Explanation of the Creed
Explanation of the Creed – Part 2
This creed is called the Christian Creed.
In the previous issue, we talked about the Creed, its history, and briefly explained the phrase: “Truly we believe in one God, God the Father, the Pantocrator.” Today, we continue with the following parts:
Creator of Heaven and Earth
Man is a maker, but God alone is the Creator. The word Creator means that He brings something into existence out of nothing.
Here we ask: Who is the Creator — the Father or the Son?
We say the Father created everything through the Son — that is, by His wisdom, His mind, His utterance, His Word.
That is why we say in the Divine Liturgy: “By whom You created all things,” and Saint Paul says: “By Him the worlds were made.” It is similar to saying that a person solved a problem with his mind — who solved it, the person or his mind? He did, and his mind did, for he and his mind are one.
Since God created everything, all things are under His authority. And He who created from nothing can also raise from death.
Heaven and Earth
Heaven means the heaven and its inhabitants, and earth means the earth and its inhabitants.
Now we ask: How many heavens are there?
Saint Paul the Apostle said that he was caught up to the third heaven, which is Paradise. What about the first and second heavens?
The first heaven is the heaven of the birds — the sky where birds and airplanes fly — called the atmosphere.
The second heaven is the firmament where the sun, moon, and stars are found — called the firmament in Genesis.
In addition to these three heavens, there is the Heaven of heavens, where the throne of God is. No human has ever ascended there. About this, the Lord Jesus said:
“No one has ascended to heaven except He who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 3:13).
All these are called heaven because the word simply means everything that is above the earth. Those who ascended to heaven did not ascend to the Heaven of heavens.
The phrase “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) means that He created the matter from which all this was later formed. During the six days, He detailed the creation of all beings from that original matter. The phrase “In the beginning” means the beginning of the story of creation.
Things Visible and Invisible
That is, visible things and invisible creatures — among the latter are the spirits, including the angels.
Demons also fall under the category of invisible things. But God did not create them as demons; He created them as angels, and they became demons through the corruption of their will into pride.
The phrase “invisible” can also mean what cannot be seen by the naked eye.
There are creatures that our natural sight cannot perceive but are visible through instruments like the microscope or telescope. These are visible in themselves but invisible to us without aid.
We may also include under invisible the hidden creatures — beneath the earth or in dimensions we cannot reach.
Even in yourself, there is what is seen and what is unseen — the body and the soul — which are also like heaven and earth.
Here ends the part of the Creed that concerns the Person (Hypostasis) of the Father.
And we begin the part concerning the Son, as we say:
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ.
The word Lord means Master and also means God.
But some may ask: Since the Father is called God and the Son is called Lord, does this lessen the Son’s divinity?
Not at all. The Son is called God in the same Creed: “God of God, True God of True God.” Thus, He is both Lord and God.
This is how Thomas addressed Him: “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).
The Father, too, is called Lord and God in many places in Scripture.
In the introduction to the Ten Commandments, God speaks of Himself using both titles: “I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:2).
Therefore, the Father is Lord and God, the Son is Lord and God, and the Holy Spirit is Lord and God — and we will discuss the proof of this later.
Jesus Christ
The word Jesus means Savior, as the angel said to Joseph the carpenter concerning the Virgin Mary:
“She will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
The word Christ literally means the Anointed One, as it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor…” (Isaiah 61:1).
Many anointed persons were also called christs — for example, David referred to Saul as the Lord’s anointed.
But the Lord Jesus was anointed with the oil of gladness more than His fellows — anointed as Priest, King, and Prophet — concerning His earthly ministry.
However, the word Christ (and not just a christ) had a special meaning in the prophecies — the meaning of the Messiah, the awaited One.
Prophecies about Him began from Adam’s sin — that He would crush the serpent’s head. He was also the One of whom it was said to Abraham:
“In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 22:18).
The Samaritan woman said, “I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ” (John 4:25), and the Lord told her that He was that One.
The goal of the evangelists was to prove that Jesus, born of Mary, is the Christ through whom all nations are blessed. Saint John the Evangelist explained this purpose:
“These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31).
Thus, the word Christ carries a special theological meaning.
The Only-Begotten Son of God
This means His sonship to the Father is unlike our sonship.
Our sonship is not natural but is given to us by grace — as a kind of adoption, a gift of God’s love.
As Saint John said: “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God” (1 John 3:1).
But the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God by nature — of the same essence and divinity as the Father — and thus is called the Only-Begotten Son.
This description appears many times in Scripture:
“No one has seen God at any time. The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18).
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Here faith and eternal life are connected with Him.
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).
“In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:9).
The word only distinguishes His sonship from all other kinds of sonship.
That is why He is sometimes called simply the Son in the theological sense: “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).
At other times, His title Son of God appears together with expressions of His divinity.
For example, in the story of the man born blind, Jesus asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” When Jesus revealed Himself to him, he said, “Lord, I believe!” and worshiped Him (John 9:35–38). Here faith was accompanied by worship — a sign of divinity.
If Christ’s sonship to the Father were ordinary, it would not demand such faith or worship. The same kind of faith is repeated often in the First Epistle of John.
Begotten of the Father before all ages
As thought is begotten from the mind, or light from fire — an eternal generation, expressed by the phrase before all ages.
The Lord Jesus said to the Father: “Glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5).
The Son existed before the world, for “the world was made through Him” (John 1:10), and “all things were made through Him.”
Since He is the Word and Mind of God, He is eternal with the eternity of the Father, for the Father’s Mind has been in Him from everlasting.
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