For centuries, many regarded the church and its councils, sustained by Roman power, as effectively ‘Christ‘. A false Christ?
AI unpacks this question as follows.
“For centuries after Constantine, the institutional church—especially in its alliance with the Roman Empire—was often treated not just as representing Christ, but as embodying Him on earth. Councils claimed authority to define truth and heresy; popes or patriarchs presented themselves as Christ’s vicars; and obedience to the church was equated with obedience to Christ Himself.
Theologically, this creates a tension:
- In Scripture, Christ warns about false Christs (Matt 24:24; Mark 13:22)—those who come in His name but mislead. The New Testament insists that Christ alone is the head of His body (Col 1:18; Eph 5:23).
- Historically, the fusion of church and empire risked presenting the institution as the mediator of salvation, rather than Christ Himself. To many dissenting voices (e.g. some early reformers, radical movements, and later the Protestant Reformers), this looked like an idolatrous substitution—an institution functioning as a ‘false Christ.’
- At the same time, not all councils or church structures can be written off as ‘false’—they also preserved the canon of Scripture, safeguarded key doctrines like the Trinity and Incarnation, and maintained continuity of faith through turbulent centuries.
So, was it a ‘false Christ’? In one sense, yes—whenever an institution or leader demanded the devotion, obedience, and loyalty due only to Christ, it acted as a counterfeit. In another sense, it’s more nuanced—the same historical church also bore genuine witness to Christ, even if imperfectly, alongside its distortions.”
Note how the AI’s only defence for the ‘false Christ’ case is the Trinity doctrine and the preservation of a so-called ‘faith‘ based on it, and the canonisation of scripture. If these are actually demonstrated to be the very falsehoods coming from the false Christ, then that defence crumbles. The canonisation of scripture is inconsistent between the major churches, more about locality and tradition one is born into than about spirit and truth. The Trinity doctrine contradicts the teachings of the true Christ about the Father being greater than the Son and the Son forever being subject to the Father who is forever to be God, all in all. So the defence crumbles, like the parable of a house built on sand.
