The Nicene Creed

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Our Father and our God, we come to you in Jesus' name and we thank you and we praise you that you have allowed us to be in your house tonight to be about the business of study.
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As we continue to examine church history, I pray that you would open our hearts to a better understanding of why these things are important.
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And tonight, Lord, as we look at the Council of Nicaea and the Nicene Creed, help us to understand why these ecumenical councils in the early church were so important in not only establishing doctrine based on the scripture, but also ensuring that down through the ages that we would have a purity in our understanding of what the word says about these things.
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And we pray and thank you for men like Athanasius who stood against much incorrect theology and against much hatred and yet still stood for truth.
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And we pray that we would be in the spirit of Athanasius as we continue to stand for truth in a world that tends to hate truth and tends to hate us as well.
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We thank you again, Father, for all that you've given us and pray now that you would be with us as we study.
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In Christ's name we pray.
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Amen.
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We have come tonight to lesson number four in our examination of the creeds and confessions of the church through the ages and why they matter.
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Tonight our lesson is on the Nicene Creed.
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So far in our study, we have examined in our first three lessons an overview of church history.
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We've looked at the last 2000 years and kind of given sort of a bird's eye view of all that happened.
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We've looked at creeds which are found within the text of the Bible itself.
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Statements which are intended to be not only memorized, but look to as statements of faith, which obviously we believe the whole Bible is a statement of faith.
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We believe everything that it says, but there are certain things that lend themselves to specific doctrines within Scripture that it benefits us to memorize.
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We would call those creeds.
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And also we have looked at two early church documents.
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This was our last lesson.
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We looked at the Didache, which was a document which arose during the time period of the apostles.
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It was really one of the first statements of faith, one of the first confessions used by the church as sort of a church order.
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And you remember in our lesson, it talked about how baptism was supposed to be administered, how communion was supposed to be handled and all these things and how it was done within the early church.
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We also looked last week at the Apostles Creed.
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We noted that the Apostles Creed was not written by the apostles, but yet it has been considered through the history of the church to be a good summary of the doctrine that the apostles taught.
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Tonight, we are going to examine the first and some might call the most significant ecumenical council of the church, the council at Nicaea.
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On your notes, you'll notice we're going to look at the history of the council.
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So we'll begin there.
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Up until the fourth century, that would be the 300s, you'll remember, the Christian church had suffered under the persecution of Rome.
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But in 313, the Edict of Milan made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire.
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This was the result of Emperor Constantine having converted to Christianity after believing that he had seen the sign of the cross in the sky prior to the Battle of Milvian Bridge.
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And he believed that that sign had brought him victory.
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So he believed that the one whose sign that was, Jesus Christ, was worthy of his worship.
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Now, I mentioned a few weeks ago, there is debate about Constantine and his conversion as to whether or not it was a true and sincere conversion.
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We're going to talk next week about how following the Council of Nicaea, Constantine tended to side tended to at least give credibility to the Aryans.
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And his son Constantius actually sided with the Aryans, which were in opposition to the Council of Nicaea.
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So we'll learn more about that next week in talking about Constantine and some of the post-Nicaean history.
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But at this time in Rome, prior to the Council of Nicaea, Rome had a hodgepodge of religious beliefs and practices.
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And within Christianity, there was serious debate taking place about the most foundational teachings.
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Most specifically within Christianity was the debate called Christology, what we would call Christology.
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And that is the study of Jesus Christ, his nature, his person, who he is.
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It was a time of serious turmoil.
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Literally, there was graffiti on the walls.
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There were wars being made with pamphlets and vicious rhetoric being spewed between debating groups all over the question as to whether or not Jesus Christ was fully divine or not.
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Dr.
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James White has pointed out that at this time in history, the religious climate was so pregnant with difficulty that you could literally be asked if going to purchase bread, whether or not you believed the sun was created or uncreated.
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That literally that there was so much of a debate going on among the people, there was a debate that could literally determine whether or not you could buy bread.
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This was a serious concern within the Roman Empire.
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Your first blank on your sheet, I want to go ahead and give this to you.
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Constantine held a council and he invited 1,800 bishops to attend.
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That's your first blank.
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He invited 1,800, that would be a thousand from the east and 800 from the west, from all over the Christian world, to attend a council and settle their theological disputes.
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In 325 or 8325.
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Now, there is no official count as to how many of them actually came.
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There's no official count as to how many actually were there.
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However, we do have different people giving different accounts.
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Some say there was 250, some say there was 280.
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Athanasius tells us that he counted 318 bishops.
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That's not on your sheet, but that's just a little information there for you.
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Athanasius said that he had counted 318.
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Now, each bishop was allowed to bring two priests and three deacons along with him.
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So it's likely that if all of them did that, if all brought two priests and three deacons, we're talking about potentially 2,000 people.
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There in Nicaea, all convened for the purpose of this important council.
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This is the first ecumenical gathering of the church.
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The word ecumenical means worldwide.
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This is the first time that the worldwide church had gathered together to discuss matters of doctrines.
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Among the bishops was one who would take center stage in the debate.
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The presbyter named Arius.
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This is the next blank on your sheet.
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The presbyter named Arius proposed the idea that Jesus, while having a form of divinity, was not co-equal or co-eternal with God the Father.
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In opposition to Arius, you had Alexander of Alexandria and you had Athanasius.
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You have Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius who contended that Jesus was fully divine and He was co-equal and co-eternal with the Father.
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Now, this may seem like somewhat of a small debate, but it has tremendous consequences in regard to Christian belief and Christian thought.
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It is essentially asking the question, Is Jesus Christ a created being or is He not? That's the focus of the council.
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That's the question that the council has come to deliberate on.
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Is Jesus Christ the creator of all or is He part of all that was created? That's a huge theological question and a major theological divide.
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Is He the creator or part of the creation? It's important to realize something about Arius.
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Arius did not deny that Christ was divine.
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Neither did Arius deny that Christ was the one through whom the universe was created.
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He did not deny those things.
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Arius, though, believed that Christ was created and then through Christ everything else was created.
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So you see how it's not as if he's denying that Christ is the one through whom the world was created.
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He's denying that Christ Himself is eternal.
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Arius rejected the idea that Christ was an uncreated, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father.
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In the council there were a very specific set of ideas which were being debated.
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Somebody asked me on the way in tonight, Is this going to be the college level course? Well, some of these terms may come across as somewhat college level, but I promise I will explain them.
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Because there are three terms that were debated at the Council of Nicaea.
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You have three blanks on your sheet.
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I believe I gave these to you.
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You have the term Homoousia.
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O-U-S-I-A Homoousia.
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And that means the same substance with the Father.
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Ousia is substance.
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Homoousia is to say Christ is the same substance with the Father.
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The next term is Homoousia.
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You'll notice the addition of the English letter I in the Greek.
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It would be the iota letter.
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You've heard the term.
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It didn't change it.
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One iota.
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Well, here's something that is where the letter, the iota letter makes a huge difference.
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Because adding the oi, homoi, means similar, not the same.
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You know, homo means same.
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Homoi means similar, but not the same.
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And of course, the third one is heteroousia.
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Hetero means opposite.
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Means different.
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So the question was, is Christ homoousia? Is he the same substance with God the Father? Is he homoousia? Is he similar, but not the same? Or is he heteroousia? Different substance than the Father.
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Arius argued that the Son was not eternal, but rather created by God.
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And he took the position of the heteroousia.
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Arius took that position.
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Christ is of a different substance than the Father.
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He is created.
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The Father is creator.
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He's got to be of a different substance.
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Right? Now, the semi-Arians, and there were semi-Arians.
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In fact, the Arian resurgence, which we'll talk about next week.
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The Arian resurgence tended to lean towards homoousia.
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Similar substance, but not the same.
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So these are the semi-Arians.
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The council adopted the term homoousia.
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They adopted the term, same substance with the Father.
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Now, I want to make a quick note before we go further.
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The modern expression of this debate, because this debate hasn't ended, even though we're, you know, some 1700 years since the event, the debate still goes on every time you have those two people come to your front door on Saturday morning to talk to you about Jehovah.
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The Jehovah witnesses are the modern day Arians.
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They believe that Christ is the one through whom the world was created, but that He Himself is also created.
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He is a different substance than the Father.
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It's interesting that their heresy that continues to be espoused by those people who go out diligently is a debate that has been going on since the church began.
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In fact, they created a Bible.
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If you ever see the Bible called the New World Translation, the New World Translation is the Jehovah witnesses mistranslation of the Bible wherein they go through and specifically make changes within the text that would rob Christ of His full deity.
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For instance, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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We know that passage is John 1 and verse 1.
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But in the New World Translation it says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.
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They add the indefinite article there, a.
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He was a God.
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They couldn't use the definite article the.
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He's not the God.
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He's a God.
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And interestingly enough, there is no article in the Greek.
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I don't want to get into that tonight.
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But interestingly enough, their argument is based on the idea that there is no article, and when there is no article in the Greek, that you have to supply the article when it is an indefinite article, so you would supply the a.
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But it is not necessary, because when it says the Word was God, it is not saying He was the God or a God.
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It is speaking of a qualitative, not a quantitative noun.
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Quantitative would have to say it is either the or a.
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But it is a quality.
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He is in every sense God, is what that statement is saying.
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He is in every way God.
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Yes, ma'am.
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No, they do.
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And the question is, they don't actually believe that He existed prior to His birth.
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Yes, they do.
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They believe that He was the first created being.
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And then everything else was created through Him.
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So they do believe that He has preeminence.
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They do believe that He preexisted the world.
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But they still believe that He was created.
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This is where the divide comes, is whether or not He is created or uncreated.
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And this goes back, this is the Nicene divide.
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This is the question.
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Yes, you have a second question.
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There is a lot of different texts that they would use.
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Interestingly enough, they tend to cut their own.
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What is the old phrase? You cut off your nose to spite your face.
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They tend to cut off themselves because they will use certain texts to try to prove Jesus is only a man and not fully divine.
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At the same time, though, they would admit that Christ is divine enough to be the one through whom the world was created.
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So they talk in circles a lot of times.
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So yes, to say they use Scripture, the same Scriptures that they use to defeat an argument, they would also defeat their own position.
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All right, now we see the debate of the argument.
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We see the situation that surrounded the argument and what the questions were.
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Let's now look at the decision reached by the council.
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This is the next one on your sheet.
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The council decided overwhelmingly against the Arian position.
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So the next word on your sheet is against.
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They decided that Arius was incorrect of all of the bishops.
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What? Oh, I didn't put that as a blank.
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Oh, I made a mistake.
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Then in my sheet, I have it underlined as if you have it.
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Go ahead and write down.
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They decided against Arius.
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That one should be a blank there.
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I apologize.
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After following the decisions of the council of all the bishops present.
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And again, Athanasius told us that he counted 318.
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Of all the bishops present at Nicaea, only two refused to sign the creed.
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And those two, along with Arius, were banished to Illyria.
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Well, that's how we do things.
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But yes, it was the 318.
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Two were refused to sign and they were banished.
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Yeah, they they they became the fathers of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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Yes.
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No, they actually just to make this clear, they it's interesting.
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There has always been a line of Arianism that sort of flowed through the history of the church.
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So, yeah, they really did, in a way, become the forefathers of that movement.
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The Arian controversy was not the only decision that was made by the council.
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And this is where it's kind of interesting, because a lot of talk about the council of Nicaea is the debate about Jesus Christ and Homoousia and all those things.
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But there were other things that they talked about and there were other decisions made.
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There was a debate concerning the celebration of Resurrection Sunday.
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That's your that's that should be a blank, right? There is a debate that went on about the debate, the celebrating of Resurrection Sunday.
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They knew that the crucifixion and the resurrection coincided with the Jewish Passover celebration.
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And yet there was concern that the methods of dating that the Jews were using were incorrect.
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And thus they were not getting an accurate dating for the Passover and thus the resurrection.
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So as a result, the council made the decision to calculate the time of the celebration for themselves.
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So it changed at that point how they would date what became the dating of Easter, which we tend to don't we don't use the term Easter.
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But that if you if you ever read about the council of Nicaea, you'll see the dating of Easter is a is a common term, which is we tend to use the term Resurrection Sunday rather than the word Easter.
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There was also you'll see this blank on your sheet, the suppression of the militia schism.
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Militia is spelled M-E-L-E-T-I-A-N.
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The militia schism.
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Militias of Lycopolis was a bishop who had created a stir because he refused to receive people back into fellowship if they had denied Christ to save their own skin.
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Because, you know, that was a time in history where we talked about this in our earlier study, because I teach the young people at 430.
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We talked about the fact that at this point in history, you had to give allegiance to Rome.
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And if you didn't give allegiance to Rome, it could cost you your life.
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So there were Christians because my son asked the question, he says, Well, what if you just gave false allegiance and said, you know, hey, you know, they kind of give them lip service.
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Yeah, bow down, but not really give it, you know.
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And certainly there are people who took that that easy road.
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You could simply pay your homage.
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You could verbally pay homage and you were done.
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It didn't have to mean anything from your heart.
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And a lot of people took that route to save their own flesh.
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And Miletus did not believe that such people were worthy to be welcomed back into communion in the church.
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Other bishops had openly welcomed back the defectors when they had repented of their defection.
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But Miletus was very stern in his decision.
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He was called by his superior, a man named Peter, not Simon Peter, but Peter of Alexandria.
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He was called a disturber of the peace of the church.
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That's why Miletus, and this is his mentor, said you're a disturber of the peace of the church.
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You will not allow the repentant back into the church.
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And some believe, and this is not this is not well documented, but some believe that Miletus is responsible for for ordaining Arius.
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And that would be an interesting historical step down.
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If you found out that Miletus was responsible for Arius and then Arius is responsible for the debate at the council.
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But that there is no there's no documentable evidence of that.
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That is conjecture at best.
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But I wanted to simply mention that there are those who believe that to be so.
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The council of Nicaea attempted to make peace with the Miletians.
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Miletus, he had a following.
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There were people who believed in what he was doing and what he was about.
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And they had divided from the rest of the church.
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There was an attempt at the council of Nicaea to find peace with what was called the Miletian schism.
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This divide within the church.
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They were trying to build a bridge here.
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This is one aspect of the council of Nicaea that's often overlooked.
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People don't even realize these other things that were going on in the midst of the conversation about the nature of Christ and the Homoousia and the Homoousia.
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There are also these other practical ministerial things that are going on at the council as well.
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The council of Nicaea tried to make peace with the Miletians by allowing him to remain the bishop of Lycopolis.
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But he was no longer allowed to ordain bishops.
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And those he had ordained were accepted under certain conditions and had to be reordained.
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So they basically cut him off from any further growth.
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You can remain in your position, but you can't make anyone else a bishop.
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And those bishops you have made, we're going to have to make sure they understand what has happened here and they understand that what you've done is not a good thing.
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Miletus died shortly after the council and attempts to bring unity were unfruitful and the Miletians ended up siding with the Arians in the controversy that followed Nicaea.
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So here you have a whole group that's already upset.
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They tried to placate this group.
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It didn't work.
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And then afterwards, they sided with the opposing team.
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Sort of the old, the enemy of my enemy is my friend kind of thing.
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They were still upset, so they sided with the Arians.
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There was also the establishment, this is in your notes I believe, of 20 new canon laws.
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There was an establishment of 20 canon laws.
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These canons regarded issues ranging from the establishment of a minimum term for the catechumen.
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Catechumen are people who are studying to be baptized.
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This again, we talked about this last time we talked about baptism.
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This time in church history, people, you didn't just say I believe in Jesus and you go be baptized.
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You actually studied for your baptism.
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You actually learned about the faith.
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You demonstrated fidelity to Christ.
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You demonstrated that your regeneration was genuine by this desire to study.
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I think it's an interesting thought that the church was so concerned that they not baptize unbelievers, that someone who confessed faith went through this time of study before they were allowed to be baptized.
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So that was part of what the Nicene Council, they determined the minimum term.
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They also prohibited kneeling on Sundays and during Pentecost.
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You couldn't pray while kneeling.
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You had to pray while standing.
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Because they believed that prayers which were done while kneeling was penitential prayers.
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They are prayers which are for repentance.
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They are not prayers for praise and thus they are not for doing on holy days like Sunday and the 50 days of celebration of the resurrection in Pentecost.
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So you didn't you didn't get on your knees to pray.
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You had to stand in prayer on Sunday.
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You had to stand in prayer on the 50 days between Resurrection Sunday and Pentecost.
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So it's an interesting just little bit of history that we see.
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Penitential prayers were not seen as being appropriate for the celebration of the Lord's Day.
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All right.
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So that's, you know, again, we look at these things and we say, man, the early church, they were focused on some things that we might not think are very important, but they were focused on things that in a sense, they're attempting to establish here structure and order within the church that is meant to be followed.
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A canon law is law of the church.
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They believe these things were important enough to canonize them.
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All right.
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Now, here comes the fun part.
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This is the part I'm sure you've all been waiting for.
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I'm sure you're sitting with with vated breath, just the edge of your seat waiting for this.
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We're finally going to get to the creed.
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That's what we started on tonight.
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We've talked about what the council did.
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Now we're going to look at the creed, the Nicene Creed down through the ages.
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There have been many iterations and additions to the Nicene Creed.
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In fact, in the fourth century, there was another council.
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No more than 100 years later in 381, the Council of Constantinople, where they where they debated the creed and re-established some of it.
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But the main parts that were established at Nicaea have not changed.
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And that's parts we're going to look at tonight.
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There were other areas that had changes.
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There is the let me see if I can say this properly.
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The Numata Macchaean heresy.
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And that was a debate that went on at the 381 council.
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And we'll we'll talk about that next week.
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But the main issue was the issue of who is Christ.
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So they create the creed.
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They write the creed to establish the idea of who are we saying Christ is.
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And here is the Nicene Creed in a modern version.
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But it still contains the most important parts from the original.
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And we'll look at it together.
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We believe in one God.
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That's an important part of the document.
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Because as Christians, we are often considered to be, especially by the Islamic people and other Unitarians, we're considered to be polytheists.
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But we are not.
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And that's established in the scripture, but it's also established in our creed.
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We believe in one God.
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So it's the very beginning.
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We believe in one God, the Father, the almighty maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.
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We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father.
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God from God.
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Light from light.
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True God from true God.
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Begotten, not made of one being with the Father through him.
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All things were made for us and for our salvation.
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He came down from heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man for our sake.
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He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
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He suffered death and was buried on the third day.
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He rose again in accordance with the scriptures.
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He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
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He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
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And his kingdom will have no end.
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We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father.
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By the way, there are different versions.
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Other versions say from the Father and the Son.
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That is called the philocally clause.
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And that's one of the debates that took place later.
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Whether or not it should say that he proceeds from the Father or that he proceeds from the Father and the Son.
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This particular version leaves out the phrase and the Son, which is called the philocally clause.
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So that's one of the debates.
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We're not dealing with it tonight, but it's the debate on the issue of the Holy Spirit, whether or not he proceeds from the Father or the Father and the Son.
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It says, who proceeds from the Father.
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With the Father and the Son, he is worshipped and glorified.
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He has spoken through the prophets.
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We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.
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We talked last week the fact the word catholic does not mean Roman Catholic.
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It means universal church.
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The church which is all believers in communion with each other.
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We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
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We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
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Amen.
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Powerful document.
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Powerful statement of who we are as Christians.
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And there are two parts in the beginning that I want to bring our attention to.
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Because all of the versions of this particular creed contain these two things that are very important.
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I'm going to erase here and make myself a little space on my board.
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Because I want to make sure we understand these two things.
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The first one is the phrase, one being.
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You can make a little note there.
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Substance.
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Look here.
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It says, we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.
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That phrase, of one being, that is homoousia.
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That's where the word is in the document.
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He is of one substance, one being with the Father.
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That is the debate, continues to be the debate even to today.
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As to who is Christ.
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Is he like the Father? Is he created by the Father? Or is he of the same substance as the Father? And the Nicene Creed establishes one substance with the Father and the Son.
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The second one, which is probably, I don't want to say it's my favorite.
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It's one of my favorite phrases ever to be used in any of the creeds.
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It is the phrase, begotten, not made.
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Begotten, not made.
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Because this, beloved, that phrase, begotten, not made, establishes a principle of the nature of Christ that as Christians we must understand.
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Christ does come from the Father.
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But Christ was not created by the Father.
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He is part of Him and they are together in one substance, shared in unity.
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But Christ comes from the Father, eternally.
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As does the Spirit proceed from the Father and the Son, eternally.
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It's hard to explain, it's hard to even wrap our minds around.
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But this is why the Bible calls Jesus monogamous theou.
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John 1, this is one of those times where the NASB, bam, knocks it out of the park.
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The New American Standard Bible, who I know many of you love and adore.
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The New American Standard Bible says in John 1.18, No one has seen God at any time.
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The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained or exegeted Him.
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The only begotten God.
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ESV doesn't use that term, it says the only God.
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The King James says the only Son.
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But neither one of them capture what the NAS captures, which is monogamous, only begotten, theos, God, or theou, the only begotten God.
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Christ is God of God.
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Light from light.
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True God from true God.
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Begotten, not made.
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You see, there is an establishment of a principle here.
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Begotten does not indicate that there was a time when He was not.
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That's the point.
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Begotten does not indicate that there was a time when He wasn't.
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Begotten simply says that He is from the Father, but that His proceeding from the Father is from all eternity.
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As long as the Father has been, so too has the Son.
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And since the Father has been eternally, so too is the Son eternal.
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That's what this is saying.
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Yes.
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John 1 and verse 18.
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So I find the phrase begotten, not made to be a masterful, simple clause there.
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Simple statement, but a masterful statement.
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Certainly they got it from Scripture, but that the Nicene Fathers made the distinction.
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Begotten does not indicate creation.
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Begotten does not mean made.
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And they made the distinction for us, so that we would understand what the distinction is.
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Read me the whole verse.
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Yep.
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That's what mine says.
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The difference is, yours says only begotten Son, but the NAS says only begotten God.
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There is a textual variation here.
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There is a debate as to whether it should be uos or theos.
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And there is a debate textually as to what should be there.
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But if you look into the textual critical material, you will see that the more preferable is theos, not uos, which is Son.
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It's a small difference there.
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So not wanting to get into textual variations and textual criticism, because that's not the focus of this course.
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But yes, there is debate.
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And that's why you're looking at a manuscript which is based on the Byzantine text type, whereas the New American Standard Bible, the ESV, are based on the Alexandrian text type, which is a different family of manuscripts.
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The Alexandrian text type tends to go back further and is closer to the original, which is why when we talk about the different types, when we say this is more likely to be the original reading, we go back to those Alexandrian manuscripts and say here is what they said.
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Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and things like that.
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And that's where that debate would come in.
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But I think it's fascinating that this term, only begotten God, that's in John 118, is so similar to what is used here in the Nicene Creed, to where they are being so precise about what we mean when we say Christ comes from the Father, but He's not made by the Father.
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He comes from Him in the sense that they share the same being.
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Are we good? Want to move on? Okay.
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All right.
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Now, the controversies surrounding the Council.
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Contrary to popular belief, the Council of Nicaea had nothing to do with the choosing of the books which would be included in the Bible.
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How many of you remember the Da Vinci Code? Dan Brown's masterful heresy wherein he said that the whole church was stolen by Constantine and turned, and Jesus was made God, and all these things happened as a result of Constantine's capture of the church.
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And one of the things that he said was that Constantine threw out all of the Gospels that told us who Jesus really was, and he kept the four Gospels which promoted his idea of who Jesus was.
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That is malarkey.
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It is the famous Greek word, baloney.
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That is exactly it.
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There is nothing in any of the Nicene documents, there is nothing in anything from the history of Nicaea to indicate that there was any debate at all as to what books should and should not be canonized.
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It was not the topic of Nicaea.
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It was not part of any of the discussions of Nicaea.
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It was not part of any of the canons of Nicaea.
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Nothing in Nicaea had anything to do with what books of the Bible should or should not be considered within the New Testament canon.
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So if you hear somebody say that, and you will, especially you young guys, because you're growing up in a world where the unbelievers are becoming more militant in their unbelief and more willing to go out and try to find reasons to make you feel ignorant about your faith.
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And let me tell you this, one of the things you'll often hear them say, well the Council of Nicaea is where Constantine hijacked the church and he made the Bible the way he wanted it to be.
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And oh, there's smoke and mirrors and there were all these people in back rooms.
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It's hogwash.
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There's over 2,000 people that came to this thing from all areas of the church.
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They all came together to settle a dispute.
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It wasn't five guys in the back room with smoke and mirrors, hidden under blankets and having some kind of a festival of secrecy.
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It was widely understood that this was an ecumenical, worldwide event and that the whole church had been invited to come and participate.
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All of the representatives come and we will reason together from the Scriptures.
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These conspiracy theorists demonstrate nothing but their ignorance of history when they try to drag Nicaea through the mud.
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That being said, there was no discussion about the canon of Scripture at Nicaea.
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The Bible, there were conversations going on in the first couple hundred years of the church as to which books should and should not be understood as canon.
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Not that the church ever made a book canon because the church can't make a book canon.
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I can't pick up the book of the Shepherd of Hermas or the Didache.
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I can't pick those up and say, this is now canon.
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I don't have the power to do that.
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God knows what canon is and God leads His church to an understanding of what His Word is.
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And that's how we believe it was done.
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Very early in the church there was something called the Moratorium Fragment.
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The Moratorium Fragment was one of the earliest papyruses that was ever discovered.
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The Moratorium Fragment has on it a listing of books which were considered to be canonical.
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Guess which Gospels were included? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
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Not the Gospel of Thomas.
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Not the Gospel of Mary Magdalene or the Gospel of Philip.
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None of those were ever considered by the church to be canonical.
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And those who say that the Gospel of Thomas should have been included, again, demonstrate nothing but their history or their ignorance of Christian history.
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And if you've ever read the Gospel of Thomas, it's a weird book anyway.
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It has no consistency.
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One of the great things about the four Gospels that we do have, as well as the writings of Paul and the other writers of the New Testament and the Old Testament, is the divine consistency that we find within it.
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That we can have the principle of comparing Scripture with Scripture.
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You compare Thomas with Scripture and you will come up with some strange stuff.
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So anyway, I went a little off on that one.
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But that is one thing that is a major historical inaccuracy.
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That the Nicene Council was where the books of the Bible were chosen.
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The second one, the Council of Nicaea is also not responsible for making Jesus God.
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They are not responsible for making Jesus God.
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There are a lot of liberals.
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Yes? The previous one was the choosing of the books, which were included in the Bible.
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The Council is not responsible for making Jesus God.
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Many liberal scholars say that Jesus was made God at the Council of Nicaea.
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That before that, the church had no understanding that He was divine.
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It was only during the Council of Nicaea that Jesus was considered to be divine.
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Constantine made Jesus God and he got all these bishops together to prove that Jesus was God.
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Beloved, I want to share with you.
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I'm getting on my preacher's mode now because I'm about to start preaching hard.
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That, again.
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Yeah, she didn't want me to.
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To say that Jesus was made God at the Council of Nicaea demonstrates a desperate ignorance of history and of the scriptures.
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The church had understood Christ as both Lord and God since His resurrection.
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Consider the testimony of Thomas.
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What did Thomas say to Jesus when he said, I have to see the nail scars in his hands and touch his side? Jesus said, touch my hand, touch my side, see that it is I.
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What did Thomas do? He said, my Lord and my God.
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Koreos and Theos.
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Lord and God is the testimony of Thomas.
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And Jesus did not rebuke him.
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Jesus didn't say, get up, you got it all wrong, your theology is askew.
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No, he accepted Thomas's confession as a righteous one.
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But I want to share with you as we come to a close tonight.
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I want to share with you six statements which were written long before Nicaea.
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And you're not going to get to write these down.
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They're too long.
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I'm going to put them on the screen.
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If you want a copy of them, email me or ask me.
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I'll print them out for you.
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But if anybody ever says nobody thought Jesus was divine or God before Nicaea, this is what I want you to know.
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Number one, these are pre-Nicaea quotes.
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I've got all of them dated.
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These are quotes from men who lived prior to Nicaea.
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Some of them into the early second century.
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Justin Martyr is the first.
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He says, the father of the universe has a son who being the logos, the word and first begotten is also God is also God.
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Irenaeus 130 referencing Jesus.
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He says, Christ Jesus, our Lord and God and Savior and King, according to the will of the invisible father.
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And he was writing against the heresies of his day.
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Clement of Alexandria says, both as God and as man, the Lord renders us every kind of help and service.
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As God, he forgives sin.
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And as man, he educates us to avoid sin completely.
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In addition, our educator old children resembles his father, God, whose son he is.
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He is without sin, without blame, without passion of soul.
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God, immaculate in form of man, accomplishing his father's will.
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God, immaculate in the form of man.
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Hippolytus says, and the blessed John in the testimony of the gospel gives us an account of this economy and acknowledges this word as God.
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When he says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
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If then the word was with God and was also God, what follows? Would one say that he speaks of two gods? I shall not indeed speak of two gods, but of one of two persons, however, and of a third economy, the grace of the Holy Ghost.
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This is an expression in the second century.
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One of the best expressions of the Trinity that I have ever read.
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And it preceded Nicaea by over a hundred years.
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It's a powerful thought.
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It's a powerful reality.
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And then we have Tertullian who says, The only God has also a son, his word, who has proceeded from himself, by whom all things were made and without whom nothing has been made.
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That this was sent by the Father into the Virgin and was born of her, both man and God, son of man, son of God.
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This was written between 150 and 225, a hundred years prior to Nicaea.
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But the last one is my favorite.
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My favorite quote from the early, we say the early church.
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This would be very early in the history of the church.
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One of my favorite quotes outside of the Scripture is from Milito of Sardis.
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And he's preaching, this is from his sermon.
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And he says this, And so he was lifted up upon a tree, and an inscription was attached, indicating who was being killed.
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Who was it? It is a grievous thing to tell, but a most fearful thing to refrain from telling.
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But listen as you tremble before him on whose account the earth trembled.
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He who hung the earth in place is hanged.
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He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place.
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He who made all things fast is made fast on a tree.
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The sovereign is insulted.
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God is murdered.
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The King of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand.
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This is the one who made the heavens and the earth and formed mankind in the beginning.
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The one proclaimed by the law and the prophets.
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The one enfleshed and a virgin.
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The one hanged on a tree.
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The one buried in the earth.
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The one raised from the dead and who went up into the heights of heaven.
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The one sitting at the right hand of the Father.
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The one having all authority to judge and save.
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Through whom the Father made the things which exist from the beginning of time.
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This one is the Alpha and the Omega.
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This one is the beginning of the end.
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The beginning indescribable and the end incomprehensible.
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This one is the Christ.
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This one is the King.
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This one is Jesus.
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This one is the leader.
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This one is the Lord.
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This one is the one who rose from the dead.
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This one is the one sitting on the right hand of the Father.
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He bears the Father and is born by the Father.
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To Him be the glory and the power forever.
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Amen.
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That's a preacher right there.
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And that is powerful, powerful preaching.
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We see in just these few excerpts that these men all understood who Jesus was.
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Fully God and fully man.
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So though we have no specific doctrinal statements that precede Nicaea, we can know without a doubt, without a doubt, that the faith of the early church was upheld at Nicaea.
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This council stands in history as the first major ecumenical council involving bishops from many different regions of the Roman Empire.
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It sought to answer one of the most important foundational questions within Christianity, that of the nature of Christ.
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And it set the precedent which would be followed by other councils in the centuries which would follow.
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Father, thank you for this opportunity that we've had to study about this important council, the council of Nicaea.
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Let it be, oh God, that our understanding of Christ has been enriched by this study.
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We pray that you have been glorified by all that we have said and done tonight.
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In Christ's name we pray.
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Amen.