THE CREED PART II
“I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made.”
Continuing on our study of the Nicene Creed, we come to the section about the Son, Jesus Christ. This section is quite long, so we will break this down into subsections.
The two sentences quoted above focus on Jesus as the Son of God and His unique relationship with the Father. We start out by stating that He is one. Just as there is one Father and one God, there is only one Jesus. We also give Him the titles of “Lord” and “Christ”. He is Lord because as God He has sovereignty over everything. “Christ” means “anointed one” in Greek and is translated as “Messiah” in Hebrew. We believe that He is the Messiah that God promised to send. We call ourselves Christians because we believe that He is the Christ.
Next we say that Jesus is the “Only Begotten Son of God”. In the Old Testament, the term “son of God” was used for the Israelites who were called children of Israel and God’s chosen people. It was also used for Israel’s kings and for angels. This term shows a special relationship with God, but by calling Jesus the “Only Begotten Son of God” we are specifying something unique. He is the actual Son and no one else can claim this. Saying that He is “born … before all ages” means that He has been with the Father from before time began. So the Son was around long before Jesus was actually born on earth.
The first part of the second sentence says that the Son is God. The Son is True God just as the Father is True God. He was not made like all of the rest of creation, but is begotten of the Father as we discussed before. “Consubstantial” sounds like a big, complicated word. All it means is that the Son and the Father are made of the same substance. The Son is God.
The final statement says that all things were made through the Father. We often associate the Father with creation, but we believe that all three persons of the Trinity were a part of creation. This statement points out our belief in the Son’s participation in this.
Next week we will look at the coming of Jesus to earth.