How error enters the church By Robin Schumacher, for The Christian Post
The disagreement centered around a single letter in a single word. You can’t get more subtle than that.
All Arius (AD ca. 250 – 336) wanted was for the Church to say Jesus’ was homoiousion but not homoousion when it came to Christ’s relationship to God. That single letter addition to the word meant Jesus was “of like substance” when it came to God but not “of the same substance.”
And to any thinking Christian, that won’t do. Such a claim is no mere exercise in semantics.
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Arius’ position became clearer when he said, “The Father existed before the Son. There was a time when the Son did not exist. Therefore, the Son was created by the Father. Therefore, although the Son was the highest of all creatures, he was not of the essence of God.” Arius himself was a very winsome guy and argued his case with those outside church leadership, even going so far as to compose catchy songs to help them remember his position.
That’s how clever and persistent error can be when it comes to penetrating the Church and saturating it with lies. Chuck Colson wrote, “I have spoken of the frontal assaults and the sneak attacks. There is something worse … the enemy is in our midst. He has so infiltrated our camp that many simply can no longer tell an enemy from a friend, truth from heresy.”
Maybe this is why, 2,000 years ago, Jesus’ half-brother Jude felt the need to strongly warn us about false teaching.
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Writing his short letter not long after Jesus’ crucifixion, Jude evidently intended to compose one message but then was interrupted by the Holy Spirit to write something entirely different.
He says:
