ARTICLE VI.
JESUS CHRIST

§ 23. All Unitarians believe that Jesus is one mind, one soul, one being, as truly one as we are, and equally distinct from the one God. They believe Jesus to be a created being, finite and not infinite, and therefore below the Supreme Being in his nature and person. We cite the following reasons for this conviction:

(a) Because the Scriptures teach that there is one God, who is distinct from the Christ. See 1 Cor. 8:6; 1 Tim. 2:5; Eph. 4:5-6.

(b) Because Jesus plainly distinguishes himself from God. See Mark 10:18; John 16:27; 17:7-8 (compare also John 13:3).

(c) Because the highest powers and glory ascribed to Christ are said to be given to him by God. See Phil. 2:9; Col. 1:19; Acts 2:36; 3:13; 5:31; Matt. 28:18; John 5:19; 10:29; Eph. 1:22; Heb. 1:2, 9; etc.

(d) Because we find no account in Scripture where Jesus reveals to his disciples that he is God. They regarded their Master as a man, but wiser and better than themselves, and having an intimacy with God so as to be called “Son of God” (Matt. 16:15-17). We should surely have found in the New Testament some trace of the astonishment and awe that must have come upon them if the wonderful fact had been communicated to them that their Master was the Supreme God.

(e) Because we find no opposition made by the Jews to the doctrine that Jesus was God. It must be remembered that Christianity was born and grew up among enemies who were on the lookout for any part of the religion that might be seen as objectionable. They would have found the Trinity doctrine, with all its apparent contradictions, a particularly gratifying target. Nothing could have seemed more abhorrent to the Jewish mind, which adhered to a belief in the unity of God, than to be told that Jesus was the Sovereign Lord Yahweh. But in the apostolic writings, which relate so much about objections against Christianity and to the controversies that grew out of this religion, not one word is said in defense and explanation of the Trinity. Had Jesus’ apostles preached a God of three divine persons, co-equal and co-infinite, one of which was the man who had recently been executed as a criminal, they would have been obliged to repel a continual barrage of verbal assaults. Is it not strange that such objections are not recounted in the early Christian writings? Not even a hint or whisper reaches our ears from the apostolic period. To be sure, on one occasion the Judeans falsely bring the charge that Jesus, being a man, made himself God (John 10:33). Jesus, instead of saying, “Yes! I am God,” answers by quoting a passage in the Hebrew Scriptures, where those to whom the word of God came were called gods, and then says that he had only called himself the Son of God (John 10:36). After this, no such charge was made by the Jews. We find many accusations made against the apostles, but they are never charged with calling their Master the Supreme God. They were only commanded not to teach in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:18, 5:40).

(f) Because Jesus prayed to God. See Luke 6:12; Matt. 11:25; Luke 22:42; Heb. 5:7.

(g) Because he taught us to pray, not to himself, but to the Father. See Matt. 6:9; John 16:23; Luke 11:1, 2.

(h) Because he taught us to worship, not himself, but the Father. “The true worshippers will worship the Father with spirit and truth, for, indeed, the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him” (John 4:23).

(i) Because God is called the God of Jesus Christ. See Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 11:31; Eph. 1:3, 17; 1 Pet. 1:3.

(j) Because Jesus himself teaches his subordination to God. “The Father is greater than I am” (John 14:28); “I have not spoken out of my own impulse, but the Father himself who sent me has given me a commandment as to what to tell and what to speak” (John 12:49); “Concerning that day and hour, nobody knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32); “This sitting down at my right hand and at my left is not mine to give, but it belongs to those for whom it has been prepared by my Father” (Matt. 20:23). Paul teaches similarly: “The head of the Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3).

§ 24. The Bible is clear about Jesus’ subordination to God, but its testimony is less so regarding Jesus’ precise nature in relationship to God. The titles “Christ,” “Son of God,” and “Lord,” although undoubtedly accurate and fitting descriptions of Jesus from a Christian perspective, are somewhat abstract, and thus Unitarians may differ in their understandings of them. Some Unitarians believe that Jesus was a man, entirely human in mind and body (1 Tim. 2:5; Rom. 5:15). However, they say, he was an exceptional man, made free from sin and kept so by an exceptional divine influence, made perfect in all spiritual and moral attributes, that he might be the leader of his race. In this view he was endowed with supernatural gifts by which he was distinguished from other men. Some Unitarians think Jesus to have existed as a spirit before he was born a man on earth and to have been created by God before all other finite beings. This view is supported by a few texts that call Christ “the first-born of every creature,” the being through whom all other things were created, etc. (Col. 1:15, 16; John 1:3), and by Jesus statement: “Before Abraham existed, I have been” (John 8:58). Other Unitarians hold that Jesus was neither divine, nor even an exceptional man, but a representative man, such a man as all are intended to be. In this sense he is the ideal man. In their view sin is not natural, but unnatural, and a sinless man is more truly a man than is a sinner. They also believe that all men will grow up into the stature of Jesus and become like him, so that he will be the first-born among creation. They contend that the typical man is not the imperfect, but the perfect man, just as the typical plant or animal of any species is not an imperfect but a perfect specimen. Any other view, say they, takes us back to the doctrine of natural depravity (see § 40).

§ 25. As the Scriptures frequently call Jesus “the Son of God,” but never call him “God the Son,” he must have been the Son in the sense of an intimate union with God and dependence on him, rather than something of God’s own essence. When Jesus said, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), he must have meant one in sympathy, since he prayed that his disciples might be one, even as he and the Father were one (John 17:11). He certainly could not have intended to ask that his disciples might be one in essence or substance.
 

§ 26. Unitarian Christians believe that the great glory of Jesus is his spiritual and moral glory. His true greatness was in his devotion to the Divine will, his sympathy with suffering people, his readiness to perform the lowliest tasks and bear a death of shame in order to save humankind from the power and evil of sin. All this is continually expressed in the New Testament, in passages similar to that in Philippians 2:5-11. In this place the apostle exhorts his disciples to have the same mind that was in Jesus, who, being the chief manifestation in the world of the Divine character, did not ambitiously grasp at the honor of that high dignity, but was willing to die the death of a slave in the service of humanity; and he adds: “Wherefore God also has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” This passage, often quoted as a proof-text by Trinitarians, is actually an argument for Unitarian views of Jesus, because, while it attributes to him the highest honors, it states that these are all given to him by God, that he is exalted by God, and that this great authority is “to the glory of God the Father.” And it also ascribes the origin of all this glory, not to the divine nature of Jesus, but to his humility of character. The Scriptures thus teach that (1) all that Christ had, he received from God and (2) that all he received, he received in order to impart it to his fellow humans.

§ 27. Though Unitarian Christians do not believe it right to call Jesus “God,” some see no objection to the epithet “divine,” or even “a god,” in the sense that it is used in the Bible of those who receive honor (John 10:34-36), but not in the sense that he should be equated with the Supreme God. All agree that he revealed God as Father, as Love, as Infinite Goodness, as perfect Providence. He is portrayed as the image of the unseen God, the Word of God uttered to the world, the beloved Son dwelling in the bosom of his Father; it is said that he who has seen him has seen the Father, that God dwells in him and he in God. All these expressions teach the intimate union of his soul with the Infinite Spirit, an intimacy which he desired to communicate to all his fellow humans. Unitarian Christians therefore believe in Jesus as a man raised up to be the mediator to his fellow humans of the divine life; but they do not believe that he was God himself.