Our topic today is what the early Christians believed about the Trinity. Now, actually, I could be able to cover this whole topic in less than a minute simply by saying the early Christians believed the Nicene Creed. That's what they believed about the Trinity. And that should take care of the matter. However, it doesn't, because most professing Christians today actually don't believe the Nicene Creed. Now they'll tell you to their face that they do believe it, but the truth is they don't.
Christians who have some familiarity with church history usually know a little bit about the Council of Nicaea. They will say that it was held because that Heretic Arius was denying the divinity of Christ and that the man who opposed him at the Council of Nicaea was Athanasius, who stood for the apostolic faith. These same Christians will say that they believed the Nicene Creed, which was drawn up by Athanasius, they'll say, and that they believed just like Athanasius did. Well, that's not too far off the mark.
Arius was a heretic, and it was his teaching that touched off the controversy that led to the Nicene Council. However, Arius's main opponent at that council was not Athanasius. It was his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria. Arius was a presbyter or elder in the Church of Alexandria. Now, Athanasius was at the Council of Nicaea, but he did not play a major role in it. In fact, it was Constantine who suggested the language of the Nicene Creed.
Now later, after the council, Alexander of Alexandria died, and Athanasius was appointed in his place as bishop of Alexandria. And he did become a very outspoken, in fact, that the main opponent of the Arians after the Council of Nicaea. You know, on the other hand, as I've said, most Western Christians do not believe the Nicene Creed, even though they say that they do. As I said earlier, I should be able to cover this topic in less than a minute by simply saying that the early Christians believed the Nicene Creed.
All Christians should know exactly what that creed means, and nothing further should have to be said on the subject. However, because there is such widespread ignorance on the subject of the Trinity, it won't work to just say that. In fact, the doctrine of the Trinity had become so jumbled that I'm not even going to be able to adequately cover it in an hour, which is going to be the limit of this message. So this is basically what I'm going to do.
First, I'm going to limit today's discussion to the divinity of Christ and the relationship of the Father and the Son. I realize I sort of gyp you because I said I was going to talk about the Trinity, and we won't even be talking today about the third person of that Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Okay, this is sort of my plan of attack. We're going to begin with the Nicene Creed. I'm going to read that to you because that creed nicely summarizes what the early Christians believe. Now, let me make it clear.
I'm in total disagreement with the Council of Nicaea. Christians had no business holding a council that was chaired by a non-Christian, the Emperor Constantine. And I also object to the fact that the Nicene Creed uses a term Homoousios that is not in Scripture. Now, I don't have a problem with the term. It is what the early Christians believe, but the early Christians would have never made that a test of faith. They would have never made a word that's not in Scripture, a test of faith.
So again, I don't agree with that part, but I do believe that the creed nicely summarizes what Christians had believed up until that time. Now, perhaps the irony of my explaining the Nicene Creed is that I grew up an Arian. I was a Jehovah's Witness, or that's how I grew up. And so I thoroughly was indoctrinated with the view of Arius. And the principal factors of Arianism, I'd say the two identifying marks, is they believe that Jesus, the Son, was created out of nothing.
Instead of being begotten, they believe he was created out of nothing the same way the angels were. Even though both Arius and J.W.'s would place Jesus far above the angels, they still believe he was created out of nothing like them. And since he was created out of nothing, then there was a time that the Son of God didn't exist. OK, now I no longer hold to those views. I hold to the Nicene definition of the faith.
And like I say, I find it very ironic after leaving my heresy to find out that most Christians today, at least here in the West, do not hold to the Nicene Creed that they always told me they did when I was Jehovah's Witness. OK, next, we're going to read the Nicene Creed and then I'm going to explain to you what the men at that council meant by the various articles of the Creed. And then finally, we're going to go back to Scripture. We're going to see how this is exactly what Scripture teaches.
And I'm going to read to you from the early Christians to show that that's exactly what they believed as well. Now, actually, the early Christian view of the Trinity is better documented than any other early Christian doctrine, except perhaps salvation. Nearly every single writer addressed the subject, and there is remarkable uniformity in what they all say. But now time isn't going to permit me to read, but just a very few representative quotations from their writings.
If you want to explore the topic in more depth, and I really encourage you to do so, let me refer you to my dictionary of early Christian beliefs. Look up Christ, divinity of, and there you'll have pages and pages of quotations. And like I say, I'm going to read to you just one or two today that would be very representative. It reads," I 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 only begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the virgin Mary and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried.
And the third day, he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead or the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. I'm going to stop there. The final paragraph deals with the Holy Spirit and some other basic beliefs, which are outside the scope of our discussion today. Now, the starting point of the creed is the Father.
It begins, I believe in one God, the Father Almighty. God is one because the Father is one. He is the source of the entire Trinity. He is unbegotten. There is no source of the Father's existence other than Himself. As some of the early Christians put it, He is Autotheos. Theos meaning God or Divine, Auto meaning of itself. He is Auto Theos. He's unbegotten. His origin is in Himself. Okay. What about Jesus? Now, Jesus, according to the Scriptures and the Creed, is begotten from the Father.
As the Creed says, He is God from God, light from light. The Father is the source of the existence of Jesus. Now, let me explain to you where it says He is God from God. To me, that's a very poor way to translate the creed into English. The Creed and the Scriptures would say He is Theos from Theos. Now, the problem that I see with using the word God there is in the New Testament, with only one or two exceptions, every place that uses the word God, it's always talking about the Father.
To my knowledge, it never uses the word God to refer to the Trinity. And there's a few passages where Jesus is given the title God. But other than those few passages, it's always referring to the Father. And so to most people who speak English, if you say you just say the word God to them, that means a person. Yeah, I believe in God or no, I don't believe in God or whatever. Yes, let's pray to God. I mean, they're talking about a person.
And in the New Testament, as I said, that person is almost always the father that he's talking about. So it's very easy to misunderstand this. And a lot of Christians do, where it says he is God from God. Well, it sounds like in English, you're saying he's the same person as the Father from the Father. But you can't do that. You can't say He's the Father from the Father. I say in Greek, the word Theos not only means the person God, it also means divinity or divine. It would be or deity.
It would be a lot better to say he is deity from deity. He is true divinity from true divinity. OK, just to explain what they're meaning when they say Theos from from Theos. And like I say, a lot of people say, oh, I believe that, but what they're believing is very different from what the men of the council meant. Now, Jesus is a distinct person from the Father, but he shares in the same nature and substance of the Father so that we can say, in a sense, there's only one divinity because there's only one will.
There's one monarchy between the Father and the Son. That's because, as Jesus said, the Son does nothing of His own accord. He only does the will of the Father. Therefore, it's correct to say that there is only one God. Now, Jesus is not only the Son of the Father, He's also the Logos, or some say Logos of the Father. Now, the Greek word Logos means word. That's usually how it's translated in our English translation, but it also means reason or mind.
Now, all of this is really totally beyond our human comprehension. And that's why I should state again, while I'm explaining what the early Christians believe, they would have never said, you have to understand and believe all of this to be an Orthodox Christian. In fact, their creed was what we know today as the Apostles' Creed. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty and His Son, Jesus Christ, et cetera. That's all you had to believe. Now, if you delved further into theology, then this is what they believe.
But the average Christian at that time was uneducated, could not read or write, and would have never fully grasped most of these things I'm explaining to you. The ones who did the writing were the leaders in the church. They tended to be educated men, obviously literate. And they're expressing what the church as a whole taught, but I'm not going to try to tell you that the average Christian in the street would have understood all of this.
And the truth is the average Christian in the street today, even though we're all educated and can read or write, like I say, you will have a hard time finding somebody who could give you an orthodox explanation of the Trinity. I know having grown up Jehovah's Witness and having debated on that topic, I don't know how many times with all kinds of ministers, all kinds of laypeople. And I can say this, I never once, during all of those years, ever had somebody give me an Orthodox explanation of the Trinity.
Their explanations were invariably, I realized now, I didn't realize then, were things that the early Christians and the people at the Council of Nicaea and Athanasius would have said it is heresy. OK, I won't digress, though. Let's get back. We said that Jesus is the logos of the Father, which that word means word or reason. And somehow in the mystery of the Trinity, the Logos of God is a separate person from the Father. I do not even remotely understand that.
I can only say what Scripture is saying, what the early Christians believe. Now, the Logos has always existed, just as the Father has always existed. And so has the Holy Spirit. So when we say that the Son has his origin in the Father, we do not mean an origin in time. Well, how can that be? Well, let me use the illustration the early Christians used, and that is of the sun at SUN son. They would say the Trinity is like the sun. The Father is like the orb itself, the ball of fire that we know as the sun.
Jesus is like a beam of light and heat coming from that sun. He's the radiance that comes out from the sun. Now, if you look at a beam of light, you would say its origin is in the sun. What hits us here on the earth, light, originated in the sun. And yet that light has existed as long as that sun has existed, or at least that particular combustion at that moment from from the sun.
So do you see how you can have your origin in something and yet be coeternal with it or take a stream of water that comes out of a spring? And the early Christians use this illustration as well. The origin of a river or a creek or a stream is in the spring of water. And yet as long as that spring has existed, so has the stream. OK. Now, again, we get into problems with our English translations.
These people were writing in Greek and actually in English, I think you can express everything that you can express in Greek and sometimes a lot more precisely. The problem is if our translators often use the wrong words. So remember that the Greek word arche can mean beginning or origin. And so you will find most of the early Christians saying that the Son of God has an arche an origin. His origin is in the Father.
But now since arche is also translated in English as beginning, see our translations can make it say that they're saying Jesus had a beginning that He didn't exist at some time. OK, so like I say, got to be careful about how translators translate words into English. Just remember they weren't writing in English. They were writing in Greek. Now, when the early Christians say that the Son of God has an arche, as I said, they usually mean he has an origin. He is begotten, as the Creed says.
But there's a second sense that they also use the word arche in the sense of a beginning. An eternity before creation. We cannot think of God in terms of locality. Of course, we realize even today that God is omnipresent. He's not in one place sitting on a throne, for example. And yet our mind really cannot comprehend omnipresence. And so God has allowed us to think of him as being in heaven, as sitting on a throne, even though this isn't reality.
However, before creation, we can't really think in those terms that we think of him now, because God and the universe were synonymous. Because there was no universe, there was only God. There were no spatial dimensions or localities. There was just God. And before the material world was created, or even the spirit world, the Father existed with His Logos and His Spirit, and He had always existed from eternity in this manner.
However, at some point before the beginning of time, the Father willed to create other beings and to create the physical or material world. So he sent forth his Logos as his son from his bosom to be the agent of creation. So most of the early Christian writers understand this to be another sense of the Son having been begotten from the Father. See, there's two senses. One is in the sense of origin, like I say, like the origin of a beam of light. Since he is begotten, he has his origin.
His existence comes from the Father. In another sense, and some would say it's really improper to refer to Him as the Son until creation. Before that, we should speak of Him as the Logos or Word. But they would say that when He went forth from the Father to create the universe, then we can also speak of that as being the begetting of the Son, SON.
And in that sense, you can say that there was a beginning of the Son of God, SON, not that He didn't exist before His being begotten, but it was at that point when he went forth from the Father to create the world. Now, if I'm confusing you, let's be honest, I'm confused myself. We're talking about things that are way, way beyond our comprehension. And like I say, these are things I think that are worth understanding or knowing or at least getting a small grasp of.
But to think that you have to correctly be able to explain all of this for God to accept you as one of His children. I mean, that's absurd. That's absurd. OK, so we've seen the two senses. The early Christians talk about the Son being begetted, begotten. Now, if you're having trouble grasping everything I'm saying, well, you're definitely not alone. Welcome to the party. I'll confess something to you.
You know, it took me 10 years after I first read the early Christian writings to fully grasp and understand what they were saying. And that doesn't mean I fully grasp and understand what the Trinity is. I'm saying just to fully grasp and understand what they were saying about the Trinity took me 10 years.
And in that, I was helped immensely by conversations and discussions I had with a number of Eastern Christians who have always held to a view of the Trinity that is very similar to that of the pre-Nicene Church and helped a lot by some of the early Anglican writers of the, say, of the 1600s who had a very good grasp of all of this. Well, I say it took me 10 years. So don't feel like there's something wrong with you if you're having a little trouble following everything I'm saying.
Now, this is probably a message you're going to want to listen to several times before you're going to be able to, I think, fully understand what I'm trying to express to you. Now, the key to having an orthodox understanding of the Trinity, to having a scriptural understanding of the Trinity is to grasp that there is a difference between three attributes or terms. They are nature, personal attributes, and order. Let me explain.
These terms, again, nature, personal attributes, and order refer to three very different things. Yet, most Western Christians do not grasp this distinction. In fact, Augustine, who was not very learned in his Greek, he did not understand this. And he came up with an explanation of the Trinity that departed very markedly from that that the church had always believed up until that time, that was a thorough misunderstanding of the Nicene Creed.
And it is Augustine's theology, his explanation of the Trinity, that is known to us Westerners as the Athanasian Creed. Don't confuse the Athanasian creed with the Nicene Creed. The Athanasian creed is many decades later. It has nothing to do with Athanasius. It is not what he taught, what he believed. And Eastern Christians, generally speaking, have never even heard of it. That they know it's nothing from Athanasius.
And the truth is, if I can say, it's somebody after the time of Augustine who collected together his thoughts and put them in creed form and called it the Athanasian Creed. And that has misled Western Christians ever since. But again, the problems that I've seen that people have with the Trinity in understanding it correctly is that they invariably confuse these three things, nature, personal attributes and order. Arius did not understand these distinctions.
It's why he came up with the erroneous view of the Trinity that he had. It's why Jehovah's Witnesses have a heretical view of the Trinity. And it's also why so many professing Orthodox Christians have a heretical view of the Trinity as well because they confound these three things. So let me explain these three things. And again, you may want to listen to this several times. I'm going to try to make it easy for you.
But again, unless you grasp that these are three different things, you're not going to understand the Trinity and what the Scriptures teach about it. Let's start with the word nature or substance. I think nature is a better term for the Greek word Ousia, but like the Nicene Creed, as we know it in English, puts in their substance. See, substance in our normal usage would refer to something physical or material.
I don't know how you talk about substance when you're dealing with the spirit world where there is nothing material or physical. Nature, I think, is a much better way to render that term. But either way, nature or substance refers to the essence or class to which a person or creature belongs. For example, all humans are of one nature or one substance, regardless of differing physical characteristics. In other words, genetically speaking, no man or woman is any less human than anybody else.
And yet humans are not of the same nature or substance as the angels. Okay, so do you understand the word now? Substance or nature is the class to which we belong. Dogs are of one substance. They differ in various breeds and all that. But all breeds of dogs are of one nature or one substance. One's not more of a dog or less of a dog than another one. Now, the Nicene Creed affirms that the Father and the Son are of the same nature or substance. The Son isn't something foreign to the Father.
Rather, He possesses the same nature as the Father. We could say it this way, both the Father and the Son are equally divine. They are both Theos, just like you and I are humans. They are divinity. God, if we understand what we mean by the word God. If the Son were not of the same or equal nature as the Father, He wouldn't be fully divine. He would not possess true Godhood. Okay, so that's one thing that the creed presents, that the Father and the Son are homoousios of the same nature.
Again, some English translations say of one substance, which can be very, very misleading. I know a lot of lay Christians think this means they are the same person. And that's not at all what the men who drew up this creed meant. It is not what the Scripture writers meant. It is not what the pre-Nicene Christians believe. They are of the same nature, of equal nature, but they are not one person. They are two separate persons. Okay, that's the word nature.
All right, now we're going to look at the second term, personal attributes. Now, personal attributes are something altogether different. Personal attributes refer to the individual characteristics and differences between members of the same class or nature. Okay, to grasp this distinction, let's go back in time to the creation of man. According to Genesis, at one time, there were only two humans on the earth, Adam and Eve. Now, these two humans shared the same nature or substance. They were both equally human.
Adam wasn't more human than Eve, nor was Eve more human than Adam. They were equal in nature or substance. Now, does that mean then that Adam and Eve were equal or identical in personal attributes? No, it doesn't mean that. Adam was no doubt taller and stronger than Eve. Furthermore, Eve had come out of Adam. Her arche or origin was in Adam being formed from one of his ribs. On the other hand, Eve had the ability to give birth to children to breastfeed infants. Adam could not do either one of these things.
It showed there were personal attributes that made Adam and Eve different from each other, even though they were equal in nature. When the founders of the United States said that all men are created equal, they didn't mean equal attributes because they well knew that we're not equal in attributes. No two people look exactly alike, except perhaps identical twins. And even then, there's nearly always a distinguishing mark between the two siblings.
People are taller, fatter, shorter, some more intelligent than than others, so many different characteristics. But none of these are attributes of being human. Everybody is equal as as to their humanity. Again, talking about dogs, all dogs are of I'm talking about domestic dogs are all of one nature. They're all equal in nature, and yet there are differences between different breeds of dogs. Even within the same breed, no two dogs are exactly alike. They all have differing characteristics. Okay.
So you understand now the difference between nature or substance and personal attributes. Because the father and the son are equal in nature does not mean that they have the same personal attributes. The church is taught from the beginning that there are personal attributes that distinguish the Father from the Son. For example, the Father begets the Son, and therefore the Son has His origin or arche in the Father. Now, does this make the Son less divine than the Father? Does this reduce the Son to being a demigod?
Not at all, because being unbegotten is not an aspect of divinity. It is a personal attribute. OK, so the father is unbegotten. The son is begotten. There is a difference between the two. They are not equal in that sense. And yet begotten and unbegotten are not attributes or characteristics of divinity. They are personal characteristics. And see, because Christians so often don't grasp this, they think to say that Jesus was truly begotten from the Father. Well, then that makes Him less than the Father.
That means they're not equal. And therefore, that's heresy. Even though that's exactly what the Scriptures say and what the church has always believed, because they confuse nature and attributes. All right. The father is also different from the son in that the father could not have become incarnate, nor can he ever make himself visible to human eyes. To the early church, this would have been a denial of the Father's unique personhood.
That is because the Father is the ultimate source not only of the universe, but also of the Trinity. If he as the source of the Trinity had become man and died, that would have been the end of the Trinity. That was impossible. That could not be done. Yet in saying this, the early Church wasn't demoting the Son of God to being a half god or demigod. Rather, the church understood that these are not attributes of divinity. Rather, these are differing characteristics of the Father and the Son.
So the early church agreed with Scripture that the Father is greater than the Son as to, excuse me, personal attributes, but not as to nature. The Son and the Holy Spirit possess the full attributes of divinity, but the Father possesses unique personal attributes that make Him greater than the Son and the Holy Spirit. As I've said, one of these characteristics is that the Father is the begetter. He is the origin of the Trinity.
However, there's another sense in which the early church taught that the Father is greater than the Son, and that's in the sense of order. Now by order, I mean chain of authority. Equality of nature doesn't mean equality of order. Going back, returning to our illustration of Adam and Eve, we find that not only did Adam and Eve differ in personal attributes, but they also differed in order. Although Adam and Eve were equal in nature, Adam was created first and he was the head of Eve.
Interestingly, Paul explains that there is the exact same order within the Trinity as there was there with Adam and Eve. He says in 1 Corinthians 11, I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ. The head of woman is man and the head of Christ is God. So you see the Father has authority over the Son, but not the reverse. The Son is sent by the Father. The Son doesn't send the Father. The Son does the will of the Father and the Son sits at the Father's right hand.
And this hierarchy of order within the Trinity cannot be reversed. And yet, because there is a hierarchy of order does not diminish the Son's true divinity any more than a hierarchy of order in the human race diminishes any person's humanity. And this is probably confusing. These concepts is behind a lot of the upheaval and the whole biblical order of what it teaches between the relationship of men and women. Feminists say, oh, if a man is the head of his wife, then that makes her something less than human.
That says they're not equal. Well, what do you mean by equality? If you mean equality of nature, of course they're equal. They're both equally humans. The husband being the head of his wife does not make her less human. That means only that there is an order within the family according to God's arrangement. Just like in society, we are all equal. We're all equally human. But some people have authority over us, our employer, our government officials, because you can't run a society without order.
And likewise, there is order among the persons of the Trinity. But when Christians don't understand the difference between nature, personal attributes and order. They end up with a very confused understanding of the Trinity, and they usually end up getting into heresy, even though they're trying to have an Orthodox view of the Trinity. And they totally misconstrue what the Scriptures teach about the Trinity. And if they read the early Christian writings, they're baffled by what they read there.
OK, now what I want to do, having explained those three things, nature, person or personal characteristics and order. Now, I want to go back to the scriptures so you can see this is exactly what the scripture is saying. And what you're going to find, I've pointed this out, I think, in every message, is that what the early Christians believe fits the totality of Scripture. You don't have any problem verses you've got to shove under the rug. You can read the whole New Testament and it all makes perfect sense.
There's no problem verses with their understanding of the Trinity. If you have a Jehovah's Witness understanding, you've got lots of problem verses that you've got to explain away or translate a different way or hide under the rug. If you hold to the typical, I'll say Protestant or Western concept of the Trinity, Augustinian concept of the Trinity. You've got lots of problem verses too that you've got to explain, well, this means this or that. A whole list of things.
The early Christian understanding there are no problem verses. It fits perfectly the totality of Scripture. So now let's go back and look at Scripture and I'm going to read to you a few passages from the early church.
Okay, first of all, the Scriptures teach that there is an equality of nature, or if you want to use the word substance, between the Father and the Son, John 1:1," In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Now, the way that's translated has caused an awful lot of confusion. As I mentioned earlier, in the New Testament, the word God nearly always means the Father. There are a few places, and this is one where the term is used in talking about Jesus Christ.
Our English translation makes it say like in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with the Father and the Word was the Father. And that is exactly what many professing Christians believe today. And I think when I was young, when I was a JW, that's when I thought all Protestants or all churches believed because that seemed to be the explanation people was giving me.
What it is saying there, and this wasn't so confusing to the Greek readers, in the beginning was the Logos, they would have said, and the Logos was with the God, with the Father. And the Logos was Theos. He was divine. He was deity. Where it says He was with God is talking about the person, God, the Father. When it says He was God, it's talking about the nature, divinity, deity. Now Jehovah's Witnesses translate that and the word was a God. No, that's not how they were understanding it, that he was a God.
No, he was divine. He was of equal nature with the Father. Okay. John 17:21, Jesus said, prayed that talking about us that they all may be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you. This is this mysterious is the only word I can use. Relationship of the father and the son. They're intermingling in a way we don't we don't fully understand. OK, Colossians 2:9, talking about Jesus, it says in Him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form as from the New American Standard.
Now, this has caused an awful lot of confusion to the King James translation, because it says in him, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. The Godhead. What is that? Do you read that in the New Testament? Do you see people talking about the Godhead? I mean, you hear it an awful lot today. You'd think it was all through the New Testament. It seems like no one could discuss the Trinity without talking about the Godhead. Well, let me let you in on a little secret. The English word Godhead.
So old English simply means Godhood. Just like Fatherhead meant Fatherhood. Womanhead meant womanhood. Godhead meant Godhood. What the translators were trying to express was in Jesus, all the fullness of Godhood dwells bodily. Now, I don't know why they put the Godhead, but they did. It has caused so much misunderstanding among English speaking Protestants who use the King James translation. But you'll notice none of the new translations say that.
I mean, the translator recognized that Greek word means deity, Godhood. It does not mean the Godhead. And when you translate that correctly, you find there is no such word as the Godhead in the Scriptures. But what the Scriptures do teach is that the fullness of deity dwells in Jesus Christ. He is equally divine with the Father. And this is what the pre-Nicene Christians believed as well. I'll read just a few quotes.
First one from Clement of Alexandria from about the year 195 says," The word itself, that is the Son of God, is one with the Father by equality of substance or nature. He is eternal and uncreated." Okay, that's in volume two, page 574 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Tertullian writing about the year 197 tells us, talking about Jesus, He is made a second SECOND in manner of existence, in position, not in nature. He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth.
This is the begetting of the Son, going forth from the Father to create the universe. He's second in manner of existence because he's begotten, not in nature. Again, that's in volume three, page 34, again from Tertullian, volume three, page 607. Talking about Jesus, he says, now if he too is God, for according to John, the Word was God, then you have two beings, one who commands that the thing be made and the other who creates. You see the distinction in order. Okay.
In what sense, however, you ought to understand him to be another. I have already explained on the ground of personality, not of substance. There are two persons. There are not two natures. And finally, I'm going to read to you from Theognostus of Alexandria. This is about the year 260, volume six, page 155. He says the substance or nature of the Son is not a nature devised extraneously, devised extraneously, nor is it one introduced out of nothing. Rather, it was born of the substance of the father. Okay.
And there are other quotations. I refer you again to the dictionary of early Christian beliefs. OK, so we start off. There's an equality of nature because Jehovah's Witnesses confuse nature, order, personhood. See, they have a lot of trouble with these verses and they want to deny and they do deny that Jesus is of the same nature as the Father. OK, the second characteristic we talked about is that of personality, personal attributes, personality. All right. What did the Scriptures say then?
We've already seen it says equal in nature. Now listen to this, Mark 13, verse 32, but of that day and hour, no one knows neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. John 1:18. This is from the New American Standard. No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. So I'm saying there when it uses the word God in the New Testament, it's nearly always talking about the Father.
No one has seen God, meaning no one has seen the Father says Jesus, the only begotten God explains Him. And again, because our Western Christians have such a confused concept of the Trinity, they stumble over the Scripture here where it says talks of Jesus is the only begotten God. I mean, that is such Nicene orthodoxy. God of God, begotten of the Father. He is the begotten God. I mean, that should be such an easy thing that's not foreign at all to any of us. But like the NIV says, no man has seen God at any time.
God, the one and only explains him. God, the one and only. How absurd to say no one has seen God, God the one and only because they're afraid to use the word begotten and is right there in the Nicene Creed. The early Christians had no trouble talking about Jesus as the begotten God. That's why I said at the beginning that even though Western Christians say they believe the Nicene Creed, they don't. I mean, they have a lot of trouble with the eternal truths that are summarized in it. The scriptures have no problem.
John 5: 19 and 20, Jesus says," Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do. For whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all things that He himself does. So they're very clear that there is a difference in personhood between the Father and the Son, and also a difference in order.
John 14:28, Jesus says," If you love me, you would rejoice because I said, I am going to the Father, for my Father is greater than I am." Almost heretical today on our ears, unless we quickly explain that away. John 20, verse 17, I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.
You know, there are quite a number of places in the New Testament where Jesus refers to the Father as my God, which presented no problem to the early Christians because there is that hierarchy of order that Jesus was, is begotten from the Father. But again, all these are verses we've got to try to shove under the rug. I say Jehovah's Witnesses have to try to shove under the rug. The first scripture dealing with equality of nature. Western Christians end up shoving these ones under the rug or explaining them away.
First Corinthians 8:6," For there is only one God, the Father, of all of whom are all things, and we for Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live." See, showing a difference there in personhood or order. Everything is of the Father through the Son. 2 Corinthians 1:3," Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Colossians 1:15, talking about Jesus, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Okay, another one talking about the Father, 1 Timothy 6:15 and 16 says," He who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, who no man has seen or can see, to whom the honor and everlasting power." You see their distinction the Scriptures made about the Father? Now, I find it almost laughable that a lot of so-called Bible believing commentators want to say this passage is talking about Jesus.
Jesus dwelling in unapproachable light who no man has seen or can see. I mean, we just read there in John where the Scriptures say, no man has seen God at any time talking about the Father, the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. I mean, how can the Father be the one no man has seen? And mankind has seen the Logos, the Word of God, and sort of say this verse is talking about Jesus Christ. We just read in Colossians 1:15 that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
But you might say, well, I thought Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is. Nearly every single title of the Father applies to the Son also because the Father has given all of this to the Son, just as Jesus explained. So Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Everyone is subject to Him, except as the Scriptures say, excepting the Father who gave all authority to Him. Now, why does it say that the Father alone has immortality? Because again, the arche, the origin of the Trinity is in the Father.
Of course, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are immortal as well. But their existence is derived from the Father. The Son is begotten from the Father. And so that's why the Scripture makes this statement. Again, Hebrews 1 verses two through nine says, talk about God. It says He has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, as the Father spoken by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds. Who does the appointing? It's the Father.
He has given the Son the authority that He has. This is what Scripture says. Who being the brightness, or some translation would say the radiance of His glory. This is what the early Church said. He's like the radiance that comes from the sun, okay? And the express image of His person and upholding all things by the word of His power when He had by Himself purged our sins. Now it's all about Jesus.
He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels as he had by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did he ever say," You are my Son, today I have begotten you." And again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. But when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels, he says, who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire.
But to the son, he says," Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you." Well, that that passage right there totally shoots down the Jehovah's Witness understanding, totally shoots down the typical Western Protestant understanding of the Trinity. Here Jesus is referred to that that says the Son of God by the title, O God, Your throne, O God.
I mentioned there's three or four verses in the New Testament where Jesus is given that title and appropriately so. And yet, right after that, it says," Therefore, God, your God has anointed you." So see, the Father is referred to, and this is, again, only the second of a number of passages as Jesus's God. This doesn't diminish the godhood and true divinity of Jesus Christ. It shows the order that is in the Trinity and the total obedience and respect that the Son has for his father.
This passage also shows that the authority and majesty and power that the son has was given to him by his father. And the early church believed all of those things. They didn't explain away any of these verses. They believed all of them. One more, Revelation 3:12. Jesus speaking, He says," He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more.
And I will write on you the name of my God and the name of the city of my God." You see the hierarchy of personhood within the Trinity or of order? Now I'm going to read just a very few quotes from the early church. And again, I'm going to have to refer you to my dictionary. There are pages of quotes on this particular topic. This first quotation is from Justin Martyr about the year 160 can be found in volume one, page 263.
He says," You must not imagine that the unbegotten God Himself came down or went up from any place. For the ineffable Father and Lord of everything, neither has come to any place nor walks nor sleeps, nor rises up, but remains in his own place. He is not moved or confined to a spot in the whole world, for he existed before the world was made. How then could he talk with anyone or be seen by anyone or appear on the smallest portion of the earth?
Therefore, neither Abraham nor Isaac nor Jacob nor any other man saw the Father who is the inexpressible Lord of all, including Christ. And all of that, he has just said is right there in the Scriptures that we've read. He continues, rather, they saw one who was the Father's Son, according to the Father's will. The Son is also God, Theos, and the angel, for he ministered to his father's will. Irenaeus, writing about the year 170 or 180, volume one, page 402.
He says, If anyone asks about the reason why the father, who has fellowship with the Son in all things, has been declared by the Lord alone to know the hour and the day, he will find it present no more suitable becoming or safe reason than this, since indeed the Lord is the only true master, that we may learn through Him, as through Jesus, that the Father is above all things. For He says the Father is greater than I. The Father, therefore, has been declared by our Lord to excel with respect to knowledge.
So see, the early Christians understood that passage where Jesus said the Father is greater than I, to be talking about these differences of personhood and why he said only the Father knows a difference of either personhood or order. But see, Western Christians have so much trouble with that because they've confused these things. They think, well, if he's saying the Father is greater than I, then He's saying greater than in substance. So Jesus is only a half god or something like that.
No, it's not talking about his divinity. It's not talking about his nature. It's talking about his personhood and his order. And so I say the typical explanation is, oh, well, that was his humanity speaking. But we've read those other passages that are talking about eternity in heaven that are talking about Jesus on the earth. And they express the same reality of order and difference in personhood. OK, Origen, writing about the year 248, volume four, page 548.
Our Lord and Savior, hearing Himself on one occasion addressed as good master, referred the person who used it to his own father, saying," Why do you call me good? There is no one good but one. That is God the Father." It was in accordance with sound reason that this was said by the Son of His Father's love, for he was the image of the goodness of God." End of quotes. In other words, Origen is saying, he said, why do you call me good? Now, he'd say that not because he himself was not good because he was.
He is the perfect image of the Father, but because he's referring all authority, all attributes to the Father because the Father is the arche of goodness. The Son is the image of that arche image of the Father and His goodness. One more. There'll be a couple more from Novatian writing about the year 235. You can find this in volume 5, page 633.
Now, Novatian was a very respected elder in the church in Rome, and he ended up breaking with the church in Rome because of the laxity of discipline that he saw growing in the Roman church. And so he led a reform movement. They broke away, started their own church apart from the Church of Rome. Here, this is referring to Philippians, and this is quite, oh, this is quite surprising. Listen to this.
Novatian says, although he, that is Jesus, was in the form of God, he did not think of robbery that he should be equal with God. For although he remembered that he was God from God the Father, he never either compared or associated himself with God the Father. He was mindful that he was from his father and that he possessed that very thing that he is because the Father had given it to him. He yielded all obedience to the Father and still yields it as ever.
From that, it is shown that he thought that the claim of a certain divinity would be robbery to it, that of equaling himself with God the Father. Rather, on the other hand, obedient and subject to all his father's rule and will, he was content to take on himself the form of a servant. I about fell out of my chair when I read that passage for the first time many years ago. Because that passage from Philippians two, you may notice that's not how our Bibles read.
Our Bibles generally say, although he was in the form of God, the King James says, he thought it not robbery to be equal to God. That makes it sound like he was saying there's nothing wrong with not being equal to God. And Jehovah's Witnesses say he did not consider a robbery, namely being equal to God. And everybody, you know, as it just blasted the witnesses for their translation.
And I have to say, this is how obviously the Greek readers were understanding that passage to be saying, but not for the same reason as the witnesses. Again, witnesses confuse nature and person. And so they think this is saying he was not equal in nature to the father. And that's what they mean by it. And on the other hand, our Protestant translators confuse the same thing. They think, well, if he says it was robbery to be equal to God, well, that would mean he's less than God. He's he's not of the same nature.
So they translated. He didn't consider it robbery to be equal. And both sides aren't understanding the whole reality here. They're confusing these attributes. Obviously, this passage is not talking about the nature or the substance of the father and the son. Why would the issue come up thinking it robbery to be of the same nature? I mean, why would you even say that? Why would anyone think that? That would be like my son saying, I don't think it's robbery that I'm of the same nature of my father, that I'm human.
Well, of course you wouldn't. I mean, why would you? How could he be a true son of the father if he wasn't of the same nature, the same divinity as the father? How can you rob that? I mean, there's no way you could give up your nature. Ah, but if it's talking about personhood or order, then there is a difference. And see, they're understanding Jesus, even though he's true God, true divinity from true divinity, that he wouldn't even think of trying to grasp it or rob the authority of the father.
Instead, he went the other direction. I mean, he obeyed his father to the nth degree, even becoming a human in order to please and obey the Father. He was so far from like Satan who wanted to reach out and rob God of his primacy. Jesus wasn't like that at all. He's never resented being second in order to the father or always being sent by the Father, doing what his father commands. He loves his father. He doesn't even think about trying to grab the father's authority from him.
OK, now we're going to end on two quotations and I want to read them to you first and we're going to talk about who wrote them. It begins. He says, talking about Jesus, He is equally with the Father, unchangeable and immutable, lacking in nothing. He is the perfect Son, and as we have learned, He is like the Father. In this alone is He inferior to the Father, that He is not unbegotten. For He is the very exact image of the Father and differs from Him in nothing.
But let no one take the Word always in a manner that raises suspicion that He is unbegotten. For neither are the words he was, always, or before all worlds, equivalent to unbegotten. For this human mind could not use any synonyms to signify unbegotten. For these words do not at all signify unbegotten. Rather, these words seem to denote simply a lengthening out of time. Some of the words he was always before all worlds. Still, they cannot properly signify the divinity and antiquity of the only begotten.
In short, whatever word we use is not equivalent to unbegotten. He's talking about the father, unbegotten. Therefore, to the unbegotten father indeed, we should preserve his proper dignity in confessing that no one is the cause of his being. However, to the son must be also given his befitting honor in assigning to him a generation or origin from the Father without beginning and assigning worship to him.
We by no means reject his daughter, but ascribe to him a likeness that exactly answers in every respect to the image and example of the Father. Still, we must say that to the Father alone belongs the property of being unbegotten. For the Savior Himself said, my father is greater than I is in volume six pages 294 and 295. The first time I read that to someone, they said, well, that's arrogant. That must be Arius. He said that. You know who said that? That was Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria.
This is right at the time of the Nicene Council. And that's why I say what the Nicene Creed says is what everybody had been saying up until that time. And even through that council and in the Nicene Creed, they believed that the Father is greater than Jesus, that Jesus wasn't saying that because He was on earth as His human, but because the Father is the unbegotten, that Jesus, with all the authority and majesty given to Him, is begotten from the Father.
And so there is an order there in the Trinity, and the Father is greater than the Son. Well, I'm just about out of time. So I want to conclude this message by reading to you the scriptures that deal with the difference in order between the Son and the Father. Matthew 20, verse 23, Jesus says, to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by my father.
Again, John 8:28 29, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself, but as my father taught me, I speak these things. Again, John 12 verses 49 and 50, I have not spoken of my own authority, but the Father who sent me gave me a command what I should say and what I should speak. See the difference in order or authority between the Son and the Father? Acts 3:13, we read the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers glorified his servant, Jesus.
Acts 4 verse 27, for truly against your holy servant Jesus, this is a prayer to the Father, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together. Again, when we read these words, servant and that, we're talking about a difference of order, not a difference of nature. Let's not fall into the JW Arian trap or fall on the other side. Keep these things in balance.
First Corinthians 11:3, I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. 1 Corinthians 15 verses 25 through 28," When all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all." Let no one say that the difference in authority was only while Jesus was on earth. No, Paul shows that's for eternity.
And finally, Revelation 1:1, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants.