"Do as I say, not as I do" is a phrase that I’m sure has passed the lips of many a parent.
We’re often fully aware of the discrepancy between what we say and what we do. But how about the gap that lies between what we say out loud and what we say in our minds and hearts? In other words – the gap between what we say and what we believe?
What we say vs. what we mean
Churches are steeped in liturgical culture, and I don’t just mean Anglican churches; all our churches, whichever domination or however they identify, are full of liturgy. We are all aware of the varying forms of ‘creeds’ we say or sing, confessions and words that we repeat to start a service or welcome newcomers. There are lots of words we say to reinforce the gospel to our hearts and minds – words we use to encourage, challenge, comfort one another in our corporate worship.
But there are often prevailing thoughts, doubts, and questions that arise when we speak these 'creeds' – which I fear we quieten. Sooner or later we’ve been going to church or been a Christian for decades and we carry on speaking our liturgy, parroting our phrases, while the unasked questions become forgotten.
But there are occasional moments where we slow down and moments when someone asks us the meaning of the words we say. When that happens, all that is suppressed bubbles up to the surface.
It might be when we question the meaning of words like these from the Nicene Creed:
"Begotten, not made
Of one being with the Father"
These words have been spoken with so much certainty and familiarity over the years, and yet when asked what they mean we feel panic – I should know the answer; I say this all the time, and yet I don’t know what it means. Guilt, fear, panic, and shame take over so often in these moments.
A cultural problem
But this is the culture we find so often in our churches. We pride ourselves on our evangelicalism – our training, our programmes and our outreach – and no one wants to ask the questions because everyone feels they should already know the answers… So we get caught in this awful, unspoken cycle of shame and embarrassment.
We need to speak these into the light. Questions should never be confined to the ‘baby’ Christians or ‘seekers’ who attend the Christianity Explored courses we put on so professionally and competently as ‘the Bible teachers’, the ‘experienced and mature’ Christians.
What has happened to our seeking hearts? What has happened to our humility? What has happened to our hunger? Our hunger to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus – to come to Him as children, asking and badgering Him with our ‘who, what, how, when’ and oh so many ‘whys?’ He delights for the little children to come to Him with eyes wide open, hearts and minds eager to be filled and fed with all He has to offer. He delights in Mary sitting at His feet, captivated with everything He has to say.
So, regarding these words in the Nicene Creed:
"Begotten, not made
Of one being with the Father"
What do they really mean?
The Nicene Creed: Jesus is fully God
This year is the 1700th anniversary of the 325AD Nicean Council that gifted us the Nicene Creed.
The Creed contains rich Christology founded on Scripture. These are words that go part-way to encapsulating the mystery and majesty of Christ’s two natures – fully human and fully divine in the grace of the incarnation. It is full of theology that lifts high the name of Jesus and truth that affirms Christ as truly God.
Above all, it is our evangelical legacy gifted to us by our brothers and sisters in Christ to contend for the true gospel – and it served to stamp out the hugely enticing false gospel of Arius which was circulating at the time.
While Arius was maintaining a created Christ, a Christ made in time who was god "in name only," Athanasius and those at Nicea fought to exalt and preserve the glory and holiness of Christ’s eternal name in the church. They declared Christ as "true God, from true God, eternally begotten… Begotten, not made, of one being with the Father" – they maintained that He was the Son of God, of the Father, begotten of Him eternally.
‘For us and our salvation, He came down.’
When He came down to earth, the eternal Son added to His full and true divinity, full and true humanity. As He eternally shares in the holiness and majesty of the godhead, He now forevermore will be sharing in our humanity – yet without sin.
The eternal Son of God, the all Creating One is also the One in whom, for whom and through whom all things were made. The Lord of all Creation who came down into His kingdom, took on flesh and came to reveal to us the glory of God. This is the grace of the incarnation, the begotten One – never made, never created.
Jesus is the One of the Father, who came out of love for the Father and love for us – divine grace clothed in human nature. True God leaving the glories of heaven and all He shared in the godhead to bring us to share in, to partake of, His inheritance. The Son of God clothing us with His robes of righteousness and enveloping us forevermore within the loving, enfolding and eternal trinitarian fellowship of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Only the One who was of one being with the Father, who shared in full divinity and perfect holiness; only One who shared in our full and true humanity; only the only Son of God, true God from true God, begotten not made of one being with the Father, could make us one with God, one in Him forevermore.
Arius’ downfall was his assumption that everything about God could be explained. But Athanasius taught and showed that we cannot work up from our experience to what God must be like – we can’t start with human logic and apply our ideas to God.
In forming the Nicene Creed, men like Athanasius, Alexandra, (and even some have maintained Father Christmas himself- Saint Nicholas), refused to move with the times, refused to apply human rationale to divine mystery and grace, and refused to present a palatable Jesus to the pluralistic culture that couldn’t cope with the rise of Christianity.
When we say the Creed in church, it is often accompanied with these words:
"This is the faith of the church. This is our faith."
Never stop seeking, never stop coming to Him with all the 'hows' and 'whys,' 'whens,' and 'whats'. Come to Him daily as little children for He has made of us children of God.
This is the faith of the church. This is our faith.
He is the faith of the church. He is our faith.
