The Nicene Creed - One Lord, Jesus Christ

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible;

And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all ages, Light of Light, True God of True God, Begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man; And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried; And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; And ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke by the Prophets;

And I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the Resurrection of the dead, And the Life of the age to come. Amen.

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             I again would like to apologize for the longer than usual (maybe its turning into the new usual) blog this week; I would like to finish with the over view of the Creed so we can discuss some of the more presence issues between Orthodox & Protestantism/Evangelicalism.

            The second section of the creed deals exclusively with the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. This is arguably the most important section of the Creed as it outlines in detail what a Christian is to believe about the person of Christ; to teach something different than what the Creed says about Christ is tantamount to heresy. The 4^th Century was a chaotic place; not at all the “golden age” of the Church that many moderns would like to call it. The Church was defending the personhood and the divinity of Christ on all fronts. As discussed in other blogs, the Creed did not create these doctrines, it was a response to these heresies that were popping up; something needed to be officially stated by the church about what Christians have always believed about Christ in order to quail the false teachers. The Creed made the Doctrine of the Son of God a permanent fixture of orthodox Christian teaching for all times (as well as the other doctrines taught by the creed). Later councils fine-tuned the language of what it meant to be fully divine and fully man, but served only to affirm this foundational Creed and defend the Christian from yet new heresies in their own times.

…the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all ages Light of Light, True God of True God, Begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made…

            This first statement is one of the biggest reasons the First Ecumenical Council (the starting place of the formation of the Creed) was called: to combat the heresy of Arius, known as Ariansim. Arius was a priest from Alexandria, that taught Christ was indeed divine and indeed man, but he was a created creature, not at all on equal with God when it came to divinity. Arians used scripture verses that speak about Christ being “the first born of creation,” to substantiate their claim; let this be a warning to us when we try to use a single verse to substantiate our own claims, instead of the full council of scripture and teaching of the church from all ages. The common Arian chant in the streets was “…there was a time when the Son of Man was not.” More on this during our studies of the Seven Ecumenical Councils.

 Mosaic Icon of Christ in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (Istanbul)

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man

            Next we begin the story of the life of Christ and his direct impact upon his arrival. (1) He came for our salvation; and came down from heaven no less. This was not a vacation trip for God. He had a specific mission in mind: You and Me. 

(2) He was incarnate of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is divine, He is not the product of one man and one woman. In fact, this was also used to discredit a pagan heresy at the time (one that has resurfaced in our own time again). It was being taught that Jesus was just another Demi-god. There are many stories in the pagan religion about God coming to earth, having intimate relations with mankind, and thus giving birth to a half-man half God. This Creed says different. This isn’t just the offspring of God, this is God himself. God incarnate. God came down Himself. 

(3) The Virgin Mary. This is a must for the Christian faith. The prophecy’s stated that Christ would come via the Virgin. Many had their doubts at the time, so it was important to include this. With the exception of the last 150-200 years, Christianity has always taught that she was a virgin when she gave birth miraculously, and stayed a virgin for the rest of her life on earth. More on that when we move to discuss the Theotokos.

 

"More Spacious than the Heavens," speaking of the womb that held God incarnate

4) Was made man. With all the claims of Jesus being god incarnate and fully divine, we also need to remember he was made a man; this was the great and glorious mystery. Later councils would discuss and affirm to what degree, but Jesus was indeed man. This also was included to combat a heresy known as Deism (one of the types of Gnostics). Deism taught that all physical matter was evil and thus Jesus was only a spirit, and had no physical body, and thus did not physically die. The fact that he became man refutes this- as well as other portions of the section that we will discuss next week.

One last interesting thing about the incarnation I would like to point out is the reason for the incarnation. Yes he came and died for our sins on the Cross, but there is more too it. When God became Man, he glorified and forever blessed physical nature and human flesh. My own Name sake St. Athanasios (Athanasius, as he is more commonly known in English.) in his book On the Incarnation makes this point often. Christ came to save Humanity by saving human nature and flesh itself, conquering death by death, the hymn says. Think about it. He came down from heaven and took on flesh, then he resurrected that flesh, then He ascended into heaven and the flesh of a human being now sits as the right had of God (He did not loose his 100% Humanity when He ascended.) He conquered death by death via the Cross, but he also saved mankind first by becoming Man himself, then by resurrecting Christ, then by sitting at the right hand of God. This is meant to show us that it is possible to obey Gods command “be Holy for I am holy,” because He came and did it while keeping his humanity. Point 1 for Humanity. Now get out there and follow His example, and be Holy saints!

The Nicene Creed - Visible and Invisible

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all ages, Light of Light, True God of True God, Begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man; And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried; And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; And ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end.  
And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke by the Prophets;
And I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the Resurrection of the dead, And the Life of the age to come. Amen. 

            Orthodox Christians –not to mention most mainline branches – believe in Angels and Demons. That’s right. I said it folks. At first glance its not surprising to hear this statement in a Christian creed. Christians have always believed in the spiritual world; yet another idea taken from Judaism. However, what is surprising is the fact that very little is mentioned in the scriptures about this spiritual world and those who reside in it. Sure, there are plenty of angels showing up in the scriptures, but aside from the stories they are attached too, we really do not know a lot about their nature. This creed on the other hand, tells us that God created these angels and the realm they inhabit.

            The mention of the “invisible” in the creed does something much more for us than just bring Angels to our attention; it reminds us of two things: (1) there is a very real dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual, and (2) there is a spiritual world where Angels and Demons are at war with each other over our souls. On the first point, this is a very major theme in early Christianity as shown by the very quick rise of Monasticism. Monastics take the command of Jesus to give all you have to the poor and come follow Him, and Pauls command to pray unceasingly (which they have learned to do – more on Monastics later on in the blog). This is a biblical reality too, which just one example being St. John the Forerunner living in the wilderness eating honey and locusts and rejecting the physical pleasures of life for the far better joys of the spiritual. Some of the OT prophets would fall into the Monastic mold too. The battle against the flesh is very real.

            On the second point, it is important to remember that there is a very real reality of Angels. There is a very long tradition of angels in our faith. Angels hold a very prominent place in Orthodox theology and Iconography. They are messengers and protectors. Sometimes they came become physical, but mostly they appear in visions. I hope to discuss the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael in a later post. The tradition that every person has a guardian angel is also an old one – and a biblical one. Here are just a few:

Psalms 91:11 - For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

Matthew 18:10 - Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

Psalms 34:7 - The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.

            The reality of fallen Angels is also a very real one. They appear to monastics all the time to torment them during prayer and sleep. Some Monastics, such as St. Paisios or Elder Joseph the Hesychast, actually had brutal physical fist fights with demons throughout the night – and had the welts to prove it. The demons rarely show themselves to everyday people as to avoid causing them to actually believe there is a spiritual world and a God, and choose to be more subtle in their attacks; my favorite book on this matter is from Anglican C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters.

           All in all, this portion of the creed teaches us to remember the spiritual world and to stay vigilant. There is much much more about angels and demons than I have talked about here, but we will leave that for another time.

The Nicene Creed - The Lord is One

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. 

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of Light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man. And He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. 

And I believe in one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

            In Deuteronomy 6:4, we hear one of the most important Creeds of the Old Testament, for both Jews and Christians called the Prayer of Shema: ““Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” This is important for early Christian doctrine because one of the central pillars of Christianity is the trinity, three persons, one essence, one God. Very early on, Christians were accused of Polytheism because of our belief of three distinct persons holding ultimate divinity; this would also be a point of contention with Islam in the 7^th Century. But what was astonishing to both Jews and Muslims was our steadfast belief in the Deuteronomic Creed: the LORD is one. Though we believe in the three persons of the trinity as being God, we believe they are ONE God. The councils will later give the language of “three persons, one essence.” In fact, the Hebrew word used for “Lord” in the Shema Prayer is in the plural, not the singular; some point to this as the OT proof of God in community, the Trinity. This is one of the great paradoxical Mysteries of God that we know as true and reveled by God, but that we will never understand in this life time. This mention of “one God” in the creed solidifies for all future generations the belief in the Trinity as One God.

            Additionally, we refer to God the Father as the fountain head of the trinity, in which everything flows. Christ obeys God as the Father and refers to him as such throughout the Gospels; thus, following Christ’s example, we refer to the fountain head of the Trinity as God the Father. Each of the persons in the trinity have a distinct personhood, role, and place within the Trinity; the Father’s is as fountain head by which all authority and creation flow.

            The creed tells us that God the Father is the “maker of heaven and earth,” as the opening lines of Genesis proclaim. What I would like to point out about this particular part of the creed is that God is Creator. He creates heaven, earth, the seen and unseen (ie Angels – we will talk about that next week). A very large focus in modern Evangelicalism is the question of the age of the earth and Evolution. Though it is safe to say that most Orthodox are against Darwinian Evolution in particular, this is not a dogma (as the Roman Catholics attempted to make it in the scholastic era, and particularly in the 19^th century). Because of this, it is possible to come across Orthodox who support the “scientific” approach to the issue, or even flat out do not care about the debate at all. It is important to note that the Orthodox generally do not preclude beliefs in differing theories about the age of the earth or evolutionary theories, though most would see Darwinian Evolution as inherently non-Christian and degrading to the Theology of Man. Again I will state that the Orthodox focus is on faith in God as the Creator, and NOT on the exact age of the earth, or if man and dinosaur cohabitated, or if man came from a pool of enzymes; this debate was an outgrowth between Humanist Scholastics and the Rationalistic-Scholastic Catholic Church – though the Orthodox Church is not completely absent from the discussion.

            It is important to take from this section on the Creed that we believe in One God, as opposed to three, and that He is indeed the creator of all things. This has been a Biblical and Theological truth from the very beginnings of the church, as well as stretching back to the Genesis creation account and the Prayer of Shema. 

Next week we will look at the last part of what the Creed has to say about God the Father: that he created the seen and unseen – ie the Angels and the spiritual world. Until then, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One!”

Blessings,

Devin (Athanasios) Green 

The Symbol of Faith – The Nicene Creed

Emperor St. Constantine and the Church Fathers

            The Nicene Creed is one of the most recognized and widely used Creeds in Christendom. It arose from the First Ecumenical Council held by the Church in the town of Nicaea in the year 325 AD, as most councils do, as a response to Heresy forming against the teachings of the church. When the church saw how the teachings of the Apostles could possibly be twisted into something not of God, the Church got together to publicly decreed the teaching of the Apostles in a definite manor. It can not be emphasized enough that this was not when these teachings were formed, but rather a proclamation of what was already believed and taught by the Apostles from the very beginning. Until this time there was no reason for the church to formally create a creed because the Bishops of the Church faithfully taught and handed down the correct teachings and doctrines. It must also be pointed out that at the time of this council the New Testament scriptures were not canonized yet. The church was still deciding which books should be revered as Holy Scripture and which should be used only for edification (see my other Blog “Early Christian Reader” for more details on that). 

So the teachings of the Apostles, and the Creed, were formed and solid even before the church had a solid grip on what the New Testament would look like. This is important for the discussion on the Reformer’s doctrine of Sola Scriptura that we will have later on in this series. The only “sure” thing we had by 325 AD was the faithful teaching of the Bishops and the most popular letters known to be authentically from the Apostles at that time. The Nicene Creed became a very foundational block of what it meant to call oneself a Christian. This Creed built off of earlier – less formal – creeds such as the Apostles Creed and the Athanasian Creed that holds very similar, if not identical, language that the Council used to create the Nicene Creed. 

The creed is divided into 4 sections: (1) The Father, (2) The Son (the longest), (3) The Holy Spirit, (4) The Holy Church. These are the most important elements of Christian Doctrine. Within the creed we find all theological affirmations that one needs within the Christian faith. God, Trinity, the Scriptures, Baptism, Resurrection, the Church, etc. The first 3 sections tell us what we should believe about God, and the last tells us what we should believe about the church and how we, as God's people, should interact with Him; the basic building blocks of the Christian faith. Lets dig in and discover the Early Christian faith together bit by bit:

 

Icon of the First Ecumenical Council

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I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. 

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of Light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man. And He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. 

And I believe in one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

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            The very first words uttered in the Creed are “I Believe.” This is important to remember as our faith is a faith of belief in the truth of God and not relativistic in nature. This teaches us that even before we know what it is the Christian believes, the Christian must in fact BELIEVE these following tenants. In a modern secular world where radical individualism is king, this is important to remember. Too often today a Christian may flip flop between certain stances on topics of social importance – or even Theological importance for that matter. To be Christian is to believe in One thing, the truth of God handed down to us by the Apostles of Christ. One can not be a Christian and NOT believe that God made the heavens and the earth, that Christ was crucified, or that He rose from the dead. Closer to home, this means the Church and the Christian must have a stance on truth regarding civic topics such as abortion, same sex marriage, drug use, and assisted suicide. To be Christian is to stand up for what our Faith asks us to stand up for; indeed, what Christ commands us to bare, that is, to bare our cross – which may mean being ridiculed for being pro-life, i.e.

            The first two words in the Creed teaches us that what is about to be uttered in the creed is something that we should not stray away from, something we should hold onto deep in our hearts and minds, and if need be, suffer scorn or even die for our beliefs as Christians. A person can not attempt the Christian life in Christ without confronting their thoughts and personal beliefs with that of the Church, the Creed, or the teachings of the Apostles past down to us. In essence, it is what we believe as a Christian that makes us Christian.

 Icon of the 318 Bishops of Nicaea