If Jesus isn’t fully man and fully God, then we aren’t saved.

Justin Holcomb:
If Jesus isn’t fully man and fully God, then we aren’t saved. Let’s talk about it on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you’ve suffered too long under a do more, try harder religion, Key Life is here to proclaim that Jesus sets the captive free. Steve invited Justin Holcomb to teach us this week. Justin is a priest, a seminary professor, and the author of God With Us: 365 Devotions on the Person and Work of Christ.

Justin Holcomb:
Thank you Matthew. My name is Justin Holcomb, and I have the joy of teaching this week. Yesterday we looked at the Apostles’ Creed, and today we discuss the Nicene Creed. For further reading on these and other creeds, I wrote an accessible book on this topic called Know the Creeds and Councils. We’re doing this because Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would lead the church into truth, and that means that history matters. So, why study the creeds? As Christians, we live 2,000 years removed from the time of our founder, and we’re the recipients of a long line of Christians insights, mistakes, and ways of speaking about God and the Christian faith. Today’s Christianity is directly affected by what earlier Christians believed. Some people today ignore history altogether and try to reconstruct what they call real Christianity with nothing more than a Bible. But this approach misses a great deal, kind of me and my Bible and that’s all I need is very individualistic and usually leads to some confusion and false teaching. Not because there’s anything wrong with the Bible, but because we can’t be trusted just to read it and reading it with others who can give us insights and ask questions and tell us what is obvious there in the text that we missed is very important. Christians of the past were no less concerned with being faithful to God than we are. And they sought to fit together all of their teachings with Scripture and what they read in Scripture and what it has to say about the mysteries of Christianity, like the Incarnation, the Trinity, salvation because of Jesus Christ, and more. To ignore these insights is to attempt to reinvent the wheel and to risk reinventing it pretty badly. Okay, let’s explore the Nicene Creed, it is perhaps the most famous and most influential creed in the history of the church because it settled the questions of how Christians can worship one God and also claim that this God is three persons. The Nicene Creed improved on and expanded the language of the Apostles’ Creed by including more specific statements about the divinity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The Council of Nicaea, where the creed comes from, was held in 325 A.D. to resolve a problem that had sprung up years earlier and had left the Christian church fiercely divided. In A.D. 318, an elder named Arius began teaching heresy that taught Jesus was not God at all, but only a celestial servant of the Most High True God, who alone was Almighty, Transcendent, and Creator of all things. After all, he argued, Jesus was prone to emotions, as opposed to the Father who was always in control of emotions. He grew and learned as opposed to the Father who never changed. He died as opposed to the Father who is immortal. Only the Father could be considered uncreated and timelessly self existent, he taught. So, the council turned to Scripture together, places Jesus seemed to suggest that he is subordinate to the Father, like in John 14:28. And then at the same time, Scripture is equally clear that Jesus is and claimed to be both divine and equal with the Father as God in John 1 and John 5, John 10, John 14. The question is, how can we worship Jesus and worship the Father, who we know is different from Jesus and still claim to be monotheists who worship one true god. The Council of Nicaea was convened to resolve this very issue. The final form of the Nicene Creed is actually the product of two councils, one in Nicaea in A.D. 325 and one in Constantinople in A.D. 381. Notice that it is Trinitarian in form and states this, and I’m just going to again, just like the Apostles’ Creed, I just going to quote the whole thing says, because it’s short enough.

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of things visible and invisible. And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God and very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He 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 quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; 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; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

That’s the Creed. Now, the Creed follows the same structure of the Apostles’ Creed. It mentions all three members of the Trinity, and it also, just like the Apostles’ Creed retains the snapshot of the Gospel story when it describes Jesus. It expands the description of the life and work of Jesus, explicitly stating that his mission was, quote.

For us and for our salvation.

The Creed tells us that Christ’s mission for our salvation included coming down out of heaven and taking on the flesh from the virgin Mary, carrying that flesh in suffering through his life, and to the death on the cross. He was crucified by Pontius Pilate. And it says again,

For us.

which is, that’s straight from Scripture. Paul, the apostle Paul loved saying that Christ died

For us, for sins, for our salvation.

For you, for us is huge in our proclamation of the gospel. Christ died for us to take our place of suffering, to set us free and to receive salvation. Also, the Holy Spirit is clearly God, and the deity of the Holy Spirit is mentioned here, who is glorified and worshiped. And it is the, this is a key piece that is highlighted here in the Nicene Creed. And the Holy Spirit is the one who leads the church in its worship and its confession of the Triune God. The main difference between this Creed and the Apostles’ Creed is a new expanded section on the relationship between Jesus and the Father. Since the chief concern of the council was to defend the true divinity of the Son against the teachings of the heretic Arius, the Creed asserts this by professing, quote.

The Lord Jesus Christ to be,

quote,

the Son of God,

quote,

begotten of the Father,

quote,

only begotten.

All of those are Biblical terms. The people at the council went straight to Scripture and pulled out phrases about Jesus being the

Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, Lord Jesus Christ.

They did that on purpose to highlight this is a Biblical teaching. This isn’t us making things up. So, the Creed says Jesus is also God.

God from God

is the phrase. And if you need an analogy, the next phrase serves us very well.

Light of Light.

How can you separate light from light? Well, the point is you can’t. Neither can the Father and the Son be separated, they can be distinct, but they can’t be separated. Then it repeats for emphasis that.

Jesus is very God of very God.

He is not made, or created, or a product of the true God. Jesus is the true God. Like the Apostles’ Creed, it encapsulates the entire Good News of the Gospel into a short and rich summary, it describes the Triune God who turns toward humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the God Man who suffered, died, rose again, and ascended. Additionally, the Creed goes on to express our future hope, the purpose of living the Christian life. The fact that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are just as much God as the Father is a non-negotiable part of Christianity. We pray to the Father, empowered by the Spirit, through the Son. And since questions about the relationship between Jesus and God the Father are inevitable, they needed to be answered well then and still today. The Nicene Creed encapsulates what Scripture says about that relationship and acknowledges that there is a mystery. If Christianity had agreed that Jesus could be a lesser God, whatever that might mean from Arius, then the work of God and Christ for our salvation would have been rendered meaningless. That’s why at the beginning I said if Jesus isn’t fully man, fully God, then we aren’t saved. No mere man, no half god could possibly intervene to save fallen and sinful humanity, let alone restore all creation. Only the Creator can enter creation to fix its brokenness and redeem its original latent purpose. The Creed declares that the Father and the Son share one common substance. Only the Creator can recreate. Only the Maker can remake. Only God can save us from our sins. Because the Father and the Son are one substance, we can also be assured that we actually know God and Jesus Christ. After all, Hebrews 1 says.

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.

And so, when we look on Jesus, we look to God. Without confidence that Jesus is God, united in the substance with the Father, we cannot be sure that Jesus can speak for God, forgive sins for God, declare righteousness for God, and do anything else to make us children of the Father. This is why the Nicene Creed is such a gift. Again summarizing, What the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit before all time decided to do, which was redeem humanity from sin and give us eternal life. And that folks is why theology matters today and forevermore.

Matthew Porter:
Thanks Justin. That was Bishop Justin Holcomb, continuing to teach us about the creeds and councils, today, looking at the Nicene Creed. That was some interesting stuff, right? And still more to discover tomorrow. So, hope you will join us for that. If I’m being honest. I’m really proud of the work we do here at Key Life, and one of my favorite things is the writing we put out. We have amassed some terrific contributors over time. Twice a year, we bring together some of our most popular articles into a magazine. There’s a print version we put out early in the year and a digital version that comes out in the summer. Best of all, you can access both of those for free. If you’ve never checked it out, man, you’ve got to get in on this. For digital, just stop by keylife.org/magazines and for a print edition, just call us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that magazine. Or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, just ask for your free copy of Key Life magazine. And Hey, before you go, if you value the work of Key Life, would you join us in that work through your financial support? Giving is easy. You just charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or you can now give safely and securely through text. Just pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.