We Believe: The Only-Begotten Son of God, Eternally Begotten of the Father
A friend of mine grew up in a church that did not recognize the Nicene Creed’s definition of the Trinity. For them, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were three labels that could be interchangeably applied to the one God. She and her family had since moved on to a church that confessed the Trinity, but they were very new to the idea, and they still had questions. “Why is it so important?” She once asked me. “If we all say God is one and three, then what does it matter how it all works out?”
Taken aback, I fumbled through reciting some historical theology and was met, understandably, with glazed eyes and a blank expression. Maybe this is how you have felt if you go to a church that recites the Nicene Creed every Sunday. What do these archaic words really matter to our faith today?
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The Lord is One
The first words of the Shema, committed to memory by pious Jews, are: “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one.” So, when 2000 years ago an upstart, messianic sect of Jews began baptizing their converts in three names—“in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,”—questions naturally arose. By the 4th Century, the sect had evolved into much more than a few colorful characters and excitable preachers claiming that Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead.
More than two centuries later, Christianity could now boast several first-rate scholars, centers of learning, and a growing body of theological literature capable of conversing with the world’s leading theoreticians. And yet, exactly how could these new monotheists truly claim to worship one God (YHWH no less!) when the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were all invoked in prayer and worship and regarded with equal dignity?
Accusing Christians of worshipping three gods in place of the One True God was a serious charge indeed. However, it was not the accusers who threatened the integrity and credibility of the Church in the 4th Century, but rather, some of its defenders. These words of the Creed are addressed to a couple of these would-be saviors of Christian monotheism:
Only Begotten Son of God
Eternally Begotten of the Father
The Sebellian Controversy
The first of these was a priest named Sabellius. Sabellius followed earlier ideas that were pretty much the same as the tradition my friend had been born into: that “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” did not refer to real relations between three persons, but were rather three names for the same being—like “father” “son” and “priest” might well describe the author of this essay. Sabellius developed this simple solution into something more sophisticated, teaching that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were manifestations or emanations of God as he works, like a fire giving off heat.
Today, we might describe the Sabellian relation of Father to Son as our Sun is to a solar flare. The flare is a powerful arc of fiery gas powered by the constant fusion of the sun’s energy that discharges away from the sun’s surface. In this way, so Sabellius thought, the Son comes forth from the Father: the greatest manifestation of his eternal energies. Logically, it was a pleasing explanation. We could say God was three, but he was only One.
A Real Relationship
However, most of the Church did not think that “Son of God” was just a name but that it meant that the Son had a real relationship with the Father. The orthodox Fathers believed that Jesus was speaking about a real relationship when he said, “The Father loves the Son,” and at his baptism, when the Father said, “This is my beloved Son.”
The relationship between Father and Son was a critical feature of the gospels, especially the Gospel of John. Jesus prayed to the Father and significantly, referred to the love between the Father and the Son. The Son had a real relationship to his Father in heaven. “Son” could not just be a divine name or even a divine manifestation, but the Begotten Son of God, meaning that Jesus comes from the Father, and so could truly address him as “Father,” who could then address Jesus as “Son.”
“Begotten” is an esoteric-sounding word we use in the English version of the Creed, but it just means “born.” The Father was a real father, and the Son a true Son, born of the Father. These words were not just poetry or metaphors for a single being and its powers and energies. For the relation of love between the Father and the Son to be more than just a metaphor, it was necessary to affirm that the Son is begotten of the Father.
The Arian Controversy
Sabellius, troublesome as he had been for the Church, was nothing compared to who came next. Arius, another priest, also sought to preserve the oneness of God but took a different path. Those who heard his sermons at St. Baucalis in Alexandria were surprised and scandalized to hear their pastor claim that the Son of God was not exactly “God” but rather the Father’s first creation, higher than the heavens and the earth, and even the angels, yet still a creature nonetheless.
The uproar reached his bishop, who swiftly censured him, but the situation was not as simple as that. Arius and his followers were neither irreligious nor impious; they studied the scriptures diligently. Arius could boast agreement with nearly any Bible verse thrown at him (although he and his followers struggled with John 10:30, they liked very much John 14:28), as long as it could be shown to imply that the Son of God was not equal to the Father.
Agreements Between Arians and Orthodox
The Arians agreed that the Son had taken on human flesh and did not believe that Jesus was merely a human being but rather ‘divine,’ even if not in exactly the same way as the Father. They confessed that Jesus had died on the cross to save us and that we could have eternal life through him. They taught that God had created Jesus before he created the world in Genesis (the “firstborn of all Creation,” Colossians 1:15) and was therefore superior in dignity and glory to everything in the world. Even if this meant that Jesus could not be said to be identical to God himself, from our lowly perspective as sinful mortals, he might as well be.
Jesus was also our mediator, making it appropriate to pray to Jesus as well as the Father. A staunch anti-Sabellian, Arius swung to the opposite extreme, arguing that if Jesus was truly the Son of God, then aren’t all sons separate and subordinate to their Fathers?
The Popularity of Arianism
Unlike Sabellius, Arius’s perspective enjoyed a great deal of support, especially from the upper echelon of the newly Christianized emperors and elites. Thinking of Jesus as something less than God rhymed with pagan piety, which was familiar with paying honors to lower divinities while the creator God (whomever he might be) remained at a respectful remove from his creation; “upstairs.” But at the end of the day, there were only two kinds of beings: the Creator and his creation.
On this, the orthodox Fathers and the Arian party were agreed. What they disagreed on was which side of the divide the Son of God was found. If the Son was on the ‘creature’ side of the divide, then no matter what honors or worship may be bestowed on him, he could not be said to be ‘God’ in the same sense as the Father. Despite his honored status, the Son had more in common with us than he did with God, even before his incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth. Like us, he was created ex nihilo (out of nothing) and divinity was bestowed on him, rather than his by right.
The orthodox Church leaders declared that this could not be true of the Son, and that he shared the Father’s very substance. At the same time, recalling the controversy with Sabellius, Jesus was still, truly, God’s Son with his origin in the Father. How can a few short lines of a creed represent such deep mysteries?
Eternally Begotten
First, Jesus is the “only begotten” Son, meaning that he shares God’s nature. But no one else is “born” of the Father as the Son is. Unlike us, Jesus is “born” of the Father while still continuing to share the same substance as the Father. Taking his place on the Father’s side of the divide between Creator and the creatures, his begetting is outside of the bounds of time, and that there could never be a time before the Son’s existence, nor could there be a time when he ceases to have his being from the Father. Like a pool at the base of a waterfall constantly filled by the headwaters above it, the Son is eternally being born of the Father, or Eternally Begotten.
But “Eternally Begotten” was more than just a matter of time. Arius conceded that the Son had been born ‘before’ time began (Proverbs 8:23 was a favorite verse of his), but not that he shared God’s eternal nature. Eternal did not just mean that the Son had his existence outside of time; it meant that he did not change. “There is no shadow of turning with thee” goes the old hymn, paraphrasing James 1:17. For Arius, this could not describe the Son, but for the Nicene Fathers, it was essential to his very identity as the Eternally Begotten Son.
The Fight Against Arianism
But there was even more at stake. It would take another generation of controversies and councils to define precisely how the eternal unchanging Son of God could suffer death on a cross, but at this time it was clear to the Nicene Fathers—especially Athanasius, Arius’s most formidable opponent—that demoting the Son of God called into question the love God had for humankind and our prospects for salvation. Athanasius explained:
Although being himself powerful and the creator of the universe, the eternal, immortal, incorruptible Son took on human flesh so that he could confer on human beings the benefits of his eternal nature. In other words, the Son’s eternal nature is the very thing he offers to us through our baptisms into this death on the Cross. Only one who was truly God could destroy the power of death itself, and only an eternal being could offer eternal life. All of this Jesus did “condescending towards us in his love for human beings.”
St Athanasius the Great of Alexandria, On the Incarnation: Translation, ed. and trans. John Behr, vol. 44a, Popular Patristics Series (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), 67.
Conferring this eternal life on human beings was the mission of the whole Godhead, a movement of love from the Father through the Son in the power of the Spirit. It is the very heart of the gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). In other words, God did not offer just any son of God (as scripture sometimes describes the angels); he gave us himself.
The Council of Nicea
These words carried the judgment of the council of Nicaea in 325 and settled the Church’s doctrine, but they did not close the argument. Instead, they came at the head of nearly two hundred years of bitter controversy, which saw bishops and priests deposed, emperors denounced, families divided, violence breaking out, and confessors willingly dying in exile rather than compromise on the very finest points of the nature of the Father and the Son.
Even in a world that pays scant attention to doctrinal controversy, these words still matter today. Sabellius and Arius did not go away; they only changed forms. “Oneness” traditions and Jehovah’s Witnesses take up their teachings today. And so, then as now, we reinforce our belief each Sunday that our Lord Jesus Christ is neither a discharge of divine energy, nor anything less than God himself, but The Only-Begotten Son of God, Eternally Begotten of the Father.
The Love of the Trinity
Speaking with my friend and tripping over my words, I offhandedly remarked that “the Trinity is also how we know that God actually loves us.” All of a sudden, she became intense. “What do you mean?” I explained that, if you think about it, without God’s revelation as Trinity, it is very hard to understand just how deeply he loves us. The scriptures don’t just say that God loves us, they say that he is love (1 John 4:16), and the Trinity shows how love is God’s very identity, not just a favor he offers to his creatures from time to time.
God cannot help but love because that’s who he is, a communion of love in himself. The Father loves the Son, the Son abides in the Father, and the Spirit unites and seals them in that love. By virtue of our baptism, God invites us into this community, a seat at the table of eternal love. With great seriousness, she answered me, “That is what I was never told. That is what I never knew.”
Image: Illustration from Paradise Lost by William Blake (1807). Courtesy of WikiArt. Digitally edited by Jacob Davis.
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