Trinity and Jesus being both God AND Man.

To appreciate the astonishing message of Christmas--"God with Us"--we must first attempt to better understand (better, but not fully, of course) the Trinity.

Notes on Part I will address the Trinity and how Jesus represents God to man.

Part II-His representation of Man (Adam II) to God

Part III-Son of God AND Son of Man

Part IV- Christ in You, the Incarnation Continues

"...He who has seen Me has seen the Father." John 14:9

 John 1:18 says that Jesus Christ has "declared God the Father".

Basic version of the "Shield of the Trinity" or "Scutum Fidei"
with translated English-language captions (in place of original Latin).

The Greek word "declared" is exegeomai, related to our word exegesis.

We have seen the love, holiness, and goodness of the Father animated and demonstrated directly for our benefit in the Person of Jesus Christ (1 John 4:9).

Therefore, Jesus Christ is the "line by line, precept upon precept" of God--the full and perfect exegesis (declaration, revelation). 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God.” (John 1:1)

John testified about Him and cried out, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has priority over me, for He was before me. (He takes rank above me, for He existed before I did'...)".  (John 1:15) 

"Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham I AM." (John 8:58)

Dr. Thomas Oden puts it beautifully: "God cannot be fully comprehended, but He can be apprehended." Aren't you glad? Would you really want to trust your well being and eternity to a deity that you--being finite and fallen--had totally dissected and understood?

Although the word, "Trinity" is not in the Bible, the doctrine is taught from the beginning in the first chapter and verse of the Bible. The early church had to grow in its understanding of this majestic truth. Church Father Tertullian was the first to use the word "Trinity" (three in one) in reference to the Godhead in the first century. 

Here are two amazing verses: 

Job 33: 28, 29: "He redeemed my soul from going down to the pit, and I will live to enjoy the light. God does all these things to a man--twice, even three times--to turn back his soul from the pit, that the light of life may shine on him."

Proverbs 22:20: "Have not I written to thee excellent (In Hebrew--"three-fold") things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth... 

Indeed, God has communicated to us throughout creation with the counsel and knowledge of "three-fold" things:

Objects have three dimensions--length, breadth, and height--that are distinguishable, but inseparable, unified in a single object, yet three-dimensional.

We live in three dimensions--time, space, and matter--unified, yet distinguishable.

Humans are body, spirit, and soul.

Our "soul realm" is the mind, emotions, and will.

Our world is full of "three's" in God's symbolism and instruction:

He created time with a past, present, and future.

"The Spirit, the water, and the blood," is the divinely perfect witness to the grace of God on earth (1 John 5:7).

In Hebraic tradition, a blessing is recited THREE times.

Jesus was made a Prophet, Priest, and King.

The Tabernacle had THREE compartments.

The Ark of the Covenant contained three objects--a jar of manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the Ten Commandments on stone.

Heaven is divided into THREE realms (Paul went to the THIRD Heaven).

There is also Gehenna, Hades, and Sheol.

The angels cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy!"

Jesus was tempted three times--the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

The husbandman gives the plant three years to bear fruit (Luke 13:6-9).

Spiritual man is fed with manna, milk, and meat (of the Word).

The three gifts of grace are faith, hope, and love.

God expressed Himself in the Old Covenant as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Three Major Jewish Feasts: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles

Three parts to the Feast of Tabernacles: Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Tabernacle

Jesus was raised on the THIRD DAY.

Jonah was in the belly of the great fish three days.

The Christ Child was given three gifts-gold, frankincense and myrrh.

When God said, "Let US make man in our image" (Gen. 1:26), God was speaking in the first person in plural form. In fact, God clues us in from the beginning: In Gen. 1:1, at the beginning of creation, Elohim (God) is a plural noun, linked to a singular verb.

Genesis 3:22: And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

Genesis 11:6-7: The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

Isaiah 6:8a: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

Look at the Shema: "Hear, O, Israel, the Lord is our God"—literally, "Our Gods" is "Elohenu...one Lord! (Deuteronomy 6:4)

"Remember your Creator in the days of your youth (Ecclesiastes 12:1) is literally "Remember your Creators" (Eth-bor-eka).

2 Corinthians 4:6 tells us that God, the Father created the world by direct address.

The Holy Spirit was hovering (brooding) over the face of the waters, dark and deep.

Then, God the Father released His Son (The Word-Divine Logos) over the void and empty waste.

John 1:3 tells us "All things were made by him (God, the Son); and without him was not anything made that was made. He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.

"He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

"For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the Cross." (Colossians 1:15-20)

God, as one Being, expresses Himself through three Persons who have never changed or ceased, nor been divided or diminished in any time or space.

All three Persons of the Trinity are represented in Scripture as:

being addressed by name
possessing divine attributes
engaging in actions that only God can accomplish
being worthy of divine worship

God, wholly and simultaneously presents Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yet meets us in human history as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.

The Son fulfilled the Father's plan of Redemption for all of mankind. The Holy Spirit now continues to work conviction in the earth in order to impart Salvation to willing hearts, equip and mature believers for service in the world, and prepare the faithful for eternal life.

At Jesus' Baptism, the Holy Spirit descended from above and the Father spoke from Heaven. (Matthew 3:16)

Jesus is called God: Matthew 1:23, Romans 9:5, Titus 1:3, 2:13, Hebrews 1:8

Thomas Cried, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28)

The Holy Spirit is called God: Acts 5:3, 4:1 Corinthians 2: 10b, 11

Our baptismal formula, commanded by Jesus, is to baptize in the NAME (not names) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19)

Beliefs against the Trinity that were rejected in the early church:

1)  Jesus was an ordinary man who, through obedience and devotion, became the Christ at his baptism, having been adopted by God.

Other adherents believed Jesus became the Christ at His resurrection. This belief, called "Adoptionism", was rejected church-wide by the third century.

2) Only one being is presenting himself in different aspects or roles.

This is the most common error regarding the Trinity, and it still lingers deceptively in some components of Christianity, despite the fact that Sabellius, who first suggested the concept, was quickly excommunicated from the undivided church in A.D. 220.

"Modalism", as it's often called, fails to account for greater than 70 passages in Scripture where the Father, Son and Spirit are mentioned together as distinct persons interacting with one another.

3) The Son is not God, but like God...existing before creation, but still a creature and different from God in essence.

A man named Arius first promoted this idea. His solution proposed that the Son (Jesus) was somewhere between God and man.Today, two major religions, self-aligned with Christianity, teach that Jesus was a created being, not God incarnate.

In overcoming this particular heresy, the undivided Church in A.D. 325 said:  "He (the Son) is begotten, not made...of one being with the Father. (Nicene Creed)

Michael Houdmann, graduate of Calvary Seminary and founder of the popular gotquestions.org, clearly explains the phrase "only begotten":

"The phrase “only begotten Son” occurs in John 3:16, which reads in the King James Version as, "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."

The phrase "only begotten" translates the Greek word monogenes. This word is variously translated into English as "only," "one and only," and "only begotten."

It's this last phrase ("only begotten" used in the KJV, NASB and the NKJV) that causes problems. False teachers have latched onto this phrase to try to prove their false teaching that Jesus Christ isn't God; i.e., that Jesus isn't equal in essence to God as the Second Person of the Trinity. They see the word "begotten" and say that Jesus is a created being because only someone who had a beginning in time can be "begotten."

What this fails to note is that "begotten" is an English translation of a Greek word. As such, we have to look at the original meaning of the Greek word, not transfer English meanings into the text.

So what does monogenes mean? According to the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BAGD, 3rd Edition), monogenes has two primary definitions:

The first definition is "pertaining to being the only one of its kind within a specific relationship." This is its meaning in Hebrews 11:17 when the writer refers to Isaac as Abraham's "only begotten son" (KJV). Abraham had more than one son, but Isaac was the only son he had by Sarah and the only son of the covenant. Therefore, it is the uniqueness of Isaac among the other sons that allows for the use of monogenes in that context.

The second definition is "pertaining to being the only one of its kind or class, unique in kind." This is the meaning that is implied in John 3:16 (see also John 1:14, 18; 3:18; 1 John 4:9). John was primarily concerned with demonstrating that Jesus is the Son of God (John 20:31), and he uses monogenes to highlight Jesus as uniquely God's Son—sharing the same divine nature as God—as opposed to believers who are God's sons and daughters by adoption (Ephesians 1:5). Jesus is God’s “one and only” Son.

 This truth is reinforced in John 10:30, making it very clear that the Father and the Son are a monad (single entity) who have been there from the very beginning, Micah 5:2; John 1:1, 18; 17:5

Jesus spent forty days instructing His Apostles in the "things of the Kingdom of God" (Acts 1:1-3). They pastored the early church with this knowledge and the help of the Holy Spirit. Their protégés were the men who encountered, confronted, and judged these early heresies-- based upon the Apostles' doctrine rooted in the instructions from Jesus. Since a spring is clearer at its source, we must study what the early Church had to say about the seductions that attempted to diminish the Lordship of the Trinity.

Beware! As I said before, these ancient anti-Trinitarian doctrines are still around under different names.

"Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either."  1 John 2:23

Jesus was God BEFORE, DURING and AFTER the Incarnation!

The Trinitarian unity (substance) of the Godhead continued without interruption...even when God, the Son assumed human flesh, entered earth's history, and was given the name Jesus. Read what Jesus said while conducting His ministry on earth:

"If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the SON OF MAN who IS in heaven." (John 3:12, 13)

He is God NOW as He sits at the right hand of the Father, while the Spirit dispenses grace to and through the Church. He has chosen to enrich (not add to) the Trinity by remaining in His human body--the God/Man Jesus Christ. One day, He will physically return to earth in that glorified body to rule and reign!