New City Catechism #3

Question: How many persons are there in God?

Answer: There are three persons in one God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Let me tell you a Christmas story. It was the year 325 in late spring. A council of pastors from all across the Roman empire convened in Nicaea to resolve a dispute that was threatening to tear the church apart. The core issue was this: was Jesus God or was he something less, something created. A teacher named Arius had made quite a stir by teaching that Jesus was the first creation. Since that was the case, Arius stated, then Jesus was not God himself. You may have heard of the Council of Nicaea before, but now you are wondering: why is this a Christmas story?

One of the participants of the council was so disgusted at Arius that he was driven to rash action. As Arius was spouting off his beliefs about Jesus not being God, this participant walked up to Arius in a barely-controlled rage and punched him straight in the face. The man was subsequently imprisoned for his actions even though the council backed him and declared Arius’ beliefs to be heretical. The man’s name, you ask? St. Nicholas of Myra.

Now, this account of St. Nicholas punching Arius in the face is almost certainly not true. No account of Nicaea at the time recorded it. In fact, the first time anyone reported that St. Nicholas hit anyone wasn’t until 1,000 years later! Yet, what is interesting to me is that the story exists at all. For it means that people find Arian teaching so disgusting that we are even picturing jolly ole’ St. Nicholas as the bringer of just vengeance. This caused simmering anger continued to grow for centuries over the identity of Jesus as God.

What is the big deal? Why is it important that Jesus is God? The issue is one of salvation. If Jesus was not God then he could not have paid for sin! For the Scripture is clear that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23. A sinful man dying in our place means nothing. You can’t pay off someone’s mortgage if you can’t even pay off your own mortgage. But if Jesus is God he is perfect and holy and is certainly the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus’ identity as God is not an empty doctrinal truth (nor is the fact that the Holy Spirit is God!) These are rich doctrinal truths that cut right to the heart of the salvation that we hold dear. We must not forsake them.

What Arius tried to do was let go of doctrinal truth to make God more “understandable.” For many people still, the idea that God is three-in-one is extremely frustrating. They can’t make sense of it so they assume that Scripture didn’t really mean what it says. However, I take it a different way. I love that God doesn’t fit into my understanding. That just means that he is greater than I am! If I could figure him out then God and I are on the same level. But if God is our eternal God of majestic glory then there will certainly be things about him I don’t get. God could no more be completely comprehended by me than a toddler could understand the mind of Shakespeare.

God is three in one. Aren’t you glad that he knows how that works? For a God who can do things I can’t understand, means he is big enough to do all the things he has promised us.