April 15, 2025 • 29 mins
In this episode, host Nate Claiborne and theologian-in-residence Dr. Michael Allen dive into the heart of the Nicene Creed—its second article, which focuses on Jesus Christ. Building on their previous conversation about the importance of creeds as both summaries and guardrails for Christian belief, they explore what the Creed affirms about Christ’s identity, nature, and redemptive work. From the theological poetry of “God from God, Light from Light” to the historical grounding in figures like Pontius Pilate and Mary, this central paragraph of the Creed brings into focus both the mystery and majesty of the eternal Son who took on flesh for our salvation.
Dr. Allen explains how the Creed combats ancient heresies like Arianism by affirming Jesus’ full divinity and eternal existence while also narrating his true humanity through the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. The conversation emphasizes how these statements are not merely doctrinal assertions but pastoral and devotional aids for worship, especially relevant during Holy Week. As NewCity continues to recite the Creed weekly, this episode helps listeners reflect more deeply on what each phrase means, why it matters, and how it connects us to the global and historic church.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to another episode of the All of Life
podcast.
I'm your host, Nate Claiborne,and once again I'm here with
Michael Allen.
How are we doing, Mike?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I am still doing well , that's good.
Shortly later, shortly later,yes.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Well, if listeners remember, last week we gave a
big picture introduction to theimportance of creeds.
We talked about how they helpus as faithful guides and
guardrails for interpretingscripture.
They help us summarize what'simportant, focus in on the big
ideas, but also guard againsterrors in interpretation.
(00:47):
And we just barely startedtalking about Nicaea.
At the end of it you gave us areally great historical context
of how they even got to theCouncil of Nicaea, what was
going on in the background, whythat council was necessary, a
little bit of some of the majorplayers, athanasius, arius, and
just the skirmish between them.
(01:08):
But we left listeners.
We left them wanting morebecause we didn't read the creed
so much more.
I know we know what we're doinghere.
We left the creed unsaid,although attentive listeners who
attended New City would haverecited it themselves just a few
days ago, on Sunday, and somaybe it's still fresh in their
(01:29):
mind.
But even if it's not, I figuredtoday we had said we would dive
into the second article.
People may or may not know whatthat actually means just off
the top of their heads, so we'regoing to clarify what that
means.
But you said it'd be good if westart off just with a read
through of the creed.
Just to orient people that arelistening.
Maybe they don't have it rightin front of them, yep.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
So the creed comes in three paragraphs or articles.
Each begins with a statement ofbelief I, or we, believe in,
and the first relates to the oneGod, the second to the Lord
Jesus Christ, the third to theHoly Ghost or Holy Spirit.
I'm going to read the secondparagraph and folks who've been
(02:13):
reciting it in worship orencountered it elsewhere will
know this is the longest andthat's because it's the one
that's up for debate andconversation.
It's the one that grave errorsare being cited, so we want to
explore some of that.
Yeah, here's what it says.
It says we believe in one LordJesus Christ, the only begotten
(02:34):
Son of God, begotten of hisFather before all worlds, god of
God, light of light, very Godof very God begotten, not made
being of one substance with theFather.
Very God begotten, not madebeing of one substance with the
Father, by whom all things weremade, who, for us men and for
our salvation, came down fromheaven and was incarnate by the
Holy Ghost or Spirit of theVirgin Mary and was made man and
(02:57):
was crucified, also for us,under Pontius Pilate.
He suffered and was buried.
The third day he rose again,according to the scriptures and
ascended into heaven and sits onthe right hand of God, the
Father.
He shall come again with gloryto judge both the living and the
dead.
His kingdom shall have no end.
(03:18):
Some of the words and phrasesthere are translated in slightly
different ways and so peoplewill perhaps remember a little
differently here or think itsounds a little less familiar
there.
But hopefully the basicelements are clear enough and we
wanted to talk about really twoparts of this paragraph the
(03:38):
central second paragraph aboutJesus Christ about Jesus Christ.
The first part of it, roughlyhalf, is all about who he is,
what he is, his identity, hisnature.
The second part is about hisstory, what happens to him and
what he does, and we wanted toexplore those two things.
(03:59):
What each communicates, whereit summarizes scripture, where
it prioritizes or points tocertain highlights, and where it
does offer some warnings aboutgrave errors.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, yeah.
So even as you talk about thatfirst part, let's kind of zoom
in there, because that really iswhere there's language that, on
the surface, maybe it doesn'tseem that controversial to us
now, 1700 years later, maybebecause of how influential this
creed has been through churchhistory, maybe because we're
just not aware of.
Well, it's saying it like thisbecause it's trying to rule out
(04:33):
things that Arius was saying orthings that needed to be
clarified, so it's getting intoa lot of metaphysical claims
about who God the Son is.
Can you help us double-click onsome of those to kind?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
of see what's underneath.
So you can observe some termsthat appear again and again, and
those are pretty telling, right?
If the creed is written by abunch of clergy who spend a lot
of time teaching, then we couldexpect them to behave like
teachers.
Teachers try to repeat thingsthat matter most, and so it is
(05:07):
telling to observe some termsthat appear again and again.
And if you just look at thefirst half here, you're going to
encounter words like God andSon.
We're going to encounter wordslike begotten, and these are
going to appear more than once.
We're also going to seereference to two sorts of things
(05:32):
to reference to what's eternaland reference to what is made or
created, and that's going tobecome important.
And that's going to becomeimportant.
It's probably helpful to know alittle bit more about Arius of
Alexandria, who we talked aboutlast time and against whom some
warnings are sort of subtlydirected here.
(05:54):
Arius, as we said, he'spastoring.
He's known as a devoutChristian follower, loves his
Bible, says a lot of things thatwould seem normal, but there
(06:14):
are a few things that seem toreally startle people, and over
time, of course, people start toput these together a bit and it
becomes clear that Ariusbelieves that the Son, though he
is loftier and more gloriousthan the average human,
certainly than you or me henonetheless is beneath or
subordinate to God the Father.
(06:35):
In a real sense, he's in sortof a middle class sort of state.
He's an intermediate being.
He's made of God, and he's madeof God so as to make everything
else for God's sake.
And so he's.
As you read in Colossians 1,he's the firstborn of all
(06:55):
creation.
Yeah, and Arius really takesthat to say two things.
One, he's born and you're born,and I'm born, and we know what
it is to be born.
It means you didn't exist, andthen you do.
And so arius will say verybluntly and regularly there was
a time when he wasn't.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah it's like I think that's the key phrase,
right, for yeah, this is the thething that arius is doubling
down on.
Yeah, this phrase there waswhen he was not.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
And that's where the language of eternity therefore
comes in so significantly inthis paragraph as a rebuttal,
saying no, no, no, the son iseternally existent and eternally
divine, he's not a latercreature.
The creed also rebuts that withthis language that he's
(07:43):
begotten, yes, but he's not made.
Whatever it means for him to bebegotten as a son, which is
admittedly mysterious, it can'tbe interpreted as him being made
, like heaven and earth weremade.
It's the same word that appearsin paragraph one to say that
God is the maker of heaven andearth, the creator out of
(08:07):
nothing of all that exists.
And so the creed is trying torespond to Arius's claim that
the son is a creature, even ahighly regarded creature, and
it's rebutting that by sayinghe's eternal and he's divine,
he's God just as much as theFather is God.
And that's where we encounterthis beautiful poetry that's
(08:30):
repeated here.
The creed kind of toggles backand forth between
philosophically precise languageand these poetic pairings.
So it'll say, yes, he'seternally begotten of the Father
, which is precise language tooppose Arius.
But then it'll say the samething in just a moving,
beautiful way.
That means he's God from God,he's light from light, he's true
(08:53):
God from true God.
He is God as much as the Fatheris God.
He's light as much as theFather is light.
He's truly or fully God as muchas the Father is fully God.
But as the Son, he's God fromand light from and truly God
(09:13):
from the Father, who is God,light and truly God.
So it's trying to affirm thathe is named as the Son, not the
Father.
He really does flow forth fromthe father's being, but that
can't be interpreted as at somepoint he gets made or given
birth to, and this is wherewe've got to remember that the
(09:37):
creed.
It warns us against badunderstandings.
It doesn't mean to give us afully satisfying answer that
satisfies all our curiosities orremoves all mystery.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah Well, this might be a good point.
We didn't talk about this inthe first episode, but I figured
this would be a good place tojust a brief little sidebar of
that's the difference between acreed, a confession or even a
catechism.
In my understanding, with thecreed we're just confessing
things we believe we're notnecessarily explaining all the
details of what these phrasesmean, but something like
(10:13):
Westminster or either theconfession or the catechism.
It's actually giving a lot moredetailed explanation.
Catechism is obviously in aquestion-answer format.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, that's true.
Later, confessions andcatechisms do, oftentimes not
always, but oftentimes they saymuch more fully how we're to
understand things that are onlynamed here, and that's certainly
true.
This is meant to be ahigh-level summary, so when
something gets named in detailand there are a couple things
(10:44):
that are, that's meant to reallypoint out to us how important
they must be.
So this here highlights howimportant understanding that the
Son is eternal.
It's not like he comes intobeing when Jesus is born of Mary
.
No, he's eternally the Sonbefore he becomes incarnate by
(11:05):
the miracle of the virgin birth.
And it's not merely that heexists spiritually as a creature
made by God.
No, he's been God, just as thefather has been God.
He's been truly God, just asthe Father's been truly God.
He is eternal in the richest,fullest sense.
He's divine, and so it reallyis signaling how important
(11:31):
knowing his character is.
I think in different areas oflife that's something we
intuitively appreciate.
Elsewhere.
You step into a situation.
If you're going to a workplace,it's really important really
quickly to size up who's theboss you know and then to size
up, okay, who's the person withexperience to whom everybody
(11:53):
goes with their questions,figuring out those two people.
Sometimes they're the same, butoften they're not.
That helps you know how peopleare going to behave and how you
ought to relate to them, whatthey can do and how you ought to
behave amongst them.
You know you go to a sort of arestaurant or something.
(12:16):
You want to quickly be able todifferentiate who's there to eat
, who's serving, who's cooking,who's delivering stuff.
Everybody matters.
Everybody's got importance.
We're doing different thingsand we're going to relate to
people in different ways.
I don't want to bark my orderout or even kindly request it
from someone who's a fellowpatron.
Right, knowing who somebody isreally matters for knowing what
(12:42):
they can do and how they canimpact others.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, now that's really helpful, thinking of the
different relations all withinthe same place.
I think too, as you werementioning, of the eternality.
The creed doesn't say this inso many words, but there's a
sense in which we've alreadyaffirmed certain things about
the father.
But in order for the father tobe eternally the father, the son
(13:06):
also has to be eternally theson.
They kind of go together, don'tthey?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
They kind of do go together.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
They're very reciprocal.
I know this isn't part of thelarger discussion that maybe
that Arius is bringing up, butit's interesting that if you
really did want to double downon the claim that the son, there
was a time when he was not andlike, well, what was the fuck?
Like, yeah, what was the fatherat that point?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
was he just generic god and then he became the
father, that would be animplication of the son right
coming into being yeah, and andthis really does point to
something that it's not justowing to the genre of the text,
that the nature of the claim ismysterious, and explaining it
only makes clear why it'smysterious.
Heretics keep trying to makesomething make sense according
(13:51):
to common sense.
The creed, like other goodteaching tools, points out God
being triune is mysterious.
It doesn't match anything elsein our experience.
Mysterious.
It doesn't match anything elsein our experience, strictly
speaking, and therefore it doesfeel funny.
It seems strange.
That's because it's the onlyinstance of it, just so, and so
(14:14):
here, when we come to languagethat the son is just as eternal
and divine as the father, buthe's Son and he's begotten, not
the begetter.
That is strange, that ismysterious.
That ought to register.
It's also important to say allthat comes from the Bible.
It comes from texts like John 1and John 5 and so forth.
(14:38):
The Creed is trying to help usappreciate a mystery.
The Bible itself says matters,but we need to realize it is
something the Bible tells usmatters and it matters as a
mystery.
It matters as being a uniqueinstance, and we see that
further when we turn to thesecond half of this paragraph,
(15:00):
which I know we want to talkabout now, the story of Christ.
Here too, we can see howimportant it is to summarize.
You know, john's gospel accountends with saying, if you said
everything about Jesus, therewouldn't be enough books.
And so therefore, picking yourspots, deciding how to summarize
(15:22):
, becomes really important, andthis offers a compressed summary
of key highlights.
Misses a lot.
If you're interested in sort ofJesus as a boat-faring
character, this jumps over, asfar as I can tell, all the
episodes of Jesus in boatsthere's quite a few, but it
highlights, spiritually andtheologically, what the church
(15:46):
believes is most important,describing everything from
coming down from heaven, birthof a virgin, to suffering death,
to resurrection, ascension andreturn and reign forevermore.
It's a remarkably wide survey.
Evermore.
It's a remarkably wide survey.
(16:06):
It helps us to keep the bigpicture in mind but not to get
lost in all the myriad detailsof that big picture.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah Well, and it's also jumping from one mystery to
the other, cause, you know, inthe first first part we have the
mystery of the Trinity, youknow, god and God the father,
god the son.
How are they equal, yetdistinct?
And then now we've moved to,we're talking about Jesus and
his story, and it's very clearokay, well, he's equal with God,
(16:32):
but this sounds like a humanwho's born and lives and dies,
and that's what other humans do,and so he's somehow 100% God
and then also somehow 100% man,but in a way that the creed
doesn't need to spell out thedetails or try to explain.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, and we see that in the beginning of the
transition.
You know it doesn't begin bysimply saying and on Christmas
Day he was born.
No, it starts with who, for oursakes, or for us and our
salvation, depending on thetranslation he came down from
heaven and was made incarnate orhuman.
(17:06):
You couldn't say that ofyourself.
I can't say that of myself.
We were just born on aparticular day.
This is describing somebody whoalready exists eternally and
whose whole earthly story is theresult of a choice.
God has made A choice.
(17:27):
Jesus, the Son, has shared inthat.
This incarnation, this takinghuman flesh and existence and
nature in its totality.
Hebrews 2 will say, like us, inevery respect, that that's a
choice.
And it says why and again, thisis from scripture I've come to
(17:49):
seek and save the lost who, forus and for our salvation, came
down from heaven and was madeincarnate.
And by the end of the story, ofcourse, it says so much birth,
suffering, death, resurrection.
Then it describes ascension.
He goes back up, and so itgives us this grand vision of
(18:09):
the full swing where he has comedown, he's taken on our life,
he's experienced our death, he'srisen anew by God's power and
now he's taken our humanity upinto the very presence of God.
Yeah, so it really is thismysterious but grand, this
glorious but life-giving sort ofviewpoint of the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah Well, and along the way it anchors us in real
history.
I think it was.
I first remember coming acrossthis in Karl Barth, talking
about the Apostles' Creed, whichis a.
I don't know if it's fair tosay the Apostles' Creed is an
earlier version of Nicene Creed,but it's structured similarly.
It makes a lot of the sameclaims, very much so.
Yeah, nicene is expanding onsome of those claims, but it
(18:54):
retains this casual reference toPontius Pilate, who's in a few
verses in the gospel but is at avery pivotal point in the story
, and so this is a realhistorical person that we have
records for elsewhere.
And I think Barth's claim, orBarth's point that he was making
, was that if, without somethinglike that, it'd be easy to just
(19:15):
say, well, the creeds, it's notthat different than, like the
myths about the Greco-Roman gods.
It's this fanciful story that,yeah, it's a story, but it
didn't really happen?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, totally, and this creed will make that point
also by referring a couple timesto things happening, also
according to the scriptures,that there were foretellings of
things to come, including avirgin birth.
And it's interesting, the twohuman characters apart from
Jesus who appear are the VirginMary and Pontius Pilate.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
They come off appropriately in very different
ways, don't they?
They represent different things.
But Mary, here, there's so manythings you could say about her
example of faith.
Servant of God.
She points to the fact that Godis fulfilling promises, that
the Messiah would come throughthe Virgin, as foretold in
(20:08):
Isaiah.
Pilate, as you said, representssomething very different, also
foretold.
There were warnings in theprophets as well, of his being
one who suffers and it seems tosuggest authorities will oppose
him.
But Pilate's dateable.
(20:28):
He's a historic figure.
This is something that signalssomething utterly evidentiary.
It invites people to go look atnon-Christian texts where you
see the interaction of Jesus andPilate as well, and so that's a
really profound point.
This is to be interpreted asfulfilling Israel's scriptures,
(20:52):
but really landing in space andtime in public history.
That is not made up and is, infact, documentable.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Yeah, which is it is guarded against different types
of threats.
So you know, the firstparagraph is this was a threat
within the church ofmisinterpreting scripture, not
taking into account the wholescope of scripture, the whole
story of scripture.
And then the second part of thecreed is is I wouldn't say it's
, I think it'd be unfair to sayit's totally aimed outside the
(21:24):
church, but it is lookingoutside the church to claims
that are, uh, undermining thehistoricity of the gospel story,
saying, well, you know, jesusdidn't really die, didn't rise
again, maybe it wasn't even areal person, and those sorts of
claims they've cropped up, maybefrom our perspective, more in a
modern world, but they're notentirely modern.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
There's a long history of disputing, so you
know, one thing we could takefrom this, as we sort of bring
things full circle as peoplethink about this, as we recite
this regularly in worship.
Hopefully, as it comes to mindfrom time to time, would be, on
the one hand, as we think aboutthis central paragraph in the
(22:10):
middle, the longest it gets themost screens as things toggle
through, prompting us in worshiptogether, us in worship
together.
The second paragraph reallypoints out the Son has to be who
he is for Him to do what hedoes for us and what Scripture
promises that the gospel offersus in His name.
(22:32):
And so, as we think about theevents remembered in Holy Week,
as we think about the basicgospel story, from his birth all
the way through, eventually atthe end of time, to his return
in glory and all the key momentsin between, it's important to
remember only one, who iseternally God and who's chosen
(22:58):
for us and our salvation to comedown and take on our humanity.
Only that kind of being coulddo what we seem to hear is
offered and done for us, and sothe who precedes the what.
The second thing we might keepin mind also is when it
describes the story.
It reminds us to keep our eyeon the main things, yes, but all
(23:22):
the main things, and it's soeasy.
We can sometimes be content tothink just about the dark, the
sad nature of Maundy Thursday orof Good Friday, the suffering
on the cross, and that's aunique blessing.
It's crucial, it's named here,it's elemental, but we need to
(23:44):
also remember Easter's coming,and not just Easter, but then
we're prompted to think ahead toascension and the fact that
he's enthroned on high, a human,the incarnate son, rules and
reigns now at the right hand ofthe father, and, and even then
there's return and glory yet tocome.
So it it does keep our eye onthe main things, but we need to
(24:06):
remember the main things areseveral.
The story does involve keymoments, and the the crucial
thing is it helps us remember,um, that we want to appreciate
and appropriate all thosepromises and blessings on the
regular.
We can savor one on this day,we can turn to another the next
(24:29):
day.
We want to make sure, though,that we're receiving and resting
in the whole Christ, not just afavored or more familiar part,
and so this gives us a feasible,a doable summary, but one that
also presents a remarkableoffering.
That's not simply a single itemor affirmation, but what Calvin
(24:54):
calls the sum of the gospel,and so I hope that's something
we can explore together.
Which are the parts I tend tothink of and what are the others
?
The Creed invites me moreprayerfully and studiously and
meditatively to explore in myBible reading, as I listen to
sermons and so forth.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yeah, I think that's very helpful to keep in mind.
I think that's one of thereasons behind why we decided to
just double down on reciting itevery week, and it's my
understanding that that'sactually going to continue.
And we started it this yearbecause of the anniversary
(25:41):
celebrations of the creed thatsort of remind us that we're
part of a larger story than ourlocal PCA Presbytery or our
local, you know, even justFlorida or America.
It's a lot larger than that ofpeople who look back to this
creed and recite it regularlyand meditate and think about it.
And so it's going to give us achance, by having recited it
every Sunday, to potentiallyhave it memorized by the end of
the year and to keep coming backto the different parts of it
(26:04):
and thinking about implications.
And we can put some resourcesinto the show notes for people
that really want to dig infurther.
And we've touched we've justtouched on that one second
paragraph, but even then we werevery cursory in the ways that
we pointed at certain thingsjust to kind of dig in a little
deeper.
But every phrase has its ownbackstory and history and
(26:26):
explanation of the significancethat people would do well to
think on and meditate andexplore.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, and the fact that we say it after a sermon
and before we approach the tableeach week is not for nothing
and it's meant to do somethingfor everybody in the room.
On the one hand, it's areminder of the big picture that
we all together trust in.
Our services tend, of course,to focus on particular themes
(26:56):
because they focus on particulartexts.
You can't do to focus onparticular themes because they
focus on particular texts.
You can't do and focus oneverything equally.
And so if we're deep in Hebrewsor Leviticus or Numbers, that
means you're sometimes narrowingyour vision just a touch to
catch more there and to learnthat, having the whole picture
(27:19):
confessed in the creed, itreminds us also to keep our eye
on what this is all about, andthat's so good for all of us as
believers, even folks who'vebeen at it for decades.
It reminds you of kind of thebig picture that gives you
balance.
And then we want to remember,thankfully, and I think
increasingly, we've got otherpeople who aren't Christians
(27:41):
Hopefully we can simply sayaren't Christians yet.
And they're there and they'recurious, and it's good that they
hear a scripture expounded in asermon, that they hear words of
welcome and warning before thetable various prayers and so
forth.
It's also helpful for them tohear the big picture.
(28:02):
And those of us who are goingto officiate at the table will
often say prior, when we tellunbaptized nonbelievers not to
come and partake, we do say butturn to someone else and ask
what it is they believe thecreed tells them what they can
ask about.
It helps them know what it is.
They believe.
The creed tells them what theycan ask about.
Yeah, it helps them know whatthe big picture is, that
(28:23):
Christianity is not merelywhatever a passage in Hebrews or
Leviticus said, though it isthat it's really this grand big
thing, and so the creed is agreat gift both to those of us
who are trying to faithfullykeep on the journey and to those
we want to invite increasinglyto know more and more of what it
(28:44):
would involve and to welcome into that journey of faith, and
so it really does play a keyrole there for us as we gather
in worship and hopefully, foreach of us as we go about our
lives throughout the week.
Yeah, I'm so glad we could talkabout it.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I know, and I am as well, and hopefully, as we go
about our lives throughout theweek.
Yeah, I'm so glad we could talkabout it.
I know, and I am as well, andhopefully, as we approach Easter
this coming Sunday, thatthat'll, you know, just the
reflections that we had herewill help people think about
these truths a little bit moreand we'll have people in our
midst on Easter Sunday who arethere to hear what this is all
about and we'll recite the Creedtogether and they'll learn a
(29:30):
little bit more about what itmeans what Christians believe.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I'm looking forward to it.
That's great.
Welcome to another episode of the All of Life
podcast.
I'm your host, Nate Claiborne,and once again I'm here with
Michael Allen.
How are we doing, Mike?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I am still doing well , that's good.
Shortly later, shortly later,yes.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Well, if listeners remember, last week we gave a
big picture introduction to theimportance of creeds.
We talked about how they helpus as faithful guides and
guardrails for interpretingscripture.
They help us summarize what'simportant, focus in on the big
ideas, but also guard againsterrors in interpretation.
(00:47):
And we just barely startedtalking about Nicaea.
At the end of it you gave us areally great historical context
of how they even got to theCouncil of Nicaea, what was
going on in the background, whythat council was necessary, a
little bit of some of the majorplayers, athanasius, arius, and
just the skirmish between them.
(01:08):
But we left listeners.
We left them wanting morebecause we didn't read the creed
so much more.
I know we know what we're doinghere.
We left the creed unsaid,although attentive listeners who
attended New City would haverecited it themselves just a few
days ago, on Sunday, and somaybe it's still fresh in their
(01:29):
mind.
But even if it's not, I figuredtoday we had said we would dive
into the second article.
People may or may not know whatthat actually means just off
the top of their heads, so we'regoing to clarify what that
means.
But you said it'd be good if westart off just with a read
through of the creed.
Just to orient people that arelistening.
Maybe they don't have it rightin front of them, yep.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
So the creed comes in three paragraphs or articles.
Each begins with a statement ofbelief I, or we, believe in,
and the first relates to the oneGod, the second to the Lord
Jesus Christ, the third to theHoly Ghost or Holy Spirit.
I'm going to read the secondparagraph and folks who've been
(02:13):
reciting it in worship orencountered it elsewhere will
know this is the longest andthat's because it's the one
that's up for debate andconversation.
It's the one that grave errorsare being cited, so we want to
explore some of that.
Yeah, here's what it says.
It says we believe in one LordJesus Christ, the only begotten
(02:34):
Son of God, begotten of hisFather before all worlds, god of
God, light of light, very Godof very God begotten, not made
being of one substance with theFather.
Very God begotten, not madebeing of one substance with the
Father, by whom all things weremade, who, for us men and for
our salvation, came down fromheaven and was incarnate by the
Holy Ghost or Spirit of theVirgin Mary and was made man and
(02:57):
was crucified, also for us,under Pontius Pilate.
He suffered and was buried.
The third day he rose again,according to the scriptures and
ascended into heaven and sits onthe right hand of God, the
Father.
He shall come again with gloryto judge both the living and the
dead.
His kingdom shall have no end.
(03:18):
Some of the words and phrasesthere are translated in slightly
different ways and so peoplewill perhaps remember a little
differently here or think itsounds a little less familiar
there.
But hopefully the basicelements are clear enough and we
wanted to talk about really twoparts of this paragraph the
(03:38):
central second paragraph aboutJesus Christ about Jesus Christ.
The first part of it, roughlyhalf, is all about who he is,
what he is, his identity, hisnature.
The second part is about hisstory, what happens to him and
what he does, and we wanted toexplore those two things.
(03:59):
What each communicates, whereit summarizes scripture, where
it prioritizes or points tocertain highlights, and where it
does offer some warnings aboutgrave errors.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, yeah.
So even as you talk about thatfirst part, let's kind of zoom
in there, because that really iswhere there's language that, on
the surface, maybe it doesn'tseem that controversial to us
now, 1700 years later, maybebecause of how influential this
creed has been through churchhistory, maybe because we're
just not aware of.
Well, it's saying it like thisbecause it's trying to rule out
(04:33):
things that Arius was saying orthings that needed to be
clarified, so it's getting intoa lot of metaphysical claims
about who God the Son is.
Can you help us double-click onsome of those to kind?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
of see what's underneath.
So you can observe some termsthat appear again and again, and
those are pretty telling, right?
If the creed is written by abunch of clergy who spend a lot
of time teaching, then we couldexpect them to behave like
teachers.
Teachers try to repeat thingsthat matter most, and so it is
(05:07):
telling to observe some termsthat appear again and again.
And if you just look at thefirst half here, you're going to
encounter words like God andSon.
We're going to encounter wordslike begotten, and these are
going to appear more than once.
We're also going to seereference to two sorts of things
(05:32):
to reference to what's eternaland reference to what is made or
created, and that's going tobecome important.
And that's going to becomeimportant.
It's probably helpful to know alittle bit more about Arius of
Alexandria, who we talked aboutlast time and against whom some
warnings are sort of subtlydirected here.
(05:54):
Arius, as we said, he'spastoring.
He's known as a devoutChristian follower, loves his
Bible, says a lot of things thatwould seem normal, but there
(06:14):
are a few things that seem toreally startle people, and over
time, of course, people start toput these together a bit and it
becomes clear that Ariusbelieves that the Son, though he
is loftier and more gloriousthan the average human,
certainly than you or me henonetheless is beneath or
subordinate to God the Father.
(06:35):
In a real sense, he's in sortof a middle class sort of state.
He's an intermediate being.
He's made of God, and he's madeof God so as to make everything
else for God's sake.
And so he's.
As you read in Colossians 1,he's the firstborn of all
(06:55):
creation.
Yeah, and Arius really takesthat to say two things.
One, he's born and you're born,and I'm born, and we know what
it is to be born.
It means you didn't exist, andthen you do.
And so arius will say verybluntly and regularly there was
a time when he wasn't.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah it's like I think that's the key phrase,
right, for yeah, this is the thething that arius is doubling
down on.
Yeah, this phrase there waswhen he was not.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
And that's where the language of eternity therefore
comes in so significantly inthis paragraph as a rebuttal,
saying no, no, no, the son iseternally existent and eternally
divine, he's not a latercreature.
The creed also rebuts that withthis language that he's
(07:43):
begotten, yes, but he's not made.
Whatever it means for him to bebegotten as a son, which is
admittedly mysterious, it can'tbe interpreted as him being made
, like heaven and earth weremade.
It's the same word that appearsin paragraph one to say that
God is the maker of heaven andearth, the creator out of
(08:07):
nothing of all that exists.
And so the creed is trying torespond to Arius's claim that
the son is a creature, even ahighly regarded creature, and
it's rebutting that by sayinghe's eternal and he's divine,
he's God just as much as theFather is God.
And that's where we encounterthis beautiful poetry that's
(08:30):
repeated here.
The creed kind of toggles backand forth between
philosophically precise languageand these poetic pairings.
So it'll say, yes, he'seternally begotten of the Father
, which is precise language tooppose Arius.
But then it'll say the samething in just a moving,
beautiful way.
That means he's God from God,he's light from light, he's true
(08:53):
God from true God.
He is God as much as the Fatheris God.
He's light as much as theFather is light.
He's truly or fully God as muchas the Father is fully God.
But as the Son, he's God fromand light from and truly God
(09:13):
from the Father, who is God,light and truly God.
So it's trying to affirm thathe is named as the Son, not the
Father.
He really does flow forth fromthe father's being, but that
can't be interpreted as at somepoint he gets made or given
birth to, and this is wherewe've got to remember that the
(09:37):
creed.
It warns us against badunderstandings.
It doesn't mean to give us afully satisfying answer that
satisfies all our curiosities orremoves all mystery.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah Well, this might be a good point.
We didn't talk about this inthe first episode, but I figured
this would be a good place tojust a brief little sidebar of
that's the difference between acreed, a confession or even a
catechism.
In my understanding, with thecreed we're just confessing
things we believe we're notnecessarily explaining all the
details of what these phrasesmean, but something like
(10:13):
Westminster or either theconfession or the catechism.
It's actually giving a lot moredetailed explanation.
Catechism is obviously in aquestion-answer format.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, that's true.
Later, confessions andcatechisms do, oftentimes not
always, but oftentimes they saymuch more fully how we're to
understand things that are onlynamed here, and that's certainly
true.
This is meant to be ahigh-level summary, so when
something gets named in detailand there are a couple things
(10:44):
that are, that's meant to reallypoint out to us how important
they must be.
So this here highlights howimportant understanding that the
Son is eternal.
It's not like he comes intobeing when Jesus is born of Mary
.
No, he's eternally the Sonbefore he becomes incarnate by
(11:05):
the miracle of the virgin birth.
And it's not merely that heexists spiritually as a creature
made by God.
No, he's been God, just as thefather has been God.
He's been truly God, just asthe Father's been truly God.
He is eternal in the richest,fullest sense.
He's divine, and so it reallyis signaling how important
(11:31):
knowing his character is.
I think in different areas oflife that's something we
intuitively appreciate.
Elsewhere.
You step into a situation.
If you're going to a workplace,it's really important really
quickly to size up who's theboss you know and then to size
up, okay, who's the person withexperience to whom everybody
(11:53):
goes with their questions,figuring out those two people.
Sometimes they're the same, butoften they're not.
That helps you know how peopleare going to behave and how you
ought to relate to them, whatthey can do and how you ought to
behave amongst them.
You know you go to a sort of arestaurant or something.
(12:16):
You want to quickly be able todifferentiate who's there to eat
, who's serving, who's cooking,who's delivering stuff.
Everybody matters.
Everybody's got importance.
We're doing different thingsand we're going to relate to
people in different ways.
I don't want to bark my orderout or even kindly request it
from someone who's a fellowpatron.
Right, knowing who somebody isreally matters for knowing what
(12:42):
they can do and how they canimpact others.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, now that's really helpful, thinking of the
different relations all withinthe same place.
I think too, as you werementioning, of the eternality.
The creed doesn't say this inso many words, but there's a
sense in which we've alreadyaffirmed certain things about
the father.
But in order for the father tobe eternally the father, the son
(13:06):
also has to be eternally theson.
They kind of go together, don'tthey?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
They kind of do go together.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
They're very reciprocal.
I know this isn't part of thelarger discussion that maybe
that Arius is bringing up, butit's interesting that if you
really did want to double downon the claim that the son, there
was a time when he was not andlike, well, what was the fuck?
Like, yeah, what was the fatherat that point?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
was he just generic god and then he became the
father, that would be animplication of the son right
coming into being yeah, and andthis really does point to
something that it's not justowing to the genre of the text,
that the nature of the claim ismysterious, and explaining it
only makes clear why it'smysterious.
Heretics keep trying to makesomething make sense according
(13:51):
to common sense.
The creed, like other goodteaching tools, points out God
being triune is mysterious.
It doesn't match anything elsein our experience.
Mysterious.
It doesn't match anything elsein our experience, strictly
speaking, and therefore it doesfeel funny.
It seems strange.
That's because it's the onlyinstance of it, just so, and so
(14:14):
here, when we come to languagethat the son is just as eternal
and divine as the father, buthe's Son and he's begotten, not
the begetter.
That is strange, that ismysterious.
That ought to register.
It's also important to say allthat comes from the Bible.
It comes from texts like John 1and John 5 and so forth.
(14:38):
The Creed is trying to help usappreciate a mystery.
The Bible itself says matters,but we need to realize it is
something the Bible tells usmatters and it matters as a
mystery.
It matters as being a uniqueinstance, and we see that
further when we turn to thesecond half of this paragraph,
(15:00):
which I know we want to talkabout now, the story of Christ.
Here too, we can see howimportant it is to summarize.
You know, john's gospel accountends with saying, if you said
everything about Jesus, therewouldn't be enough books.
And so therefore, picking yourspots, deciding how to summarize
(15:22):
, becomes really important, andthis offers a compressed summary
of key highlights.
Misses a lot.
If you're interested in sort ofJesus as a boat-faring
character, this jumps over, asfar as I can tell, all the
episodes of Jesus in boatsthere's quite a few, but it
highlights, spiritually andtheologically, what the church
(15:46):
believes is most important,describing everything from
coming down from heaven, birthof a virgin, to suffering death,
to resurrection, ascension andreturn and reign forevermore.
It's a remarkably wide survey.
Evermore.
It's a remarkably wide survey.
(16:06):
It helps us to keep the bigpicture in mind but not to get
lost in all the myriad detailsof that big picture.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah Well, and it's also jumping from one mystery to
the other, cause, you know, inthe first first part we have the
mystery of the Trinity, youknow, god and God the father,
god the son.
How are they equal, yetdistinct?
And then now we've moved to,we're talking about Jesus and
his story, and it's very clearokay, well, he's equal with God,
(16:32):
but this sounds like a humanwho's born and lives and dies,
and that's what other humans do,and so he's somehow 100% God
and then also somehow 100% man,but in a way that the creed
doesn't need to spell out thedetails or try to explain.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, and we see that in the beginning of the
transition.
You know it doesn't begin bysimply saying and on Christmas
Day he was born.
No, it starts with who, for oursakes, or for us and our
salvation, depending on thetranslation he came down from
heaven and was made incarnate orhuman.
(17:06):
You couldn't say that ofyourself.
I can't say that of myself.
We were just born on aparticular day.
This is describing somebody whoalready exists eternally and
whose whole earthly story is theresult of a choice.
God has made A choice.
(17:27):
Jesus, the Son, has shared inthat.
This incarnation, this takinghuman flesh and existence and
nature in its totality.
Hebrews 2 will say, like us, inevery respect, that that's a
choice.
And it says why and again, thisis from scripture I've come to
(17:49):
seek and save the lost who, forus and for our salvation, came
down from heaven and was madeincarnate.
And by the end of the story, ofcourse, it says so much birth,
suffering, death, resurrection.
Then it describes ascension.
He goes back up, and so itgives us this grand vision of
(18:09):
the full swing where he has comedown, he's taken on our life,
he's experienced our death, he'srisen anew by God's power and
now he's taken our humanity upinto the very presence of God.
Yeah, so it really is thismysterious but grand, this
glorious but life-giving sort ofviewpoint of the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah Well, and along the way it anchors us in real
history.
I think it was.
I first remember coming acrossthis in Karl Barth, talking
about the Apostles' Creed, whichis a.
I don't know if it's fair tosay the Apostles' Creed is an
earlier version of Nicene Creed,but it's structured similarly.
It makes a lot of the sameclaims, very much so.
Yeah, nicene is expanding onsome of those claims, but it
(18:54):
retains this casual reference toPontius Pilate, who's in a few
verses in the gospel but is at avery pivotal point in the story
, and so this is a realhistorical person that we have
records for elsewhere.
And I think Barth's claim, orBarth's point that he was making
, was that if, without somethinglike that, it'd be easy to just
(19:15):
say, well, the creeds, it's notthat different than, like the
myths about the Greco-Roman gods.
It's this fanciful story that,yeah, it's a story, but it
didn't really happen?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, totally, and this creed will make that point
also by referring a couple timesto things happening, also
according to the scriptures,that there were foretellings of
things to come, including avirgin birth.
And it's interesting, the twohuman characters apart from
Jesus who appear are the VirginMary and Pontius Pilate.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
They come off appropriately in very different
ways, don't they?
They represent different things.
But Mary, here, there's so manythings you could say about her
example of faith.
Servant of God.
She points to the fact that Godis fulfilling promises, that
the Messiah would come throughthe Virgin, as foretold in
(20:08):
Isaiah.
Pilate, as you said, representssomething very different, also
foretold.
There were warnings in theprophets as well, of his being
one who suffers and it seems tosuggest authorities will oppose
him.
But Pilate's dateable.
(20:28):
He's a historic figure.
This is something that signalssomething utterly evidentiary.
It invites people to go look atnon-Christian texts where you
see the interaction of Jesus andPilate as well, and so that's a
really profound point.
This is to be interpreted asfulfilling Israel's scriptures,
(20:52):
but really landing in space andtime in public history.
That is not made up and is, infact, documentable.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Yeah, which is it is guarded against different types
of threats.
So you know, the firstparagraph is this was a threat
within the church ofmisinterpreting scripture, not
taking into account the wholescope of scripture, the whole
story of scripture.
And then the second part of thecreed is is I wouldn't say it's
, I think it'd be unfair to sayit's totally aimed outside the
(21:24):
church, but it is lookingoutside the church to claims
that are, uh, undermining thehistoricity of the gospel story,
saying, well, you know, jesusdidn't really die, didn't rise
again, maybe it wasn't even areal person, and those sorts of
claims they've cropped up, maybefrom our perspective, more in a
modern world, but they're notentirely modern.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
There's a long history of disputing, so you
know, one thing we could takefrom this, as we sort of bring
things full circle as peoplethink about this, as we recite
this regularly in worship.
Hopefully, as it comes to mindfrom time to time, would be, on
the one hand, as we think aboutthis central paragraph in the
(22:10):
middle, the longest it gets themost screens as things toggle
through, prompting us in worshiptogether, us in worship
together.
The second paragraph reallypoints out the Son has to be who
he is for Him to do what hedoes for us and what Scripture
promises that the gospel offersus in His name.
(22:32):
And so, as we think about theevents remembered in Holy Week,
as we think about the basicgospel story, from his birth all
the way through, eventually atthe end of time, to his return
in glory and all the key momentsin between, it's important to
remember only one, who iseternally God and who's chosen
(22:58):
for us and our salvation to comedown and take on our humanity.
Only that kind of being coulddo what we seem to hear is
offered and done for us, and sothe who precedes the what.
The second thing we might keepin mind also is when it
describes the story.
It reminds us to keep our eyeon the main things, yes, but all
(23:22):
the main things, and it's soeasy.
We can sometimes be content tothink just about the dark, the
sad nature of Maundy Thursday orof Good Friday, the suffering
on the cross, and that's aunique blessing.
It's crucial, it's named here,it's elemental, but we need to
(23:44):
also remember Easter's coming,and not just Easter, but then
we're prompted to think ahead toascension and the fact that
he's enthroned on high, a human,the incarnate son, rules and
reigns now at the right hand ofthe father, and, and even then
there's return and glory yet tocome.
So it it does keep our eye onthe main things, but we need to
(24:06):
remember the main things areseveral.
The story does involve keymoments, and the the crucial
thing is it helps us remember,um, that we want to appreciate
and appropriate all thosepromises and blessings on the
regular.
We can savor one on this day,we can turn to another the next
(24:29):
day.
We want to make sure, though,that we're receiving and resting
in the whole Christ, not just afavored or more familiar part,
and so this gives us a feasible,a doable summary, but one that
also presents a remarkableoffering.
That's not simply a single itemor affirmation, but what Calvin
(24:54):
calls the sum of the gospel,and so I hope that's something
we can explore together.
Which are the parts I tend tothink of and what are the others
?
The Creed invites me moreprayerfully and studiously and
meditatively to explore in myBible reading, as I listen to
sermons and so forth.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yeah, I think that's very helpful to keep in mind.
I think that's one of thereasons behind why we decided to
just double down on reciting itevery week, and it's my
understanding that that'sactually going to continue.
And we started it this yearbecause of the anniversary
(25:41):
celebrations of the creed thatsort of remind us that we're
part of a larger story than ourlocal PCA Presbytery or our
local, you know, even justFlorida or America.
It's a lot larger than that ofpeople who look back to this
creed and recite it regularlyand meditate and think about it.
And so it's going to give us achance, by having recited it
every Sunday, to potentiallyhave it memorized by the end of
the year and to keep coming backto the different parts of it
(26:04):
and thinking about implications.
And we can put some resourcesinto the show notes for people
that really want to dig infurther.
And we've touched we've justtouched on that one second
paragraph, but even then we werevery cursory in the ways that
we pointed at certain thingsjust to kind of dig in a little
deeper.
But every phrase has its ownbackstory and history and
(26:26):
explanation of the significancethat people would do well to
think on and meditate andexplore.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, and the fact that we say it after a sermon
and before we approach the tableeach week is not for nothing
and it's meant to do somethingfor everybody in the room.
On the one hand, it's areminder of the big picture that
we all together trust in.
Our services tend, of course,to focus on particular themes
(26:56):
because they focus on particulartexts.
You can't do to focus onparticular themes because they
focus on particular texts.
You can't do and focus oneverything equally.
And so if we're deep in Hebrewsor Leviticus or Numbers, that
means you're sometimes narrowingyour vision just a touch to
catch more there and to learnthat, having the whole picture
(27:19):
confessed in the creed, itreminds us also to keep our eye
on what this is all about, andthat's so good for all of us as
believers, even folks who'vebeen at it for decades.
It reminds you of kind of thebig picture that gives you
balance.
And then we want to remember,thankfully, and I think
increasingly, we've got otherpeople who aren't Christians
(27:41):
Hopefully we can simply sayaren't Christians yet.
And they're there and they'recurious, and it's good that they
hear a scripture expounded in asermon, that they hear words of
welcome and warning before thetable various prayers and so
forth.
It's also helpful for them tohear the big picture.
(28:02):
And those of us who are goingto officiate at the table will
often say prior, when we tellunbaptized nonbelievers not to
come and partake, we do say butturn to someone else and ask
what it is they believe thecreed tells them what they can
ask about.
It helps them know what it is.
They believe.
The creed tells them what theycan ask about.
Yeah, it helps them know whatthe big picture is, that
(28:23):
Christianity is not merelywhatever a passage in Hebrews or
Leviticus said, though it isthat it's really this grand big
thing, and so the creed is agreat gift both to those of us
who are trying to faithfullykeep on the journey and to those
we want to invite increasinglyto know more and more of what it
(28:44):
would involve and to welcome into that journey of faith, and
so it really does play a keyrole there for us as we gather
in worship and hopefully, foreach of us as we go about our
lives throughout the week.
Yeah, I'm so glad we could talkabout it.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I know, and I am as well, and hopefully, as we go
about our lives throughout theweek.
Yeah, I'm so glad we could talkabout it.
I know, and I am as well, andhopefully, as we approach Easter
this coming Sunday, thatthat'll, you know, just the
reflections that we had herewill help people think about
these truths a little bit moreand we'll have people in our
midst on Easter Sunday who arethere to hear what this is all
about and we'll recite the Creedtogether and they'll learn a
(29:30):
little bit more about what itmeans what Christians believe.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I'm looking forward to it.
That's great.
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