Flesh or Phantom
Though early Christianity experienced persecution externally from Jews, pagans, and the Roman state, it also battled internal enemies: false teachers and heresies. Among the earliest challenges to the faith was a denial, not of Jesus’ being God, but of His being truly human!
It appears that denial of Jesus’ humanity had philosophical roots in the notion held by some of the ancients that matter was evil and spirit was good. If true, the thought that the greatest spirit of all could somehow inhabit a body of flesh was unthinkable. God can’t really eat and drink. God doesn’t need rest. God can’t suffer and He certainly can’t DIE!
Some early Christians tried changing the teaching of the apostles and said it only seemed that Jesus had a physical body, but He was actually more of a phantom. The Greek word for “seem” is dokeo, so this heresy eventually came to be called docetism. The apostle John was almost certainly battling an early form of docetism in his writings.
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. (1 John 4.2-3)
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. (2 John 7)
Notice how John opens his first epistle, vigorously emphasizing the physicality of the apostles’ experience of Jesus:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you… (1 John 1.1-3)
John’s gospel boldly proclaims the same truth: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory… (John 1.14a)
An early martyr, Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria (d. c. 107) insisted in letters to several churches that Jesus “was truly of the seed of David” and that “He did eat and drink” and “He suffered truly, even as also He truly raised up Himself, not, as certain unbelievers maintain, that He only seemed to suffer, as they themselves only seem to be [Christians]” (from the Epistle to Smyrna).
Some may feel this is much ado about nothing, trivial theological arguments that don’t really matter.
But if Jesus is shifted away from being physical, it is a step toward removing His reality—His connection to our world and to us and our very real lives in this world. He can evolve into an idea or a teaching or a feeling.
The faith of the apostolic witnesses, however, insists on this odd and seemingly impossible union of the invisible God who is spirit and our physical human lives. Jesus is truly God and truly man. He truly suffered and understands our suffering (Hebrews 4.15). His physicality enabled Him to taste death (Hebrews 2.14), and His physical resurrection provides the hope of what is not only possible but promised to us.
Our faith is based on a historical and very physical reality. The apostles and early Christians insisted that only a Christ come-in-the-flesh is able to redeem the human race.
It appears that denial of Jesus’ humanity had philosophical roots in the notion held by some of the ancients that matter was evil and spirit was good. If true, the thought that the greatest spirit of all could somehow inhabit a body of flesh was unthinkable. God can’t really eat and drink. God doesn’t need rest. God can’t suffer and He certainly can’t DIE!
Some early Christians tried changing the teaching of the apostles and said it only seemed that Jesus had a physical body, but He was actually more of a phantom. The Greek word for “seem” is dokeo, so this heresy eventually came to be called docetism. The apostle John was almost certainly battling an early form of docetism in his writings.
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. (1 John 4.2-3)
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. (2 John 7)
Notice how John opens his first epistle, vigorously emphasizing the physicality of the apostles’ experience of Jesus:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you… (1 John 1.1-3)
John’s gospel boldly proclaims the same truth: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory… (John 1.14a)
An early martyr, Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria (d. c. 107) insisted in letters to several churches that Jesus “was truly of the seed of David” and that “He did eat and drink” and “He suffered truly, even as also He truly raised up Himself, not, as certain unbelievers maintain, that He only seemed to suffer, as they themselves only seem to be [Christians]” (from the Epistle to Smyrna).
Some may feel this is much ado about nothing, trivial theological arguments that don’t really matter.
But if Jesus is shifted away from being physical, it is a step toward removing His reality—His connection to our world and to us and our very real lives in this world. He can evolve into an idea or a teaching or a feeling.
The faith of the apostolic witnesses, however, insists on this odd and seemingly impossible union of the invisible God who is spirit and our physical human lives. Jesus is truly God and truly man. He truly suffered and understands our suffering (Hebrews 4.15). His physicality enabled Him to taste death (Hebrews 2.14), and His physical resurrection provides the hope of what is not only possible but promised to us.
Our faith is based on a historical and very physical reality. The apostles and early Christians insisted that only a Christ come-in-the-flesh is able to redeem the human race.