What We Believe About Christ

In this session we begin to speak about the central portion of the creed.

The word "one" is used three times in the creed: 1) one God, the Father Almighty; 2) one Lord, Jesus Christ; and 3) one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In each case the word means one in an absolute sense. There is one, and only one, God the Father. There is one, and only one, Lord Jesus Christ. There is one, and only one, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

The word "lord" in the human sense is someone who has power and authority, one who rules. In the scripture, the Greek word for lord, kyrios, is a direct translation in the Old Testament of the name of God. The unpronounceable, unutterable Holy Name of God. He who is. The Lord Jesus Christ is one and the same with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who reveled His name as, "I am," the one who is. Out of reverence this name was not pronounced by the Jews in Israel but was transliterated into the expression "the Lord," kyrios. When Peter said that God the Father, by raising His son Jesus Christ from the dead, has revealed His as the Lord, he is saying that Jesus Christ is God!

In John Chapter 8 we read an incredible exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees.

Why did the Jews take up stones against Jesus? Because He had dared to utter the unutterable name of God, "I Am," and apply it to Himself. The claim that Jesus was making was very clear to them and they rejected it thoroughly, intending to destroy Him. The confession that Jesus Christ is Lord and therefore God (the "I Am") is the central profession of the Christian faith. It is used in two senses. In relationship to the Father, Jesus Christ is God as the Father is God. In relationship to the human race, Christ, by virtue of who He is, rules over everything. As we continually say in the Church, He has the dominion, the kingdom, the power, and the glory. He is the only legitimate ruler of everything. In making that confession in the Roman state for the first three hundred years of the Church’s existence, and at various times subsequent to that, oceans of Christian blood have been shed.

Jesus is the English form of the Hebrew or Aramaic, Yeshua, which translated means, "The Lord is Salvation." This name, given to the Son of God upon His incarnation, which describes who He is in relationship to us, our savior, sums up the whole relationship between each of us and Jesus the Lord. Jesus is the One who saves, who delivers, who redeems, who provides the one hope from the prison of sin and death that man has become chained in as a result of the fall.

In the piety of the Church, the name of Jesus is understood to be even more, even higher, even deserving of more reverence than the unpronounceable name of God that was revealed in the Old Testament. The Lord, who revealed himself as the Existing One, as the "I Am," whose name was not pronounced by the people of the Old Covenant, takes upon Himself flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. The name Jesus is truly the name above all names.

The name of Jesus is understood and experienced by the people of the New Covenant as the greatest treasure. It is our link to Him who is our savior. The calling upon the name of Jesus, the use of what’s called in the Church the "Jesus prayer" (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner), is a mainstay of Orthodox spirituality.

The title Christ (Greek) means Messiah (Hebrew), the Anointed One. In the Old Testament there are those set aside by God as particular instruments. There is a physical act that accompanies this setting aside. They are anointed with oil. The richness of the oil poured out upon their heads is the sign that God has poured Himself out upon them. Three groups of people in the Old Testament were anointed.

The kings of Israel were the first anointed group. Saul was the first king of Israel.

In the Old Covenant the king was the person set aside by God to rule His people in His name. David was the greatest of the kings and he received certain promises from God. He was told that his dynasty would never pass away, that there would be king who would come after him who would rule forever. So on the one the one hand, there was this kingship exercised over the historical people of Israel. But on the other hand there was a promise given that there would be a much greater kingship coming. Therefore, the anointed kings prefigured, foreshadowed, were types of, a King who would come and whose reign would be universal and eternal.

The priests of Israel were the second anointed group. While the kings were set aside to rule, the priests were set aside to serve as mediators between the people and God. It was through the priests that the sacrifices were offered. It is through the offering of sacrifice that this essential life and death relationship between God and His people is expressed. The Old Covenant priests in their ordination were washed and clothed and anointed with oil, set aside by God to be the human means through this channel between God and His people and His people back to God is established. Like the kings, the priests, whose sacrifices are imperfect, foreshadow One who will be the perfect priest, the One who will offer the perfect sacrifice that will destroy the tyranny of sin and death over mankind.

The third group of anointed people in the Old Testament is the prophets. Unlike the kings and priests, the prophets were not anointed with oil. Rather, the prophets are anointed with the Holy Spirit. The word of the Lord comes to them. The word of the lord speaks to them. The prophets are the ones who can say, "Thus says the Lord" and it is God who is speaking. They are the mouthpieces of God. A prophet is not one who by definition foretells the future – rather the prophet is one who essentially voices the will of God, the truth of God to his people. The prophets, all of whose prophecies are partial and incomplete, speak of one who will come, who will give the complete knowledge of God. It is prophesied that when the Messiah comes, all the people shall be taught directly by God.

So if the kings ruled imperfectly, and the priests sacrificed imperfectly, and the prophets prophesied truly but not with the full revelation of the knowledge of God, they all point to a figure who is going to be priest, prophet, and king fully in Himself. One who gives the full revelation.

Christ was baptized and anointed by the Holy Spirit.

In this we see the anointing of Jesus as the Messiah – the priest, prophet, and king of the creation promised by the Father. He fulfills everything has gone before.

There is only one Son of the Father – who comes from His very heart and is not a creature. The Father is never without the Son in the eternal present outside of time. The Father and the Son share the same life and love perfectly. The only difference between them is that the Father is the Father and the Son is the Son. The Father is the origin of the Son. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. There never was a time when the Son was not begotten of the Father.

The person who is called the Son of God is also called the Word of God. In Christ the terms are synonymous. The gift of speech is the visible evidence of the uniqueness of the human person in all creation. Man who communicates by the speech given him by God reflects in a creaturely manner God who, in His eternal existence, the Father who utters His Word, the One who comes forth from the very heart of the Father, is the Word of God. The Word of God is His Son. It is through the Son that the Father communicates Himself to the creation.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

The Word of God is also referred to as the image (Greek icon) of the Father.

And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation. (Col 1:15)

Christ is the Word. The Father is the One who speaks Him from the depths of His being.

This is to say that Christ is begotten of the Father outside of all time. Before there was any age, before there was any time, completely outside of history as we know it, outside the cosmos as it has existed, the Son is begotten of the Father in this eternal birth. The creed then goes on to almost hammer on this point. The only begotten Son is …..

Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father

"Of one essence," is sometimes translated as "consubstantial." The original word in Greek is homoousios. This is the first expression in the creed that is not found in Scripture. It was invented by the fathers of the Church at the first Ecumenical Council to describe more exactly, more precisely, at a time in which it was essential that it be done, the relationship between the Son and the Father.

There was great trouble going on in the Church, caused by an Alexandrian priest named Arius. He taught that there was a time when the Father was alone, there was a time when the Son was not, and there was time when, as the first of His Creatures, the Father called the son into being. This innovation in the Christian world, this speaking of Christ in a manner in which He’d never been spoken of before, became very popular. Why?

By this time in the 4^th Century being a Christian was becoming "politically correct" and thousands were flooding into the Church. These converts came from religious backgrounds dominated by the Greco-Roman, mythological gods. These gods were sort of half divine and half human creatures. The average person entering the Church in the 4^th Century had in his mind this prototype of divinity.

Arius taught that Christ was someone who was not quite God and definitely not equal with the Father. He became one of the first to use Scripture to try to prove something that is outside the faith of the Church. He pointed to

to say that Christ Himself acknowledged He was less than His Father.

But Arius ignored the many Scriptures that refute his novel notion.

"I and the Father are one." John 10:30

Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" John 20:28

For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, Col 2:9

No, Arius taught a Jesus who was a superman – very much like a Greco-Roman god. The Arians of our day include the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons.

The question of the nature of Christ is the question of the ages.

The Father cannot give birth to a Son who is anything less than Divine. If the Son of God is less than fully Divine He is not the Son of God. Therefore if the Father has a Son, that Son shares the same essence, the same "is-ness" as the Father.

The Father creates all things by, through, and for the Son. The Word and Image of the Father, who is the person through whom the eternal God is made known to the world, is Himself very much "connected" to the created universe. He becomes part of it through His incarnation and the destiny of the universe is very dear to His heart. There is great comfort in this for us because in the Christian view of things God has this great link of love for us and will not allow us to be thrown out and discarded, locked in the prison of death. Rather, He will do everything possible to save us.

In the next session we will take up what is done by this eternal Son of God, who is of one essence with the Father, for us and for our salvation.