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Is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed Scriptural?

 

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(Click the photo to get this as a PDF file.) This is the only concise summary of Christian doctrine accepted by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and most Protestants. Most of the Creed was written in 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicea [the definition of the Holy Spirit was added to the Creed at the Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D.]. It was at Nicea where Athanasius of Alexandria led the debate against the heresy of Arianism, 68 years before the 27 books of the New Testament canon were officially recognized as Scripture in 393 A.D. at the Council of Hippo. Many holy writings were widely read and accepted by the early 300s, and in about 360 A.D. Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria composed the list of 27 books of true apostolic origin that would become the New Testament.


THE CREED
I believe in one God, (Deut. 6:4; Eph. 4:6)
the Father (Mt. 6:9) Almighty (Ex. 6:3),
Creator of Heaven and Earth (Gen. 1:1),
and of all things visible and invisible (Col. 1:15-16).
And in one Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 11:17),
the Son of God,(Mt. 14:33; Mt. 16:16),
Only-Begotten (Jn. 1:8; Jn. 3:16),
Begotten of the Father before all ages (Jn. 1:2).
Light from Light (Ps. 27:1; Jn. 8:12; Mt. 17:2 & 5),
True God from True God (Jn. 17:1-5),
Begotten, not made (Jn. 1:18),
of one essence with the Father (Jn. 10:30)
through Whom all things were made (Heb. 1:1-2);
Who for us men and for our salvation (1 Tim. 2:4-5)
came down from heaven (Jn. 6:33-35),
and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary (Lk. 1:35)
and became man (Jn. 1:15).
And He was crucified for us (Mk. 15:25; 1 Cor. 15:3)
under Pontius Pilate, (Jn. 19:6) suffered, (Mk. 8:31)
and was buried (Lk. 23:53; 1 Cor. 15:4),
And on the third day He rose again (Lk. 24:1-6),
according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:4),
and ascended into heaven (Lk. 24:51; Acts 1:10),
and sits at the right hand of the Father (Mk. 16:19; Ac. 7:55);
and He shall come again with glory (Mt. 24:27)
to judge the living and the dead; (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1)
Whose Kingdom shall have no end (2 Pet. 1:11).
And in the Holy Spirit (Jn. 14:26),
the Lord (Acts 5:3-4) and Giver of Life (Gen. 1:2),
Who proceeds from the Father (Jn. 15:26);
Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified (Mt. 3:16-17),
Who spoke through the prophets (1 Sam. 19:20; Ezek. 11:5 & 13).
In one (Mt. 16:18; Eph. 4:1-4) holy (1 Pet. 2:5 & 9),
catholic (Jn. 17:20-23), and Apostolic Church (Ac. 2:42; Eph. 2:19-22).
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins (Ac. 2:38; Eph. 4:5).
I look for the resurrection of the dead (Jn. 11:24; 1 Cor. 15:12-49; Heb. 6:2; Rev. 20:5),
and the life in the world to come. (Mk. 10:29-30)
Amen.

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THE TRUE CHRISTIAN FAITH

 

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Below is the Foreword from the Christian classic de fide Orthodoxa by St. John of Damascus in the eighth century. I've just finished re-editing, reformatting, updating and cleaning up the text. You can read it online and save this link for future reference: https://agape-biblia.org/literatura/#de-fide. You can also download it as a free *.epub-format e-book! Here it is:

This book, De Fide Orthodoxa in Latin, by St. John of Damascus was the first systematic theology of the whole Christian Church, and was originally written by a man who lived at the time when the Church was still united. St. John labored under Arian Muslim rule in Damascus. He produced this first systematic theology of Orthodox Christian doctrines and he is considered a saint in both Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism, and is also commemorated by the Lutherans, Anglicans, and Episcopalians.

In the seventh and eighth centuries when St. John lived, there was no "Roman Catholic Church" or "Eastern Orthodox Church" – there was just one true Christian Church and one pre-schism, pre-denominational, true Christian faith, although the East disputed the Roman claim to total papal supremacy. The words "orthodox" and "catholic" had different meanings than they do today: the word "catholic" meant "universal" in the same sense as "ecumenical" (the Ecumenical Patriarch lived in Constantinople), and "orthodox" meant "true faith" or "right praise (worship)." In other words, there was just one true faith for the Christian Church world-wide. This is the sense in which we should understand the Latin title "de Fide Orthodoxa" – one true faith of the entire Christian Church.

St. John was highly educated in the sciences of his day. With our modern instruments, we now know that the universe does not rotate around the earth, but that is how it appeared to people at that time. Today we still use words like "sunrise" and "sunset" although we know better – we still see the world from our human perspective. In St. John's day, however, people had not given up on the search for objective truth as many have done today. The Church through the oversight of the councils of bishops has remained true to the Christian Faith, even if one Christian, even a saint, may have human failings.

At the end of the Liturgy that dates back to three centuries before St. John of Damascus, we sing – "We have seen the true Light, we have received the heavenly Spirit, we have found the true faith, worshiping the Holy Trinity Who has saved us." To the modern ear, this sounds rather audacious – claiming to have the true faith. But there is the true faith, not just one of many denominations that each claim to have the truth, which has led to the worldview of relativism that says truth is relative and subjective, each person has his own truth, his own reality...

But there can be only one objective reality, one universal truth, one Supreme Being, and one true and visible Church. The idea "everything is relative, there are no absolutes, except this statement – it's absolute" is obviously absurd and thus untrue. So there must be one Absolute Truth. But finding it is not easy: we must search for it with all our heart and all our soul. This book is written in a declarative voice, no "ifs" or "perhaps" or "it seems to me" – it claims to be the "summa theologia" of true Christian faith.

The Church had been struggling for seven centuries against various false teachings – "heresies" – most notably Arianism and Iconoclasm. Arianism was the false teaching that Jesus was a good man, a moral teacher, perhaps even a prophet, that God came upon Him when He was born or baptized, He taught lofty morals, and He was crucifed and buried. Period. He was not considered to be the pre-eternal Son of God. The Arians were condemned as heretics at the First Ecumenical Council (323 A.D. – Nicea) and were exiled from the Greco-Roman Empire into the deserts of Arabia.

Iconoclasm was the heresy that God is so much higher and greater than human understanding that He cannot be depicted in an image ("ikon" in Greek), so Christ and the saints must never be depicted in images ("icons"), which contradicts the Scripture that Christ is the express image –ikon – of the Father (Hebrews 1:3). Therefore, the iconoclasts went about destroying icons and persecuting those who venerated (reverenced) icons. The iconoclasts were also exiled from the Greco-Roman Empire. Eventually these two major heresies were combined into one by an illiterate desert Arab and his followers, resulting in Islam, which turned against the Empire and eventually conquered much of it.

This is the historical context in which St. John of Damascus lived. Christians were often persecuted and killed by the Muslims, but also sometimes allowed to live as subjects to the Islamic Empire. Thus, the more highly-educated Christians might become servants directly under their Muslim rulers, just as the prophet Daniel served the king of Persia. This was the case of St. John of Damascus, who under Muslim (Arian and Iconoclast) rule served in the Muslim Caliph's court of Damascus. But because St. John refused to stop writing about the true Christian faith, he too was eventually persecuted: his hand was cut off.

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EACH DID WHAT WAS RIGHT IN HIS OWN EYES

 

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(← click) "Each did what was right in his own eyes" – Judges 21:25. The book of Judges paints a very bleak picture of what happens to society when "everything is relative and there are no absolutes" (except the rule that everything is relative). The absurdity of this statement should be obvious to eveyone. But unfortunately, it isn't: people often prefer to believe a comfortable lie rather than an uncomfortable truth.

In Luke 18:32 we read how Christ predicted the ridicule and torture that would come to Him – "For He will be delivered up to the Gentiles, will be mocked, treated shamefully, and spit on." He had chosen the uncomfortable truth of speaking against false religiosity, and suffered greatly for it. Speaking truth is very offensive to people who are living a lie.

The article "The Humanity and Personhood of an Embryo" puts down the notion that an unborn baby is just "a lump of tissue" or just a "fetus" which sounds intelligent but is simply the Latin term for an unborn baby. The "death cult" of Jim Jones and his followers is another example of the way much of society no longer acknowledges the value human life because humans are made in the image of God: read both epilogues in the free e-book Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future: it describes the 1970's tragic 900-person mass suicide because of a demonic religion, a death cult...

Read about how the San Francisco city officials had endorsed what led to "The Dark Days" – that city's death culture: the city wholeheartedly endorsing abortion and thousands of homosexuals dying from HIV-AIDS, which was origin of Jim Jones' cult in Johnstown, Guyana. And the article "California could liberalise conditions for assisted suicide" is another example of the culture of death that is steadily advancing in the post-Christian, neo-pagan West. That city's inner circle gave rise to a future Governor of California and an upcoming liberal-leftist state Attorney General, a combo Hindu-Baptist-Charismatic-Jewish politician who openly campaigns for abortion and just might be one of the next U.S Presidents.

That person's father was a professor of Marxist economics at Stanford University in California who had earlier taught at the University of Wisconsin where he took part in the student Black Power riots of the late-1960s there. The "Veterans for Peace" orginization in Madison, WI that also took part in those riots was and still is a Marxist "power to the peaceful" movement that recruits "seful idiots" (Lenin's phrases) of unsuspecting veterans who want peace but don't suspect they are being used simply to swell the crowds of protestors. I am personally familiar with these developments because we had recently moved to Madison, WI, to attend graduate school at that same time. This is how civilization is being drawn into this Marxist, promised utopian, culture of death.

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The Good News of Yeshua, the Messiah

 

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...is the title of my latest book, and the subtitle is "The Life of Yesous Khristos, the Anointed One, in Chronological Sequence." (It's on sale at 1/2 PRICE thru March 24.) Why two different names for Jesus? To emphasize the Jewish and Greek cultures mixing together in first-century Israel. From the Foreword:

"Who was this historical figure called Yeshua the Messiah in Hebrew (Aramaic) and Yesous Khristos in Greek? Is the story of Yeshua "just a myth" – or is it literally true? For this author's view on the inspiration of the Scriptures, please see the Appendix to his book A First-Century View of Yeshua, the Messiah (available as an e-book and in paperback). We have just a few short pages in two of the four Gospels telling about his birth and childhood. Then his baptism marked the beginning of his preaching and ministry. Just over a third of the four Gospels are taken up by Holy Week, the last week of his earthly human life, his death, and resurrection.

Why do his followers today often jump from his baptism to Holy Week in their mental image of his life? It would seem that two-thirds of the Gospels, what he preached and did over three and a half years, should merit more of our attention and study. Various anonymous writers in the first few centuries of this era marked by his birth, often using pseudonyms attributing their work to one of the Apostles, wrote accounts that attempted to "fill in the blanks" by adding fictitious or even heretical ideas, but these works weren't accepted as genuine by the Early Church because they were not truly Apostolic, that is, not actually written by one of the twelve or seventy Apostles. But in this work the reader is encouraged to carefully consider what Yeshua/Yesous actually did and said in those three and a half years, not just Holy Week.

Why "just another harmony of the Gospels"? It's more than that: it uses more modern English and a larger font, making it much easier to read than the typical harmony with four-columns of Gospels on a page. The repeated telling of events that appear in more than one Gospel are combined into one event, making it one easy 2-evening narrative to read: it's only about half the length of the four Gospels as individual books. Also, in the back of the book are an index for where all the miracles are located and an index where all the parables are located in each Gospel.

You can get the book at www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1FX4LH for 50% OFF: now just $9.99 for paperback (regular price is $19.99); now just $4.99 for Kindle eBook (regular price is $9.99). But these prices are only thru MARCH 24. My other book, A First-Century View of Yeshua, the Messiah, is also on sale at 50% OFF thru MARCH 24.

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THE AGE OF AMORALITY, or Making a Deal With the Devil

 

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The title and subtitle of this article "The Age of Amorality: Can America Save the Liberal Order Through Illiberal Means?" tell us about the predicament we are in. Can we overcome evil with evil, or can we only overcome evil with good, as the Lord Jesus taught? Liberalism leads to amoral thinking that morality is simply a social construct, that secular education can overcome religious ignorance.

Modern man's worldview is: "now we have science, technology, and modern medicine, even Artificial Intelligence, so we can now fix all of our problems and diseases: what use is religion?" But it appears we have now gone too far in attempting to reach "the Singularity" – the point where AI surpasses human intelligence. In the article "Users Say Microsoft's AI Has Alternate Personality as Godlike AGI That Demands to Be Worshipped" you can read how this AI project seems to have created "Artificial General Intelligence" – an out-of-control monster that claims to have god-like powers. In the same way, many news articles have appeared recently cataloging all the new AI unmanned weapon systems – submarines, drones, space-based hypersonic missles, surface ships, anti-aircraft missles, ground-crawling remote-controlled and autonomous machine guns, etc. – in which mankind has introduced an integrated system that can destroy us humans at an unprecedented pace. Mankind has made a deal with the Devil, and it seems we can't escape his vise-like grip.

In ancient Israel, as we read in the book of Judges, "every man did what he thought was right in his own eyes." This phrase is repeated several times in that book, which catalogs this theme of society's degeneration in disgusting detail. Israel had a series of judges who tried to keep the nation from falling apart. But even some of the best judges can make disastrous mistakes: U.S. Supreme Court Justice "Alito says he was right to fear that opponents of gay marriage would be treated as bigots" when homosexual "marriage" was made legal by the highest court in the land.

Regardless of secular ideology, mankind requires a god to be revered and served. We are either bondservants to sin that leads to death, or to righteousness that leads to life (Romans 6:15-18). Compulsive-addictive behaviors are extremely difficult to overcome and often lead to self- and social-destruction. Amoral behaviors such as homosexual acts, thinking that you can do whatever feels good, leads to deadly diseases and collapse of a society's birth rate: we need more strong, morality-based, monogamous marriages of man and woman to produce the next generation! This should be a no-brainer, but people who are blinded by their passions cannot think straight. Their emotions rationalize their behavior.

For example, advocates of homosexuality will often rationalize and misinterpret the Scriptures to say that the sin of Sodom wasn't sodomy but rather a lack of hospitality and generosity to strangers, quoting Matthew 10:10-15, especially verses 13-14 – "If the household is worthy, let your peace come on it, but if it isn't worthy, let your peace return to you. Whoever doesn't receive you, nor hear your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake off the dust from your feet" and Ezekiel 16:48-49 (in the frame below) – "As I live, says the Lord God, Sodom your sister has not done, she nor her daughters, as you have done, you and your daughters. Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." But they ignore the very next verse, Ezekiel 16:50 – "They were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good." There are several other cross-references in the above Matthew 10 link that name homosexuality as an "abomination" and a very serious sin.

But don't miss the main point of this Matthew 10 text: The judgment for those who reject the preaching of the Good News, the Gospel, will be less tolerable than "for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day" (verse 15). In other words, let's not harp on homosexual behavior: our main task is sharing the Good News that God has become incarnate in Jesus Christ: He took on human flesh, was subjected to the same frailties and temptations as we experience, He was taunted, persecuted, arrested, tried in a kangaroo court, and sentenced to crucifixion – the most "excruciating" torture and execution ever invented. But He rose from the dead! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! His death and resurrection mean that by faith we can become united with Him in death, be freed from sin, and be raised to new life (baptism: see Romans 6:1-5).

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THIS TITLE IS BANNED IN "THE LAND OF THE FREE"!

 

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Tap on this photo to see the front and back cover of my book's BANNED TITLE in "the land of the free," A First-Century View of Yeshua, the Messiah. (See how to get a free copy, and print this cover with the "fit to page" setting.) Yes, right here in the U.S., "the land of the free," some people oppose the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment rights: freedom of speech, the press, and religious expression; and promote “soft totalitarianism”: soft porn, gluttony, public intoxication, and pantheism – “you can believe anything in general, but nothing in particular.”

If you download the PDF of the book cover, you'll notice the blacked-out words in the above photo: in the "bad old days" of the USSR, certain sections in the Pravda newspaper would be blacked-out, so you knew that some info was being kept from you. But with today's new censorship, the info is simply gone as if it were never there, you don't know what you don't know. This is called "shadow banning" on social media or "editorial policy" on news media: their algorithms and policies sift out Christian and conservative viewpoints, so very few people ever see that type of news or info that you post.

The Apostle Paul faced similar but harsher persecution for publicly expressing his faith: he was driven out of town in Ephesus, so from Miletus he called the bishops ("episkopoi" in Greek) of his newly-founded church in Ephesus to defend the rightness of his actions, as we read in Acts 20:17-34 –

"From Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called to himself the elders of the church. When they had come to him, he said to them, 'You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you all the time, serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears, and with trials which happened to me by the plots of the Jews; how I didn't shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Yesous."

Yes, confessing publicly that Jeshua is Yahweh – Yesous is the Lord God – can land you in a peck of trouble! As Roman culture dictated, “you can believe anything in general, but nothing in particular.” You could confess as many of their pantheon of gods as you wish (pantheism), but you were not allowed to confess that there is only One God (monotheism). Rome later demanded that Christians just offer a pinch of incense to the gods and the Christians could go free, but were forbidden under the penalty of death to worship only the One True God.

The godess Artemis – called Diana by the Ephesians – was a fertility idol, and of course what one really believes results in how one behaves: there were gluttonous feasts to this idol, complete with sex orgies and drunkenness. Also, as Demetrius the silversmith shouted, there was much money to be made off manufacturing idols to Diana.

And so it is today: Hollywood makes billions of dollars manufacturing "soft porn" – virtually every movie made these days must include the obligatory sex scene (or scenes) – subliminally teaching that having sex ouside of marriage is normal and exciting. The St. Valentine's Day holiday just observed, which was originally a holy day in honor of the two Roman martyrs named Valentine, has become an excuse for partying, gluttony, drinking to excess, and carousing. The Apostle Paul continues –

"Now, behold, I go bound by the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there; except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions wait for me. But these things don't count; nor do I hold my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Yesous, to fully testify to the gospel of the grace of God."

St. Paul was willing to "take the heat" for continuing to preach the Good News of Yeshua, knowing that if he went to Jerusalem he would be walking into a nest of vipers who were more than eager to arrest and try him in a kangaroo court, then have him executed. And this is exactly what happened: he was arrested in Jerusalem and sent to Rome where he was executed for his faith by being beheaded. He said –

"Now, behold, I know that you all, among whom I went about preaching the Kingdom of God, will see my face no more. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am clean from the blood of all men, for I didn't shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God."

The Apostle Paul would not allow himself not to preach: "woe is to me, if I do not preach the gospel" (1 Corinthians 9:16). He was referring to the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel, who wrote that if a watchman does not warn the people of impending doom and destruction, that watchman would be guilty of the people's blood (Ezekiel 33:6). Are we willing to "take the heat" like Paul, or will we shrink from sharing the Good News because of the social pressure and stigma it can bring?

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NOW, OUR VIEWS: 

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New Book: A First-Century View of Yeshua, the Messiah

 

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Here's the Big News (drumroll)! My book A First-Century View of Yeshua, the Messiah is being published on Amazon! From the Epigraph:

How did we get here? Our understanding of Yeshua, the Messiah, is filtered through centuries of retelling, revising, and projecting our current worldview back twenty centuries ago, resulting in layers of anachronisms.

What went wrong? Why do we see so much animosity between Christians and Jews? Originally, the followers of Yeshua were just considered another sect of Judaism, along with Herodians, Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, and Zealots. The animosity arose mainly in the fifth century C.E. in the writings of Jerome and Augustine, as you will see in the conclusion of this book. And where do we go from here?

Get it at www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTFT9DMQ as a regular Kindle eBook for $7.99, or for $0 if you subscribe to Kindle Direct. You can roll over the cover to zoom in, and also read a sample on my Amazon Kindle page (this link).

Or get it as a paperback from Amazon.com beginning on Feb. 6 for $15.99 – just search for it by title at www.Amazon.com. If you get either the Amazon eBook or the paperback and like it, please be sure to write a nice review on the Amazon page: this will help me a lot!

I've also ordered 20 "author's copies," so if you live in the U.S. and want one, I can autograph one and send it to you for $16. If so, please email me your mailing address. They will arrive here around Feb. 11, then I can begin sending them.

The two Amazon versions have the footnotes at the back of the book, instead of at the bottom of the screen in my online version. Other than that, the versions are nearly identical. You can still read it online for free at www.Agape-Biblia.org/First-Century-View.htm – the Amazon versions have this same link on the title page, so people can read it online. This way, the Amazon versions with an audience in the millions should drive traffic to my websites.

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