Nicene Creed ~ 20241208 ~ Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org
12/08 Christmas in the Creeds; Nicene Creed [Very God of Very God; of one substance]; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20241208_nicene-creed.mp3
Christmas in the Creeds
These four Sundays of advent we are looking at ‘Christmas in the creeds’; specifically what the creeds teach us about Christmas, how they help us to understand Jesus and the incarnation, and how they help to guard us against error. We are looking at the creeds, but our main goal will be to see these early statements of belief in the light of Scripture; ultimately to get to know Jesus better.
‘Creed’ is from the Latin ‘credo’ which simply means ‘I believe’. A creed is a concise statement of what we believe.
As we saw last time, the creeds took shape over time, as Christians had to clarify what they believed about the truths of the gospel in the face of false teaching. Last time we looked at the Apostles’ Creed, which grew out of the old Roman creed, a series of affirmations of Christian belief for those who were going to be baptized. Many of the later creeds were based on this foundational creed, but further clarified elements of that creed.
The Apostles’ Creed aimed to confront the false teachings of Gnosticism; that spirit is good and matter is evil; that the Old Testament creator god was a lesser god, that Jesus was spirit and only appeared to be human.
Let’s recite the Apostles’ Creed together:
The Apostles’ Creed
I believe in God the Father, Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth;
And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord;
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
Born of the virgin Mary;
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven;
And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost;
The holy catholic church; the communion of saints;
The forgiveness of sins;
The resurrection of the body;
And the life everlasting. Amen.
The Apostles’ Creed was trinitarian; it was structured around God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. It affirmed that Jesus was God’s only begotten Son, our Lord. But what does ‘only begotten’ mean? How are we to understand that?
Arius and Arianism
There was a popular priest in Alexandria Egypt who taught that ‘begotten’ implies an act of begetting; that God is uncreated; all else came into being; He taught that Jesus was the first of God’s creative acts; that Jesus was not of the same nature as the Father; that he was begotten before time, in eternity; but there was when he was not. Before he was begotten he was not.
Arius was over-reacting against another false teaching, Sabellianism (or Modalism), which over-emphasized the oneness of God to the blurring of the distinctions of the persons. They taught that Father, Son and Spirit were merely different modes of the one God, or different roles played by the one person; similar to the way I am one person, but could rightly be called ‘son’ in relation to my parents; ‘father’ in relation to my children, and ‘husband’ in relation to my wife. Arius on the other hand, emphasized the distinctions between the persons, but taught that the Father was the only self-existent being, and that he created the Son out of nothing.
Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, assembled 100 bishops and condemned Arius, who moved to Palestine, but continued to spread his teaching. Constantine wrote a letter to Alexander and Arius, referring to their dispute as “truly insignificant questions… some trifling and foolish verbal difference… points so trivial and altogether unessential… a slight difference” and urged them to restore fellowship and communion for the sake of unity. It seems that he hadn’t yet fully understand the nature of the disagreement, because in 325 he summoned all bishops to Nicea to settle this matter.
Up until this point, Christianity had been severely persecuted under Rome; the great persecution under Diocletian lasted from 303 to 311. The empire had been divided up under four caesars. Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius in 312 and became the sole rule of the west, and in 313 with Licinius, emperor of the east, issued the Edict of Milan, which granted full legal rights to Christians throughout the empire. In 324 Licinius surrenders and is exiled, and Constantine rules the entire empire. Christianity, still a minority religion (some estimate around 10%), had only been granted legal status 12 years earlier, and it was the year prior to the council that power had consolidated under Constantine. This gathering of 318 Christian bishops, together with deacons and priests, hosted by the emperor, was the first of its kind. Many of these bishops bore the scars of recent persecution for their faith in Jesus.
Homoousious not Homoiousious
The Apostles’ Creed says: “I believe ...in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the virgin Mary...”
But what does ‘only begotten’ mean? How are we to understand that?
The Arians were able to affirm these statements, and according to Athanasius, who at the time was a deacon from Alexandria, reports “they were caught whispering to each other and winking with their eyes, that 'like,' and 'always,' and 'power,' and 'in Him,' were, as before, common to us and the Son, and that it was no difficulty to agree to these.” ...“But the Bishops discerning in this too their dissimulation, ...were again compelled on their part to collect the sense of the Scriptures, and to re-say and re-write what they had said before, more distinctly still, namely, that the Son is 'one in essence ' with the Father: by way of signifying, that the Son was from the Father, and not merely like, but the same in likeness” [Athanasius, De Decretis, 20]. The council of Nicea spent over two months working through these issues and formulating language that would clearly communicate what the Bible teaches about Jesus but in a way that could not be twisted to mean something it was not intended to mean.
They used the Greek word [ὁμοούσιον] to clarify the nature of the Son in relation to the Father; ‘ousia’ is ‘essence, stuff, being, substance’; it describes what something is in its essential nature. Jesus was ‘homoousious’; of the same substance or ‘consubstantial’ not ‘homoiousious’ of similar substance. One iota literally changed everything. The Arians were willing to affirm that Jesus was ‘homoiousious’, like God, of a similar essence, but not that he was fully God, of the same stuff or essence as the Father.
St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra
Legend has it (and it is probably just that - legend) that Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (we know him as Saint Nicholas) was so infuriated by the way Arius was degrading and dishonoring our Lord Jesus, that during the council, he slapped Arius across the face.
The Nicene Creed [325]
Here is the Nicene Creed from the council of 325 [it was expanded in 381 at the council of Constantinople].
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,
Maker of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
the only-begotten of the Father.
That is, of the substance of the Father;
God of God and Light of light; true God of true God;
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.
By whom all things were made, both in heaven and on earth:
who, for us men and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate,
and was made man; suffered, the third day rose again,
and ascended into heaven,
and will come again to judge the living and the dead.
And in the Holy Spirit.
This creed emphasizes that Jesus is of the same substance or essence or ‘stuff’ as the Father. Whatever defines the Father, whatever the Father is, Jesus is. Jesus is God of God, true God of true God. As John (1:1) affirms in his gospel, the Word existed in the beginning. The Word was with God, and the Word was himself God. The Word is co-eternal with the Father. And the Word is the maker of all that is made. If Jesus were a made thing, he would have to already exist in order to make himself.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
Light of light was a common illustration; as the sun can’t exist without the radiance of its glory, so Jesus necessarily exists as the radiance of the glory of God. Hebrews 1 says of Jesus:
Hebrews 1:2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Notice also that the nature of Jesus is connected inextricably to his work as our Savior; he who is the very nature of God is able as God in the flesh to make purification for our sins. If he were anything less than God, he would not be able to pay an infinite price.
Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint God’s nature. This is how Jesus can tell his disciples;
John 14:7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
To know Jesus is to know the Father. To see Jesus is to see the very character and nature of the Father on display. As John said in the beginning of his gospel:
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 ( John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
Jesus is the only begotten Son from the Father; the only begotten God who makes the Father known.
Our salvation is tied to who Jesus is. This is why this issue is so crucial. If we believe in the wrong Jesus, that Jesus cannot save us. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4
2 Corinthians 4:4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ... 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Our salvation is tied to knowing Jesus as the image and glory of God. Jesus himself said this in John 8
John 8:23 He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
He tells us that who we believe him to be matters eternally. He says that if we refuse to believe that he is the eternal self existent great I AM, we will die in our sins. If that wasn’t clear enough he goes on to say:
John 8:58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
The Jews understood that he was claiming to be YHWH God, fully divine, God in the flesh, and they considered it blasphemy. But Jesus made it clear that believing in him for who he claimed to be was the only way of salvation. This is why the original Nicene Creed ends with these strong anathemas. There is no salvation outside of Jesus, so believing the wrong things about Jesus, believing in the wrong Jesus damns one to destruction. These are the things that Arius taught.
But those who say, "There was a time when he was not" and "He was not before he was begotten" and "He was made from that which did not exist," and those who assert that he is of other substance or essence than the Father, that he was created, or is susceptible of change, these the holy, catholic, and apostolic church anathematizes.
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2024.12.08 Sermon Notes
Christmas in the Creeds; Nicene Creed
Nicene Creed [325]
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,
Maker of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
the only-begotten of the Father.
That is, of the substance [ousious] of the Father;
God of God and Light of light; true God of true God;
begotten, not made, consubstantial [homoousious] with the Father.
By whom all things were made, both in heaven and on earth:
who, for us men and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate,
and was made man; suffered, the third day rose again,
and ascended into heaven,
and will come again to judge the living and the dead.
And in the Holy Spirit.
Jesus is eternally with and equal to the Father
John 1:1-4
Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God
and the exact imprint of his nature
Hebrews 1:2-3
To know and see Jesus is to know and see the Father
John 14:7-11
Jesus is the only begotten God at the Father’s side
John 1:14-17
The good news: Jesus is the image and glory of God
2 Corinthians 4:4, 6
Salvation is to know Jesus as the self-existent I AM
John 8:23-24, 58-59
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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org