Big Healing Book - The Council of Constantinople in 553 Said That Anyone Teaching

Objection: The Council of Constantinople in 553 Said That Anyone Teaching that Jesus Ministered as a Spirit-Anointed Man Must Be Anathema

First, I am already anathema (accursed) according to this council because I do not call Mary the Mother of God, and the Council of Constantinople in 553 also declared that anyone who taught that Mary could not properly be called the Mother of God was “anathema.” So everyone should take this Council’s edicts with a grain of salt if not a truckload of salt. If you don’t think Mary can be referred to as the Mother of God, you’re also anathema according to this Council! I don’t deny that Mary was a virtuous woman and Jesus’ mother, of course. But this “Mother of God” teaching has misled some Christians (as well as pagans) into thinking that she was also divinely conceived and that she rose to heaven the way Jesus did. (The assumption is false.) Some go on to pray to Mary and even worship Mary, which is clearly out of order because she was just as human as the rest of us, confessing HER need for a Savior in Luke 1:47: “And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”

Second, the Council of Constantinople did NOT actually condemn the teaching that Jesus ministered as a Spirit-anointed Man! It condemned Nestorianism, which was teaching that was attributed to a man named Nestorius. Regardless of whether Nestorius actually taught what he was accused of teaching, his name became associated with teaching that Jesus was manifested in two different parts, spirit and body. Thus, there would be four members of the “Trinity” – God, Jesus’ spirit, Jesus’ body and the Holy Spirit, because His body and spirit could act independently.

The objector assumed that teaching that Jesus ministered as an anointed Man is the condemned Nestorianism. In his eyes, if Jesus could not function as God while on the earth, His divine nature and His humanity must be separate from each other. However, that misses the point. Jesus never gave up His divinity. What He gave up was His right to exercise divine power that was not available to man while walking the earth. He was still God, but He COULD NOT do miracles at Nazareth because no other anointed human preacher would have been able to do them in the midst of their unbelief.