A heresy is a doctrine or sets of teachings & beliefs which deviate from the original universally accepted body of truth or orthodoxy of a particular faith or denomination.
Over the centuries, the body of Christ have had several teachings which contradicts the teachings established by Christ himself & the early apostles & prophets.
The Church was built upon the foundations of the apostles & prophets, and by this, their words are the established facts of the Gospel.
Any deviation from what they preached, wrote or practiced is termed a heresy
The first meeting which held to establish the right doctrinal practices which the Church is to follow was in Acts 15, headed by Apostle Peter & James (The Lord's Brother)
The second was around 260 A.D & the third was in 306 A.D held in Spain.
Any teachings contradicting these ones were termed heretical.
Around 312-313 A.D, a presbyter in the City of Alexandria, Egypt named Arius began propagating a doctrine which disproved the full divinity of Christ
In his teachings, he said;
"There was a time when the Son was not".
This statement implied that Christ was created in time by the Father, which makes him subordinate & lesser in essence to the Father.
This teaching gained widespread acceptance in the early 4th Century A.D & affected the Unity of the Church.
In 325 A.D, about twelve years later, after this doctrine was spreading, the Emperor of Constantinople named Constantine who just believed in Christ, called a meeting in a city called Nicaea.
This meeting was attended by over 300 bishops from every nook & crany of the Christian world; Europe, Africa, Asia.
And the purpose of this meeting was to argue about the doctrine of Arius called Arianism & to proove the divinity of Christ
After theee months of constant checking & searching of scriptures, looking back at history, fact-checking, they came to a conclusion.
In the Greek tongue, they established a term called "Homoousios" Which means "of equal essence or substance"
They concluded that Christ, the Son of God though begotten was never created in time, & is coequal & coeternal with God the Father.
They annulled Arius disapproval of the Trinity & established the "Triune nature of God"- God is one essence manifesting in three distinct persons- the Father, the Son (Christ) & the HolySpirit
Arius was then called a heretic and I believe, he was excommunicated from the Church
There are many other wrong doctrines or heresies over the centuries like Docetism, Modalism, Gnosticism Ectecera.
People get themselves preaching & teaching heretical messages because they chose to be led away from the truth willfully..
When you want to carv out a name for yourself, you want to be known, to be seen, to be heard by all means, then it's only a matter of time before you fall into heresies.
Men fall into sin when they are being led away by their own lust. Same with wrong teachings
"Men of God" on pulpit who never gave themselves to proper trainings, proper discipleship but took off like tornadoes starting up Churches will end up teaching Jargon just to excite their members too.
And then some teach these things to dupe, swindle & ensnare the Church; for their own gain
Today I was on Facebook and I saw a man say, that the temptations of Jesus weren't administered by the devil; but Herod who tempted Christ, promising him his kingdom & glory.
This surely is a heresy because Matthew 4 stated it clearly that the devil: Satan tempted Christ.
During the time of Apostle John who wrote the book of Revelations, there was a preacher, a false teacher called Cerinthus who taught that Christ wasn't divine; that he was fully human and there was no essence of divinity in Him.
The False prophet in Revelations who Apst John & Paul warned about was most likely this Cerinthus.
Apostle Paul warned Timothy about certain men called Hymenaeus & Philetus, whose messages were spreading like gangrene. They claimed the resurrection of the body has happened already.
The teachings of Christ & the early apostles are enough.
Flee from new age doctrines, & other esoteric knowledge.
The Gospel is simple. Adhere to it only..
God has blessed you.
Your Brother
Daniel Ezeokeke
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