Who Do You Say That I Am?

Jesus questioned the Apostles and asked them, “Who do people say that I am?”  The question continues to be asked today and touches the very core of the Christian message.  The Creed is our way of answering the Lord’s question. 

By the beginning of the fourth century a heresy began creeping throughout Egypt and Palestine and spreading through Churches in the east.  This heresy was begun by a bishop by the name of Arius, who taught that Jesus was not God, but was a creature that God had made.  Now Arius was willing to admit that Jesus was the highest of created beings, but a creature nonetheless.   To be precise, Arius claimed that Jesus was a supernatural being not quite human and not quite divine. 

Even though Arius was condemned by the Church and had to leave his office of bishop, he wandered through the Holy Land spreading his heresy through powerful preaching and even song that children could be easily taught.  The Christian Emperor, Constantine, called a council of all the world’s bishops to be held in the city of Nicaea in what is now modern Turkey, in the year 325.  The bishops condemned Arius and the heresy which became known as Arianism.

Instead of seeing Jesus as a not quite human, not quite God, supernatural being, the council fathers reaffirmed what had been taught back to the time of the Apostles, that Jesus is of the same substance as God.  They used the word “consubstantial” which means “of the same stuff,” to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son.  That is reflected in the meaning of the words the council fathers crafted to describe the relationship of Jesus with the Father:

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.

These 44 words are very important because through them the council fathers in no uncertain terms tell us that Jesus is God and God is Jesus – they are one in being.  When we profess this in our Sunday Liturgy we are standing with all those who have come before us and the entire Communion of Saints in saying, “Jesus Christ is God.”