Well, today I get to do a one -off. We finished,
as Adam shared, we finished our series in Titus
just recently, and so today we have sort of a,
I don't know, a free message, which is always
tempting for me as someone who loves history
to jump into, and you see the title on the screen.
And I think this is particularly important for
us because one of the accusations that is often
made against Protestants in general and against
modern day evangelicals in particular, is that
we are ignorant of our own history and oblivious
to the doctrinal roots of our own faith. And
in my experience, with some exceptions, of course,
that's pretty much true to our shame. Now, I
realize that not every believer out there is
wired to have this incredible love for history
with equal passion. I do get that. But here's
the thing. If we're going to claim to be historical
Christians and we're going to hold to the faith
of our historical roots, I think we have a minimal
duty to know where we come from and how we got
to this place today. And how is it that we've
come to believe what we believe about God and
about the world that we live in? So it's been
one of my goals as a teaching elder here for
the past, oh boy, going on 19 years. at Oak Hill
to slowly and steadily move this congregation
toward a greater appreciation for church history,
to see us more deeply rooted in the faith of
our forefathers, to see that faith lived out
in both our worship services and in our fellowship
that we have together. It's why we celebrate
Reformation Sunday every year in October and
why at times we go out, we do small group studies,
we do podcasts on historical topics. And then
we come to a day like today and that same With
that same purpose in mind, this morning, what
I want to do is really stretch your minds and
stretch your hearts to push you just a little
bit more to think deeply about the origins of
our doctrinal beliefs. As you can see on the
screen, this month marks the 1700 year anniversary
of the first ecumenical council in church history,
the Council of Nicaea. which concluded with this
amazing foundational creed written in July of
325. So when those dates come up, I can't pass
that up. It's just too good of an opportunity
to sort of sit in that and think about 1700 years
of history. Friends, it's not an exaggeration
to say that Nicaea was one of the most important
events, not just in church history, but in the
development of Western civilization. So we're
headed this morning. for some really big themes
and some really technical theology. So I hope
you are ready for this. Are you ready? Good.
Now, normally at this point in the message, you
know what I usually do. I say, grab your Bibles,
and we're going to turn to our passage for the
morning. That is the standard operating procedure.
But today, we're going to be all over the place.
And in fact, Rather than having you try to flip
all over your Bibles, every verse that you're
going to need to track with me on is going to
be on the screen. So just follow as we go along.
Make sense? Good. Well, let's start by talking
about this issue of creeds. What are creeds and
why do they matter? Now, I know some evangelicals
don't even like the term creed. There's just
like a little burr under their saddle about it.
But let's talk about creeds. The word creed actually
comes from a Latin word credo, which means I
believe. It's that simple. So when Christians
come together to affirm a creed or recite a creed,
all they're doing is coming together as a group
of believers and saying, this is what we affirm.
This is what we believe as a group. And so creeds
are very short biblical summaries that are drawn
from the text of Scripture, which serve a whole
number of purposes in the life of the church.
And I'll get to those in just a second. But first,
it's really important for you to know that creeds
themselves are actually biblical. You will find
them in the pages of Scripture. Take the Shema
from Deuteronomy 6. The Shema is Israel's most
basic creed. It goes like this. Oh, there we
go. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the
Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, and
with all your might. That is an Old Testament
creedal statement. That simple statement grounded
the identity of God's people throughout the Old
Testament and set them apart from the rest of
the surrounding nations. So it was used both
doctrinally as a statement of truth about who
they were, but also liturgically in the public
declaration of faith and worship in the Old Testament.
Then when you open up the New Testament, you
see a number of simple creeds that focus, as
you might expect, on the person and the work
of Christ. Perhaps the earliest and shortest
creed you find in the New Testament is from Romans
10 .9, which simply says, Jesus is Lord. That
is a creedal statement. Or you might go to Matthew
16, where Peter confesses, you are the Christ,
the Son of the living God. That too is a creedal
statement. In 1 Corinthians 15, it becomes more
obvious. Paul uses creedal language as he himself
talks about receiving a doctrine and passing
it along to others. He says, I delivered to you,
Corinthians, as of first importance what I also
received. So you see this passing down of creedal
information, that Christ died for our sins according
to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he
was raised on the third day, again, according
to the scriptures. In Ephesians 4, Paul records
a creedal statement about the unity of the church
where he writes about all the ones that we have
together. One body, one spirit, one hope of our
calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one
God and Father of all. And if you count those
up, those are seven articles of faith, the biblical
number that often symbolizes completion. Even
the trustworthy sayings, we looked at this just
a couple weeks ago in Titus. Paul says this is
a trustworthy statement. He writes five of those
to Timothy and Titus instructing his young protégés,
these are things you should remember and pass
along. Continue to read these things and teach
these things. They're creedal statements. So
they're all over the New Testament. And it's
important for us to understand this. If this
is something that's bothered you in the past,
I know some evangelicals are like, when I hear
the word creed, I think Roman Catholic. Don't
do that. They are actually biblical, and they
have served the church well for centuries. We're
going to see that today. Let me give you just
a handful of ways that they can be used even
in the church today, even in a church like ours.
First of all, they can be used to lay out what
we call the non -negotiable essential doctrines
of the faith. Those categories of belief that
literally define the gospel and separate orthodox
or right thinking from heresy. And we actually
do this as a church. All those churches out there
that have doctrinal statements on their websites,
those are creeds. Those are creeds of a sort,
right? We have one for the essentials that we
believe and we have one for non -essentials,
things that there's room for disagreement. So
we have our own creed here at Oak Hill. Secondly,
creeds can be fantastic teaching tools. We've
seen this in adult small groups. We've seen this
in youth groups. We've seen this even with our
kids where they're learning basic creedal statements
about the faith. When creeds summarize doctrine
in a simple way, then we can understand the essentials
and we can memorize those things. We can recite
them and it's wonderful for kids. Never forget
that the New Testament warns us as the people
of God that we are always going to be tempted
to drift, to turn to myths, to be tossed to and
fro, to every wind of doctrine. So we're called
in Scripture to hold on to what Paul calls the
pattern of sound words, to the apostolic teaching
that was once for all handed down to the saints.
Creeds help us do that. They serve as guardrails
to help us stay in the lane of essential doctrine.
And as we constantly reaffirm those things that
are in the creeds, we remember those essential
truths. We rehearse them in our minds and we
go, oh yeah, that's what I'm supposed to believe
and that's what I'm supposed to be living out.
Very, very important. Third, creeds can be helpful
in doing apologetics. and polemics, helping us
to draw distinctions between what is orthodox
or right thinking versus those who might seek
to come into the body and introduce false teachings
and heresy. And to that end, it's the creed that
becomes an objective standard by which the church
disciplines those who come in and bring error
or false teaching into the body if they will
not recant of those things. So creeds. that purpose
as well. Fourth, creeds are effective as a witness
to the historical nature of the church. They
connect us to our past. They connect us to heroes
of the faith, saints of old who have served us.
And this is the best way to think about it. Saints
of the past who have served us by contending
for the faith in their day, laying the groundwork
for our preaching and our teaching. Fifth, creeds
can be used in liturgy and in worship. as a means
of leading the congregation into prayer, into
praise, and in when we observe the sacraments
of the church. Creeds can be used as we gather
around the communion table or as we stand at
the water's edge of a baptism because they summarize
what we believe. And finally, creeds can be used
as a source of unity. a way to foster fellowship
between churches because we have an agreement
on the core essentials. And so we can connect
to churches from the past. We can connect to
churches on the other side of the earth because
we have creeds that match each other and we're
in agreement on the essentials. Does that make
sense? So don't be afraid of these things. They're
actually very beneficial. Now, we think about
the ancient creeds. There's four big ones, and
some of you may have grown up in a tradition
where these were read in church, and that's wonderful.
The Apostles' Creed, which wasn't written by
the apostles, by the way, but that's okay. The
Nicene Creed, which we're going to look at today.
The Athanasian Creed, which wasn't written by
Athanasius either. But the Chalcedonian Creed
as well. Very, very important. And if you want
to take a picture of that, you want to look these
up, very, very important to our faith. Now, what
about confessions? How many of you guys have
heard of confessions? Okay, so we have creeds
and we have confessions. Confessions are slightly
different. The word for confession also has a
Latin root, which basically means I acknowledge
or I declare. Now, a confession is much more
detailed than a creed. Okay, it's much more thorough
and it basically, again, puts together what an
individual believes or what a church believes.
And in many cases, you see confessions that are
written in order to make distinctions between
denominations. Creeds often will fit on like
a half a sheet of paper, but confessions, when
you open them up, many chapters that usually
cover dozens of theological positions. Confessions
are mainly found in the Protestant world. And
most of the most famous confessions come out
of the Reformation, the 16th and 17th centuries
as churches were breaking away from the Roman
Catholic system and beginning to define what
they believed, especially in relation to one
another. You have all these confessions being
written in that time period. So again, you might
recognize one of your traditions you grew up
in. In the Lutheran church, you had the Augsburg
Confession and the Book of Concord. In the Reformed
circles, you have what folks in the Reformed
world called the three forms of unity, the Belgic
Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the
Canons of Dort, which sort of summarized Calvin's
belief system. In the Anglican Church, Thomas
Cranmer created the 39 Articles. In the Presbyterian
churches, they hold very firmly to the Westminster
Confession of Faith and their two catechisms,
the larger and shorter catechisms. And even congregational
churches, even independent, even Baptist churches
have their confessions. For example, the Savoy
Declaration and the Second London Baptist Confession
of 1689. If you know a 1689 Baptist, you know
what I'm talking about. They're very serious
about it. Anybody? Okay, good. Anyway, so confessions,
mainly Protestant, but creeds have spread throughout
the history of the ancient church. Now, here's
a quick note of caution about creeds and confessions.
Although they are written to summarize biblical
truth, we have to remember they were compiled
by men. Fallible men, right? Imperfect men. So
they're not infallible as scripture is. They
do not have divine authority on their own. Sometimes
churches fall into error on this. They will prefer
to look at the creed rather than the scriptures,
but they have no divine authority on their own.
We are a people that holds to sola scriptura.
What does that mean? It means that it's profitable
to study these things. We can read it. We can
study it. We can even recite creeds and confessions.
But always keeping in mind that any authority
that they have on our conscience is only when
they're in line with what God has said in his
word. And that's critically important. Now I
realize for some reason some folks, especially
in the evangelical church, I've met folks like
this who will proudly say, I don't need a creed,
I have no creed but Christ. Or I have no creed
but the Bible. You know what the irony of that
is? That's a creedal statement. We all believe
in creeds to some extent, right? So it's actually
not super helpful to say, well, I just believe
in the entire Bible because you know what? Everybody
claims that, even heretics. So at some point,
you're gonna have to, every believer in every
church is gonna have to lay out, well, this is
what we think the Bible teaches on all these
important topics. That's why things like creeds
and confessions and yes, even doctrinal statements
can be both enlightening and helpful. Make sense?
Okay, before we get to the main topic, one last
thing we want to talk about, a word about church
councils. Again, some of you, you may be a little
unfamiliar with history. You hear the phrase
church council and you think what? Roman Catholics
or maybe Eastern Orthodox. But hold on a second.
Even church councils have a precedent in the
scriptures. Can anybody name or think in your,
you don't have to shout it out, but think in
your mind about a council in the New Testament.
Ah, I heard a whisper. Acts 15, what we call
the Jerusalem Council. You might remember that,
right? You had godly men from Antioch and Jerusalem
come together. Very important moment in the history
of the first century church. They came to resolve
a disagreement and they came to ward off a potential
heresy, this Judaizing heresy that was threatening
to creep into the church because the gospel was
going out to the Gentiles in the early... apostles
were trying to figure out what does this mean
and how do we sort this out? And so what did
they do? They called a council to do that. So
in the biblical tradition, councils in the post
-apostolic period of church history were called
for the same reasons, because we have things
that need to get resolved, because we need to
protect the people against heresies, because
we need to fight for unity across the empire.
Jesus wants his church to be unified, so we need
to fight for that. Now, depending on who you
ask, there have been anywhere between Three and
21 ecumenical councils. When we say ecumenical,
universally agreed upon. But think about that,
three to 21. Rome recognizes all 21 of those
because they run the joint. They're like, those
are all our councils and they claim them all,
all 21. The last of which, by the way, was Vatican
II, which took place in my lifetime, in the 1960s.
So it hasn't been that long. The Eastern Orthodox
recognize the first seven. ending in the year
787. The Oriental Orthodox, which includes Coptics
and Armenians and Ethiopians, they only recognize
three, ending in the year 451. And we as Protestants
recognize how many? Nobody wants to guess. That's
okay. Six. Six. Six, I know, it's okay, I totally
get that. Six ecumenical councils, the last one
being in the year 680. So Nicaea, and then we
have three Constantinoples, and in between an
Ephesus and a Chalcedon. In my opinion, if you
were only gonna pick two of those to study, you
wanna look at Nicaea and Chalcedon. Those really
are the most important ones in my opinion. Okay.
So we're here to talk about that first one today.
The 1 ,700 years ago, you see it on the screen.
Let me start by telling you how the council came
about and why it came about. And it's actually
a very interesting historical story. So it all
starts with an arch heretic by the name of Arius
of Alexandria. Yes, it's timeline time. I love
you guys. Arius of Alexandria, born in the year
250. and we're not exactly sure where, but somewhere
in North Africa. What we do know is that he studied
on a well -known scholar of his day who later
was declared a heretic himself, a man named Lucian
of Antioch, and then somewhere around the year
306, he came to Alexandria, Egypt, and he was
named a deacon in the Church of Alexandria. Now,
if you know anything about ancient history, Alexandria
was one of the great... learning centers of the
ancient world. So becoming a deacon in that church
meant that Arius was going to be in the spotlight.
It took him 12 years, but you see there eventually
became a presbyter, which is the fancy Greek
word for elder, became an elder in the church
of Alexandria in the year 318. And his teachings
as an elder began over time to slowly differ
from the teachings of the bishop there in Alexandria.
That began to raise a stir. Now, at this point,
Arius was 68 years old, so he's an older guy.
He's got lots of friends. He's got lots of connections.
All across the Eastern Roman Empire, he has many,
many disciples there in the city of Alexandria.
Arius, from what we can tell from writings, and
I do admit that the things that we have been
written about Arius are written by his enemies,
so we always have to be careful not to overstate
who he was, but today we'd call him a celebrity
preacher. He was that guy. He was widely admired
in Alexandria and across the world for his very
disciplined ascetic lifestyle, for his really
higher sort of education and learning, and also
for having a very charismatic personality. In
addition to that, he was a musician and a songwriter.
It's always the musicians, isn't it? Grant's
not even here. I can't even make fun of him.
Micah's here, though. Where's Micah? There you
are. He was a musician, a songwriter. In fact,
this is absolutely true. We know this for a fact.
He was known to take his unique doctrinal ideas
and set them to music. He would create little
jingles that people could easily remember and
basically sing his theology. So if you were walking
down the street of Alexandria in this time, you
would hear just common people singing about the
theology of Arius. Very clever, right? Very smart.
So that's who he was. Now, he was a force to
be reckoned with. And the bishop of that time
in Alexandria, who ironically his name was Alexander,
Alexander of Alexandria, he was... He recognized
that Arius was becoming a threat, a threat to
the unity of the church in Alexandria, also a
threat to the Orthodox teaching in the Eastern
Empire. So what did he teach? Well, we could
spend the next hour talking about that. I'm going
to give you just a couple bullet points about
what Arius was out there teaching. At the core,
and we do call this Arianism today, and it's
still around, by the way, Arianism, the core
is that Jesus, God the Son, was not eternal.
He was a created being. Now, Ares would say,
look, Jesus was the very first creation. He's
the Father's highest, most glorious creation.
He's greater than the angels. In fact, he would
say, we can even refer to Jesus as divine because
of how glorious he is, because of his preeminence
as the firstborn over creation. But in a world
where categories actually do matter, If you look
at, does Arius put Jesus on the side of the ledger
of creature versus creator? Arius says he is
a creature, not the creator as scripture repeatedly
says. In fact, the repeated statement that Arius
made and put to song, put to a jingle was, there
was a time when the sun was not. There was a
time when the Son was not. And he defended that
idea by a combination of the philosophy of his
day, Neoplatonism, and certain New Testament
passages. He took the phrase begotten of the
Father and incorrectly extrapolated what that
term meant. He also looked at what Jesus said
of himself in John 16, where he said, Jesus says,
I came forth from the Father and came into the
world. Now listen. These guys did not have the
benefit that we have of thousands of years of
scholarship. You can almost see where Arius might
make this mistake. I'm always careful. I know
we've got these arch heretics in church history.
I'm always careful to put myself in those sandals
and say, could I have made that same mistake?
And we should be humble about that. Now, the
one thing that Arius was really right on, and
he was firmly committed to, was monotheism, the
oneness of God. And that's good. But in his mind,
if the Father was God, and the Son was also God,
then God's nature could be divided. And if God's
nature could be divided, then that overthrows
monotheism. So therefore, he argued, Jesus had
to be somehow less than God the Father. Somehow.
Certainly less in terms of what we call ontological
subordination, this idea that he is a God. Where
have you heard that in the world today? Jehovah's
Witnesses. A God, not God Almighty, but a God,
right? It's still around in the Jehovah's Witnesses
today. So he just can't be God Almighty. He's
got to be less than the Father. And here's the
thing about Ares' teaching. It caught on. In
fact, it threatened to overthrow Orthodox teaching
in his day. Over a period of three years, the
popularity of his ideas... forced Alexander the
bishop to call a local synod of other bishops
where they talked through what to do with this
guy who's an elder in his own church and is teaching
wrong ideas. So in the year 321, at that synod,
Arius was condemned and he was excommunicated
from the church. Now, do you think that stopped
him? It did not. As with many heretics, they
are not easily dissuaded. Rather than humbly
pause his teaching and come into submission to
his bishop and the fellow elders, Arius fled
Alexandria and went to a place where he would
be well received. He went north up to Caesarea,
where he was received by the bishop there, a
man named Eusebius. And from there, Arius waged
a three -year campaign of doctrinal war against...
his fellow elders former fellow elders in the
city of alexandria and everywhere he went and
everywhere he wrote to he created little pockets
of support in various places now what did we
just learn was that last week in titus 3 about
a factious man two weeks ago a factious man he's
self -condemned is he not well this is what arius
was doing he was a factious man So the Christian
world, especially in the East, was now literally
at war with itself, asking the question, this
is important, first of all, who is Jesus? But
second, what is Jesus? And that may surprise
you, but it's important. Who is Jesus? What is
Jesus? What is his nature? Is he God, or is he
a created being? Is he more than a regular man,
but still less than Almighty God? Now, into the
midst of that mess in the church walks one of
the most interesting men in all of human history.
And his name is Constantine I. The Roman Emperor
Constantine I. Now, man, again, we could spend
an hour on the biography of this man. He is so
interesting. He is... One of the most influential
men who's ever walked the planet, both for the
Roman Empire and for the direction of the church.
Very interesting guy. But right around the time
that Arius came to Alexandria, Constantine's
father died and he came to power way off in the
far off land of today we call Great Britain.
Way up there in the British Isles. Now, when
Constantine comes to power, the Roman Empire
is in a very strange place. It's ruled by what
was called a Tetrarchy. which basically meant
four men were ruling this vast Roman Empire.
The empire had grown so large that it had to
be divided into four sectors and basically establish
four different rulers just to govern it. But
both East and West had a primary ruler, he was
called an Augustus, and sort of a junior ruler,
who was the one who would take over next, he
was called a Caesar. So you had a... an Augustus
and a Caesar in the West, and you had an Augustus
and a Caesar in the East. Constantine, at the
age of 34, becomes the Caesar in the West, up
in the British Isles. But here's the thing. He
has huge ambition. He has no intention of staying
way out there in Britain and just being a junior
officer. And by the way, his troops loved him.
And they said the same thing. Let's come together
and let's establish you as the sole emperor in
all of Rome. And that's what he wanted to be.
So over the next 18 years, Constantine would
fight a series of wars against his own Roman
rivals in order to become sole emperor. Along
the way, there was one very important moment.
He fought a battle against one of his rivals
at a place called Milvian Bridge. Anybody heard
of it? The Battle of Milvian Bridge. Look it
up. This is where it said. that the night before
the battle, Constantine received a vision from
the God of the Christians. And in this vision,
he heard a voice say, upon the sign of the cross,
you will be victorious. Now, books and books
have been written about this, about how legitimate
this is. What we do know is he instructed all
of his soldiers to paint a cross on their shields.
He went out the next day, and guess what? He
was victorious. That happens in the year 312,
and that puts Constantine as now the Augustus
in the West. He is now the sole ruler over the
entire Western Roman Empire. What comes next
is fascinating. In light of that vision that
he had received from the God of the Christians,
Constantine then reaches out to the Augustus
of the East, a man named Licinius, and he says,
let's sit down and let's talk about the status
of Christianity in the empire. Now, right before
this, how were Christian leaders treated? Not
good. Threats, persecution, arrest, execution,
all of those things. But now we have possibly,
and I say possibly on purpose, a Christian emperor,
a newly believing Christian emperor who says,
let's talk about this. He and Licinius meet in
the city of Milan, and they come out with a joint
statement that we call the Edict of Milan in
the year 313. What this decree did was it provided
for religious freedom across the entire empire
for everybody, something that we have in America,
right, that we take for granted sometimes, but
it's beautiful. Religious freedom, including
Christianity. Now think about this. Licinius
is not a believer, but somehow the Lord is at
work here, and between the two of them, they
come out and say, you know, we need more unity
within the empire. We're so spread out, we need
more civic unity and peace. So if you're a Christian
leader, a year before that, you're basically
operating in the shadows, afraid to be arrested.
Now everything has changed. You now can come
out of the shadows. Your faith, our faith, is
now a state -approved religion. It's got to be
religiously the biggest turnaround in the history
of man, from being possibly executed to being
state -approved because of one man, Constantine.
and the Edict of Milan. Very, very important.
Now, fast forward to the year 324. 324, the Roman
world is not big enough for two Augustuses, and
so Licinius and Constantine go to war against
each other, and once again, Constantine comes
out on top. He becomes the sole emperor over
the entire empire, east and west, and symbolically,
in the minds of the people, this was a great
victory for Christianity over Roman paganism.
So the game has changed for Christians all over
the world. This is going to set the stage for
the Council of Nicaea, the very first ecumenical
council. Now, what's the first thing Constantine
does? He leaves Rome. He's won it, and now he
leaves it. And he decides he's going to build
a whole new capital city in the east. He's going
to call it New Rome. Eventually, what does he
call it? Constantinople. Named it after himself,
of course, right? But as he surveyed the religious
landscape in the east, guess what he saw? We
have this massive rift in my new faith. He's
like, my new faith, I want to be involved in
this. But I look out there and I see bishops
at each other's throats. Some of you guys are
supporting Arius and some of you are supporting
Alexander. This cannot stand. Again, this is
his new faith. Now, he doesn't understand many
of the nuances of Christian doctrine. All he
knows is, I've united the empire, and now we
need to bring you guys together so we have one
religion throughout. He is not going to tolerate
division in his empire. So what does he do? He
sends imperial letters to both Arius and Alexander,
and he exhorts them to find common ground and
unity. How do you think that worked? Not a chance.
These are not men who are going to be kowtowed
by even the emperor of Rome. They're going to
stand by their guns. So what does a good emperor
do? He says, all right, guys, we need to get
in a room. And he summons a church council from
all over the empire. We need to get in a room.
We need to figure this out. Now, this is a shocking
first in world history. An emperor. is calling
a church council. You had bishops at this time
who literally 10 years before were being tortured
for their faith. Guys showed up to the council
of Nicaea missing limbs because the emperors
had cut their limbs off. And now you've got a
Roman emperor who's saying, come to me for a
council, all expenses paid. That's a shock, right?
In fact, Eusebius records that there was a guy
who showed up, a bishop who showed up, whose
eye had just recently been gouged out by the
emperor Diocletian. And Constantine was so moved
by his physical condition that the emperor walked
up and kissed his face. Talk about a turnaround.
It's absolutely crazy. Constantinople is still
under construction at this time, so Constantine
picks a different site for the council. It's
about 80 miles south of Constantinople, the city
of Nicaea. And if you go there today, if you
go to Turkey today, you'll see that still the
Roman gates of the city of Nicaea are standing.
You can go visit the Roman ruins there. Fascinating.
And Constantine, I just have to show you this
because it's the coolest statue ever made. That
is, right? When I die? No? In the pulpit? Yeah,
there you go, exactly. I just have to, this is
a statue of Constantine from York, England, of
all places, because that's the place where Constantine
first came to power as a Caesar in the West,
in the city of York, England. But I just really
dig that. Okay. So Constantine convenes this
council and he is present at it. He literally
comes in, pomp and circumstance, into the assembly
hall and sits in his golden chair. You know,
with the Bible, the scriptures sitting in front
of him and all these bishops around, and he opens
the council in the year 325. Opened on May 20th,
officially closed on July 25th, 325. 1 ,700 years
ago, almost to the day. Now, not all the bishops
could make it. Travel was not easy back then.
Eusebius tells us that around 250 bishops were
there. Other sources put the number at more than
300. But what was unique about Nicaea was the
geographical spread. Now, church councils had
been held in small numbers in regions. We call
them synods. But now we've got guys who came
from as far away as Spain and Britain coming
all the way into the east into Asia Minor. So
this is really what we call the first ecumenical
or universal church council. It was still eastern
heavy because it was located in the east. And
by the way, one very important person from the
West did not show up, the Bishop of Rome. For
your Roman Catholic friends, the Pope did not
even show up at the Council of Nicaea, but he
did send two of his secretaries, which is interesting.
That just is an aside. But keep this in mind.
Again, the council was meeting only 12 years
after the end of these persecutions. Here's the
thing. This council lasts for three months, and
I'll spare you the details and jump straight
to the conclusions they reached, and then we're
going to look at the creed. That's how we'll
close out. We'll look at the creed and exactly
what was established. At issue, you guys, was
the essence and the personhood of God the Son,
especially how he relates to God the Father.
That's the key. And much of the discussion, we're
going to get a little technical, revolved around
this Greek word, usia. which in English, if we
were to translate it, would be essence, substance,
or being. In other words, it's the whatness of
something. The whatness. So when we ask, what
is Jesus? We're asking, what kind of being is
Jesus? Does that make sense? And the case being
made by Arius and his followers is that Jesus
was, here we're going to get into some Greek,
heteroousion. See that? The Arian party said
he was heteroousion. In other words, Jesus is
altogether different or hetero from the Father
in his being. The Arian said he's not divine,
he's not God, he's a creature. As much as they
tried to dress that up, that's the bottom line.
Hetero. The other side, led by Alexander and
his brilliant advisor, a deacon by the name of
Athanasius, who were both at the council. They
said that Jesus was homoousion, with the Father.
Homo, or the same. The same essence or being
as God the Father. In other words, what we call
the Nicene Party was saying that he is God in
every way. And, by the way, there was a third
opinion at the council. And these were the guys,
you know the guys at the council who are always
the peacemakers? Like, fellas, can we just find
some happy middle here, right? Like, too much
fighting in the family, right? Can we come together
with a third position? They were known as the
homoi usian party. What's the difference between
homo and homoi? Ooh, a single iota. Not one iota.
That's where that phrase comes from. You guys
have heard? Oh, I'm too old for this. You guys
remember? Not one iota. It comes from this particular.
Homoousion, right? In other words, Jesus is similar
to the father. He's like the father, okay? One
is he's altogether different than the father.
One is he's the exact same as the father. The
middle party was he's similar to the father.
Now, that was the lukewarm position, right? The
one, both extremes were gonna say absolutely
not. We're not agreeing to that. And in particular,
Athanasius was like a dog on a bone. He was not
going to give up. He was not going to give one
iota, not one budge, against homoousios. Because
Athanasius in his writing said, as long as we
teach that Christ is just like the Father or
similar to the Father, we are stealing his glory.
We are stealing the worship that he deserves
as God. What happened then is over the weeks
of wrangling with the text, eventually the arguments
of Athanasius won over the homoi. And all of
a sudden, we had a chance to write a creed and
bring it to a vote. And that's exactly what happened.
So the Nicene Creed was produced by the two parties
that clearly won the day in terms of the arguments.
Now it was who's going to sign it and who's not
going to sign it. If you signed it, it was making
a statement that you were in line with what the
church believed was true according to Scripture.
If you chose not to sign it, you were outside
the Orthodox faith. And in the end, of those
300 or so bishops, only two didn't sign it. Arius
got wiped out. He got absolutely run out of town.
And those two bishops were condemned, excommunicated
by Constantine, and banished out of the empire.
So this wasn't just, hey, sorry about that, go
back to your church. You're gone. Now, Arius
himself, he was president at the council, but
he was not a bishop. He was a presbyter. So they
did give him a chance, and Eusebius records it.
He defended his views, but he didn't have a vote
on the creed. And ultimately, Constantine said,
yeah, you too, Arius, you're gone. And excommunicated
him and banished him as well. So that's the Nicene
Council. There's also a great story, Come Find
Me After Church. Santa Claus was at the Council
of Nicaea, St. Nicholas, literally, and he punched
an Aryan in the middle of discussions. I kid
you not, it's a real story. St. Nick was a beast.
Okay. Okay. So I just ran through three months
of debates, but it's really interesting. All
right. Can we look at the text of the creed itself?
Okay, here we go. Ready? Gird your loins. Here
we go. This is how it starts. The first statement.
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker
of all things, visible and invisible. So the
creed starts where it should. That is a statement
of monotheism. That's the essential foundation
that comes out of Judaism, out of the Old Testament,
right? There is one creator God. His name is
Yahweh. He is the God of the Bible, both Old
Testament and New Testament. Can we affirm it?
Would you sign it? Good. Secondly, and we believe
in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten
of the Father, the only begotten. Now, that language
comes straight out of John 1, right? Verse 14,
where it says, and the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as
of the only begotten from the Father, full of
grace and truth. Now, what's interesting, At
the next council that happens in 381 in Constantinople,
a whole bunch of verbiage gets added to Nicaea.
And in fact, today, if you say, I want to see
the Nicene Creed, it's usually a combination
of the two councils. But this is what gets added
to that phrase, begotten of the Father. At Constantinople,
they say, before all worlds or before all ages,
which is an An important addition. It basically
has a dual reference. First to John 1 -2 where
it says the word was in the beginning with God,
right? Before all worlds, before all ages, in
the beginning. And then if you look at John 17
when Jesus prays to the Father, he says, he talks
about the glory which he had with the Father
before the world was. So it's a strengthening
of the eternal nature of this begottenness. that's
being discussed here. Okay, keep going. This
is where it's gonna get juicy. That is of the
essence of the Father, God of God, light of light,
very God of very God. Okay, so this is where
in the Greek text of the Creed, the word ousia
shows up there, the word essence, okay? The essence
of the Father. God the Son is of the same essence
or being as the Father. And then you see, I mean,
they... The authors of the creed, they didn't
mess around. As a heretic, you couldn't misunderstand
what they're saying here, right? So we have three
statements, God of God, light of light, true
God of true God. Very, very strong statement,
three times, three phrases, so that everybody
understands. And then it says, in case you missed
the other one, begotten, not made. So it's the
negative piece. Not only is he only begotten
of the Father, he's begotten, not made. being
of one substance with the Father, by whom all
things were made, both in heaven and earth. So
just in case it wasn't strong enough yet, the
authors of the creed give that negative side,
not made, not a created being. And then in the
Greek text, this is where they put the word homoousion,
where it says one substance with the Father,
equal to the Father in every way. And by the
way, Jesus claims this for himself multiple times
in the scripture. So this is not just a philosophical
statement. Jesus claims, for example, in John
5, Jesus says this, just as the father has life
in himself, even so he gave to the son also to
have life in himself. Guys, no creature has life
in himself. That is an impossibility, right?
A creature cannot be self -existent. He cannot
make himself. but the son has life in himself.
That is life that was granted to him by the father
in eternity past. By the way, this is the same
son that Paul talks about. He existed in the
form of God, yet did not regard equality with
God a thing to be grasped onto. Right? Jesus
is the uncreated son of God, begotten, not made.
By the way, we could, earlier Adam read from
Colossians 1. That passage is important. Hebrews
1, verses 2 and 3 is important. 1 Corinthians
8, 6. But the most important passage of Scripture,
which points to this truth about begotten, not
made, comes, of course, from John 1, 3. And this
is what it says. All things came into being through
the Word. And apart from Him, the Word, nothing
came into being that has come into being. Now,
most people read that verse and go, why is it
so repetitive? It's almost as if... John anticipated
the Arian heresy here because he makes it so
clear. Again, if Jesus were some kind of created
sub -deity, he would have to be one of the things
that came into being. So he can't be the creator
and one of the things that came into being, right?
That's a logical impossibility. He must be eternal
in nature. And so John anticipates the Arian
heresy even in verse 1 -3. And then just to close
the deal in John 1 .18, he adds this powerful
statement. No one has seen God at any time. The
only begotten God who is in the bosom of the
Father, he has explained or revealed him. Now
that is a shocking, mind -shattering statement.
The only begotten God. How is the God begotten?
Hold that thought. We'll get to it. Let's keep
going in the rest of the creed. who for us men
and for our salvation came down and was incarnate
and was made man. He suffered and on the third
day rose again, ascended into heaven. From there
he will come to judge the quick and the dead.
So the humanity of Christ was not the focus of
Nicaea, but you see the authors dipping their
toe in this here, right? He's incarnate. He is
made man. He's made man because prior to being
made man, he was something else ontologically,
wasn't he? He was God. He existed in the form
of God. That's very important. And then this
is the funniest sentence in the Nicene Creed.
It just says, and in the Holy Spirit. Because
again, the focus of Nicaea was not the humanity
of Christ. It was not the Holy Spirit, but we
believe in the Holy Spirit as well. Now that's
gonna get added onto again quite substantially
in the next council in 381, right? In fact, the
Constantinople Creed is gonna, going to say this,
and we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord,
the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father,
who was with the Father and the Son, together
is worshiped and glorified and who has spoken
through the prophets. So you see the language
of Trinitarianism beginning to be laid out one
council at a time, right? It's almost like the
church fathers want to close that loop. So the
Holy Spirit isn't a lesser God. than the father
or the son. He's not ontologically subordinated
to the father or the son. He is the Lord equally
worshiped and glorified. And these are really
important things, guys. And then the last statement
in the 325 Creed, the authors smartly add an
anathema at the end. What's an anathema? Yeah,
a curse, a condemnation. And it goes like this.
But those who say there was a time when he was
not, Who did they have in mind? And he was not
before he was made and he was made out of nothing.
They basically took everything that Arius said
in the council and just said, it's all wrong.
Or he is of another substance or essence or the
son of God is created or changeable or alterable.
They are condemned by the holy universal and
apostolic church. So, by the way, this is another
great example of how creeds can be used. Because
think about this now. This anathema is precisely
what separates historic Christianity from Mormonism
and from Jehovah's Witnesses, both of which believe
Jesus is all of those things, created. And it's
the creed that tells us as historic Christians
we cannot have fellowship with them because we
differ on this essential theology. Does that
make sense? Now, P .S., the Nicene Creed, again,
focuses on the whatness of Jesus. What is he?
What is his essence or being? What it doesn't
really deal with is his personhood, and that's
the who -ness of Jesus. Who is he? Meaning, he
is the one true God, yet we know he's still a
son in relation to a father, and he's distinct
from the father. So the next couple steps in
the development of Trinitarian theology is to
speak of something called hypostases. Anybody
heard of it? Hypostases, or persons within the
Godhead. So ultimately, the church fathers are
going to have to come to the place where they
recognize what Scripture tells us, that there
is one usia of God, one being, but there are
three hypostases. Three unique persons that co
-equally share in the one divine essence. There's
gonna be a test later, by the way. No, I know,
look, I know this stuff is hard and it can be
a little overwhelming, but this is important
stuff. This is what we all sort of believe, especially
as it comes from this pulpit, but it's good to
know why we believe it and how it came to be.
Okay, what else? That's so many more things.
By the way, even after this, that's not even
enough. Once they get to the whatness and the
whoness of Jesus and the usia and the personhood,
the next thing you have to deal with is, well,
hold on, we've got this one person, but he has
two natures. He's got a human nature and he's
got a divine nature, right? And so how does that
work? How do two natures exist in one person,
be distinct from each other, but they're not
divided or separated, changed or confused? That's
the counsel of Chalcedon. So that is coming as
well. After that, more questions. Jesus has two
wills, a divine will and a human will. And that
needs to get raised and settled. Guys, all of
these critically important essential doctrines
of the faith get settled in these ecumenical
councils. So they're worth studying. Okay, last
thing. And this one may be the hardest. You ready?
Not only does the Nicene Creed affirm the full
deity of Christ, It also affirms the way in which
he possesses that deity. The way in which he
possesses it. The begottenness. How many of you
guys have wondered about this in the past? You're
like, begottenness. It just seems like a strange
word. What's the first thing you think about
when you think of begottenness? Yeah, or having
babies. Okay, so this is what Arius misunderstood.
This is what Jehovah's Witnesses cling to today
wrongly. They read that phrase begottenness in
John 1 and what do they do? They compare it to
human begetting. That is the fatal flaw in their
doctrine. That was Arius' fatal flaw. They think
human begetting and they think divine begetting
and they say they're the same thing. They're
not. They're not according to scripture. So the
Creed of Constantinople in 381 clarifies that
the son possesses deity by being eternally begotten
of the father. Eternally begotten. Say it again.
Eternally begotten. Before all worlds. Before
all ages. And in theology, this is a hard concept.
We call this the doctrine of eternal generation.
Generation being just the Latin equivalent of
begetting. Okay, so the Father's begetting of
the Son is an eternal divine act before all ages,
meaning it transcends time. It happens outside
of time. It is a generation that happens prior
to creation and has no ending. No ending whatsoever.
That makes it categorically different from human
begetting. Because when a human father begets
a human son, it takes place within creation and
within time. The human father temporarily precedes
the son, right? If I have a son, I preceded him
in existence. There was a time when my son Tyler
was not. And then he was. That is not true of
God. Scripture bears that out. That's the difference
between God beginning and man beginning. As the
creed states, there has never been a time when
the Son didn't exist. And it's important to understand
that this eternal beginning or this generation
is only of the person of the Son, not his nature.
That's important. Only the person is generated,
not the nature. Because as nature is one with
the Father, it doesn't require generation. Only
the personhood. And this is a matter of revealed
truth that's explained by the data in the scriptures.
This is such an important thing. God is eternally
and necessarily three persons. God is eternally
and necessarily. It's who he is. It's who he
decreed himself to be, three persons, one divine
essence. Eternally and necessarily three persons.
Always has been. Always will be. It's who he
is from eternity past to eternity future. This
is what the church fathers came to by the time
381 rolls around. One more important feature
of eternal generation. When a human father begets
a human son, that son shares the nature of his
father, right? I pass along my genes. He's exactly
the nature that I am. Well, think about eternal
begetting. Because the father begets the son
in eternity past, the son has all of the exact
same attributes, power, glory, nature as his
father because he's begotten of the father. That's
why the Nicene authors wrote God of God, true
God of true God, equal to the Father and being
attributes, power and glory and worshiped in
the same way that God the Father is worshiped.
They had all of this stuff in mind, you guys.
And it wasn't easy to figure out. It was not
easy to figure out. Okay. Sadly, this was not
the end of Arianism. This is for another day.
Maybe we'll do this in one of our small groups.
Arianism is gonna linger until the eighth century,
especially in different parts of the empire.
So it doesn't go away. For today, I just wanna
close by saying, can we simply be grateful that
Alexander and Athanasius and the Nicene party
won the day back in 325, that Arius and his followers
were defeated by a huge margin? Can we be grateful
that 1 ,700 years ago, the beginning of Trinitarian
doctrine was laid for us? at Nicaea as this historical
stepping stone toward what we believe today.
And that we in the church today can gather comfortably,
right? Knowing all these things, being able to
look at the past and be able to worship together.
And let me just finish with this question. So
why does this matter? Why should you care about
anything I said today? That's what my wife asked
this morning. Friends, this is the point. The
essential doctrines that we cherish today, they
didn't just fall out of the sky. We didn't just
pick up a book and learn them last week. They're
rooted deeply in history. All the complexities
of Trinitarianism figured out for us, of Chalcedonian
Christology, understand the metaphysical. nature
of Christ. Think about the hypostatic union of
the two natures of Christ. How does that work?
That stuff was all figured out for us long ago.
Faithful men, faithful saints who battled against
emperors at times, battled against false teachers,
fought against heretics, did all of that for
our benefit. So are you thankful to the Lord
for his sovereign providence and all that? for
his hand in history? Are you thankful for how
he has guided and guarded and strengthened his
people over the centuries, especially in times
of crisis, in times of division? God has not
left us alone. He is faithful, right? Faithful
to build his church. And so if you're thankful
for those things, I just want to encourage you
to keep studying and understanding church history.
Honor your forefathers by not ignoring this topic.
Honor those who fought these battles for you
by digging in and becoming a better student of
church history. Look to men like Athanasius.
Read a biography of this guy, right? We sort
of worship today in his shadow. There's things
that we can learn from him. We are in continuity
with men like Athanasius from other parts of
the world and in other ages. There's great value
there. And then the last thing to remember is,
guys, I know this sounds weird because we think
of church history as this giant thing that's
hard to figure out in the past. You are a part
of church history right now. Oak Hill Bible Church,
small as we are, is a part of the flow of church
history. We should never forget that, amen? Let's
bow our heads. Father, I thank you for the challenge
of studying this stuff, Lord. It's difficult.
And I'm grateful for the patience of so many
of our saints here in this body who have come
to love history and even for those that maybe
don't love it but are starting to understand
how important it is. But Lord, most of all, we're
just thankful to you that you have been faithful
to your church. Jesus promised that he would
build his church and the gates of Hades would
not be able to stand against it. And you continue
to prove that every single day and every single
year. For 1 ,700 years, you've been doing that
since Nicaea. And so, Lord, we stand on the shoulders
of these men who went before us and fought those
hard battles. We're thankful for that, but thankful
to you most of all because you have given us
your perfect word, which... Yeah, it's hard,
but you've revealed exactly who you are in the
text of scripture. We can go there, we can study.
The studying never ends, Lord, because your word
is so powerful and so broad and so voluminous,
God. We are just overwhelmed by its goodness
and its truth. So Lord, help us to be better
students, students of your word first, students
of church history second, that we might glorify
you more and more as the years go by. Thank you
again for our time this morning. We pray in Christ's
name, amen.