#105 Understanding Modern-Day Heresy + Dr. Steve Blakemore

Defining Heresy and Its Modern Relevance

Let's talk about heresy. Are we committing it today? I brought in. Dr. Steve Blakemore.

Jesus Christ and the Father: The Historic Playground of Heresy

Is there anything that you see today that we don't even know the damage that we're doing? What is the relationship of Jesus Christ? to God the Father that has always been the.

Playground of heresy. You're pointing on something that I didn't even know that I was doing Jesus as this.

Buffer between us and that angry distant.

Judgmental God, I didn't even know that I was creating distance between a God.

I was supposed to be very as close as Jesus you ask about modern-day heresies. Well, hi, it's Cass.

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The Purpose of Studying Heresy

Let's talk about heresy. What is it and are we committing it because my question is looking backwards at what was heretical then and is it still? Taking place today because what if the popular Christian beliefs that we've all accepted as faithful are actually heresy.

Especially from the early church perspective and myself included with others. I don't really know the true definition of heresy what it means what it looks like and how we recognize it in the Bible. So today I brought in dr. Steve Blakemore to join us on why context matters.

What is heresy how the early church councils shaped Christian doctrine and what modern Christians can learn from these debates today? Dr. Steve Blakemore, you are more than qualified to talk about this.

You are professor of Christian thought at Wesley Biblical Seminary. You're the co-founder of John and Charles Wesley Center for Christian thought and apologetics. You hold a BA from Asbury University and an M dip from Asbury Theological Seminary and an MA from Wake Forest University and a PhD from University of Tennessee.

Oh my gosh, what a mouthful. Welcome to the show. It's so glad to have I'm so glad to have you here. Well, it's really a joy.

It's a delight to be able to be with you and just hearing you rehearse all of those degrees. I would just like to say something everything that I've ever accomplished. Educationally, I I feel like I stumbled into it.

Really when I was in high school when I was in high school or even when I was in college No one would have ever pointed at me and said, oh wow. He's going to get a whole lot of degrees behind his name.

So I it kind of exhausts me just hearing you rehearse those those degrees. But I you know. Degrees are letters. What matters is whether or not you learn anything along the way and are willing to have some degree of wisdom.

Shaped into your cranium. And I don't know that I've accomplished that yet, but I'm still on that journey.

Well heresy seems like your zone of genius, you know, that seems like the one thing that you do really know. How did you come to choose that, you know, even as you just fell deeper and deeper into your education?

Well, I don't know that I really chose to study heresy. But in learning to think theologically about the Christian faith. Mmm, that is gonna have to be involved in a dialogue. Dialogue since it's only one way because they're speaking to me but I'm thinking about you have to be involved in a dialogue with Christians who lived centuries and centuries and centuries and centuries and centuries ago.

The Bible did not just drop out of heaven you know at the beginning of the 20th century or the 21st century the scriptures were developed and the scriptures were read and the scriptures were interpreted for centuries and centuries and centuries by faithful people who wanted to live according to the revelation of God.

And therefore what I began to realize as I Studied more and more about Christian theology and I came to be formed more fully and deeply by this Conversation if you will across the centuries with those who had gone before I began to realize that much of Christian thought got clarified.

Christian thought about the nature of God the nature of Jesus Christ. The purpose of Jesus Christ what it means to believe and follow Jesus. It was clarified as you as time went on went on it was hammered out.

It was hammered out in reaction to Heretical groups that were bringing along other ideas and trying to incorporate them into the Apostolic faith that had been proclaimed from the Apostles serving Jesus.

And so heresy heresy became a good tool for me to begin to assess How these things that we now take for granted in the contemporary world? Well, if you're an Orthodox Christian you take them for granted how these things really were chiseled with much labor against the granite of Heresy and that is what gave shape to our to our Christian faith.

Scripture, Tradition, and the Clarification of Doctrine

You start with the scriptures. But then people will read the Bible and interpret it in all kinds of ways and the church had to come along and say no. For different reasons you can't interpret it just any way you want to it means something and it has to mean What it meant to the Apostles to Jesus, etc.

It's a that's a really beautiful way of kind of explaining the shapement like the shaping of it that we have our beliefs and they Evolved as they were interpreted and when heresy came up it almost was the chisel.

This is what it isn't and this is what it is. And then there we have a more pure understanding of the faith.

Yes. What I would say what I would just caution us oftentimes when people hear about our Christian faith evolving They think about it changing and I think that it got clarified. Well, it got focused. It got more precise because everybody was always wanting to be Anchored back in the biblical truth.

They didn't want to have something developed or some other way of thinking come along and allow it to be added and so when they're using Basically some ideas like they're using some of the tools say of Greek culture of Greek intellectual culture of Greek Philosophy, they're not incorporating that into the Bible.

They're using those analytical tools to give precision of expression precision of understanding to the biblical faith that had been inherited. And so evolving is good if it's always an evolution of Precision and understanding that's clarifying what's in Scripture for us.

Hmm.

I'd hope that makes sense. It absolutely makes sense. And I think that there's much more application than you think, you know beyond Scripture that I personally should evolve and not change but become more precise and Clarified.

Heresy as Departure from Apostolic Teaching

So simply said what is heresy in your terms? Well, I won't put it just in my terms.

I'm gonna put it in the terms that have been we could say inherited across the centuries heresy comes from a Greek word heresis and in the context of the Church Fathers that is let's say the people who come after the generation of the Apostles.

Those are the church fathers those who inherited the leadership of the Christian faith after Peter Paul James John they all died. Jesus has not returned this next generation for the Church Fathers on into the early theologians.

They had they just they did they defined heresy in these terms. Heresis is a word that means if I could paraphrase a little bit It means to chart your own course or try to make your own way. It is a departure from The way the truth in the life the path of life Jesus says broad is the path that leads to destruction narrow is the way that leads to life and so heresy was a departure from the apostolic teaching about Jesus Christ.

So it's much more than just being wrong in your interpretation. Oh, yeah, you can be wrong about a lot of things. I'm sure Without a doubt that someday when I die and stand before the Lord either the Lord himself or some angel in heaven Will look at me and say how in the heck did you ever think that was right?

You can be wrong and not be a heretic. You might hold a heretical view Something that is wrong. But if you are willing to be corrected if you are willing to submit your own ideas your own Assumption of wisdom to the teaching of those who have gone before be involved.

Yes in this as I called it a conversation. Thinking about what they said why they said it the way they said it. How do I understand it in my context today, but nonetheless if I'm willing to have my Beliefs about Christ about God about salvation about the church, etc Etc.

If I'm willing to always hold my beliefs not loosely as though I could just get rid of them at any time but hold them in such a way that when there is a reason for me to stop and say wait a second if what I believe is not consistent with what has always been believed and clarified by church councils and Theologians across the centuries if what I believe is not consistent with what has been believed.

Then maybe I need to let go of it to reassess it. You've become a heretic when you're with when you're unwilling to Reconsider and to be corrected and to develop a different perspective. Than one you might think is the only way to interpret a something about the faith.

Okay, and we're gonna get into a few examples of heresies because for me like as a Sunday school Christian I I immediately just with what you're saying. Maybe it's registering as like, okay, so I'm just I'm Misinterpreting verse and the verses are so vast and so complicated and we're 12 ,000 2 ,000 years removed.

So surely I I'm committing heresy at some point because I'm not on the mark a hundred percent of time. But just to kind of clarify and soothe anybody that like me who might be kind of worried about that.

Denominational Differences and the Boundaries of Heresy

You're talking more so like doctrinal or like dogmatic beliefs not like Denominations obviously interpret scripture differently, but they're not committing heresy. So, would you say that sometimes you just read the text wrong, but you can be corrected but somehow denominations are different.

Do you mind just kind of clarifying that for me? Well, why do we why do we have different denominations? Especially within Protestantism and evangelicalism. Why are there so many different groups? Well, a part of it is they have read certain things in the Bible about which there is leeway there's There's room for Interpretation right like for instance, who is a candidate for baptism if you're Baptist, it's only an adult believer if you're a Methodist or certain branches of Presbyterianism or Lutherans or quite a few others even the infant children of Believers are candidates for baptism.

Now the people who think about adult baptism can say that's heresy. No, no, that's not heresy. There's never been a clear-cut articulation of who's a candidate for baptism so there is room for interpretation that is not going to have the tragic consequences of maybe Damning your soul.

So there is so how do you how should you how should you baptize? Dunk them pour water on them sprinkle them. There's plenty of ways to read the Bible and come up with various Interpretations on things like that.

The Trinity and the Core of Christian Faith

Now, there are other doctrines that that groups differ on significantly, however, if every any Denomination in any Christian says well, I affirm the identity of God is a mystery the Trinity Father Son and Holy Spirit I affirm that Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the Son of God the second person of the Trinity I affirm that the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ Transforms my life and the Holy Spirit is Also the presence of God the third person of the Trinity in me and also I affirm that there's only one adequate sufficient all-sufficient and complete Redeemer which is Jesus Christ if I affirm those kind of things and I affirm that I need a Savior and I need to Turn in faith if I affirm those things I'm on pretty good ground because that's the core.

That's the core of the gospel, right? That's the core. So I'm saying I may I may have gotten this way off track on that. But no, no a person doesn't need to fear being a heretic because you cannot really be a heretic.

Unconsciously, that's very reassuring. Actually. Thank you. Well, if you don't mind.

Heresy is something you choose knowingly. Oh, yeah, that is really reassuring actually. When you say I'm right, we're right everybody else is wrong across the history of the church. We got it, right. Interesting.

So that that's the danger point for me. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think what will help is if we examine just three different areas. Where there's a lot of heresy or areas where there could be a lot of heresy and we can kind of walk through it.

The Deity of Christ in John 1

So the first one I want to talk about is John 1 14. That's not what I was gonna say. John 1 1 through 5 in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning through him.

All things were made without him. Nothing was made. That has been made in him was life and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

So where is there heresy in this?

Well, there is no heresy in that statement, obviously. Because that's the writing of Apostolic Scripture. Yeah but the room we could say the room for heretical interpretations is a is a fairly technical issue and in the when it says in the beginning was the Word and the Word was With God and the Word was God.

When it says the Word was with God in Greek It's ha theos the God and then when it says the Word was God. It doesn't have the definite article ha and so a lot of groups have come along and said wait a second.

That means that the The one being talked about here. The Word is Divine, but the one being talked about here is not Eternally equal with the one true God the Father.

When it says with God is the main kind of room there.

Yes, the Word was no. The word in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and Yes, the Word was with. If you after with in Greek it would be the definite article the the Word was with the God the one true God and the Word was God.

And so there have been groups that have come along and said, oh that means he was divine. But he's not equal to the one true God the Father. So that's that's where the heresy comes from in in that particular paragraph.

Amazing. So it would be almost heretical there to say God Jesus is not God Jesus is not. Well, obviously like Jesus. It's more saying that there is a distinction.

Distinction Without Difference in the Trinity

There between God the Father and Jesus not just a distinction there's a difference a Distinction and a difference are not the same thing like there's a distinction between me and another human being. Right, but there's not a difference in our essence.

I'm a human that person's a human. So there is a distinction, but there's not a radical difference in our natures. That's the way I would put it. I have a human nature. You have a human nature, but we're both human and yet we're distinct expressions of the singular Humanity the singular human nature.

So yeah, it would be wrong. It would be right to say there is a distinction. But it we'd be wrong to say there is a difference in nature and the difference in nature would be if Jesus The Word is not eternally equal in divinity with the Father.

Then the only option is to say the Word is a creature because God is uncreated. Right, the Father is uncreated. Nobody made God. Right. Well, okay. So that's that's the that is the number one Essential qualifying characteristic of being God you're uncreated.

Right. So if the Word is not uncreated along with the God then the Word has to be in some way or another a Created thing a creature in other words. Yeah. So but if you the people who have been who have who've taken this little paragraph and on the basis of the lack of the Definite article have said Oh Jesus is not equal to God.

He's somehow a lesser being the super being the greatest of all Beings that are possible as close to God as you can possibly be without being God. They've taken it and said on the basis of that paragraph They've given those kind of interpretations.

But if you look at the rest of the gospel of John Jesus is pretty clear when he says things like the Father and I are One later in the gospel of John when he says if you've seen me you've seen The fuck and in John 17, he says father I have glorified you on earth now you glorify me with the same glory I had with you not in your presence, but with you before the world was made.

So in the context of the gospel of John, it's pretty clear that John is wanting to say to us that Jesus is The eternal word who is equal with the Father. His essence is to be eternally divine always has been divine always will be divine.

He has equality with the Father and yet there is distinction. The word was with God that's distinction, right if the word is with God. There's a distinction but to then say the word was God is to erase any difference in divinity.

Yeah, I mean it makes so much sense when you say it, but I'm not putting I hope I'm not putting your listeners to sleep. No, it's just a hard topic.

I think that's why it's just it's really there's so many nuances that it's just it's hard but what you're saying is making sense and you're doing a great job saying it and I can see now what you meant before cuz.

You're right. Like a denomination is going to read that and if you're going to the mentally oppose what is so clear in John Despite your differences in denomination, then I can see how that's just all out going the wrong way.

But when you are being heretical and you're saying that there is a difference between oh my gosh The light just came into blind me. Hold on. When you're saying that there is a Difference between God the Father and Jesus and you choose to adopt more heretical beliefs it feels like that would be a completely different religion that would almost be like like a atheist or agnostic like somebody who believes that Jesus is a Common person.

Is that kind of the cost here of not? Accepting what you're saying and kind of going in a more heretical route.

The Incarnation and the Identity of the Son

Well, once again, let's move it beyond what I'm saying. This kind of interpretation is what the Christian Church is always held to. This is essential Christianity. And so yes the early fathers of the church the theologians the ones who came right after the Apostles but also You know a couple of three or four generations later.

They were all saying the same thing if we deny Christ's equality with the Father Eternally that he didn't he did not become the Son of God. When he was born from the Virgin Mary the eternal Son of God became the man.

But Jesus did not become the Son of God. He was born the Son of God because the Word was made flesh to dwell among us. And if you deny that you are denying the fundamental thing that makes Christian faith Christian faith because the Christian faith doesn't tell us that God looked down on the Catastrophe that human beings had brought upon ourselves and said I think I'll send somebody to take care of this problem to die for their sinfulness to Destroy the power of evil on my behalf for them the Christian faith says no somehow in the mystery of who God is and what God is like that is Trinity the second person who is the first second person of the Trinity became Flesh became a human.

God did not send anybody. God came in the second person of the Trinity. That's why the distinction but no difference between them that language is important. It's not as though God the Father says I don't want to have anything to do with them son.

You go take care of it. No, there is one God three persons. There is this mystery that we can't figure out. I tell my students at times. They said well just give us an easy way to think about the Trinity.

I said there is no easy way to think about the Trinity if I could explain it to you. You would have to add me to the Trinity because I would have as much wisdom as God and now we'd have a holy quartet you know.

This reminds me. We could go on the road and start doing cover tunes or something.

Modalism and the Limits of the Water-Ice-Steam Analogy

I when I was like a baby when I started this three years ago I was so confused by the Trinity. It was genuinely one of those things where I'm like, I've just accepted it at face value. But now that I examine it, you're right.

It's very complicated. And then I saw the old water ice and gas Analogy, you know, all of them are water, but they're different forms. And so someone had a problem with that analogy. Yeah, maybe that that the God is the water.

But the Holy Spirit is the gas form and then Jesus is the ice and they're all the same, but they're all different. How is that not what you're saying? What's the where's the error in that analogy?

Well, there's nothing personal about that because what we're saying because God is personal God is not like a substance in which the substance that manifests itself in just three different ways, right?

Hmm. Water is it's all h2o, right? Mm-hmm. It's to manifest itself as water or steam or ice. Rather if you if you start with the biblical position that God whatever else God is God is not only just Uncreated but God is personal that is God is not just a thing.

But there is this personal aspect of God. Therefore in the language of Jesus Jesus is never relating to a different form of himself. He's always talking about the father the father sent me the father spirit and he Personal language the Holy Spirit's not a guy, you know.

But he will be for you what I have been to you. But he will be in you. And so the the the example of ice water and steam Depersonalizes and it also does away really with any of the true relational distinctions between the father and the son and the Holy Spirit steam and ice and water.

Have no personal relation to one another right. Steam is never aware of ice ice is never aware of water. But in the doc in the Bible you begin to realize Jesus on earth was fully aware that his father was in heaven.

He was fully aware that the Holy Spirit was still in heaven if you will and that he and the father Together would send the Holy Spirit to us. And so what we lose in when we go in the direction and by the way.

That was an ancient heresy ice water and steam called modalism. God has only revealed himself to us in three different Modalities modes so the ice water and steam has a lot of affinity with that ancient Heresy modalism and the thing that's important there is that we lose the personal aspect of God.

Being with us being for us being in us giving himself to us. Receiving us into himself bearing our burdens. That's what's lost if we move away from the personal.

Language toward those sorts of simplistic explanations. Okay. Yeah, I think for like the baby Christian it is Same substance different forms. But as you described that it it shows that it's almost a gross oversimplification of just the dynamic between the Holy Spirit God and Jesus.

Of Sure, they're all holy. But that's like kind of the same similarity the same way between ice water and steam is all like like h2o. When it comes to the relational and the personal aspects water ice that modality example just doesn't cover it and it makes it seems like something it's not and that's where the heresy comes in and.

Thank you for describing that because before I was like, it's such a simple idea that it kind of you know blankets the entire understanding. But I think when you describe it, there's so much more. I'm gonna go into John 1 14 because we keep talking about My that the word became flesh.

The Incarnation as God’s Presence in Human Flesh

I'm just gonna share my screen. I'm sorry if I caught you off guard last time I shared it. I thought it'd be nice. Yeah, it's great, okay. John 1 14 the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory and the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father full of grace and truth. Okay, so the word became flesh. Is that the issue here?

Well It's not the issue with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity this touches upon the doctrine of the incarnation.

What is that so when huh, what is the doctrine of incarnation just that God became.

Incarnation is yes. The incarnation is. Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God. He is the enfleshed the embodied embodied the inhumanized Presence of God in the world. That's the incarnation and.

Just to kind of put ourselves in the head spaces of First century Jews is this was so on. Excuse me. This was so unfathomable because to them God's God's God would never become a human. They would remain in the sky.

They are something beyond this world. They were divine and so the idea that a human could be at the same Level as a God is just unfathomable. Is that kind of oversimplification of like why this was such a struggle to believe?

Jewish Monotheism and the Mystery of Christ’s Divinity

Well Let's let's go back to the Apostles and the first Jewish Christians. They had been taught all along and if one of the things throughout the entire history of the Old Testament. Though the Old Testament is one long object lesson about how many times Israel got it wrong.

About there only being one true God. Yeah, right I mean, that's that's the that's the the ultimate lesson of the Old Testament and so when Jesus comes along and he begins to call himself the Son of Man, which is a Divine imagery from the book of Daniel which is is in the with God or he calls himself the Son of God the real the real catching point here was their Monotheistic the monotheistic lesson that they had learned There's only one God if you play around with that concept We've we've realized how much suffering that's brought to us across the centuries and so the idea that there can only be one God and anybody who claims to be equal with God is Claiming to be divine alongside of God that cannot be right.

That has to be wrong. Probably also the distinction between God the Creator and God's creation the material world was so drastically important for them that in order to protect not only the oneness the singularity the mono-ness of monotheism the idea that God could enter the world as a human being was an Unfathomable nobody had ever thought about that and so for the Jew for the first believers that was the Tripping point the only thing that finally convinces them that they have to think this way They no matter how hard it is We have to start thinking this way that there's the father.

But now the father has a son who is not the father, but he's equal with the father. Why do they come to believe they got to embrace that well It's pretty simple. Jesus said it and then he proved that he was telling the truth by being raised from the dead and if he comes back from The dead then that's pretty good proof that he wasn't pulling your leg.

It's pretty good proof that he is who he says he is and so now they're there. They're they got this issue to learn how to think about this. Yeah, as you as Christianity begins to spread among the Greeks and the Romans for them the idea that the gods would have anything to do with the material world whatsoever was Ludicrous because in their view the gods had their own realm and the material world was there was there Was the source of all evil so the gods would never have anything to do with that which was the source of all evil.

You know, there's so many things happening with this conversation, you know, it's unfathomable. That a god would become a human it's unfathomable that a human could have any godlike qualities and. Also kind of like what you said I'm just trying to sympathize a bit here with like the struggle and kind of understand why it was a struggle is if you're coming out of a polytheistic history of worshiping many gods whether you're Canaanite or you're Greek or you're Roman and.

You have that practice inside of you and your history and your family. You know, we we make offerings and we make sacrifices and you know, we've adopted different gods for different purposes. And now there's this Hebrew God who's been telling us over and over again that he is the one true God monotheism.

Brand new thing. They're not used to it. They're used to polytheism and now there's two of them. It's almost like slipping back into polytheism or is that not the right word for it? Like I'm I I'm not trying to make something this isn't but that that's how it feels.

Just kind of understanding this as we go deeper of like, okay one God got it. And now there's two of them and It's not polytheism because it's the same God. It's not yes big God little God and now there's multiple gods that I now make separate offerings and worships and all the prayers too.

Same God separate but same not two gods, but there is two of.

Exactly. Well, I have a part for them. Why they struggled but that but that's a part of the whole mystery. So the real question Cassian is is this for Christians and how we think about it. Is Jesus Christ Important.

Yeah. Okay. So why is he important his identity is what makes his it makes him important. It's not just what he did that makes him important, right? He's more important than Moses, right? He's more important than anyone.

So if Jesus matters then how we think about Jesus matters and the early church said wait a second. How we think about him has to be informed by what he said about himself what he demonstrated about himself in his miracles his assumption of divine Prerogatives like forgiving sins calming the storms, etc Etc.

What he says about himself his assumption of divine prerogatives and ultimately the fact that he willingly Laid down his life when he didn't have to on our behalf and then was raised from the dead. So for the for the earliest believers, yes, it was a problem because of what you said.

Okay, we got this figured out one God. Okay now wait a second because of Jesus. We have to learn to think about the oneness of God in a new way. So that takes me back to what I said what it takes me back to what I said about Making the contrast between the phrase distinct the word distinction and the word difference.

He's not a different divinity. He's not a lesser divinity. He's not an additional divinity. He is on with the father. But he is the father's son who was with God and was God and so this is the way that.

That the early apostles have to start thinking and it's a and we think you know. They just got it, you know after the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came boom. They had it all figured out then man.

They were they were just rocking and rolling just got it going boom. Boom, boom. Boom. No, we we got a step back and realize with some sympathy and great appreciation. These men and the women who were a part of the you know.

The first list of serious believers. They were learning how to live into a brand new reality and for them for ultimately not just for them. But for the whole of Christian history, this is not just some abstract Concept that's hard to wrap your head around.

Ultimately, what is at stake for them is salvation? How is it we are saved who is it that's saving us? How does he go about? Saving us. Well if Jesus Christ were just an angel. Let's say he's the highest of all God's angels, right.

And God said hey, you're my best angel. You go and die on the cross for their sins. Okay. Is is our guilt is our guilt from our sins. Is that the central problem of our lives? Most Christians just think that's our central problem.

But our central problem as you read Paul and Peter and John and Others our central problem is that we have lost the life of God. We have been Alienated from God we have been removed from the presence of God.

We have lost the presence of the Spirit to give us life and to give us Transforming power to become what God wants us to be we've lost all of that. So if that's what we've lost what has to be the cure.

God himself? Must come and bring his divine life back to us and that's what happens in the incarnation. When the Word is made flesh the Word has united himself to our humanness. The Word has taken upon himself our human struggle.

The Word has taken upon himself our Guiltiness not his. The Word lays down his life for the father. But he lays down his life for the father because the father Loves us and wants to restore us and so if he's not the divine Son of God.