The greatest heresy in the history of the Church was the Arian heresy. At one point during the Fifth Century, nearly 3/4 of the world’s bishops were Arian. Arius posited that Jesus was not truly God but instead the greatest of God’s creatures. The popularity of this heresy was due to the fact that it would enable Christianity to be palatable to both Pagans and Gnostics alike. By denying the equality of the Father and the Son, Christianity would take a decidedly Pagan turn. This is what made this particular heresy such a threat—it made Christianity more palatable to Pagans and could be a source of unity throughout the recently Christianized Roman Empire. This blending of Christianity was, of course, rejected by the Council of Nicaea with St. Athanasius leading the charge. It took a long time for the Nicene effect to be felt throughout the Church, but eventually the Arian Heresy was squashed. Unfortunately, heresies never wholly die, but are reincarnated in different forms such that we have seen a revival of the errors of Arius in our own day. This time it comes in the form of a religious eclecticism that attempts to blend all religions together.
In our day there are any number of people who say, “there are many paths up the mountain, but the view is the same at the top of the mountain.” They present the metaphor usually as a defense of blending religions or choosing a religion that best suits them (as opposed to one that is true). This religious indifferentism is really a substitution of spirituality for religion. Spirituality is about self-fulfillment whereas religion is about a relationship with God. But it is problematic for a more fundamental reason, one that is easily uncovered once we drop the metaphor and actually compare religions.
To insist that they lead up the same mountain while simultaneously contradicting each other makes this hard to believe. One says Jesus is God, another that He was a prophet, another that He is the brother of Lucifer, another that we are all gods, and another that says everything is God. While it may be convenient to use the “same mountain” metaphor, the truth is that there is no way that Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Pantheism can be reconciled. Depending on which you believe you will end up with vastly different conclusions. They are not different paths on the same mountain, but different mountains all together.
It may be possible to blend some religions together, but Christianity does not lend itself to any blending whatsoever. This is because Jesus, in His infinite wisdom, has forced us all to take a stand. Unlike any other religion, He made the claim to be God Incarnate. That means that you must either accept that claim as true and relate to Him as absolute Lord or you must treat Him as a crazy, lying cult leader and dismiss everything He said. If it is the latter, then to say that you like His teachings, that is to label Him as merely a human teacher, is not really an option.
The Quadrilemma
Those familiar with CS Lewis’ Christological trilemma will recognize this as a version of it. Lewis said that you must treat Jesus as either lunatic, liar or Lord. Those are the only three options. You cannot treat Him as a merely human teacher however. You either submit wholly to Him or you run as far away from His teachings as possible, even if some of them are actually helpful. Lewis’ trilemma however is not impenetrable because, thanks to “biblical scholars” in our own time, there is now a fourth option that many people are choosing. They claim that Jesus never actually said He was God. And in this way, we see how the Arian heresy is coming back into play.
When we focus on whether Jesus actually said He was God (as opposed to whether or not that is true) we move from the realm of faith to that of history. In other words, this is an attack on the historical reliability of the Gospels. As an internal witness, the Bible is quite clear that Jesus made Divine claims. But in order to grasp this, we must first take a necessary tangent in order to examine how He might say it.
The Internal Evidence
If the Incarnation were to have happened in our day and age you might expect Him to say (in English) “I am God.” But if we look at the translations of the gospels we have today, we do not find such a direct statement, nor should we expect to. We should expect that Jesus would say it the way a first Century Jew might. Our Lord’s moments of self-revelation always invoke the Old Testament name for God, the same name He gave Moses and that the Jews treated as unutterable (YHWH).
In Greek, the language of the gospels, the Name is translated as egō eimi or “I am”. This phrase is used in a number of places, but any time it is used in an absolute sense without any predicate, it refers to the Divine name. The most obvious examples occur within John’s Gospel where we find he uttering things like: “unless you come to believe that I AM, you will surely die in your sins” (Jn 8:24). Likewise, when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus in the Garden and announce it is Jesus they are seeking, He answers egō eimi. In the ordinary sense it simply means “I am he” letting them know they have found who they were looking for. However, those who hear this response fall to the ground suggesting that they are party to a theophany.
John’s Gospel, written later in the first Century, has a distinctive emphasis on the divinity of Christ because it was, according to Irenaeus, meant to counter some of the early Christological heresies that had arisen (Against Heresies, Book 3, Ch11). But he is most certainly not the only one who uses this Jewish formulation for identifying Jesus as divine. These references are found throughout the Synoptic Gospels as well. First, there is the fact that only one reason is given for His crucifixion—blasphemy. When on trial before the Sanhedrin, the High Priest asked Him:
“Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One?” Then Jesus answered, “I AM”; and “you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” At that the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further need have we of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” They all condemned him as deserving to die.”
(Mk 14:55-64, c.f. Mt 26:59-66, Lk 22:66-71)
Notice that Jesus invokes the Divine Name and equates Himself with God by prophesying that He will sit at God’s right hand. Likewise, He is also accused of blasphemy for setting Himself equal to God when He forgives sins (c.f. Mk 2:6-7, Mt 9:3).
Perhaps His clearest revelation comes in the form of a question to the Pharisees about whose son the Messiah will be. They tell Him David, which He does not deny but He shakes their limited understanding by quoting from Psalm 110: “The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies under your feet’? If David calls him ‘lord,’ how can he be his son?” (Mt 22:44-45, c.f. Mk 12:35–37; Lk 20:41–44) By referring to the Messiah as both pre-existing David and David’s LORD, He is admitting to being God Incarnate.
The External Evidence
Those who challenge that Jesus said that He was God often overlook the fact that we have external evidence as well. They try to attack the timing and historical accuracy of the Bible but forget that we have writings of the Apostolic Fathers that confirm what has been said has been received as such. These writings show that Christ’s divinity was not something added later on but was understood to be true directly out of the hands of the Apostles. There are numerous quotations that could be shared, but a few should suffice to show that the gospels are historically reliable. First there is Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of John who was likely ordained by Peter who said, “For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God’s plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit” (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians 18:2). There is also the aforementioned St. Irenaeus, the disciple of St. Polycarp who was a disciple of John who said “…He indicates in clear terms that He is God, and that His advent was in Bethlehem…” (AH, Book 3, Chapter 20). Finally we have Pliny the Younger, a Roman Governor, describing Christians as “singing hymns to Christ as to a god” in a letter to the Emperor Trajan.
Given both the internal and external evidence, we must conclude that Jesus did make the claim that He was God. This, of course, doesn’t prove that He was, but it does render our potential quadrilemma as a trilemma. Christianity cannot be mixed with other religions because of the unique demands Jesus makes upon His followers. He is either Lord or Liar, but you must choose one or the other.