Exam 2

Question 1

What are the eleven historical views that have been proposed to explain the nature(s)/person of Christ? (For this question, just list them and say them to yourself so you know how to pronounce them. We’ll define them on upcoming cards.)

Answer 1

1. Arianism
2. Apollinarianism
3. Ebionism
4. Docetism
5. Eutychianism
6. Nestorianism
7. Functional Christology
8. Adoptionism
9. Anhypostatic Christology
10. Kenoticism
11. Dynamic Incarnation

Question 2

What did Karl Barth believe concerning Jesus’s humanity?

Answer 2

Barth believed in Jesus’s humanity but saw nothing remarkable about it. It was not very revealing of the nature of God, and in fact may have done more to conceal it.

Question 3

What was most significant to faith according to Karl Barth?

Answer 3

Supernatural revelation.

Question 4

What did Rudolph Bultmann believe about the significance of Jesus’ humanity?

Answer 4

Following the lead of Martin Kähler, Bultmann divides the history of Jesus into the actual events of His human life and the impact He made upon believers. It’s not crucial what Jesus did, but how He transforms our lives. For example - His physical resurrection was not as important as whether we have been lifted from our old self-centered lives to an openness in faith to the future.

Question 5

What was most significant to faith according to Rudolph Bultmann?

Answer 5

Existential content of the preaching of the early church.

Question 6

Define and refute Arianism.

Answer 6

Arius, 4th century Alexandrian presbyter. God alone possesses the attributes of deity, but cannot share his being or essence with anyone else, or else He is not God. Jesus, although a perfect creature, was not self-existent, had no communion or direct knowledge of the Father, and was liable to change and sin. He was an intermediate being between God the Father and the rest of creation, a created god, but not God. His view, although condemned at the Council of Nicea in 325 and subsequent councils, lingers today among Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Refutation - Jesus was dependent upon the Father for the exercise of his divine attributes during his earthly ministry, but when he states that he and the Father are one (John 10:30 and 17:21), he expresses a great closeness or even an interchangeability between himself and the Father.

Question 7

Define and refute Apollinarianism.

Answer 7

A truncation of Jesus’s humanity. Apollinarius thought the idea of Jesus having human soul, mind, and reason as well as divine soul, mind, and reason was absurd. So he said that Jesus had a human body, but a divine soul which trumped His humanity.

Refutation - If Christ lacked human will, mind, and reason, it “hardly seemed correct to call him human at all” (Erickson, 652). Apollinarianism was condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 381.

Question 8

Define and refute Ebionism.

Answer 8

Ebionism can be traced to the Judaizers of the apostolic period. Ebionites denied the real or ontological deity of Jesus. They rejected the virgin birth, and believed Jesus was primarily a human, whom, at least for a time, was given the power of God to an unusual degree.

Refutation - Ebionism had to ignore a large portion of Scripture referring to Christ’s preexistence, the virgin birth, his uniqueness and function.

Question 9

Define and refute Docetism.

Answer 9

Docetism was the belief that Jesus only “seemed” to be human. (Also Gnosticism and Marcionism.) Influenced by Plato and Aristotle - gradations of reality and the idea that God was impassable, or that He could not change nor suffer. “Jesus’s humanity was simply an illusion.” He was like a ghost.

Refuation - The church recognized that this view meant the loss of Jesus’s humanity, which has much Biblical support, and thus any real connection between Him and us.

Question 10

Define and refute Functional Christology.

Answer 10

20th century modification of the doctrine of the full deity of Jesus. It is an emphasis on what Jesus did rather than his nature. Oscar Cullmann’s book, Christology of the New Testament, presents his approach in using “salvation history” (Heilsgeschichte), or what Jesus has done in history, as an organizing principle for his examination of the various New Testament titles for Jesus. The New Testament never asks “what is the nature of Christ,” but first of all, “what is his function?”

Refutation - Passages like John 1:1 (In the beginning was the Word…) and 1 John 4:2-3 (every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ…) show that the New Testament does not always put priority on the functional over the ontological. Functional theologians may also be coloring their interpretation of the Bible with modern pragmatism.

Question 11

List and explain Erickson’s six biblical evidences for the deity of Christ.

Answer 11

1. Jesus’s Self Consciousness - He made claims that would be inappropriate if made by someone less than God: sending his angels (Matt 13:41), the prerogative to forgive sins (Mark 2:5), His prerogative to judge the world (Matt. 25:31-46), and His oneness with the Father (John 10:30). Jesus doesn’t deny the high preist calling Him the Son of God (Matt. 26:63-64).
2. The Gospel of John - The prologue expresses the deity of Jesus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The remainder of the gospel supports and amplifies the prologue.
3. Hebrews - The opening chapter speaks of the Son as the radiance of the glory of God and the exact representation of His nature. He is superior to humans and angels.
4. Paul - Paul speaks of Jesus’s judgment (2 Tim. 4:1), His deity living in bodily form (Col. 2:9), and His existence in the form of God (Phil 2:5-11).
5. The Term “Lord” - The New Testament calls Jesus in His risen state “Lord” (kurios). Several New Testament references to Jesus as “Lord” are Old Testament quotations that use one of the Hebrew names for God (Acts 2:20-21, Rom. 10:13). “Lord” is also equated with God the Father, the sovereign God (Matt. 1:20), and Jesus (Luke 2:11, Rev. 19:16).
6. The Evidence of the Resurrection - The resurrection would have signified the end of the world to a Jew at the time. It would have been evidence that God himself confirmed Jesus’s earthly ministry, the Son of Man was Jesus the man, and God was ultimately revealed in Jesus.

Question 12

List and explain Erickson’s four implications of the deity of Christ.

Answer 12

1. We can have real knowledge of God. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
2. Redemption is available to us. Christ was not merely human, but an infinite God who died and rose again to save us.
3. God and humanity have been reunited. God himself bridged the gap created by sin.
4. Worship of Christ is appropriate. Jesus is God in the same sense and degree as the Father, and worthy of such recognition.

Question 13

List and explain the various aspects of Jesus’ humanity in terms of His physical, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual life.

Answer 13

1. Jesus had a fully human body. He was born. He grew in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52). He experienced hunger (Matt 4:2), thirst (John 19:28), and fatigue (John 4:6). He suffered and died.
2. Jesus thought, reasoned, and felt. He loved and had compassion (John 13:23; 11:3; Mark 10:21). He reacted with appropriate emotions like sorrow (Matt 26:37), joy (John 15:11), anger, and grief (Mark 3:5). He wept (John 11:35).
3. Jesus knew the past, present and future to a degree not available to ordinary human beings. He knew the thoughts of men (John 2:25) and all that was going to happen to Him (John 18:4). His knowledge was also limited (Mark 13:32).
4. Jesus’s prayer life was a clear indication of human dependence on the Father. He prayed regularly as at the garden of Gethsemane and before choosing His disciples (Luke 6:12)

Question 14

Explain the question of Jesus’s humanity in light of the fact that He never sinned.

Answer 14

The question is whether or not Jesus was fully human if he never sinned. A. E. Taylor said “If a man does not commit certain transgressions … it must be because he never felt the appeal of them.” But in Hebrews 4:15 we see that Jesus was tempted in every respect that we are but did not sin. The temptation was intense. Jesus was in agony at Gethsemane when He struggled to do the Father’s will. (Luke 22:44) While Jesus could have sinned, He did not.

Question 15

List and explain Erickson’s six implications of the humanity of Christ.

Answer 15

1. The atoning death of Jesus can truly avail for us. “He was one of us, and thus could truly offer a sacrifice on our behalf.”
2. “Jesus can truly sympathize with and intercede for us. He has experienced all that we might undergo.”
3. Jesus exhibited the true nature of humanity, what God designed it to be.
4. Jesus can be our example, a model of the Christian life.
5. Human nature is good. It’s not inherently evil, but was corrupted. Jesus became human to remind us that humanity is not evil.
6. God is not totally transcendent. He came to live among us, and acts within the human realm today.

Question 16

What is Eutychianism?

Answer 16

Form of Docetism. Eutyches’ position is not clear, however he seemed to “reject the idea of two natures as contrary to the Scripture and to the opinions of the fathers” (Erickson, 665). There were two natures before His incarnation, and one after.

Question 17

What is Nestorianism?

Answer 17

Nestorius’s exact position is unclear, due to much political upheaval in his time. He believed that Mary could not have born God, so she must have birthed a man who was a vehicle for God, and He became divine sometime after birth. Nestorianism came to be known as a heresy that basically split the God-man into two distinct persons.

Question 18

Define and refute Adoptionism.

Answer 18

The idea that the man Jesus was adopted as God’s Son at some point after His birth, such as His baptism or resurrection.

Refutation - There are major obstacles to this view from Scripture, such as Christ’s preexistence, the pre-birth narrative, and the virgin birth.

Question 19

Define and refute Anhypostatic Christology.

Answer 19

The idea that the divine being, God, took on impersonal humanity rather than an individual human personality.

Refutation - The idea that the divine Logos became united with the whole human race is absurd. Like Apollinarianism, “denying the individual humanness of Jesus intimates that he was predominantly divine” (Erickson, 667).

Question 20

Define and refute Kenoticism.

Answer 20

The idea that Jesus exchanged his deity for humanity, in that He emptied Himself of the form of God (Phil. 2:6-7).

Refutation - This is close to being right, but there is Scriptural evidence that Jesus was both God and human at the same time, not successively.

Question 21

Define and refute Dynamic Incarnation.

Answer 21

The idea that the incarnation was the power of God present in a human being, similar to dynamic monarchianism.

Refutation - There are several emphases in Scripture surrounding the fullness of God in Jesus’s body (Col. 2:9), the preexistence of Christ (John 1:18; 8:58), and the uniqueness of His sonship (John 3:16).

Question 22

What was the Chalcedonian Creed and what was its significance?

Answer 22

This was a statement issued at the council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 affirming the Nicene Creed that Jesus had two natures: fully divine and fully human.

Question 23

What is Donald Baillie’s paradox of grace?

Answer 23

In support of dynamic incarnation: The idea that when a believer does something right it is God who has done it, reflects the perfect union of God and man in the Incarnation.

Question 24

List and explain the five basic tenets of the doctrine of Christ’s two natures in one Person.

Answer 24

1. The incarnation was more an addition of human attributes than a loss of divine attributes. Jesus emptied himself (Phil. 2:7) of equality with God, not the form of God. He became functionally subordinate to the Father.
2. Contrary to what Ryrie says, Erickson states that the union of Jesus’s two natures means they did not function independently. He had a circumstance-induced limitation on the exercise of his power and capacities. His human brain grew gradually in terms of consciousness and over time, He became aware of His divinity. His taking on humanity was like the world’s fastest sprinter tying one of his legs to a partner in a three legged race.
3. We must be mindful about thinking of the incarnation in terms of the human conceptions of humanity and deity, the finite and the infinite. Jesus’s humanity was the perfect humanity of Adam and Eve before the fall, and that of our future glorified bodies.
4. The incarnation came from above rather than from below. God is unlimited and is therefore able to condescend to humanity, and not the reverse. Jesus as a human could not have become like God.
5. Jesus was a complex person with a complex personality. He was not predictable. His personality included qualities of deity such as beyond human experience, knowledge and love.

Question 25

What are the various Christological heresies and how can they be sorted into six basic categories.

Answer 25

1. Denial of the genuineness of Christ’s deity (Ebionism).
2. Denial of the completeness of Christ’s deity (Arianism).
3. Denial of the genuineness of Christ’s humanity (Docetism).
4. Denial of the completeness of Christ’s humanity (Apollinarianism).
5. Division of Jesus’s person (Nestorianism).
6. Confusion of Jesus’s natures (Eutychianism).

Question 26

State and answer the five objections to the virgin birth of Jesus.

Answer 26

1. Unexpected ignorance regarding the virgin birth. Mark 3:21 and 31 seem to indicate that Jesus’ family thought his actions were crazy, but if He was miraculously born of God, it might have explained things. - But it’s likely these verses are recording disconnected events and there is no indication that the people in Mark 3:21 are Jesus’s brothers, sisters, and mother.
   The New Testament is also silent on the subject of the virgin birth. The sermons in Acts were directed to uninformed people who might have disregarded the message based on something as crazy to them as the virgin birth. Additionally, Paul’s writings were treatments of particular problems in churches and individual lives.
2. The absence of a male component made Jesus not fully human. - However, Jesus was not produced after the genetic pattern of Mary alone. God contributed a male component.
3. The virgin birth in the Bible is an adaptation of pagan literature. - The myths in Greek texts, as an example, are nothing more than stories of Gods fornicating with humans, which is a far cry from the Biblical accounts of the virgin birth.
4. The virgin birth cannot be reconciled with the clear and definite evidence of the preexistence of Christ. - Wolfhart Pannenberg most recently stated this. But Jesus’s preexistence relates to His divinity and the virgin birth to His humanity.
5. Resistance to miracles and the intrusion of the supernatural into the realm of history. - One’s position toward miracles is largely a matter of one’s basic worldview. Is there the possibility of a reality outside of our closed system? In a universe regarded as open, historians should pursue, based on evidence, what actually happened rather than theorizing about what is or is not possible. There is adequate historical evidence in support of the virgin conception of Christ without a human sexual relationship.

Question 27

Give 3 reasons why pneumatology is important.

Answer 27

1. The “Holy Spirit is the point at which the Trinity becomes personal to the believer” (Erickson, 772). The Holy Spirit comes to live within us.
2. “We live in the period in which the Holy Spirit’s work is more prominent than that of the other members of the Trinity” (Erickson, 773).
3. Modern culture stresses the experiential. But it is through the work of the Spirit that Christians feel God’s presence “and the Christian life is given a special tangibility” (Erickson, 773).

Question 28

Explain 4 factors that may make pneumatology a more difficult topic than others.

Answer 28

1. There is less explicit revelation in the Bible concerning the Holy Spirit than there is with God the Father or the Son. “Unlike other doctrines, there are no systematic discussions regarding the Holy Spirit” (Erickson, 773).
2. There is a “lack of concrete imagery” (Erickson, 773). It is difficult to visualize the Holy Spirit, whereas you can see the Father as a father figure, and there is a historical record of the Son.
3. In the present age, the Spirit serves, and is functionally subordinate to, the Father and the Son, but He is of no less essence.
4. “In the last half of the twentieth century … the doctrine of the Holy Spirit became the most controversial of all doctrines” (Erickson, 774). Pentacostalism, Charismatic Christians.

Question 29

What was the significance of Clement of Rome in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 29

equated the Holy Spirit with God and the Son in an oath, emphasizing His divinity. 2nd Century.

Question 30

What was the significance of Origen in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 30

spoke of the Bible as written by the Holy Spirit. Philo and other Alexandrian Jews believed the human writer was seized by the Holy Spirit as they wrote.

Question 31

What was the significance of Athanasius in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 31

insisted that the Spirit was fully divine and equal in essence with the rest of the Trinity, refuting the claims of the Tropici that the Holy Spirit was some high angel.

Question 32

What was the significance of the Tropici in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 32

group of people who figuratively interpreted Scripture, maintaining that the Spirit was a creature or ministering spirit different in essence with the rest of the Trinity.

Question 33

What was the significance of Basil in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 33

writer of De Spiritu Sancto in 375 stating that the Holy Spirit was to be given the same glory, honor, and worship as the Father and Son. The Holy Spirit was not to be “reckoned below” the rest of the Trinity.

Question 34

What was the significance of Montanus in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 34

began speaking in tongues and prophesying at his baptism, believing that the Holy Spirit was giving him utterance. Montanus and his two female disciples were believed to be spokespersons of the Holy Spirit. Emphasis on high moral standards of Christian living. 2nd Century. Little lasting effect on the church.

Question 35

What was the significance of Novatianism in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 35

similar to Monatism without the same emphasis on prophecy. High standard of moral living. 3rd Century. Little lasting effect on the church.

Question 36

What was the significance of the filioque in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 36

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “and the Son.” It was an addition to the Nicene Creed as a way of standing against Arianism. Gradually it became official in the West but was rejected by the Eastern churches. Medieval period.

Question 37

What did John Calvin contribute to pneumatology?

Answer 37

stated that rather than the testimony of the church or other outside evidence, the “inward witness of the Holy Spirit is the ultimate basis for our confidence in the divine nature of the Bible” (Erickson, 777). Reformation period.

Question 38

What did John Wesley contribute to pneumatology?

Answer 38

expressed a special, instantaneous work of sanctification by the Holy Spirit that the believer should seek after his conversion. Wesley believed, unlike Luther and Calvin, that the believer could “help bring about the Spirit’s working” (Erickson, 778). Reformation period.

Question 39

What was the significance of Charles Parham in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 39

head of a Bible school in Topeka, Kansas who tasked his students with the assignment of studying the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The unanimous conclusion of his students was that this baptism was an event that happened after conversion, and that speaking in tongues was a sign that it had happened. 19th century.

Question 40

What was the significance of Agnes Ozman in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 40

requested that Parham lay his hands on her in the Biblical fashion, and when he did so, she said the Holy Spirit fell on her and she began to pray in tongues. 1901.

Question 41

What was the significance of William Seymour in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 41

black holiness preacher who began the Azusa Street meetings, which launched the popularity of the Pentecostal movement to parts throughout the USA and other countries. 1906.

Question 42

What was the significance of Pentecostalism in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 42

movement within Christian denominations with lower socioeconomic class people that emphasized Holy Spirit power, demonstrated by speaking in tongues, faith healings and exorcising of demons. 20th century to today.

Question 43

What was the significance of the Charismatic movement in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 43

neo-Pentecostal movement that began to cross denominations with all classes of people and maintained emphasis on manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s work. Old line Pentecostals would practice their charismatic gifts publicly, while neo-Pentecostals may reserve such gifts for private prayer time. 1950s to today.

Question 44

What was the significance of the “third wave” in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 44

Charismatic movement in the 1980s placing more emphasis on the gifts of healing and spiritual discernment.

Question 45

What was the significance of John Wimber in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 45

teacher of a “Signs and Wonders” class at Fuller Seminary School of World Mission which began the Third Wave movement, taking an institutional form in a network of churches called “The Vineyard.”

Question 46

What was the significance of the Macedonians and Pneumatomachians in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 46

radical Christian “Spirit fighters” who “opposed the doctrine of the full deity of the Holy Spirit” (Erickson, 776). 4th Century.

Question 47

What was the significance of Protestant Scholasticism in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 47

a mechanical view based on the writings of Philipp Melanchthon that thought of faith as merely correct doctrine. 18th-19th centuries.

Question 48

What was the significance of Rationalism in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 48

the view that only things in Christianity that could be established by reason were credible. 18th-19th centuries.

Question 49

What was the significance of Romanticism in regards to pneumatology?

Answer 49

the idea that “feeling constitutes the essence of religion, and, especially, the feeling of absolute dependence. 18th-19th centuries.

Question 50

List and expound upon Erickson’s 4 arguments for the deity of the Holy Spirit.

Answer 50

1. Various references to the Holy Spirit are interchangeable with references to God. Acts 5 - Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit, and lied also to God. 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19-20 - We are God’s temple, the Spirit’s temple.
2. The Holy Spirit possesses attributes of God, like omniscience and eternality. 1 Cor. 2:10-11 - the Spirit knows the thoughts of God. Heb. 9:14 - eternal Spirit.
3. The Holy Spirit performs works that are ascribed to God. Gen. 1:2 - The Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. John 3:5-8 - The Holy Spirit regenerates us. 2 Tim 3:16 - He inspired the writing of the Scriptures.
4. The Holy Spirit is associated with the Father and Son as an equal. Matt. 28:19 - baptizing in the name of Father, Son, Holy Spirit. 1 Cor. 12 - distribution of gifts by the Holy Spirit.

Question 51

List and expound upon Erickson’s 4 arguments for the personhood of the Holy Spirit.

Answer 51

1. A masculine pronoun, ekeinos, is used to refer to the Holy Spirit in John 16:13-14 rather than the neuter, pneuma.
2. The work of the Holy Spirit is closely identified with various persons and their work. John 16:7 shows that the Holy Spirit was coming as a replacement “person” for Jesus, not as some influencing force. The Holy Spirit glorifies the other members of the Trinity, the same as Jesus did (John 16:14). The Holy Spirit is also linked with various people and the Father and Son (1 Pet. 1:2; Acts 15:28; Matt. 3:16-17).
3. The Holy Spirit possesses personal characteristics like intelligence, will, and emotions. He can teach (John 14:26), distribute gifts (1 Cor. 12:11) and be grieved (Eph. 4:30).
4. “The Holy Spirit engages in moral actions and ministries that can be performed only by a person,” like teaching, speaking, regenerating, guiding, interceding, and illuminating (Erickson, 786). Romans 8:26 speaks of the Holy Spirit interceding for us.

Question 52

What are the 4 implications of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit?

Answer 52

1. “The Holy Spirit is a person, not a vague force” (Erickson, 786). We can pray to him and have a personal relationship with him.
2. The Holy Spirit should get the same honor and respect as the Father and Son because He is fully divine.
3. The Holy Spirit is in agreement with, and is one with the Father and Son.
4. God is with us through the Holy Spirit. He is not out of reach.