What Are You Looking For? Part 1: The Nicene Creed

God From God, Light From Light, True God From True God

God from God,

Light from Light,

True God from True God

            This is one of my favorite phrases in all of the Nicene Creed.  It is at this point that the Nicene Creed begins to define the two natures of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man.  The first part, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten, not made consubstantial (of the same substance) with the Father,  deals with the divine nature of the Son of God.  But why is it important?  Why was it important to the crafters of the creed to put in a description of the nature of Christ?

Their reasoning was simple.  There were so many heresies about just who Jesus was and what his nature is, that they felt it was important to define his divine nature.  This is still important today.  In our time, we have a tendency to want to make Jesus relatable.  Therefore, we focus on his human nature, sometimes a little too much.  In doing so, we downplay his divinity.  We…”forget” isn’t exactly the right word, but we put his divinity on the back burner, so to speak.  He was, before time began, the Son of God.  The eternal Word.  At the incarnation, he became Jesus, the Son of Man.  He alone possesses two natures.  One is his human nature, which he assumed when he became man, and one divine nature which he has had for all eternity.  The two natures exist in the Divine Person, as the second person of the Holy Trinity.  He is not now, nor has he ever been another God.  He isn’t less than the Father.  In fact, he was, is, and always will be exactly the same as the Father.  The only difference is that he’s not the Father.  He’s the Son.  Whatever God is, the Son also is.  God is good.  God is perfectly good.  The Son also is perfectly good.  God is perfectly love.  So is the Son.  Whatever perfection God is, the Son also is.  This is something we, as humans, are drawn toward.  In our hearts, we sense that God is Perfection.  We want to experience his perfections.  We want to see them, so we say we long to see God.

            In the Old Testament, Moses begged God to let him see God’s glory.  God told him no man could see his face and live.  (Exodus 33:18-23)  God does permit Moses to see his back.  Why couldn’t Moses see God’s face?  Why can’t any person see God’s face?  Because we can’t handle it.  It would blow our minds.  Because his perfections and his holiness are so great, our brains would explode.  But that cry to see God’s face has been built into the heart of man.  And not just in the sense that we tend to want what we know we can’t have.  It’s been built into man because God is the creator, and we are his creation.  And the creation longs to know the creator.  Because of the way we are created, we come to know through our senses.  Through what we touch, and hear and see.  That’s why we long to see God’s face.  Just hearing him isn’t enough.  We long to touch and see.  But we can’t.  If we were to do so, we would die.  It would be a total system overload and our brains would explode.

Since we can’t see God’s face as he is, he decided to send his Son to be one of us.  He sent his Son, who is exactly like him in all ways (except being the Father) to be exactly like us in all ways (except without sin) so that we can see God’s face in the face of Jesus.  We can touch him.  We can know and have an intimate relationship with him, because he has appeared to us in a form we can understand.  Jesus told us if we have seen him, we have seen the Father.  In Jesus, we can do what Moses couldn’t do until the Transfiguration of Jesus.  We can see him face to face.  It still blows our minds, but at least our heads don’t explode.