(An audio recording of the sermon will be uploaded here after the Sunday service.)
My best friend in Japan is a British missionary. Recently he had the chance to visit Malaysia, and at a train station there, he encountered the same problem that many tourists do. The ticket machines were malfunctioning. Sometimes our ticket machines swallow up your money but don’t give you a ticket.
A kind local man saw my friend’s trouble and managed to buy him a ticket. He said, “No need to pay me back.” But he also asked, “Are you a Christian?” When my friend said yes, the man—who was probably Muslim—asked, “How can you believe that God is three people? If there are three kings, won’t they fight all the time?” Unfortunately, my friend was caught by surprise and he had to rush for the train, so he could not answer.
I share this story because my last two sermons were about the Nicene Creed and the Trinity. Today’s sermon is a continuation, and it’s about the 2nd person of the Trinity, God the Son, Jesus Christ.
Because the Nicene Creed has a lot to say about the identity of Jesus, I’m going to divide this into two parts, half today and half in January. Let’s start with prayer, then recite the Nicene Creed. Atsuko-san will read it for us in Japanese.
[Pray/Recite]
History Recap
For those who didn’t hear my first sermon, here is a short recap.
From the very beginning of the church, Christians worshipped Jesus as God. The divinity of Jesus was not a later invention—Jesus himself claimed, very clearly, that he was God.
Three centuries after the birth of Christianity, a priest in Alexandria named Arius began teaching that Jesus was not truly God but a special creature made by the Father. Some bishops agreed partly; they said that only the Father was “true God,” while the Son and the Holy Spirit were lesser divine beings.
To stop the confusion these ideas were creating, over 200 bishops had a meeting we call the Council of Nicaea. This was in AD 325. After much discussion they wrote the Nicene Creed as an official statement of beliefs. Using clear and careful words, they wanted to make sure all Christians understood that the Jesus is fully and eternally God—not created, not lesser.
Let’s go back to slide number 2 of the PowerPoint.
One Lord, Jesus Christ
The Nicene Creed introduces Jesus by saying, “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ.” Christians had been calling him “Lord” and “God” from the time of the earliest disciples.
Just to give three examples: Before Jesus’ death Peter, leader of the disciples, said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” a title Jesus accepted in Matthew 16:16. After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciple Thomas calls Jesus “My Lord and my God!” in John 20:28. The Apostle Paul later wrote, “There is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live,” in 1 Corinthians 8:6.
By the way, if you would like to check the verses I mention, a copy of this sermon is on the IBF homepage in both English and Japanese. You can see the Bible references there.
Only Son, Begotten, Not Made
Next, the Creed says that Jesus is “the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father” and further down it also says “begotten, not made”.
The phrase “only son of God” comes from the Gospel of John, 1:14 and 3:16. Yes, we are all sons and daughters of God, but Jesus is uniquely God’s Son in a way that no one else is. Unlike Jesus, we were created and adopted as the Father’s children.
Jesus, however, was not created or made. When the Creed says Jesus was “begotten” it uses the Greek word gennaō, and the word’s nuance is that Jesus and his Father share the same nature. A father will beget a son who is like him: a human father begets a human son; a cat father begets a cat son. Likewise, Jesus shares his Father’s divine nature—not the nature of a cat!
Eternally Begotten
Further down, the Creed says Jesus is “eternally begotten of his Father before all ages.”
This means two things. Firstly, Jesus existed before anything was created. For example, 2 Timothy 1:9 says Jesus was “before the beginning of time.” And John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Secondly, Jesus came from the Father. Here are example verses about Jesus’s coming from the Father. John 5:26: “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Galatians 4:4-6: “God sent his Son . . . to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’”
You may wonder: Was the Son “born” from the Father? Did the Father exist first? Well, Jesus and his Father are not exactly like a human father and son. Terms like “begotten,” “Father” and “Son” are only descriptions to give us an idea of what God is like, with our limited human experience. Just as a human father and human son love each other, so there is love and relationship within the nature of God. Also, there is a difference between father and son in hierarchy or roles. It is the Father who sends the Son, not the other way around.
Ultimately, God’s nature is mysterious and we cannot fully understand it. What we can be sure of from the Bible is that (1) the Son is eternal; he has existed from before the beginning of time and creation, (2) he shares the Father’s divine nature, and (3) he comes from the Father, which includes being sent to us in human form.
God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God
Moving on, Jesus is also described as “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.”
Again, this line expresses similar idea as before: the Son comes from the Father; they are different persons; but they share the same nature.
About the Son as coming from the Father: some theologians have used the analogy of light. The Son comes from the Father like light and heat comes from the sun. Of course, this is not a perfect analogy, because Jesus isn’t an impersonal force like light or heat.
But it’s not wrong to use the image of light to describe God. The Bible does use the metaphor of light. For example, Hebrews 1:3 says, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” (Other examples: Psalm 27:1; 1 John 1:5; John 8:12 and 12:46).
Of One Being with the Father
Let’s move on to the next slide.
Jesus is described as “of one Being with the Father.” This phrase comes from the Greek word homoousios, “the same in being.” The word homoousios is not in the Bible, and before the Council of Nicaea this word had been used in different—and sometimes confusing—ways. Because of this, many bishops were unsure about using it.
So why did the Council of Nicaea include it in the Creed? Mainly because Arius would not accept the concept of homoousios, as it makes clear that the Son is not created.
Homoousios conveys that the Son is not merely like the Father or similar to the Father but the same in nature as the Father. This applies to the Holy Spirit as well. The Father, Son, and Spirit are three distinct persons, yet one in being and therefore one God. The Son and the Spirit are worthy of the same worship as the Father.
Again, we get these ideas from Scripture. About being fully God, Colossians 2:9 says, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” About being distinct persons yet one God, Hebrews 1 says, verse 5: “For to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father?” Verse 6: “He says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him.’” Verse 8: “. . . about the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever’.” And finally, Revelation chapter 5 shows the Son, called the “Lamb” in Revelation, receiving worship together.
Through Him All Things Were Made
The last line we will look at for today is “through him all things were made.”
The New Testament repeats this idea many times. John 1:3 says, “All things were made through him. Hebrews 1:2 says that God “made the universe” through the Son. Paul writes in Colossians 1:16, “All things were created through him and for him” (1:16).
This fits with the Old Testament, where God creates by his Word—Genesis 1 and Psalm 33. Jesus is that Word through whom the world came into being.
To sum up: The Council intentionally chose all these words to state very clearly that Jesus was not created; rather he is the co-creator of the universe, fully and eternally God.
Application: The importance of Jesus’ divinity
Let me end by explaining why these beliefs were so important to the Council of Nicaea and why it is important for all Christians:
If Jesus is not God, we would not have access to God and our salvation.
Firstly, because Jesus is truly God, we have full access to God. Jesus is not just a messenger or representative of God. If we hoped to meet a famous person but only met their assistant, we would feel disappointed. We might be happy to get their autograph, but it’s not the same as meeting the real person.
When the disciples met Jesus, they were meeting God himself. Jesus’ words are God’s words. His actions are God’s actions. As Jesus said in John 14:9, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
When we read Jesus’ words today, we are listening to God himself. Through reading Scripture, we are encountering God directly. Reading the Bible isn’t the only way to meet God or to hear him, but it is an essential way for us to know him.
Secondly, because Jesus is truly God, we can trust him for our salvation: the forgiveness of sins, the power of the Spirit to change us, and the promise of eternal life. If Jesus were just a human being, he could not atone for the sins of the world once and for all; he could not reconcile us to the Father, or conquer death.
The early church defended Christ’s divinity because they knew the Christian faith has no basis without it. That’s why they wrote a Creed which churches then recited and have continued to recite for 1,700 years.
Remember that Arius was priest and yet, in a desire to better understand God, he ended up teaching a major heresy. And there are still people today who see Jesus as special but just a created being.
For example, the Jehovah’s Witnesses who stand at train stations passing out tracts. They believe Jesus is just the archangel Michael in human form. If you happen to converse with them, how would you explain that Jesus is not just an angel but God himself?
I hope this sermon was helpful by showing or reminding you that our belief in the Trinity is essential and has a strong basis in Scripture.
Today, we have looked at how Jesus is fully God. In the next sermon, we will explore his humanity. He is the God who entered his own creation to save us.
Let’s pray. Almighty God, you have given your only‑begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
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