Yesterday I put out “Jesus Creed” which is a look at J.T. Mullers masterful accumulation of what Jesus thought and taught. It was supposed to be a follow up to this article written on Wednesday which was the remembrance of the Nicene Creed. So it is out of sequence because I forgot to publish it. Here it is
The old saw that we need “more deeds and less creeds” sounds so wonderful and fits so perfectly into the post modernist mind, what is left of it, that it is still insipidly muttered by the truly hopeless. Creed comes from “credo” meaning I believe, so of course it might be denigrated to have statements of what we believe forced upon those who don’t believe much of anything anymore.
Who is Christ? “Who do people say I am?” Jesus asked Peter. Then He got more personal and asked “who do you say I am? It really is the essential question isn’t it? The question is not who am, I but who is Christ? The church ran around the known world back in the day telling people who Jesus was and is and like everything else in the fallen world issues arose. Was He more God than man or more man than God? Was He God at all or was He all God and pretended to be a man. Was Jesus created or begotten? Being the Son of God, is He co-equal and co-eternal with the Father? Of course the scriptures witness and confess about all these questions but people have to ask for a variety of reasons, but folks got to ask.
A guy named Arius said that Jesus Christ was not eternal. He was created at a certain point in time by the Father. Bishops such as Alexander and the deacon Athanasius argued the opposite position. So did the Bishop of Myra whose name was Nicholas. He was so ticked of by Arius that when they meet to discuss all these issues, Nickolas slapped him. Nicholas is the model for Santa Claus and if you want a fun read google Gene Veith “Slappy Holiday”.
Anyway the bishops recognized what the Bible already taught. The result was the Nicene Creed and today is the churches commemoration of what took place back at Nicaea in 325.
