The Hulk Can't Save You-The Perils of Apollinarianism

Andrew Slay

Superheroes Can't Save You • Sermon • Submitted a year ago

Anthropology

Apollinarianism

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The Hulk Can’t Save You

Backstory of the Hulk

Bruce Banner: Physicist

Wife dies and he does not have the strength to save her.

Learns that Gamma Radiation increases strength and provides super human strength.

Takes lethal dose and becomes the Hulk.

Becomes the Hulk when he gets angry and the result is rage, destruction, and chaos.

Hulk’s strength is controlled by his temper…the angrier he gets, the stronger he becomes.

As strong, resilient, and powerful the Hulk is, he has the mind and intellect of a child....only using one or two word sentences.

One example of this is his favorite phrase…HULK SMASH!

We would think that the genius of Bruce Banner would cross over to Hulk’s mind....but it does not.

In fact, there is not much left of the human of Bruce Banner when he transforms into the Hulk, and the Hulk does not possess Banner’s intelligence, compassion, or memory.

You could say that the Hulk had a human body…albeit a giant indestructible human body…but everything else was “Hulk” and not human.

Many people today have this same idea about Jesus.

Some suggest that Jesus was an ordinary man with a human body but a divine will or divine mind.

The result is that Jesus was partly human and partly divine…Jesus had a divine mind in a human body.

Since deity is greater than humanity, like Hulk overcoming Bruce Banner, Jesus’ divine mind would overwhelm the human aspect of Jesus.

This results in Jesus not being very human at all anymore.

This is what we call the Hulk heresy.

The Heresy

Apollinaris was Athanasius’ friend (the one who condemned the Thor heresy of Arianism).

Became bishop of Laodicea in 362 AD.

Apollinaris was zealous for defending the deity of Jesus at all costs and ment well in his intentions of his understanding of Jesus.

Apollinaris believed humanity was made up of three parts: body, a sensitive soul, and a rational mind.

However, this understanding of humanity, which can also be known as one’s “anthropology,” came from the Greek philosopher Plato and not the Bible.

He believed 1 Thessalonians 5:23 justified him in his anthropology when Paul said, “may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

However, instead of seeking to discover what the biblical author wanted to say, Apollinaris came to the Bible looking and hoping it would say and confirm what he already believed…a mistake we can often make today.

For Plato, the body was simply a body…an outer shell. The soul animated the body to allow man to live, move, feel, and breathe…but the rational mind was the highest part of man…which is composed of man’s intellect, conscious, and will.

Based on Plato’s anthropology, and to protect the deity of Jesus, Apollinaris concluded that Jesus’ humanity was found in his body and soul, but his deity was found in his mind.

In other words, “The humanity of Jesus contributed the lowest two parts to his being; deity contributed the highest. Jesus was two parts human and one part, the most important part, divine.”

Apollinaris believed that Jesus’ mind must be divine and not human because this is the only way God could maintain his immutability.

Immutability means “unable to change.” However, Apollinaris had a wrong definition of immutability. The Bible does teach that God is immutable, in that he does not change in his being, perfections, or promises…however, this does not mean that he is unable to feel emotions and be absolutely unchanging in any way.

Once again, Apollinaris was getting his definitions of God’s attributes not from Scripture, but from Greek thought.

This should be another warning for us to not allow the thoughts of the world creep into the church and affect the way we read the Bible.

The Church condemned Apollinaris’ concept of Jesus in 381 at the First Council of Constantinople and deemed it a heresy.

The biggest issue of Apollinaris’ teaching is that if Jesus was only two parts human and one part divine, than Jesus was not fully human…He was basically God in a human shell…and like Hulk, Jesus’ deity overwhelmed and controlled the other two aspects of his humanity.

If this is the case and Jesus was not fully human, as we learned with docetism and the Superman heresy, Jesus cannot be our savior and our representative as a man and we are still dead in our sin.

Who Commits the Hulk Heresy Today?

People who think God only cares about the “spiritual” part of our nature and we can only know him more through faith and not with our mind.

These people think studying theology is useless and all we need is “faith.”

However...Romans 12:2 says we need to “renew our minds.”

Jesus had a full human mind.

This thought process of downplaying the mind can also come into play when we think Jesus only cares about our spirit and not our physical body.

Whenever we downplay the need to fight against temptation because we don’t think Jesus really was tempted, we also commit the Hulk heresy.

Surely Jesus’ divine nature took over and gave him the strength in his mind to resist the temptations of the devil.

In the same way that Bruce Banner, in a moment of crisis, morphed into the Hulk, Jesus, in a moment of temptation, allowed his divine nature to take over so he could resist temptation.

Todd Miles says, “Nobody thinks that Bruce Banner, as the Hulk, fought the bad guys as a legitimate human. Likewise, many Christians do not believe that Jesus really fought temptation as a legitimate human.”

So..is this true? What does the Bible have to say about this?

What Does the Bible Say?

The real issue with this heresy is it defines human beings in a way the Bible does not…so we must figure out what the Bible teaches about who we are as humans and what makes up our nature…are we made up of three parts (body, soul, spirit/mind) or two parts (body and spirit)?

We are made up of two main aspects with different integrated parts.

In Genesis 1-2, we learn that God created humans with two things: dirt (material) and the breath of life (immaterial). Humans did not always exist and humans were the only ones created in the image of God.

Both our physical (material) and spiritual (immaterial) parts are made in God’s image and are equally important.

After God breathed his life into us, Scripture says we became a “living being,” which means “living soul.” Therefore, we do not have a soul…but we are souls. “To say that we are souls is to say that we are living beings.”

One thing to note is our soul or spirit is the immaterial aspect of our human nature that will go to be with the Lord if we die in Christ before he returns and then be reunited with our physical glorified body at Christ’s resurrection....but the Bible uses the word soul to describe a created and living being…the soul is our life before God.

For example: 250 years ago, people would use soul and life interchangeably: There were 300 souls lost at sea.

But hold on…you may be asking…what do we do with those passages of Scripture that teach us to love the Lord with all our heart and all our soul?

In Deuteronomy 6:5, when God tells Israel to love him with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength…what he is really saying is love me WITH EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR BEING.

So, as humans, we are a unified being that is composed of material (body) and immaterial (soul/spirit) aspects with many different parts (mind, conscience, strength, etc.)

And it is important to know that Jesus, being fully human, was made up of the exact same aspects we were.

Jesus fought temptation as a man, not a Hulk

First, note that in Matthew 4:1-2, Jesus was led “by the Spirit” into the wilderness. Before Jesus was ever tempted, he was walking in step with the Spirit.

He also fasted for 40 days and nights, which means he said no to food and said yes to spiritual disciplines such as prayer and meditation.

This means Jesus was praying and meditating on God’s word for 40 days before the temptation from Satan occured.

What is meditation?

“to mutter over”

Example of hard candy

So..this means when Satan showed up, Jesus did not use any superhuman power or a divine mind to defeat Satan but the spiritual disciplines of fasting, prayer, and meditation through the power of the Holy Spirit that you and I have access to today as believers.

Satan tempted Jesus three times, questioning if he was the Son of God and seeking him to doubt God’s goodness, provision, and protection…yet each time Jesus resisted Satan’s temptations…look at what tactics he used:

First Temptation: Matthew 4:3-4 “And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ””

Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 8:3, where Moses reminded the people that God gave them manna to test them to see if they would trust in God and his provision.

Jesus does not use superhuman strength or divine power…but defeats Satan with God’s word.

Second Temptation: Matthew 4:5-7 “Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ””

Satan quotes Psalm 91, but twists the Scripture and Jesus corrects him from Deuteronomy 6:16.

Again, Jesus parries Satan’s punch not with divine power but precise words from God.

Third Temptation: Matthew 4:8-11 “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ” Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.”

Same attempt by Satan, same response by Jesus, and same result…Satan’s schemes are resisted by Jesus....but done through ordinary means…spiritual disciplines of knowing, meditating, living, and quoting the word of God.

Don’t miss verse 11…Look who showed up after Jesus won…the angels! God did in fact send angels to console and comfort him just as he promised. Jesus trusted in God’s word and God delivered…but he did it in his timing.

Jesus did not go “hulk” and defeat Satan with his divine mind, but defeated Satan as a man who fully depended upon God’s word and God’s Spirit.

Todd Miles says, “Jesus fought temptation as a man and he calls us to do the same.”

Why is this Important?

There are two reasons why Jesus having both, a human body and a human mind that are vital to our salvation:

Jesus Came to Save Every Aspect of Us, Including our Mind

If Jesus did not have a human mind, then our minds could not be redeemed or cleansed of all our impure thoughts.

The Bible teaches in numerous places that because of the curse of sin, our entire being is condemned and totally depraved…this means that both our material and immaterial aspects…which includes our mind.

As unbelievers apart from Christ…our minds are...

“blinded from seeing the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4)

“depraved” (1 Timothy 6:5)

“defiled” (Titus 1:15)

But in Christ, we have been made new and because Jesus had a human mind, his life, death, and resurrection not only saved our soul and body but also saved our mind.

This is why Paul commands believers to not allow our minds to be seduced from a sincere and pure devotion to the Lord (2 Corinthians 11:3). He commands us to be “renewed in the spirit of our minds” (Ephesians 4:23). He says God’s peace will “guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

So…“The mind matters in the Christian life.”

What this means is that we must sharpen and renew our mind with God’s word…we must take every thought captive in obedience to Christ…we must set our hope completely on the glory of Jesus…setting our minds on the things above, not on the things below.

But we must not just seek to think about “Christian things” only…but rather to think “Christianly” about all things. We need to have a Biblical worldview!

“Jesus does not just want us to think about right things but to think rightly about everything.”

Jesus died for all of you, he wants all of you, including your mind…he wants every part of you to submit to him…including your mind…he wants every part of you to love him....including your mind....He wants every part of you to glorify him…including your mind....ARE YOU DOING THIS?

To talk like Jesus talked, to walk like Jesus walked, to live like Jesus lived, we must first have his Spirit through the new birth, and then we must also spend time with him....this can only happen through reading, memorizing, and meditating on his word and immersing yourself in biblical fellowship and covenant community in the local church.

So, the first application for our lives today through Jesus having a human mind and redeeming our depraved minds, is we must love, serve, and glorify him with our mind!

The next truth is even better…because Jesus had a human mind, he is our HELP IN TEMPTATION.

Jesus is our Help in Temptation

Jesus never sinned because he fought and defeated temptation…not because he was never tempted.

In contrast…think about our situation....what is the easiest way to stop the temptations we face? -Give in!

The more we resist temptation…the harder and heavier the temptation bears upon us.

Yet, Jesus, never once gave into any temptation he faced. He faced temptation to the very end…facing the greatest degrees of the trial.

This should cause us to bow in worship in reverence to Jesus…but this also means that Jesus can help us in our temptation....because as Hebrews 4:15 says, “He has faced every temptation we have, yet without sin.”

Now this does not mean that Jesus literally faced every single situational temptation we have…but it does mean that he knows and understands every category of temptation....in fact, he knows it even better than we ever will because he took the full force of the trial....never giving in.

This is why Hebrews 2:18 says that he can come to our aid when we are tempted because he himself suffered when he was tempted.

Therefore, as the author of Hebrews later says in 12:3, we must consider Jesus, who endured such suffering and hostility from sinners against himself, so that we won’t grow weary and give up when we ourselves are tempted.”

Jesus is our great high priest who can sympathize with our weakness....

HE KNOWS how we feel when we face the temptation to cave in and compromise to be liked by others

HE KNOWS what it is like to be lonely

HE KNOWS what it is like to be despised, rejected, and mocked for standing up for the truth.

HE KNOWS what it is like to want to take the shortcut instead of being faithful

HE KNOWS what it is like to be in a situation where it seems like faith and obedience are impossible.

And Jesus can be our help in temptation, not only because he knows how we feel…but he endured and overcame every temptation we will ever face…and will give us the strength and power to defeat the temptations we experience each day!

A Hulk-like Jesus could not do this and would be no help for us in temptation…that kind of Jesus can’t save us…but praise God that Jesus Christ, the Divine Son of God, really did face every temptation as a man…really defeated every temptation as a man…and ultimately destroyed sin and death through his death and resurrection as the God-Man…therefore, this Jesus, the true Jesus, can save us…