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201 CHURCH HISTORY for DUMMIES Class #16: Modalism We CHURCH HISTORY for DUMMIES Class #16: Modalism We now enter the beginning of the 4th century. Things are pretty stable as far as the church is concerned. Martyrdom is almost a thing of the past. Christians do not experience persecution as much as they did earlier. The emperor, Constantine, is a self-proclaimed Christian. Whether he really was or not, who knows? But he at least was sympathetic to the Gospel and the church. So there’s no heat or pressure coming down upon the church from the government. Outside the church, things have cooled off. Martyrdom and persecution is now a thing of the past. But there is a problem within the church now. There are people who call themselves believers, they call themselves Christians, but they are confessing something different than what the church has proclaimed for the first 3 centuries. In the 4th century, the main issue facing the church is this: How are we to understand the relationship between the God the Father and His Son, Jesus? What is the relationship between the Father and the Son? Is the Son created by the Father? Is Jesus eternal or did He have a beginning point in time? Is the Son’s essence, His nature, the same essence and nature as the God the Father? So, during the 2-4th centuries Christianity was struggling to reconcile the idea of a single God, as stated in Deuteronomy 6:4- Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. - with the ending of Matthew’s Gospel which says- Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit… How is God one and yet we are called to baptize people in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit? So, some Christians struggled to understand and reconcile these 2 verses. One person, who we have already looked at, is Marcion. His answer was simple: do away with the Od Testament! Problem solved! 201 One of the answers to all these questions comes to us by a heresy known simply as Modalism. It’s also know by other fancier names, such as- * Modalistic Monarchianism * Patripassionism * Sabellianism * Praxeanism Why all the extra names? Well, we know it by all of the extra names because it makes theologians and pastors sleep better at night because they know all the names of modalism! So let’s define modalism: Modalism teaches that the Father is fully God, the Son is fully God, and the Spirit is fully God, nevertheless God manifests Himself in only one such “mode” at a time. God is not simultaneously Father, Son, and Spirit. Modalism asserts that sometimes God is the Father, sometimes God is the Son, and sometimes God is the Spirit, but He never exists as three persons sharing the same nature or essence. That’s why we call it modalism. God exists in one mode at any given moment. Sometimes you’ll see it called Modalistic Monarchianism because it stresses the “one rule” of God. Like a “monarch,” a single king or queen, who rules over a kingdom. The idea is that God is one, and that’s all He is. He’s just one Person, not three Persons. And sometimes you’ll see it called Patripassionism because those who hold it believe that it was God the Father who suffered on the cross. Patri = father Passion = suffering, death (Like the movie “The Passion of the Christ”) Sabellius And sometimes you’ll see it called Sabbelianism because a man named Sabellius held this view. 202 We don’t know much about Sabellius. He was a priest and theologian who was excommunicated in A.D. 220 for his false beliefs concerning God. Sabellius taught party line modalism: there is one God and sometimes He wears the “mask” of the Father or the son or the Spirit, depending on the situation. Hippolytus, who was one of the Apologists, was an early opponent of Sabellius. He tells us that Sabellius divided God up into 3 roles which he demonstrated in history. Sabellius used the analogy of the sun to describe God. The sun gives off light and heat, even though it is just one source. So too, said Sabellius, the one God is sometimes a different person depending on the situation. In the Old Testament, we see God the Father, in the Gospels we see the Son, and in the lives of believers now, we see the Spirit. Where did Sabellius get his ideas? From the Bible! For instance, in John 14- John 14:8–9 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Sabellius said, “See! If you’ve seen Jesus, then you’ve seen the Father. The same God, same essence, same nature. Just a different manifestation or mode of the one God.” So through the 2nd and 3rd centuries we have strains of modalism popping up. Praxeas Finally, we see another version, which you’ll sometimes see called Praxeanism If we rewind to the end of the 2nd century and leading into the 3rd century, there is an individual by the name of Praxeas, who gives us insight into this belief. We don’t know much about Praxeas, but he was very influential in the church in Rome. And Tertullian (160-220 A.D.), who we looked at quite a bit, campaigned against this false teaching in his work titled Against Praxeas. Here’s what Tertullian said about Praxeas: 203 In various ways has the devil rivaled and resisted the truth. Sometimes his aim has been to destroy the truth by defending it. He maintains that there is one only Lord, the Almighty Creator of the world, in order that out of this doctrine of the unity he may fabricate a heresy. He says that the Father Himself came down into the Virgin, was Himself born of her, Himself suffered, indeed was Himself Jesus Christ…By this Praxeas did a twofold service for the devil at Rome: he drove away prophecy (preaching), and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete (the Holy Spirit), and he crucified the Father. Praxeas was a modalist who believed that God the Father became the Son of God as the Incarnate Word, entered the Virgin Mary, was born, lived and suffered a brutal death on the cross. It was God the Father who did all of this. Praxeas believed in the oneness of God, but only the oneness of God. So what does Tertullian mean when he says, “In many ways has the devil rivaled truth, sometimes his aim has been to destroy it by defending it.” What does Tertullian mean? He means that you can be an enemy of the truth if you only seek to defend one aspect of it. If the truth is A and B, and you seek only to defend A, but not B, then you are not defending the truth. You are destroying it. As Tertullian says about Praxeas, “He maintains that there is one only Lord, the Almighty Creator of the world, in order that out of this doctrine of the unity he may fabricate a heresy.” Praxeas was all for monotheism; all for the idea that there is one God. One Lord. He believes that this is central to Christianity. He was a strict monotheist. One God. But he was not in favor of a Triune understanding of God. He did not believe in the Trinity. So what Tertullian tells us is that Praxeas’ belief in monotheism can lead to a heretical belief, because if all you do is stress the oneness of God and the unity of God, then you’re not really telling the truth. If all you do is stress God’s oneness, then you’re talking about some god, but you’re not talking about the Christian God. If all you do is stress God’s oneness, then you are no different from Praxeus…or a Jew or a Muslim. That’s what Judaism and Islam stress: one God. However, Christianity is distinctively Trinitarian. The God of Christianity is not just a God of unity, He is also a God of Trinity. 204 So if all that you are is a strict monotheist, then you believe in something, but you do not believe in the God of the Bible. Back to what Tertullian said- He says that the Father Himself came down into the Virgin, was Himself born of her, Himself suffered, indeed was Himself Jesus Christ. Praxeas believed that the Father became Jesus Christ in the flesh. The Father, as Jesus, was born in Bethlehem. The Father, as Jesus, played on a t-ball team. The Father, as Jesus, was in Boy Scouts. It was the Father who, as Jesus, died on the cross. So you can already smell the error, right? The heresy of Praxeas is this: there is only 1 person in the Godhead, the Father. And the Father sometimes manifests Himself as the Son, all the while still remaining the Father. So there are not 3 eternal Persons in the Godhead- Father, Son, and Spirit- who co-exist eternally with one another. There’s just one. The Father is alone and unique and exclusive to the Godhead. That’s Praxeas’ view of God.
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