06_person_1211_nicea

Jesus is fully God and fully man, with two natures and two wills. The Council of Nicaea affirmed his divinity and addressed the heresy of Arianism. Emperor Constantine called the council to maintain unity in Christianity. Athanasius of Alexandria played a significant role in defending the divinity of Jesus. Biblical passages like John 1 and Colossians 1 were used to argue against Arianism. The Nicene Creed states that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, eternal and of the same essence as the Father. The council affirmed that Jesus is truly God. Alright, so Jesus is the man who is God, fully God, fully man, one person, two natures, two wills. So we're going to look at that point that he is fully God, okay? He is the same essence as God, so he's eternal with God and the same essence as God. That's what the Council of Nicaea dealt with, that he's fully God. The Council of Nicaea was so major that early church history names its divisions after it. There are the anti-Nicaean fathers, which came before Nicaea, and then the ones that came after Nicaea, which are called the post-Nicaean fathers. The Christology after Nicaea is markedly more mature. The Council of Nicaea was called for by Emperor Constantine, who feared division within his kingdom of Christianity, if Christianity was not unified in its core doctrine. Nicaea hosted hundreds of church leaders and lasted for several months. The main issue at the Council of Nicaea was Arianism. The two main issues Arianism taught were, they said that Jesus could not be eternal with the Father if he was begotten, and famously it said that there once was when he was not. So that's the first one. The second one was, they said that Jesus could not be the same essence as the Father. And some would say he was of a similar essence, but all of them agreed that he was not of the same essence. The main hero during the time of this was Athanasius of Alexandria. He was only 27 years old when Nicaea happened. And even though he was only in his 20s when the controversy erupted, fighting this heresy would be the war he devoted the entire rest of his life to. The five main biblical passages at play here were John 1, which says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So you have with-ness and was-ness, which is an interesting text they used a lot. It says, in the beginning, the Son is eternal with the Father, and the Word was God. So the Son is the same essence as the Father. Kind of one verse that teaches both things. He's eternal with God, and he's the same essence as God. And then John 1, 2 says, through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. And so he must be uncreated, because he's not part of all things. Anyways, the Arians countering this would then quote Colossians 1, 15, that says that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. And that genitive is somewhat open to interpretation. They would say it's of creation, which means that he must be created. But Athanasius said, now he's the firstborn of the whole creation, and demonstrates that the Son was other than the whole creation, and not a creature. And so this is why, actually, the NIV and the CSB translate it as the firstborn over all creation. So he's not created. Then in Proverbs 8, 22, it's talking about wisdom. And ESV and the others just say, God possessed me at the beginning of his creation. But that's the Hebrew, and that's the normal reading of the text. It could simply say, God possessed wisdom at the beginning. But in the Alexacts, the Septuagint, the Greek translation that the church fathers were using, it translated that word as created, not just possessed. So it would say, God created me at the beginning of his creation. So now you can see how the Arians would interpret this verse. So my response would have just been, well, this is a metaphorical thing about wisdom, not talking about Jesus. So it's kind of interesting to me that the Antonicenes never took that route. And rather than saying that Proverbs 8 was just a fanciful and figurative metaphor of personalizing wisdom with no reference to the coming Messiah, instead, they doubled down, and all of them agreed it must be referring to Christ. They kind of disagreed on how exactly to interpret it, but they agreed that the Arians were misinterpreting it. Before this controversy erupted, Origen, one of the Antonicene fathers, who is more familiar with the Hebrew and skeptical of the Alexact translation, interpreted it as referring to eternal generation. Nevertheless, the Nicenes of the 4th century, even though they were not exactly united on how to interpret Proverbs 8-22, they maintained that it was a blasphemous and a pious thought to say that God could ever be without his wisdom. And all of their interpretations rejected the possibility that Jesus was created or originate. In other words, they maintained that the Son was eternal with the Father. Hebrews 1 was another one of the important verses because it associates the exact representation of God's essence. And then John 3 says that Jesus is the Son of God, begotten of the Father. There are a lot more of these scriptural passages. The section of the Creed on Christology reads, I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, born from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, through him all things remain. So you can see it clearly teaches that he is eternal with the Father, in the same essence as the Father. Consubstantial, when you see it, it just means of the same essence. He is light from light, invisible, sorry, image of the invisible God, the radiance of God's glory. Okay, so now you see it clearly that Jesus is fully God, eternal with God, in the same essence as God.