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Equal with God

At church on Sunday evenings we have begun a series in Hebrews. This exposition of the Christian faith has been somewhat eclipsed by the letter to the Romans. While clearly written from a Jewish perspective, and thus most immediately relevant to Jewish Christians, the letter to the Hebrews nevertheless provides, for all of us, a magnificent exposition of the Christian faith, presenting Christ as Son and Great High Priest. 

Right from the start of the letter, Christ is presented in the most exalted terms as the Son whose name is far superior and more excellent than the angels. 

In the first chapter the letter to the Hebrews makes the strongest case that God the Father himself refers to the Son as "my Son", calls on angels to worship him, acknowledges the Son's reign ("Your throne, O God"), speaks of him as eternal Creator, and says to him, "Sit at my right hand." 

The full deity of the Son, and his equality with the Father is a truth central to and essential for the Christian faith. A created, merely "angelic" Saviour/High Priest (such a being is merely fictitious) could not have saved us. 

Over the centuries the truth of Christ's fully deity has repeatedly been denied and undermined by many. 

In the 300s Athanasius stood for the deity of Christ, it felt at the time, against the whole world (Athanasius contra mundum). Eventually his assertion that Christ is consubstantial with the Father triumphed and was asserted at the Church Councils of 325 and 381. 

Arian Christianity, a semi-Christian movement which denied the deity of Christ, continued among the Goths and other peoples well into the 6th century at least until the Council of Toledo. While many Arians eventually confessed Christ as God, similar teachings re-emerged in different places and at different times. 

In the 1600s and 1700s, once again, this teaching, even claiming Biblical authority, infiltrated the non-Anglican churches in England and Wales. A cause célèbre was the meeting at Salters Hall in 1719 at which the assembled non-Anglican church leaders failed to adopt a clear confession, preferring to affirm Scripture without being will to clearly state what Scripture teaches. Over time many, if not most of these churches drifted into Unitarianism (vague belief in One God with Christ merely a created being). 

As for Christ and the teaching of the Apostles, the truth could not be clearer: "Therefore they sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God." (John 5:18) 

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