GUEST AUTHOR
Jewish Jesus or Cosmic Christ?
BY JOHN D. GARR, PH.D., TH.D.
who and what was Jesus? Was he God, or was he man, or was he both God and man? The church was established on truth; however, it was chal- lenged by false doctrines. It is a miracle that the truth prevailed in the midst of the pervasive false teachings that arose. And, even though truth finally triumphed—at least officially—heresy continued to shape far too much of the practical application of the church’s orthodox teaching.
V
HERESY INFILTRATES THE CHURCH Among the first heresies that challenged the very existence of the
church were Gnosticism and Docetism. Both presented a perverted view of the nature of Yeshua in which his absolute humanity as a Jew among his Jewish brethren was denied in favor of views that made him solely the cosmic Christ, the good God of the “New Testament” who stood in opposition to Yahweh, the malevolent God of the “Old Testament.” Marcion developed his own version of Gnosticism by declaring that
Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, was the Demiurge who created the evil material world in which the immortal souls of men were trapped. He believed that Jesus was the good God who came to end this contami- nation by destroying Yahweh and his religion, Judaism, and establishing a completely new religion called Christianity. Marcion purported that Jesus was not the Jewish Messiah, that he was not born of Mary, and that he only appeared in spirit during the time of his ministry. The Docetists—including their most extreme sect, the Monophy-
sites—believed that there was only one nature in Jesus–the divine nature. For them, Jesus was never actually human, he did not suffer death on the cross, and, therefore, he did not need to be resurrected from the dead. They believed that Jesus’ physical appearance was merely a phantom, a disguise that he wore so that that people could perceive and worship him. This heretical system totally denied the incarnation of Jesus as a Jew. The church branded both the Gnostics and the Docetists as heretics;
however, their influence placed the church on a path toward exchanging the historical Jewish Jesus in favor of the cosmic Christ. As the church gradually denied its Jewish heritage in favor of concepts from Greek phi- losophy and Eastern mystery religions, it became easier and more popu- lar for Christians to deny the Jewishness of Jesus and to look upon him as a mystical—if not mythical—figure of the Christ, who far transcended Jesus in his humanity. Amazingly, the cosmic Christ came to be viewed as being not Jewish despite the fact that the very word Christ itself is a literal Greek translation of the Hebrew word Mashiach (Messiah). Quite literally, no one could possibly be “Christ” without being Messiah—and, therefore, Jewish!
ORTHODOX THEOLOGY AND CHRISTOLOGY Out of centuries of often vitriolic debate, both orthodox Christian theology (the study of God) and Christology (the study of Christ) emerged. Both were based on the high Christology of the apostles them- selves who clearly understood that Yeshua was far more than a man, another prophet, or even the Messiah: he was God in the flesh. Their absolute Jewish monotheism made it impossible for them to believe that a man could ever become God; however, they came to understand that the God of Israel had chosen to become human in the person of his only begotten Son, Yeshua. Paul summarized this high Christological view of Yeshua by interpreting the Shema, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord [YHWH] our God [Elohim] is one Lord [YHWH],” to mean that “There is one God [Elohim], the Father Almighty, and one Lord [YHWH], Yesh- ua HaMashiach” (1 Corinthians 8:6).
10 | Jewish Voice Today JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011
www.JewishVoiceToday.org
ery shortly after his death, resurrection, and ascension, controver- sies about Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus, the Christ) began to arise among those who professed themselves to be the Christians. Just
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