DefendingContending, Mark Driscoll & Apollinarianism

On September 30, 2008 Desert Pastor of Team DefCon posted Mark Driscoll Mocks the Sinlessness of Jesus Christ. This was in the midst of my defense there (and elsewhere) of my pastor, John Piper, and his association with Driscoll. The gnat to be strained here was a Driscoll quote from October of 2006:

If you’re tempted to these sorts of things — including sexual sin — some of you say, “Now Mark, Jesus wasn’t sexually tempted.” Well, of course he was — 30 something year old single man who had women who adored him. You don’t think he ever wanted the comfort of a woman? You don’t think he ever got tired of going to bed by himself? You don’t think that he didn’t once want to have intimate relations with a woman? He was tempted.

- Mark Driscoll, How Human Was Jesus?

In typical DefCon, foaming-at-the-mouth, fashion, Desert Pastor (DP) rails against Driscoll and Piper. (Piper is apparently now responsible for everything Driscoll has ever spoken and written.) DefCon also applies the bait-and-switch in order to prop up their diatribes against Driscoll by repeatedly stating he attributed to Christ particular sexual desires for particular women. Of course, Driscoll never said this. Driscoll merely stated that Christ was tempted sexually (Hebrews 4:15 – to be tempted “in every respect” or “at all points” must certainly entail sexual temptation). Christ, being fully man, desired marital intimacy without sinning.

DP goes so far as to shut Driscoll out of heaven for his comments:

It is a mockery to say that such a one who openly (and seemingly) with no remorse and repentance and no chastisement or discipline even has the Spirit of God dwelling within him.

In an addendum to the post, DP writes:

His [Driscoll's] verbage indicates that Jesus wanted/desired what He could not have. He also made it clear that Jesus had an unsatisfied state. This explicitly demeans the sinlessness of Jesus Christ.

This is what I would like to focus on in this post. The above comment and others like it rubbed me wrong when I initially read them, but I had tired of warring against the cranks over at DefCon and did not then pursue it. Recently, however, these comments have come to mind again and I want to explore what I believe to be a serious error in DP’s thinking here, because it is an error many of us might fall into in our zeal to defend the holiness of God and Christ. (And, perhaps, in our unholy zeal for personal rightness; a supposed orthodoxy we might unconsciously set our hope of salvation on instead of Christ.)

Are not weariness, thirst and hunger “unsatisfied states”? Did Jesus never tire? (John 4:6) Was He never hungry or thirsty? (Mark 11:12, John 19:28) Do these wants and unsatisfied states demean the deity or sinlessness of Christ? If no, then why would the want of legitimate marital intimacy demean it?

In comments on Octorber 1, 2008 at 1:38 PM, DP writes:

He [Christ] had no evil, perverted, or sexual desires that were unrealized or unfulfilled and therefore was enticed by the temptation of “wanting” to go to bed with a woman! He did not “WANT” for anything for He was perfect. To assume that the Perfect God in the private of His mind dwelt on the thoughts of having intimate physical relations with a woman is far beyond the pale of Scripture!

First off, Driscoll never ascribes any “evil, perverted or sexual desires” to Christ or that he “dwelt on” such thoughts. This is another glaring example of Team DefCon setting up a brother in Christ and minister of the Word (oh, wait – DP has already anathematized Driscoll, so I guess he’s neither his brother nor a minister) by placing words in their mouths they never spoke or scribed.

Second, Christ didn’t want anything? Ever? According to DP & Co., was Christ truly and fully man?

In comments on Octorber 2, 2008 at 7:58 PM, DP writes:

One more thing, Jesus did NOT ask to be spared the Cross!!!! He did not ask to avoid suffering. To even insinuate, imply, or outright accuse the One Who was the Lamb slain from before the foundations of the world is contrary to Scripture.

Apparently, Mark 14:35-36 has been excised from DP’s Bible. Again, there seems to be an inability or unwillingness here to admit Christ’s human nature.

In comments on Octorber 3, 2008 at 8:49 PM, fellow DefCon haranguer, Coram Deo (CD), writes:

Driscoll’s comments are demonically inspired and blasphemous. Such statements are hell-spawned and spoken by the mouthpieces of Satan himself.

And on October 9, 2008 at 9:20 PM:

I’m sorry [No, CD, you're not]; maybe hearing this sort of filth being spewed forth from behind the pulpit just doesn’t bother some people, but to me in the light of scripture this is an excruciatingly blasphemous and satanic perversion of my Lord and my God which deeply grieves my spirit.

Well, I never have found CD to be one for subtlety. Why the overreaction to Driscoll’s affirmation of Christ’s human nature?

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Apollinaris

Best known, however, as a noted opponent of Arianism, Apollinaris’ eagerness to emphasize the deity of Jesus and the unity of his person led him so far as to deny the existence of a rational human soul (νους) in Christ’s human nature, this being replaced in him by the logos, so that his body was a glorified and spiritualized form of humanity.

Apollinarianism

Apollinarianism was the heresy taught by Apollinaris the Younger, bishop of Laodicea in Syria about 361. He taught that the Logos of God, which became the divine nature of Christ, took the place of the rational human soul of Jesus and that the body of Christ was a glorified form of human nature. In other words, though Jesus was a man, He did not have a human mind but that the mind of Christ was solely divine. Apollinaris taught that the two natures of Christ could not coexist within one person. His solution was to lessen the human nature of Christ.

Apollinarianism was condemned by the Second General Council at Constantinople in 381. This heresy denies the true and complete humanity in the person of Jesus which in turn, can jeopardize the value of the atonement since Jesus is declared to be both God and man to atone. He needed to be God to offer a pure and holy sacrifice of sufficient value and He needed to be a man in order to die for men.

Wanye Grudem, Systematic Theology, P. 534:

The complete absence of sin in the life of Jesus is all the more remarkable because of the severe temptations he faced, not only in the wilderness, but throughout his life. The author of Hebrews affirms that Jesus “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). The fact that he faced temptation means that he had a genuine human nature that could be tempted, for Scripture clearly tells us that “God cannot be tempted with evil” (James 1:13). (Emphasis mine)

Grudem, like Driscoll, clearly affirms that Christ was tempted in every way we are. I wonder if Team DefCon would consider Grudem a “mouthpiece of Satan”?

(A side note: To affirm that Christ was tempted in every respect as we are is not to affirm that Christ must have been tempted with or by every particular sin. For example, it is not necessary to affirm that Christ must have been tempted with homosexual or bestial desires. It simply affirms, in my view, that Christ was tempted in the same categories that we are tempted. To deny that Christ was in any manner tempted sexually is to deny that Christ was tempted in a major category of temptation that every human being has experienced in some form at some level. It would be, in my view, to deny that Christ was fully human and that He can now fully sympathize with our own temptations.)

Team Defcon’s language in rebutting Driscoll smacks to me of Apollinarianism.

Hebrews 4:14-16

Since then 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 is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then [therefore] with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Unless Christ was in every respect tempted as we are; unless Christ is fully man, we cannont with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace. Denying the full manhood of Christ – even if only by implication – is to deny His ability to serve us as High Priest. If Christ is not fully man, He cannot stand in our stead. He cannot save us.

This is a big deal. Bigger, I dare say, than coarse language.

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Lord, grant me a zeal for truth and not a zeal for my own rightness. Forbid my heart from trusting in a supposed spotless orthodoxy, and not in You, the sinless God-Man. Guard my heart and mind from swinging from the errors of one extreme into the errors of another.