(Painting: "The Baptism of Christ," by Tintoretto, c.1580)
Jesus
Christ – I
believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the promised Messiah, and that he
is the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son (Mk. 1:1).
I hold, along with early church tradition, that God the Son is “eternally
begotten of the Father,” an explanation of the Trinitarian relationship that
emphasizes both the Son’s relational dependence on the Father and his eternal
co-existence with the Father. In earliest Christianity, including in the
Scriptures themselves, this idea was partly understood by describing God the
Son in terms of the Logos of God (Jn. 1:1)—which (at least in part) suggests
that God the Son is understood to be the eternal self-expression of the Father,
his “Word,” which he is constantly speaking forth. In the super-personal
reality of the Godhead, this self-expression is so full that it is, indeed, the
fullness of God himself. Thus, there was no time when God the Son did not
exist; he is “eternally begotten,” continually spoken forth. Thus also, God the
Son is no less divine than the Father, since he is the perfect, complete, and
visible image of the Father (Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3)—he and the Father are one
(Jn. 10:30). Christ was the active means of creation, as the New Testament
indicates (Jn. 1:3; Col. 1:16), as well as the active means of the new creation
(2 Cor. 5:17), and he continues to be the sustaining force in which “all things
hold together” (Col. 1:17). God’s eternal plan was to draw his creation upward
toward love, toward worship of himself, and to do this he deigned to unite
himself with us, so that we might be like him (1 Jn. 3:2). In the Incarnation,
God united himself intimately with his creation, “becoming flesh” in the person
of Jesus Christ (Jn. 1:14). Jesus was born through a miraculous virginal
conception to Mary (Is. 7:14; Mt. 1:18; Lk. 1:34-35), from whom he inherited a
genuine human nature in both its corporeal and noncorporeal aspects (Heb.
2:17), while at the same time being the Second Person of the Trinity—a fully
human and a fully divine nature, united in one person, without blending or
division. In his earthly life, ministry, death, and resurrection, Jesus Christ
was the final fulfillment of the revelation of God—he fulfilled the Jewish law,
the offices of prophet, priest, and king, and he fulfilled in himself the
promises given to the people of God in the Old Testament. He ascended to reign
in glory in the heavens (while extending his earthly reign through his church),
and there he intercedes for us before the Father. (Christ’s purpose and mission
as it relates to humanity will be dealt with more fully in the “Salvation”
section below, and his return will be dealt with in the “Eschatology” section.)
The Holy Spirit – I believe that the
Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity, fully divine in nature. The
Spirit is co-eternal with the Father and the Son from eternity past, and now
represents God’s active power at work in creation. The Holy Spirit was
integrally involved in the acts of creation and redemption (Gen. 1:2; Mt.
3:16). The Spirit’s most clearly-defined role comes in the New Testament,
appearing as the vivifying, sustaining, dynamic presence of God in the midst of
his people. The Spirit descended on the fledgling Church in tongues of flame at
the feast of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). It is the Spirit who inhabits the Church
as a temple, dwelling in believers as “a seal…who is a deposit guaranteeing our
inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession” (Eph.
1:13-14). The Holy Spirit, though already having been active in leading a
person to Christ, indwells the new believer in a special way upon accepting
Christ as Lord (Acts 2:38; Eph 1:13). The Holy Spirit is the source of all
spiritual gifts, of which there are many kinds divided among the members of the
Body, all intended for the purposes of building up the Church and reaching out
to the lost (1 Cor. 12:4-11). The Holy Spirit is thus engaged in the work of
building up the church as a whole, and is also the active power at work in the
progressive sanctification of believers as we grow towards spiritual maturity.