The Nicene Creed - line by line

Rick Otto · Oct 4, 2014

Kylissa said:
The real trick I think is to know when it is right to resist, and when not. That's what I'm trying to figure out right now anyway.

Interesting. Sounds like synchronizing intuition and conscience.

~Anastasia~ · Oct 4, 2014

Rick Otto said:
Interesting. Sounds like synchronizing intuition and conscience.

Maybe. I'm trying to measure it by edifying or not. Or what is pleasing to God and what probably isn't. But you bring up an interesting thought.

~Anastasia~ · Oct 4, 2014

Thanks, MC. It is indeed time to move forward. I lost most of my day today, LOL.

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

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of
God, begotten of the Father before all ages;

Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten,
not created, of one essence with the Father
through 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.

I usually think about the sacrifice Christ made, not only the sacrifice on the Cross (which I don't mean to belittle by saying this), but even what it must have been like for one from Heaven to come down and dwell on earth amidst sinful men, in a body of flesh that was subject to pain, hunger, exhaustion, cold, etc. For God Himself to humble Himself and willingly put on human flesh is amazing to me.

And that He did this for us - and above all that this IS our salvation - that He became man. Nothing else could be so important to us in an eternal sense.

And of course that He was born of the Holy Spirit (I have a feeling there is more there that I could learn to appreciate that I have not understood yet)

And the Virgin Mary. Proof of a miraculous birth - how can a Virgin bear a Child? Except God Himself is involved ...

Radagast · Oct 4, 2014

~Cassia~ said:
There was an important distinction of the creation in Radagast's post that hopefully was clear in mine also.

I wasn't trying to make any such distinction, nor does the Creed.

Citizen of the Kingdom · Oct 4, 2014

I may have misunderstood your post. I thought you were defining created by the Father with the comma; made thru Christ.

of one essence with the Father;
through Whom all things were made.

you posted

Just pointing out that there should be a comma or semicolon after "Father" (added in red above). The "Whom" here refers to "one Lord Jesus Christ," because it is through Christ that all things were made:

while I posted

All things that the Father created came into being through Jesus Christ as the means,

James Is Back · Oct 4, 2014

Kylissa said:
I usually think about the sacrifice Christ made, not only the sacrifice on the Cross (which I don't mean to belittle by saying this), but even what it must have been like for one from Heaven to come down and dwell on earth amidst sinful men, in a body of flesh that was subject to pain, hunger, exhaustion, cold, etc. For God Himself to humble Himself and willingly put on human flesh is amazing to me.

It amazing me too. Image your the Creator of these lowly creatures called humans that sinned like there is no tomorrow. Comes into flesh,humbles Himself in front of us(case in point washing feet which was one of the lowest things someone can do)and you wonder why we don't humble ourselves for God.

That in itself is utter astounding and mind boggling that the most powerful being ever would do that.

~Anastasia~ · Oct 5, 2014

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

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of
God, begotten of the Father before all ages;

Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten,
not created, of one essence with the Father
through 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.

He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate,
and suffered and was buried;

And He rose on the third day,
according to the Scriptures.

MoreCoffee · Oct 6, 2014

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried,

The council fathers wanted to teach that Jesus, the messiah, really did die in real time in a real place at the hand of a real Roman procurator in opposition to the idea that Jesus never really died or that only the human-nature of Jesus died or that Jesus merely fainted. All these notions have played a part in world history. Islam, for example, presents the claim that Jesus didn't die on the cross and ancient Jewish teachers claimed that Jesus merely fainted and hence that there was no resurrection because he didn't die. Some among the Gnostic sects taught that Jesus' human body died but that Jesus the Logos did not die. Against all these errors the above clause stands firm. (The Islamic error was not in existence at the time the Creed was written, Islam did not appear in the world until Mohammed's time (born around 570 AD died 632 AD).

and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures

For the council fathers and probably for Emperor Constantine this clause was a confession of faith in the physical resurrection against the "spiritual after life" taught by Greek polytheism and also by a number of Greek philosophers.

The Gnostics too taught a spiritual and non-physical after life. And the Creed asserts - as a fundamental of Christian teaching - that Jesus Christ rose again (from the dead) to physical life. Today a number of christian-like religions teach that Jesus rose as a "spirit" some, such as Jehovah's witnesses, teach that Jesus rose as a "spirit creature". This too is rejected by the council fathers in the clause quoted above.

~Anastasia~ · Oct 6, 2014

Thanks, MC. I'm not really up on all the heretics the Creed was put in place specifically to argue against, line by line. That's actually of great interest to me though.

Forgive me, I was hoping I would find something worthwhile to write. This part reiterates what Scripture tells us and we know to be true. But by no means do I mean to belittle it, since it is the crux of our salvation and redemption.

It IS still amazing to think that very God of very God would humble Himself, not only to be born and live a human life when His rightful place is enthroned in heaven, but even so much more to suffer and die a horrible, degrading, and painful death for our sakes.

As Christ said, no greater love has anyone than this ...

And our hope is based entirely on the Resurrection. If Christ did not rise, then we have no hope. But the same power that raised Him from death into life, will resurrect/change our mortal bodies one day ... glory to God! Death is trampled down by death, and Christ is the Victor!

O death, where is your sting?

MoreCoffee · Oct 6, 2014

Kylissa said:
Thanks, MC. I'm not really up on all the heretics the Creed was put in place specifically to argue against, line by line. That's actually of great interest to me though.

Forgive me, I was hoping I would find something worthwhile to write. This part reiterates what Scripture tells us and we know to be true. But by no means do I mean to belittle it, since it is the crux of our salvation and redemption.

It IS still amazing to think that very God of very God would humble Himself, not only to be born and live a human life when His rightful place is enthroned in heaven, but even so much more to suffer and die a horrible, degrading, and painful death for our sakes.

As Christ said, no greater love has anyone than this ...

And our hope is based entirely on the Resurrection. If Christ did not rise, then we have no hope. But the same power that raised Him from death into life, will resurrect/change our mortal bodies one day ... glory to God! Death is trampled down by death, and Christ is the Victor!

O death, where is your sting?

A lot of the creed is very basic Christianity - if one happens to be orthodox. But strange as it may seem, many clauses in the creed are either explicitly rejected or implicitly rejected by a surprisingly large proportion of professing christianity. As I noted Jehovah's witnesses reject the physical resurrection and claim a spirit-creature resurrection instead, they also reject the deity of Christ and the person-hood of the Holy Spirit (regarding the Spirit as "God's active force"; something that is impersonal like the wind). Latter Day Saints appear to believe in a kind of polytheism. Muslims reject the Blessed Trinity, the death & resurrection of Jesus Christ and a number of other things. Rabbinic Judaism, which is the kind of Judaism we know today, rejects the deity of Christ and the personality of the Holy Spirit. And some professing Christians hold to views on the incarnation and the person and work of Jesus Christ that are quite far from orthodox Christian beliefs. So, as basic as the creeds statements are, there are many who reject some portions of the creed.

It is a good exercise for us, in GT, to go through the creed because it helps to clarify what we do believe and also why we needed to say it. Like many of the Church's doctrines the doctrines in the creed were stated mainly because some reject them and they needed to be said and defended by the orthodox to stop the Church from falling into error and destruction.

God be with you, my sister, and keep us all in the faith.

Edit (added about four hours after the above was first posted): I cannot leave this post uncorrected.

I withdraw the bold text. God forgive me.

We say the creed because it is us, it is what we believe in heart and mind and soul. It is our life and our hope and our reason for existing. It is our refuge when the accuser comes to whisper "Did God really say ...?" and when we hear "If God is your father ...". The Church is God's house it is his temple we can no more defend it than we can create it or maintain it. He decides how it is shaped and how big or small it is. He is the Lord and we? We are his friends, his children, and his servants.

We say the creed and the teachers of error hate it, not because we say it, nor because we believe it, but because they do not.

God have mercy on me, a sinner.

Radagast · Oct 6, 2014

Theodore of Mopsuestia again:

"After having said: Who for us children of men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate and became a man (our blessed Fathers) added: And was born of the Virgin Mary and crucified in the days of Pontius Pilate. They might have said many things that happened in the meantime such as He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, was laid in a manger, was under the law, was baptised and made manifest the works of the Gospel and many more things. If they had wished it they would have narrated all that the Sacred Books have taught us about Him and that which was accomplished by Him for our salvation, as He fulfilled thoroughly the law of nature for us, because He was going to reform our nature, and He further observed the law of Moses so that He might pay our debt to the Lawgiver; and He was baptised so that He might give an emblem to the grace of our baptism; and He showed effectively in Himself the Economy of the Gospel to all men. After all these He went to crucifixion and death so that He might destroy the last enemy, which is death, and make manifest the new and immortal life.

Our Fathers, however, took trouble to say all these things in short terms so that the hearers might learn them with ease, and so that we might also learn thoroughly every one of them from the Sacred Books. They wrote and arranged the Creed in short terms ...

They first taught us about the nature of the Godhead of the Only Begotten, that He is from the Father before all the worlds, that He is born of the nature of the Father and not made, and that He is a true God and consubstantial with God because He is born of His Father. After having taught us these things concerning the divinity of the Only Begotten they proceeded to teach us concerning the Economy of His humanity and said: Who for us children of men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate and became a man like us in order to effect salvation for all the human race. And they taught all those things that happened to the human nature: things through which God wished His Economy to be accomplished on our behalf. ...

This is the reason why, after having said, And was crucified in the days of Pontius Pilate, they added: And was buried, in order to teach us that He did not die only in appearance and in an unreal way but that He actually died a natural death so that after His death His body was also buried according to the law of human nature. In this they followed also the teaching of the blessed Paul, who, when speaking to the Corinthians of the resurrection of the dead because of which he made mention of the resurrection of Christ our Lordso that he might confirm the general resurrection from the resurrection of Christ first taught about His death in saying that Christ died a real death, since His death once established the words concerning the preaching of His resurrection will be readily accepted. He said in effect: 'I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried.' He did not make use of the additional sentence 'and was buried' to no purpose, but he made use of it to show that He truly died according to the law of human nature and that He duly endured death according to a mortal nature.

In this same way, after our blessed Fathers had said, And was crucified in the days of Pontius Pilate, in order to show that He had died they added the sentence: And was buried, so as to demonstrate, according to the preaching of the Apostle, that He had truly died.

Further, as the blessed Paul, after having said that He was buried and that He had truly died, added: 'He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures' and it was in this way that he was able to teach concerning the resurrection of Christ after His death and to fix the true belief in His death in the souls of the hearersso also our blessed Fathers, after having said, And was buried, added: And rose the third day according to the Scriptures. They made an accurate use of the words of the Scriptures in delivering to us the belief in the resurrection. The question involved in the resurrection is not an unimportant one because to those who do not believe it implies the danger of death and of falling away from all benefits, but on those who believe this same resurrection bestows confidence, and puts the seal on all the wonderful things accomplished in the Economy of Christ. Indeed this resurrection is the end of all the Economy of Christ and the principal object of all the reforms wrought by Him, as it is through it that death was abolished, corruption destroyed, passions extinguished, mutability removed, the inordinate emotions of sin consumed, the power of Satan overthrown, the urge of demons brought to nought and the affliction resulting from the law wiped out. An immortal and immutable life reigns by which all the above evils are abolished and destroyed, and it was through them that the demons entered to fight against us. ..."

Citizen of the Kingdom · Oct 6, 2014

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.
He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate,
and suffered and was buried;
And He rose on the third day,
according to the Scriptures.

I have some catching up to do but sitting on the patio listening to the night owls seems a good time to do that. The wording is that He came down from heaven for our salvation and was incarnate as a man. How much our limited language encompases 'came down' and 'heaven'is hard to say. God becoming man in the incarnation may be for some as limited in undersanding but that's what the Christian faith is based upon. The bible essentually says that He was born of a virgin with the Holy Spirit over shadowing... also essential to Christian belief.. His death on the cross was a real suffering death, He being laid in a tomb. As fully human he suffered death. Not only was He true God but also fully human in the incarnation for our salvation. Because death lost the victory the Risen Lord became the keystone of Christian doctrine and experience. And not just a physical resurrection as was the case of Lazerus but in a transformed body as the firstborn of the dead. The Christian has that as the hope of their faith that is set on Him.

MoreCoffee · Oct 7, 2014

I repent, in sackcloth and ashes I am wrong. The creed is not us defending the church from error and destruction. How wrong I am, forgive me.

Like many of the Church's doctrines the doctrines in the creed were stated mainly because some reject them and they needed to be said and defended by the orthodox to stop the Church from falling into error and destruction.

I withdraw the quote. God forgive me.

We say the creed because it is us, it is what we believe in heart and mind and soul. It is our life and our hope and our reason for existing. It is our refuge when the accuser comes to whisper "Did God really say ...?" and when we hear "If God is your father ...". The Church is God's house it is his temple we can no more defend it than we can create it or maintain it. He decides how it is shaped and how big or small it is. He is the Lord and we? We are his friends, his children, and his servants.

We say the creed and the teachers of error hate it, not because we say it, nor because we believe it, but because they do not.

God have mercy on me, a sinner.

Radagast · Oct 7, 2014

Fantastic! Now we have anti-Trinitarians on the Nicene Creed thread!

I think CF has reached its use-by date.

~Anastasia~ · Oct 7, 2014

I appreciate the perspectives here, but the purpose of this thread is to discuss the meaning of the Nicene Creed. Nearly every single thread in GT dissolves into an "us vs. them" mentality, and frankly, I have yet to see that be done to anyone's benefit at all. It only divides us more deeply.

Since the requirement to post in this section is an agreement with the Nicene Creed, I would hope that this would be one thread that we ought to be able to keep to the topic, and not use it to divide ourselves.

Once we finish working through it, such discussions might be more appropriate. But for right now, at least until we get all the way through the Creed, I would hope to keep such to the minimum. Everyone's cooperation is appreciated.

Thank you.

~Anastasia~ · Oct 7, 2014

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

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of
God, begotten of the Father before all ages;

Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten,
not created, of one essence with the Father
through 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.

He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate,
and suffered and was buried;

And He rose on the third day,
according to the Scriptures.

He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father

Mama Kidogo · Oct 7, 2014

seeingeyes said:
In the case of those who are Trinitarian, the angst is not from a description of the Trinity (which they agree with), but the raising of the creed to the level of scripture (whether this is true in practice or not).

Two cents.

What level would that be? The Creed is a confession.

Mama Kidogo · Oct 7, 2014

**Staff Edit**

Now back on topic
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

A simple basic truth and position of the Authority of Christ.

~Anastasia~ · Oct 7, 2014

I will say that the phrase of being "seated at the right hand of the Father" inspired at least one other question.

Does that presuppose that the Father has a physical form, and has a literal throne in heaven alongside the Son?

Or is that too literal an interpretation?

Targaryen · Oct 7, 2014

Kylissa said:
I will say that the phrase of being "seated at the right hand of the Father" inspired at least one other question.

Does that presuppose that the Father has a physical form, and has a literal throne in heaven alongside the Son?

Or is that too literal an interpretation?

For me it's a bit too literal. The general consensus is the Father really has no form of body nor even gender. The term Father really was in the patriarchal sense of the ties of the ECF's and prior used to convey the sense of God as caregiver to the extent your earthly Father is, loving and kind but break His rules and there is a consequence to be paid.

The Nicene Creed - line by line

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