Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Colossians 2:8-9
Roman scholastics of the Middle Ages were steeped in heathen philosophy. These doctors of theology justified their predilection for paganism by the maxim that ‘philosophy is the handmaid of theology’. Romish schoolmen did not originate this sentiment but had received it as an inheritance from the schools of Alexandria. Beginning with Philo the Jew (born 25 BC), the tradition of employing heathen philosophy to interpret Scripture was carried on by Alexandrian church fathers such as Clement, Origen, and Didymus the Blind. In a letter to one of his pupils, Origen wrote, ‘we have to regard pagan philosophy as an assistant of Christian doctrine’.
Origen’s reliance upon heathen mysticism as an interpretive guide is seen in his famous doctrine of ‘eternal generation’. Origen wrote, ‘the Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written’. On this false premise, Origen declared Jesus to be ‘eternally begotten’, which essentially means that the Son of God is continually generated by the Father and therefore not a separate being. This teaching would become an essential component in the formulation of the trinity. In the 4th century, the Alexandrian priests Alexander and Athanasius maintained that Jesus is ‘one in being’ with the Father based upon Origen’s eternal generation.
In the days of Apostle Paul, the Christianised form of the trinity had not yet been developed. Nonetheless, the Apostle had firsthand experience with the allegorical antics of Philo and those of his kind. Owing to his rabbinical education, the Apostle had been acquainted with the Scriptures from infancy. Yet the traditions with which his teachers had overlaid the Scriptures had rendered him oblivious to the One that they testified of (John 5:39). So much so, that he persecuted the Author of the words he knew by heart (Acts 26:14).
With ‘great swelling words of vanity’, false teachers like Origen leave the impression that there is great depth to the foolishness they affirm. But by teaching that the Scriptures bear a mystical meaning, not apparent in the words themselves, they turn men from Christ as He is revealed in His word, spoiling or robbing them of the heavenly treasure in exchange for base earthly elements.
But if we take the Scriptures as they are written, we see that Jesus was begotten once during ‘the days of eternity’ (Micah 5:8 KJV Margin). Having a beginning by no means renders the Son a created being. In reference to the nature Jesus received at His birth, it is written: ‘it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell’ (Colossians 1:19). In the next chapter, Paul explains this further by adding: ‘in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily’ (2:9). Indeed, Jesus has a bodily form which is entirely separate from His Father’s. Within this glorious form, the full measure of the Godhead, or the divine nature, dwells as a birthright. May no man rob us of the elevated conception of the Son of God as is proclaimed in His word.
Christopher Sparks