Today I want to focus on creeds and speak about how they can be helpful but at the same time cause division. I will start out with the manifesto that was given unto Yeshua and to me which is part of his high priestly prayer unto Abba and then go onto the Consitinian era creeds and then creeds related to the One New Man doctrine.
So it is a great manifesto but how should it be fulfilled? It is not new but we must look again at the words of Yeshua as being totally valid as much today as when written down by the Apostle and his community.
The greek word for one here is heis (hice) is a cardinal numeral, one (as in universal) Carinal being one, two, three… vs. first, second, third…
The greek word heis points back to the hebrew as:
‘eḥāḏ (ekh-awd’) properly, united, i.e. one; or (as an ordinal) first:—a, alike, alone, altogether
— Apostle’s Creed
This creed became formalized by the fourth centurn. It was not made by the Apostles: I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit,the holy catholic* church,the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. While the creed is very basic I can see the implementation of it being debated. First, what constitutes the universal church? How do we achieve the forgiveness of sin? Is there an unpardonable sin? How are the dead resurrected? What do we really mean by life eternal?
Some groups like Baptists avoid this creed, believing the Word of God more important than any creed of human origins. However, this creed contains some principles that defines almost universal christian beliefs:
1) Virgin conception and birth
2) His death and resurrection on the 3rd day
3) The universal church (aka catholic)
4) Communion of all saints
5) Forgivensss of sins
6) Resurrection of the body
7) Life eternal
I have always believed that the virgin conception and birth and his death on the cross and resurrection on the 3rd day are essential to that of being a christian at all. Islam, for instance, almost universally denies Yeshua died on the cross or another took his place instead.
The idea of catholic is similar meaning 1) universal, 2) general, or 3) of the Roman Catholic church. Most protestants (and eastern orthodox) reject the notion of one Roman Catholic church (with a big “C”). Those in the eastern parts consider themselves as the ‘Orthodox Catholic Church’ or simply as the ‘Eastern Orthodox Church’.
— Other creeds
The Nicene and Athanasian creeds, while upholding the elements of the Apostle’s Creed adds a few items to include a definition of the trinity which is not explicitly in the Apostle’s Creed. Most of christendom considers The Trinity a major doctrine.
The Nicene Creed of 325 explicitly affirms the Father as the “one God” and as the “Almighty”, and Jesus Christ as “the Son of God”, as “begotten of […] the essence of the Father”, and therefore as “consubstantial with the Father”, meaning, “of the same substance”[27][28] as the Father…
The Nicene creed of 381 also includes a line reference to worship of the Holy Spirit** which I cannot find in the bible and which was not referenced by later councils.
The Athanasian Creed upholds the doctrine of the trinity and declared Arian’s doctrine apostate. Arian believed that Jesus Christ was a created divine being, not equal to God the Father.
Trinitarian creeds throw out the Apostolic and Oneness believers as being apostate. Arianism is also denounced because it holds to the idea that Yeshua was created by God. In Arianism the claim is that because God is so unique, that Yeshua could not have existed self-sufficiently and therefore Yeshua was created by God.
I think we have to consider in all of this the body of Christ as being seperate from the Spirit of Christ. Listen to what Apostle Paul said:
1 Cor. 15:44-47:: It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man is out of the earth, earthy; the second man is (the Lord) out of heaven.
Let’s just harp on these verses for a few minutes. The Apostle is talking about different types of bodies – the natural (earthly) ones and the spiritual ones. The reference to the last Adam says he became a life-giving spirit. I key in the words ‘he became’. Was he not already a life-giving spirit?
The last part of this verse says the second man is (the Lord) out of heaven. NU-Text omits ‘the Lord’ so we cannot declare this one verse as definitive that Yeshua is the LORD or God himself. Most modern translations omit ‘the Lord’.
When it comes to the Nicene creed the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from both the Father and the Son. The idea of proceeding from the Son is known as the filioque. It became a major cause of division between the Holy Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox split in 1054. You can see that is a natural extension of the verses quoted from 1 Cor. chapter 15. The idea of seeds sown in this chapter also gives us an idea of how the body of Christ formed. It had to first die: vs 26:: Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. Christ’s body was the seed which formed the spiritual body to come. Maybe that is why we sometimes see the Holy Spirit referred to as the Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:9, Phil 1:9).
— One New Man, the Body of Christ
Yeshua himself came from the bosom of the Father.
John 1:18:: No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son,[God] who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
We see further evidence of Christ’s new body being formed from the old and new covenants:
Eph. 2:14-16:: For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.
My prayer here is the same as that of Apostle Paul, that ‘the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him’ (Eph. 1:17). The letter to the Ephesians speaks of breaking down the wall of seperation between Jew and Gentile. It is my belief that this breaking down of the wall occurred post death and resurrection.
We read that Chalcedonian Definition (creed) emphasized the dual nature of Christ. For we know that he was both Word of God and also Son of Man. His humanity left him open the effects of sin, being the second Adam. He is now the one new man that was created to unify the body. Not a man of flesh and blood in the sense of a son of Adam, but one new man in the sense of a resurrected celestial body.
So I want to be clear here because I think this is very important. We do not worship the man Yeshua, the one born of a virgin. We know his revelation to the world was of divine seed and from the Word of God (logos). What we do worship is the resurrected Body of Christ. The one new man.
The Spirit of Christ (or the Son) is spoken about in three places (Romans 8:9, Gal. 4:6, 1 Pet. 1:11) but this is not a study of Christology. Needless to say, some consider the Spirit of Christ different than the Holy Spirit.
I would like to end this teaching with a rather perplexing scripture:
Matt. 11:27:: All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
This verse literally says that we do not even know the Son. I don’t think this is exactly the earthly man we know as Jesus. His form was hidden after the resurrection. Mary Magdalene did not recognize him after resurrection. She thought he was the gardener, like the one with a sukkot that watches from the eastern gate (maybe a story for another day). The other time two disciples were walking on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus and did not perceive him until the end of the encounter. The last is the time when they went back fishing in the Galilee Sea and he was on the shore and their hauled in 153 fish. The point is we do not always recognize him with our natural eyes. We recognize him by the spirit with our spiritual eyes.
But the good thing is we can know the Father when Yeshua reveals him to us.
Let us therefore strive to know the Father in all ways that the man Yeshua reveals him to us as he stated in John 14:9:: Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.
And we can certainly have a relationship with Yeshua by the power of the Holy Spirit and his presence dwelling within. Creeds help us define out doctrine but can also divide because people believe different things.
** Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed” or the “Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed”
And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver-of-Life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets. 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 world to come. Amen.[45]
Heb. 9:22 says ‘according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission’.
John 17:3 ‘this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent’.
When John 1:18 says that nobody has seen God at any time we know that seeing is believing. We perceive things. Moses saw his back side (Ex. 33:23) and only spoke to him face to face (Ex. 33:11).
The hebrew word for face is pānîm (paw-neem’) and is also used to describe the face of the deep, the face of the waters, the face of the firmament of the heavens, face of all the earth, face of the ground so it could also mean the surface or outer parts.
Exactly how he spoke to the LORD face-to-face is a bit of a mystery for the LORD said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live (Ex. 33:20). We can also be hidden in the cleft of the rock while his goodness passes us by and he covers our view with his hand. To only see his back side is sufficient. His word should be sufficient for us like when Yeshua spoke the word to the Centurian at Capernium.
Sources:
https://biblereasons.com/catholic-vs-orthodox/#:~:text=The%20Eastern%20Orthodox%20Church%20believes%20it%20is%20the,is%20simply%20one%20branch%20or
https://www.bibles.net/the-full-text-of-the-apostles-creed/
https://justdisciple.com/christian-creed/
https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/why-did-mary-not-recognize-jesus-resurrection.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed#Niceno-Constantinopolitan_Creed