Begotten, not made, having the same being as the Father

Introduction

In our studies in the Nicene Creed, we’ve come to the lines where it says about the Lord Jesus that he is ‘Begotten, not made, having the same being as the Father.’

I’m not going to say much this evening about the first part — that he’s begotten and not made — because we’re already thought about what it means to say that the Son is begotten from the Father and not made. But just as a brief reminder: when we make something, we make something that is different from us. So, a baker might make a cake. The baker is one thing and the cake is something else entirely. And if the Father made the Son, then that would mean that the Father and the Son are different from one another. One would be the Creator and the other would be his creation. If there was a line separating the Creator from the creation, the Son of God would then be on the side of the creation.

But the Son was not made. Instead he is begotten from the Father. And when we beget someone, we beget someone of the same nature or being as us. So, a dog begets another dog; a cat begets another cat; a human begets another human; and God the Father begets God the Son. They are not different from one another. Instead they are the same as one another. Both are God; both are uncreated; both are eternal.

We don’t know how God the Father begets the Son, but we can say that it was not in a physical way, as it is with us, but in a supernatural or transcendent way. And it happens, not in time, but timelessly and in eternity.

And here’s something else for us to think about and this will lead us into the next line of the Creed: when a human being begets another human being, the man and his child are two separate individuals. There are now two humans — the man and his child — when before there was only one human — the man. But God the Son is not a second God. We don’t believe in two gods or, with the Holy Spirit, three gods. We believe in one God. There’s only one God. And so, God the Father does not beget a second God. Instead he begets the Son who has the same being as the Father. And that’s what we’re going to think about now.

Controversial

This line of the Creed is regarded as controversial because up to now the Creed has used biblical language to describe God: words and phrases like Father and almighty and Maker of heaven and earth and only-begotten Son and God and light and true God. You can find those words and phrases in the Bible. But the Greek word translated ‘the same being’ is not in the Bible.

I have an article at home in which the author (Tony Lane) imagines the writers of the New Testament discussing the Creed and where the writers of the Creed got their inspiration. So, for instance, John speaks up and says that they got the phrase ‘only Begotten Son’ from him. It is, of course, an imaginary conversation. But when they got to this line in the Creed, James asks, ‘Which of you introduced this … term?’ And Paul answers: ‘Don’t all look at me. They didn’t get it from me.’ And John says: ‘Not from me’. And the writer of Hebrews says: ‘Nor from me.’ And Peter doesn’t know either. And the point is that it’s not a biblical phrase. And in that case, why did the writers of the Creed use it? And the answer is that they used it because Arius was unwilling to use it. Let me repeat that: they used it because Arius was unwilling to use it.

The Creed was written to refute Arius’s false teaching. Arius was unwilling to accept that the Lord Jesus is true God. He taught that the Son of God was a creature. He might be a perfect creature who was created before everything else; and God may have made everything else through the Son. Nevertheless the Son was not eternal God, according to Arius.

However, as I said last week, Arius could perhaps affirm much of what the Creed said about the Lord Jesus up to now. For instance, Arius could agree that the Son was begotten from the Father, but he also taught that the Son was not begotten eternally. In other words, according to Arius, the Son did not exist before he was begotten. And Arius could agree that the Son is God, but Arius would say that he’s not the same as God the Father. He’s not true God the way the Father is true God. Arius could say the words of the Creed, but he did not mean them the way the writers meant them.

And so, the writers of the Creed needed to find a word which they could use to describe the Lord Jesus which Arius could not accept. They needed to find a word that would decisively refute what Arius taught. And they found the perfect word: homoousios in Greek or ‘the same being’ or ‘the same essence’ in English.

Homoousios

By saying the Son has the same being or essence as the Father, the Creed is saying that everything essential to being God is found in the Father and in the Son. So, the Son has the same essential qualities or attributes as the Father. They are both infinite and eternal and unchangeable in their being and wisdom and power and holiness and justice and goodness and truth and so on. It’s not that the Father has one kind of being and the Son has a different kind of being. Whatever the Father is, that’s what the Son is. Whatever attributes the Father possesses, that’s what the Son possesses too.

Arius could not accept this, because, for instance, he was not willing to say that the Son was eternal like the Father. For Arius, the Son may have been a perfect creature, but he did not possess the same attributes as the Father.

So, by saying the Son is of the same being or essence as the Father, we are confessing and proclaiming that they are the same. However, there’s more to it than that. One writer (Cary) distinguishes between a modest sense of homoousios and a strong sense of homoousios. The modest sense is what I’ve been saying: whatever the Father is, so the Son is. The Son has the same kind of being as the Father. That’s the modest sense of homoousios.

The strong sense is that every divine attribute in the Son is the exact same thing in the Father. I’ll say that again: every divine attribute in the Son is the exact same thing in the Father.

So, you and I both know things. We have knowledge. But the things you know are different from the things I know. God the Father and God the Son know things too. But their knowledge is exactly the same. It is one thing. What the Father knows, the Son knows exactly, because it’s one and the same knowledge.

And it’s the same for every attribute of God. There’s only one divine power which they both possess. There’s only one divine holiness which they both possess. There’s only one divine justice which they both possess. There’s only one divine will which they both possess. And so on.

It’s not that there are three divine beings (including the Spirit) who possess similar attributes to one another. There’s only one divine being and therefore there’s only one divine power and one divine holiness and one divine justice and one divine will and so on. There’s only one divine being, but that one divine being exists as three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. But they are not three individuals: they are one.

So, there’s only one divine power; and that divine power belongs to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And there’s only one divine holiness; and that divine holiness belongs to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And there’s only one divine justice; and that divine justice belongs to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And there’s only one divine will; and that divine will belongs to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And so on.

In John 5:20 the Lord Jesus says that the Father shows the Son all things that he himself is doing. He means that the Father gives the Son a knowledge of all his works so that what the Father knows, the Son also knows. They therefore possess one and the same knowledge. In the same chapter, the Lord says that the Father has life in himself and he has given life in himself to the Son. So, they possess one and the same life. The being of God originates with the Father but the Father communicates it to the Son (and the Spirit) eternally. And as one writer says (Cary) the Father becomes the Father by giving all that he is to the Son. And the Son becomes the Son by receiving all that he is from the Father. Their eternal life is an eternal giving and receiving.

Homoiousios

It’s interesting that another word was proposed as a replacement for homoousios. It’s the word homoiousios. The only difference in spelling is the addition of the letter i. And homoiousios means ‘like in being’. This word was proposed as an alternative, because there was a worry that homoousios might imply that the Father and Son were only one person. And there was a heresy which Christian theologians wanted to avoid which said there’s no real difference between the Father and the Son. God first revealed himself as Father and then he stopped being the Father and revealed himself as the Son. And then he stopped being the Son and revealed himself as the Spirit. And so, to avoid that error, some people thought that perhaps it was better to say that the Son is only like the Father and not the same as the Father.

But this alternative word was rejected, because saying the Son is like the Father might imply that he’s an entirely separate being from the Father. He’s like the Father, but the Father is one being and the Son is another being. Homoiousios was therefore rejected and homoousios was kept.

Conclusion

And so, this is the God we worship. There’s only one God and the one God we worship exists eternally as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. All three persons possess one and the same divine being or essence. And since they possess one and the same being or essence, then there’s only one God.

And we must not divide them. When we read in John 3 for instance, that God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son to save us, we mustn’t think that only God the Father loved us and the Son did not. We can’t say that because they possess one and the same love. Or we mustn’t think, as people sometimes think, that the Son loved us and had to persuade a reluctant Father to accept us. No, the Son’s love for us and the Father’s love for us are one and the same love. And their willingness to forgive us is one and the same willingness.

When we read in Isaiah that it was God’s will to crush the Suffering Servant, we mustn’t think that God the Father willed it, but not God the Son. We mustn’t think that because the Father’s will and the Son’s will are one and the same will. And so, the Son also willed that he should be crushed for us and for our salvation.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, when the Lord prayed for God’s will, and not his own will, to be done, he was referring to his human will. Since he is both God and man, he possesses the divine will and a human will. As a man, he quite naturally wanted to avoid suffering. But since there was no other way to save us, he submitted his human will to the Father’s will.

That’s what he did as a man. But as the Son of God, his divine will was always in agreement with the Father’s divine will, because the divine will of the Son and the divine will of the Father are one and the same. And their will for us is that we should have life in their presence for ever and for ever, where we will worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And we will worship all three of them, because all three of them are one God.