Category: Les Burch

The Incarnation of the One known as the Son of God will always prove to be a scandal to the world because of the mystery of how God in the person of the Son can be fully divine and fully human at the same time. According to the hypostatic union as expressed in the Chalcedonian Creed, Christ joined a human nature to Himself in the Incarnation, resulting in two natures–divine and human. These two natures are neither divided so as to make Christ two persons as the Nestorians argued, nor are they confounded, confused, and fused so as to obscure His human nature as the Eutychians argued. However, many within Christendom today, usually out of ignorance of the theological battles

In this part we will answer one of Mr. Burch’s remaining “difficult questions” for trinitarians. This question has to do with the distinction in person and role between the Father and the Son. We will see that the Scriptures provide all the answers to this that we need if we let the Spirit lead us into all truth.

In this part we will continue to look at Mr. Burch’s “difficult questions” that raise the challenge of Jesus being human and yet divine. Three of these “difficult questions pertain to the fact that Jesus prayed to the Father; thus, we will answer these three together. Indeed, if we are to look to Jesus as our example, we should understand not only the how but also the why of His prayers to the Father.

In this part we will continue to address the “difficult questions” that Mr. Burch poses in his book. The previous two parts answered questions related to the deity of Jesus Christ regarding His death and resurrection. Now, we will shift gears to answer several of Mr. Burch’s questions concerning the humanity of His earthly ministry. Understanding the purpose and nature of the incarnation can help us to understand why the Son as deity submitted to the Father and experienced the human difficulties as we do, but without sin.

In the previous part we observed the Scriptural answer to Mr. Burch’s first “difficult question” regarding Jesus dying on the Cross and being God at the same time. If we do not let human rationalism cloud our thinking, we realize that this “paradox” of the One Who is divine becoming incarnate and dying is not only acceptable but rather definitional to the orthodox Christian faith. On the heels of this first question comes Mr. Burch’s second “difficult question” concerning the resurrection of a divine Christ.

Thus far we have seen a systematic Biblical case for the Trinity and against Mr. Burch’s attempts to resurrect the corpse of Arianism. However, Mr. Burch provides a list of questions that he posits are a challenge to the deity of Jesus Christ as co-personal with God the Father.[1] He emphasizes this list by repeating it later in the section.[2] In this part we will begin to examine these questions and demonstrate that they pose no challenge to the doctrine of the Trinity, primarily because they demonstrate that Mr. Burch does not quite understand exactly what he is denying.

In this part we will shift gears from the usual focus on defending the deity of Jesus Christ. We will look at the Person of the Holy Spirit. According to the Trinity, the One Being of God exists in Three co-equal, co-eternal persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Most of the debate over trinitarianism and unitarianism centers on the Person of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Indeed, most of the heat of trinitarianism is in its insistence that the very God Who created the universe took upon Himself flesh and lived as the God-Man historically known as Jesus of Nazareth. Much ink has been spilled arguing over whether a transcendent God can condescend so as to

In this part, we will look at an important yet simple Greek rule of thumb that provides more inscrutable evidence that the Apostles believed that the Person of Jesus Christ was just as divine as the Father Whom He served. The rule of which I speak is called Granville Sharp’s rule. Unitarian henotheists (such as Mr. Burch) will do all in their power to refute Granville Sharp’s rule because, if it is allowed to stand, the case for the deity of Christ is shut closed, locked, and the key thrown into the depths of the sea.

In this part, we will look at the challenges of Christ being subservient to the Father. Scripture clearly tells us that Christ was (and even still is) under the Father. He is subject to the Father. The Father has authority over Him. In fact, we are told that the Father is His God in several passages. These passages abound in the Bible, and those who deny the Trinity are drawn to them like a magnet. Mr. Burch is no exception. We will examine these Scriptures and understand how they fit into the trinitarian perspective.

In the last part, we saw how Jesus Christ as the Son of God created all things with the Father, and they both took different roles in creation. We saw that Yahweh said that He is the sole creator, forcing us to accept that the Father and the Son must be the same being of God. We saw that the writer to the Hebrews quoted words directed to Yahweh as the Creator in the Psalms and said that the Father spoke them to the Son. We also saw that “this day” that the Son was “begotten” was fulfilled when Christ was resurrected to assume His inheritance as being the One to reign over the nations from His throne in heaven.