Briefly, the Arian heresy can be summed up in this short proposition: one, God the Father gave birth to the Son, Jesus Christ who was born, has an origin of existence; two, once the Son was not; He had a beginning, was created by a superior being; three, Christ was created out of nothing, before then, nothing existed but the Father whose name was Jehovah.
Arius arrived at this seemingly reasonable theory because, not knowing the scripture, he sought to supply an answer for a question the ‘Bible never completely answered; namely, how Christ is both God and man, never ceasing, never beginning, and never ending and yet true to the Nature of each.’
In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul reveals glimpses of the mysterious relationship existing between the eternal God and His identical Son. In the first chapter of this letter Paul also declares that Christ is “the power and the wisdom of God,” while John wrote that Jesus Christ was “the true God and eternal life”. 1 John 5:20 Arianism was mute before this revelation of truth, since IF the Word/ Reason/ Wisdom of God did not always exist then the Father also has lacked true completeness; for were the Word not eternal then the Father has not possessed eternal wisdom, reason and power! Christ is the FULNESS of both the Father and the Son in Him!! Colossians 2:9, Hebrews 1:3, Titus 1:3, John 1:1 Arius also neglected to address the verses of Scripture which reveal the Lord Jesus equality with the Father (see John 8:58, Exodus 3:14). In the face of all this evidence Arius preferred to remain silent!! “All that the Father has is Mine”, John 16:15, and “I and the Father are one”, John 10:30 (which we mentioned last week), Arian ignored. What MUST be answered is, IF Christ possesses all that the Father has, does He not possess His titles and share His intrinsic deity?? Again, Arianist/Jehovah Witnesses are silent!!
Time and time again the Arianist have raged about Isaiah’s words of Isaiah 9:6-“For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulders; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” The Russellites dare not deny the prophecy spoken of Christ, yet, it ascribes to Him deity, Athanasius, and later Chalcedon and Chrysostom, the greatest enemies of Arianism, led the battle against the impious Arius: at the Council of Nicaea which convened in Bithynia in the summer of 325 AD, Athanasius had the satisfaction of seeing the Arian theology officially condemned as heresy and its leaders excommunicated. Some 300 bishops banded together against the Arian minority of 30 (which dwindled to 18), as the Nicaean Council set its stamp of approval (although that was not needed, who were they?) on what the Scriptures had always taught, Jesus is “the true God and eternal life”. 1 John 5:20
The Arianist and now their disgusting children, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, allow Christ all the attributes and titles of God that relate to God, but the equality of the Father’s Substance or Nature. Question: if Christ be not the same Nature as the Father and the Holy Spirit, then He must be inferior to them and the unity of the Godhead becomes a hollow linguistic sham!! Paul, writing under the direction of the Holy Spirit declared that at the resurrection of Christ “every knee should bow and every tongue would confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:9-10
Today, the Russellites, Jehovah’s witnesses still run around lying about the deity of our Lord. THIS IS the heart of the Watchtower Tract and Bible Society!!
