The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 106 - Easter, Heretics, and Death Penalties: Nicaea's Last Chapter
What truly happened at the Council of Nicaea? Cutting through centuries of misunderstanding, our final episode on this pivotal gathering reveals how the bishops who assembled 1,700 years ago were driven by a profound love for Jesus Christ rather than abstract philosophical concerns.
The council's unanimous condemnation of Arius focused on his denial of Christ's eternal deity. When they declared Jesus "begotten not made, of one essence with the Father," they weren't engaging in philosophical wordplay but preserving the biblical teaching that Jesus is fully God. Their own words confirm this approach: "this faith as we learned it from holy scripture and as we have believed and taught it, so we believe now."
We explore Constantine's dramatic response to the Arian threat, including his order that all Arian writings be burned upon pain of death. While shocking to modern sensibilities, this reveals how seriously the early church viewed doctrinal matters that touched the very heart of Christian worship and salvation.
The episode also unpacks the council's resolution of the Easter controversy, bringing unity to churches that had celebrated on different dates. This wasn't an anti-Semitic measure as sometimes claimed, but rather an effort to ensure Christian unity in commemorating the resurrection, with many Jewish Christians participating in the decision.
Most fascinating is what's missing from the council's proceedings: the complex philosophical abstractions later attributed to Nicene theology. Instead, we find bishops passionately committed to the living Lord Jesus, with his wonderful Father who eternally begets him, and the Holy Spirit who is the fountain of life.
Don't settle for a withered, abstract philosophical conception of God. Join us as we rediscover the vibrant faith that set these Christians "on fire by their love for this living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit" – a faith they "were prepared to live and die for with great joy."
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the Christ-centered cosmic civilization. And I really do think this is our last one on the Great Council of Nicaea. We always say it's going to be for at least about eight weeks, that this is the last one. But this one actually is, and by the time you listen to this episode, it is quite likely that the council would have been over. And if you remember, constantine had to disband everything after four years because some people were still hanging around trying to carry it on with it. That may be us actually still doing episodes on it, and Constantine will have to reappear and say that's enough now. No, but this is the last episode on it. We just still wanted to. Just, there is so much to do and the dive deep about it.
Speaker 1:And, um, so the the council happened, uh, at nicaea in bithynia, and uh, it says that these arians and the circle of people around there, the God-loving emperor and the holy council of bishops turfed them out of their positions. They were exiled and new people were installed into their parishes by vote of the council, as well as the clergy and laity of the respective parishes. So it wasn't as if they just came along and imposed people into parishes, because then that would be a bit weird. Rather, they sort of recommended people and the parishes themselves looked after appointing suitable people. That's quite good that they they didn't just make the decisions and leave it, leave it, but tried to make sure that all the relevant local churches were being liberated from this tyranny of arianism. Um and then um eusebius. If you need to know more about the wicked machinations of these heretics, he refers us to Theodoret and other authors of church history.
Speaker 2:I think his church history is later than Eusebius, I think it is oh, yes, yeah, yeah. Although it's largely based on Eusebius, because this guy loves him, but he's slightly later, so he includes some other details.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right, Because Theodora is a bit later. Theodora is later, that's true. So this, yeah, the bit I'm reading there, is from a later period. But basically he's saying look, do read other church histories, you'll find out more about them.
Speaker 2:And you can get that, theodora and all the others that are mentioned on. There's a Lutheran site called Fourth Century Christianity and it's got all of them just for free. You can download it, read them all, and they have an amazing tool where it's all in parallel so you can just see.
Speaker 1:I know you've had that on the desk very often yeah, all the different accounts of the council laid out and how, yeah, he's showing me it here, where there'sodoret, there's sozoman, socrates, there's eusebius, and we know we're not. So go to that fourth cent, what's it called? Again, fourth century christianity, fourth century christianity. So once you've been to the global church history project patreon website, then, uh, because that's your first port of call, then after that, head off to that, the Lutheran one that they gathered all this together. So at the end of it all, they write a letter from the council to the holy churches of God in Alexandria, in Egypt, and then, and also to churches everywhere under heaven.
Speaker 1:But if the letter really is principally addressed to the church of Alexandria and the churches of North Africa because that's where this Aryan controversy had arisen from, as we've heard, as we've been through this process so the churches to the Church of Alexandria, holy and great, by the grace of God, the dear brothers in Egypt, the Pentapolis, libya and everywhere under heaven, and the Orthodox clergy and laymen from the bishops who gathered at Nicaea, greetings in the Lord. And then they explain hey, look, our God-loving Emperor, constantine, summoned us from everywhere to sort this out. And then it says this this is in the letter we unanimously decided to anathematize Arius, his ungodly opinion and his blasphemous words and thoughts, with which he blasphemed the Son of God by saying that he is from things which did not exist exist, that he did not exist before he was begotten, that he did not always exist and that the son of god is capable of evil or good by his own free will and by calling him a creature and a product. So that's in the letter. That's a quite a comprehensive uh like diving into aureus, and they've like included every possible kind of manifestation of aureanism to even say the son was created from nothing. And they're like no, the son is begotten of the father. He wasn't created from nothing, because if he's created from nothing, he's that one of the things they often say.
Speaker 1:I mean gregory of nyssa goes on to talk about this later in the fourth century that if you are created from nothing, then kind of nothingness is kind of part of you forever. And so he says that's why the creation is always like, depends on, like Christ to hold it together, because the creation was created from nothing. This is what Nyssa says, and whether this is correct or not, well, that's for another day. But Nyssa would say it's created from nothing. Therefore, it always is like any moment could fall back into nothingness.
Speaker 1:And so the idea is well, jesus, the eternal son, cannot be created from nothing. He's created from not just something, but from the father, or not created from the father. Be eternally begotten of the father. So they wanted to make that point and this other point, that the Son of God, they said he's not, as if he's just got free will and maybe he could fall, maybe he would be like Satan and choose evil and become a fallen creature. You can see why they're very carefully trying to nail every kind of thing that the Aryans would say and remembering that it took a while to get Aerys to admit everything he believed.
Speaker 2:So this was done in stages and there were different angles. So if they at one point got him to say he was made from nothing, then another time there was a time when he didn't exist. That was what Alexander managed to get him to say. So they're kind of gathering all his worst hits, all the times they managed to trick him into saying what he really believes, rather than letting him do his usual kind of um, hiding his true beliefs, sort of stuff. They're just saying the that. So because we remember, early on loads of north africans especially, and then some middle easterners, were sympathetic to him because, partly because they didn't exactly know what he totally did believe, and that includes saint eusebius. So in this letter they just want to make sure this is everything he said, all the most blasphemous things, all in quick succession, just so everyone knows what he's actually said, so that they know not to accept Aryans in future. Yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 1:And so they go on to explain how this corruption of Aryan teaching this is all in the letter um, it had affected Theonis of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemaeus and so on, and they've had to be drummed out as well. And it's really giving a warning to say do not touch this stuff, because people who have touched the Arian blasphemous. They call it blasphemous, insane talk, ungodly opinion, and they're like saying it's so corrupting that those that have touched it they've had to be drummed out as well with Aries. So that if you read the full letter you might think, oh, this is going on a bit. They're laying it on quite thick and constantly going on about all the people that have had to be thrown out because of it. But they're doing that for a reason, so that you, the reader, are horrified and thought I mustn't go anywhere near this aryan stuff. I mustn't in any way, um, doubt the full and absolute deity of the son who is eternally begotten, of the father and so on.
Speaker 1:So they do all that and explain it and explain how the bishop or the patriarch Alexander was present through all of this and wholly approved of it. So they're just again trying to make sure. Look, this is not, we're not imposing anything from outside onto north african churches, because we know that was been a problem the perception of these greek or roman colonists coming along and trying to tell us what to do. They're trying to say no, no, it wasn't like that, like your people were here and they, they led the charge against the heretics, kind of thing.
Speaker 1:But they also throw in this paragraph and, pj, you can explain this to us. It says here we also bring you good news of the agreement on Holy Easter. Your prayers have succeeded in this matter. Easter, your prayers have succeeded in this matter. So all the brothers in the East who previously celebrated Easter when the Jews celebrate Passover, will from now on celebrate the holy festival of Easter in harmony with the Romans, with you and with all of us who've been observing Easter with you since ancient times. What's this got to do with anything?
Speaker 2:So there had been a major controversy before, essentially dating from the times of the apostles, when John, philip, andrew and some other apostles who lived in Anatolia and other parts of the east and basically kept on. They they said, whatever the Jews are celebrating Passover with now, we'll just go along with them, because partly it's a missional thing and like John always wanted to reach Jews and everything, he mostly focused on the Gentiles, like we've seen in Revelation. But there was always a bit of him like we don't want to lose these lifelines that our shared celebrations have. Whereas paul and peter partly, you know, we think paul was a quite a stickler for doing the law properly. He's like if you're gonna do it, you gotta do it right. So he's like, no, no, we're gonna follow a lunar calendar, like the bible says. And like they celebrated in the second temple period and he actually died before the temple was destroyed. So I mean, I guess he wouldn't know anything else. And it's just that that you just look at the moon, the moon, where the moon is in the sky, what phase it's in, that tells you when you should celebrate Passover. And when we look in Genesis, it says, actually that's how you're meant to do it. So they were like they were saying that and that's why easter changes, because throughout the year you see it like sometimes it's in this month, sometimes in another, because we're all just looking at the moon to find out when we're supposed to be celebrating easter. So that's how peter and paul taught it.
Speaker 2:But then in the east they were like well, the jews have come up with this new way of coming, thinking about passover, let's just go along with it so that we can. You know, and both of them obviously got blessed, loads and loads of them. You know, and partly we think Philip, andrew, john and the others lived much longer than Peter and Paul. So they had to go through this controversy and they ended up saying, actually, let's just go along with the reforms the Jews are doing. But that's a major problem then, because then in the second century, all the people that were taught by Peter and Paul and all the apostles that died before the fall of Jerusalem are conflicting with all the people that were taught by Philip, john, andrew, all the ones who had lived longer and they kind of. So they're not celebrating Easter at the same time. And then there's this feeling like right, so if there's all these Christians again.
Speaker 2:We think the church, the Eastern churches, are by far the majority in a way, so there's always that to keep in mind. But all the Western Christians are thinking it feels terrible that when Eastern Christians come here to the West, they are celebrating with the jews who deny jesus, rather than the jews and gentiles who accept jesus and then celebrate it in this lunar way and they're like that just can't be right, that you're rejecting communion with christians to have the deniers of christ and then, as jews, end up denying the Trinity. In the 3rd century and onwards that becomes way worse. So if before they believe in the Messiah, that he's God, and they believe in the Trinity and all this, they just haven't been properly informed that he's been incarnated in the past. We're not looking forward to it instead.
Speaker 2:That was one thing, but once they start denying the divinity of jesus at all and the trinity completely, yeah, then it's like, well, you can't be doing this actually. And then there's all these false messiahs that come up that make the problem ever worse, where it becomes like proper distinct communities of the christ, denying jews versus the christ what would you say, though that?
Speaker 1:I've heard it said that nicaea is anti-seemitic, so in that sense.
Speaker 2:You just think about all the Jews who participated in it, because loads of the bishops in the Middle East are Jewish and loads of the people they're affirming are Jewish, and there's all of this and it isn't that. And then Athanasius deals with this because there are Jewish Christian communities, some of whom were converted later on. So they've got these different calculations, some of them earlier on, you know, and some of them do complain because they're like well, is the Nicene Council saying we're not even Christians? And then Athanasius is like no, no, because if you look at the wording, it's like they should all celebrate on the same day, whereas we must condemn Ares and all of that. So the dogma is condemn arius. It's just a thing, saying in unity, and it doesn't even come up with a date, it's just saying we've all agreed, let's all try and be together and on the same page.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I just think it is an interesting thing that, um, what I've heard someone recently sort of saying is something like that it's anti-Semitic because they are nervous or they don't wish to celebrate at the same time as unbelieving Jewish people, as you've made clear. But of course, as you've already made clear, within church there are of those or any of those Jewish people to be really Jewish. They were sort of going well, that's not like, because Judaism is not Christianity. So I'm like, but if you're concerned with people who are Jewish, there's like vast quantities of them who are part of the, you know, nicene churches all over the Middle East and things like that. And then there is this other religion that we would call Judaism. Now that has defined itself as well, we would say.
Speaker 1:And those ancient Jewish Christians would say that these people have rejected the heritage. Like the Old Testament, it's fully Trinitarian. The Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, it's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus, and so we want to be engrafted into Israel. The Gentiles are engrafted into Israel, and Israel there means, yeah, all these Jewish Christians who believe in Jesus, confess the Trinity, are part of church life. Well, you might even want to say they're the foundation of church life.
Speaker 1:Some people argue it that way. But whatever we do, what we can't say is the true Jew is a Unitarian who rejects Jesus. That's not an exception. You can say no, that is a Jewish person who must be loved and respected and all the rest of it. That's a Jewish person. A Jewish person who has not, who has rejected their ancient heritage of Moses and the prophets and so on. But they are a Jewish person and they are to be loved and respected and honoured and not persecuted or anything like that. Of course that's true, but we cannot make the only person who is a true Jew a person who denies the Trinity and denies Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we've covered previously just how much stuff they made up in the thousand years after Jesus died, like we did a series on the Talmud On the Talmud, yeah, yeah. So go back and listen to that, because it would be crazy to say, whenever the non-Christian Jewish community makes something up, all the Christians now have to believe it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, that would be insane. I've heard people effectively say that, yeah, it, yeah, that would be insane. But I've heard people effectively say that, yeah, and they've referred me to things in the talmud to say, if you, you should be listening to this so that you're not rejecting the the old testament tradition, and I'm not. I'm not rejecting the old testament tradition. You've just given me a document that could have been from like 1400 or something.
Speaker 2:You know yeah yeah, yeah, so that that is crucial. It's like the jewish christians continue to be respected and we see, with saint jerome of bethlehem, you know, and then saint john of jerusalem lived at the same time loads of massive. So you should read what they say about jewish christians who continue to do all the jewish law and everything, but they're christian except the temple sacrifices because the temple's gone. But they do all the jewish law and everything, but they're christian except the temple sacrifices because the temple's gone, but they do all the rest of it, just like paul.
Speaker 1:They massive respect for them and like jerome really does really does, doesn't he? And? And you and we won't get into this now, but let's just open the lid slightly on it. When we look at the ethiopic traditions, oh man, they go really big on respecting that as like what we we might call it jewish christianity.
Speaker 2:They kind of just go, no, no, it's just christianity, because they just well, no, no, don't go into that now, but yeah, just in terms of that, just as a proof sort of thing, that there's this whole nation we've seen the bible gets converted to judaism, oh yeah. And then that's ethiopia, and so they continue on with the law. So if they were to agree with the non-christian jews, they would cut off the vast majority of jews because ethiopians outnumber them. They would cut off the vast majority of jews, the vast majority of christian jews and everything to appease people who don't even worship Jesus. That would be madness.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what Nicaea is really doing is let's all get on the same page, let's stick with the Christian Jewish people who are already part of church and everything, but let's not take as our starting point for understanding how we're going to do church festivals from Jewish people who reject Jesus. Let's not make that our point of unity. Let us make Jesus our point of unity and let's find out how we're all Jewish Christians and there's huge numbers of those and all Christians around the world. Let's see if we can all end up celebrating Easter at the same time, because that looks better. One of the little things that's also here in this letter and it's a lovely bit and it means a lot to me it says the faith which we have set forth. We've received it from the bishops which from whom we were first catechized and we received baptism. And it says here and they emphasize this this faith as we learned it from holy scripture and as we have believed and taught it, so we believe now. So the source of the Nicene faith, according to the Council of Nicaea and their covering letter, the source of it is they learned it from Holy Scripture. That, to me, is immensely important because, again, some of these balloons I've listened to who claim to be oh you know, we've got this is what the nice scene faith really was. And then they, like, are trying to articulate something immensely philosophically obscure. And again, there was a chap I was reading, uh, I think he's got a job in scotland and he he reckons toons to know stuff about this and he, um, but he was literally saying that a person cannot really be, can be be, called Trinitarian until the late fourth century because in his mind Trinitarianism is this kind of very, um, philosophically precise kind of thing, particularly, he felt, as articulated by Augustine and that kind of. You know, it's a kind of philosophically evolved, abstract definition. That is what the doctrine of the Trinity is and that appalls me. When people talk like that, it's perfectly okay to go down rabbit holes of examining and working out implications and trying to articulate it in non-biblical, pagan philosophical language. Do all that, whatever you know, and there's maybe, and there's some great stuff, you know, the Cappadocians do some of that stuff, but the best, when the Cappadocians are at their best, they're not doing. What they're doing is trying to articulate the faith of the scriptures.
Speaker 1:And I, what I never there was. There was a long time when I'll admit this. I wouldn't read Gregory of Nyssa because people said to me, oh, gregory of Nyssa, he's the most philosophical of the Cappadocians. So I'm like, oh, he's going to be dreadful then, like I don't want to read someone who's mucking about with that. I want to know what is it that the scriptures teach. So I postponed reading him for quite some time, but when I did read him I found how he actually engages with scripture immensely.
Speaker 1:He's at his best when he's doing that and that actually, you know, there was far less philosophical abstraction in him than I feared.
Speaker 1:And he even says things like we mustn't be driven by an alien philosophy or by getting dragged into trying to define things that we can't do, that we have no knowledge of. We cannot know the essence of God. How can we? We must be so respectful and worshipful and stick to scripture. So I love the fact that this covering letter says that this faith which we have set forth, we learned it from the holy scripture. And if you're listening, I would always urge you do not end up with a definition of God that depends in any way on philosophical abstractions that are not absolutely and immediately contained in the words of Scripture, because otherwise you're getting into territory that can only lead back to Aureus. Well, maybe not actually Aureus, but it will be some other heresy, and I see it happen over and over again. A person is allowed abstractions to take them away. I find it mostly takes them actually into forms of Unitarianism. But anyway, so that I just wanted to flag that up.
Speaker 2:And it brings us back to the original letter as we called it, as we thought what's the intention of Nicaea? We look at that letter that called it that he sent tolexander and arius and he said if you ever have any of these philosophical thoughts, just, please, just keep them to yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. That was good, wasn't it? Yeah, just like, if you've got like abstract questions that are not to do with the basic that you know the core faith of the bible, uh, yeah, try and keep that to private conversations and things, because it can, it won't be helpful. So there's loads of wisdom that is given about the uh letter and and and all this kind of how important it is to understand that the son is begotten, not made, uh, sharing the same life as the father, and all of that um, but and also they, they even uh, note that it says here moreover, I declare this is uh, this is um, to the bishops and lay people from some, uh, I don't think it's directly from the god-loving emperor himself, but from another governor, but the point was this I declare that anyone caught hiding a work written by arius, rather than immediately handing it over to be burned, uh, one governor guy says uh, they'll incur their oh. No, is it is victor? Yeah, oh, it is constantine, yeah, oh. Yeah, victor is one of his names.
Speaker 2:I didn't I didn't see that part of the letter. Oh so constantine says if anyone is, is Victor Constantine? Oh, it is Constantine. Yeah, he goes. Victor is one of his names.
Speaker 1:I didn't see that part of the letter. Oh, so Constantine says if anyone is hanging on to Urian's stuff without immediately handing it over to be burned, they shall incur the death penalty. So wow, constantine's like so serious is this philosophical stuff that leads people to deny the true deity of Jesus? Or it could lead them in the other direction, couldn't it? And lead them to deny the three. You know that God is three distinct persons, rather than just one kind of monad or something ghastly like that. But for Constantine, now we've isolated how dangerous Arius' writings are. Get them all in the fire and burn them, chuck them away, because if you're hanging on to it, what are you hanging on for? Get rid of it. And if someone's found presumably not just anybody, but presumably someone in church authority and then you find they've got a whole bookshelf of heretical stuff, it's like, well you know, death penalty time.
Speaker 2:Like this person's so dangerous, you gotta get shut of them I suppose, like because athanasius obviously had a copy of the failure, because he quotes it a lot but always to do it down.
Speaker 1:So I suppose he's allowed, he's got maybe that it's like kept in one of those libraries where they're chained up. The books are chained up and kept behind secure guardians and maybe angels were authorised to patrol and don't let anyone near these banned books that are chained up unless you know.
Speaker 2:Well, we know Alexandria had one of those. We covered this secret Gospel of Mark. If you listened to a previous episode, we know they actually had one of those. We covered this secret gospel of Mark. If you listened to a previous episode, we know they actually had one of those. So that is, if you want to learn more about that again, make sure you go back and listen to it. But yeah, that is almost certainly where they also kept the failure then.
Speaker 1:And yeah, so here it says no longer. In the light of this, it says to the Catholic church of the Alexandrians this is a uh, Athanasius is uh, not Athanasius. Constantine's letters are some of my favorite things. He writes wonderful letters. Imagine having an emperor like this. Uh, well, I do imagine it all too often. I, I, I pray for this, you know, down, down with all these fake forms of government, and let's have a, a, a, a holy emperor like him. Anyway, the emperor wrote many letters and here's another good one.
Speaker 1:He says to the Catholic Church of the Alexandrians and all the Orthodox from Constantine, augustus, greetings. We've received perfect grace by God's providence. We've received perfect grace by God's providence, freed from all error, we now approve the exact same faith. Lovely, you know he's always driven by that desire. Let's all be united so that we can do evangelism and the whole world can be converted.
Speaker 1:But I just like what he says no longer can the devil do anything against us. Every wicked scheme he has attempted has been razed to the ground by God's command. Brilliant truth, conquered quarrels, divisions, confusions and the deadly poison of discord. So we all worship one by name and believe that he exists. We all worship one by name and believe that he exists. I think that's a lovely kind of word there from Constantine to bring us to the end of this long and wonderful for me. I've really enjoyed exploring so much in the about the Council of Nicaea and all its. About the Council of Nicaea and all its. We'll ask PJ in a moment to give us whatever final thoughts he has for us about it, if there's anything more we need to know, and then we'll bring this series of the podcast to a conclusion and we'll start on another topic in the next week.
Speaker 2:But, pj, anything more that you wish to direct our attention to in this, yeah, I've just thought it's been amazing finding out what has really been the driving motivations behind everything, and it is just about Jesus. And so whenever you hear these public statements and all this saying it's all about philosophy, sometimes you get a little down. If you like me because you're like, yeah, I, you're like it can't be. And then you read it and it's like no, no, it is just jesus. And they've got all these wonderful phrases like they explain why they use the. This word consubstantial it's the only philosophical word they used. And they have to keep explaining it and saying we don't mean anything philosophical and it's so reassuring. So it really is with almost anything.
Speaker 2:When you're studying church history, I always say just read the primary sources. There's no point having it always mediated to you when you can just go straight to the source and just think what do I think myself about it? And there's all these people that you'll find. They've got all these agendas. They want to fit, just like they tried to fit Jesus into their God. They want to fit all of this stuff into their system of thought. The Christian system of thought doesn't fit into their system of thought, so they have to hide it from you. Don't let them hide it from you. Read the primary sources, you can do it.
Speaker 1:There's so much of it in english and they're so readable. This is the thing. There was again a chap I was reading and then he could. He condensed what he thought was the nicene faith to seven kind of extremely philosophical statements, none of which I believe are true kind of thing. Like the seven philosophical statements were so alien to everything I read in reading all the history and documents of the 19th century and I felt so sad for this guy because I believe somewhere inside of that he is sort of a believer of a sort of immature kind, um, I think he's like a paid for um teacher or something, um, but it was uh. I felt sad because whatever he'd he settled for, this withered, reduced, like, uh, like really I was.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say fake form of christian.
Speaker 1:I am gonna say that a fake form of christianity that was impersonal and lifeless and just just, I literally felt sick and it's that that, as PJ's been saying, let don't settle for anything less than the living Lord Jesus, with his wonderful father, who eternally begets him and loves him, and the Holy Spirit, who is also mentioned in the Nicene Proceedings.
Speaker 1:You know truly God and is the fountain of life and is poured out upon the eternal sun without measure. Don't settle for a withered kind of abstract philosophical God who can't save you, can't do anything, can't have any real relations with you. You can't do anything, can't have any real relations with you. Just keep asking, seeking, knocking, till you find this God, the God that gave such life and power and glory and beauty and grandeur and wonder and majesty to these wonderful Christians from all over the world who gathered at Nicaea 1,700 years ago. They were set on fire by their love for this living God, father, son and Holy Spirit. They were prepared to live and die for him with great joy. Make sure you're caught up in the same.