Remarkably, the first heresy about Christ was not the denial of His full divinity, but the denial of His full humanity. The denial of His divinity would be left to Arius in the fourth century A.D. Long before Arius, heretics denied that Christ was man born of the Virgin Mary. John, the Apostle, already recognized this attack on the catholic truth: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already" (1Jn 4:1-3). This is remarkable to us because in our day the most common heresy in regard to Christ is the denial of His full divinity. The long project of liberal western Christianity was to strip Jesus of the divine nature and reduce Him to an opinionated religious philosopher and do-gooder. In this liberal make-over, He bears an astonishing (or maybe not so much) resemblance to the very self-regarding architects of His demotion from divinity. This is recognizable as a form of self-deification. If God can be dethroned, that leaves the position open for other applicants.

Ignatius of Antioch was fully aware of the Gnostic attack on the humanity of God's Son, born of Mary. Although it is hard to say that one heresy is worse than the next, because the Word of the Lord is a completely united whole, the denial of Christ's humanity may be the worst heresy ever to arise and be foisted onto Christians. It makes our liberal heretics look like pikers in comparison. For if His humanity could be painted as a mere appearance, a phantasm, or a ghost, then it calls into question whether our human nature has been cleansed and redeemed by the incarnation of the Word. If the incarnation was a bit a play acting, then in what way could we who have real human natures be sure of our redemption? If He bore only an appearance, He would have only rescued an appearance from death and decay. What benefit is there for those of us who, not only appear to be human, but also truly are human?

If Christ has not born truly humanity we would be left alone in the world. If He maintains the full majesty of His divinity and has not our human flesh, but only an appearance of it, then how could we approach Him certain of His hearing and subsequent intercession for us. He would only be an majestic potentate, not our brother, our friend, and our fellow sufferer. Appearing to sympathize with those who suffer, is far different than suffering with them and for them.  One of my favorite films is The Doctor, in which William Hurt plays surgeon Jack MacKee, who regards his patients as specimens rather than people. In a supreme irony, MacKee learns that he has cancer and while undergoing treatment recognizes that he had neither understood his patient's suffering nor the callous way he had treated them. His suffering changed the way he treated those whom he sought to heal. He now understood. So it is for the Messiah who bears our flesh; He knows how to treat those who are suffering, because He suffered in our flesh.