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<\/a>Catholic Church Celebrates the Nicene Creed in Turkey<\/h2>\nCatholic Pope Leo XIV will now travel from the Vatican in Rome to Iznik, Turkey, a very Islamic country, to celebrate this weekend the Catholic Church\u2019s Nicene Council that met there 1,700 years ago (when it was Nicaea), in the year 325 CE. That council of 318 bishops produced the Nicene Creed, under political pressure from Emperor Constantine to do so. Nearly all Christians since, even of the Protestant tradition, have bound themselves to this document as the foremost credal confession of Christianity.<\/p>\n
Nicene Creed Wrongly Says Jesus Christ Is God<\/h2>\n
Ironically, the Nicene Creed says Jesus is \u201cvery God of very God,\u201d meaning he is just as much God as God the Father is; yet this issue is the foremost plank in the Church\u2019s later formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity that has always divided Christians from Muslims. Thus, Christians will celebrate this weekend in a very Islamic country (only 2% of its population is Christian) the chief issue that divides them from Muslims.<\/p>\n
On this issue, Muslims and Jews are right and Trinitarian Christians are wrong. I was a Trinitarian Christian for 22 years before \u201creading myself out of it in the Bible.\u201d To learn how this happened to me, see my book, The Gospel Corrupted: When Jesus Was Made God<\/em>, and how I explain it by examining the Bible in depth in my book, The Restitution: Biblical Proof Jesus Is Not God<\/em>.<\/p>\nJesus and His Disciples Never Said Jesus Is God<\/h2>\n
Thus, I maintain that Jesus and the early Christians taught that Jesus is Savior and Lord, but not God. The Restitution<\/em> has 100 pages of church history that show how the Catholic Church went astray, starting especially at Nicaea, by claiming Jesus is God, this must be believed to receive salvation and thus be a Christian, and that God is a trinity of persons.<\/p>\nThe Nicene Creed therefore represents a departure from the monotheistic faith that Christianity first adopted from Judaism and rightly so\u2014that God is a single person whom Jesus called \u201cFather.\u201d In the four New Testament gospels, Jesus never calls himself \u201cGod.\u201d And when he asked his disciples who he was, they did not say he was God. Rather, Peter answered, \u201cYou are the Messiah [=Christ], the Son of the living God\u201d (Matthew 16.16). Nowhere does the New Testament say God is three persons as the Catholic Church later determined in its next council, in the year 381 CE.<\/p>\n
In preparation for the celebration in Turkey, Pope Leo met today at the Vatican with members of the Catholic Church\u2019s International Theological Commission, established in 1969 due to the formation of the earlier Second Vatican Council. He called the Nicene Creed an \u201cauthoritative text.\u201d He said it enables Christians to \u201cproclaim with creative fidelity the Good News [gospel] given to the world \u2018once for all\u2019 by God our Father through the Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d The pope is wrong in saying the declaration that Jesus is God is part of the New Testament gospel; but he gets it quite right with the expression \u201cGod the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul Affirms that the Father Is the God of Jesus<\/h2>\n
The apostle Paul writes that expression (with \u201cand\u201d substituted for \u201cthrough\u201d) many times in his New Testament letters. But you will not find Paul, or any other New Testament writer, saying \u201cthe God Jesus (Christ)\u201d or \u201cGod the Son,\u201d referring to Jesus as the Son of God that many Trinitarians say.<\/p>\n
In Paul\u2019s Letter to the Ephesians, he writes two times about \u201cthe God (and Father) of our Lord Jesus Christ\u201d (Ephesians 1.3, 17). Thus, Paul says that God the Father is the God of Jesus Christ, which nullifies that Jesus also is God. Paul later makes this even more clear by telling the Ephesian believers to make \u201cevery effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace\u201d by affirming that \u201cThere is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all\u201d (4.3-6). Paul then concludes this epistle by writing, \u201cPeace be to the whole community, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ\u201d (6.23), thereby reaffirming that only the Father is God and that Jesus is Lord.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Catholic Church Celebrates the Nicene Creed in Turkey Catholic Pope Leo XIV will now travel from the Vatican in Rome to Iznik, Turkey, a very Islamic country, to celebrate this weekend the Catholic Church\u2019s Nicene Council that met there 1,700 years ago (when it was Nicaea), in the year 325 CE. That council of 318 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1477,"featured_media":22109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[327,26,22],"tags":[763,46,146,8527],"class_list":["post-22121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianity","category-deity-of-christ","category-trinity","tag-is-jesus-god","tag-nicene-council","tag-nicene-creed","tag-pope-leo-xiv"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>Catholic Church Celebrates the Nicene Creed in Turkey<\/h2>\n