UMC20230530 - Declaration of Faith - Part 3¶
We are in the third week of a journey through the Apostles Creed, a declaration of our faith, and are looking at what it is that we believe when we say the lines:
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
We must remember throughout this series that the creeds were created to refute heresies in those periods. They were written to say, these beliefs are in, these are out. Here we see two things that are considered important regarding who Jesus was: Jesus is the Christ and Jesus is the only son of God, born of the virgin Mary.
A lot of the Old Testament was written while Israel was in exile. The theology being developed during this time was strongly a liberation theology. There was a growing national sense that God will provide, God will restore, God will reconcile and that God will send someone to do this all. Israel labelled this person as the Messiah (the Saviour or Deliverer). In Greek this is translated as the Christ (the anointed one, the one marked for this purpose). Jesus is the Christ, the prophesied deliverer, the one who will restore and reconcile the world.
Scattered throughout history are many mythical stories about great people being the descendants of the gods. Julius Caesar (Jesus' contemporary) for example was considered by the Romans as the son of a god. The Apostles Creed declares the divinity of Jesus by stating that he had a human mother and God as his father. The dangerous part of the declaration was stating that Jesus is the ONLY son of God, nullifying all other claims.
We believe that Jesus is the long coming saviour, who is of the same essence as God and is the one who will restore the world and bring about the Kingdom of God. How much do we still need a Messiah to restore and reconcile the world?
Love, Cliff