Arianism

Arianism

Wrong Trinity

History

          In AD 313 the Diocletian persecution had just ended and Constantine rose to the throne. He proclaimed Christianity to be legal and there was joy in all the land. Slowly evil began to creep back up (honestly evil was there the whole time, but I’m trying to paint a nice word picture). Arius, a Libyan preacher, began teaching a view of the trinity which would eventually be named after him and be called Arianism. Arius spread his teaching by writing songs about Arianism and disseminating them all across Christendom.

            The trinity was the hot topic in the early church. Arianism stood in opposition to an orthodox view of the trinity. The champion for orthodoxy at the time was a man named St. Athanasius. Athanasius’ mentor Alexander presided over the council of Nicea the first Ecumenical council (basically a meeting of a bunch of awesome dudes who know a lot about the Bible). The council of Nicea declared Arianism a heresy, but unfortunately it took till around the 7^th century for Arianism to finally die out.

Theology

            Arianism teaches…

·         God is separate from the lesser being Jesus

·         Jesus was created

·         Jesus was made from nothing

Orthodoxy was defined at the Council of Nicea as believing…

·         “that is from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God,

·         begotten not made

·         consubstantial”

In English…

·         God and Jesus are the same in essence and equal

·         Jesus is eternal and was never created

·         God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit all consist in the same substance (John 1:1)

How does Arianism affect us today?

          Today Arians exist, but no one really holds to historic Arianism. The Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses both have a view of the Trinity which is similar to Arianism. Also many liberal protestant seminaries and preachers are teaching varied strains of Arianism. The important thing to remember is that Jesus is fully God, fully man and eternal. If Jesus is not entirely God then He wouldn’t have had power over death. If Jesus isn’t eternal then he couldn’t bear the wrath the eternal offense committed against God incurred to our account. If Jesus is not fully man then he couldn’t have correctly represented human kind. Arianism (or any deviant view of the trinity) completely skews the Gospel.

Random Fact       

And if you are wondering if Aryanism has anything to do with this…it doesn’t. They are just homonyms.