It can fairly be said that in the history of Christendom, never has so much been owed to one man as is owed to a pugnacious, argumentative preacher by the name of Athanasius. You probably know several individuals who would fit that description. Frankly, if Athanasius were alive today, or we were alive in the early third century, it is quite probable that we wouldn’t much care for him. Folks didn’t then, either.
Athanasius was born in Alexandria, Egypt about 297 A.D. When he was five years old, Diocletian, the Roman Emperor, proclaimed himself to be god and demanded to be worshipped. When he was eighteen, Constantine became the Emperor, and things began to change fast.
Historians don’t know much about Athanasius’ mother, but I suspect that she helped her son to realize something that kids still need to know today: You don’t have to go along with the crowd. It’s okay to stand alone when you know you are right. But doing that made him pretty unpopular.
For one thing, Athanasius didn’t win friends and influence people. He was tough, everybody agreed. He used words like a street fighter uses left jabs. “Why can’t he just love people and mind his own business?” folks said of Athanasius. Surely he must have been told, “Why create such a furor over something when everyone disagrees with you?” Exiled five times in forty-five years, he should have gotten the message, “To get along, you’ve got to go along.” Not Athanasius. He stood by his convictions when friends and supporters abandoned him.
To appreciate this man to whom we owe so very much today, you must understand the issues. Athanasius believed the Bible taught that Jesus Christ was the very God of the very God. In other words, He did not become God when He was born. He always was God. He believed that Jesus Christ laid aside His exercise of authority as God, or His attributes of deity, as theologians describe it, and became man. But he was no ordinary man, believed Athanasius. He was the unique fusion of man and God.
“Are you then the Son of God?” He replied, “… I am.” Luke 22:70
Others, though, disagreed. Led by Arius, Athanasius’ archenemy, others taught that Jesus became God, the highest of all created beings. In the last 150 years, some groups have adopted Arius’ teaching, making Jesus a good man who rose to the same spiritual heights as we can today.
With the overview of history, church historian Bruce Shelley says that if Athanasius had gone along with the crowd, “It would have meant that Christianity had degenerated to a form of paganism. The Christian faith would have had two gods and a Jesus who was neither God nor man. It would have meant that God himself was unapproachable and removed from man. The result would have been a Christianity like a host of pagan religions” (Bruce Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, p. 119).
The one teaching that separates Christianity from Judaism, and from the teaching of cult groups, is the truth that God exists as one in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet, contended the pugnacious Athanasius, there is one God, not three.
If Arius had won, Christianity would have been just another religion, and Jesus Christ would have been a great teacher, but nothing more. If Jesus Christ was God, as Athanasius contended, then He demands our allegiance and our worship. The truth eventually vindicated one man against the world, and for that, we owe Athanasius a great debt of gratitude.
Resource reading: 2 Timothy 2.
