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The Arians: Historical Friday

As we continue our discussions on heresy we arrive now at the Arian controversy. Please note that this is not Arian in the sense of race or ethnicity (that would be aryan.) This is a heresy that cropped up in the early 300's and started with a man named Arius. This particular heresy quite possibly shaped the Christian faith more than any other before it.

Arianism Then

The Arians believed in the totality of Scripture, unlike the Marcionites we discussed last week. They believed that Jesus was the Messiah sent by God to save us from sin. They believed that God created all things and sustains all things. On the surface the Arians seem like normal Christians, but there is one big difference. The Arians didn't believe that Jesus was God.

The Arians believed that Jesus was superior to humanity, but that he wasn't equal to the Father as God. They thought he was the first created thing; that God made Jesus before making everything else. Where did they get this idea? Well, from Scripture.

Now I want to be clear on this point; Scripture teaches that Jesus is indeed God. Yet in Scripture there are statements that seem to indicate Jesus' inferiority to God. Case and point, John 14:28 where Jesus says "the Father is greater than I." 

The Arians took this, as well as some other passages, to mean that Jesus was not in fact God. He was a glorious, powerful being to be sure, but not God. This idea began to spread and became pretty popular. This teaching made it much easier to defend Christianity as a monotheistic religion. 

The backlash was huge. Orthodox Christians (orthodox in the sense of holding to the traditional Christian faith and not in the modern sense of a certain group) couldn't believe what they were hearing. The fact that Jesus is God is the very center of everything Christians believe. The result of this conflict of ideas is the Council of Nicea in 325. There a creed was formulated that defended the full divinity of Christ, based on Scripture.

Arianism Today

Unfortunately Arianism has not died out. It is still very present in our world today. Any who believe that Jesus is less than God are technically Arians. This means that the majority of the world, who believe Jesus was just a good man, falls under this category. It has also reared its head in churches who are trying to make the concept of the Trinity more palatable.

There are other groups who are openly Arian, even though they would object to being called that. The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons are two prime examples of groups that believe that Jesus is less than the Father.

We see this heresy today constantly. Many people, even those claiming to be Christians, don't believe that Jesus is truly God. To our credit, many churches condemn this view and are quick to spot it. Next week, however, we will discuss another heresy. This one is much more prevalent in churches and has gone almost completely unnoticed. Instead of denying the divinity of Christ, this one has people denying his humanity.

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