History Book: Affirming Christ’s divinity

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, May 19th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Today, the story behind the Nicene Creed.

This month … seventeen hundred years ago, a Roman Emperor invites hundreds of Christian leaders to meet together. The purpose? To debate… and hopefully come to a consensus on a doctrine splitting the church.

WORLD correspondent Caleb Welde has the story.

CALEB WELDE: Three centuries … have gone by since a man named Jesus walked the streets and countryside of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Jesus made statements like “I and the Father … are one.” … and, “whoever has seen me, has seen the Father.”

SPROUL: And, he says, “Before Abraham was, I AM.”

Theologian and apologist R.C. Sproul.

SPROUL: It’s because they understood what he was saying, that they took up stones to kill him saying this man, saying, this man, being a man, declares himself to be God.

Despite severe persecution, the disciples of Jesus spread the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven … and the church grows rapidly across the Roman Empire.

Many false teachings … test the faithful. In the second and third centuries, modalism begins to take hold. Basically the belief that the One God … takes on different forms at different times. So sometimes he’s the Father, sometimes the Son, sometimes the Spirit.

A bishop named Arius attempts to refute this heresy by saying the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit do co-exist, but that the Son and Spirit were actually created. According to Arius, Jesus was made before anything else was made,

SPROUL: But he is not eternal. And because he's not eternal, he is not equal with God.

RC Sproul once again…speaking of Arius….who also asserted…

SPROUL: The Logos is lesser than God and greater than man. Because of his obedience, he is, quote, adopted by the Father as the father's son. He was not always the Son of God, but rather his sonship is something he virtually earns.

For centuries, Christians have believed in the full divinity of Jesus. But that doesn’t stop Arius’ ideas from spreading widely.

BARRON: To be fair to someone like Arias, he's a brilliant priest, preacher, they even say songwriter.

Robert Barron is a Catholic Bishop … and founder of Word on Fire Ministries.

BARRON: And he expressed his theological ideas in popular songs, so that people would sing them in public places and so on.

Emperor Constantine, who claims to be a Christian, is currently trying to unite … his empire.

BARRON: What was bugging Constantine, who wasn't particularly pious, but was, wait a minute, the thing I want to use to unite my empire, they're now fighting with each other. So I got to get these people united.

Constantine invites every Christian bishop … to Nicaea .. He wants them to hold a council to work out their differences. There are eighteen hundred bishops scattered throughout the Empire. Three hundred show up.

HUFF: Everybody at the Council of Nicea believed Jesus was God. It was just a question of what that meant.

Wesley Huff is director Apologetics Canada and a Biblical manuscripts scholar.

HUFF: They're seeing Scripture, and they're trying to figure out, okay, what language do we use to articulate what we're seeing.

In one corner was Arius, arguing that, because of the "begotten” language in the New Testament, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were created and not eternal nor equal with the Father. In the other corner was Athanasius … arguing Scripture is clear.

HUFF: The Father is described as Yahweh God, the Son is described as Yahweh God, and the Spirit is described as Yahweh God. We don't believe in three Yahwehs, right, only one Yahweh. “Hear Israel, the Lord is God. The Lord is one God.”

The council debates for two months. Finally, in August, they vote.

HUFF: And Arius, who voted for himself, only had two other bishops on his side. So it wasn't close. It was like 312 to 3.

The Bishops leave Nicaea with a common creed. More councils … would add to the creed and modify it some, but version one reads like this.

ED PHILLIPS: We believe in one God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages.

Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man.

And He was crucified for us under Ponus Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end. And in the Holy Spirit. Amen.

So why … is this so important? Constantine may have had geopolitical goals, but the creed accomplishes much more than that. Not only does it clarify Christ’s divine nature, but it begins to define shared orthodoxy…and the Trinitarian foundation of the various branches of the Christian church.

HUFF: The Trinity is all there, right down to Jesus's baptism, where the father, you know, is heard from heaven, the Spirit descends. And then you have the Son being baptized. And then we're told to then baptize in the ‘onama’, the singular noun, name of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. And so you have the one name, but then three persons are described.

BARRON: We think it's so important that every single week at our liturgy, we Catholics get up and say, Arius you’re wrong, wrong, wrong. Right. He’s not just a high creature. He's God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God! Because he's one in being with the Father, He can save us. That’s why it matters.

SPROUL: He is the King of the universe, the supreme monarch, and there’s only one of them. Begotten, not made. Co-eternal and co-substantial with the father. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

For WORLD, I’m Caleb Welde. Audio courtesy of Ligonier Ministries, Wesley Huff, The Daily Wire, and Word on Fire Ministries.

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