Sometimes this view is also referred to as an adoptionist Christology, because in it Christ is not thought to be a divine being “by nature.” That is, he did not preexist before he was born in the world, he was not a divine being who came to earth, he was not of the same kind of “essence” as God himself. He was instead a human being who has been “adopted” by God to a divine status. Thus he was not God by virtue of who he was, but by virtue of the fact that the Creator and Lord of all things chose to elevate him to a position of prominence, even though he began as a lowly human.
