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Who’s Ignorant: “Schizo Jesus” or Bishop James White?

Who’s Ignorant: “Schizo Jesus” or Bishop James White?

Last updated on: October 19, 2022 at 10:14 am by Dave Armstrong

Who’s Ignorant: “Schizo Jesus” or Bishop James White? 2022-10-19T10:14:20-04:00 Dave Armstrong

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[subtitle: Biblical, Chalcedonian Trinitarianism and Christology; see book and purchase information]

Matthew 24:36 (RSV) But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. (cf. Mk 13:32)

Reformed Baptist Bishop “Dr.” [???] James White: the most active and influential anti-Catholic apologist these past 25 years, has denied the distinction between Jesus’ Divine and human Natures with regard to knowing the “day and hour” of His Second Coming (Matthew 24:36).
*

Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and most historic Protestants (all “Chalcedonians”) have held that Jesus “didn’t know” some things only in His human nature (because in the incarnation He “emptied” Himself: what is known in Christology as the “kenosis”); but always did know everything (i.e., was omniscient) — including the time of His return — in His Divine Nature.

White denied this in at least two of his ubiquitous videos and essentially asserted that Jesus (in both natures), did not possess this knowledge — nor did the Holy Spirit –, but only God the Father. He basically mocked those who hold to the traditional view as fundamentally inconsistent and guilty of profound eisegesis and caring little about the biblical text. Before I go further, let’s examine exactly what he stated.

Mitchell Wygant, who describes himself on Twitter as “Seminary Student at IRBS Theological Seminary, Confessional Reformed Baptist, Classical Christian Theist” has documented two video excerpts from Bishop White. They’re short: just 1:02 and 2:14.

The first video excerpt is derived from the 57:08 time mark in White’s video, “Philippians 2, the Carmen Christi, and Accusations of Kenotic Heresy” (4-21-22). He states (57:50-58:53) — his words will be in blue henceforth:

At that point in time, in the incarnate state — it’s not that the Son did not know before the incarnation and would not know at His exaltation or anything like that — but that there was some reason why, at that point in time, it was profitable for the Messiah, the Son, to not know. Those are His words. You’ve got to deal with them. If you have to look at the words written by Matthew [24:36] and come up with an interpretation that could not have possibly been what Matthew intended or anyone Matthew wrote to, intended, and could not have been known for centuries, millennia, after the point of writing, we’re no longer dealing with the Scripture being any kind of meaningful foundation for our beliefs, right? Can we agree with that? I hope we can, because that’s pretty obvious. [my italics and bolding reflect his own vocal accentuations]

A little later in the video White grumbles about his Protestant critics objectionably engaging in “the New Baptist Thomist-speak” (1:01:45) and a newfound “an Aristotelian Thomist metaphysic” (1:02:39) that Bishop White rejects. But this is misguided ire since he claims that no one was talking about these things in the first thousand years of the Church (St. Thomas Aquinas lived in the 13th century).

In fact, there was robust discussion of these aspects of Christology in the patristic period and notably at the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, where the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union or Two Natures of Christ was meticulously formulated and enshrined as dogma. White knows that most people will be unaware of that so he (there’s no other possible way to put it!) misrepresents the history of Christology for his own sophistical ends. This won’t do. It’s a falsehood (to put it mildly).

James 3:1 Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness.

The second video excerpt that Wygant documented is from the 1:22:18 time marker in White’s video, “Ninety Minutes of Biblical Exegesis and Theological Ruminations” (8-25-22). Here is what he pontificates about there (up through 1:25:56):

What we’re being told is [that] when it [Mt 24:36] says “nor the son” you have to take the fully developed later definitions of Christology, read them back in here, and do partitive exegesis. And that’s the easy way to do it. The easy out to Matthew 24:36 is to say, “well, that‘s the humanity and not the deity.” . . . And that’s normally how people try to respond to critics, and the critics go, “can you show me that from the text?”: especially since it says [cites the Greek wording] . . . “but the Father only.” But you’re saying it’s not the Father only. It’s the Father and the Son and the Spirit! . . . It’s this consistency thing, you know? [makes a mocking, grimacing expression] I know it’s a bit of a pain, . . . So if you wanna say, “well, to protect my formulations, I’m gonna go beyond what the text says, and I’m gonna say this is speaking of the Son only in His human incarnation, . . .” . . . You’re not gonna be able to prove it from the text. . . . You’re going beyond the text. You’re readin’ stuff into it that ain’t anywhere near it. You couldn’t exegete that if your life depended on it. But you’ve got your external systematic theology, and it tells you what the text says. [my italics and bolding reflect his own vocal accentuations]

It turns out that White (after years of explaining that sola Scriptura does not rule out all human or church tradition(s) whatever (as long as they aren’t infallible), is radically Scripture Only: the extreme distortion of sola Scriptura, which is already a viciously self-defeating falsehood. He appears to believe in what Presbyterian defender of sola Scriptura Keith Mathison famously called “SOLO Scriptura.” When it comes down to it, it appears that he couldn’t care less about what the Church fathers, his own theological ancestors, the Protestant founders, or anyone else has taught about this, these past nearly 2,000 years.

I wouldn’t have predicted this, and it’s a very sad thing. White gets a lot wrong (believe me, I know, after 27 years of following his antics and refuting his myriad errors), but I wouldn’t have thought that the Hypostatic Union would be one of them. Even his fellow Reformed Baptists are now giving him a hard time. He’s on the hot seat, and in his utterly defiant / “know-it-all” mode, as usual. It may be that he is obstinate, rather than ignorant of the history of orthodox Christology.

I sure hope not, for his sake, but mere ignorance and lack of knowledge of historic orthodox Christology hardly seems possible, since he is highly theologically educated (Masters degree, though not a legitimate, accredited doctorate, with the requisite work done to achieve that). Whatever is the case with him, when push comes to shove, he’s ready to “confidently” assert this serious Christological error, rather than bow to virtually universal received Christian belief. This doesn’t even involve Protestant-Catholic disputes, which is why his fellow Baptists and other Protestants are as shocked at these developments as any Catholic would be.

In the second excerpt, White waxes melodramatically about his critics supposedly eisegeting (improperly reading into the biblical text what isn’t actually there) all over the place. And he takes a gratuitous swipe at systematic theology. Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret: all Bible commentators and students have a systematic theology (to various degrees, but still . . .) and utilize it in interpreting the biblical text. Everyone does: without exception, which includes James White.

And that is true because it’s impossible not to have some notions of theology and various Christian beliefs, once having started to learn theology at all. If White doesn’t understand this elementary epistemological consideration, he’s living in a fantasy-world: a fairy tale and pipe dream. I won’t even argue this point further: it’s so utterly obvious.

That said, I would immediately point out (since he wants to be “Bible Only” at this juncture) that this same Bible that White claims to champion in almost a uniquely capable manner, definitely asserts over and over that Jesus is omniscient. That’s simply a fact. I copiously demonstrated it (follow the link). White has expressly denied that Jesus Himself is omniscient during His first sojourn on earth. Orthodoxy says that this applies to His human nature only. White denies that and also applies it to the Divine Nature of Jesus, which is a grave and blasphemous error.

Secondly, I’d note that the Bible often doesn’t spell things out explicitly, and will assume that the reader (at least the educated and relatively more theologically informed ones) can figure out in context what is being referred to. It doesn’t take the time to always spell out distinctions of the two natures in Jesus, just as it doesn’t always do the same for distinctions of persons within the Holy Trinity. One has to take all of the relevant passages together and form an interpretive grid, as it were, to know how it all fits together in a consistent trinitarianism.

And that is systematic theology: collecting passages on a particular theme and reaching overarching conclusions. Here, for example, are several passages that look prima facie as if God the Father is not specifically being referred to, and/or that Jesus is implying that He Himself is not God (or that the text does so). The Jehovah’s Witnesses and many other non-Christian cults have a field day with them:

Mark 10:18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”

John 7:17 if any man’s will is to do his will, he shall know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.

John 14:28 . . . the Father is greater than I,

Acts 7:55 But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God;

Acts 10:38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

Acts 20:28 . . . the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son.

1 Corinthians 11:3 . . . the head of Christ is God,

2 Corinthians 1:21 But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, . . .

Galatians 4:6 . . . God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. . . .

There are no less than nine passages that refer to “God” having “raised” Jesus from the dead, which at first glance sound like Jesus is lower than God (Arianism). It’s understood that the passages are using “God” as a synonym for “God the Father.” The student of the Bible and one who does systematic theology, however, also knows that the Bible teaches that Jesus (being God) raised Himself, too:

John 2:19-21 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” [20] The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” [21] But he spoke of the temple of his body.

John 10:17-18 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. [18] No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father.”

In the mentality that White has expressed above, these would be clear-cut “obvious” examples teaching that Jesus is not God: going literally by the one text alone and ignoring other relevant ones in which to understand the interpretation of these. If we go by “logic only” and ignore systematic theology and cross-referencing and the necessary understanding of biblical culture, language, figures of speech, etc., we can easily fall into all sorts of heresies: including many concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now James White has tragically fallen into one of those traps himself, by applying (irony of ironies) an extreme, irrational and radically incoherent version of sola Scriptura and thumbing his nose at ironclad historical theology: Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic alike. It’s amazing and astonishing.

I can think of one passage along these lines that interprets itself, by showing that “Father” and God” were both used for God the Father: thus exhibiting trinitarianism:

John 20:17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

For readers just starting to learn Christian theology, see my articles that lay out the hundreds of biblical proofs of the divinity / Godhood of Jesus and of trinitarianism (God is three equal Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

For Catholics, the doctrine has long been settled. The kenosis of Jesus as Messiah is described in Philippians:

Philippians 2:5-11 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, [6] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, [7] but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. [8] And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. [9] Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, [10] that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, [11] and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This entails Jesus’ renunciation in His human nature of the divine dominion and majesty. But it doesn’t involve in any way the giving up of the Divine Essence or Attributes (including, in this instance, omniscience). Catholics believe (following the proclamations at the Council of Chalcedon in 451), at the highest level of infallibility or authority (called “de fide“) that the two natures of Christ subsist after their union without change or mixture, with their properties remaining intact.

Therefore, Jesus was always omniscient in His Divine Nature, even during His time on earth up to His crucifixion. This is what James White denies, by claiming that the Son qua Son did not know the day and the hour of His Second Coming.

I dealt with this particular issue of Christ’s knowledge over eleven years ago, in my article, Limitations of Christ’s Knowledge? Exegetical “Difficulties” Examined (4-8-11). The Church fathers had various ways of interpreting Matthew 24:36 and the broader question of expressed limitations in Christ Himself. What became the classic and “received” tradition was that Jesus qua man did not know the time of the day of judgment, but He knew it as the God-man. That is: He knew it in His Divine Nature, but not in His human nature.

This view was held, according to the great Jesuit exegete Cornelius à Lapide (1567-1637), by “St. Athanasius (Serm. 4, contra Arian.), Nazianzen (Orat. 4, de .Theolog.), Cyril (lib. 9, Thesaur. c. 4), [and] Ambrose (lib. 5, de Fide, c. 8).” I guess those are part of the massive collection of poor ignorant “eisegetes” that Bishop White in his infinite wisdom so roundly condemns.

Here is St. Gregory Nazianzen (c. 330-c. 390) writing about the issue at hand:

[O]ur second argument is as follows:-Just as we do in all other instances, so let us refer His knowledge of the greatest events, in honour of the Father, to The Cause. And I think that anyone, even if he did not read it in the way that one of our own Students did, would soon perceive that not even the Son knows the day or hour otherwise than as the Father does. For what do we conclude from this? That since the Father knows, therefore also does the Son, as it is evident that this cannot be known or comprehended by any but the First Nature. There remains for us to interpret the passage about His receiving commandment, and having kept His Commandments, and done always those things that please Him; and further concerning His being made perfect, and His exaltation, and His learning obedience by the things which He suffered; and also His High Priesthood, and His Oblation, and His Betrayal, and His prayer to Him That was able to save Him from death, and His Agony and Bloody Sweat and Prayer, and such like things; if it were not evident to every one that such words are concerned, not with That Nature Which is unchangeable and above all capacity of suffering, but with the passible Humanity. (Fourth Theological Oration [Oration 30]: The Second Concerning the Son, XVI)

St. Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Gospels from the Works of the Fathers, presented the following citations for Matthew 24:36:

JEROME [c. 343-420]: Whereat Arius and Eunomius rejoice greatly; for say they, He who knows and He who is ignorant cannot be both equal. Against these we answer shortly; Seeing that Jesus, that is, The Word of God, made all times, (for “By him all things were made, and without him was not any thing made that was made, [1 John 1:3]) and that the day of judgment must be in all time, by what reasoning can He who knows the whole be shewn to be ignorant of a part? This we will further say; Which is the greater, the knowledge of the Father, or the knowledge of the judgment? If He knows the greater, how can He be ignorant of the less?

HILARY [of Poitiers: c. 315-368]: And has indeed God the Father denied the knowledge of that day to the Son, when He has declared, “All things are committed to me of my Father?” [Luke 10:22] but if any thing has been denied, all things are not committed to Him.

AUGUSTINE [354-430], Serm., 97, 1: That He says that the “Father knoweth,” implies that in the Father the Son also knows. For what can there be in time which was not made by the Word, seeing that time itself was made by the Word!

Another patristic strain of interpretation as to why Jesus said what He did is expressed by St. Jerome and St. Augustine (cited by St. Thomas Aquinas):

JEROME: Having then shewn that the Son of God cannot be ignorant of the day of the consummation, we must now show a cause why He should be said to be ignorant. When after the resurrection He is demanded concerning this day by the Apostles, He answers more openly; “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in his own power.” [Acts 1:7] Wherein He shews that Himself knows, but that it was not expedient for the Apostles to know, . . .

AUGUSTINE, Lib. 83, Quaest. Q60: That the Father alone knows may be well understood in the above-mentioned manner of knowing, that He makes the Son to know; but the Son is said not to know, because be does not make men to know.

Dom Bernard Orchard’s Catholic Commentary of 1953 offers an interesting explanation of a constant technique or “style” of Jesus’ discourse that may possibly apply to — and offer insight concerning — Matthew 24:36:

[I]t is the constant practice of the incarnate Son to claim no knowledge beyond that which the Father has instructed him to use. This is true even of the gospel of John who indubitably teaches the divinity of Christ; cf. John 7:16; John 14:10.

Here are those two referenced passages:

John 7:16 So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me;

John 14:10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

There are many other passages in the same vein:

John 5:19-23 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise. [20] For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all that he himself is doing; and greater works than these will he show him, that you may marvel. [21] For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. [22] The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, [23] that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

John 5:26-27 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself, [27] and has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man.

John 5:36 . . . the works which the Father has granted me to accomplish, these very works which I am doing, bear me witness that the Father has sent me.

John 6:37 All that the Father gives me will come to me; . . .

John 6:44-45 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; . . . [45] . . . Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.

John 6:65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

John 8:28 . . . I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me.

John 12:49-50 For I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what to say and what to speak. [50] And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has bidden me.”

John 14:24 . . . the word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.

John 14:31 . . . I do as the Father has commanded me . . .

John 15:9-10 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. [10] If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

John 18:11 . . . ” . . . shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me?”

This is mostly in John but not absent from the synoptics; for example:

Matthew 11:27 All things have been delivered to me by my Father; . . .

Matthew 20:23 He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

Matthew 26:39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

John Calvin, in his Commentaries / Harmony of the Gospels, tackles Matthew 24:36, and agrees with the universal tradition, over against James White:

[M]any persons, thinking that this was unworthy of Christ, have endeavored to mitigate the harshness of this opinion by a contrivance of their own; and perhaps they were driven to employ a subterfuge by the malice of the Arians, who attempted to prove from it that Christ is not the true and only God. So then, according to those men, Christ did not know the last day, because he did not choose to reveal it to men. But since it is manifest that the same kind of ignorance is ascribed to Christ as is ascribed to the angels, we must endeavor to find some other meaning which is more suitable. Before stating it, however, I shall briefly dispose of the objections of those who think that it is an insult offered to the Son of God, if it be said that any kind of ignorance can properly apply to him.

As to the first objection, that nothing is unknown to God, the answer is easy. For we know that in Christ the two natures were united into one person in such a manner that each retained its own properties; and more especially the Divine nature was in a state of repose, and did not at all exert itself, whenever it was necessary that the human nature should act separately, according to what was peculiar to itself, in discharging the office of Mediator. There would be no impropriety, therefor in saying that Christ, who knew all things, (John 21:17) was ignorant of something in respect of his perception as a man; for otherwise he could not have been liable to grief and anxiety, and could not have been like us, (Hebrews 2:17.) Again, the objection urged by some–that ignorance cannot apply to Christ, because it is the punishment of sin — is beyond measure ridiculous. For, first, it is prodigious folly to assert that the ignorance which is ascribed to angels proceeds from sin; but they discover themselves to be equally foolish on another ground, by not perceiving that Christ clothed himself with our flesh, for the purpose of enduring the punishment due to our sins. And if Christ, as man, did not know the last day, that does not any more derogate from his Divine nature than to have been mortal. [my italics and bolding]

Pulpit Commentary explains the verse with great eloquence and insight:

The words have given occasion to some erroneous statements. It is said by Arians and semi-Arians, and modern disputants who have followed in their steps, that the Son cannot be equal to the Father, if he knows not what the Father knows. Alford says boldly, “This matter was hidden from him.” But when we consider such passages as “I and my Father are one;” “I am in the Father, and the Father in me” (John 10:30; John 14:11, etc.), we cannot believe that the time of the great consummation was unknown to him. What is meant, then, by this assertion? How is it true? Doubtless it is to be explained (if capable of explanation) by the hypostatic union of two natures in the Person of Christ, whereby the properties of the two natures are interchangeably predicated. From danger of error on this mysterious subject we are preserved by the precise terms of the Athanasian Creed, according to which we affirm that Christ is “equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his manhood … one altogether; not by confusion of substance, but by unity of Person,” etc. If, then, Christ asserts that he is ignorant of anything, it must be that in his human nature he hath, willed not to know that which in his Divine nature he was cognizant cf. This is a part of that voluntary self-surrender and self-limitation of which the apostle speaks when he says that Christ “emptied himself” (Philippians 2:7). He condescended to assume all the conditions of humanity, even willing to share the imperfection of our knowledge in some particulars. How the two natures thus interworked we know not, and need not conjecture; nor can we always divine why prominence at one time is given to the Divine, at another to the human. It is enough for us to know that, for reasons which seemed good unto him, he imposed restriction on his omniscience in this matter, and, to enhance the mysteriousness and awfulness of the great day, announced to his disciples his ignorance of the precise moment of its occurrence. This is a safer exposition than to say, with some, that Christ knew not the day so as to reveal it to us, that it was no part of his mission from the Father to divulge it to men, and therefore that he could truly say he knew it not. This seems rather an evasion than an explanation of the difficulty. But my Father only. The best manuscripts have “the Father.” “But” is εἰ μὴ, except. So Christ said to his inquiring apostles, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power” (Acts 1:7). These words do not exclude the Son’s participation in the knowledge, though he willed that it should not extend to his human nature. With this and such-like texts in view, how futile, presumptuous, and indeed profane, it is to attempt to settle the exact date and hour when the present age shall end!” Matthew 24:36

Bishop White even wrote a rare article on the same topic: “Just Too Long for a Twitter Thread!” (10-14-22). After condescendingly chiding those who disagree with him for (allegedly) being incompetently unfamiliar with “consistency” he does a bit of the same thing that he accuses others of doing:

[O]n a basic theological level, we must affirm in any context that the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God (1 Corinthians 2:10) and that, since the day and the hour is part of the divine decree from eternity past, Father, Son, and Spirit fully know that day and hour, always have, and always will.

This, of course, contradicts what the good bishop said in the second video that I cited above:

So if you wanna say, “well, to protect my formulations, I’m gonna go beyond what the text says, and I’m gonna say this is speaking of the Son only in His human incarnation, . . .” . . . You’re not gonna be able to prove it from the text. . . . You’re going beyond the text. You’re readin’ stuff into it that ain’t anywhere near it. You couldn’t exegete that if your life depended on it.

Very well, then. There are only so many options. If it’s not talking about Jesus’ human nature (White mockingly denied that), then it must include or reference His Divine Nature, which in turn means that He was somehow ignorant not in just His human nature, but also in His Divine Nature. And that contradicts the written statement above and the Hypostatic Union.*

To cite his own words: “It’s this consistency thing, you know? I know it’s a bit of a pain, . . .” Yes, it especially is a pain when White chides all who disagree with him for being woefully inconsistent, and then proceeds to so precisely the same thing himself.

I was curious if the illustrious bishop had written about Matthew 24:36 elsewhere on his site. I found the article, “James White is Teaching Heresy!” (7-1-22),in which he mocked the Hypostatic Union (or, Two Natures of Christ), decreed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, and accepted by the vast majority of historic Christians (who haven’t watered-down and compromised their faith with the rotgut of theological liberalism), on his Dividing Line show:

Who’s speaking in Matthew chapter 24? Well, he [a critic of his] wants to divide Jesus up, so that you have a part of Jesus speaking. The other part of Jesus just goes . . . “I know exactly when that is. Ha ha ha ha ha!” Right? We got the schizo Jesus going on again . . . I don’t get to [as an evangelist] do the “flip the human side of Jesus on, flip that off [then] the divine side” . . . [makes silly mocking noises]. That’s fun! That’s fun; that’s easy. You expect someone to go along with that? . . . [this is] not taking the biblical foundations of Chalcedon seriously, and [it’s] giving us a schizo Jesus. . . . The real issue is whether we are going to root and ground our proclamation in the words of Scripture . . . that objective, Spirit-born reality . . . or whether we’re gonna subjugate that to our theological systems. . . . sometimes in the same sentence: “human divine” [chuckling]: this type of thing? That’s not gonna fly. (1:10:09-1:14:40; my italics and bolding reflect his own vocal accentuations)

This is how he views Chalcedon, which describes what White thinks is a “schizo Jesus” in the following terms:

. . . our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, . . . recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ . . .

Kevin DeYoung, at The Gospel Coalition site, which included the above citation from Chalcedon, made a great summary of it:

At the heart of this definition are the four negative statements I’ve italicized above.

Without confusion: The Lord Jesus Christ is not what you get when you mix blue and yellow together and end up with green. He’s not a tertium quid (a third thing), the result of mixing a divine and human nature.

Without change: In assuming human flesh, the Logos did not cease to be what he had always been. The incarnation affected no substantial change in the divine Son.

Without division: The two natures of Christ do not represent a split in the divine Person. Jesus Christ is not half God and half man.

Without separation: The union of the human and divine in the person of Jesus Christ is a real, organic union, not simply a moral sympathy or relational partnership.

This may seem like needless theological wrangling, but Chalcedon’s careful definition is meant to preserve the biblical teaching that (1) the divine nature was united, in the person of the Son, with a human nature (John 1:14; Rom. 8:3; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 2:11-14) and (2) the two natures are united in only one divine Person (Rom. 1:3-4; Gal. 4:4-5; Phil. 2:6-11). As Chalcedon puts it, the characteristics of each nature are preserved—in no way annulled by the union—even as they come together in one person (prospon) and one subsistence (hypostasis).

That’s Christianity, folks: expressed by a Protestant, in agreement with Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. This is orthodox Christology. But how pathetic that James White — an educated man who knows much better than this — can only conceive of such necessary, Bible-based theological nuance and complexity as a “schizo Jesus.”

He’s never sunk this low. Pray for the man. He and his readers who gobble up this blasphemous garbage will both desperately need it, the longer he continues with this vain and outrageous, devil-inspired folly.

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Summary: Bishop “Dr.” [???] James White despises & mocks the Hypostatic Union, declared at Chalcedon in 451: basically characterizing the Two Natures as a “schizo Jesus.”

James White

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