On a different question I got an answer and some comments. One of which said: > Generally, when a Christian says that Jesus is the "Son of God" they are referring to the doctrine of the Trinity, where Jesus is a person of a three-part godhead. It's a complicated doctrine that necessitates antinomy. As for your friend's reasoning, it is sound, and is the same reason we call Adam, from Genesis, the son of God also, for he also had no human father, instead God fashioned him from the clay of the Earth and breathed life into him. – fredsbend yesterday If that is what Trinitarians usually mean when they call Jesus the "Son of God", what do non-trinitarians mean when they say it?

I find the Catholic title "Mother of God" for the Virgin Mary confusing. It is clear that she was the mother of Jesus, the Son. But the title suggests (indeed, not literally, but still) that Mary is mother of God as a Trinity. Is that correct? If so, it creates the problem that a human (or is there reason to say that Mary wasn't (entirely) human?) gave birth to God, while God created mankind. This problem doesn't exist when Mary is only mother of Jesus, because then it could be merely a way of speaking to say that Mary was the one through whom the Word became flesh, which would be the Protestant view as described in https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/15779/5729

To all **Christ** Worshippers, We Have a Question........ We seek an answer from someone , who comprehends the issue. ... If **God** was killed at the hands of humans Then **what kind of God** was this that they could kill?.... And was he pleased with what they did to him? .... Then good for them if they attained his pleasure. But if he was **displeased** by what they did to Him . .... Then how could their strength overcome his? Was the world ,in that moment, left without God? Left with no one to **answer** the prayers?.... Were the **seven** heavens left empty?... When he lay beneath the ground that covered him .... Was the creation left ungoverned by the Lord ?.., When his hands were **tied** and **nailed** in place? And how could the angels abandon him?.... And not come to his aid, when they heard his cry? .... And how could the planks of wood endure the weight, of the True God while he was fastened to it, **powerless** and **bound**.... And could the nails come near to Him at all? so as to touch him and afflict him with pain.... And how were the hands of his enemies even able to, Strike him upon the back of the neck? .... And did Christ - by his own strength, return again to life,.... Or was it **another God** who brought him back to life again..... And how strange it is, that a tomb can enclose a Lord;.... And even more strange is a womb , that once contained him. ..... He remained there for nine months, ..... In **darkness** sustained by blood from menstural flow, ...... He emerged from the **womb** as a small child. ...... Weak with his mouth opened while in search of milk. ..... **Eating and drinking**, then enduring what must follow. ..... **So can this be called God**? God is far exalted above the false lies of Christians...... Everyone of them shall be questioned about what they forged. ..... **O' worshippers of Cross**, for what reason, is one praised or blamed for throwing the **Cross** away? ..... Does not sound **reason** judge that nothing suits it more, than to break or burn it, for the wrong done through it? ..... If **God** was forced upon it, against His will, with His **hands** fastened to it with nails, then the Cross would be deemed as cursed, fit to be stepped on, not kissed when seen...... The **Lord of all creation** was humiliated upon it , and yet you worship it,..... Thus you are counted among his enemies..... And if you exalt it, ..... Because it **once** held, The Lord of the Servants, as he was set upon it..... It is said, though the Cross has gone, when its form is seen, we recall the glory once attributed to it. .... Then why not bow before every **grave**, in that case..... Since a **grave** once contained your **Lord** **within** it. .. **O' Followers of Christ**, wake up; Here lies its beginning and here lies its end.,...

The "Clarity Principle" ensures a message be told clearly without any iota of confusion or ambiguity. It seems Jesus' alleged divinity claims (that were forcefully attributed to him) don't follow that principal, which is quite highly unlikely of God to do. If Jesus was God, there would have been non metaphorical verses in the Bible clearly stating Jesus was God, but we find 0. What does this signify? Why did God have to be so shy and hesitant in claiming his divinity that he didn't once order in clear cut non ambiguous terms or told his folks to worship him? P. S : Kindly don't refer to metaphorical verses of Bible that in no case seem convincing enough to be deemed as monotonous when related to other verses or read in full context

In passages such as First Epistle to the Corinthians 15:45–49, Paul the Apostle contrasts the first man, Adam, with the second man, Christ: >“The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit… Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”
(1 Cor 15:45–49) This seems to suggest that humanity bears the image of Adam in a physical or natural sense (“man of dust”). My question is: In what sense do Christians bear the image of the second man, Christ? - Is this image spiritual (e.g., regeneration, righteousness, new nature)? - Is it future, referring primarily to the resurrection body?

All of us know that Jesus had ascended to God the father after he had resurrected, we know that he will come again at the end of time to judge the people and found the kingdom of God on earth. The question is, will he descend as an adult man as he ascended to God the father, or will he be reborn again as an infant in a new incarnation?. Note: there are many who claimed to be incarnations or reincarnations of Jesus, some of them belong to new Christian denominations, look: [Wikipedia List of people claimed to be Jesus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_claimed_to_be_Jesus) Esoteric Christianity like Liberal Catholic Church adopts reincarnation and oneness of god who is both transcendent and immanent and accept Tritheism as three persons in that one God,i.e: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are manifestations of that one transcendental immanent God. Look: [The Liberal Catholic Church](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.thelccusa.org/about/doctrine.html&ved=2ahUKEwiJqtDln9vmAhVaBGMBHVuACIgQFjAVegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw3tmC-K73qW9T0pMn8NF4yE&cshid=1577636090716) and [Liberal Catholic Church (Wikipedia)](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Catholic_Church&ved=2ahUKEwiJqtDln9vmAhVaBGMBHVuACIgQFjATegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw1jVuej_N56fVnUqmJKBsJ5&cshid=1577637685926) I would like answers to be biblically based, it's preferred to be by scholars of Christianity, especially of orthodox Christianity.

Malachi 3:1-5 (ESV): > “Behold, **I send** my messenger, and he will prepare the way **before me**. And **the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple**; and **the messenger of the covenant** in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, **says the LORD of hosts**. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD. 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years. > > 5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts. Trinitarians usually interpret Malachi 3:1-5 as evidence that Jesus is Jehovah, by picking up on the fact that Jehovah is speaking in the first person about himself, but then it turns out that the one who came was Jesus. For more details, here are [two](https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/a/56076/38524) [examples](https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/a/56079/38524) of this kind of exegesis on the passage, taken from the hermeneutics site. Of course, this way of exegeting Malachi 3:1-5 totally contradicts the Christological views of Biblical Unitarians. How do Biblical Unitarians exegete Malachi 3:1-5?

For those who believe that God is outside of time, is Jesus also outside of time? On the one hand Jesus existed in time on Earth during His incarnation and perhaps as the Word of God in the Old Testament. >But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God - Heb.10:12. **Conclusion** The answers below agree that yes, Jesus' spiritual self is outside of time. His physical body was within time.

Christian theology affirms that Jesus Christ is fully divine and fully human. At the same time, Scripture describes real human limitations during his earthly life (e.g., growth in wisdom, learning, and dependence on ordinary means of communication). Given this, I am asking how Christian doctrine understands Jesus’ knowledge of human languages during his earthly ministry. - Did Christ, by virtue of his divinity, possess complete knowledge of all human languages while incarnate? - Or did the incarnation (often discussed in terms of kenosis) entail genuine limitations such that his linguistic knowledge was exercised within normal human bounds? - How do major Christian traditions (e.g., Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant) reconcile divine omniscience with apparent human limitations in this area?

According to the doctrine of the trinity the Son is eternal. Is this in reference to his divine nature only or the physical and divine? If it is both physical and divine, then did the body shrink down into Mary?

Many Christians believe that the Archangel Michael is actually Jesus, most notably the Jehovah's Witnesses and Baptist preacher [Charles H. Spurgeon](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/63123/6071) . We have a question asking [for the Biblical basis for this belief](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/26253/6071) . This question asks: what is the Biblical basis **against** this belief, that Michael is not Jesus, but a separate angelic being?

In John 20:27, after His resurrection, Jesus invites Thomas to touch the wounds in His hands and side. That detail has always struck me — if Jesus was raised in a glorified body, why were the wounds from His crucifixion still visible? Paul describes the resurrection body in 1 Corinthians 15 as imperishable and glorious, which makes me wonder: shouldn’t that mean it would be healed or perfected, without any remaining scars? I’m curious how Christians understand this. Is there a theological reason why Jesus kept the marks of His suffering? And what does that say about the nature of the resurrection body, or about His mission?

In Trinitarian theology, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are considered co-eternal, meaning none was created or came into existence at a different time. However, in John 3:16, Jesus is described as **“the only begotten Son,”** which seems to imply that He had a beginning. How do Trinitarians reconcile this idea of Jesus being begotten with the belief that He is co-eternal with the Father? I’m looking for theological explanations or interpretations that address this apparent tension in Scripture.

Congregations such as the Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists believe that Jesus is Michael. What is the Biblical basis for the belief that Jesus is Michael? **Jehovah's Witnesses** >...it is logical to conclude that Michael is none other than Jesus Christ in his heavenly role. [Source](http://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-teach/who-is-michael-the-archangel/) **Seventh-day Adventists** >Moses passed through death, but Michael came down and gave him life before his body had seen corruption. Satan tried to hold the body, claiming it as his; but Michael resurrected Moses and took him to heaven. Satan railed bitterly against God, denouncing Him as unjust in permitting his prey to be taken from him; but Christ did not rebuke His adversary, though it was through his temptation that the servant of God had fallen. He meekly referred him to His Father, saying, "The Lord rebuke thee." Early Writings, p. 164.

Rabbi Yosef Massas (1892–1974) writes in responsa *Mayim Chaim* vol. 2 (*Yoreh Deah* §108:2) that he spoke to a Christian (possibly Catholic) priest who claimed that they only worship the One God and that when they say that Jesus was a son of *Elohim* this means "angel" not "God". Accordingly, this sect believed that Jesus was a son of an angel, not son of God. Does anybody know of a Christian denomination/sect which fits this description? (Rabbi Massas lived in Morocco and in Algeria if that helps)

So I'm curious if there exist any Christian sects which deny the physical birth of Jesus, i.e. that Jesus was born from Mary. Perhaps such a sect would say that Jesus simply appeared from the Heavens and didn't need anyone to bring him into the world.

There are a multiplicity of contemporary claims regarding Jesus made by folks who refer to themselves as Christian. 1) Jesus was and is both God and man. 2) Jesus was and is only man 3) Jesus was an angel, became a man, and is an angel again. (Or was and is both.) 4) Jesus was a man and now is God. These are, perhaps, not all of the options and certainly not all of the nuances. What I have not come across is a contemporary claim that Jesus was God only and not really man at all. Docetism is one form of the sort of thing I am referring to but I am unaware if Docetism is still alive under the umbrella of claimed Christianity: > In the history of Christianity, docetism (from the Koinē Greek: δοκεῖν/δόκησις dokeĩn "to seem", dókēsis "apparition, phantom"1 ) was the doctrine that the phenomenon of Jesus, his historical and bodily existence, and above all the human form of Jesus, was mere semblance without any true reality.[3] Broadly it is taken as the belief that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion. - Wikipedia I have seen articles describing "docetic christianity " wherein the importance of being led of the Spirit becomes so magnified that human responsibility to any sort of biblical hermeneutic disappears: > On this view, it becomes unimportant whether Jesus lived or died according to the Gospel records. What matters is the ethical and existential message of the stories about him; how the story affects my understanding of myself. This begins to sound like what I have seen described as Christian Atheism in practice, but theologically cannot be since Christian Atheism denies the existence of God: Are there any contemporary denominations who claim to be Christian and whose theology holds that Jesus was God only and not really human?

[Athanasius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_of_Alexandria) and [Apollinaris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollinaris_of_Laodicea) were two important figures in the early church, and both were opponents of Arianism. But while Athanasius is regarded as a faithful defender of sound teaching during this period while Trinitarian Christology was being developed, Apollinaris is considered a heretic because he denied that the Son became a full human in the incarnation, but instead only took on a human body, not a human mind or soul. It has been claimed however, since at least the 19th century, that Athanasius' Christology was essentially Apollinarian. Richard Hanson likened his Christology to that of an astronaut and a spacesuit: > Just as the astronaut, in order to operate in a part of the universe where there is no air and where he has to experience weightlessness, puts on an elaborate space suit which enables him to live and act in this new, unfamiliar environment, so the logos puts on a body which enabled him to behave as a human being among human beings. But his relation to his body is no closer than that of an astronaut to his space suit. (*The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God*, p448) > > We must conclude that whatever else the Logos incarnate is in Athanasius’ account of him, he is not a human being. (Ibid, p451) Trevor Hart [says](https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/eq/1992-2_155.pdf) that Hanson followed Baur, Stülcken, Richard, and Grillmeier in interpreting Athanasius as "virtually ignoring the presence of a human soul or mind in the incarnate Christ." This is a big claim, but not one I've heard before. Lots of early church figures have mixed legacies, being instrumental for powerfully and clearly stating true doctrine in some area, while getting it very wrong in another, but Athanasius does not have this reputation. Athanasius and Apollinaris were active at the same time, though Apollinaris outlived Athanasius. A [previous question](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/24916/6071) has asked whether any of Athanasius' writings about Apollinaris survived, but even if they didn't, enough of Athanasius' writings have survived that we should be able to judge whether this claim has merit. Did Athanasius either deny or ignore that Christ in the incarnation had a human mind and soul?

Both Apollinaris and Eutychius believed in one divine subject Christology that the only and whole person of Christ is a divine person, the Logos. Not a divine-humane person. Their Christology were condemned at Constantinople (381) and Chalcedon (451), respectively. Apollinaris teaches that the Logos supplant the rational faculty of Christ not another man. While Eutychius teaches that the flesh of Christ belongs to the Logos and not another man. So that both teach the Logos, a divine person is the only divine subject. How then one in principle manner differentiate their Christology from one another?

As I've looked around the internet at reactions to Athanasius' magnum opus *On the Incarnation*, I've seen some accusations of latent Apollinarism. The work was published before the Apollinarian heresy was formally defined and condemned, but they say that it was materially there in his writings. That's just background, it's not what my question is about. You need not defend his orthodoxy to me. Before the heresy was condemned at the ecumenical First Council of Constantinople, it was condemned at a local council in Alexandria headed by none other than Athanasius. So clearly Athanasius was as opposed to this heresy as he had famously been opposed to Arianism. But are there any surviving writings I can read where he lays out the case against Apollinarism?