26^th March 2014

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 16 March 2014

Lessons - Isaiah 9:2-7; 1 John 4:7-16; John 3:1-18.

'For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son ... .'
(John 3:16)

'We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God.'
(Nicene Creed)

Nicodemus is a perceptive theologian who is intrigued by Jesus. But he is unsettled to learn that he is required to radically re-think his faith. He must undergo a conversion so dramatic and traumatic that it is like being born again. Only later does he become a disciple (7:50) who is so committed that, with Joseph of Arimathea, he takes Jesus' body from the cross, embalms it and places it in the tomb (19:38ff).

The encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus ends with the much-quoted text about God's love for the world. What is often forgotten is the scandalous claim, repeated throughout the New Testament, that such love has been decisively revealed in 'the only begotten Son of God' (John 3:16-18; 1 John 4:9,14,15).

The Nicene Creed expands on this. Its affirmation that the 'being' of 'the one God, the Father, the Almighty, the Creator of all things' is located on earth in Jesus Christ, 'the one Lord' and 'only begotten Son of God' is breath-taking. It brings gasps of delight and horror in equal measure. How audacious! How arrogant! What are we to make of it?

The Son-ship of Jesus is to be understood, not in relation to the general belief in God as the father of humanity, but in the context of God's choosing of Israel to be a light to the nations. Israel is the 'first born Son of God' (Exodus 4:22; also Jeremiah 31:9; Psalm 89:27). David is 'the Son whom God has begotten this day' (Psalm 2:7; also 2 Samuel 7:14). Hope for the future is assured in the birth of a special son (Isaiah 7:14; 9:6). These 'sons' belong to a particular community, formed and sustained by the love of the one true God.

So when Jesus is affirmed as the 'only begotten Son of God' we are invited to see that, in him, Israel's imperfectly lived vocation has been uniquely perfected. Embodying God's grace and goodness in his incarnate, crucified and risen life, Christ alone brings healing and salvation to our strife- torn world.

So closely does his love for the lost mirror that of his 'Father' that 'the Son' is also called 'one Lord'. This title was used with awe and reverence by the Israelites for God and by Roman Emperors to describe their divine power. The confession that 'Jesus is Lord' is astounding and
belligerent: astounding, because his identity is aligned in the closest possible way with Israel's God; belligerent, because it is an assault on leaders who claim to possess divine power but destroy what is godly and humane. 'Jesus is Lord - and Caesar is not!'

Naturally, the claim that, in Christ, God is uniquely present is hotly contested - not least in the Church! Jesus is often praised for being a compassionate human being, teaching universal moral truths. But many strongly object to speculation about his divinity because it downplays his humanitarian spirit.

The Nicene Creed does affirm the humanity of Christ, as we shall see next week. But it does so only after affirming his divinity. The reason for this is to be found in the controversy that led Emperor Constantine to convene a council at Nicaea in AD325.

Arius was a popular priest in Alexandria who taught that, before creating all things, God created a Son as the first creature, a supernatural creature who was more than human, but much less than God - half God and half man.

While the particulars seem remote to us, the seriousness of the issue is not. Many Christians today think of Jesus in this way. The Council reaffirmed the uniqueness of the Son of God by expanding earlier creeds to meet a crisis that split the church - and which is never far below the
surface.

The dispute about Christ's relation with his Father centred on the choice of an esoteric Greek word, 'homoousia', meaning 'of one Being or Substance ... .' The Arians wanted it changed to homoiousia, meaning 'of similar Being or Substance ... .' The future of Christian belief was to be decided by a just one letter!

This seems to be a trivial thing to get worked up about, particularly because we try to avoid conflict about matters of faith. However, sometimes, a crisis of belief is best seen through a narrow lens.

We can all learn from the passion of the disputants to know the truth of God's revelation in Christ. But it does not hide the fact that what the Arians wanted contradicted the whole sweep of the New Testament. But, beyond debates over particular texts on the relation between Father and Son, two completely different approaches to the issue were apparent:

1. The Arians started with a concept of God's remote transcendence (as
Creator) which precluded the idea that the fullness of God's love could be uniquely embodied in a human (creature). Jesus was more than your ordinary person but not the unique embodiment of God's love. To say so would be dishonour the majesty of God.

2. On the other hand, the architects of the Nicene Creed began with the wondrous mystery of the incarnation: that in God's only Son, 'the Word had become flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth' (John 1:14).

The shapers of the Nicene Creed drew out the logical implications of the earliest testimonies to Jesus in the New Testament. In his life and ministry they saw the glory of Israel's Creator and the source of all things. As they reflected on the biblical testimony as a whole, they became convinced that the relationship between Father and Son was not one between Creator and special creature but between God and God. Over time, this led to the formulation of belief in the triune love of the one God in which the divine Father, the divine Son and the divine Spirit expressed a complete unity of love unlike any in our human experience.

So convinced were they of the divine origin of Jesus that they pressed the point. He was 'God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God'. It is as if they were composing an anthem with a breathtaking crescendo that silenced the attempt, no matter how sophisticated, to make Jesus merely in human likeness. Not everything about God can be or should be 'explained'
within the limits of our narrow reasoning. That is why we will be learning to sing the Nicene Creed in worship.

The Nicene Creed stretches language to breaking point in order to express the puzzling and thrilling reality that is beyond our normal powers of deduction. It expands what the Apostles' Creed says about believing in 'Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord' by speaking of him being 'eternally begotten of the Father' and 'begotten, not made'.

Next week we will focus on the relationship between these expressions and the incarnation through Mary. Meanwhile, it is important to see that these metaphors help us to say what must be said about the relationship between Father and Son, as attested in Scripture.

It is a bit like the way in which our inter-generational relationships come into being and are nurtured. However, because we do not have direct experience of the kind of unity and relations that exists within the one God, we must stretch language to avoid treating God as if he were the projection of our human relationships (Father and son) and biological processes (birth).

In summary, let me sketch what is at stake in this ancient controversy, and why we should gladly and enthusiastically affirm the faith of the Church in the Nicene Creed today.

If the Son of God were a special finite creature he could not have perfect knowledge of the infinite Father and we could have no confidence that, in Christ, we see the reality of God.

Conversely, as we shall see next week, if the 'one Lord' were not fully human, we could have no confidence that Jesus has identified with us and redeemed our life.

All that would be left would be a simple, easily understood 'god' that is only the projection of our religious ideas, wishes and needs. God would no longer be a puzzle, an unsettling presence, a breathtaking reality! Sadly, churchgoers who readily accept such a simplistic, banal view of God make the task of atheists easy!

The God of Christian faith cannot be so confined. The triune God is both One (simple) and three (complex) in a way that defies easy explanation.
Our task is to stretch language and concepts to re-awaken faith in the one God and express our delight that the triune relations of love, which have been decisively revealed in the Father's only Son our Lord, have overflowed in grace-filled love for our strife-torn world.

Such delight comes with the responsibility to resist strongly the myriad attempts today of those who deny the divinity of Jesus and reduce his significance to his religious and moral teaching. In opposition to modern day Arians, we must insist that he is infinitely more than a very good man. Jesus Christ is not a hybrid - half God and half human - but the 'only Son of the Father', the 'one Lord' of heaven and earth, 'God from God, Light from light, true God from true God'. Anything less diminishes the true glory of God embodied in the love of the One who became incarnate, was crucified and buried and raised from the dead.

So may we, like the curious, puzzled and unsettled figure of Nicodemus, with whom we began, come to see Jesus for whom he truly is.

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Rev Dr Max Champion is the minister of St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is a member of the Council of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.