1700 Years

Well, today I get to do a one -off. We finished,

as Adam shared, we finished our series in Titus

just recently, and so today we have sort of a,

I don't know, a free message, which is always

tempting for me as someone who loves history

to jump into, and you see the title on the screen.

And I think this is particularly important for

us because one of the accusations that is often

made against Protestants in general and against

modern day evangelicals in particular, is that

we are ignorant of our own history and oblivious

to the doctrinal roots of our own faith. And

in my experience, with some exceptions, of course,

that's pretty much true to our shame. Now, I

realize that not every believer out there is

wired to have this incredible love for history

with equal passion. I do get that. But here's

the thing. If we're going to claim to be historical

Christians and we're going to hold to the faith

of our historical roots, I think we have a minimal

duty to know where we come from and how we got

to this place today. And how is it that we've

come to believe what we believe about God and

about the world that we live in? So it's been

one of my goals as a teaching elder here for

the past, oh boy, going on 19 years. at Oak Hill

to slowly and steadily move this congregation

toward a greater appreciation for church history,

to see us more deeply rooted in the faith of

our forefathers, to see that faith lived out

in both our worship services and in our fellowship

that we have together. It's why we celebrate

Reformation Sunday every year in October and

why at times we go out, we do small group studies,

we do podcasts on historical topics. And then

we come to a day like today and that same With

that same purpose in mind, this morning, what

I want to do is really stretch your minds and

stretch your hearts to push you just a little

bit more to think deeply about the origins of

our doctrinal beliefs. As you can see on the

screen, this month marks the 1700 year anniversary

of the first ecumenical council in church history,

the Council of Nicaea. which concluded with this

amazing foundational creed written in July of

325. So when those dates come up, I can't pass

that up. It's just too good of an opportunity

to sort of sit in that and think about 1700 years

of history. Friends, it's not an exaggeration

to say that Nicaea was one of the most important

events, not just in church history, but in the

development of Western civilization. So we're

headed this morning. for some really big themes

and some really technical theology. So I hope

you are ready for this. Are you ready? Good.

Now, normally at this point in the message, you

know what I usually do. I say, grab your Bibles,

and we're going to turn to our passage for the

morning. That is the standard operating procedure.

But today, we're going to be all over the place.

And in fact, Rather than having you try to flip

all over your Bibles, every verse that you're

going to need to track with me on is going to

be on the screen. So just follow as we go along.

Make sense? Good. Well, let's start by talking

about this issue of creeds. What are creeds and

why do they matter? Now, I know some evangelicals

don't even like the term creed. There's just

like a little burr under their saddle about it.

But let's talk about creeds. The word creed actually

comes from a Latin word credo, which means I

believe. It's that simple. So when Christians

come together to affirm a creed or recite a creed,

all they're doing is coming together as a group

of believers and saying, this is what we affirm.

This is what we believe as a group. And so creeds

are very short biblical summaries that are drawn

from the text of Scripture, which serve a whole

number of purposes in the life of the church.

And I'll get to those in just a second. But first,

it's really important for you to know that creeds

themselves are actually biblical. You will find

them in the pages of Scripture. Take the Shema

from Deuteronomy 6. The Shema is Israel's most

basic creed. It goes like this. Oh, there we

go. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the

Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God

with all your heart, with all your soul, and

with all your might. That is an Old Testament

creedal statement. That simple statement grounded

the identity of God's people throughout the Old

Testament and set them apart from the rest of

the surrounding nations. So it was used both

doctrinally as a statement of truth about who

they were, but also liturgically in the public

declaration of faith and worship in the Old Testament.

Then when you open up the New Testament, you

see a number of simple creeds that focus, as

you might expect, on the person and the work

of Christ. Perhaps the earliest and shortest

creed you find in the New Testament is from Romans

10 .9, which simply says, Jesus is Lord. That

is a creedal statement. Or you might go to Matthew

16, where Peter confesses, you are the Christ,

the Son of the living God. That too is a creedal

statement. In 1 Corinthians 15, it becomes more

obvious. Paul uses creedal language as he himself

talks about receiving a doctrine and passing

it along to others. He says, I delivered to you,

Corinthians, as of first importance what I also

received. So you see this passing down of creedal

information, that Christ died for our sins according

to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he

was raised on the third day, again, according

to the scriptures. In Ephesians 4, Paul records

a creedal statement about the unity of the church

where he writes about all the ones that we have

together. One body, one spirit, one hope of our

calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one

God and Father of all. And if you count those

up, those are seven articles of faith, the biblical

number that often symbolizes completion. Even

the trustworthy sayings, we looked at this just

a couple weeks ago in Titus. Paul says this is

a trustworthy statement. He writes five of those

to Timothy and Titus instructing his young protégés,

these are things you should remember and pass

along. Continue to read these things and teach

these things. They're creedal statements. So

they're all over the New Testament. And it's

important for us to understand this. If this

is something that's bothered you in the past,

I know some evangelicals are like, when I hear

the word creed, I think Roman Catholic. Don't

do that. They are actually biblical, and they

have served the church well for centuries. We're

going to see that today. Let me give you just

a handful of ways that they can be used even

in the church today, even in a church like ours.

First of all, they can be used to lay out what

we call the non -negotiable essential doctrines

of the faith. Those categories of belief that

literally define the gospel and separate orthodox

or right thinking from heresy. And we actually

do this as a church. All those churches out there

that have doctrinal statements on their websites,

those are creeds. Those are creeds of a sort,

right? We have one for the essentials that we

believe and we have one for non -essentials,

things that there's room for disagreement. So

we have our own creed here at Oak Hill. Secondly,

creeds can be fantastic teaching tools. We've

seen this in adult small groups. We've seen this

in youth groups. We've seen this even with our

kids where they're learning basic creedal statements

about the faith. When creeds summarize doctrine

in a simple way, then we can understand the essentials

and we can memorize those things. We can recite

them and it's wonderful for kids. Never forget

that the New Testament warns us as the people

of God that we are always going to be tempted

to drift, to turn to myths, to be tossed to and

fro, to every wind of doctrine. So we're called

in Scripture to hold on to what Paul calls the

pattern of sound words, to the apostolic teaching

that was once for all handed down to the saints.

Creeds help us do that. They serve as guardrails

to help us stay in the lane of essential doctrine.

And as we constantly reaffirm those things that

are in the creeds, we remember those essential

truths. We rehearse them in our minds and we

go, oh yeah, that's what I'm supposed to believe

and that's what I'm supposed to be living out.

Very, very important. Third, creeds can be helpful

in doing apologetics. and polemics, helping us

to draw distinctions between what is orthodox

or right thinking versus those who might seek

to come into the body and introduce false teachings

and heresy. And to that end, it's the creed that

becomes an objective standard by which the church

disciplines those who come in and bring error

or false teaching into the body if they will

not recant of those things. So creeds. that purpose

as well. Fourth, creeds are effective as a witness

to the historical nature of the church. They

connect us to our past. They connect us to heroes

of the faith, saints of old who have served us.

And this is the best way to think about it. Saints

of the past who have served us by contending

for the faith in their day, laying the groundwork

for our preaching and our teaching. Fifth, creeds

can be used in liturgy and in worship. as a means

of leading the congregation into prayer, into

praise, and in when we observe the sacraments

of the church. Creeds can be used as we gather

around the communion table or as we stand at

the water's edge of a baptism because they summarize

what we believe. And finally, creeds can be used

as a source of unity. a way to foster fellowship

between churches because we have an agreement

on the core essentials. And so we can connect

to churches from the past. We can connect to

churches on the other side of the earth because

we have creeds that match each other and we're

in agreement on the essentials. Does that make

sense? So don't be afraid of these things. They're

actually very beneficial. Now, we think about

the ancient creeds. There's four big ones, and

some of you may have grown up in a tradition

where these were read in church, and that's wonderful.

The Apostles' Creed, which wasn't written by

the apostles, by the way, but that's okay. The

Nicene Creed, which we're going to look at today.

The Athanasian Creed, which wasn't written by

Athanasius either. But the Chalcedonian Creed

as well. Very, very important. And if you want

to take a picture of that, you want to look these

up, very, very important to our faith. Now, what

about confessions? How many of you guys have

heard of confessions? Okay, so we have creeds

and we have confessions. Confessions are slightly

different. The word for confession also has a

Latin root, which basically means I acknowledge

or I declare. Now, a confession is much more

detailed than a creed. Okay, it's much more thorough

and it basically, again, puts together what an

individual believes or what a church believes.

And in many cases, you see confessions that are

written in order to make distinctions between

denominations. Creeds often will fit on like

a half a sheet of paper, but confessions, when

you open them up, many chapters that usually

cover dozens of theological positions. Confessions

are mainly found in the Protestant world. And

most of the most famous confessions come out

of the Reformation, the 16th and 17th centuries

as churches were breaking away from the Roman

Catholic system and beginning to define what

they believed, especially in relation to one

another. You have all these confessions being

written in that time period. So again, you might

recognize one of your traditions you grew up

in. In the Lutheran church, you had the Augsburg

Confession and the Book of Concord. In the Reformed

circles, you have what folks in the Reformed

world called the three forms of unity, the Belgic

Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the

Canons of Dort, which sort of summarized Calvin's

belief system. In the Anglican Church, Thomas

Cranmer created the 39 Articles. In the Presbyterian

churches, they hold very firmly to the Westminster

Confession of Faith and their two catechisms,

the larger and shorter catechisms. And even congregational

churches, even independent, even Baptist churches

have their confessions. For example, the Savoy

Declaration and the Second London Baptist Confession

of 1689. If you know a 1689 Baptist, you know

what I'm talking about. They're very serious

about it. Anybody? Okay, good. Anyway, so confessions,

mainly Protestant, but creeds have spread throughout

the history of the ancient church. Now, here's

a quick note of caution about creeds and confessions.

Although they are written to summarize biblical

truth, we have to remember they were compiled

by men. Fallible men, right? Imperfect men. So

they're not infallible as scripture is. They

do not have divine authority on their own. Sometimes

churches fall into error on this. They will prefer

to look at the creed rather than the scriptures,

but they have no divine authority on their own.

We are a people that holds to sola scriptura.

What does that mean? It means that it's profitable

to study these things. We can read it. We can

study it. We can even recite creeds and confessions.

But always keeping in mind that any authority

that they have on our conscience is only when

they're in line with what God has said in his

word. And that's critically important. Now I

realize for some reason some folks, especially

in the evangelical church, I've met folks like

this who will proudly say, I don't need a creed,

I have no creed but Christ. Or I have no creed

but the Bible. You know what the irony of that

is? That's a creedal statement. We all believe

in creeds to some extent, right? So it's actually

not super helpful to say, well, I just believe

in the entire Bible because you know what? Everybody

claims that, even heretics. So at some point,

you're gonna have to, every believer in every

church is gonna have to lay out, well, this is

what we think the Bible teaches on all these

important topics. That's why things like creeds

and confessions and yes, even doctrinal statements

can be both enlightening and helpful. Make sense?

Okay, before we get to the main topic, one last

thing we want to talk about, a word about church

councils. Again, some of you, you may be a little

unfamiliar with history. You hear the phrase

church council and you think what? Roman Catholics

or maybe Eastern Orthodox. But hold on a second.

Even church councils have a precedent in the

scriptures. Can anybody name or think in your,

you don't have to shout it out, but think in

your mind about a council in the New Testament.

Ah, I heard a whisper. Acts 15, what we call

the Jerusalem Council. You might remember that,

right? You had godly men from Antioch and Jerusalem

come together. Very important moment in the history

of the first century church. They came to resolve

a disagreement and they came to ward off a potential

heresy, this Judaizing heresy that was threatening

to creep into the church because the gospel was

going out to the Gentiles in the early... apostles

were trying to figure out what does this mean

and how do we sort this out? And so what did

they do? They called a council to do that. So

in the biblical tradition, councils in the post

-apostolic period of church history were called

for the same reasons, because we have things

that need to get resolved, because we need to

protect the people against heresies, because

we need to fight for unity across the empire.

Jesus wants his church to be unified, so we need

to fight for that. Now, depending on who you

ask, there have been anywhere between Three and

21 ecumenical councils. When we say ecumenical,

universally agreed upon. But think about that,

three to 21. Rome recognizes all 21 of those

because they run the joint. They're like, those

are all our councils and they claim them all,

all 21. The last of which, by the way, was Vatican

II, which took place in my lifetime, in the 1960s.

So it hasn't been that long. The Eastern Orthodox

recognize the first seven. ending in the year

787. The Oriental Orthodox, which includes Coptics

and Armenians and Ethiopians, they only recognize

three, ending in the year 451. And we as Protestants

recognize how many? Nobody wants to guess. That's

okay. Six. Six. Six, I know, it's okay, I totally

get that. Six ecumenical councils, the last one

being in the year 680. So Nicaea, and then we

have three Constantinoples, and in between an

Ephesus and a Chalcedon. In my opinion, if you

were only gonna pick two of those to study, you

wanna look at Nicaea and Chalcedon. Those really

are the most important ones in my opinion. Okay.

So we're here to talk about that first one today.

The 1 ,700 years ago, you see it on the screen.

Let me start by telling you how the council came

about and why it came about. And it's actually

a very interesting historical story. So it all

starts with an arch heretic by the name of Arius

of Alexandria. Yes, it's timeline time. I love

you guys. Arius of Alexandria, born in the year

250. and we're not exactly sure where, but somewhere

in North Africa. What we do know is that he studied

on a well -known scholar of his day who later

was declared a heretic himself, a man named Lucian

of Antioch, and then somewhere around the year

306, he came to Alexandria, Egypt, and he was

named a deacon in the Church of Alexandria. Now,

if you know anything about ancient history, Alexandria

was one of the great... learning centers of the

ancient world. So becoming a deacon in that church

meant that Arius was going to be in the spotlight.

It took him 12 years, but you see there eventually

became a presbyter, which is the fancy Greek

word for elder, became an elder in the church

of Alexandria in the year 318. And his teachings

as an elder began over time to slowly differ

from the teachings of the bishop there in Alexandria.

That began to raise a stir. Now, at this point,

Arius was 68 years old, so he's an older guy.

He's got lots of friends. He's got lots of connections.

All across the Eastern Roman Empire, he has many,

many disciples there in the city of Alexandria.

Arius, from what we can tell from writings, and

I do admit that the things that we have been

written about Arius are written by his enemies,

so we always have to be careful not to overstate

who he was, but today we'd call him a celebrity

preacher. He was that guy. He was widely admired

in Alexandria and across the world for his very

disciplined ascetic lifestyle, for his really

higher sort of education and learning, and also

for having a very charismatic personality. In

addition to that, he was a musician and a songwriter.

It's always the musicians, isn't it? Grant's

not even here. I can't even make fun of him.

Micah's here, though. Where's Micah? There you

are. He was a musician, a songwriter. In fact,

this is absolutely true. We know this for a fact.

He was known to take his unique doctrinal ideas

and set them to music. He would create little

jingles that people could easily remember and

basically sing his theology. So if you were walking

down the street of Alexandria in this time, you

would hear just common people singing about the

theology of Arius. Very clever, right? Very smart.

So that's who he was. Now, he was a force to

be reckoned with. And the bishop of that time

in Alexandria, who ironically his name was Alexander,

Alexander of Alexandria, he was... He recognized

that Arius was becoming a threat, a threat to

the unity of the church in Alexandria, also a

threat to the Orthodox teaching in the Eastern

Empire. So what did he teach? Well, we could

spend the next hour talking about that. I'm going

to give you just a couple bullet points about

what Arius was out there teaching. At the core,

and we do call this Arianism today, and it's

still around, by the way, Arianism, the core

is that Jesus, God the Son, was not eternal.

He was a created being. Now, Ares would say,

look, Jesus was the very first creation. He's

the Father's highest, most glorious creation.

He's greater than the angels. In fact, he would

say, we can even refer to Jesus as divine because

of how glorious he is, because of his preeminence

as the firstborn over creation. But in a world

where categories actually do matter, If you look

at, does Arius put Jesus on the side of the ledger

of creature versus creator? Arius says he is

a creature, not the creator as scripture repeatedly

says. In fact, the repeated statement that Arius

made and put to song, put to a jingle was, there

was a time when the sun was not. There was a

time when the Son was not. And he defended that

idea by a combination of the philosophy of his

day, Neoplatonism, and certain New Testament

passages. He took the phrase begotten of the

Father and incorrectly extrapolated what that

term meant. He also looked at what Jesus said

of himself in John 16, where he said, Jesus says,

I came forth from the Father and came into the

world. Now listen. These guys did not have the

benefit that we have of thousands of years of

scholarship. You can almost see where Arius might

make this mistake. I'm always careful. I know

we've got these arch heretics in church history.

I'm always careful to put myself in those sandals

and say, could I have made that same mistake?

And we should be humble about that. Now, the

one thing that Arius was really right on, and

he was firmly committed to, was monotheism, the

oneness of God. And that's good. But in his mind,

if the Father was God, and the Son was also God,

then God's nature could be divided. And if God's

nature could be divided, then that overthrows

monotheism. So therefore, he argued, Jesus had

to be somehow less than God the Father. Somehow.

Certainly less in terms of what we call ontological

subordination, this idea that he is a God. Where

have you heard that in the world today? Jehovah's

Witnesses. A God, not God Almighty, but a God,

right? It's still around in the Jehovah's Witnesses

today. So he just can't be God Almighty. He's

got to be less than the Father. And here's the

thing about Ares' teaching. It caught on. In

fact, it threatened to overthrow Orthodox teaching

in his day. Over a period of three years, the

popularity of his ideas... forced Alexander the

bishop to call a local synod of other bishops

where they talked through what to do with this

guy who's an elder in his own church and is teaching

wrong ideas. So in the year 321, at that synod,

Arius was condemned and he was excommunicated

from the church. Now, do you think that stopped

him? It did not. As with many heretics, they

are not easily dissuaded. Rather than humbly

pause his teaching and come into submission to

his bishop and the fellow elders, Arius fled

Alexandria and went to a place where he would

be well received. He went north up to Caesarea,

where he was received by the bishop there, a

man named Eusebius. And from there, Arius waged

a three -year campaign of doctrinal war against...

his fellow elders former fellow elders in the

city of alexandria and everywhere he went and

everywhere he wrote to he created little pockets

of support in various places now what did we

just learn was that last week in titus 3 about

a factious man two weeks ago a factious man he's

self -condemned is he not well this is what arius

was doing he was a factious man So the Christian

world, especially in the East, was now literally

at war with itself, asking the question, this

is important, first of all, who is Jesus? But

second, what is Jesus? And that may surprise

you, but it's important. Who is Jesus? What is

Jesus? What is his nature? Is he God, or is he

a created being? Is he more than a regular man,

but still less than Almighty God? Now, into the

midst of that mess in the church walks one of

the most interesting men in all of human history.

And his name is Constantine I. The Roman Emperor

Constantine I. Now, man, again, we could spend

an hour on the biography of this man. He is so

interesting. He is... One of the most influential

men who's ever walked the planet, both for the

Roman Empire and for the direction of the church.

Very interesting guy. But right around the time

that Arius came to Alexandria, Constantine's

father died and he came to power way off in the

far off land of today we call Great Britain.

Way up there in the British Isles. Now, when

Constantine comes to power, the Roman Empire

is in a very strange place. It's ruled by what

was called a Tetrarchy. which basically meant

four men were ruling this vast Roman Empire.

The empire had grown so large that it had to

be divided into four sectors and basically establish

four different rulers just to govern it. But

both East and West had a primary ruler, he was

called an Augustus, and sort of a junior ruler,

who was the one who would take over next, he

was called a Caesar. So you had a... an Augustus

and a Caesar in the West, and you had an Augustus

and a Caesar in the East. Constantine, at the

age of 34, becomes the Caesar in the West, up

in the British Isles. But here's the thing. He

has huge ambition. He has no intention of staying

way out there in Britain and just being a junior

officer. And by the way, his troops loved him.

And they said the same thing. Let's come together

and let's establish you as the sole emperor in

all of Rome. And that's what he wanted to be.

So over the next 18 years, Constantine would

fight a series of wars against his own Roman

rivals in order to become sole emperor. Along

the way, there was one very important moment.

He fought a battle against one of his rivals

at a place called Milvian Bridge. Anybody heard

of it? The Battle of Milvian Bridge. Look it

up. This is where it said. that the night before

the battle, Constantine received a vision from

the God of the Christians. And in this vision,

he heard a voice say, upon the sign of the cross,

you will be victorious. Now, books and books

have been written about this, about how legitimate

this is. What we do know is he instructed all

of his soldiers to paint a cross on their shields.

He went out the next day, and guess what? He

was victorious. That happens in the year 312,

and that puts Constantine as now the Augustus

in the West. He is now the sole ruler over the

entire Western Roman Empire. What comes next

is fascinating. In light of that vision that

he had received from the God of the Christians,

Constantine then reaches out to the Augustus

of the East, a man named Licinius, and he says,

let's sit down and let's talk about the status

of Christianity in the empire. Now, right before

this, how were Christian leaders treated? Not

good. Threats, persecution, arrest, execution,

all of those things. But now we have possibly,

and I say possibly on purpose, a Christian emperor,

a newly believing Christian emperor who says,

let's talk about this. He and Licinius meet in

the city of Milan, and they come out with a joint

statement that we call the Edict of Milan in

the year 313. What this decree did was it provided

for religious freedom across the entire empire

for everybody, something that we have in America,

right, that we take for granted sometimes, but

it's beautiful. Religious freedom, including

Christianity. Now think about this. Licinius

is not a believer, but somehow the Lord is at

work here, and between the two of them, they

come out and say, you know, we need more unity

within the empire. We're so spread out, we need

more civic unity and peace. So if you're a Christian

leader, a year before that, you're basically

operating in the shadows, afraid to be arrested.

Now everything has changed. You now can come

out of the shadows. Your faith, our faith, is

now a state -approved religion. It's got to be

religiously the biggest turnaround in the history

of man, from being possibly executed to being

state -approved because of one man, Constantine.

and the Edict of Milan. Very, very important.

Now, fast forward to the year 324. 324, the Roman

world is not big enough for two Augustuses, and

so Licinius and Constantine go to war against

each other, and once again, Constantine comes

out on top. He becomes the sole emperor over

the entire empire, east and west, and symbolically,

in the minds of the people, this was a great

victory for Christianity over Roman paganism.

So the game has changed for Christians all over

the world. This is going to set the stage for

the Council of Nicaea, the very first ecumenical

council. Now, what's the first thing Constantine

does? He leaves Rome. He's won it, and now he

leaves it. And he decides he's going to build

a whole new capital city in the east. He's going

to call it New Rome. Eventually, what does he

call it? Constantinople. Named it after himself,

of course, right? But as he surveyed the religious

landscape in the east, guess what he saw? We

have this massive rift in my new faith. He's

like, my new faith, I want to be involved in

this. But I look out there and I see bishops

at each other's throats. Some of you guys are

supporting Arius and some of you are supporting

Alexander. This cannot stand. Again, this is

his new faith. Now, he doesn't understand many

of the nuances of Christian doctrine. All he

knows is, I've united the empire, and now we

need to bring you guys together so we have one

religion throughout. He is not going to tolerate

division in his empire. So what does he do? He

sends imperial letters to both Arius and Alexander,

and he exhorts them to find common ground and

unity. How do you think that worked? Not a chance.

These are not men who are going to be kowtowed

by even the emperor of Rome. They're going to

stand by their guns. So what does a good emperor

do? He says, all right, guys, we need to get

in a room. And he summons a church council from

all over the empire. We need to get in a room.

We need to figure this out. Now, this is a shocking

first in world history. An emperor. is calling

a church council. You had bishops at this time

who literally 10 years before were being tortured

for their faith. Guys showed up to the council

of Nicaea missing limbs because the emperors

had cut their limbs off. And now you've got a

Roman emperor who's saying, come to me for a

council, all expenses paid. That's a shock, right?

In fact, Eusebius records that there was a guy

who showed up, a bishop who showed up, whose

eye had just recently been gouged out by the

emperor Diocletian. And Constantine was so moved

by his physical condition that the emperor walked

up and kissed his face. Talk about a turnaround.

It's absolutely crazy. Constantinople is still

under construction at this time, so Constantine

picks a different site for the council. It's

about 80 miles south of Constantinople, the city

of Nicaea. And if you go there today, if you

go to Turkey today, you'll see that still the

Roman gates of the city of Nicaea are standing.

You can go visit the Roman ruins there. Fascinating.

And Constantine, I just have to show you this

because it's the coolest statue ever made. That

is, right? When I die? No? In the pulpit? Yeah,

there you go, exactly. I just have to, this is

a statue of Constantine from York, England, of

all places, because that's the place where Constantine

first came to power as a Caesar in the West,

in the city of York, England. But I just really

dig that. Okay. So Constantine convenes this

council and he is present at it. He literally

comes in, pomp and circumstance, into the assembly

hall and sits in his golden chair. You know,

with the Bible, the scriptures sitting in front

of him and all these bishops around, and he opens

the council in the year 325. Opened on May 20th,

officially closed on July 25th, 325. 1 ,700 years

ago, almost to the day. Now, not all the bishops

could make it. Travel was not easy back then.

Eusebius tells us that around 250 bishops were

there. Other sources put the number at more than

300. But what was unique about Nicaea was the

geographical spread. Now, church councils had

been held in small numbers in regions. We call

them synods. But now we've got guys who came

from as far away as Spain and Britain coming

all the way into the east into Asia Minor. So

this is really what we call the first ecumenical

or universal church council. It was still eastern

heavy because it was located in the east. And

by the way, one very important person from the

West did not show up, the Bishop of Rome. For

your Roman Catholic friends, the Pope did not

even show up at the Council of Nicaea, but he

did send two of his secretaries, which is interesting.

That just is an aside. But keep this in mind.

Again, the council was meeting only 12 years

after the end of these persecutions. Here's the

thing. This council lasts for three months, and

I'll spare you the details and jump straight

to the conclusions they reached, and then we're

going to look at the creed. That's how we'll

close out. We'll look at the creed and exactly

what was established. At issue, you guys, was

the essence and the personhood of God the Son,

especially how he relates to God the Father.

That's the key. And much of the discussion, we're

going to get a little technical, revolved around

this Greek word, usia. which in English, if we

were to translate it, would be essence, substance,

or being. In other words, it's the whatness of

something. The whatness. So when we ask, what

is Jesus? We're asking, what kind of being is

Jesus? Does that make sense? And the case being

made by Arius and his followers is that Jesus

was, here we're going to get into some Greek,

heteroousion. See that? The Arian party said

he was heteroousion. In other words, Jesus is

altogether different or hetero from the Father

in his being. The Arian said he's not divine,

he's not God, he's a creature. As much as they

tried to dress that up, that's the bottom line.

Hetero. The other side, led by Alexander and

his brilliant advisor, a deacon by the name of

Athanasius, who were both at the council. They

said that Jesus was homoousion, with the Father.

Homo, or the same. The same essence or being

as God the Father. In other words, what we call

the Nicene Party was saying that he is God in

every way. And, by the way, there was a third

opinion at the council. And these were the guys,

you know the guys at the council who are always

the peacemakers? Like, fellas, can we just find

some happy middle here, right? Like, too much

fighting in the family, right? Can we come together

with a third position? They were known as the

homoi usian party. What's the difference between

homo and homoi? Ooh, a single iota. Not one iota.

That's where that phrase comes from. You guys

have heard? Oh, I'm too old for this. You guys

remember? Not one iota. It comes from this particular.

Homoousion, right? In other words, Jesus is similar

to the father. He's like the father, okay? One

is he's altogether different than the father.

One is he's the exact same as the father. The

middle party was he's similar to the father.

Now, that was the lukewarm position, right? The

one, both extremes were gonna say absolutely

not. We're not agreeing to that. And in particular,

Athanasius was like a dog on a bone. He was not

going to give up. He was not going to give one

iota, not one budge, against homoousios. Because

Athanasius in his writing said, as long as we

teach that Christ is just like the Father or

similar to the Father, we are stealing his glory.

We are stealing the worship that he deserves

as God. What happened then is over the weeks

of wrangling with the text, eventually the arguments

of Athanasius won over the homoi. And all of

a sudden, we had a chance to write a creed and

bring it to a vote. And that's exactly what happened.

So the Nicene Creed was produced by the two parties

that clearly won the day in terms of the arguments.

Now it was who's going to sign it and who's not

going to sign it. If you signed it, it was making

a statement that you were in line with what the

church believed was true according to Scripture.

If you chose not to sign it, you were outside

the Orthodox faith. And in the end, of those

300 or so bishops, only two didn't sign it. Arius

got wiped out. He got absolutely run out of town.

And those two bishops were condemned, excommunicated

by Constantine, and banished out of the empire.

So this wasn't just, hey, sorry about that, go

back to your church. You're gone. Now, Arius

himself, he was president at the council, but

he was not a bishop. He was a presbyter. So they

did give him a chance, and Eusebius records it.

He defended his views, but he didn't have a vote

on the creed. And ultimately, Constantine said,

yeah, you too, Arius, you're gone. And excommunicated

him and banished him as well. So that's the Nicene

Council. There's also a great story, Come Find

Me After Church. Santa Claus was at the Council

of Nicaea, St. Nicholas, literally, and he punched

an Aryan in the middle of discussions. I kid

you not, it's a real story. St. Nick was a beast.

Okay. Okay. So I just ran through three months

of debates, but it's really interesting. All

right. Can we look at the text of the creed itself?

Okay, here we go. Ready? Gird your loins. Here

we go. This is how it starts. The first statement.

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker

of all things, visible and invisible. So the

creed starts where it should. That is a statement

of monotheism. That's the essential foundation

that comes out of Judaism, out of the Old Testament,

right? There is one creator God. His name is

Yahweh. He is the God of the Bible, both Old

Testament and New Testament. Can we affirm it?

Would you sign it? Good. Secondly, and we believe

in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten

of the Father, the only begotten. Now, that language

comes straight out of John 1, right? Verse 14,

where it says, and the Word became flesh and

dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as

of the only begotten from the Father, full of

grace and truth. Now, what's interesting, At

the next council that happens in 381 in Constantinople,

a whole bunch of verbiage gets added to Nicaea.

And in fact, today, if you say, I want to see

the Nicene Creed, it's usually a combination

of the two councils. But this is what gets added

to that phrase, begotten of the Father. At Constantinople,

they say, before all worlds or before all ages,

which is an An important addition. It basically

has a dual reference. First to John 1 -2 where

it says the word was in the beginning with God,

right? Before all worlds, before all ages, in

the beginning. And then if you look at John 17

when Jesus prays to the Father, he says, he talks

about the glory which he had with the Father

before the world was. So it's a strengthening

of the eternal nature of this begottenness. that's

being discussed here. Okay, keep going. This

is where it's gonna get juicy. That is of the

essence of the Father, God of God, light of light,

very God of very God. Okay, so this is where

in the Greek text of the Creed, the word ousia

shows up there, the word essence, okay? The essence

of the Father. God the Son is of the same essence

or being as the Father. And then you see, I mean,

they... The authors of the creed, they didn't

mess around. As a heretic, you couldn't misunderstand

what they're saying here, right? So we have three

statements, God of God, light of light, true

God of true God. Very, very strong statement,

three times, three phrases, so that everybody

understands. And then it says, in case you missed

the other one, begotten, not made. So it's the

negative piece. Not only is he only begotten

of the Father, he's begotten, not made. being

of one substance with the Father, by whom all

things were made, both in heaven and earth. So

just in case it wasn't strong enough yet, the

authors of the creed give that negative side,

not made, not a created being. And then in the

Greek text, this is where they put the word homoousion,

where it says one substance with the Father,

equal to the Father in every way. And by the

way, Jesus claims this for himself multiple times

in the scripture. So this is not just a philosophical

statement. Jesus claims, for example, in John

5, Jesus says this, just as the father has life

in himself, even so he gave to the son also to

have life in himself. Guys, no creature has life

in himself. That is an impossibility, right?

A creature cannot be self -existent. He cannot

make himself. but the son has life in himself.

That is life that was granted to him by the father

in eternity past. By the way, this is the same

son that Paul talks about. He existed in the

form of God, yet did not regard equality with

God a thing to be grasped onto. Right? Jesus

is the uncreated son of God, begotten, not made.

By the way, we could, earlier Adam read from

Colossians 1. That passage is important. Hebrews

Hebrews 1:2

1, verses 2 and 3 is important. 1 Corinthians

8, 6. But the most important passage of Scripture,

which points to this truth about begotten, not

made, comes, of course, from John 1, 3. And this

is what it says. All things came into being through

the Word. And apart from Him, the Word, nothing

came into being that has come into being. Now,

most people read that verse and go, why is it

so repetitive? It's almost as if... John anticipated

the Arian heresy here because he makes it so

clear. Again, if Jesus were some kind of created

sub -deity, he would have to be one of the things

that came into being. So he can't be the creator

and one of the things that came into being, right?

That's a logical impossibility. He must be eternal

in nature. And so John anticipates the Arian

heresy even in verse 1 -3. And then just to close

the deal in John 1 .18, he adds this powerful

statement. No one has seen God at any time. The

only begotten God who is in the bosom of the

Father, he has explained or revealed him. Now

that is a shocking, mind -shattering statement.

The only begotten God. How is the God begotten?

Hold that thought. We'll get to it. Let's keep

going in the rest of the creed. who for us men

and for our salvation came down and was incarnate

and was made man. He suffered and on the third

day rose again, ascended into heaven. From there

he will come to judge the quick and the dead.

So the humanity of Christ was not the focus of

Nicaea, but you see the authors dipping their

toe in this here, right? He's incarnate. He is

made man. He's made man because prior to being

made man, he was something else ontologically,

wasn't he? He was God. He existed in the form

of God. That's very important. And then this

is the funniest sentence in the Nicene Creed.

It just says, and in the Holy Spirit. Because

again, the focus of Nicaea was not the humanity

of Christ. It was not the Holy Spirit, but we

believe in the Holy Spirit as well. Now that's

gonna get added onto again quite substantially

in the next council in 381, right? In fact, the

Constantinople Creed is gonna, going to say this,

and we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord,

the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father,

who was with the Father and the Son, together

is worshiped and glorified and who has spoken

through the prophets. So you see the language

of Trinitarianism beginning to be laid out one

council at a time, right? It's almost like the

church fathers want to close that loop. So the

Holy Spirit isn't a lesser God. than the father

or the son. He's not ontologically subordinated

to the father or the son. He is the Lord equally

worshiped and glorified. And these are really

important things, guys. And then the last statement

in the 325 Creed, the authors smartly add an

anathema at the end. What's an anathema? Yeah,

a curse, a condemnation. And it goes like this.

But those who say there was a time when he was

not, Who did they have in mind? And he was not

before he was made and he was made out of nothing.

They basically took everything that Arius said

in the council and just said, it's all wrong.

Or he is of another substance or essence or the

son of God is created or changeable or alterable.

They are condemned by the holy universal and

apostolic church. So, by the way, this is another

great example of how creeds can be used. Because

think about this now. This anathema is precisely

what separates historic Christianity from Mormonism

and from Jehovah's Witnesses, both of which believe

Jesus is all of those things, created. And it's

the creed that tells us as historic Christians

we cannot have fellowship with them because we

differ on this essential theology. Does that

make sense? Now, P .S., the Nicene Creed, again,

focuses on the whatness of Jesus. What is he?

What is his essence or being? What it doesn't

really deal with is his personhood, and that's

the who -ness of Jesus. Who is he? Meaning, he

is the one true God, yet we know he's still a

son in relation to a father, and he's distinct

from the father. So the next couple steps in

the development of Trinitarian theology is to

speak of something called hypostases. Anybody

heard of it? Hypostases, or persons within the

Godhead. So ultimately, the church fathers are

going to have to come to the place where they

recognize what Scripture tells us, that there

is one usia of God, one being, but there are

three hypostases. Three unique persons that co

-equally share in the one divine essence. There's

gonna be a test later, by the way. No, I know,

look, I know this stuff is hard and it can be

a little overwhelming, but this is important

stuff. This is what we all sort of believe, especially

as it comes from this pulpit, but it's good to

know why we believe it and how it came to be.

Okay, what else? That's so many more things.

By the way, even after this, that's not even

enough. Once they get to the whatness and the

whoness of Jesus and the usia and the personhood,

the next thing you have to deal with is, well,

hold on, we've got this one person, but he has

two natures. He's got a human nature and he's

got a divine nature, right? And so how does that

work? How do two natures exist in one person,

be distinct from each other, but they're not

divided or separated, changed or confused? That's

the counsel of Chalcedon. So that is coming as

well. After that, more questions. Jesus has two

wills, a divine will and a human will. And that

needs to get raised and settled. Guys, all of

these critically important essential doctrines

of the faith get settled in these ecumenical

councils. So they're worth studying. Okay, last

thing. And this one may be the hardest. You ready?

Not only does the Nicene Creed affirm the full

deity of Christ, It also affirms the way in which

he possesses that deity. The way in which he

possesses it. The begottenness. How many of you

guys have wondered about this in the past? You're

like, begottenness. It just seems like a strange

word. What's the first thing you think about

when you think of begottenness? Yeah, or having

babies. Okay, so this is what Arius misunderstood.

This is what Jehovah's Witnesses cling to today

wrongly. They read that phrase begottenness in

John 1 and what do they do? They compare it to

human begetting. That is the fatal flaw in their

doctrine. That was Arius' fatal flaw. They think

human begetting and they think divine begetting

and they say they're the same thing. They're

not. They're not according to scripture. So the

Creed of Constantinople in 381 clarifies that

the son possesses deity by being eternally begotten

of the father. Eternally begotten. Say it again.

Eternally begotten. Before all worlds. Before

all ages. And in theology, this is a hard concept.

We call this the doctrine of eternal generation.

Generation being just the Latin equivalent of

begetting. Okay, so the Father's begetting of

the Son is an eternal divine act before all ages,

meaning it transcends time. It happens outside

of time. It is a generation that happens prior

to creation and has no ending. No ending whatsoever.

That makes it categorically different from human

begetting. Because when a human father begets

a human son, it takes place within creation and

within time. The human father temporarily precedes

the son, right? If I have a son, I preceded him

in existence. There was a time when my son Tyler

was not. And then he was. That is not true of

God. Scripture bears that out. That's the difference

between God beginning and man beginning. As the

creed states, there has never been a time when

the Son didn't exist. And it's important to understand

that this eternal beginning or this generation

is only of the person of the Son, not his nature.

That's important. Only the person is generated,

not the nature. Because as nature is one with

the Father, it doesn't require generation. Only

the personhood. And this is a matter of revealed

truth that's explained by the data in the scriptures.

This is such an important thing. God is eternally

and necessarily three persons. God is eternally

and necessarily. It's who he is. It's who he

decreed himself to be, three persons, one divine

essence. Eternally and necessarily three persons.

Always has been. Always will be. It's who he

is from eternity past to eternity future. This

is what the church fathers came to by the time

381 rolls around. One more important feature

of eternal generation. When a human father begets

a human son, that son shares the nature of his

father, right? I pass along my genes. He's exactly

the nature that I am. Well, think about eternal

begetting. Because the father begets the son

in eternity past, the son has all of the exact

same attributes, power, glory, nature as his

father because he's begotten of the father. That's

why the Nicene authors wrote God of God, true

God of true God, equal to the Father and being

attributes, power and glory and worshiped in

the same way that God the Father is worshiped.

They had all of this stuff in mind, you guys.

And it wasn't easy to figure out. It was not

easy to figure out. Okay. Sadly, this was not

the end of Arianism. This is for another day.

Maybe we'll do this in one of our small groups.

Arianism is gonna linger until the eighth century,

especially in different parts of the empire.

So it doesn't go away. For today, I just wanna

close by saying, can we simply be grateful that

Alexander and Athanasius and the Nicene party

won the day back in 325, that Arius and his followers

were defeated by a huge margin? Can we be grateful

that 1 ,700 years ago, the beginning of Trinitarian

doctrine was laid for us? at Nicaea as this historical

stepping stone toward what we believe today.

And that we in the church today can gather comfortably,

right? Knowing all these things, being able to

look at the past and be able to worship together.

And let me just finish with this question. So

why does this matter? Why should you care about

anything I said today? That's what my wife asked

this morning. Friends, this is the point. The

essential doctrines that we cherish today, they

didn't just fall out of the sky. We didn't just

pick up a book and learn them last week. They're

rooted deeply in history. All the complexities

of Trinitarianism figured out for us, of Chalcedonian

Christology, understand the metaphysical. nature

of Christ. Think about the hypostatic union of

the two natures of Christ. How does that work?

That stuff was all figured out for us long ago.

Faithful men, faithful saints who battled against

emperors at times, battled against false teachers,

fought against heretics, did all of that for

our benefit. So are you thankful to the Lord

for his sovereign providence and all that? for

his hand in history? Are you thankful for how

he has guided and guarded and strengthened his

people over the centuries, especially in times

of crisis, in times of division? God has not

left us alone. He is faithful, right? Faithful

to build his church. And so if you're thankful

for those things, I just want to encourage you

to keep studying and understanding church history.

Honor your forefathers by not ignoring this topic.

Honor those who fought these battles for you

by digging in and becoming a better student of

church history. Look to men like Athanasius.

Read a biography of this guy, right? We sort

of worship today in his shadow. There's things

that we can learn from him. We are in continuity

with men like Athanasius from other parts of

the world and in other ages. There's great value

there. And then the last thing to remember is,

guys, I know this sounds weird because we think

of church history as this giant thing that's

hard to figure out in the past. You are a part

of church history right now. Oak Hill Bible Church,

small as we are, is a part of the flow of church

history. We should never forget that, amen? Let's

bow our heads. Father, I thank you for the challenge

of studying this stuff, Lord. It's difficult.

And I'm grateful for the patience of so many

of our saints here in this body who have come

to love history and even for those that maybe

don't love it but are starting to understand

how important it is. But Lord, most of all, we're

just thankful to you that you have been faithful

to your church. Jesus promised that he would

build his church and the gates of Hades would

not be able to stand against it. And you continue

to prove that every single day and every single

year. For 1 ,700 years, you've been doing that

since Nicaea. And so, Lord, we stand on the shoulders

of these men who went before us and fought those

hard battles. We're thankful for that, but thankful

to you most of all because you have given us

your perfect word, which... Yeah, it's hard,

but you've revealed exactly who you are in the

text of scripture. We can go there, we can study.

The studying never ends, Lord, because your word

is so powerful and so broad and so voluminous,

God. We are just overwhelmed by its goodness

and its truth. So Lord, help us to be better

students, students of your word first, students

of church history second, that we might glorify

you more and more as the years go by. Thank you

again for our time this morning. We pray in Christ's

name, amen.