Welcome, everyone. We're going to get started. My name is Tom Schmidt. I haven't met you before. I'm one of the elders here at Trinity Baptist Church. Welcome to our Adult Sunday School class. We've been going through a series looking at the various creeds of Christianity. Today we're talking about the Council of Nicaea. I'll give a little bit of background once we begin, but let's open in prayer.
Father, we come before you and we ask that today we would tremble before your word, that we'd be convicted by your truth, by your nature, by how, Lord, you became flesh and dwelt among us and died for our sins and rose again on the third day.
We thank you, Lord Jesus, for all you've done for us. We pray you'd send your spirit into our hearts in this time together, that we would be encouraged, that we would learn from the wisdom of the saints who have gone before us hundreds of years ago.
And we ask this in your name. Amen.
Okay, welcome, everyone. So we're in class three right now.
The first class we had a couple weeks ago, Tyler talked about what creeds are, how they can help us as Christians, how they're like hearing aids that highlight the salient points, the relevant points of scripture.
And then last week, we talked about early Christian creeds.
We looked at, I'll put some names on the board here.
We looked at perhaps the first, the first Christian creed we have from a guy named Irenaeus in the year 180 AD.
And we looked at that creed, we looked at some other later creeds.
These were really good, good creeds.
They were very nourishing.
I mean, it was wonderful to see that 1,845 years ago, Irenaeus is saying the same things we believe.
Really beautiful, especially because Irenaeus said that it's not just him, that all Christians throughout the whole earth believe this.
And he spoke about God being the maker of all things, the son becoming God, and dying for our sins.
He mentions the Holy Spirit.
Today, we're going to continue onward and look at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
And I want to give you a little bit of background about this, talk about its importance, talk about who the main folks were, and then we'll get into reading what the Nicene Creed has to say.
Sound good?
All right.
So, first, I want to read you something.
I handed it out.
It's just called the confession.
I got really excited with the handouts.
So, there's a lot.
We're only going to go over a very little bit.
You can take it home and read it if you want to.
But I handed out one called the confession.
I just want to read a few lines from this.
All right.
Here it goes.
We believe in one God, the Father, the ruler of all, and in the Lord Jesus Christ, his only Son, the one who is begotten from him before all ages, God the Word, through whom all things came to be, things in the heavens and things on earth, the one who descended and took flesh and suffered and rose and ascended into the heavens and is coming again to judge the living and the dead,
and in the Holy Spirit and in the resurrection of the flesh and in the life of the age to come in the kingdom of the heavens and in the one Catholic Church, Catholic meaning universal church, extending from one end of earth to the other.
If you are listening to that creed and you're thinking, that is a good creed, well, you would be a heretic.
Now, I'm actually exaggerating a little bit.
This is the confession of Arius, the great heretic.
Yes, it is.
So I left his name off.
I put it in red in my copy.
Now, I'm actually, I'm being a little unfair here.
He wrote this after many years as a way to try and show that he was Orthodox, but he really wasn't because what he meant by some of these terms was not what he meant.
They're normally interpreted as being.
So, for instance, when he says that Jesus is God the Word, right, he means that in a very different way than what probably you all think that means.
And one of the things we found last week was that with Irenaeus, Irenaeus explicitly says that Jesus is divine.
That's a universal early Christian belief.
We find it all over the place.
We find it in the New Testament.
We find it outside the New Testament.
But imagine for a moment that you are in the ancient world where polytheism is rife.
People are believing in multiple gods.
So, when someone says that Jesus is divine, Jesus is God in the ancient world, can you imagine ways that they could mean that in a bad way, in a heretical way, in an unorthodox way?
Can you think of, what are some, anyone, any, if you really wanted to twist that, Susan.
Yes, you could just mean, yes, Jesus is divine, just like all, there's many multiple gods.
Exactly.
You could definitely mean that.
Yeah, look.
He could have been divinized like Heracles.
Yes.
So, he could be divinized.
He could be human who is raised up to the status of the gods.
Exactly.
You could mean it that way.
Precisely.
Yeah.
Those are the two big ones.
But there are other ones.
I mean, if you want to push it, there's several different ways you can try and do it.
Here's another one.
You can believe that there's this one God who, because he's so far removed from us, has to create a kind of mediator to deal with us, a craftsman.
So, he creates Jesus as this kind of go-between between creation and the divine realm and kind of calls this creature God, but in like a lowercase g sense.
That's another way you could do it.
And we'll find out that that's kind of what Arius meant when he was saying Jesus was divine.
You guys come in?
You can come in.
Yeah.
He meant that Jesus really wasn't God, that he was just called that.
However Arius defined it, when you look at his definition, you realize that's not God.
So, this confession, while I was a little unfair when I said you would be a heretic, this actually is a great confession.
It's just incomplete.
He doesn't define what he means by his terms.
In this confession.
And that kind of lack of clarity is what created the mess that caused the need for the Council of Nicaea.
So, let's do a little background on the Council here.
Christianity begins, you know, the resurrection of Jesus happens, the disciples go out throughout the whole Roman Empire preaching the gospel.
And for 300 years, Christianity spreads shockingly.
Just remarkably.
All over the Roman Empire.
There's all sorts of different cultures in the Greco-Roman Empire.
There's Greeks.
There's Latins.
There's folks speaking, you know, Gothic and Coptic and Syriac and all these other dialects.
And Christianity spreads.
It also spreads outside the Roman Empire in Persia, Ethiopia, Armenia, Central Asia, all these places.
Christians are often persecuted.
And by the time 325 rolls around, for the first time, Christians have a Christian emperor.
Constantine, Emperor Constantine comes to power around 311 or so.
And he issues an edict allowing freedom of religion.
This is actually not only a massive turn in the history of Christianity, but also in just humanity.
I mean, as far as I'm aware, this is the first time a major political figure ordered or made it law that people could believe whatever they wanted to believe.
That you couldn't persecute someone for their religious beliefs.
Constantine himself is a Christian.
We're going to find out Constantine didn't actually hold to this standard very well.
But by the time 325 comes around, Constantine is now sole emperor.
When he first became emperor, he was co-emperor.
Now he's sole emperor.
And there's a problem in the church, in the Roman church in 325.
And that's because there is a guy named Arius, who is a presbyter in the church in Egypt.
And he is teaching things that are upsetting folks.
And if we turn to, I have this handout, the Thalia of Arius.
Arius was composing like songs.
He was composing little ditties, catchphrases with theological content.
And he was saying things like this.
If you go to number one or I right there, he was saying things like this.
God was not eternally a father.
There was a time when God was all alone and was not yet a father.
Only later did he become a father.
Yeah, yeah, yes.
You should let them know we didn't have enough handout.
Oh, okay.
Okay, not everybody has everything.
So if you're looking for it, I apologize.
We got a lot of folks here today, which is great.
Oh, I got an extra one.
Is it this one?
Yes, it's that one, yeah.
Oh, I got two extra ones.
Oh, you're the source of it, Raul.
Okay, number two.
Arius would say things like this.
The sun did not always exist.
Everything created is out of nothing.
All existing creatures, all things that are made.
So the word of God himself came into existence out of nothing.
There was a time when he did not exist.
So notice he uses the term word of God.
He calls Jesus the word of God.
But then he's very clear.
He didn't always exist.
If we look at his confession, where he says God the word,
he calls Jesus God the word.
But now we see that he means that only in the way of defining Jesus as not always existing.
Right?
Now, I have a question for you.
Does that mean he's actually God?
Like, if he didn't exist at some point and then came into existence?
Normally, we would say God is eternal.
He always existed.
Right?
But Arius here is saying, there was a time when the sun did not exist and then came into being.
So, do you see the tension there between calling Jesus divine but then saying that he didn't always exist?
Right?
And this goes on.
Arius goes on for a while.
He says, we won't read all of this.
If we skip down to number four, he says, there are two wisdoms.
One that is proper to God and exists together with him.
And the sun who is brought into being in this wisdom.
Only by participating in this wisdom is the sun called wisdom and word.
Hmm.
So, scripture says Jesus is the wisdom of God.
Right?
So, if you believe that Jesus came into existence, then you must mean that God's wisdom came into existence.
Which must mean that God didn't have wisdom at some point.
Which seems really weird.
Right?
That feels wrong.
So, what Arius tries to do is he says, ah, Jesus is only wisdom in like a very different sense.
He's only wisdom in the sense that he's like somehow expressing God's wisdom.
But, and so, so you see the kind of convoluted circles Arius is trying to trace here with these songs.
Well, these songs that he was singing and composing got pretty popular, were upsetting some churches.
Churches were concerned about this teaching.
And so, they called a council together to try and figure out some kind of solution to this problem.
Because you have Arius who's saying, he will say something like this, Jesus is God.
He would be willing to say something like that.
But then, what he means by this is different.
It's not, it seems like the way he means this means Jesus isn't God.
Like, it actually seems like what he really means is the opposite of this.
But he just, he'll use, he'll use traditional accepted language, but he'll use it in ways that is not how people would normally interpret that.
And friends, this is something we have to be very careful with.
I think this is both an interpersonal warning and a theological warning.
It's theological warning in the sense that you always want to make sure your terms are clear when you're having theological discussions.
Because otherwise, you're just talking past each other.
And the same thing interpersonally.
So many of our arguments, friends, are just because we're using the same words differently.
Or we're using different words to mean the same thing.
And we don't understand this about what we are talking about.
And I think Arius, perhaps, is actually, he could be doing this intentionally.
I don't think he was doing it intentionally.
I think he just had a warped view of what God was.
I mean, I think he just had this warped view.
So, because of Arius' rabble-rousing, the Council of Nicaea was called together in 325 AD.
And Tom, I don't know about this for 100% sure, but is it true that the Arian doctrines were sort of gaining in popularity?
And that's why it's one thing?
Scholars have tried to, have debated this.
They've debated, is the Arian doctrine gaining in popularity?
I want to, before I answer that question, I want to say one thing.
We're talking about Arius here.
However, what Arius believed might be quite different than what, like, an Arian church believed.
And so, when he's using terms like Jesus is God, and we're going to, hopefully we'll have time to dig in and see some of this.
That, it's very possible there were people in Arian churches that actually believed pretty orthodox stuff.
Because, as you can see, this is getting really technical here.
So, you know, if you asked a first century New Testament Christian who just heard the gospel on the streets by Peter the Apostle some of these questions,
they, who knows how they would answer some of these questions.
Like, was there a time when the son was not?
Did he exist in the mind of God?
But not like, it's just, it gets really complicated.
So, but in terms of popularity, my understanding is that he was probably gaining a popularity in Egypt for a while.
But then, after his condemnation, there were Arian churches for hundreds of years in Germany.
Germany was actually, the Germanic people were mostly Arian for a very long time.
But I want to be careful with that because when you say something like, Arians believe Jesus is not divine.
That's true, but it's not how they would, I mean, if you went and asked one of the Arians,
hey, do you think Jesus is divine?
They'd say, yes.
And it's only after like really kind of pushing through some things that you start realizing.
So, so those Germanic churches that were Arian, that, that is, I just want us to not, you know,
knee-jerk, write them off as, as full-blown, they don't believe in the deity of Jesus.
Because they, some of them might have, but even though their internal theology was a little messed up.
So, I think that Arians was growing in popularity.
I don't think this was a massive movement, but it was big in Egypt.
I think it was amongst kind of the elite.
The Council of Nicaea was also much more than just this.
There were other things they had to decide.
There were other things they were trying to settle, like the date of Easter and things like this.
325 is also, when Constantine came to power, he was only co-emperor.
The other co-emperor was still persecuting Christians.
So, when Constantine becomes the only emperor by 325, it's the first time that the Christian church can gather on an empire-wide scale without fear of persecution.
So, this is a really big deal.
This is the largest church council that's ever met up to this point.
And it's, it's effectively an empire-wide council.
So, they're talking about lots of stuff, not just the Aryan, not just the Aryan issue.
Any other questions?
I know we're going over a lot.
We're moving quickly here.
Okay.
So, a lot goes on at the council.
We don't have, we don't have, for some later councils, we have like blow-by-blow minutes of the proceedings.
We don't have that with the Council of Nicaea.
Instead, we have later reports.
We have some eyewitness accounts of people who were there.
But, just to show you the difficulty of, or the kind of puzzling nature of Arius's creed, I want you, I want us to read an earlier creed by him.
So, in your packet that has two, two sides, if you go to, towards the back, page 329, the letter of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia.
And this is a letter of Arius where he explains his beliefs.
Okay, so I'm going to read just a little bit.
So, this is in Arius's own words.
Something that is also important is it's, as far as we're able, it's always good to go back to the original source as much as possible.
So, if you want to hear what Arius believes, let's just read what he believes.
We have his letter here.
He's going to explain it.
So, we're going to skip to, at the very, very bottom of 329, in the middle, in the, he talks about how the bishop is driving,
driving us out of the city.
Now, we're on top of 330.
As godless men, since we do not agree with him, when he says publicly, always father, always son.
Father and son together.
The son exists unbegottenly with God.
The eternal begotten or unbegotten only one.
Neither in thought nor by a single instant is God before the son.
Always God, always son.
The son is of God himself.
These are the, remember how Arius was composing these kind of little songs?
This is the, his bishop's reply is these catchphrases, like, Jesus is always the son.
The father is always the father.
The son is of God himself.
The son is always God.
This is because if you think that the son did not exist at some point, then the father wasn't always the father.
He couldn't be father.
He hadn't had a son yet.
So, uh, what Arius is going to go on is explain what he thinks.
So, uh, if we jump down to the middle of 330, uh, he says, but we cannot bear even to listen to such impieties, though the heretics should threaten us with a thousand deaths.
What is it that we say and think and have taught and teach?
Here we go.
That the son is not unbegotten nor a part of the unbegotten in any way.
The unbegotten, he's referring to God here.
Nor formed out of any substratum, but that he was constituted by God's will and counsel before time and before ages, full of grace and truth, divine, unique, unchangeable.
Unchangeable.
And before he was begotten or created or ordained or founded, he was not.
Meaning he did not exist.
Eric.
And before he was begotten, okay.
For he was not unbegotten.
We are persecuted because we say the son has a beginning, but God is without a beginning.
So he goes on.
but I want to point something out here
that's so tricky that scholars themselves stumble on this.
So Arius very clearly here says
there was a time when the sun was not.
There was a time when Jesus did not exist
in any form or any way whatsoever.
But he says he's divine.
He says he's divine.
He says he's unchangeable, which is weird.
If you come into existence,
how can you be unchangeable?
But do you notice there's brackets
where it says, or parentheses,
full of grace and truth.
Do you see that line there?
Well, that line is not actually there
because what the Greek actually says,
and it's in multiple manuscripts,
there's no evidence for that phrase of grace and truth.
What it actually says is Arius calls Jesus fully divine.
That's what it says.
He says he's fully divine.
So here we have Arius, the great heretic,
who says that Jesus,
that allegedly says Jesus is not God.
Here saying he's fully God.
But then when he explains it,
it stopped, it doesn't make sense, right?
He came into being.
He, there was a time when he didn't exist.
You can see how difficult it would be
to have discussions with someone like this,
who's constantly moving the chess pieces around
in illegal ways.
You know, you're like, but you can't,
that's not what that word means.
And he just, he just keeps saying it.
And it's, it's difficult to negotiate.
Yeah.
Yes.
So, very difficult to talk about this.
Some vocabulary here.
He always talks about, you know,
the unbegotten,
this begetting language.
We're familiar with this
because Jesus in the scriptures
is called the only begotten,
like the unique, the only son.
And God the father is called unbegotten
because he wasn't, you know,
begotten in a way.
Now, these discussions we're having
about, about, you know,
the eternality of Jesus and things.
Well, Arius would probably say something.
He'd be like, well,
how can you be begotten
if Jesus is begotten?
We all agree.
So, Arius would probably say something like,
how can you,
someone be begotten
but be eternal at the same time?
How could you do that?
How's that possible?
For Arius, this is a contradiction.
He thinks it's totally contradictory
to be begotten but eternal.
He's also squirrely with his language.
Another area that he's squirrely
with his language is if you,
if you see in the handout,
where is it?
Now I'm losing it.
Ah, so right before the,
the full of grace and truth
where it actually says fully divine,
it says that he was begotten
before times and before ages.
Now, to me, I read that,
I say, he's eternal.
Yes.
But then he explicitly says,
oh, and there was a time
he didn't exist.
So he's constantly just
going back and forth
with this squirrely language
that feels contradictory.
So this question though,
of how can Jesus be eternal
but begotten
is a question that theologians
will need to answer.
How is that possible?
What do you guys think?
Is it a contradiction?
Is it a mystery?
Yes.
Is it possible that
if he was referring to the son
in the incarnate form,
that says this glorious divine form?
Yeah.
Sometimes people do,
are referring to it that way.
But I think,
that's a very good,
very good observation.
I think theologians
still want to use the term
only begotten of Jesus
before the incarnation as well.
Is it referring to divine privilege
rather than divine nature?
Can you explain a little more?
So when Jesus sends to his throne,
it says that the father,
in Hebrews,
he quotes the begotteness language
of the Psalms.
It's this idea that Jesus sends,
he's begotten first in privilege.
He's the woman.
Okay.
But I mean,
that's what you're...
Well,
so very good observation.
So you can,
if you think about
in the ancient world,
so in the ancient world,
you would have an emperor
or a king.
And very frequently,
you know,
the throne would be passed down
to the firstborn son
or something like that.
But didn't always happen.
Didn't always have firstborn sons.
So it was very common
in the ancient world
that you would adopt a son.
And that person you adopt
would become,
would have this privilege,
this prerogative
that they would inherit.
They would kind of inherit
your status.
And so you could view
the begotten language
as one like that.
It's not talking about
any kind of natural
begettiness,
but more of a status
or a positionality
that's going on.
That's one possibility.
So that Jesus always
had the position
of being the firstborn
in the sense of title,
in the sense of rank,
in the sense of,
of how a emperor
might designate,
might have someone
who's their firstborn son,
who's not actually
naturally their son,
but just,
that's one possibility.
But I don't think
that's enough
because then you could argue,
oh, then Jesus
actually isn't nature
by nature divine.
He was just adopted.
He was just selected.
So,
I think
the solution to this
conundrum
is that
we have to stop
thinking of God
purely in physical terms
because physically,
from mammalian biology,
human biology,
you can't have
a child
that exists
from the very moment
their parent existed.
you just can't,
you can't do that,
right?
But,
that's not,
God is not biology,
right?
He's beyond biology.
And,
you can have
examples of,
for instance,
if you have a tree,
for instance,
and you have a huge limb
of the tree,
but the tree's eternal,
right?
But the tree sprouted the limb.
But if the tree's eternal,
then,
the limb is eternal.
Even though,
does that make sense?
So,
you have something
that is kind of
sprouted from,
but in an eternal way.
That's how theologians
will often explain
this idea
of begottenness.
But you see,
Arius is fixated
on these kinds of issues here
and is trying to
find solutions,
but his solutions
just create many more problems.
It means
Jesus didn't always exist.
It means God
didn't have wisdom
or he has to
redefine wisdom.
It means that
the father
wasn't always the father.
It means,
of course,
the big one,
God didn't actually
become human.
He didn't actually
die for our sins.
God sent someone else
to do it.
That's what Arius'
theology implies.
Matt?
Did you read something
that indicated
that Arius
called his bishop
or whatever
a heretic?
Yes,
he does think
of him as heretic.
So,
Arius is saying,
hey,
people who believe
differently than me
are really in a bad
spiritual state
and vice versa.
Correct.
Were there people
at the time
who kind of
took the attitude
Paul does somewhere
saying,
you know,
this is the way it is,
but if you disagree
with me,
you know,
God will make that
clear to you sometime.
That's a great question.
Kind of a secondary issue.
Were there people
who said,
hey,
you know,
this is not
the biggest deal.
We can disagree.
Yeah,
yeah,
yeah.
Or was it just
boom?
You do get people
who say things
like that.
One thing
to keep in mind
is that
the peacemaking
attitude
of,
well,
you know,
we'll just agree
to disagree.
Remember that Arius
is like composing
songs designed
to stir people up.
And so he's
in a very
different position
than some peasant
in the countryside
who is just saying,
you know,
this is beyond me.
Like,
you're talking
about all this stuff
I don't understand,
unbegotten,
begotten.
Just,
I just,
I'm going to worship Jesus.
He's my savior
and that's it.
That's a very
different thing
than what Arius
is doing here.
And I think
in our Christian life
we need to be
very aware
of those two distinctions.
That
we should not,
I mean,
already we can see,
like,
we're really getting
into the weeds here
with terminology.
It's going to get worse,
by the way.
We're going to have
more,
more of these
technical terms
coming up.
But
that's very different
than the humble peasant
who's just a farmer
doing his,
doing his thing.
That's why I mentioned
that about the Aryan church
amongst the Germans.
I mean,
there would have been
tens of thousands
of these peasants.
You know,
the gospel rolls
into town,
they show up
at the only church
they can even get to
and technically
it's part of this Aryan church
but for all we know
they just,
they believe,
they didn't understand
any of this
or it wasn't even
talked about
and it was just,
you know.
Are there any Aryans
today that you can,
usually people will say
Jehovah's Witnesses
are Aryans
but the thing
with Jehovah's Witnesses
there's two distinctions
I want to make.
one is that
they do tend
to have,
I don't want to be
needlessly pejorative
but like,
kind of like cult-like behavior
it's very difficult
to leave
and to inquire
and have,
and do research
and ask questions
it's very difficult
to do that
but secondly,
they wouldn't agree
with Aryan,
they wouldn't call Jesus
fully divine.
they wouldn't say that.
They,
so they're more extreme
than Aryan seems
to have been.
My understanding is
I'm not,
I'm not an expert
on Jehovah's Witnesses.
Okay,
so,
we read a little bit
of Aryan's confession.
So now,
what I want to do
is
look at what
the Council of Nicaea
has to say.
So,
that same packet
that had Aryan's confession,
I put it in the wrong order.
I should have put Aryan's first
but at the beginning
we have here
the letter of Eusebius of Caesarea
describing the Council of Nicaea
and then on page 336
we have the text
where,
where Eusebius starts
describing the Council.
So,
this is awesome.
Eusebius of Caesarea
is
literally,
I'm not exaggerating,
the father of history.
This guy
created the historical method.
So much of what we know
about ancient history
is because of him.
So,
having him,
he attended
the Council of Nicaea,
he wrote a letter
immediately afterwards
that he sent back
to his church
describing the Council of Nicaea
and that letter
is preserved
in multiple manuscript
traditions.
So,
we've got really good
manuscript tradition of it.
So,
this is like
A plus stuff here
in terms of historical
veracity.
What we're going to find
though
is that
the Council of Nicaea
is a little more complicated
than you might have,
than you might have imagined.
So,
in his introductory paragraph
he just says,
hey,
I wanted to send you this letter
because rumors
often spread
and I just want to
let you know
what happened
and then if we
go to the next page,
so we're on 337 now,
what Eusebius says,
he says this.
He's going to articulate
the creed of his church.
So,
he re-articulates
the creed
that his church
used to say
and then he's going
to compare this
with the Nicene Creed.
So,
this is a creed
his church used to say,
as I received my tradition
from the bishops before me
both in my first instruction
when I was baptized.
So,
interestingly,
he was taught
this creed at baptism
and as I learned
from the divine scriptures,
the creed is also
derived from the scriptures
and as I believe
and taught
in the office
of presbyter
and episcopate.
That means bishop.
So,
still believing,
I present to you
my creed
which is this.
Here it goes.
So,
this creed is probably
from the year 300 or so
when Eusebius was baptized.
We believe in one God,
Father Almighty,
the maker of all things
visible and invisible
and in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the word of God,
God of God,
light of light,
life of life,
unique son
or only begotten son,
first born of all creation,
begotten of the Father
before all ages
through whom also
all things came to be,
who for salvation
was incarnate
and dwelt among men
and suffered
and rose on the third day
and ascended to the Father
and will come again
with glory to judge
the living and the dead.
We also believe
in one Holy Spirit,
believing that each of these
is and exists,
the Father truly is Father,
the Son truly is Son,
the Holy Spirit truly
Holy Spirit.
As also our Lord said,
when sending forth
his disciples for the preaching,
go and make disciples
of all nations,
baptizing them
in the name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit,
of which I firmly assert
that that is what I hold
and so I am convinced.
He quotes that passage
because Jesus accords
one name to the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit.
He doesn't say,
go forth and make disciples,
baptizing them in the names
of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit.
It's one name.
And notice he says,
Jesus is the Word of God.
He's God of God.
He's begotten of the Father
before all ages.
But as we've read though,
Arius might be willing
to say all that
because he defines
before all ages differently
than I would define
before all ages.
And he also defines
God differently.
And the one thing
he probably wouldn't agree with
is where Eusebius says,
the Father is truly Father,
the Son truly Son,
meaning the Father
probably is always the Father.
Anyway,
that's Eusebius' Creed.
He goes on to say
that he offered this Creed
as a model
for the Nicene Creed.
When they were at the council,
he said,
hey,
let's use this Creed
for our conciliar Creed.
Let's do it.
And if you know
the Nicene Creed,
you see that this actually
looks very similar to it.
It's very, very similar.
And there was some
back and forth
and they decided
to make one or two
significant changes
to the Creed.
And they made these changes
to try and make sure,
to try and eliminate
Arius' word twisting.
So he goes on.
Let's,
we're down at the bottom
of 337,
the final paragraph,
when I had presented
this statement of faith
there at the council,
there was no room
for opposition.
Indeed,
our most pious emperor himself,
that's Constantine,
testified that its contents
were very sound.
He further confessed
that he himself
was so convinced
and urged all
to agree to it
and to subscribe
and assent
to this very teaching
with the addition
of one word,
consubstantial.
Okay,
we got another
vocabulary word here.
Now,
I'm emphasizing this
because as you get
into Trinitarian theology,
this word comes up
all the time.
Consubstantial,
which in Greek
is homoousios,
which means
of the same substance,
different
from homoousios,
which means
of similar substance.
So,
this means
the same,
whoops,
the same substance
or essence
or nature.
and
I want to ask you,
pretend you've never heard,
if you've looked
at Trinitarian theology,
you might have heard
of this word before,
consubstantial,
right?
Pretend like you've
never heard it before.
Okay,
if I said,
oh,
this is consubstantial,
X is consubstantial
with Y,
what would you think
I meant
by that?
Or,
if instead of
using the actual word,
if I kind of
made the phrase,
this is of the same
substance,
what would that mean?
Made from the same stuff.
Okay,
oh,
made from the same stuff.
I like,
I like that.
Because,
let's,
let's take that definition,
it's a very,
it's a very good
first reaction,
and apply that to Jesus.
Are we saying
Jesus is made
from the same stuff
as the Father?
Do you see
the difficulty there?
Because,
so,
and that's
very,
very good
because people,
some people,
as we keep reading
in the letter,
interpreted it
in that kind
of way.
Although,
for them,
it was
more a physical thing.
So,
instead of
Jesus being created,
it was like
acting like Jesus
was a physical substance,
as if the divine nature
is similar to some kind
of physical element
that you can cut up
and derive things from,
which,
divinity
is not like that.
God isn't existing
in our plane of reality.
He's not,
you know,
the element 145
where you can do stuff
with it.
And so,
people were
very concerned
that this idea
communicated the idea
that God was somehow
physical
or corporeal,
which,
if you're in
a polytheistic environment
where people are bowing down
to physical idols,
is a big no-no.
That's a big no-no.
You do not want
the Christian God
to be thought of
as analogous
to an idol
that someone would set up
in their house
and they could cut a piece off
and give it to someone else.
They don't want that.
And Eusebius himself
is very concerned
about this term.
He goes on to say
at the bottom of 337
that the emperor said
the sun is not to be called
consubstantial
according to what happens
to bodies.
So,
Constantine is saying,
I don't mean this
in a physical way.
I don't mean this.
I know you might think of it
in a physical way.
I'm not thinking of it
in a physical way.
Top of 338.
Nor is he constituted
by a division
or by some kind of
cutting up
of the father
nor can the immaterial
and intellectual
and bodiless nature
undergo
what happens to bodies
but these things
must be conceived
of in divine
and in ineffable terms
meaning beyond
our speech.
So,
the emperor is saying,
look,
we don't mean this
in a physical way.
We mean it
in that they're sharing
the same nature
and the nature
happens to be divine.
If we used this term
with like a rock
so,
this granite rock
is consubstantial
with this granite rock
because I cut it off
and that's one thing
but we're talking
about divine things here.
So,
then,
they drew up
the Nicene Creed
on 338 Corbin.
Emperor is now
in church office.
It's a great question.
How much authority
did Constantine
have over the church
Yes.
So,
it makes me uncomfortable
to think of Constantine
here kind of like
saying,
you know,
hey,
what about this?
The authority he had,
he tried to have,
it's hard to answer.
There's many examples
of him saying,
you guys need to do this
and then I'm just
not doing it
and then he,
he can't really
do anything about it.
This happened
with the Donatist schism.
He told the Donatists,
don't leave the church,
don't leave the church.
They left the church
and eventually he's like,
okay,
I can't do anything about it.
So,
you know,
remember,
this is the first time
they have a Christian emperor.
I mean,
they have gone,
this church has gone
from being horrifically
persecuted
just,
I mean,
if you're in the east,
just a couple years
previously
for centuries
to then
they're in front
of the emperor
who's telling,
I mean,
so there certainly
was a lot of pressure.
On the other hand,
like the creed
that Eusebius presented
was the church's creed
in his church,
which as we saw
with Irenaeus,
totally agree with Irenaeus.
I mean,
so the emperor
is not,
you know,
it's really squishy.
It's hard to,
it's hard to suss out exactly.
But he was not
in charge.
He could certainly
affect pressure.
And as time went on,
the emperor got more
and more power over this,
but it took,
it took a while.
But yeah,
he's monkeying about
with stuff
he probably shouldn't be,
you know,
monkeying about.
Yeah,
quick related question
for that.
How,
how well read,
how well studied
was Constantine?
Eusebius says
that he was like
highly educated,
he was fluent
in Latin and Greek.
he could talk
about all these things.
My reading
is he probably
was a remarkably
gifted leader.
He was very brave.
He did make
some massive,
horrible mistakes.
He actually had
his own son
executed
and then realized
the charges
against his son
were false
after the fact.
Really bad stuff.
but my sense
is that he actually
more just wanted
the Christians
to agree on something.
Right,
like,
because I'm trying
to derive
his motives here.
I think he came in,
read the room,
and saw that
97% of everybody
there was against Arius
and was like,
okay,
that's good.
Let's get this settled.
We want this.
That's probably...
My sense is
he's a pretty smart cookie,
but not necessarily
like a specialized...
Yeah,
he's a politician.
But,
yeah,
he's like saying
I know enough
to say
you guys
should figure this out
so we can all
get back to
like being an empire.
Yes,
I think so.
Okay.
So,
that's my read.
He may have come,
remember,
he reigned
for quite some time,
so,
you know,
he may have shifted,
you know,
as time went on,
he became more familiar
with some of the theological things.
Okay,
so here's the creed.
This is 338.
We believe in one God,
the Father,
Almighty,
maker of all things
visible and invisible,
and in one Lord Jesus Christ,
begotten of the Father uniquely,
that is,
of the substance,
that's a new one,
of the Father,
God of God,
light of light,
true God of true God,
begotten,
not made,
consubstantial with the Father,
another new one,
through whom all things were made,
both things in heaven
and those in earth,
who for us men
and for our salvation
came down
and was incarnate,
became man,
he suffered and rose
on the third day,
ascended into heaven
and is coming to judge
the living and the dead
and in the Holy Spirit.
But those who say
there was once
when he was not
and before he was begotten
he was not
and he came into being
out of things that are not
or alleged that the Son of God
is of a different subsistence
or essence
or that he's created
or alterable
or changeable,
the Catholic and Apostolic Church
anathematizes.
They cast those people out.
So,
Eusebius,
so they added two words.
They added consubstantial
and then they also added
the word substance
which is just
usia
and
if we keep reading,
Eusebius is actually
concerned about
these two phrases.
He actually is writing
this letter to his church
because he knows
he's going to get
some blowback
when he gets home
because he says
when they formulated
this statement
I did not let it pass
without examination
as to what sense
they meant
when they said
of the substance
of the Father
and consubstantial
with the Father.
So,
questions were raised
and answered
and the meaning
of the phrases
was tested
by reason.
Thus,
it was declared
that they used
the phrase
of the substance
to indicate
his being
of the Father
but not as if
he were a part
of the Father.
So,
like a physical
part of the Father
like physicality.
He's really worried
about this physicality
stuff.
It's very clear
that in his church
these words
have physical
connotations
and he's trying
to say
that's not what
we mean.
We mean this
in purely
like essence
or nature
or something
like that.
So,
he goes on.
You can read
the rest of the letter
yourself.
But as you read
you start realizing
so Eusebius agrees
he agrees
with the creed
he signs off
on it
but he knows
it's going to be
controversial at home
so he writes
this letter
to try and
explain it
but then
as he is
explaining
what he believes
it's
it becomes
unclear
like
sometimes
Eusebius
is called
a semi-Aryan
because he
seems to believe
that
Jesus
always existed
but maybe
maybe only
like in the
mind of God
kind of
it's weird
it's unclear
exactly what
he means by this
so
I'll say
the fallout
of the council
and then we can
open it up
to questions
so this
creed is issued
almost all the
bishops agree
there's only a couple
that don't
Arius is exiled
Arius lives
for another
10-15 years
that's at some
point when he
issued his
confession
that I read
where he
clearly tried
to tone
down
the explicit
stuff
but he
doesn't want
to subscribe
to the
Nicene Creed
because he
doesn't like
these words
here
and
he eventually
dies
Arianism does
not die
it continues
in Germany
especially
but other
places
there were
later emperors
that were
Arian
so after
Constantine
died
there were
other emperors
that came
along that
were pro
Arian
and we
had this
back and
forth
Athanasius
was exiled
you know
bunches
of times
and
Athanasius
was kind
of the
theologian
that drove
the death
now in
Arianism
because he
was able
to show
things like
if Jesus
is not
actually God
then God
did not
become human
how can
humans be
reconciled
to God
by someone
else
God has
to do
it
we're
made
in God's
image
we have
I mean
he
go
again
and again
for decades
is saying
this
and
eventually
you know
that wins
the day
I have to
say
when
the opening
line of the
gospel of
John says
in the beginning
was the word
and the word
was with God
and the word
was God
that feels
pretty clear
to me
that
Jesus
is divine
and eternal
how you
want to use
the technical
language
like John
doesn't use
the word
consubstantial
he doesn't
use the word
hypostasis
which we'll
come across
but it
scripture
declares
that Jesus
is divine
and to then
try and take
that word
divine
to make it
not really
divine
seems to go
against the
scriptures
and
it also
seems to go
against
not just
the implications
but just
the plain
reading
of the
scriptures
and this
is in the
Old Testament
it's not
a new
thing
Isaiah
says
you know
to us
a son
is given
and he
will be
called
mighty
God
Isaiah
says that
Zechariah
says
in speaking
through
as
Yahweh's
words
that they
will look
on me
the one
whom they
pierced
and they
will mourn
for him
like one
mourns
for an
only
son
which
seems to
be his
prophecy
of God
coming down
and being
crucified
and then
he goes
on to
say
and a
fountain
of forgiveness
will be
opened up
in Jerusalem
so it's
very clear
in scripture
we're going
to find
though
that
this
creed
which
is probably
the most
universally
ascribed to
creed
on earth
is this
creed
it was
a roman
creed
it was
later
accepted
by the
churches
in
Ethiopia
and
Persia
Armenia
Georgia
all
these
other
churches
accepted
this
creed
even
the
novationists
whom we
mentioned
last time
the
novationists
were like
the splinter
group
a splinter
church
they accepted
the creed
but didn't
want to sign
it because
they didn't
want to be
part of
a church
where the
emperor
was in
charge of
things
and stuff
like that
so
and
other
big
or
schismatic
groups
like the
Donatists
they would
have agreed
with this
I mean
so everyone
seems to
agree with
this
it's very
broadly
very universal
Protestants
many
Protestant
churches
actually
formally
agree
with this
and those
that don't
think it's
good
they're like
oh yeah
it's a
good one
we just
you know
those are
churches
that don't
come from
traditions
where they
want to
impart
extra
authority
to
the
creed
beyond
just
someone's
regular
confession
of
faith
we're
about
done
here
but
any
final
questions
before
Luke
so
from what I
understand
another
important part
of the
creed
is that
in the
original
creed
it says
God of
God
and in
the
Nicene
Creed
it says
true
God
of
true
God
I
think
it's
attempting
to take
away
that
squishiness
!
Very
good
very
good
so
what
Arius
had
been
saying
was
he
would
say
when
you
pin
him
down
oh
Jesus
is
God
he's
just
not
true
God
he
would
say
that
which
to me
makes
no
sense
at all
but
he
would
say
that
part
of it
has
to do
with
true
has
a
narrower
sense
than
in
Greek
where
it
can
refer
to
something
more
like
actual
or
it
still
doesn't
make
sense
even
in
Greek
but
it
just
it's
a
little
less
jarring
in
Greek
so
yes
they
add
that
word
true
because
they
really
mean
it
like
he
really
is
it
took
50
years
to
verify
the
Nicene
Creed
because
of
those
words
because
of
true
substance
yes
substance
consubstantial
yes
there's
going to
be another
term
hypostasis
that's
going to
come up
that's
going to
be
introduced
next
class
John
Hinkson
is going
to be
talking
about
the
Apostles
Creed
then
after
that
we'll
be
talking
about
the
Creed
of
Constantinople
and
things
like
hypostasis
and
consubstantial
one
thing
when
you're
speaking
of
divine
things
by
definition
our
words
are
going
to
fail
us
when
we're
talking
about
God
because
God
is not
exactly
analogous
to
anything
we
can
imagine
perfectly
analogous
to
so
what
that
means
is that
if we
want to
talk
about
God
one
thing
theologians
do
is
they
make
up
words
because
if
you're
using
all the
other
words
they're
always
going
to
have
some
kind
of
connotation
you
don't
want
so
if
you
make
up
a
word
you
can
encapsulate
better
what
you're
referring
to
and
that's
why
scholars
will
use
the
word
consubstantial
or
hypostasis
and
they'll
define
it
sometimes
in ways
that
the
ancients
we're
going
to
find
out
that
sometimes
these
words
had
different
meanings
to
different
people
which
we've
seen
here
but
we're
going
to
see
it
big
time
with
hypostasis
is there
another
hint
yes
the
words
Nicene
Creed
make it
into
our
Christmas
hymns
that we
sing
true
God
from
light
from
lights
so
Nicene
Creed
it's
like
when
you're
on
your
deathbed
you're
saying
it is
well
it has
comforted
so
many
Christians
even to
this
day
when we're
singing
Christmas
hymns
you'll
notice
Nicene
Creed
appears
in there
so we're
still using
it as a
church
even though
we don't
realize
yeah
amen
yes
absolutely
we are
very widespread
let me
close in
prayer
if you
want to
stick around
and talk
for a few
minutes
I'd be
happy to
but church
is starting
in a few
minutes
Father in
heaven
we thank
you
for this
opportunity
to dwell
on these
matters
Lord we
know that
your nature
is beyond
finding out
but we
know you've
revealed
yourself
Father we
know that
you sent
your son
to die
for our
sins
on the
cross
we know
that
we confess
together
that
Jesus
the same
Lord
true
true God
of true
God
light of
light
Lord we
pray
that
we would
claim to
this truth
that God
himself
came down
to walk
and suffer
for us
and to
rise again
that we
might also
rise to
we thank
you for
this
we pray
this in
the name
of Jesus
amen
let me
turn my
finger
off
but yeah
keep going
anything like
peace
or friends
would be
safe