We have discussed how the cults blaspheme that Union of Christ.  Every so often a "new cult" will spring up, teaching a deviation of the Union that we have not heard of before.  This section will show you that there's nothing really new under the sun.  All modern-day cults have their roots back in the ancient cults of the early Church age.  All modern cults have done is to copy the older cults, perhaps changing some terms so as to make it sound like newly discovered doctrine.  Let's take a look at some of these "new cults" in the light of ancient history.
 

There were both Christian and non Christian Ebionites.  These people denied the Deity of Christ because of Deuteronomy 6.3-4 (which we have studied before. See our studies on the Trinity of God).  The Ebionites believed that Jesus became God only when the Holy Spirit descended on Him at His Water Baptism.  In the same way the Ebionites believed that all believers are a little God  just like Jesus was.  In reality we all are only men, not God. Jesus was and is the only Man who ever walked the earth who could be rightfully called "God in the Flesh".

We have already refuted all of Ebionism's claims except one: that we become God-like at the point of salvation.  This is a confusion of the ministry of the Indwelling of the Spirit.  True, we do receive the Holy Spirit of God at the point of salvation.  But the Spirit indwells or lives in us, yet distinctly separate from our souls.  The Spirit does not mix with our souls, but works in union with us.  Even God does not have the power to re-create Himself: He cannot make other Gods out of mortal man, even with His infinite power.  Christ was and is God, not because He was created to be so, but because He self existed as God from infinity to infinity.
 

1 John 4:2-3 "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world."

.. Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God.  This heresy was widespread in the world in the time of the Apostles.  Sabellius, a heretic condemned at the council of Rome (253 AD), extended this doctrine so that it also perverted the doctrine of the Trinity of God.  Sabellius held that God was not in three Persons.  God was only one Person who showed Himself to man in three manifestations.  Sabellius claimed that Jesus was the one true God who manifested Himself as Father, Spirit, and Son.  Though Dolcitism  is no longer known by its original name, its theories live on among the Christian Monotheistic cults. The most popular of the modern "Jesus Only" cults is the United Pentecostal Church.
 

1. If it Christ was the only begotten of God then there must have been a time when He was not begotten.
2. The Son possessed a nature like the Father's yet not the same nature as the Father's.

John 14:28  "Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I."

Arius reasoned that, if Jesus said the Father was greater than Himself then He was lesser than the Father and a created being.  But he failed to take the verse in its proper historical context.  As Calvin stated:

"Christ does not here compare the Divinity of the Father with his own, neither His own human nature with the Divine essence of God, but rather His present state with the celestial glory to which He must shortly be received..."

When Jesus walked the earth He walked it as a Man. This is because the Plan of God required that He live, work, and die as Man to atone for our sins. This was the only way He could be a proper redemptive sacrifice for us. Arius failed to recognize this because he failed to recognize Christ's Hypostatic Union.

The second verse Arius used was:

Matthew 19:16-17 "And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."

Arius felt that Jesus, by rejecting the title of Good and applying it only to God, Jesus was directly stating that He was not God.  There is nothing farther from the truth.

First, look at the context.  In the background a young man is coming to Christ to earn his way into  eternal life.  This young man has rejected Jesus as the way unto life (John 14.6).  The young man has determined that he can be good enough on his own to get into Heaven without the help of the Son.  He further recognizes Jesus as mere man only, with no power to help him obtain salvation.  This is seen through the title RABBI or Master.  RABBI is a term applied to a human teacher, and by using this term to Christ the young men shows he was rejecting the Hypostatic Union of Christ.

So the young man comes to Christ, refers to Him as a mere human teacher, and dresses up the title with the adjective Good.  Jesus rejects this adjective, not because He is not God, but because He is trying to prove a point.  No mere man is ever good, for all men are dead in their sins (Romans 3.1-13; Ephesians 2.1-3).  Jesus teaches, "If you are going to recognize Me as a mere man rather than your Savior, do not call Me Good.  There are no Good people.  All men are dead in their sins."  The young man obviously missed the doctrinal point (as did Arius), because Jesus went on and explained how hard it would be to get into Heaven using works.  If Jesus was a mere man saying that the things He said, then He could not be good.  As C.S. Lewis stated, He was either a demon from hell or a madman.  Jesus is either in Hypostatic Union and Good, or out of Union and possessed.  There is no midpoint!
 

Eutikese (an Abbot at the Church of Constantinople, 5th century A.D.) invented yet another twist. Eutikese held that Jesus had three natures and one personality. He said Jesus had a Divine Nature, a Human Nature, and a mixed Humano-Divine Nature. This cult was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D.
 

Another theologian, Ritchell, introduced what he called "German Radical Criticism" of the Bible.  He taught that Christ had no Hypostatic Union, that it was impossible for any man to have two natures.  Ritchell declared that Christ was merely a man who totally submitted Himself to the will of God.  In the same sense, according to this teaching, any of us today could reach what Christ did by exhibiting the same submission to God.

Harry Emerson Fosdick taught that every Christian has the same amount of Divinity that Christ had:  only in degree do we differ from what Christ possessed before God.

Joseph Settler (a quasi Lutheran theologian), taught that Christ was not preexistent with God literally, but Christ was only foreknown in the mind of the one true God.  Settler emulated his mentor Arius in most of his doctoral views.  Settler, as did Arius, denied both the Hypostatic Union as well as the Trinity of God.

Professor Henry Van Doussan, a quasi Presbyterian theologian, used a slightly different twist to reject the Hypostatic Union.  He held that Christ was not fully God, but that God was fully present in Christ as He would be in any man.  God and Christ were one only in the sense of their unity of purpose, but Christ was certainly not the equal of God.  Doussan stated:

"Unless God is present in the life of every man, then He cannot become present in the life of Jesus of Nazareth .."

Doussan did not create a new Theology, but only emulated his earlier cultic mentors.  There are many different cultic views concerning the person of Jesus Christ today. All such views are inspired by Satan, the Father of lies. Satan tried to trick our Lord Jesus (Matthew 4) into turning away from His Hypostatic Union and the Plan of God. When this failed Satan convinced unbelievers of both yesterday and today that Jesus was no more than a mere man. If such attacks succeed then there can be no salvation for these people, because the heart of salvation is to accept the historic Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. We cannot work our way into salvation: we must rely on what Jesus did for us at the Cross and beyond within His Hypostatic Union.

If Satan can trick the believer into minimizing or disregarding the unique Person of Christ he can cause:

1. Stunted growth in the believer. This doctrine is pivotal to so many other Bible doctrines that to reject the unique Person of Christ leads to deeper and deeper departures from the truth.
2. An idea that we can "work our way" to Heaven. The witness of the Cross is destroyed when we tell the unbeliever "you must accept Christ and do this, or do that" to be saved. Unbelievers become believers when we tell them of their hopeless situation and show them that Jesus is the way out of Hell. Unbelievers stay unbelievers when we tell them to work their way to Heaven, to work their own way out of this hopeless situation.

God is the only Savior of the world.
 

If God is the only Savior, and Christ is declared to be the Savior, then Christ must be equal to God.

Hosea 13:4  "Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me."

John 4:42  "And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world."
 

If God is the Creator, and Christ is declared to be the Creator in parallel, then Christ must be God.

Isaiah 40:28  "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding."

John 1:3  "All things were made by him (Christ); and without him was not any thing made that was made."
 

If the Judge, and Christ is declared to be the Judge in parallel, then Christ must be God.

Joel 3:12  "Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about."

John 5:26-27 "For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man."
 

If the Shepherd, and Christ is declared to be the Shepherd in parallel, then Christ must be God.

Psalms 23:1 "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want."

John 10:11  "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."
 

Since God is the Rock, if Christ is declared to be the Rock in parallel, then Christ must be God.

Psalms 18:2  "The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower."

1 Corinthians 10:4  "And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ."
 

If God only is to be worshipped, and Christ in parallel is worshipped, then Christ must be God. Not even the Archangels are allowed to be worshipped.

Psalms 148:1-5 "Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights. Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts. Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created."

Hebrews 1:6-8 "And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom."

Matthew 8:2-3 "And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed."

God alone is to be called the Lord (KURIOS) as this is a title of Deity.  But Christ is referred to in the new Testament exclusively as the Lord.  This is the New Testament equivalent to the Old Testament YHWH, the Divine name of God.  Cults usually try to play down the use off KURIOS when applied to Jesus by noting that many Kings and Rulers were also called KURIOS in the ancient Greek literature.  This is because many Rulers of this era set themselves up as gods.  Many believers were martyred in the early Christian Church because they called Jesus KURIOS, refusing to bow down and worship Caesar as God. KURIOS  is a title of Deity, and though wrongly applied to carnal Rulers, it was rightly applied to Jesus Christ in the Scripture.

1.  In the ancient Greek world children were given three names at birth just as we name our children today.  The three names of a child were called the Pri-Nomen, Nomen, and Cog-Nomen.  Though these names equate somewhat to our First, Middle, and Last names, they are not equivalent.  The Greek Pri-Nomen is equivalent to our First name.  In the case of Paul the Apostle his christened name (or what he was normally called), the Pri-Nomen, was SAULOS or Saul.  The Nomen  wasn't just a Middle name as we have today, but was representative of the family name.  In the case of Saul his family name was PAULOS or Paul.  This is equivalent to our last name today.  The Cog-Nomen was the tribal name of the early Greek person.  Again, in Saul's case this Cog-Nomen was BENJAMINOS as he was from the tribe of Benjamin.  So the actual name of Saul was SAULOS PAULOS BENJAMINOS, or Saul Paul of the tribe of Benjamin, according to Greek culture.

The Jews were so entrenched in early Greek culture (for they had been in Roman captivity 400 years) at time of Christ that they named their children after the Greek order.  But when Jesus was born He was given one name by his earthly mother:  Jesus.  The Pri-Nomen  Jesus literally means "God with us".  So Jesus' Pri-Nomen recognized the Divine aspects of the Hypostatic Union.  Jesus was given a Nomen from His Heavenly Father, this being "Christ" or CHRISTOS.  Translated, CHRISTOS means the anointed one, Messiah.  So the Nomen of our Lord recognized the humanity of the Hypostatic Union, as Man only can be anointed by God.  Jesus was never given a Cog-Nomen, but the closest equivalent to it was the title KURIOS, or Lord.  So Jesus' complete name (and title) was literally "God with us, the Anointed One, Messiah our Lord".

2. It is easy to see the dangers of the cultic views concerning the Hypostatic Union.  What makes these views more dangerous is the ease in which they seem to infiltrate our churches.  When the early Church went apostate it turned to the Roman Empire for protection, rather than to God.  Once Christianity became a state religion Rome made conquered nations join the Church whether they believed in Christ or not.  The scene went like this: Rome would go in and conquer an area.  After conquest, the inhabitants were told "believe in Christ or die".  Naturally the inhabitants pretended to accept Christ, to come into the Church, but failed to drop their original gods and goddesses.  There are two instances of this recorded in the Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words:

One group of people that Rome conquered believed in Astarte, the heavenly goddess of fertility.  She was to be worshipped in a special celebration once a year on Friday.  When Rome conquered these unbelievers they merged their special celebration with a celebration of Christ's resurrection called "Easter".  They celebrated the day of Christ's death on the Cross on (good) Friday.  They celebrated His resurrection on Sunday.  Though Christ was resurrected on Sunday, there is no way He could have been crucified on Friday and been in the grave three days and three nights as He prophesied (John 2.19-20).  Further perversion of the celebration of Christ's resurrection was the "looking for Easter eggs", another Pagan element in Astarte worship. Though this has been passed off as just clean fun for the kids, it's roots are in false worship, not in Christianity.

Another group of people conquered by Rome worshipped the bull-god Tammuz. Their symbol of worship was the letter "T". After their conquest they modified their symbol to the traditional form we now recognize as the Christian Cross. Every time the Scripture tells us that Jesus died on the "Cross" the Greek word used is STAUROS, which literally means "a tree". Crucifixion was a Roman punishment reserved for the basest of criminals, so no excess money was spent on the implement of death. The Romans usually trimmed a tree into a pole and, nailing the prisoners hands together above and his feet below, righted the pole to allow them to die by slow suffocation. There is little evidence that Christ died on what we consider the traditional Cross, but He died on "a tree".

Christians today universally recognize the traditional Cross of Christ as a modified "t", and worship on Good Friday.  I am not saying that this is evil, nor improper, for God knows the heart of the believer and accepts true worship as we offer it. We do need to be aware, though, and on guard against cultic infiltration into the Church. Once a cultic idea becomes entrenched then, in time, it becomes accepted as Scripturally valid whether it is or not. We must be careful to avoid cultic misrepresentations of the Hypostatic Union of Christ. A correct understanding of who Jesus is is vital to your Christian maturity. God Bless you all!
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