The Creeds of the Faith Part 3

Welcome, everyone. We're going to get started. My name is Tom Schmidt. I haven't met you before. I'm one of the elders here at Trinity Baptist Church. Welcome to our Adult Sunday School class. We've been going through a series looking at the various creeds of Christianity. Today we're talking about the Council of Nicaea. I'll give a little bit of background once we begin, but let's open in prayer.

Father, we come before you and we ask that today we would tremble before your word, that we'd be convicted by your truth, by your nature, by how, Lord, you became flesh and dwelt among us and died for our sins and rose again on the third day.

We thank you, Lord Jesus, for all you've done for us. We pray you'd send your spirit into our hearts in this time together, that we would be encouraged, that we would learn from the wisdom of the saints who have gone before us hundreds of years ago.

And we ask this in your name. Amen.

Okay, welcome, everyone. So we're in class three right now.

The first class we had a couple weeks ago, Tyler talked about what creeds are, how they can help us as Christians, how they're like hearing aids that highlight the salient points, the relevant points of scripture.

And then last week, we talked about early Christian creeds.

We looked at, I'll put some names on the board here.

We looked at perhaps the first, the first Christian creed we have from a guy named Irenaeus in the year 180 AD.

And we looked at that creed, we looked at some other later creeds.

These were really good, good creeds.

They were very nourishing.

I mean, it was wonderful to see that 1,845 years ago, Irenaeus is saying the same things we believe.

Really beautiful, especially because Irenaeus said that it's not just him, that all Christians throughout the whole earth believe this.

And he spoke about God being the maker of all things, the son becoming God, and dying for our sins.

He mentions the Holy Spirit.

Today, we're going to continue onward and look at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.

And I want to give you a little bit of background about this, talk about its importance, talk about who the main folks were, and then we'll get into reading what the Nicene Creed has to say.

Sound good?

All right.

So, first, I want to read you something.

I handed it out.

It's just called the confession.

I got really excited with the handouts.

So, there's a lot.

We're only going to go over a very little bit.

You can take it home and read it if you want to.

But I handed out one called the confession.

I just want to read a few lines from this.

All right.

Here it goes.

We believe in one God, the Father, the ruler of all, and in the Lord Jesus Christ, his only Son, the one who is begotten from him before all ages, God the Word, through whom all things came to be, things in the heavens and things on earth, the one who descended and took flesh and suffered and rose and ascended into the heavens and is coming again to judge the living and the dead,

and in the Holy Spirit and in the resurrection of the flesh and in the life of the age to come in the kingdom of the heavens and in the one Catholic Church, Catholic meaning universal church, extending from one end of earth to the other.

If you are listening to that creed and you're thinking, that is a good creed, well, you would be a heretic.

Now, I'm actually exaggerating a little bit.

This is the confession of Arius, the great heretic.

Yes, it is.

So I left his name off.

I put it in red in my copy.

Now, I'm actually, I'm being a little unfair here.

He wrote this after many years as a way to try and show that he was Orthodox, but he really wasn't because what he meant by some of these terms was not what he meant.

They're normally interpreted as being.

So, for instance, when he says that Jesus is God the Word, right, he means that in a very different way than what probably you all think that means.

And one of the things we found last week was that with Irenaeus, Irenaeus explicitly says that Jesus is divine.

That's a universal early Christian belief.

We find it all over the place.

We find it in the New Testament.

We find it outside the New Testament.

But imagine for a moment that you are in the ancient world where polytheism is rife.

People are believing in multiple gods.

So, when someone says that Jesus is divine, Jesus is God in the ancient world, can you imagine ways that they could mean that in a bad way, in a heretical way, in an unorthodox way?

Can you think of, what are some, anyone, any, if you really wanted to twist that, Susan.

Yes, you could just mean, yes, Jesus is divine, just like all, there's many multiple gods.

Exactly.

You could definitely mean that.

Yeah, look.

He could have been divinized like Heracles.

Yes.

So, he could be divinized.

He could be human who is raised up to the status of the gods.

Exactly.

You could mean it that way.

Precisely.

Yeah.

Those are the two big ones.

But there are other ones.

I mean, if you want to push it, there's several different ways you can try and do it.

Here's another one.

You can believe that there's this one God who, because he's so far removed from us, has to create a kind of mediator to deal with us, a craftsman.

So, he creates Jesus as this kind of go-between between creation and the divine realm and kind of calls this creature God, but in like a lowercase g sense.

That's another way you could do it.

And we'll find out that that's kind of what Arius meant when he was saying Jesus was divine.

You guys come in?

You can come in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He meant that Jesus really wasn't God, that he was just called that.

However Arius defined it, when you look at his definition, you realize that's not God.

So, this confession, while I was a little unfair when I said you would be a heretic, this actually is a great confession.

It's just incomplete.

He doesn't define what he means by his terms.

In this confession.

And that kind of lack of clarity is what created the mess that caused the need for the Council of Nicaea.

So, let's do a little background on the Council here.

Christianity begins, you know, the resurrection of Jesus happens, the disciples go out throughout the whole Roman Empire preaching the gospel.

And for 300 years, Christianity spreads shockingly.

Just remarkably.

All over the Roman Empire.

There's all sorts of different cultures in the Greco-Roman Empire.

There's Greeks.

There's Latins.

There's folks speaking, you know, Gothic and Coptic and Syriac and all these other dialects.

And Christianity spreads.

It also spreads outside the Roman Empire in Persia, Ethiopia, Armenia, Central Asia, all these places.

Christians are often persecuted.

And by the time 325 rolls around, for the first time, Christians have a Christian emperor.

Constantine, Emperor Constantine comes to power around 311 or so.

And he issues an edict allowing freedom of religion.

This is actually not only a massive turn in the history of Christianity, but also in just humanity.

I mean, as far as I'm aware, this is the first time a major political figure ordered or made it law that people could believe whatever they wanted to believe.

That you couldn't persecute someone for their religious beliefs.

Constantine himself is a Christian.

We're going to find out Constantine didn't actually hold to this standard very well.

But by the time 325 comes around, Constantine is now sole emperor.

When he first became emperor, he was co-emperor.

Now he's sole emperor.

And there's a problem in the church, in the Roman church in 325.

And that's because there is a guy named Arius, who is a presbyter in the church in Egypt.

And he is teaching things that are upsetting folks.

And if we turn to, I have this handout, the Thalia of Arius.

Arius was composing like songs.

He was composing little ditties, catchphrases with theological content.

And he was saying things like this.

If you go to number one or I right there, he was saying things like this.

God was not eternally a father.

There was a time when God was all alone and was not yet a father.

Only later did he become a father.

Yeah, yeah, yes.

You should let them know we didn't have enough handout.

Oh, okay.

Okay, not everybody has everything.

So if you're looking for it, I apologize.

We got a lot of folks here today, which is great.

Oh, I got an extra one.

Is it this one?

Yes, it's that one, yeah.

Oh, I got two extra ones.

Oh, you're the source of it, Raul.

Okay, number two.

Arius would say things like this.

The sun did not always exist.

Everything created is out of nothing.

All existing creatures, all things that are made.

So the word of God himself came into existence out of nothing.

There was a time when he did not exist.

So notice he uses the term word of God.

He calls Jesus the word of God.

But then he's very clear.

He didn't always exist.

He didn't always exist.

If we look at his confession, where he says God the word,

he calls Jesus God the word.

But now we see that he means that only in the way of defining Jesus as not always existing.

Right?

Now, I have a question for you.

Does that mean he's actually God?

Like, if he didn't exist at some point and then came into existence?

Normally, we would say God is eternal.

He always existed.

Right?

But Arius here is saying, there was a time when the sun did not exist and then came into being.

So, do you see the tension there between calling Jesus divine but then saying that he didn't always exist?

Right?

And this goes on.

Arius goes on for a while.

He says, we won't read all of this.

If we skip down to number four, he says, there are two wisdoms.

One that is proper to God and exists together with him.

And the sun who is brought into being in this wisdom.

Only by participating in this wisdom is the sun called wisdom and word.

Hmm.

So, scripture says Jesus is the wisdom of God.

Right?

So, if you believe that Jesus came into existence, then you must mean that God's wisdom came into existence.

Which must mean that God didn't have wisdom at some point.

Which seems really weird.

Right?

That feels wrong.

That feels wrong.

So, what Arius tries to do is he says, ah, Jesus is only wisdom in like a very different sense.

He's only wisdom in the sense that he's like somehow expressing God's wisdom.

But, and so, so you see the kind of convoluted circles Arius is trying to trace here with these songs.

Well, these songs that he was singing and composing got pretty popular, were upsetting some churches.

Churches were concerned about this teaching.

And so, they called a council together to try and figure out some kind of solution to this problem.

Because you have Arius who's saying, he will say something like this, Jesus is God.

He would be willing to say something like that.

But then, what he means by this is different.

It's not, it seems like the way he means this means Jesus isn't God.

Like, it actually seems like what he really means is the opposite of this.

But he just, he'll use, he'll use traditional accepted language, but he'll use it in ways that is not how people would normally interpret that.

And friends, this is something we have to be very careful with.

I think this is both an interpersonal warning and a theological warning.

It's theological warning in the sense that you always want to make sure your terms are clear when you're having theological discussions.

Because otherwise, you're just talking past each other.

And the same thing interpersonally.

So many of our arguments, friends, are just because we're using the same words differently.

Or we're using different words to mean the same thing.

And we don't understand this about what we are talking about.

And I think Arius, perhaps, is actually, he could be doing this intentionally.

I don't think he was doing it intentionally.

I think he just had a warped view of what God was.

I mean, I think he just had this warped view.

So, because of Arius' rabble-rousing, the Council of Nicaea was called together in 325 AD.

And Tom, I don't know about this for 100% sure, but is it true that the Arian doctrines were sort of gaining in popularity?

And that's why it's one thing?

Scholars have tried to, have debated this.

They've debated, is the Arian doctrine gaining in popularity?

I want to, before I answer that question, I want to say one thing.

We're talking about Arius here.

However, what Arius believed might be quite different than what, like, an Arian church believed.

And so, when he's using terms like Jesus is God, and we're going to, hopefully we'll have time to dig in and see some of this.

That, it's very possible there were people in Arian churches that actually believed pretty orthodox stuff.

Because, as you can see, this is getting really technical here.

So, you know, if you asked a first century New Testament Christian who just heard the gospel on the streets by Peter the Apostle some of these questions,

they, who knows how they would answer some of these questions.

Like, was there a time when the son was not?

Did he exist in the mind of God?

But not like, it's just, it gets really complicated.

So, but in terms of popularity, my understanding is that he was probably gaining a popularity in Egypt for a while.

But then, after his condemnation, there were Arian churches for hundreds of years in Germany.

Germany was actually, the Germanic people were mostly Arian for a very long time.

But I want to be careful with that because when you say something like, Arians believe Jesus is not divine.

That's true, but it's not how they would, I mean, if you went and asked one of the Arians,

hey, do you think Jesus is divine?

They'd say, yes.

And it's only after like really kind of pushing through some things that you start realizing.

So, so those Germanic churches that were Arian, that, that is, I just want us to not, you know,

knee-jerk, write them off as, as full-blown, they don't believe in the deity of Jesus.

Because they, some of them might have, but even though their internal theology was a little messed up.

So, I think that Arians was growing in popularity.

I don't think this was a massive movement, but it was big in Egypt.

I think it was amongst kind of the elite.

The Council of Nicaea was also much more than just this.

There were other things they had to decide.

There were other things they were trying to settle, like the date of Easter and things like this.

325 is also, when Constantine came to power, he was only co-emperor.

The other co-emperor was still persecuting Christians.

So, when Constantine becomes the only emperor by 325, it's the first time that the Christian church can gather on an empire-wide scale without fear of persecution.

So, this is a really big deal.

This is the largest church council that's ever met up to this point.

And it's, it's effectively an empire-wide council.

So, they're talking about lots of stuff, not just the Aryan, not just the Aryan issue.

Any other questions?

I know we're going over a lot.

We're moving quickly here.

Okay.

So, a lot goes on at the council.

We don't have, we don't have, for some later councils, we have like blow-by-blow minutes of the proceedings.

We don't have that with the Council of Nicaea.

Instead, we have later reports.

We have some eyewitness accounts of people who were there.

But, just to show you the difficulty of, or the kind of puzzling nature of Arius's creed, I want you, I want us to read an earlier creed by him.

So, in your packet that has two, two sides, if you go to, towards the back, page 329, the letter of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia.

And this is a letter of Arius where he explains his beliefs.

Okay, so I'm going to read just a little bit.

So, this is in Arius's own words.

Something that is also important is it's, as far as we're able, it's always good to go back to the original source as much as possible.

So, if you want to hear what Arius believes, let's just read what he believes.

We have his letter here.

He's going to explain it.

So, we're going to skip to, at the very, very bottom of 329, in the middle, in the, he talks about how the bishop is driving,

driving us out of the city.

Now, we're on top of 330.

As godless men, since we do not agree with him, when he says publicly, always father, always son.

Father and son together.

The son exists unbegottenly with God.

The eternal begotten or unbegotten only one.

Neither in thought nor by a single instant is God before the son.

Always God, always son.

The son is of God himself.

These are the, remember how Arius was composing these kind of little songs?

This is the, his bishop's reply is these catchphrases, like, Jesus is always the son.

The father is always the father.

The son is of God himself.

The son is always God.

This is because if you think that the son did not exist at some point, then the father wasn't always the father.

He couldn't be father.

He hadn't had a son yet.

So, uh, what Arius is going to go on is explain what he thinks.

So, uh, if we jump down to the middle of 330, uh, he says, but we cannot bear even to listen to such impieties, though the heretics should threaten us with a thousand deaths.

What is it that we say and think and have taught and teach?

Here we go.

That the son is not unbegotten nor a part of the unbegotten in any way.

The unbegotten, he's referring to God here.

Nor formed out of any substratum, but that he was constituted by God's will and counsel before time and before ages, full of grace and truth, divine, unique, unchangeable.

Unchangeable.

And before he was begotten or created or ordained or founded, he was not.

Meaning he did not exist.

Eric.

And before he was begotten, okay.

For he was not unbegotten.

We are persecuted because we say the son has a beginning, but God is without a beginning.

So he goes on.

but I want to point something out here

that's so tricky that scholars themselves stumble on this.

So Arius very clearly here says

there was a time when the sun was not.

There was a time when Jesus did not exist

in any form or any way whatsoever.

But he says he's divine.

He says he's divine.

He says he's unchangeable, which is weird.

If you come into existence,

how can you be unchangeable?

But do you notice there's brackets

where it says, or parentheses,

full of grace and truth.

Do you see that line there?

Well, that line is not actually there

because what the Greek actually says,

and it's in multiple manuscripts,

there's no evidence for that phrase of grace and truth.

What it actually says is Arius calls Jesus fully divine.

That's what it says.

He says he's fully divine.

So here we have Arius, the great heretic,

who says that Jesus,

that allegedly says Jesus is not God.

Here saying he's fully God.

But then when he explains it,

it stopped, it doesn't make sense, right?

He came into being.

He, there was a time when he didn't exist.

You can see how difficult it would be

to have discussions with someone like this,

who's constantly moving the chess pieces around

in illegal ways.

You know, you're like, but you can't,

that's not what that word means.

And he just, he just keeps saying it.

And it's, it's difficult to negotiate.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

So, very difficult to talk about this.

Some vocabulary here.

He always talks about, you know,

the unbegotten,

this begetting language.

We're familiar with this

because Jesus in the scriptures

is called the only begotten,

like the unique, the only son.

And God the father is called unbegotten

because he wasn't, you know,

begotten in a way.

Now, these discussions we're having

about, about, you know,

the eternality of Jesus and things.

Well, Arius would probably say something.

He'd be like, well,

how can you be begotten

if Jesus is begotten?

We all agree.

We all agree.

So, Arius would probably say something like,

how can you,

someone be begotten

but be eternal at the same time?

How could you do that?

How's that possible?

For Arius, this is a contradiction.

He thinks it's totally contradictory

to be begotten but eternal.

He's also squirrely with his language.

Another area that he's squirrely

with his language is if you,

if you see in the handout,

where is it?

Now I'm losing it.

Ah, so right before the,

the full of grace and truth

where it actually says fully divine,

it says that he was begotten

before times and before ages.

Now, to me, I read that,

I say, he's eternal.

Yes.

But then he explicitly says,

oh, and there was a time

he didn't exist.

So he's constantly just

going back and forth

with this squirrely language

that feels contradictory.

So this question though,

of how can Jesus be eternal

but begotten

is a question that theologians

will need to answer.

How is that possible?

What do you guys think?

Is it a contradiction?

Is it a mystery?

Yes.

Is it possible that

if he was referring to the son

in the incarnate form,

that says this glorious divine form?

Yeah.

Sometimes people do,

are referring to it that way.

But I think,

that's a very good,

very good observation.

I think theologians

still want to use the term

only begotten of Jesus

before the incarnation as well.

Is it referring to divine privilege

rather than divine nature?

Can you explain a little more?

So when Jesus sends to his throne,

it says that the father,

in Hebrews,

he quotes the begotteness language

of the Psalms.

It's this idea that Jesus sends,

he's begotten first in privilege.

He's the woman.

Okay.

But I mean,

that's what you're...

Well,

so very good observation.

So you can,

if you think about

in the ancient world,

so in the ancient world,

you would have an emperor

or a king.

And very frequently,

you know,

the throne would be passed down

to the firstborn son

or something like that.

But didn't always happen.

Didn't always have firstborn sons.

So it was very common

in the ancient world

that you would adopt a son.

And that person you adopt

would become,

would have this privilege,

this prerogative

that they would inherit.

They would kind of inherit

your status.

And so you could view

the begotten language

as one like that.

It's not talking about

any kind of natural

begettiness,

but more of a status

or a positionality

that's going on.

That's one possibility.

So that Jesus always

had the position

of being the firstborn

in the sense of title,

in the sense of rank,

in the sense of,

of how a emperor

might designate,

might have someone

who's their firstborn son,

who's not actually

naturally their son,

but just,

that's one possibility.

But I don't think

that's enough

because then you could argue,

oh, then Jesus

actually isn't nature

by nature divine.

He was just adopted.

He was just selected.

So,

I think

the solution to this

conundrum

is that

we have to stop

thinking of God

purely in physical terms

because physically,

from mammalian biology,

human biology,

you can't have

a child

that exists

from the very moment

their parent existed.

you just can't,

you can't do that,

right?

But,

that's not,

God is not biology,

right?

He's beyond biology.

And,

you can have

examples of,

for instance,

if you have a tree,

for instance,

and you have a huge limb

of the tree,

but the tree's eternal,

right?

But the tree sprouted the limb.

But if the tree's eternal,

then,

the limb is eternal.

Even though,

does that make sense?

So,

you have something

that is kind of

sprouted from,

but in an eternal way.

That's how theologians

will often explain

this idea

of begottenness.

But you see,

Arius is fixated

on these kinds of issues here

and is trying to

find solutions,

but his solutions

just create many more problems.

It means

Jesus didn't always exist.

It means God

didn't have wisdom

or he has to

redefine wisdom.

It means that

the father

wasn't always the father.

It means,

of course,

the big one,

God didn't actually

become human.

He didn't actually

die for our sins.

God sent someone else

to do it.

That's what Arius'

theology implies.

Matt?

Did you read something

that indicated

that Arius

called his bishop

or whatever

a heretic?

Yes,

he does think

of him as heretic.

So,

Arius is saying,

hey,

people who believe

differently than me

are really in a bad

spiritual state

and vice versa.

Correct.

Were there people

at the time

who kind of

took the attitude

Paul does somewhere

saying,

you know,

this is the way it is,

but if you disagree

with me,

you know,

God will make that

clear to you sometime.

That's a great question.

Kind of a secondary issue.

Were there people

who said,

hey,

you know,

this is not

the biggest deal.

We can disagree.

Yeah,

yeah,

yeah.

Or was it just

boom?

You do get people

who say things

like that.

One thing

to keep in mind

is that

the peacemaking

attitude

of,

well,

you know,

we'll just agree

to disagree.

Remember that Arius

is like composing

songs designed

to stir people up.

And so he's

in a very

different position

than some peasant

in the countryside

who is just saying,

you know,

this is beyond me.

Like,

you're talking

about all this stuff

I don't understand,

unbegotten,

begotten.

Just,

I just,

I'm going to worship Jesus.

He's my savior

and that's it.

That's a very

different thing

than what Arius

is doing here.

And I think

in our Christian life

we need to be

very aware

of those two distinctions.

That

we should not,

I mean,

already we can see,

like,

we're really getting

into the weeds here

with terminology.

It's going to get worse,

by the way.

We're going to have

more,

more of these

technical terms

coming up.

But

that's very different

than the humble peasant

who's just a farmer

doing his,

doing his thing.

That's why I mentioned

that about the Aryan church

amongst the Germans.

I mean,

there would have been

tens of thousands

of these peasants.

You know,

the gospel rolls

into town,

they show up

at the only church

they can even get to

and technically

it's part of this Aryan church

but for all we know

they just,

they believe,

they didn't understand

any of this

or it wasn't even

talked about

and it was just,

you know.

Are there any Aryans

today that you can,

usually people will say

Jehovah's Witnesses

are Aryans

but the thing

with Jehovah's Witnesses

there's two distinctions

I want to make.

one is that

they do tend

to have,

I don't want to be

needlessly pejorative

but like,

kind of like cult-like behavior

it's very difficult

to leave

and to inquire

and have,

and do research

and ask questions

it's very difficult

to do that

but secondly,

they wouldn't agree

with Aryan,

they wouldn't call Jesus

fully divine.

they wouldn't say that.

They,

so they're more extreme

than Aryan seems

to have been.

My understanding is

I'm not,

I'm not an expert

on Jehovah's Witnesses.

Okay,

so,

we read a little bit

of Aryan's confession.

So now,

what I want to do

is

look at what

the Council of Nicaea

has to say.

So,

that same packet

that had Aryan's confession,

I put it in the wrong order.

I should have put Aryan's first

but at the beginning

we have here

the letter of Eusebius of Caesarea

describing the Council of Nicaea

and then on page 336

we have the text

where,

where Eusebius starts

describing the Council.

So,

this is awesome.

Eusebius of Caesarea

is

literally,

I'm not exaggerating,

the father of history.

This guy

created the historical method.

So much of what we know

about ancient history

is because of him.

So,

having him,

he attended

the Council of Nicaea,

he wrote a letter

immediately afterwards

that he sent back

to his church

describing the Council of Nicaea

and that letter

is preserved

in multiple manuscript

traditions.

So,

we've got really good

manuscript tradition of it.

So,

this is like

A plus stuff here

in terms of historical

veracity.

What we're going to find

though

is that

the Council of Nicaea

is a little more complicated

than you might have,

than you might have imagined.

So,

in his introductory paragraph

he just says,

hey,

I wanted to send you this letter

because rumors

often spread

and I just want to

let you know

what happened

and then if we

go to the next page,

so we're on 337 now,

what Eusebius says,

he says this.

He's going to articulate

the creed of his church.

So,

he re-articulates

the creed

that his church

used to say

and then he's going

to compare this

with the Nicene Creed.

So,

this is a creed

his church used to say,

as I received my tradition

from the bishops before me

both in my first instruction

when I was baptized.

So,

interestingly,

he was taught

this creed at baptism

and as I learned

from the divine scriptures,

the creed is also

derived from the scriptures

and as I believe

and taught

in the office

of presbyter

and episcopate.

That means bishop.

So,

still believing,

I present to you

my creed

which is this.

Here it goes.

So,

this creed is probably

from the year 300 or so

when Eusebius was baptized.

We believe in one God,

Father Almighty,

the maker of all things

visible and invisible

and in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the word of God,

God of God,

light of light,

life of life,

unique son

or only begotten son,

first born of all creation,

begotten of the Father

before all ages

through whom also

all things came to be,

who for salvation

was incarnate

and dwelt among men

and suffered

and rose on the third day

and ascended to the Father

and will come again

with glory to judge

the living and the dead.

We also believe

in one Holy Spirit,

believing that each of these

is and exists,

the Father truly is Father,

the Son truly is Son,

the Holy Spirit truly

Holy Spirit.

As also our Lord said,

when sending forth

his disciples for the preaching,

go and make disciples

of all nations,

baptizing them

in the name of the Father

and of the Son

and of the Holy Spirit,

of which I firmly assert

that that is what I hold

and so I am convinced.

He quotes that passage

because Jesus accords

one name to the Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit.

He doesn't say,

go forth and make disciples,

baptizing them in the names

of the Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit.

It's one name.

And notice he says,

Jesus is the Word of God.

He's God of God.

He's begotten of the Father

before all ages.

But as we've read though,

Arius might be willing

to say all that

because he defines

before all ages differently

than I would define

before all ages.

And he also defines

God differently.

And the one thing

he probably wouldn't agree with

is where Eusebius says,

the Father is truly Father,

the Son truly Son,

meaning the Father

probably is always the Father.

Anyway,

that's Eusebius' Creed.

He goes on to say

that he offered this Creed

as a model

for the Nicene Creed.

When they were at the council,

he said,

hey,

let's use this Creed

for our conciliar Creed.

Let's do it.

And if you know

the Nicene Creed,

you see that this actually

looks very similar to it.

It's very, very similar.

And there was some

back and forth

and they decided

to make one or two

significant changes

to the Creed.

And they made these changes

to try and make sure,

to try and eliminate

Arius' word twisting.

So he goes on.

Let's,

we're down at the bottom

of 337,

the final paragraph,

when I had presented

this statement of faith

there at the council,

there was no room

for opposition.

Indeed,

our most pious emperor himself,

that's Constantine,

testified that its contents

were very sound.

He further confessed

that he himself

was so convinced

and urged all

to agree to it

and to subscribe

and assent

to this very teaching

with the addition

of one word,

consubstantial.

Okay,

we got another

vocabulary word here.

Now,

I'm emphasizing this

because as you get

into Trinitarian theology,

this word comes up

all the time.

Consubstantial,

which in Greek

is homoousios,

which means

of the same substance,

of the same substance,

different

from homoousios,

which means

of similar substance.

So,

this means

the same,

whoops,

the same substance

or essence

or nature.

and

I want to ask you,

pretend you've never heard,

if you've looked

at Trinitarian theology,

you might have heard

of this word before,

consubstantial,

right?

Pretend like you've

never heard it before.

Okay,

if I said,

oh,

this is consubstantial,

X is consubstantial

with Y,

what would you think

I meant

by that?

Or,

if instead of

using the actual word,

if I kind of

made the phrase,

this is of the same

substance,

what would that mean?

Made from the same stuff.

Okay,

oh,

made from the same stuff.

I like,

I like that.

Because,

let's,

let's take that definition,

it's a very,

it's a very good

first reaction,

and apply that to Jesus.

Are we saying

Jesus is made

from the same stuff

as the Father?

Do you see

the difficulty there?

Because,

so,

so,

and that's

very,

very good

because people,

some people,

as we keep reading

in the letter,

interpreted it

in that kind

of way.

Although,

for them,

it was

more a physical thing.

So,

instead of

Jesus being created,

it was like

acting like Jesus

was a physical substance,

as if the divine nature

is similar to some kind

of physical element

that you can cut up

and derive things from,

which,

divinity

is not like that.

God isn't existing

in our plane of reality.

He's not,

you know,

the element 145

where you can do stuff

with it.

And so,

people were

very concerned

that this idea

communicated the idea

that God was somehow

physical

or corporeal,

which,

if you're in

a polytheistic environment

where people are bowing down

to physical idols,

is a big no-no.

That's a big no-no.

You do not want

the Christian God

to be thought of

as analogous

to an idol

that someone would set up

in their house

and they could cut a piece off

and give it to someone else.

They don't want that.

And Eusebius himself

is very concerned

about this term.

He goes on to say

at the bottom of 337

that the emperor said

the sun is not to be called

consubstantial

according to what happens

to bodies.

So,

Constantine is saying,

I don't mean this

in a physical way.

I don't mean this.

I know you might think of it

in a physical way.

I'm not thinking of it

in a physical way.

Top of 338.

Nor is he constituted

by a division

or by some kind of

cutting up

of the father

nor can the immaterial

and intellectual

and bodiless nature

undergo

what happens to bodies

but these things

must be conceived

of in divine

and in ineffable terms

meaning beyond

our speech.

So,

the emperor is saying,

look,

we don't mean this

in a physical way.

We mean it

in that they're sharing

the same nature

and the nature

happens to be divine.

If we used this term

with like a rock

so,

this granite rock

is consubstantial

with this granite rock

because I cut it off

and that's one thing

but we're talking

about divine things here.

So,

then,

they drew up

the Nicene Creed

on 338 Corbin.

Emperor is now

in church office.

It's a great question.

How much authority

did Constantine

have over the church

Yes.

So,

it makes me uncomfortable

to think of Constantine

here kind of like

saying,

you know,

hey,

what about this?

The authority he had,

he tried to have,

it's hard to answer.

There's many examples

of him saying,

you guys need to do this

and then I'm just

not doing it

and then he,

he can't really

do anything about it.

This happened

with the Donatist schism.

He told the Donatists,

don't leave the church,

don't leave the church,

don't leave the church.

They left the church

and eventually he's like,

okay,

I can't do anything about it.

So,

you know,

remember,

this is the first time

they have a Christian emperor.

I mean,

they have gone,

this church has gone

from being horrifically

persecuted

just,

I mean,

if you're in the east,

just a couple years

previously

for centuries

to then

they're in front

of the emperor

who's telling,

I mean,

so there certainly

was a lot of pressure.

On the other hand,

like the creed

that Eusebius presented

was the church's creed

in his church,

which as we saw

with Irenaeus,

totally agree with Irenaeus.

I mean,

so the emperor

is not,

you know,

it's really squishy.

It's hard to,

it's hard to suss out exactly.

But he was not

in charge.

He could certainly

affect pressure.

And as time went on,

the emperor got more

and more power over this,

but it took,

it took a while.

But yeah,

he's monkeying about

with stuff

he probably shouldn't be,

you know,

monkeying about.

Yeah,

quick related question

for that.

How,

how well read,

how well studied

was Constantine?

Eusebius says

that he was like

highly educated,

he was fluent

in Latin and Greek.

he could talk

about all these things.

My reading

is he probably

was a remarkably

gifted leader.

He was very brave.

He did make

some massive,

horrible mistakes.

He actually had

his own son

executed

and then realized

the charges

against his son

were false

after the fact.

Really bad stuff.

but my sense

is that he actually

more just wanted

the Christians

to agree on something.

Right,

like,

because I'm trying

to derive

his motives here.

I think he came in,

read the room,

and saw that

97% of everybody

there was against Arius

and was like,

okay,

that's good.

Let's get this settled.

We want this.

That's probably...

My sense is

he's a pretty smart cookie,

but not necessarily

like a specialized...

Yeah,

he's a politician.

But,

yeah,

he's like saying

I know enough

to say

you guys

should figure this out

so we can all

get back to

like being an empire.

Yes,

I think so.

Okay.

So,

that's my read.

He may have come,

remember,

he reigned

for quite some time,

so,

you know,

he may have shifted,

you know,

as time went on,

he became more familiar

with some of the theological things.

Okay,

so here's the creed.

This is 338.

We believe in one God,

the Father,

Almighty,

maker of all things

visible and invisible,

and in one Lord Jesus Christ,

begotten of the Father uniquely,

that is,

of the substance,

that's a new one,

of the Father,

God of God,

light of light,

true God of true God,

begotten,

not made,

consubstantial with the Father,

another new one,

through whom all things were made,

both things in heaven

and those in earth,

who for us men

and for our salvation

came down

and was incarnate,

became man,

he suffered and rose

on the third day,

ascended into heaven

and is coming to judge

the living and the dead

and in the Holy Spirit.

But those who say

there was once

when he was not

and before he was begotten

he was not

and he came into being

out of things that are not

or alleged that the Son of God

is of a different subsistence

or essence

or that he's created

or alterable

or changeable,

the Catholic and Apostolic Church

anathematizes.

They cast those people out.

So,

Eusebius,

so they added two words.

They added consubstantial

and then they also added

the word substance

which is just

usia

and

if we keep reading,

Eusebius is actually

concerned about

these two phrases.

He actually is writing

this letter to his church

because he knows

he's going to get

some blowback

when he gets home

because he says

when they formulated

this statement

I did not let it pass

without examination

as to what sense

they meant

when they said

of the substance

of the Father

and consubstantial

with the Father.

So,

questions were raised

and answered

and the meaning

of the phrases

was tested

by reason.

Thus,

it was declared

that they used

the phrase

of the substance

to indicate

his being

of the Father

but not as if

he were a part

of the Father.

So,

like a physical

part of the Father

like physicality.

He's really worried

about this physicality

stuff.

It's very clear

that in his church

these words

have physical

connotations

and he's trying

to say

that's not what

we mean.

We mean this

in purely

like essence

or nature

or something

like that.

So,

he goes on.

You can read

the rest of the letter

yourself.

But as you read

you start realizing

so Eusebius agrees

he agrees

with the creed

he signs off

on it

but he knows

it's going to be

controversial at home

so he writes

this letter

to try and

explain it

but then

as he is

explaining

what he believes

it's

it becomes

unclear

like

sometimes

Eusebius

is called

a semi-Aryan

because he

seems to believe

that

Jesus

always existed

but maybe

maybe only

like in the

mind of God

kind of

it's weird

it's unclear

exactly what

he means by this

so

I'll say

the fallout

of the council

and then we can

open it up

to questions

so this

creed is issued

almost all the

bishops agree

there's only a couple

that don't

Arius is exiled

Arius lives

for another

10-15 years

that's at some

point when he

issued his

confession

that I read

where he

clearly tried

to tone

down

the explicit

stuff

but he

doesn't want

to subscribe

to the

Nicene Creed

because he

doesn't like

these words

here

and

he eventually

dies

Arianism does

not die

it continues

in Germany

especially

but other

places

there were

later emperors

that were

Arian

so after

Constantine

died

there were

other emperors

that came

along that

were pro

Arian

and we

had this

back and

forth

Athanasius

was exiled

you know

bunches

of times

and

Athanasius

was kind

of the

theologian

that drove

the death

now in

Arianism

because he

was able

to show

things like

if Jesus

is not

actually God

then God

did not

become human

how can

humans be

reconciled

to God

by someone

else

God has

to do

it

we're

made

in God's

image

we have

I mean

he

he

go

again

and again

and again

for decades

is saying

this

and

eventually

you know

that wins

the day

I have to

say

when

the opening

line of the

gospel of

John says

in the beginning

was the word

and the word

was with God

and the word

was God

that feels

pretty clear

to me

that

Jesus

is divine

and eternal

how you

want to use

the technical

language

like John

doesn't use

the word

consubstantial

he doesn't

use the word

hypostasis

which we'll

come across

but it

scripture

declares

that Jesus

is divine

and to then

try and take

that word

divine

to make it

not really

divine

seems to go

against the

scriptures

and

and

it also

seems to go

against

not just

the implications

but just

the plain

reading

of the

scriptures

and this

is in the

Old Testament

it's not

a new

thing

Isaiah

says

you know

to us

a son

is given

and he

will be

called

mighty

God

Isaiah

says that

Zechariah

says

in speaking

through

as

Yahweh's

words

that they

will look

on me

the one

whom they

pierced

and they

will mourn

for him

like one

mourns

for an

only

son

which

seems to

be his

prophecy

of God

coming down

and being

crucified

and then

he goes

on to

say

and a

fountain

of forgiveness

will be

opened up

in Jerusalem

so it's

very clear

in scripture

we're going

to find

though

that

this

creed

which

is probably

the most

universally

ascribed to

creed

on earth

is this

creed

it was

a roman

creed

it was

later

accepted

by the

churches

in

Ethiopia

and

Persia

Armenia

Georgia

all

these

other

churches

accepted

this

creed

even

the

novationists

whom we

mentioned

last time

the

novationists

were like

the splinter

group

a splinter

church

they accepted

the creed

but didn't

want to sign

it because

they didn't

want to be

part of

a church

where the

emperor

was in

charge of

things

and stuff

like that

so

and

other

big

or

schismatic

groups

like the

Donatists

they would

have agreed

with this

I mean

so everyone

seems to

agree with

this

it's very

broadly

very universal

Protestants

many

Protestant

churches

actually

formally

agree

with this

and those

that don't

think it's

good

they're like

oh yeah

it's a

good one

we just

you know

those are

churches

that don't

come from

traditions

where they

want to

impart

extra

authority

to

the

creed

beyond

just

someone's

regular

confession

of

faith

we're

about

done

here

but

any

final

questions

before

Luke

so

from what I

understand

another

important part

of the

creed

is that

in the

original

creed

it says

God of

God

and in

the

Nicene

Creed

it says

true

God

of

true

God

I

think

it's

attempting

to take

away

that

squishiness

!

Very

good

very

good

so

what

Arius

had

been

saying

was

he

would

say

when

you

pin

him

down

oh

Jesus

is

God

he's

just

not

true

God

he

would

say

that

which

to me

makes

no

sense

at all

but

he

would

say

that

part

of it

has

to do

with

true

true

true

true

has

a

narrower

sense

than

in

Greek

where

it

can

refer

to

something

more

like

actual

or

it

still

doesn't

make

sense

even

in

Greek

but

it

just

it's

a