Arius was a guy who lived around 300 A. D. and came up with the notion that Jesus was created. He was a bishop in the “church” who challenged the teaching common at the time that Jesus was God in the flesh. Arius thought that Jesus had the nature of God, but wasn’t God. According to Arius Jesus was created first, then God created everything else through Jesus. In his opinion, Jesus was in every way just like God, but wasn’t God. A church council had to be convened to formalize the doctrine of Jesus as God in order to answer this heretical nutball.
There is no Scriptural backup for this doctrine, at all. In fact, any Scripture that teaches the opposite, that Jesus is God, is explained away by Arians acknowledging that indeed Jesus is in every way “like God” but just isn’t God. In other words, to Arians if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has the nature of a duck, and does things only a duck could do, it isn’t a duck.
The proselytes of Arius in modern times come in slightly different forms and use various arguments to try and prove that Jesus isn’t God, but the arguments still have the same logical holes. Some, like the post on this blog by Timothy titled Yahweh and Yahshua, start off “just wanting to ask questions” but really want to shove their pet doctrine down people’s throats. Why, I have no idea. Well, wait a minute. I do have an idea. What Arius and his acolytes really want to do is tear down the Word.
This is how we recognize false doctrine. When you drill down to the heart of whatever it is they are trying to push you see that the basic idea is to destroy the integrity of the Word. They want to make it to where the Bible cannot be trusted to mean what it says. If they can destroy the integrity of the Word, then they accomplish two things: one is that the suckers that buy the doctrine stop following the Word; two is that we have to start listening to the pusher of the false doctrine. Because if we can’t trust the Word, we would have to trust the guy destroying the Word to tell us what it means. That way, the pusher of false doctrine gets the authority of God and becomes the Big Guy In Charge.
The logical holes in the Arian heresy are big enough to drive a truck through.
1) Jesus accepts worship (Matthew 14:33; 28:9). We are only to worship God.
2) Jesus forgives sins against God (Mark 2:1-13). Only God can forgive sins against God.
3) Jesus was crucified for “making himself equal with God.” (John 5:18; Philippians 2:6)
4) Jesus has the nature of God (Colossians 1:19), meaning He is “after the kind” of God.
5) Jesus would have to be related to both parties to be the kinsman redeemer.
6) Jesus was born of a virgin (the seed of the woman); He didn’t have the nature of Adam.
7) If Jesus was created, why would He have to be born?
8) Jesus claims to be God (Revelation 1:8, compare to Revelation 22:12-13).
These are just some of the major biblical arguments against the Arians. Apparently many of the Arians just can’t get past the idea that God could be born in human form; that He would allow Himself to be crucified; and that a perfect God would or could take on the sins of the world. So because they have a hard time understanding these perfectly clear Scriptural teachings, they make up an explanation that isn’t in the Bible. Then they have to twist and torque the plain meaning of the Word in order to back up their confusion.
Remember, though, the main purpose of doctrines such as this are to tear down the Word of God and make believers doubt. Then they can grab authority for themselves to “properly interpret” the Word. If you get some time, read through the previous post by Timothy. You will see he contradicts himself (saying that Jesus “loses his divinity” on the cross then later saying that Jesus didn’t lose his divinity for instance), confuses Scripture with opinion, and backtracks on a regular basis. A few minutes with people such as Timothy will get you going in circles in a hurry. Stick with the plain meaning of the Word, read it and do it, and you can’t go wrong.
Shalom
Bruce