As we begin, just a brief scheduling update. Last time I was here, two weeks ago, I said that I'd be teaching the rest of the courses through the end of the quarter, and every time I say anything, as soon as I say it, it's instantly wrong, because I learned that I'll actually be away on February 24th with a preaching engagement. And so I'm not able to be there for that last class, unfortunately, which is on Augustine. But Dr. McGraw has graciously volunteered. Well, I volunteered him to substitute teach. And I think you will benefit richly from his discussion. Last week, I heard great reports on Joseph Balding's presentation of Constantine. And one of the things Constantine did was to call the first, what we would call, ecumenical council of the church. And for this week and next week, we're going to be looking at the councils. This week on councils concerning the Trinity, and the next week on councils concerning the person of Jesus Christ. Before we get into that, though, I want to give a brief explanation. Originally, I had two handouts planned, and you only have one. But I have a really good excuse and an even better story for why that's the case. And it can be summed up with this. This is a blue plastic tinker toy. And I learned at 9.15 in the morning yesterday, when I was at the library, finishing up the handout to print for you with a phone call that my two-year-old son had apparently swallowed an object that looked identical to this. And despite all my best intentions, seven hours later, two ER visits, one ambulance ride, and one esophagram later, the handout never happened. And the moral of the story, in the words of my two-year-old son Noah, I'll share it with you, he shared it with my wife, is he said, Mommy, if you swallow a Tinker toy, you could have an ambulance ride too. And so the bad news is he hasn't learned anything from this traumatic experience. That's the reason I only have one handout. So everybody's okay. He's in Sunday school right now. We're monitoring him, but the doctors say he should, he seems to have swallowed it, but it passed through his esophagus, and it's a waiting game, and I don't know what will happen. So we'll see. I think he swallowed it. The doctor was kind of incredulous that he actually did. So if you think of it, pray for him, but everything seems to be okay in the Lord's mercies. So moving from the mundane to the sublime, councils concerning the Trinity. In particular today, if you look at your handout, we're gonna be talking about two councils, Nicaea in 325 and then Constantinople in 381. But before we get started, just get you all thinking, what was Nicaea all about? Anybody know? You had to summarize the issue. You'll probably say, well, I came to this class to find out what the issue was. Some of you might remember. Anybody? Pastor Ellis says the Trinity, and that's correct. It's about the person of Christ, but really it's about how Christ relates to God. Anyone know who the bad guy was at this council? Yes, Deborah. Not Erasmus, close, Arius. All those names sound familiar, but it's Arius. And who was the good guy? So, Pastor Ellis mentions Athanasius, and that's in some ways true, but interestingly, Athanasius was only 25 years old, and he was a deacon at the Council of Nicaea. So anybody who's a deacon, someday you might become one of the most celebrated theologians in the history of the Church, because that's exactly what happened to Athanasius. At the time, Alexander was the bishop, and he really was the one who took center stage. So beyond all that, just to get you guys thinking, why do you think these councils, Nicaea and Constantinople, why are they important? Because you might think, 325, 381, that's a long time ago, a bunch of men who are dead debating the Trinity and the person of Christ. Why is that important? Any ideas? Dr. Bartosz. It's a very helpful answer. To really put it all together, we could say this. These councils at Nicaea and Constantinople concern two big things. Who is God? It's a pretty significant question. And that's directly related to a second one. How can I be saved? If this is eternal life, to know the true God in Jesus Christ whom he has sent, according to John 17.3, answering that question, who is he? is intimately related to how can I be saved? So we're gonna deal with those really basic issues today. But to begin, let's read a passage of scripture that deals with this doctrine in the New Testament, John chapter one. John chapter one. This is the word of the Lord. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was light, and the light was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Before we begin, let's go to the Lord in prayer, asking for his help in this class. Let's pray. Father, we come to you in the strong name of Jesus Christ, your only begotten Son, our Lord. And we come by the power of your Holy Spirit, whom you've shed abroad in our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Lord, as we look at these early church councils concerning who you are, and how we can be saved. We pray that we would have illumination of our minds, that you would stir our hearts, and that you would energize our hands to do the work of your kingdom for the sake of your Christ. We pray this in his name, amen. Well, my thesis for this morning, Councils on the Trinity, is simply this, that in these councils, the church found words. to express the doctrine of the Trinity, which was already part of its worship and its piety. In these councils, the church found words, a way to speak about the doctrine of the Trinity. And this doctrine was already interwoven in the worship and in the piety of God's people. And really, we're going to follow this pattern. We'll look at a problem. that emerged over the doctrine of God. We'll see the response that took place at the Council of Nicaea. Then we'll move to the aftermath of that council, how it leads to a second council at Constantinople. And then we'll wrap everything up by assessing the legacy of these two meetings of God's people to hammer out what we mean when we confess Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. First, we've got a problem. And the problem is not that the Trinity is true. It's really more a problem of how in the world do finite creatures express, in words, who God is. There's a few early attempts. Look at the church fathers early on. Sometimes they take analogies and try to use these to make it more simple and more easily digestible. So I'm going to throw out some analogies, and you guys tell me what you think. Here's one that I've seen. The Triune God is like water. Water can be a liquid, it can be a gas, it can be a solid, but it's always water. It just has different modes. Is that helpful? What do you all think? Is that a good analogy for the Trinity? Can't be all three at the same time. Anybody else? Any problems? Knowing that all analogies break down. Any glaring issues? It's called heresy. It's modalism. Modalism is the idea that God is one, and there are three modes of revelation. So God's really just one person. Sometimes he's referred to as the father, sometimes the son, sometimes the spirit. There's these modes of revelation, but there's no real distinctions among the persons. It's a heresy. Here's another analogy. God is like the sun. There's a star. And that star creates or causes light and heat. We've got the father, and he creates and causes to be the son and the spirit. It's helpful, right? What do you all think? Is that a good analogy? Augustine did. James Montgomery Boyce did. But if we really press that analogy, I think it becomes a form of subordinationism, where The father is God, but the son and the spirit really are hierarchically related to him. The father is causing the son and the spirit. And so really that analogy too has major problems. Another one that at least legend has it was used by St. Patrick in his missionary efforts to the Celtic tribes was the clover. The three leafed clover, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, but it's one clover. Again, that breaks down because it gives the impression that the Father is partially God, then the Son, then the Spirit. God's made up of a percentage of the three people, and that would be a heresy as well. So, my one lesson on that is don't use analogies. to describe the Trinity, because they always become heretical. Ultimately, we confess a truth that is also a mystery. God is one in essence, but he also exists in three persons, unity in Trinity, Trinity in unity, one God, world without end, amen. So don't use analogies. Some people try to do that, and I mentioned modalism was actually a theory that developed. Why is this relevant today? Modalism, Sabellianism, or Patripassianism was an early church heresy. Why is that relevant today? Joseph. The Shack. I haven't actually read The Shack. It's full of a whole host of Trinitarian problems. That'd be one pop culture example. Another one would be T.D. Jakes. So T.D. Jakes, up until relatively recently held very strongly to a form of modalism. He's a oneness Pentecostal, Jesus-only Pentecostalism, where they really say that, no, there's just one person. It's revealed in three manifestations. He's kind of backtracked since then under pressure from James MacDonald, but it's very much alive and well within oneness Pentecostalism. Yes. The shack was a Joseph mentioned that the shack was a popular Christian book about a guy named Mac who meets with God at the shack and tries to sort through his kind of dysfunctional childhood. And it portrays God the Father as an African-American woman. And Jesus is like this carpenter. And then the Holy Spirit is an Asian woman. And so it's got all sorts of blasphemous, idolatrous, Oh yeah, there were CCM artists who were on the back cover of it, and it's pretty much been dismantled by a number of people, but people read it. It's out there. It was a movie too. Doesn't surprise me. The other one is subordinationism. Any reason why that might be alive and well today? The idea that Jesus is a created being who's not fully God. Anybody ever knocked on your door recently who tried to peddle that to you with watchtower tracks? I'm sorry? Jehovah's Witnesses. See, I don't call them that. That's what they call themselves. You're right. I prefer to call them Russellites because we're the true Jehovah's Witnesses. So you're right, but let's not give them the label. So Mormons, anyway, this stuff might seem arcane and archaic and esoteric, but really, We're dealing this with his head on even today. Now amidst modalism and subordinationism, modalism stressing the unity and the equality at the expense of the distinction of persons, and subordinationism stressing the distinction but ultimately denying the equality and the unity of the members, there was early forms of Trinitarianism. As we learned a few weeks ago, who is the big church father who coins the term Trinity? Trinitas. Anyone remember? Tertullian, thank you. Somebody was listening. That's encouraging. Yeah, Tertullian, he developed terms like God is one in substance, three in person. Later on, the Greek fathers used different language, and sometimes you have people talking past each other, so they would say he's one in usia. and three in Pupistasis. But ultimately, they're trying to describe the same thing, that there's one God, one in essence, and that one God exists in three persons who are distinct yet inseparable. And really, beyond just this early talk, this was the piety. This was the worship of the church. earliest liturgical prayer, the Gloria Patri, second century, glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. This is the worship of God's people. And even in the New Testament itself, we have this. When you think of every early church baptism, It was in the name singular of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Every time a minister would get up at the end of an early church worship service and pronounce that benediction, and if he used 2 Corinthians 13, 14, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity was just part and parcel of their piety. You couldn't abstract it from Christianity without losing Christianity itself. But with these councils, we have the same doctrine spelled out and formulated in a much more careful and precise way. And as often happens, Usually, new insights do not arise from people being creative and constructive. Sometimes they do. But in God's providence, usually it takes some heretic to get up and start spouting nonsense. And God's people say, what's he talking about? And it forces the church to reevaluate the issue and come to a better understanding. And here was a problem. The story goes all the way back in the 300s to Alexandria, Egypt. Alexandria, Egypt. And there, there was a bishop named Alexander. And he was Orthodox. And he preached. And in his preaching, he said, always the Son, always God. unity and equality among the persons of the Godhead. But there was an upstart, presbyter, little lower ranking man named Arius, perhaps a little ambitious, very much influenced by Greek thinking in his Antiochan school that he came out of, and he stressed the distinction of the persons as well as the deity of the father to the point where he embraced a form of subordinationism, where the father is God, But God creates the first creature, an exalted creature, the Logos. And in his Greek thinking, he thought, well, there's God and there's the world. God's got to relate to the world somehow. So he creates. He causes to be a Logos, to intermediate between God and the world. And the spirit is even lower than that. There's a chain of being. And with this, he basically says that Jesus He's not fully God, and he's not fully man. He's a tertium quid. He's a third something or other. He's an exalted creature. It's God's way of interacting with his people. And a big catchphrase for Arius was, there was a time when he was not. Jesus exists now, this exalted creature, but there was a time in eternity when he was not. He was produced, caused by the father. And this might seem kind of trite, but one of the ways that Arius really became popular and well-known was he came up with what, to me, seemed like advertising jingles. He came up with popular songs. He took pop songs from the area, and he set these, in my mind, kind of corny lyrics to them. I'll give you an example of one. Tell me what you think. Here's a song that's current in the days of Alexandria in the early 300s. Arius of Alexandria, I'm the talk of all the town. Friend of saints, elect of heaven, filled with learning and renown. If you want the Logos doctrine, I can serve it steaming hot. God begat him, and before he was begotten, he was not. What do y'all think? Anyway, this sort of jingle, this sort of song was finding its way through all the people, and as a result, Alexandria was in an uproar. Businessmen stopped doing their trading and they debated theology. So imagine this, you go to the marketplace and people used to transact business, now they're debating the logos. Gregory of Nyssa, great Cappadocian father, describes in some detail what it was like. He talks about businessmen conducting business and someone comes and says, I'd like to buy a loaf. And as he gives him the coin, he says something to the effect of, the son is subordinate to the father. A man sends a messenger on a journey or asks him to fill his bath water, and the servant responds, the sun arose out of nothing. You have people who are doing common, ordinary things that are just caught up in this debate. Well, as a result of this upheaval, the emperor Constantine, whom you learned about last week, decides he's got to take action. This is almost becoming politically subversive. And for whatever reasons, some perhaps noble, ultimately I think pragmatic, he wants there to be political unity. He calls the first ecumenical council. Question, why is it called ecumenical? You use that term, you usually think of it as something bad, the World Council of Churches, but why ecumenical? What's it mean? It's not really a trick question. Yes. Hmm. Right. We can almost say it's universal. It's the whole church getting together in an assembly to work out this issue. The first one, and it really was ecumenical. There was roughly around 300 men who gathered in Nicaea, which is a town in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. They gathered. The record was supposedly around 318, but roughly 300. And there were men from all over the empire, from Africa, from Asia, from as far away in the West as Spain. And they all come to this one location. It's interesting that there's actually more Greek-speaking Eastern Fathers than there are Western. There's only four or five Latin speakers. And of those, the Bishop of Rome himself doesn't actually come. Just as you think about Roman Catholic development, The Pope, so to speak, wasn't at the first ecumenical council. Tells you a little bit about the development of the papacy over time. When they get there in the year 325, Constantine calls it, he arranges for their traveling expenses to be covered by the empire. They arrive and the debate is heated. There's three parties. On the one hand, you have a very small band of Aryan heretics led by a man named Eusebius of Nicomedia. Arius himself could not be a delegate at the assembly because he was not a bishop. He was a lower-ranking presbyter. But Eusebius of Nicomedia comes with a conglomerate of followers, and their basic argument is the son is of a different substance or nature than the father. It's different. He is an exalted creature. Alongside of them, there's another small band of people who are the Alexandrians. And they say, this is heresy. No, Jesus is of the same substance with the Father. He's equal in power and glory. And there's a third group, which is the biggest. And it's the compromise group. And they were saying, in so many words, really, why can't we all just get along? Can't we seek the peace and prosperity of the church? Can't we work through these differences? And they're led by a man named Eusebius of Caesarea, so don't confuse him with Eusebius of Nicomedia. Eusebius of Nicomedia is an Arian. Eusebius of Caesarea, who's really the first church historian, is the one who leads the conciliatory, moderate group. And they come there, and really, it is a heated debate. Just to give you an idea of what happens, Eusebius of Nicomedia gets up, and he is going to deliver a speech. And he thinks in his mind, if I can just make it really clear, everybody's going to love this. So he's like, well, Jesus is not fully God. He's a created being. And he's of a different substance than the Father. And he's like, so what's wrong with that? And the people just erupt. They shout him down. They grab his speech out of his hand. They snatch it away. They rip it up. They tear it into shreds. They throw it on the floor. And they stamp all over it and trample underfoot. They shout out, heresy, you lie, blasphemy, really intense. And I hesitate to mention this story because it's probably not true, but I wish it were. There's a fantastic legend. an apocryphal account of a man named Saint Nicholas, whom you know as the patron saint of Christmas. And the legend goes that he came to Nicaea as a delegate and he got so upset by this Arian heresy that he just couldn't help himself. He reached out and he slapped an Arian right across the face and he was put into temporary custody for his violent actions. So however much I'd like to think that St. Nicholas punched out an Aryan heretic, it's probably not true, but it gives you an indication of the plausibility of that degree of violence and heated debate going on. Dr. McGraw. Yeah, well that helps maybe put it in some perspective where the civil order is disordered. There's almost anarchy, there's rioting, there's clubs, there's fists. And so the civil magistrate does have a vested interest in maintaining the order of society. And I'm not going to get in, since Joseph already answered all your questions on church-state, I'm not even going to venture into the propriety of an emperor calling a council. You can ask Joseph about all of that. But along with that, just to give you a little bit of the flavor of this debate, what eventually emerges is The moderate and the Alexandrian groups really come together to defeat Arianism. And it comes down to one phrase. I don't usually like to use Greek terms, but this one is useful to know. It's significant. Homoousios. Homoousios. The son is homoousios with the father. Oousios means substance or essence or nature. Homo means same. The basic idea is the Son is of the same substance with the Father. To put it in really simple terms, Jesus is truly and fully God, consubstantial with the Father. If you look at your handout, you have that language in the Nicene Creed that was developed out of this Council. And you look at the second paragraph down, 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, homoousios, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten. not made. He's not a creature. No, he's equal in power and glory of the same substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both in heaven and on earth. So ultimately, that language of one substance, begotten, not made, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, this is the confession of the Trinity. And the basic idea is One God, one in essence. That one God exists eternally in three persons, and those three persons, though distinct, are inseparable. Though distinguished by their personal properties, the Father alone unbegotten, the Son eternally begotten of the Father, and the Spirit eternally proceeding. We'll look a little later on whether he proceeds from the Father alone, or whether he proceeds from the Father and the Son. That's really a Constantinople issue. At this point, though, I want to raise a question. And that is, what do you all think about the use of non-biblical and extra-biblical terms to describe biblical realities? In other words, Trinity is never used in the Bible. Some of these other terms, like hupostasis, are used in the Bible, but here they're being used with a special theological significance. Homoousios. What do you think about the use of these terms? Is it okay? Why can't we just say, well, I believe the Bible. I'm a biblicist. How would you answer someone who said, why do you use the word trinity? Just use Bible language. You don't need the word trinity. It sums it up. That's very helpful because in defending the faith and in declaring the faith, it is so helpful to be able to use what we could call shorthand summaries, where this is an accurate summation of what the Bible teaches. When you take passages of scripture like Matthew 3 or Matthew 28 or 2 Corinthians 13 or Ephesians 1 or Philippians 2, take all that biblical data You connect the dots, and you use a term like Trinity, which perfectly encaptures and summarizes what we're trying to say in the Bible. Not maybe perfectly, but it's a true statement. Yes. Ryan. So why in God's providence did he not give us the word Trinity in the Bible itself? Because clearly he gives us the concept. He tells us that I and the Father are one. You have distinction of persons, but they're one in essence. You have This theology of God existing in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit eternally. That's there. And the word Trinity, which summarizes that, is not in so many Latin words. Trinitas is Latin, not Greek. It's not in the New Testament. One thing that might be helpful along those lines, on the one hand, God knows what we need at different points in history. Another thing is that Jesus, in his high priestly prayer, prays that he would lead the apostles and subsequently the apostolic church into all truth. And so in other words, Jesus is providentially still governing over his church by the power of his spirit, helping his church come to a clearer understanding of various doctrines. And so you can say that doctrine of the Trinity is in the New Testament. As the church works through it, they're able more and more to clearly and precisely describe that reality. And at the end of the day, the Lord was pleased to do it in this way, even using the messiness of history and church councils to help us come to a clearer understanding of them. Dr. McGraw, that's very helpful. Because one of the tests of understanding is can you put it into your own words? And with that, in combating heresy like you mentioned, It's helpful. With a term like homoousios, it's like a litmus test. Can you affirm this summary of the faith? And it helps to make very stark the difference between belief and unbelief. You think of, I mean, Mormons, they'll say, well, yeah, I believe the Bible. Roman Catholics, I believe the Bible. We all say we believe the Bible, but we have different interpretations of what it means. And so God and his providence has been pleased to use theological terms to help isolate and make starkly contrasting orthodoxy from heterodoxy. With that kind of summary of Nicaea, this is the council, and you have the creed that comes from it, which you have in your handout. Out of this, the problems don't disappear. In fact, more problems develop. At first, Constantine the Emperor, who called the council, upholds the decision. More than that, he banishes Arius and has his books burned. So right now, the civil magistrate is defending orthodoxy, upholding the council's creed and confession. But then things switch. Constantine later wants to seek more political unity, and he thinks, well, maybe we could come up with a compromise formula that will help appease both the Arians and the Alexandrians. And he essentially, ultimately grants Arius reinstatement. In the year 335, so 10 years after Nicaea, Constantine reinstates Arius and calls upon the local bishop in Constantinople to grant him communion. At this point, Arius dies, and so he's not granted the communion at that point. And ultimately, just to give you a sense of where Constantine is waffling on this issue, trying to bring clarity, the end of his life, on his deathbed, when he asks for baptism, the man who baptizes him is Eusebius of Nicomedia. Arian leader at the Council of Nicaea. At that point, he's really favoring Arius and is willing to throw Athanasius under the bus. So there's a revival of Arianism, and it doesn't help that Constantius and Valens, Constantius II and Valens, two emperors later, are full-blown Arians. And added to that trouble, there is a missionary named Ulphalos, who's an Aryan, and he goes out and evangelizes all the Goth tribes in the Germanic areas. And so later on, the empire has all these barbarian hordes, these Germanic Gothic tribes, coming back in to the Roman Empire, and they bring with them Aryan heresy, spread by these early missionaries. So it doesn't go away. But in the midst of all that, there's a man who stands up for truth. Anyone know his name? His name was mentioned earlier. I think Pastor Ellis mentioned him. Athanasius. Again, he was only 25. He was a deacon at the Council of Nicaea. He didn't do a whole lot there. Some of it was behind the scenes. But after that council is done and he becomes Bishop of Alexandria, he comes to the fore and there's a great Latin dictum, it's Athanasius Contra Mundum. Athanasius Against the World, where you have the empire siding with the Arians, and one man, it almost seems like, is the only person left standing for truth. There are others, but he is in some ways a lone voice. Athanasius, he was called the Black Dwarf. He was darker-complected and very short. but a man of gigantic stature theologically, he begins to defend Nicene orthodoxy. At various points, he is banished five times by four different emperors. He spends much of his life running away. He's persecuted, moving from this city to that city. At one point, he's in a boat, and there are people from the state looking for him to capture him and throw him into prison. And they say, have you seen Athanasius? dark and they can't see each other very well. He says, yes, I've seen him. And they're like, OK, is he far? He's like, well, he's not far away. And they keep going down the road. And there's a sense in which he wasn't far away. He was right there, and they didn't even see him. So his life is really one of fighting, preaching, teaching, running, and standing for the truth. And at this point, what ends up happening is I mentioned a compromise formula. There's a group of men who say, well, maybe we could soften homoousios and say homoousios. Homoousios, homoousios. Just one letter difference. It's just the letter Yoda. We'll just throw the letter Yoda in there, and maybe that will make the Alexandrians happy and the Aryans happy, and we'll all be one big family all over again. One letter difference, and Athanasius said no. So homoousios means that Jesus is of the same substance as the Father, equal in power and glory, fully God, truly God. Homousios means Jesus is of a similar nature as the Father, similar. They're not saying it's different totally, but it's similar. And in this, this attempted compromise, Athanasius says, no, precision matters in theology. The letter Yoda matters. Jesus isn't simply similar. No, he is God of very God. And he takes his stand there. With Athanasius, he produces a work called On the Incarnation of the Word. It's a really slim volume. If you ever have the chance to read it, it's very devotional. And in it, he sets forth his defense of the Trinity and its theological implications. So Athanasius really is a giant. He has contributions in the areas of monasticism, his contributions in the area of canonicity. We dealt with that a little bit earlier. But at the end of the day, he is known for defending the full deity of the Son of God. After Athanasius, there are three men who also come to the fore. Oh, sorry, yes, Pastorellus. That's a good point. It would have been before the council itself. That's helpful. That would maybe give credence to the idea of saying he really is the hero of Nicaea, even though he wasn't, like Alexander, the one chiefly speaking. So I think that's a helpful point. That sounds right. I'd have to look it up. But regardless, he'd already had a Trinitarian understanding of God from his very early days. And he was definitely active and involved behind the scenes at Nicaea at the very least. And certainly afterwards, he is the one who takes up the defense of the Trinity with a vengeance. No. No, it's helpful. That was a helpful additional insight. I think it gives more, helps us understand and appreciate Athanasius even more. Beyond that, there are three other men called the three Cappadocians. You have Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, who is his brother, and then Gregory of Nazianzus, who is their friend. And these three men Basil, Gregory, and Gregory come together to develop the doctrine of the Trinity even further. And they're very important for a couple of reasons. First, they emphasized the deity of the Holy Spirit. You notice in the original creed, as you have it in your handout, the Holy Spirit is mentioned. What's it say? The final paragraph before all of the condemnations are given. and in the Holy Ghost. We believe in the Holy Ghost. There's really nothing else said about how he relates to the Father and to the Son and whether or not he's even fully God. So with the Cappadocians, they put a stress on the deity of the Spirit. Second thing they do, is to emphasize not simply the unity and equality of the persons, as Nicaea had done and Alexander had done, but to emphasize the distinction among the persons. There are three distinct yet inseparable persons, the Father alone unbegotten, the Son eternally begotten of the Father, and the Spirit eternally proceeding. And with this, they They emphasize both the unity but also the distinction among the persons. And there's a wonderful quote by Gregory of Nazianzus that Calvin quotes and loves in the Institutes. Here's how Calvin sets up the quote. That passage in Gregory of Nazianzus vastly delights me. And here's the quote. I cannot think on the one without quickly being encircled by the splendor of the three. Nor can I discern the three without being straightway carried back to the one. unity in Trinity, Trinity in unity, a revealed truth and yet a mystery that we embrace by faith. It really captures both the flavor and the tone of what we'd like to see in an Orthodox confession of the triune God. While these men and their work and the ongoing conflicts with Arianism lead to a second ecumenical council, the Council of Constantinople in 381. We're gonna deal with this one a little less at length because Nicaea is the one we're gonna focus on. But Constantinople is important as well. It too is called by an emperor. Only now it's Emperor Theodosius, Theodosius I. Called in 381, in the year 380, just a year before that, Theodosius did something remarkable. Constantine declared Christianity to be a legal religion in the year 313. in the Edict of Milan. Theodosius goes one step further. Anyone know what he did? What did Theodosius do? Joseph. Exactly. He made Christianity official state religion, which meant that in some ways he began to persecute pagans by dismantling their temples and not allowing them to worship. And so the tide really does turn with Theodosius. He calls this council. And I'd say that he did a number of things at this council, just as Nicaea had a number of issues at stake. But like Nicaea, the big burning topic was the Trinity. And you could think of Constantinople as a clarification. a clarification and a supplementing of what was done at Nicaea, and that results in a revised creed. If you look at your handout, Philip Schoff, the church historian, has helpfully given us a side-by-side comparison of the two creeds, where you see what was left out and what was added, and you get an idea of what was important at this second council. I want to draw your attention to the words that were added in the second to last paragraph on the right. So this is the Nicene Creed as it was revised in 381. And here we have an addition. And in the Holy Ghost, there's added words. the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets." With those words, there is an added tone of the deity of the Holy Spirit and a little bit more of how the persons relate to one another eternally. So this council comes forth and really if you look at your Trinity hymnals, you'll realize that the version of the Nicene Creed that we've inherited in the West is actually a combination of the original Nicene Creed but with the revisions of the 381 Council of Constantinople. And so when we recite that creed, realize something of the history of these documents and how theologians worked hard and even were willing to die and be persecuted to hammer out an orthodox understanding of who God is. Gerald Bray says this of the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed. He put both of them together. He says, it is the only creedal statement to be recognized by all branches of the Christian church. In terms of significance, now we're moving into the legacy of these two councils. The creed that emerged from these two meetings of God's people is the only creedal statement to be universally recognized by every Christian church, every branch. We have the Apostles' Creed, but the Apostles' Creed is principally a document recognized in the West. It came out of the Roman baptismal rite, and it's essentially a Western phenomenon. So Roman Catholic churches, Anglican, Protestant churches, we would confess it. And the East wouldn't deny it. But it's liturgical tradition, along with the West, all of the branches recognize this document. It was a great consensus document throughout the centuries. However, while you'd think this would be a unifying statement, there's something that makes this document very controversial, particularly between the Eastern and the Western churches. Anybody know what that is? and the Son. If you look at your handout, you can find my handout. I found it. If you look at your handout, it says, and in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life who proceedeth from the Father. That's the way the Eastern Church continues to confess this creed. But at 589, at a council in Toledo in Spain, The words and the sun were added, the filioque clause. And with that, along with a whole host of other reasons, including language and culture and whether or not to use leavened or unleavened bread and the date of Easter, all of these different differences between East and West, but the watershed is the filioque clause, and the sun. That ultimately leads in 1054 to the schism, the great schism between East and West, which in many ways has never been overcome. There's an Eastern Orthodox Church to this day. There's a Roman Catholic Church to this day. And of course, the Protestant churches come out of that Western stream. I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about this phrase. I'll say this about it. On the one hand, I think Am the Son, this addition of the phrase, is biblical and helpful and theologically true. If you look at Jesus' high priestly prayer and that whole upper room discourse in John 14-16, you have an emphasis that the Spirit in history goes out, the Father sends forth the Spirit through the Son. If you read in Titus 3, it talks about the Spirit being poured out by the Father at Pentecost through the mediation of the Son. And so theologically, if God works in history with the Father, And then the Spirit proceeding from the Father through the Son, that reflects something of who God is eternally. And so theologically, it's very helpful. And there are actually implications in the East why I think it's unhelpful. For instance, if we say that we can come to the Father either by the Son or by the Spirit, what ends up happening is there's a mystical element that creeps into the Eastern Church that has proven very unhelpful over time. We don't have time to deal with all the implications of that. On the other hand, I think there probably would have been a better way to deal with it, because Toledo was not an ecumenical council, and yet the West seized on the language. I think it's true language, helpful language, don't have time to unpack all the theological implications, but because of how it was handled, the Eastern Church has regarded it as a schismatic move ever since. So realize that part of the legacy of this document is the battle over those words. There was a, I think the Pope was doing a visit not that long ago in one of his great treks around the world, and he was in a country that has Eastern Orthodoxy, and there were signs held up that said Filioque, and basically X-ing it out. So to this day, they will not forget and forgive the addition of those words. Well, as we close, With the legacy of this document, I want to do two things. First, I want to draw your attention to the heritage we've received in the Westminster Standards. We could do a whole lecture on this, but if you have your copy of the Westminster Standards and you look at Chapter 3, which is, not Chapter 3, Chapter 2, which is of God and the Holy Trinity. Paragraph 3, it says this, in the unity of the Godhead, there be three persons of one substance. power and eternity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. So you realize when you read your Westminster standards, including the catechisms, where it talks about there are three persons in the Godhead, Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one God, the same in substance. Homoousia, equal in power and glory. What the Westminster divines are doing, they're not reinventing the wheel. They're not just drawing language out of thin air. They are tapping in to the deposit of the faith, to the rich treasury. of what God has done in history at Nicaea, at Constantinople, the Westminster divines are really affirming the classical Christian consensus of the first five centuries. And you realize that in some sense, as Reformed Christians, we are, we could call the true Catholics, we're the ones who by God's grace affirm the Bible, but also as the Bible was defended and expounded in those early days of the one holy Catholic and apostolic church. Beyond the Westminster Standards, there's a number of areas where we can see the practical implications of that. Before I go into that, anybody want to throw out what's an area where the doctrine that we've been talking about becomes very practical? Nicaea and Constantinople. How is the doctrine of the Trinity practical? Any ideas? Yes. Walton says prayer. And it's true that although we can pray to all three members of the Godhead, if you follow the pattern of scripture, The priority is given in this way, that we pray to the Father, our Father who art in heaven. We pray through the Son and we pray by the power of the Holy Spirit. You realize that when you read the Bible, every good gift comes from the Father. through the Son, by the Spirit. There's a pattern. Who God is in eternity that is reflected in how he works in history, such that the Father is, we could say principally, the originator, the Son, the agent, and the Spirit, the perfecting power. What happens at creation? God creates, but how does he create? Anyone remember? By the word, by the logos, the father creates through his son, and who is hovering over the face of the waters? It's a spirit. Not just creation, but redemption. The gospel itself is Trinitarian. Some 17th century Armenians, though they acknowledge the Trinity, did not think it was necessary to the gospel message. And yet we realize, I hope, even by a cursory reading of Ephesians 1, that the gospel is by definition Trinitarian. That although all members of the Godhead are active at every stage of redemption, yet particularly the Father is the one who has chosen us in his Son. Redemption planned by the Father principally. Redemption accomplished by the Son. Redemption applied by the Holy Spirit. That at Jesus' birth, what's going on? The Father is sending forth his Son. The Son becomes incarnate as the Spirit overshadows the Virgin Mary. That at his baptism, we already talked about that, Jesus is there being baptized. The Holy Spirit descends on him like a dove and the Father declares, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. At the cross, Jesus Christ offers himself up as a sacrifice to the Father through the eternal Spirit. And at the resurrection, the Father raises up Jesus by the power of the Holy Ghost. He's declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness. So you realize that in everything, the gospel itself, it's all Trinitarian. And really, I'm just parroting Dr. McGraw. So if you wanted to delve into this further, Knowing the Trinity, I think, is a book that you've produced, as well as Is the Trinity Practical, a little handbook. There's all sorts of resources out there to realize that our faith is Trinitarian. And so my one kind of, I give one exhortation is, by God's grace, cultivate a Christ-centered Trinitarianism. Cultivate a Trinitarian consciousness where you realize that At the end of the day, as you're wanting to have union and communion with God, you want to have communion with the Father. Especially in love. The Son, especially in grace. And the Spirit, especially in comfort. This is at the heart of our Christian faith. As we close, I don't have time for questions, but I'm just going to finish it off by quoting Dorothy Sayers, who has a wonderful quote that if you've left today thinking that these councils aren't very important, hear her words and then we'll close. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man. And the dogma is the drama. That drama is summarized quite clearly in the creeds of the church, like Nicaea, like Constantinople. And if we think it is dull, it is because we either have never really read those amazing documents or have recited them so often and so mechanically as to have lost all sense of their meaning. So even as we confess our faith this evening, I'm not sure which creed we might use, but think about what you're saying, and think about the God in whose person you're confessing your faith. Let's pray. Father, thank you for what you've done in history, that you work through your church to help your church find words to express in a finite way who you are, a faith that they already had in their worship and in their piety, but which you intended for them to know and to articulate even more clearly. Lord, we thank you that we stand on the shoulders of giants. We pray that you'd help us now as we worship, asking this in Jesus' name. Amen.