No Nestorianism Allowed

Omnipresence. It's a big word that means something rather important in Christian Theology. To summarize the term and give it a definition, we will consult a dictionary reference, which will suffice.

om·ni·pres·ent [om-nuh-prez-uhnt] adjective; present everywhere at the same time: the omnipresent God. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/omnipresent)

 

In Christian Theology, the first thing we have to answer is if God is omnipresent. The answer from Holy Scripture is clearly yes. (1Ki 8:27; Ps 113:5; 123:1; 139:8; Jer 23:23-24; Mat 6:9; 18:20; Rom 8:9; 10:6-7; 1Co 1:27; Eph 2:22)

 

So, from Scripture, God is indeed omnipresent. He fills the heavens and the earth; He is in our midst when we are gathered in His name, and so on. Our God is omnipresent. You cannot hide from Him nor escape from Him.

 

So, having established that, let's move on to the Triune God; or as commonly formulated: The Trinity, consisting of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

 

So, having established that the omnipresence of God is indeed a Christian belief and doctrine, let us turn our gaze to the three persons of the Trinity. If God is omnipresent, is the Father omnipresent? Clearly, the answer is yes, since the Father is God. What about the Holy Spirit? If He omnipresent? Once again, since the Holy Spirit is God, the answer is yes.

 

What about Jesus Christ, the Son? Is He omnipresent? Well, if we affirm the deity of Christ, this answer should be a no-brainer. Of course He is omnipresent. Yet, here is where we run into problems historically. The orthodox Christian teaching has always been that Christ is omnipresent. There is no question about that. Likewise, I do think it is affirmed across the board that since Christ is God, He is omnipresent. I would not dispute that Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Baptists would all affirm that. Jesus Christ is omnipresent.

 

But beyond this simple definition, the disagreements start to fly. The next question that pops up is: HOW is Christ omnipresent? I think, if we simply keep our Christology orthodox, we can answer this one. The best treatment of these issues can be found at the First Council of Ephesus in 431 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

 

Christ is God, we affirm this along with every other Trinitarian Christian group. Yet, some Christian groups have some big errors when giving as answer to how Christ is omnipresent. The most prevalent error that is still extremely common today is called Nestorianism. This ancient (and modern!) heresy holds that the two natures of Christ, divine and human, are only loosely related, and can be separated, but never mixed.

 

How does this relate to omnipresence of Christ? Well, generally this comes up when we talk about the Lord's Supper. One person might say: Well, Christ ascended to heaven, therefore He is in heaven alone and nowhere else. Clearly, this is actually a denial of the omnipresence of Christ, but it is not necessarily Nestorian. Proponents of this view would thus take a very memorialist view of the Lord's Supper, saying that the bread and wine are only metaphorical or figurative. Christ is not present in the sacrament because Christ is not with us; He is in heaven.

 

 

Another person may say: Christ is omnipresent according to His divinity but not according to His humanity. He ascended and thus the man Christ is in heaven at the right hand of God. But He is still God, so His divinity is omnipresent. This is very Nestorian, whether the person intends to be or not. For Christ to be present according to His divinity but not His humanity, you necessarily need to split the natures of Christ.

 

This IS My body

Hence, these folks, when speaking about the Lord's Supper, may opine that Christ is spiritually present in the sacrament, but His body is in glory. Therefore, we partake of Christ according to His divinity in the sacrament. Or, better yet, we partake of Christ bodily in the sacrament, but only because the Spirit of Christ lifts us up in faith to the throne room of God to partake of the body and blood of Christ, who is there and not here.

 

Of course, the biggest historical proponent of this view was John Calvin. Personally, I don't think Calvin intended to be Nestorian in this regard. Calvin was a serious student of Holy Scripture who simply desired to reckon with two things in the Eucharist: The real presence of Christ and the Ascension of Christ. I appreciate Calvin's desire to be faithful to Scripture here, but he ended up with a faulty conclusion.

 

The problem is that the Ascension of Christ does not make Christ confined to heaven. He is still God and therefore is still omnipresent, which Calvin affirms, of course. However, in order to account for the Ascension, Calvin ends up splitting the natures of Christ in his doctrine of the Lord's Supper. 17th century Reformed theologians put forth the phrase and idea "Finitum non capax infiniti." Or, in English: The Finite Cannot Contain the Infinite. This, of course, is in regards to the Eucharist.

 

But, here is the problem. It's false. If you stretch that idea too far, you end up denying the Incarnation of Christ. I mean, Christ is a man, right? Men are finite, right? Christ is God too, right? So the finite can contain the infinite. Christ is still Christ. Christ is still God.

 

So then when Christ says "This is My body" and "This is My blood," we should simply take Him at His Word here. He is God. He is omnipresent. He is both fully God and fully man. Thus, the full Christ is present in the sacrament. The God man is there amongst us, bodily. To separate the body of Christ from the divinity of Christ, well, that is Nestorianism. And we shouldn't go there. It's heretical, per Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451).

 

To affirm that Christ is not present in the sacrament either due to a memorialist view or a view that lifts us to heaven to partake in faith is akin to saying "this is NOT My body."

So Christ is God and is omnipresent. Objections that He cannot be present in the sacrament are both foolish and erroneous. Uh, He's the Son of God and stuff. He can be present wherever He wants to be.

Especially if He said so.