Christmas is about theology. During this season of the year, we read selections of Scripture that tell the story of the Virgin conception of the Son of God. We sing hymns like O Come all Ye Faithful (Wade) that are replete with theological phrases:
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant! O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem! Come and behold him, born the King of angels.
Refrain: O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord!
God from true God, and Light from Light eternal, born of a virgin, to earth he comes! Only-begotten Son of God the Father (Refrain)
Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation, sing, all ye citizens of heav’n above! Glory to God, all glory in the highest (Refrain)
Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning; Jesus, to thee be all glory giv’n! Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing (Refrain)
Many of the phrases of this Christmas hymn (and others) come from Scripture and the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed was developed in the fourth century and has endured as the primary confession of Faith for most Christians. It was about the same time that the Christian Church began to celebrate Christmas as a holy day. So, the Nicene Creed and the celebration of Christmas are inseparably linked. The Nicene Creed was not a new invention of Christian teaching, but a response to various errors that did not reflect the historic teaching of the Christian church. The purpose of the Nicene Creed was to canonize the teaching of the Apostles as found in the New Testament.
Throughout history, there have been deviations from the teaching of the Nicene Creed. Presently, there seems to be something of a revival of these ancient errors.
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- There is a significant branch of Pentecostalism that denies the doctrine of the Trinity.
- According to the 2020 Lifeway State of Theology survey, 55% of Christians in the United States believe that “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God”. In other words, the majority of US Christians embrace the ancient error of Arianism.
- In recent years, some prominent Evangelicals have embraced the doctrine of the eternal functional subordination of the Son which denies the consubstantial equality of the Son with the Father.
So, I will briefly revisit these issues by looking at the words of the Nicene theologians.
God the Son is eternally begotten of the Father – not created (John 1:1, 18; 3:16). The Father is the source of the Son and the Spirit, but all have existed together from eternity. As Irenaeus declared, “God always had in himself… the Son and the Spirit” (Against Heresies, 4.20.4). Cyril of Jerusalem declared that the Father “did not become a Father at some point in time but was eternally the Father of the Only-begotten” (Catechetical Lectures 7.4-7.5). The doctrine of divine impassibility (God cannot change) insists that Holy Trinity has always existed as the Father begetting the Son and the Spirit proceeding from the Father and Son. Origen wrote, “The Father generates an uncreated Son and brings forth a Holy Spirit, not as if he had no previous existence, but because the Father is the origin and source of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and no ‘before’ or ‘after’ can be understood as existing in them (On First Principles 1.2.3).
The Son (and the Spirit) is equal in divinity with the Father. Although the ancient theologians sometimes ranked the divine persons of the Trinity (Father as first person, Son as second person, Spirit as third person) they insisted that each person was of one divine essence and eternally united. Leo the Great wrote, “For in the divine Trinity there is nothing dissimilar or unequal, and nothing that can be thought about its substance varies in power, glory, or eternity. Although the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit differ in their personal properties, there is no difference in divinity, nor is their nature distinct in any way” (Sermon 75.3). Likewise, Augustine wrote, “In the Father is unity, in the Son, equality, in the Holy Spirit the harmony of unity and equality, and these three attributes are all one because of the Father, all equal because of the Son and all harmonious because of the Holy Spirit (Christian Instruction, 1:5.5.) John of Damascus described the Trinity as “these three are indivisible and inseparable from each other, united in one and interpenetrating each other without confusion” (Orthodox Faith, 3.5.).
The Father and Son (and Spirit) share a unity of divine will. Augustine declared, “There is one will of the Father and Son, one inseparable activity” (The Trinity, 2.9). John of Damascus wrote that God is “one essence, one divinity, one power, one will, one energy, one beginning, one authority, one dominion, and one sovereignty” and is made known in “three perfect hypostases (persons)” (Orthodox Faith, 1.8). Furthermore, among the three perfect hypostases, “None of these is created, none is inferior, and none is subservient (On Heresies, Epilogue). Likewise, Origen insisted, “What belongs to the nature of deity is common to the Father and the Son” (On First Principles, 1.1.8). Clement of Alexandria insisted that “The Son of God is one with the Father by equality of nature. He orders all things in accordance with the Father’s will” (Stromateis 7.2). Hippolytus wrote that the Son “was in the Father in power and disposition. The Son is the Father’s mind” (Noetus 7). He also described the distinction of the divine persons as “The Father decrees, the Word executes… and the Son is manifested by the Spirit… the who Father commands, the Son obeys and the Holy Spirit who gives understanding” (Against Noetus 14). Ephrem the Syrian declared that the perfection of the Holy Trinity is revealed as “The Father is the mind, the Son is the word, the Spirit is the voice; three names, one will, one voice” (Hymn on the Dead and the Trinity). He insisted that the Trinitarian will is “one in agreement” (Sermons against Rash Inquirers 2.2). Because the Father and Son share the unity of divine will, there can be no subordination of the Son, or Spirit, to the Father. There can be no variance, or separation, of divine will within the Holy Trinity (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 42:15).
The eternally begotten Son became incarnate – Jesus Christ. Jesus is the union of divinity and humanity – fully human and fully divine, one person with two natures (John 1:14). This union of natures in Christ means that Jesus possessed a divine will and a human will. Even in a state of humiliation, the divine will of Christ was always one with the Father. The Incarnation did not diminish the divinity of the of Son in any way. Clement of Alexandria wrote, “He came forth a man of a woman, not casting aside his being as God… Even in the assumption of flesh he remained what he was” (Second Letter to Nestorius, 4). As Hippolytus declared, “Having become man, Christ is still God forever” (Against Noetus 6). Even so, because the incarnate Son possessed a human will, it was possible that he be tempted in disobedience to the Father (Matthew 4:1ff; Hebrews 2:17; 5:8). As Jesus faced the cross, He cried out, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). The language of subordination of the Son to the Father speaks to the Incarnation, that is the eternal Son’s assumption of human nature. The incarnate Son demonstrated obedience to the Father and has been exalted and glorified (Philippians 2:5ff). Therefore, he is no longer capable of disobedience. The human/divine will of Christ is forever one with the Father. The doctrine of eternal functional subordination of the Son is an error. The pre-existent divine Son was in no way inferior or subordinate to the Father because they share a singular divine essence and will. Likewise, the exalted divine/human Son is no way inferior or subordinate to the Father because Jesus Christ is the fullness of the Father (Colossians 1:19) and the “exact representation of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3).
One more thing… according to the 2020 Lifeway State of Theology assessment, when asked, “Learning about theology is for pastors and scholars only”, 85% of the respondents disagreed. In other words, Christians are expecting their pastors to engage them with theology. Advent and Christmas is a perfect time to begin.
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