He gets us because he’s one of us.

February 12, 2023

In present day American culture Jesus has to a large extent become an empty, comic character, a guy who occasionally appears in a robe and sandals who seems nice and harmless, and who is often thoughtlessly co-opted for political gain. This is tragic. We applaud the He Gets Us campaign for highlighting the many noble and endearing human qualities of the Lord Jesus Christ. We agree with them that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), who is coming back to rule the world under God (1 Corinthians 15:12-28). Someday every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:11). Jesus cannot remain an irrelevance.

But the He Gets Us campaign virtually ignores the confused and confusing catholic traditions about the Lord Jesus being a “godman,” an eternal divine person mysteriously united to an impersonal human nature (body and soul), the Second “Person” of the Trinity. This they sum up all-too-briefly by saying that in their view Jesus is “fully God and fully man.”

These traditions clash with the Bible and urgently need to be reformed. The New Testament, rightly understood, does teach Jesus to be “fully man,” i.e. a real human being. But it doesn’t teach that he’s “fully God.” Rather, in the Bible, the Father alone is the one true God (John 17:1-3). And being “fully God” clashes with Jesus being a real man, and with his having some of the very qualities which so endear Jesus to us, such as his faith in God, his victory over real temptation, his cooperation with and empowerment by God, and his real death for us.

Truly, Jesus gets us – and this because he really is one of us, a real human being. To help you to see the real Jesus of the New Testament, clearly distinguishing him from his and our God (John 20:17), we’ve created some short new videos inspired by the work of “He Gets Us.” In them we show how the New Testament Jesus is “One of Us.”

For more about the Unitarian Christian Alliance, see these videos below, or this podcast episode, or the Unitarian Christian Alliance podcast.

Nothing “Mere” about a Man in the Image of God

In this insightful presentation from the 2022 Unitarian Christian Alliance conference, Anna Shoffner Brown explains a biblical perspective on the dignity and value of human nature. Proponents of speculations about Jesus having “two natures” have traditionally derided human-only christology as involving “a mere man.” She shows why this lazy accusation is wrongheaded.

Compass Christian Church

Christian Centered Counseling

Sean Finnegan’s Restitutio podcast

2022 UCA Conference Videos Playlist

Spirit & Truth

September 30, 2022

I first encountered Spirit & Truth via their content-rich, long-running website biblicalunitarian.com. I returned to this often as I wrestled with disentangling my understanding of Scripture from distorting later traditions. They popularized the term “biblical unitarian,” a helpful and more accurate replacement for “Socinian.”

Nowadays they are up to a lot more, including online fellowships, Jerry Wierwille’s Words of Wisdom podcast, teaching videos on the Bible and Christian living by John Schoenheit, and devotional blog posts by Renee Duggan.

The UCA is delighted to have Spirit & Truth as a Conference Partner for this year’s conference. You’ll be able to meet John and Jerry at the Conference; be sure to stop by the Spirit & Truth table to find out more about what they’re doing and how it can benefit you.

Finally, I must mention their amazing REV project, an unabashedly unitarian translation and commentary. (With phone apps too!) Translation always involves at least a little interpretation; thus, every trinitarian translation reflects some level of distortion from traditional Trinity and Incarnation speculations. Here, that layer of distortion is peeled back, and they add very helpful study-Bible-like explanatory notes. I frequently use this resource, and I urge you to check it out.