In our last post here Growing Christian Resources: Post #10 1700 Years of the Nicene Creed - "Begotten of the Father before all worlds"I had summarized the statements in the Nicene Creed that help shed light on the confession of the Son being "the only-begotten". Note below:
1. His expressed identity.
"the only-begotten Son of God",
2. His eternal generation.
"begotten of the Father before all worlds"
In today's post we want to study what is meant by the Creed's statement of the Son as "God of God". In the last post I had a summary heading for that phrase...
3. His equality and unity with the Father.
"God of God,"
To say the Son is "God of God" is to say He is equal in all perfections and being with the Father within the Trinity. Additionally, to say the Son is "God of God" is to affirm that He and the Father are "One" in being. One God. For interested readers, I'll draw out three senses that the noun "God" is used in the Nicene Creed, and what further nuances the phrase "God of God" is capturing to describe the Son as "the only begotten of the Father" in the endnotes following this post.1
His equality with the Father is due to them both having complete unity of nature or Divine essence. This idea of the Father and the Son being referred to as "God" is spoken of in the Bible. Note below.
1. Psalm 45:6-7 "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. 7 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of joy above Your fellows." Within the eternal filiation or begetting of the Son by the Father, the Father speaks to the Son in this way. We know Psalm 45:6-7 is giving us a close-up look of the Father and the Son by what we read in Hebrews 1:8-9.
2. Hebrews 1:8-9 "But of the Son He says, 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom. 9 'You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your companions.” The eternal Son is addressed as "God" by the Father who is also "God". Yet Scripture expresses time and again that we're not dealing with two deities, but one. For example, take what Jesus says in John 10:30.
3. John 10:30 "I and the Father are one." Not one in purpose, as the Jehovah Witnesses are fond to say. Rather, this is "One" in being. The unity of the Father and the Son, with the Son being "God of God", co-equal and in union with the Father, is the emphasis. We see further elaboration by the incarnate Son of God on this in John 5:26.
4. John 5:26 "For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself." Only God has "life in and of Himself", or what theologians call "Divine Aseity". Aseity, from the Latin "a se" (from oneself) speaks of the self-existence and self-sufficiency of God. When God revealed His personal Divine name to Moses in Exodus 3:14 as "I am who I am", Divine aseity or self-sufficiency was in view. The Father's bestowal of aseity to the Son, an eternal act, independent and prior to time, is what the term "God of God" attempts to capture. We can see this in another New Testament text - John 1:18.
5. John 1:18 "No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him." Without getting into the textual-critical technicalities, the NASB translation here represents a good textual history for the reading "only-begotten God". When I read the phrase in the Nicene Creed "God of God". It is this verse which comes to my mind.
We could cite other cross-references, yet we have enough Scripture here to show that the Nicene Creed's "God of God" is a Biblical summary of the unity and equality of being the Son has with the Father.
Athanasius, the lead defender of Christ's deity at the original Nicene Council of 325, helps us unpack this phrase "God of God" that we have in the 381 Nicene Creed.
Shortly after the Nicene Council in 325 A.D, the church father Athanasius wrote a theological treatise that functions as part commentary, part history of all that went on at the Nicene Council. He comments on the wording of the first Creed of Nicaea's article on the Son, which is worded as follows:
"And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father (the only begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God)."
I'm so thankful we have that initial creed, since it tells us plainly what the 381 Nicene Creed means by its comparatively abbreviated treatment of the Son in its article. Compare:
"And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God"
Athanasius comments on this part of the Creed of Nicaea of 325 (which aids us in discerning "God of God" in the Nicene Creed of 381) in his book "de decretis" section 20. I'll bold the relevant section to our post:
"but since the generation of the Son from the Father is not according to the nature of men, and not only like, but also inseparable from the essence of the Father, and He and the Father are one, as He has said Himself, and the Word is ever in the Father and the Father in the Word, as the radiance stands towards the light (for this the phrase itself indicates), therefore the Council, as understanding this, suitably wrote 'one in essence,' that they might both defeat the perverseness of the heretics, and show that the Word was other than originated things." 2
If Athanasius had been still alive in 381, I'm almost certain he would had said a hearty "amen" to the 381 Creed's phrase "God of God". Remember, Athanasius was there in the thick of the proceedings of the Council of Nicaea in 325 as it combatted the Arian heresy's denial of the deity and equality of the Son with the Father.
The phrase "God of God" served to summarize the orthodox commitment to the unity and equality of the Son to the Father. This phrase "God of God", quite literally from its original Greek "God out from within God" echoes Jesus' famous "I in Him, He in me" statements about He and the Father's equality and unity in John 14:9b-11,
"He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves."
Closing thoughts:
What is meant by the Son being "God of God"? This phrase confesses the co-equality of deity with the Father, as well their unity of deity as One God. The Divine nature is never divided, diminished, nor somehow changed between the Father and the Son. When we get to later posts on the Nicene Creed's section on the Holy Spirit, we will find its language expresses this same dual emphasis of equality/unity that the Holy Spirit shares with the Father and the Son.
What's the take away here? When I pray to the Lord Jesus Christ, I am praying to God. When I pray to the Father, I am praying to God. Two Persons, One God. By extension, I can say the same of the Holy Spirit, hence "Three Persons, One God". As I pray, in addressing the Father or the Son, I automatically include the other Divine Person, since the Father and Son together are One in essence. To know the Son of God is infinitely able to help me in every day life, uphold my salvation, and sustain all of existence gives great comfort to my fears. Jesus Christ as "God of God" enables me to know the Father. As Jesus Himself states in John 14:7 "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”
Endnotes:
1. When we look at the noun "God" in the Nicene Creed, we must become familiar with the different ways this word is used in Trinitarian theology to help us understand the Creed's statement of the Son being "God of God".
A. "God" speaks of the whole Trinity.
In the opening line of the Creed, the term "God" is referring to what will follow, namely a confession about each member of the Trinity. The noun "God" expresses the One, undivided essence shared by all three. The Father, like each of the three persons, bears the Divine nature as a member of the Trinity. The phrase used to describe the Son as "God of God" is used similarly.
So, sometimes the term "God" can refer to how the totality of the Divine essence, in a qualitative sense, defines each member of the Godhead. Together, all three Persons are One God, quantitatively, and as members of the Trinity, each Person is qualitatively truly God, bearing all the perfections that define what it means to be God.
B. "God" speaks to how one member of the Godhead relates to another member of the Godhead.
When I use the term "Godhead", I'm referring to the Divine nature itself. When we talk of the term "God", it also can refer not only to each member of the Godhead, but also how the Father relates to the Son, the Son relates to the Father, and how the Holy Spirit relates to the Father and the Son, and they to Him. We see this use in the Creed by the description of the Son as "very God of very God". The phrase "very God of very God" is expressing what I noted earlier, a "qualitative" description of how each Person is by nature God in their own right.
The act of the Father eternally generating the Son, with the Son an eternal recipient of the Divine essence and His identity as the Son, is captured in the phrase we're focusing upon in this post - "God of God". This is a "quantitative" use of the term "God", meaning there is only one Divine essence shared between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
C. "God" refers particularly to the Person of the Father.
Sometimes the noun "God" in the Creed refers to the Person of the Father in particular. We see this usage in the Creed's statement about the Son as "the only begotten Son of God". It is not saying the Son is a lesser deity. Rather, the term "God" as used here refers to the Father as whom we look to when beginning to look at the revelation of the Trinity, God as a personal, infinite being, and He as the fount of the eternal relations between Him and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The "Godness of God" is conveyed without origin in and by the Person of the Father.
2. CHURCH FATHERS: De Decretis (Athanasius) Section 20
No comments:
Post a Comment