High on Christology

Jim, can you recommend a site which lays out the various Christologies out there in an easy to understand way? I'd love to see where yours lies in the spectrum. I can never tell by reading your stuff — or the post this was linked to — what your position is. When you write, it is couched in such academic caveats as to make it impenetrable for this layman. Thanx — still love your site !

James — I love your tone and joking — one reason I love your site.That would be awesome if you could blog about this. I have thought of working on something myself. For instance, to help clarify things for myself, I did this blog with diagrams on Soteriology. I was wondering if a diagram of Christologies is possible.I see something that illustrates: 100% God spectrum to 100% Man version with areas in between with all the subtleties and then tell who embraces them and councils or others that declare them heretics.Then, where is James McGrath in that spectrum.A diagram is my way of remembering. Long paragraphs with descriptions of won't help me hold it in my head.We could imagine short descriptions like this?Marcionism – Christ was a purely spiritual entityNestorianism – Jesus and Christ were two different entitiesDocetism – Jesus appeared physical, but he was really incorporealApollinarism – Jesus had a human body and human soul, but a divine mindArianism– Jesus was the son of God, not God himselfIs a start but I am interested in who hold what views now among those calling themselves Christians.Does that give direction?Thanx for considering it James.

Mike — thanx much. I will read what you wrote a few times and try to digest it. Thanx.Oh, to others, here is the link to my Eschatologies.

Sabio, I'm already wondering about this idea, since some of the one-line summaries you offered didn't seem to me to really communicate the essence of the view of Jesus in that particular mode of thought – and clearly the term "entities" needs definition! :)Mike, thanks for the summary, although I think there is a sense in which, while there is much I disagree with in typical expressions of viewpoint "A", by focusing on sacrifice as the practical "dividing line" I am not forced to downplay the role of mediator figures and personified divine attributes as a facet of first-century Jewish monotheism.Oliver, it is hard to know what the historical Peter might or might not have thought. But I think that there is a clear contrast between the view of Jesus in John and that in Luke, for instance.Thanks for all this interesting discussion!

lol I'll try. Maybe one short post per viewpoint, rather than trying to do justice with a single sentence?Maybe I'll stick to NT authors and let others pick up where I leave off…

It is hard to imagine that the biblical doctrine of God is so obscure that it produces such a variety of conflicting ideas. Paul stated his obviously unitarian creed in I Cor. 8:4-6 by telling us that for Christians "there is one God, the Father." He could so easily have said "one God, the Father, Son and Spirit." Jesus expressed the same unitary monotheistic view of God by saying that the Father is "the only one who is truly God." The Son is then placed outside and alongside that One God of the Jesuanic and Jewish creed. The Son is the agent of the one God and distinguished from the One God.Jesus is the one Lord Christ, not the One Lord God. Psalm 110:1 is a cover text for the whole NT and the two lords are carefully distinguished as YHVH and one who is not YHVH but adoni, which never designates Deity. Jesus is introduced as the Lord Messiah in Luke 2:11. He is certainly not the Lord God, since the Lord God is only one Lord (Mark 12:29). This is the Pauline position when he carefully places Jesus outside the Shema (I Cor 8:4-6), and calls Jesus the Lord Messiah Jesus, over and over again. Jesus is the one "man Messiah" mediator between the one God and mankind (I Tim. 2:5).