All right, so here we are, lesson five, Defending the Deity of Christ is the name of our lesson today, Defending the Deity of Christ. And really, what we're gonna be looking at is pretty much the entire fourth century, okay? So remember, the fourth century, that's gonna be from the year 300 all the way to 400. And there's really only one thing to talk about from the year 300 to 400. And that is going to be the Aryan controversy. And that's the case because it really does take up pretty much the entire 100 years. And some really crucial things happened during this time that impact us today as believers. So it's important for us to spend some good time looking at it. There is a key passage that I think is helpful. I know this is a church history class. We're not doing Bible study here. We're actually looking at history. But it's, of course, God's history. And it's so much of God's history is about understanding, teaching, interpreting, applying the Bible, right? So John 1, 1 through 3, 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 came into being through him, and apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. That should be a very familiar passage for you as we think about the deity of Christ. I probably would do a disservice if I didn't stand up here and encourage all of you. I know some of you have done the homework that I sent out. Many of you probably didn't. If you're going to do one thing, I would really recommend you track down that sermon by Piper that I shared. I had listened to that probably 10 years ago maybe and hadn't touched it since. But Daryl and I, we listened to it as we went to Nakona, Texas for a wedding. And it was just a very, I was reminded of how powerful it was to hear John Piper talk about Athanasius and his part in handling this controversy. and defeating Aryanism essentially. So really a very powerful message and I commend it to you today. I'm also encouraged to hear that there are a few of you who are actually applying yourself and doing the homework. So thank you all for that. We actually do put a lot of work in deciding what resources to send out that we think would be helpful. So it's good to know that those efforts are being used. Okay, so like I said, we have a lot of ground to cover, so let's go ahead and dig in. Okay, so we're really gonna start by talking about a major turning point that's gonna happen really at the very beginning of the fourth century. So Emperor Diocletian, under his rule, Christians in the Roman Empire were intensely persecuted. Okay, the past few weeks that we've met, we've talked about the nature of some of that persecution, but it was a very intense thing. And really, it stretched all the way back for 250 years, all the way, really, to Nero. I mean, he was one of the first ones who really instigated a lot of persecution against believers. And really these waves of persecution would come and go, just with different leaders, different circumstances. Some areas were worse than others, some were better than others. So it wasn't a homogenous reality for people, but it was absolutely a reality for people. But really that's about to change in a very interesting way. Okay, so Diocletian, his reign ended in 305, and then a power struggle began within the Roman Empire. Several years later, Constantine I, also known as Constantine the Great, he would gain control of the Western Roman Empire by defeating Maximian in the year 310, and also his son Maxentius in 312. So Constantine comes on the scene, gains control of the Western Roman Empire, And in 313, he and another emperor of the east named Licinius. Okay, so we have Constantine in the west and Licinius in the east. They issued something called the Edict of Milan. Now the question is, why did they issue the Edict of Milan? I'll tell you what that is in a second. But essentially prior to this, one of the battles that Constantine was engaged in with one of these other emperors, with Maxentius, Constantine claimed that he saw a vision as he was going to battle. And the vision he received and he was told to conquer in the sign of the cross. Okay, so this man, he was not a Christian. Christians were a nuisance to his reign at this point. And as he's going to battle, he experiences what he says is a vision, saying that he needs to conquer in the name of the cross. And as a result of this experience, Constantine, he professed to become a Christian at that point. It's hard for us to really understand how impactful this conversion experience was to all of history. We're talking down to this day. So much of what has developed in the West really can be traced in some measure to policy changes that happened at the time of Constantine's conversion. And the reason that's a big deal, and that's the Edict of Milan, okay, so he becomes a Christian, and he and Licinius, sorry, I'm gonna get these names a little bit rough, they issue the Edict of Milan. What that did was it brought essentially peace and legal protections to the Christian church. So prior to this, persecution, the church was really a minority that really was a nuisance to people, you know, like I said, And with the conversion of Constantine, he brought a lot of peace and really elevated the Christian church as kind of like a protected class. Okay, so now Christians can go about their business, they can go about their worship, they can go about doing the things that they wanna do without fear of being persecuted in quite the same way. One thing, just to give an example, whenever Constantine had his conversion experience, One of the things that they did was they stopped charging taxes to churches. Okay, that was 300 and, you know, 313 AD that that policy decision was made that we see a semblance of even to this very day. Just to give you an example of some of the ripple effects that we experience today because of Constantine. We're not gonna get into it a whole lot. There's a lot of interesting views about Constantine. I take an agnostic position on him. What I'm talking about is, is he a legitimate believer or not? I don't, I really don't know. There are some who think he absolutely was born again by this event and lived as a Christian. And then there's others who question that and see a lot of issues and we don't know. So will we see Constantine in heaven one day? I don't know. So I'm not exactly sure. We hope so. Absolutely. We hope so. I have more on him as we get into this. But in 324, so after they... issue this edict, Constantine defeats Licinius, right? And then he became the sole ruler of the entire Roman Empire. Okay, so Christian man conquering the sign of the cross, puts this treaty in place with this other ruler and then shortly thereafter ends up conquering him and taking over his portion of the empire as well. And so really at this moment, Constantine really would become the most powerful man in all of the world. Okay, with him really unifying the Roman Empire under his rule. And really what we're gonna talk about today is in the year 325, Constantine organized the first general church council. And it's really the first one of its kind since the Jerusalem council, which we see in Acts chapter 15. And the council met in what city? Nicaea, that's exactly right. Now after Constantine would die and fall off the scene, Theodosius, Theodosius, okay, the great would come into power at 379 through 395, so the very end of the fourth century. And at that point, okay, he was a Nicene Christian. And at that point, Theodosius would make Nicene Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. A lot of people attribute that to Constantine, but Constantine didn't do that. He definitely elevated and made it a privileged position, being a Christian, but he didn't, by law, make Christianity the law of the land, so to speak. What's Nicene Christianity? Nicene Christianity is what we're gonna talk about over the next hour, so we'll define that. So that's a good question. So as we get started looking at the Nicene Council, there's a few very important figures we want to spend some time looking at. The first one, I've already mentioned him, made reference to him, is Athanasius. He's a very critical person in the history of the church, one of the most venerated, respected saints of old. And we have a lot of his writings available to us today. And so much of how you formulate doctrine in your mind about what the Bible teaches about the Trinity and the deity of Christ, you can in some ways thank the Lord for. working through Athanasius to work some of these things out for us. He lived in the fourth century from around 298 to 373, and he pastored a church in Alexandria, Egypt. And the entire, the central theological issue of Athanasius Day was really the deity of Christ. Okay, the deity of Christ was the central theological issue of Athanasius Day. And also the closely related doctrine of the Trinity. Okay, so we'll talk about those things as we really get into this. But as we'll see, Athanasius, he doggedly defended the deity of Christ, and as a result, he was instrumental in keeping the church from falling into some serious doctrinal error. Think about what we would lose, right? If we lost the deity of Christ. I mean, what are some things that y'all think we would lose? Salvation would be gone, right? There would be no salvation, okay? What else? the doctrine of the Trinity would be gone. That's exactly right. So those are a few really good examples of truths that we hold dear, and we hold them dear not because of Athanasius, but because it's what the Bible reveals. But had people's minds been formed around some of the other ideas that were prevalent at the time, had that become the generally accepted idea, it's hard to imagine where we might be today. It just really is. So he definitely, definitely was instrumental in keeping the church from falling into some serious error. Many have called Athanasius the saint of stubbornness because this was his thing for the entirety of his life. Turn after turn, he's having to defend the deity of Christ and really he refused to compromise as he constantly was defending the truth. A common name you'll hear about Athanasius is Athanasius Confirmunda. I don't know what that means. against the world, okay? And that's because there were certain times throughout Athanasius' life that it really did look like he was the only one who was truly advocating for a biblical view of who Christ, of who the Christ was, the nature of Christ. He really was kind of standing alone at many points. Not completely alone, but he was definitely the spokesperson, and the whole world was raging against him at certain points. So before becoming a bishop or the lead pastor at the church in Alexandria, Athanasius, he served as a deacon, okay? And he served as a deacon under the leadership of a man by the name of Alexander. So one of the elders of the church, another man named Arius, began to teach that Christ, here's the poisonous pill, okay? Arius began to teach that Christ was a created being who was not eternal, and therefore not equal with the Father. Okay, so that's really a summation of the core of what Arius had begun to teach, okay? That Christ was a created being. Do we think that Christ is a created being? We do not, okay? Arius was teaching that he was a created being who was not eternal, and therefore he was not equal to God the Father. Okay, this is what Arius was teaching, and if you listen to some of those other resources, he makes the point that heretics that are walking around, they're not walking around with the big neon light over our head that says, heretic, heretic, heretic. I believe that Arius genuinely thought he was right. I don't think that he was intentionally trying to destroy it, but he had accepted a few presuppositions, right, that caused him to come to some conclusions that were against God's revealed word. I mean, that's just what it came down to. And Athanasius saw it, and Athanasius, he fought it. Okay? No, you're good, yeah. Right. Right. That's exactly right. So we're gonna get into some of that because that's really, no, it's good. It's really crucial to try to feel the challenge, okay? Because we are monotheists. That means there are how many gods? There's one God, right? And they knew this, okay? The people at this time, they accepted this because the Bible makes it clear. That's what the Bible is teaching. There is one God, okay? And yet we say that he exists eternally in, Three persons, okay? So trying to, and even now, as we talk about the Trinity, it's really hard to wrap your mind around some of this stuff, and there's a good reason for it, and that's because it really is, in many senses, beyond our comprehension. And doesn't that, I mean, doesn't that make sense? And it doesn't almost even provide a degree of comfort to you to know that the God that we serve is not a God that you're able to fully understand. Right? And that's a function of our creatureliness. That's a function of being his creatures. And I think if we had a God that we fully understood, okay, probably what we would actually be serving is something that we created, which would be called a idol. That's exactly right. So hopefully as we wrestle with some of these doctrines, and you feel like it just doesn't compute, doesn't make sense, there's a good reason for that in some cases. And when we're talking about the doctrine of God, the Trinity, that's a very good example of something that really stretches us beyond our limits conceptually. But the point is, Arius tried to put together a formulation that would explain it. It's like, oh, I can solve that problem, okay? Jesus was just created, right? That's essentially what Arius would come to promote. All right, but we're gonna get into some of that in just a second. So the controversy resulted in a regional synod that was held in Egypt in 318, and it eventually would lead to that Council of Nicaea, which really involved church leaders throughout the entire Roman Empire in 325. Okay, so it started off as a small group in Egypt, and then eventually Constantine, as we'll see, will actually call all the bishops from all over the Roman Empire, which was pretty much the entire inhabited world, to come and to solve this problem. Now I do have a disclaimer here, okay? Some of you have your workbooks. I appreciate that you have them and that you're using them. And Jake and I have tried to teach along pretty close to the curriculum. That way, you know, you can fill in your blanks and take your notes. But for the purpose of our study today, I'm gonna break with the curriculum a little bit. And the reason for that is just because I don't think that the author goes into as much detail as I think would be helpful. And as I think y'all are ready for, just to be honest. And so, after the class, if you wanna have your blanks filled in, find me or Jake and we'll help you get those things filled in. That way you have a complete workbook by the time that we're done. But what is the challenge that's before the church? That's really the question. And to understand the challenges which the church was facing during this time, it's helpful to examine some of the different cross-currents that were at play during this time. So again, we're talking about the fourth century. What were some of the cross-currents that were going on that kind of created a flashpoint for this controversy to just explode on the scene? That's what I want us to talk about, because I think it's important to understand some of these factors. Cross-current one, I'm calling it the influence of classical philosophy and also the influence of the apologists that we've studied really the past few times that we were together. So the role that classical philosophy played in really uncovering this controversy is really quite complex. Okay, now in your textbook, Justo Gonzales, he makes the point that really many of the apologists that we studied Justin and some of the others that Jake went through last time we were together, they had recognized that there were certain philosophical principles that were useful in defending the faith and even provided a degree of credibility to the Christian faith among the intelligentsia of the day. Okay, so some of the apologists, as they're trying to defend the faith and say, no, no, no, we're not, we're not atheists. You know, cause they're like, you don't even worship a God. Where's your God? You can't see him. Y'all must be atheists. Like, no, we're not atheists. You know, they were trying to defend some of these accusations that were coming at them. And many of them began to recognize that there are certain philosophical principles within classic philosophy that were helpful to articulate what Christians are. Okay, and one of those, I'm just gonna give one example. Classical philosophy recognizes a supreme being, okay, that exists above the entire cosmos. Hmm, that's interesting, okay. Many factions of classical philosophy would recognize a supreme being that exists outside the cosmos. Interesting. So it's a pretty widely accepted view that really came from the Greek philosophers. And so what do you think the apologists did? Well, in many cases, they made the case that the supreme God that the Greek and the classical philosophers were reaching out was none other than the very God that is revealed in scripture. Okay, do you see how easy it would be to kind of make that case? And you might wanna be critical of that, but I think an argument can be made that they were really doing nothing other than standing in the tradition of what they see Paul doing in Acts chapter 17. What is he doing at Morris Hill? Y'all remember? Yeah, he's walking and he's seeing all these idols there in Acts chapter 17, and he sees one that's to an unknown God. And what does he say to them? He says, this one that you worship in ignorance, I worship in truth. So you can see how there was a degree of precedent for engaging with unbelievers in some of these terms. Now, one problem with this approach, and there's danger in this approach, I will concede, but one problem with it was that the supreme being of classical philosophy was impersonal. He was an impersonal being. And Christians knew, based on scripture, that faith in a personal God was truly possible. They rejected the idea that this highest being that exists outside of creation is impersonal. They rejected that. They knew he was personal. And the way they attempted to reconcile this challenge, okay, the way they wanted to resolve it biblically was by appealing to the Logos. Okay, what we read in John 1, 1, appealing to the Logos, the reason of God, the word of God, okay? as being the very being that is capable of having that relationship with humanity. So they began to view Christ as the expression of that highest deity. They began to see Christ as the embodiment that allowed for that personal relationship. So between the immutable one in the heavens in the mutable world, the world that we live in, there was the word. So you see how the apologists were trying to wrestle with different ways of thinking to explain what they saw in the Bible about God being personal. So this really became the generally accepted view and was really promoted by Origin, who y'all studied last time y'all were together and I think Jake called him Origin the genius. I prefer to call him Origin the eunuch, but to each his own. Origin, he really had a humongous influence on the church at this time. I mean, just absolutely huge. And he's absolutely a mixed bag. To write him off as a complete heretic, I don't know if I'd be willing to go that far, but he definitely promoted and set some stuff in place that caused centuries of trouble. And really a lot of the controversy that we're studying today in the fourth century, Origen had a very huge part in it based on the studying that I've done. So much of the ensuing area in controversy would be centered on the nature of the Logos or the nature of the word of God. So the basic question, is Jesus co-eternal with God or was he not? That's really the question that they're having to answer that was kind of, that they inherited from the influence of the apologist and from even classical philosophy. So that's cross-current one. Classical philosophy and the apologist. Number two, politics. Politics has a way of showing its head anywhere that people exist. And the conversion of Constantine, so if you think about Constantine's conversion, before 313, the Roman Empire cared very little about disunity and controversy within the church. There was no reason for them to, they didn't care, okay? Now, after his conversion, Constantine would become the first emperor of many who would come after him to involve themselves directly in ecclesiastical matters. Constantine would eventually come to see that the controversy surrounding Arius, that it was actually a threat to the unity of his empire. And for him, solving the Arian-Athanasian disagreement was a matter of paramount political importance. I don't want to paint Constantine as though the only thing motivating him was politics, maintaining power. I think, as y'all know, people are just far more complex than that. And there could be good indication, just based on some of the texts that have been written around the time, that Constantine may have had a genuine interest in the debate himself, that he had a vested interest because he cared. A positive reading of him would say that he really cared about this controversy because he cared about the truth, and he wanted to be a part of solving the problem. So I'm not trying to paint him in a negative way, but it'd be foolish to not recognize that the emperor calling a council like this to solve this problem wasn't in part operating on probably multiple levels, one of them being the political level. Okay. Cross-current three, so that's number two, politics. Cross-current three is gonna be something that's really no longer there, but the memory of it is, and that's Sabellianism. Okay, Sabellianism, we've referred to it in a previous lecture, but it's another false teaching. It's another heresy that cropped up, I think, in the third century. And really, by the fourth century, by the time we're studying it today, Sabellianism has largely been rejected by the church. So this view is gonna be easiest understood as a form of modalism, okay? Do y'all remember what modalism is? God has three different modes. So the father is the son, who is the spirit, okay? And in this view, God shows up in different modes or different forms at different times. So you might say in the Old Testament, he was the father. In the gospels, he's the son. And then after that, This is the Holy Spirit, right? This is a view called modalism. There are modalists today. Sabellianism is a kind of a version of modalism that existed. And it's important to recognize for us that this is one of the cross currents in our discussion because the originites, those who kind of followed origin and what he taught, they were very concerned that the Nicene position, which we're about to talk about, is going to potentially lead people back to Sabellianism. So that was really their big contention with Athanasius and the Nicene Party was because they were afraid that if people were to accept what you're saying, they're just gonna end up being led back to this old heresy, which pretty much at this point, everyone had pretty much rejected. So that was driving some of the, it's kind of one of those things that's in the background that's not, clearly talked about, but it's absolutely there. And like I say, around 325, almost no one held this view. Cross-current four, okay, the competing factions, and there's three of them. So we're gonna talk about these and go into a little more detail. The first one, the Nicene minority, the Nicene minority. This was led by Athanasius, and they sought to maintain the full deity of Jesus Christ. This was the, and you'll hear these words a little bit more, the homoousios camp. We'll talk about that in a second. This was the camp of the homoousios. And this view sought to be faithful to the divine revelation, which revealed the full deity of the sun. and would, with the help of another group that we'll look at in a few minutes called the Cappadocian Fathers in 381, would eventually come to promote a view of the Trinity which would win over the origin majority. And that formulation goes, one nature or one essence, one usia, existing eternally in three persons. That should be somewhat familiar to you. And it's the Nicene faction, that brought that particular formulation about. Now, so that's the Nicene minorities, one. The second is the largest group, and this is the origin majority. So the vast majority of the church at this time, they were, in some sense, orginists. Orginists? Orginists. So origin's understanding of the nature of Christ should be understood as the majority view of the time, and that's especially true in the East. Origen taught a form of subordinationism, okay, which maintained that the son was subordinated to and less than the father. He wouldn't say that he was created, but that he was less than the father. They didn't go as far as the Arians say the son was the father's first creation, but they did maintain that in some sense, he was less than the father. As Nick Needham would say, they maintain that Christ was 99.9% God. And another thing about this group, and we have many like them today, not in their view necessarily, but they really didn't like this controversy. They thought it was largely unnecessary. They thought it was a waste of time. They looked at what was handed to them in the Edict of Milan as a great opportunity to promote the gospel across all the lands, and they saw this controversy as a major distraction, okay? That was the mindset of many of the majority. They didn't like it. And they really thought it would fracture their church and that it was really an argument about semantics. They didn't think there was actually a real disagreement there. So it took some condensing of this group to figure out where they landed. The third group is the Aryan minority. So this is the view promoted by Arius and his followers. This was the heteroousios, or the homoiousios position, which maintained that the sun was God's first created being. He was created before the universe and was instrumental and the creation of the universe. So he predates creation, but there was a time in the past, before the cosmos was created, that God created his highest being, which was the sun. And then the sun was instrumental in creating. Okay, and they like to refer to scriptures like he's the firstborn among many brethren to support their position. So they would definitely, were using scripture to try to defend their view. So as we talked about, Arius' view made rational sense, because how can you have one God that's existing and two persons that are eternal, and yet one is begotten of the other? So he's trying to rationally make sense of it and that's where he made his mistake. And it was not consistent with divine revelation and thus truly heretical. So as we mentioned in 325, the council was called by the Roman emperor Constantine and the primary purpose was to resolve this controversy. Nearly 320 bishops from throughout the Roman Empire and even some surrounding regions traveled to Nicaea. Usually it was an elder and a deacon from their churches to participate in the council. And most understood the importance, not all, but most understood the importance of the issues that were being debated. Now Athanasius was there, he was there in 325 as a deacon at the time of the council, and his views were largely represented by his superior, who is a man by the name of Alexander, as we've already talked about. So initially, the council hoped to deal with these issues via compromise. I don't think that they set out to condemn any doctrine. I think they were trying to come together to work this out and to come to some form of a doctrinal compromise that was faithful to the scriptures. And most were convinced that this was purely a disagreement about semantics instead of substance. And as the council progressed, the mood changed and the attendees saw the significant need to outright reject Arianism in the clearest way possible. So as the debates were going on, even the majority group and obviously the Nicenes began to see there's a significant problem with what Arianism and Arian and his followers are promoting, a significant problem. And then the next question, how were they to solve this problem? First, they attempted to do this through a series of Bible passages from the scripture, but it became very evident very quickly that by limiting themselves to biblical language, so words that exist within the Bible that everyone was accustomed to using to have these debates, that the council was finding it and using proof texts to prove their point. they were finding it very difficult to express a rejection of Arianism in unmistakable terms. Why do y'all think that was the case? So you have all sides essentially doing what? Exactly. All sides are pulling out their scripture verses to try to make their point and it wasn't going anywhere. And the Nicene Party recognized that it was going to require non-biblical words to faithfully explain what the doctrine of the Bible teaches about the nature of God. That was what they realized that they had to do in order to, in unmistakable terms, reject Arianism. They realized that some form of creedal formulation was going to be necessary to faithfully articulate a biblical defense of the deity of Christ and the nature of the Trinity. Okay. So the three primary positions on the deed of Christ that were put forward at the council, as we've made mention of these words, the first, heteroousios. Heteroousios, and this is back in your book for those of you who are taking notes. Heteroousios, that means of different substance. Heteroousios, of different substance. Okay, this was Arius' view. As noted above, he taught that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was a created being. Thus, he argued that Jesus was of a different substance or essence from the Father. And on this basis, Arius contended that Christ was not equal in authority or in deity with the Father. Put simply, Arius denied that Jesus is God, teaching instead that He is a creature. So that's where Arius started, wanting to say that Christ is heteroousios of a different substance than the Father. Okay, homoousios, homo, the same substance, homoousios of same substance. This is the view of Alexander and Athanasius. This is the Nicene position. It insisted that Jesus Christ was not a created being, rather He is the eternal Son of God, who is co-equal to the Father. And because God the Son is eternal, just like the Father, He is of the same substance, or essence, as the Father. So in other words, Alexander and Athanasius affirmed that Jesus is God, teaching that he is not a creature, but the uncreated creator. That was the Nicene position. That was the Orthodox position. That's the position that we hold today, homoousios. And there's a third word that we have to talk about, homoousios. And the only difference between homoousios and homoiousios is a Yoda, the Greek letter for an eye, right? It's one little letter and it makes all the difference. And what homoousios means is of similar substance. So when the original position that Arius put forward was immediately rejected by the bishops, they put forth a modified version. suggesting that the Son of God was of similar, so they were trying to compromise. The Son of God is of a similar substance to the Father, not different. Well, okay, we won't go that far, but we wanna say that he's of a similar substance with the Father. Alexander and Athanasius refused to accept this position because they rightly understood that similar still means different, right? So they were really doggedly advocating that when we talk about the nature of the Son of God, we need to say that he is homoousios, of the same substance with the Father. So after weeks of discussion, the council overwhelmingly affirmed the homoousios position, declaring their belief that the Son of God is of the same substance with God the Father. God the Son is co-eternal, co-essential, and co-equal with the Father. Now one little tidbit here, there was a bishop there by the name of Nicholas of Myra, okay, this is 270, he was alive from 270 to 243, and he was at the council, and he was so incensed by Arius's denial of Christ's deity that Nicholas got up during the proceedings, faced Arius, and slapped him in the face for his blasphemy. Okay, who do y'all think this guy is? Nicholas of Myra. Yeah, this is this is who we have come to know as the great wonderful Santa Claus. This is the very same man that the tradition that you know, of course, through many weird iterations would give us Santa Claus. So at the very least, remember. You know, I know we're down on Santa Claus here in some sense, but you can at least rejoice in the fact that Santa Claus was a fervent defender of Christ's deity. So he at least has that going for him, right? He was a fervent defender of Christ's deity. A few pages here to get to where I want to go. So let's actually spend a little time thinking about the actual creed. We've talked about the context, we've talked about some of the debates, we've talked about the cross currents, we've talked about some of the different people who were involved, what they were trying to accomplish. And let's kind of wrap up this section. So the Council of Nicaea in 325, the true church arose to defend the deity of Christ from Arian attack. Now it's important to know for your notes Nicaea did not invent, so this is my bullet, V, I don't know, I skipped ahead quite a bit, so go to V, number five there, number five, and page 45, thank you, that they defended Christ's deity from Arian attack. Now, that Council of Nicaea did not invent or establish, this is important for y'all to know, because these things can be very controversial. The Council of Nicaea did not invent or establish the doctrine of Christ's deity, right? It's better to understand it rather as affirming, it affirmed and defended the doctrine that had been taught by the church going all the way back to the time of the apostles and was established in scripture. Now, did the saints who were before the time of Nicaea, did they have all these things worked out? They didn't. But if you read their writings, they obviously talked about the deity of Christ. They viewed Christ as God. It's very evident. Like I say, did they have all the details worked out? They really didn't. But they did, in their minds, view him as truly God. Okay, so the council didn't invent or establish the doctrine. It affirmed and defended it. All right, so the affirmation of his deity was overwhelmingly recognized by those who participated in the council of the roughly 320 bishops who attended, all but how many signed the Nicene Creed? Two. People do their homework, I love it. And both of these people were ardent supporters of? Arius, that's exactly, one of them I think was Arius, and the other one was a guy named, I forgot his name, but unimportant. His compadre. So let's go ahead and read. So the Nicene Creed, this is one of the most influential creeds in church history. And here it is in full at the time of 325. So we're gonna read it twice, because there's actually two versions. The first, 325, here it is. And hopefully you've heard this before. So just listen to this and see if you can, as I read it, see if you can pick out the parts that were there that were absolutely addressing the matter at hand. See if you can point them out, okay? So here it is. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of lights, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both which are in heaven and in the earth, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered, and on the third day he rose again and ascended into heaven. And he shall come again to judge both the living and the dead. We believe in the Holy Spirit. Okay, that was what they came up with. Okay, so could you hear some of the phrases that they labored over? I think they met for 40 plus days to labor over these things. And what were some of the things that stuck out? Of the same substance, homoousios, right? Very God of very God, right? Not made. And a lot of that, if you read much Tertullian, who was a saint before, we talked about him a few weeks ago, a lot of that language came directly from Tertullian, because he was the father of Western theology, essentially. So that's good. So hopefully that was an encouragement to you. We're gonna press on. Now you think, okay, wonderful, this is all settled now in the coffin, let's move on. Arius defeated, right? Two people didn't affirm this thing and the rest of the Roman, the rest of the Christian world said, yes, this is what we're gonna believe. Well, that's of course not what happened. Though the victory of Nicaea had been overwhelming, the controversy with Arianism still raged in the Roman Empire over the next 50 years, and it really did rage, really did rage. So let's, and we're gonna really think about these next 50 years very briefly, and we're gonna really look at them through the lens of Athanasius' life. Okay, so he has this great victory at Nicaea in 325, and he was the only deacon there. He would spend most of the fourth century, so the rest of his life, continuing to fight the false teachings of Arius. He became the Bishop of Alexandria just a few years later in 328, so he took the position that Alexander, his bishop, either he died or moved on. I think he died. And Athanasius would step into his role. And if you listen to that Piper sermon, he was a loved pastor in Alexandria. The people loved him. He was a good pastor for his people. and over the next 40 years of his ministry, he would be exiled by the emperors, in many cases, I know, I think in every case, for a period totaling of 17 years. So 40 years as pastor in Alexandria, exiled on five different occasions, add up all the time that he was away from his flock, would result in 17 years of having to be on the run, essentially, for his life. And so despite being denounced at the Council of Nicaea, Arianism continued to be a popular view in the Roman Empire. And as a result, Athanasius repeatedly found himself in the political crosshairs of his enemy. Just a few examples. In 336, Athanasius was falsely accused of kidnapping another bishop named Arsenius and cutting off his hand to use in magical incantations. The story goes that Athanasius had a lot of friends, so his friends were to track down this man that was supposedly murdered, and his hand was cut off. And they kidnapped him. They did kidnap him. And Athanasius was on trial for kidnapping this guy and cutting off his hand for witchcraft. And at the right moment, they usher him in with a burlap sack over him and pull it off. And then there's this whole thing, oh my gosh, you're supposed to be dead, why are you here? And then they uncover his hands and then Athanasius says something like, from whence did I cut off his third hand? And the result of that, you think, exonerated. No, what they do, they exile them anyways. They still kicked him out. Because it wasn't about truth, it was about just getting rid of this guy. So he was sent into exile from that by Emperor Constantine. He's the one who exiled him when his opponents accused him of interfering with wheat shipments from Alexandria to Rome. And he was able to return to Alexandria two years later, only when Constantine died. One other interesting tidbit about Constantine that I thought was interesting by the reading, he was baptized on his deathbed. Okay, this wasn't a super uncommon thing. There's all kinds of strange views of baptism at the time. He was baptized on his deathbed by an Arian. So, just shows you who he had begun to surround himself with as he continued to reign. So, just to show you just how he thought this was handled. And there's a moment that that saying, athanasius contra munda, is because even after Nicaea 325, it gets to the point to where the world groans, as one author says, to wake up and find itself Arian. It was still such a prevalent reality. So he's, I mean, I have a lot of examples of times that he has been exiled, one of which later in his life, he was gone for like five years and he wrote the bulk of his work. His most famous book is called The Incarnation of the Christ. C.S. Lewis wrote a really nice foreword to it, obviously more recently. And it's a remarkable book on the incarnation of Christ. So a lot to recognize there, a lot to celebrate with Athanasius. And it's just important to note that through all of this, he never wavered in his commitment to the truth. Toward the end of his life, there were others that joined the cause with Athanasius, including people like Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazantius. And these men were called the Cappadocian Fathers, okay? That's exactly what they were called. And they are critical. We'll spend a little time looking at them in just a second. So on a human level, Their faithfulness, the Cappadocian fathers and Athanasius, and of course others, was rewarded in 380 when, after Constantine is gone and Emperor Theodosius I, he outlawed the heretical views of Arius and declared Nicene, that's Trinitarian Christianity, to be the official religion of the Roman Empire. Okay, so he was, Nicene, yep. He was put in power at 380, and that's whenever he started to really shift the laws of the land. Now, Athanasius, he dies around 378, before he sees the end of his war against Arianism. In 380, Theodosius himself, as I said, as a Nicene Christian, would become the emperor and would promote Nicene Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. In 381, he called another council called the Nicene Constantinopolitan, let's say Constantinople Creed, and that's when this was formed. So this is 50 years after, not quite, but 50 years after 325. The Nicene leaders of this council carried on the work of Athanasius and today are called, as I've said, the Cappadocian Fathers. These leaders were finally able to articulate a pattern of sound words relating to the Trinity in particular, which would convince which group. Okay, the still leery originists that were still around, they were still leery of certain aspects of Nicene Christianity, but they also, they were rejecting Arianism, but they just weren't fully on board with it. And they were able to articulate a pattern of sound words relating to the Trinity, which they were wholeheartedly able to embrace, okay? So the genius of the Cappadocian fathers, they recognized that there was a lot of confusion that was really providing Arianism quite a lot of cover. And it had to do as confusion related to two separate Greek words, which at the time meant almost the same thing. And just because East and West, there's some cultural differences, there's some language, and they were having a hard time communicating, because they were using two different words that kind of meant the same thing, and it was causing a lot of confusion. Okay. And these words were being used to describe the relationship between the father and the son. The two words are hypostasis, which means persons, and ousia, as we've already talked about, meaning nature or essence. These two words were being used by the two groups, and it was causing some confusion, which these Cappadocian fathers recognized that there's something here that if we could solve this problem, it would unify these parties of people. So there was a lot of confusion because the Nicenes would say that the father and the son were one hypostasis and one ousia, so one person, one nature. They were really emphasizing, as we talked about, the unity, the oneness. of God, rightly so. However, the originists, they would say that the father and the son were two hypostasis and two usia, okay, emphasizing the persons that they saw revealed in scripture, that no, the son is not the father. How can a son being baptized and a voice from heaven saying, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased, how can, there's distinctions here that we wanna make. And the Nicenes, so the Nicenes oneness, the originess, the distinctions between the father and son. And finally at last, the nail was nailed on the coffin of Arianism, and it came in the form of a suggestion from Basil, okay? The word usia should from now on, okay, refer specifically to the one divine nature as the Nicenes were maintaining. So I'll read it again. The word usia should from now on refer specifically to the one divine nature as the Nicenes were advocating. Two, the word hypostasis should refer specifically to the two distinct persons of the father and the son as the originists were maintaining. So the Cappadocians, they would use this to essentially, and I believe with my whole heart, that that articulation with words that aren't found in the Bible is a faithful representation of the teaching of scripture, okay? Now, you might say, well, we just see Father and Son, where's the Holy Spirit? Well, the Cappadocians at this time, at this very council, would also settle another dispute that was going on at the time, and that is about the Holy Spirit. Was the Holy Spirit God? And in 381, the doctrinal formulation of God is three persons, hypostasis, existing eternally in one single being or nature, usia. was articulated and accepted. This put an end, effectively, to the Aryan controversy, which raged for the better part of 100 years and almost put the church in a very different place than it is today. So if we have time, which we do, we're gonna make time. I do wanna read the Niceno-Constantinopolian Creed, 381. I want you to listen for two things. Some of the distinction we just talked about, but I also want you to listen for, because they were working with the 325 Creed, but they were modifying it to address some of these other issues that they were needing to solve. So this is 381. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made. who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and was made man and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried. And on the third day, he rose again according to the scriptures and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church, We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins and we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the ages to come. Amen. So that is the Nicene, so the Nicene Creed is what I just read. The Creed of Nicaea is the one at 325, so maybe that'll help you distinguish between the two. The Nicene Creed is what I just read. I'm sorry, I have it backwards. The Creed of Nicaea is, it doesn't matter. The longer one is the one that came later, okay? So forget it. But did y'all hear some of the, again, some of the language that came out of the second council to really, again, categorically reject the view that Arius had been promoting and was still for some reason finding so much purchase within large sectors of the church, which was that Jesus Christ was not fully God. Okay, it took this kind of work to do that, to defend biblical revelation. And if that seems odd to you, think about the role of a preacher, or an apologist, or an evangelist, someone who uses words, words that are coming out of their own hearts, and their own brains, and their own mouths, to articulate and defend the truth that's clearly revealed in Scripture. There's a sense in which what they did here is very similar to that process. So it shouldn't cause us much heartburn to think about that. Let's see, I think I have a few more little notes, and then we can, if y'all have any questions, I'm more than happy to take some. So just some things that we can think about that are encouraging that I wanna leave you with, thinking particularly about Athanasius and this whole controversy. Number one, we should be willing to contend earnestly for core Christian doctrines. Athanasius was, and if he wasn't, we probably wouldn't be standing in this room today At times, being faithful means that you're also gonna be very unpopular. Okay, we all should know that. The key to honoring God is to hold firmly and faithfully to what the Bible teaches. And the examples of faithful men in generations past should motivate us to stand faithfully against the world in our own generation. Fellowship Church, Contra Munda, right? All right. Did any of that, what out of that do you all have questions about or was there anything that you all found interesting, compelling, anything that we need to research and follow up with you on next week or whenever we're meeting again? Yes, ma'am. How did John 1-1, I think it was the first, like in the beginning, was worded? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it did, and largely because within Greek philosophy, and I think Jake alluded to this last time, there's questions about when John wrote the Gospel of John, and he uses the word of logos, when he says, in the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God and the logos was God. The question is, Where, I mean, of course he's inspired of the Holy Spirit, and this is, you know, I mean, but he's using words that he was trying to communicate something radically true about who Christ was. Was he using phrases that were, at the time of writing, that he was trying to articulate something to the audience he was writing to? That, because in Greek philosophy, the idea of logos, that predates when the Gospel of John was written. So was he picking up on some of those themes in order to articulate something true about who Christ was? That's one way. I think there's others who might would interpret that differently, but what's up? Justin had this view of the Logos as the connection point between, or the mediator between God and man. to this Arian view because if he's only that, then he's not necessarily equal with that. So that stream of thought was already present with the Arian view. I guess we just take it for granted that the word is Jesus. That's how we, we just know that it is. He said that the word was Jesus, but it was because of the Greek philosophical thought. They were, he was using Jesus as, you know, he's huge, but he's just this connecting to the Supreme Being, which they call, which he called the Father. So it was just already there where Jesus was huge and big in the mind of everybody. But maybe, like he said, 99.99% not quite there because he's more the connector rather than one of the actual. So I think, and there's something interesting about that because logos really is tied to the idea of reason. and that I think the Greeks maintained that humans were in their nature unreasonable. And so for them, the highest ideal was to pursue the logos, was to pursue reason and achieve some form of secular enlightenment in that process to where, and that's where a lot of the emphasis was within Greek philosophy. And then for someone to say Jesus Christ is the logos, that he is the truth, right? He is that thing which people are grasping for, is a profound point if that's what you're trying to make to that kind of an audience. So it's a good question. It'd definitely be something worth kind of researching and seeing what the different views are on. Yeah, you could. You really could. Yeah. Yeah. Any other questions? That's a good one. Right. or exiled, and then got audience with Constantine and convinced him, which won over Constantine. But the impact that that had on Arianism on the bigger spectrum, as far as Athanasius having the complete different impact and the way it got sovereignty orchestrated and all. But I really enjoy just contemplating both of their lives. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so Eusebius of, there's two of them. Eusebius of. Yes. The other one, yeah, there's two. I think it was him and Arius who refused to sign the first Nicene Creed, but he was a master politician, very convincing, and probably had a lot to do with influencing the powers that be to go soft on Arianism. and go hard against Nicene Christianity. So that's very fascinating. Yes, that's right. They were just wanting this to just be dusted away. And Piper was like, there are tons of people like that today, you know, that there's people who are just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, I'll sign. And they're not thinking about this. And that kind of thing has consequences. Why? Because you have a skillful politician come around And all these people that sign something at 325 can once again be convinced, you know, so absolutely. So just to be resolved, right? That's good. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, hopefully that was educational for you. I think Master Lundstrom in the back there got a whole lot from it. So thank you for hanging in there, buddy. We appreciate it.