The Christological Problems of Eli Soriano

      ELISEO FERNANDO SORIANO was the founder of the Members of the Church of God International (MCGI) who is also known for his Tv program “Ang Dating Daan” (The Old Path). he also writes on a blog  “Controversy Extraordinary” and recently, i came across with an article titled “Why Christ is Not Man but God” which also includes reviews on the Filipino Unitarian group The Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC). Soriano argues here that Jesus is God but not in a way that Latter Day Saints and Orthrodox Christian groups, would agree. Soriano argues the following :

“What was called in the Bible as the man Jesus Christ is the body, which He gave as a ransom for sins to mediate between God and men.

I TIMOTHY 2:5-6 
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; 
6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”

As we see, Eli Soriano’s Christology have some similarities with Apollinarianism, the idea that Jesus Christ had a human body and a divine soul and with this, Jesus Christ did not actually became fully human. for us Latter Day Saints, we believe that Jesus Christ was fully God and when he partook flesh, he was fully human (although Trinitarianism believes that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, these have serious problems on both natures were one in the person of Jesus Christ, i.e the Hypostatic Union). to claim that Jesus Christ has a human body but a divine soul is problematic for it begs the question, namatay ba talaga si Jesus Christ? if Jesus Christ did not have true humanity, the atonement won’t be possible. it is said that Jesus Christ was divine and that he took a human body and that “....he dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:1-14) and that Jesus Christ emptied himself fully before taking a human body (Phil. 2:5-11). it is said that Jesus was lowered down than angels and that he might suffer and die (Heb. 2:7-9). if Jesus Christ did not have any true humanity, the Atonement won’t be possible for the being of Jesus Christ did not suffered as a whole. furthermore, the human nature of Jesus Christ can be seen throughout the New Testament. Jesus Christ hungered (Mk. 11:12), Jesus Christ became weary and slept (Mk. 4:38-40), Jesus Christ thirsted (Jn. 19:28), Jesus Christ was tempted (Mt. 4:1-11; Mk. 1:12; Lk. 41) and most of all, Jesus Christ died (Jn. 19:30; Rom. 5:8-11; Col. 2:14). Jesus Christ became one of you and me—who has a physical and tangible body that is subject to pain and death. the Savior was born here on earth to have a physical body and to live as a mortal that is subject to pain and to death and without him being human that will shed blood and die, you cannot be forgiven from your sins. you can’t be saved (Heb. 9:22-28).

       For Latter Day Saints, Jesus Christ was divine prior to his incarnation and in his incarnation, Jesus Christ gave up his divine qualities that were incompatible with mortality while retaining qualities that will indicate divinity (κενόω - keno-ō : Phil. 2:5-11; cf. Heb. 2:7-9). mortality includes suffering and death; man's body was subject to pain and death and man's spirit and soul will later separate (Gen. 2:6-17; 3:3-19; 2 Sam. 14:14; Ec. 12:7), and for Christ to die, he should have full humanity. Jesus Christ must take that same natures of mortality for him to shed blood for the sins of mankind. if Jesus Christ is bodily divine with a body that dies, no atonement was made. we also know that God is omniscient—that He knows all things (Ps. 139:1-4; 147:4-5; 1 Jn. 3:20) but we know that Jesus Christ in his mortal state—does not know some things that only the Father knows (Mt. 24:36), and we see here that even Jesus Christ passed through the veil of forgetfulness. man also can be tempted (Prov. 1:10; 1 Ths. 3:5) and that God cannot be tempted (James 1:13), yet we see that Jesus Christ was tempted by Satan by tempting him to eat in his days of fasting, to test God, and to have all the richness of the world if he will worship him, the adversary (Mt. 4:1-11; Mk. 1:12; Lk. 41), but why? we see in Heb. 4:15 that :

     "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." (Heb 4:14-16) NKJV

We see that Jesus Christ was different than any other human. you see here where Paul while talking about Christ with Christ as our high priest, he said in here that Jesus Christ—who knows our weaknesses, was tempted and yet is without sin. Jesus Christ was sinless (Mt. 3:12-17; Lk. 4:34; Acts 4:27; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:14-15; 7:26; 9:14; 1 Pt. 2:21-22; 1 Jn. 2:1; 3:5); and he was tempted to sin but what makes him different is that he chose not—always. he chose not to sin. we can see it also in the Garden of Gethsemane when Christ said that ".....let this cup pass from me" (Mt. 26:39-42; 14:36; Lk. 22:42) but what Christ did is that he allowed himself to submit to what was going to happen for the greater good. Jesus Christ chose to partake of that cup to follow his Father's will and not his will, when Christ said "..... nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt". Jesus Christ chose always good and did always good; that ".....he went out doing good" (Acts 10:38). Jesus Christ had those human qualities while being fully human and after his death and ressurection, Jesus Christ having a perfected body—was perfected (Heb. 5:7-9). Jesus Christ was exalted and was placed above the highest place in heaven, having all the glory and power and authority, and was given the name above all names (Mt. 28:18; Phil. 2:5-11; cf. Jn. 17:5). Jesus Christ can't be the divine mediator of mankind; the mediator who gave himself a ransom for their redemption—if he himself was not truly human at all (1 Tim. 2:5-6). Jesus Christ is our divine Savior; Jesus Christ was truly human; Jesus Christ was the divine Son who came to flesh (Jn. 1:1-18; Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 2:7-9; 1 Jn. 4:2; 2 Jn. 1;7); and he is not divine in a way that Eli Soriano wants him to be. Jesus Christ showed the greatest way of humility to mankind. he is the perfect example of humility (Mt. 11:29; 20:28; Jn. 13:5-6; 2 Cor. 8:9; Heb. 2:7-16; 5:7-9; 12:2) and one of the greatest examples of humility that he gave was giving up fully his glory and divine qualities—for me and you (Phil. 2:5-6).

In an article, I also wrote on the Hypostatic Union which has some similarities where Jesus Christ's divinity was veiled in his humanity which is simply not true. In an article, I wrote  :

      The Hypostatic Union is ang traditional Christological concept of the being of Christ that is established by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. ang doctrine na ito teaches that Jesus Christ had two natures—two natures that are completely incompatible (according to Trinitarianism) in the one person of Jesus Christ; Divine and Human. the two natures are in union in the person of Jesus Christ and hence we have the Hypostatic Union. this Christological concept of the person of Christ teaches na ang two natures na ito exist without mixture, change, or division. as Latter Day Saints, we also believe that Jesus Christ is the God-man, i.e God incarnate; but with this concept ng person of Jesus Christ however ay we do not accept it and it is Christologicaly problematic on how these two natures will co-exist. as Latter Day Saints, we believe that man and God are of the essential order of beings; that man are of the same species of God but God is progressed and man is unprogressed and man is under progression. man is morally sinful and God is morally perfect. as Paul said that we are the "offspring [γένος - genos]" (Acts 17:28-29) and that we have the potential to partake the divine nature (Rom. 8:16-17; Gal. 4:7; Phil. 3:20-21; Heb. 12:9-10; 2 Pt. 1:4; 1 Jn. 3:2-3; Rev. 3:21; 21:7). In Trinitarianism, however; they believe that men and God are totally different beings like cats and dogs are different. we will first discuss the qualities ng Divine Nature and ng Human Nature. these are attributes that God have that man doesn't have according to traditional Christian views :

God

     1. Uncreated 2. Incorporeal 3. Omniscient 4. Omnipotent 5. Omnipresent 6. Immortal

Man

     1. Created 2. Corporeal 3. Not Omniscient (may limited knowledge) 5. Not Omnipotent (may limitations) 5. Not Omnipresent 6. Mortal

According to Trinitarianism, Jesus had all the 6 attributes of God and the 6 attributes of man at the same time in the entirety of his person which is logically impossible and problematic. according to Trinitarianism, man is created literally out of nothing and on the other hand, God is uncreated. man is mortal yet God is immortal. God cannot die.if titingnan natin ang being ni Jesus Christ as God incarnate in light of Trinitarian dogmas, when Jesus died, ang death is only inflicted in his human nature but not in the whole being ni Jesus Christ himself. Jesus Christ did not truly had true humanity as opposed to what the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is truly human and that he came in flesh (1 Jn. 4:1-3; 2 Jn. 1:7). denying or disregarding the true humanity ni Jesus Christ is heretical. On the Hypostatic Union, Latter Day Saint Theologian and Philosopher, Blake Ostler, wrote :

    "Consider the following:

(A) God is essentially omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and uncreated;

(B) Jesus Christ was and is fully God;

(C) Jesus Christ was and is fully human;

(D) Necessarily, no human is omnipotent or omnipresent or uncreated.

Given the foregoing premises, there is an inconsistency in asserting that teach of these premises is true. The affirmation of any three of these premises entails the denial of the fourth--at least if premises (B) and (C) are understood as identity statements. Do not the affirmation (A), (B), and (D) entail Docetism or the assertion that Christ is not human? Do not (A) and (D) entail Arianism in the sense that Christ is not fully God? Do not the affirmation of (B), (C) and (D) entail that God is not omnipotent or omnipresent and thus not really God? Do not (A), (B) and (C) entail that humans are omnipotent and omnipresent--a claim so obviously absurd that no one has seriously promoted it?" (Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, volume 1: The Attributes of God [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2001], 419-21)

Furthermore, Thomas N. Hart wrote :

    " The Chalcedonian formula makes a genuine humanity impossible. The conciliar definition says that Jesus is true man. But if there are two natures in him, it is clear which will dominate. And Jesus becomes immediately very different from us. He is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. He knows past, present, and future, and enjoys the unbroken vision of God, He knows exactly what everyone is thinking and going to do. This is far from ordinary human experience. Jesus is tempted, but cannot sin because he is God. What kind of temptation is this? Can it be called temptation at all? It has little in common with the kinds of struggles we are familiar with. These difficulties flow from the divinity overshadowing the humanity, and from Jesus not having a human personal center.

The formula explicitly assigns Jesus a human nature, and all Christians confess that Jesus is truly man as well as truly God. But if we consult our mage of him, we recognize that we see him as a divine rather than a human being. His outward appearance is human, but his inner life is very different. He has a human body, and he eats, sleeps, and talks like a human person. But things are quite different within, where the self-consciousness is all that of God. Is it having a body, and eating and sleeping, that constitute a human being? What contemporary theologians are saying is that it is precisely the “innards” of a person that bear the distinctive marks of a human nature. The Anglican theologian John Knox puts this matter particularly well. To be human is to be inwardly human, and that is to be limited in knowledge, not to know the future, not to know what is inside others but only to be able to intuit or guess. To be inwardly human is to wonder who one is and what one is supposed to do with one’s life, and to carry that question with varying degrees of acuity all through one’s existence. To be human is to struggle with God, to be aware of God as present to oneself at times, but to know times too when God seems to be absent and out of reach. To be human is to unfold step by step in the recognition and realization of one’s authentic self-hood (which includes one’s vocation), not to possess it all at once from the beginning. Can Jesus be true God and at the same time be truly human in these essential ways?

We can see the same difficulty if we consider our living of the Christian life. The Christian spirituality that follows from Chalcedon has always been strong in this respect, that it brings God nearer, in Jesus, and so facilitates our relating to God. But in another respect, this spirituality has always been weak. We cannot identify with this Jesus. He is not just superior to us, the way St. Francis of Assisi was superior to most of us; he is different. He has not struggled in the mire of life the way we have to. So if we say to someone who is struggling to integrate his sexuality into responsible loving: “You know, Jesus had to struggle with this too,” the person will probably respond: “What makes you think that? He was God.” And if we say to the patient dying a painful death, with much fear and little sense of the presence of God: “It was in circumstances just like this, and with very similar feelings, that Jesus died,” the patient will probably reply: “I know he suffered a lot. But he knew he was God and he knew he would rise again.” If we try to console the person whose spouse has had an affair, who has been deeply wounded and cannot find it in her heart to forgive or trust again, and we say: “You know, Jesus didn’t just talk about forgiving; he suffered some terrible hurts and betrayals from those who were closest, and had to struggle just as you do to forgive, and trust them again,” the person’s likely reply would be: “But he was so different, and his whole life so different, that I just can’t relate to what you are saying.” In other words, Jesus is human in a way, but not in the way we are. And yet does not Hebrews say of him: “Since he was himself tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are tempted” (Heb 2:18)?"(Thomas N. Hart, To Know and Follow Jesus: Contemporary Christology [New York: Paulist Press, 1984], 46-48)

Lucien J. Richard wrote :

     "Chalcedon and the Doctrine of the Hypostatic Union

Later Christologies such as that of Cyril of Alexandria affirms the full humanity of Jesus while maintaining the impassibility and immutability of the divine Logos. The subject of suffering is the human Jesus. There is a risk here of loosening the intimate link between the divine Logos and human nature of Jesus. In expressing the nature of the Incarnation, Cyril used the phrase “hypostatic union.” Cyril rites: “We believe therefore, not in one like us honoured with Godhead by grace . . . but rather in the Lord who appeared in servant’s form and Who was truly like us and in human nature, yet remained God, for God the Word, when he took flesh, laid not down what he was, but is conceived of the Same God alike and man” (Cyril of Alexandria, “Scholia on the Incarnation,” in Five Tomes Against Nestorius, ed. E.B. Posey, [Oxford: James Parrer and Co., 1881] 12, p. 197). The two natures, divine and human, are so united in Jesus that we may speak of one Person. Because of this unity we may speak in such terms as God suffered, God died, Yet the Logos remains in his own nature impassible; he remains “. . . external to suffering as far as pertains to His own Nature, for God is Impassible” (Ibid., 13, p. 202). Cyril must simultaneously affirm the impassibility of the Logos and the suffering of the Logos have effected redemption. The Logos suffered in the human flesh and since this flesh is the Logos’ very own the Logos suffered, but impassibly. Cyril’s difficulties with this question of Jesus’ suffering and divinity can be seen in the following quotation:

And though Jesus be said also to suffer, the suffering will belong to the economy; but is said to be His, and with all reason, because His to is that which suffered, and he was in the suffering Body, He unknowing to suffer (for He is impassible as God); yet as far as pertained to the daring of those who raged against Him, He would have suffered, if he could have suffered. (Ibid.)

In Cyril’s doctrine on the Incarnation, we have a clear expression of the difficulties inherent in accepting an understanding of God as changeless, eternal and impassible, of identifying the Logos to such a God and of attempting to attribute real suffering to the incarnated Logos. The Logos is sympathetic to the suffering of the flesh, but does not suffer himself. The divine in Christ is untouched by the suffering of his human nature. Instead of being affected by becoming flesh, the divine Logos imparts its attributes to the human nature. There is a deification of the human, but no humanization of the divine.

Hilary presses the idea of impassibility to a point where the exemplary nature of Christ’s experience in His human nature almost completely disappears. Writing about the Logos’ human nature, Hilary affirms “When, in this humanity, He was struck with blows, or smitten with wounds, or bound with ropes, or lifted on high, He felt the force of suffering, but without its pain . . . He had a body to suffer, and he suffered: but He had not a nature which could feel pain. For His body possessed a unique nature of its own” (St. Hilary, On the Trinity X, 23). In fact, Hilary believes that Jesus Christ never needed to satisfy bodily longings. He writes, “ . . . it is never said that the Lord ate or drank or wept when he was hungry or sorrowful. He conformed to the habits of the body to prove the reality of his own body, to satisfy the custom of human bodies, by doing as our nature does. When he ate and drank, it was a concession, not to his own necessity but to our habits” (Ibid., X, 24). This approach seems to evacuate the Passion narratives of their force: suffering undertaken for the sake of men and women yet without pain is not suffering. (Lucien J. Richard, A Kenotic Christology: In the Humanity of Jesus the Christ, the Compassion of Our God [Lanham, Md. : University Press of America, 1982], 140-42)

    In contrast to Trinitarian Christology, Latter Day Saints believe that Jesus Christ is also God and man but when he was incarnated, he emptied divine qualities that are incompatible to humanity and retained some qualities essential in being in the state of God. Jesus Christ emptied himself fully that he might suffer and die for us (Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 2:7-9). Jesus also progressed and grew and learned from his experiential knowledge and he became perfected (Lk. 2:52; 13:32; Heb. 2:10-18; 5:8-9). Jesus Christ also came down here on heart to help us in our progression to divinity that we might also become perfect as he is. with Latter Day Saint Christology, Christ being both God and man makes more logical sense.

Eli Soriano also adds that Jesus Christ is the lady wisdom of Prov. 8, which he wrote :

      "There is no other wisdom of God mentioned in the Bible which existed with God from everlasting except the Lord of glory.

PROVERBS 8:12, 22-31
12 I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions.
22 The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.
23 I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
24 When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.
25 Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:
26 While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
27 When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:
28 When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:
29 When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:
30 Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;
31 Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men."

There are problems with this whatsoever when you try to make a connection between Jesus being the σοφία (sophia) of God (1 Cor. 1:28). Jesus Christ was not created but was the creator under the omnipotence of God the Father (Jn. 1:1-3; Col. 1:15-19; Heb. 1:3) but when you read Prov. 8 in context, lady sophia was part of the created realm and not the uncreated realm where Jesus Christ belongs. the Hebrew word קנה (qana) in v. 22 would show this in which Prof. Rolf Furuli wrote:

        "Athanasius agreed with the Arians that the wisdom in proverbs referred to Jesus Christ, and what is interesting here is that both “create” and “beget/be born” occur in parallel verses. The Hebrew word qänä in verse 22 is, in most instances, used in the Bible with a resultative sense, as, a stative with the meaning “to possess.” Thus, the Vulgate translates, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning.” However, in the Hebrew text there is no preposition with the meaning “in” before “beginning,” and “beginning” is therefore logically an accusative object rather than adverbial. Therefore, the Septuagint translates, “The Lord created me the beginning of his ways.” The Aramaic Targums and the Syriac Peshitta have similar renditions. Using normal procedures for interpretation this can only mean that the wisdom, whatever he/she/it refers to, is not eternal but had a beginning. Athanasius solves the problem of the word “created” with reference to wisdom, whom he identifies with Jesus Christ, by saying that it refers to his incarnation.

But what about the words in verse 25 where the wisdom says, “Before the mountains themselves had been settled down, ahead of the hills, I was brought forth with labor pains”? The Hebrew verb hûl used in this verse can mean “to bear a child with pains.” Is this verb the opposite of qänä (“to produce”)? Or, to use the Greek verbs of the Septuagint gennaō (“to beget, into existence, be created”)? Athanasius would have us believe just that. After quoting Proverbs 8:25 he writes: “And in many passages of the divine oracles is the Son said to have been generated [gegennesthai], but nowhere to have come into being [gegonenai].” As a further defense of the Nicene creed, he wrote:

He is then by nature an Offspring, perfect from Perfect, begotten before all the hills [Prov 8:25], that is before every rational and intelligent essence, as Paul also in another place calls him “First-born of all creation” [Col 1:15]. He shews that he is not a creature, but Offspring of the Father. For it would be inconsistent with His deity for Him to be called a creature. For all things were created by the Father through the Son, but the Son alone was eternally begotten from the Father, whence God the Word is “first-born of all creation.” (NPNF 4, p. 85)

But it is quite clear that hûl in Proverbs 8:25 is a synonym of qänä rather than an antonym.

When we look at the way the Bible uses the words “create,” “beget,” “son,” “offspring,” and “creature,” it becomes clear that Athanasius’ claims are special pleading. IN Psalm 90:2, for example, hûl (to bear a child with pain”) and yäläd “(beget, bear”) are used figuratively for the creation of the earth, thus making the words synonyms with “create” instead of antonyms: “Before the mountains themselves were born [yäläd], Or you proceeded to bring forth as with labor pains [hûl] the earth.”

In the rest of the Bible, when hûl and yäläd are used literally or figuratively, they almost always refer to that which has been produced. One lexicon says this about hûl, “This idiom may be used to refer to creation or origins on a cosmic scale (Prov 8:24-25) (Gleason Archer, Harris Laird, and Bruce Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, vol. 1 [Chicago: Moody Press, 1980], p. 271).

In the Bible the word “son” is used with a “biological” or familiar meaning. It may be used figuratively (analogically), but in such situations the literal meaning is always taken as a point of departure. There is no example of the word “son” being used with the meaning “eternal being,” ascribed to it by Athanasius. It is true that Jesus Christ as “son” is contrasted with the angels who are creatures. But this does not contrast their natures, giving “son” in the case of Jesus a sense different from the familiar one; rather, the contrast relates to the quality of Jesus’ sonship, which the Bible stresses in two ways: 1) Before Jesus came to earth he is called the “only begotten/unique son” (Joh 3:16) or the “only begotten god” (Joh 1:18); the epithet “only begotten” implies that there are other sons of God, but this one is special. 2) By means of his resurrection he obtained a special filial relationship with his Father. He “was declared God’s Son . . . by means of a resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4), and “he has become better than the angels” (Heb 1:4). We may also note that in Hebrews 2:11 Jesus Christ is said to have brothers, also implying that others are gods of God. (Rolf Furuli, The Role of Theology and Bias in Bible Translation With a Special Look at the New World Translation of Jehovah’s Witnesses [Huntington Beach, Calif.: Elihu Books, 1999], 133-36)

As a Latter-Day Saint, I believe that Jesus is God but I also believe in his true humanity which is required for him to suffer and die for our sins. I believe that Jesus is God but not in the way Eli Soriano believes it and presents it.

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