Arius was right. By that, I mean that his christology remains faithful both to the limitations and the fullness of the NT’s (New Testament’s) own christology. Were I a Christian, rather than a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist, I would be an unabashed Arian. I would not be a fundamentalist-Protestant Arian, nor would I be a Jehovah’s Witness Arian. Instead, I would take into myself what I think are the most salient, cogent points of Arius’s thinking, and make them my own, whether or not I had a brick-and-mortar church in which to contemplate this great Mystery.
The most salient point of Arianism is that Yahweh’s “Great Angel of Many Names” made himself known and procured a novel kind of salvation for his adherents. That is, the Incarnation did not involve an ontologically divine Trinitarian Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, because for Arius – as for the NT – God’s numerical oneness is not open to challenge or contradiction. Thus for Arius, Jesus as the Great Angel is divine, but not (like the Trinitarian Son) “of one substance with the Father”. God remains uniquely God. Jesus, as exalted, preexistent Angel, remains a created being.
When most of us think of creatures, our minds envision human beings, animals, microbes, perhaps plants, and any extraterrestrial denizens who might inhabit portions of the larger cosmos. This is why I prefer not to call the Arian Jesus a “creature”, even though as the primordial Angel, there was a point at which he was created – which is also a point before which he did not exist. Because his existence was wholly non-material and thus non-biological before the Incarnation, it would not be right to assign to the Son the creaturely attribute of being an organism, as we assume all created beings are – with the exception of angels, of whom the Arian Jesus is the greatest.
Both the Arian and the NT Christ are preexistent, angelic, celestial “Sons”, antecedent to the world, and active in God’s creative act. As such, the Son is the “first-born of creation”, the “subcontracting agent of God’s world-construction. The Son is also the “express image of God”. But of course, an image is never the same entity as that which it reflects or mimics. So the Son is not, and cannot be, the same as God. The Son is an ancient product of God, and therefore subordinate to God. Jesus said, “The Father is greater than I” … “I can do nothing of my own will, but only that of the Father” … “You, Father [are] the only true God”. Here, Jesus speaks like an angel par excellence, the perfect image, agent, messenger and representative of the Deity who brought him into being.
The four canonical Gospels also identify Jesus as an angelic being whom they – and parts of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) – call “the Son of Man”. In the Synoptic Gospels’ Passion Narrative, at his trial before the Sanhedrin, Jesus identifies himself with the heavenly angel/Son of Man, whom he tells the priests they will see on the day of judgment, “coming in the clouds of heaven, at the right hand of Power, in great glory”. The Great Angel – Jesus – will come to judge the world (exercising divine judgment) and reigning at the side of “Power” (the term is a reverent circumlocution for God). The Son of Man/Great Angel will appear with God (just as the preexistent – and the risen – Jesus sits at God’s right hand, like the Angel always has).
The central christological mystery which Trinitarianism obscures is the revelation that a primordial angel – a creating heavenly Power – has, and does, reign in heaven; has paid us a visit; and is even now mediating for humankind.
No Trinitarian “God the Son” ever incarnated in human flesh. Rather, a great angelic Presence was manifested to us and “in” (Paul’s wording) us. Is the incarnation of an angel really any more fanciful an idea than an incarnation of a “second God”/Second Person of the Trinity…? After all, both NT and Arian christology make the much more humble claim that God revealed himself through a highly exalted created being, who shares with us a derivative dependence on the one divine Source – but who also functions (precisely as a created being) as “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Letter to the Hebrews). We can hope to follow in the footsteps of a suffering and exalted angel, who shares our created nature, but we cannot do the same with an ontological, inherently divine “God the Son”. Arius was right.