Per Ipsum

On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures;  Nicene-Constantinople Creed This is the thing, this is the reality the first generation, the eye-witness generation was at great pains to tell us.   This is the miraculous thing. Resurrection of the dead was not an unknown concept in the first century. We can see from the New Testament that it was a hot debate among Jews with the Pharisees (like Paul!) firmly holding that the dead would rise and the Sadducee's arguing against. Is it any wonder Paul was ready to believe in Resurrection when he heard the voice of Jesus on his way to Damascus ?  He would later write " he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead." Colossions 1:18 Luke claimed to have heard it from others but her wrote about events  " just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us..." (  Luke 1:2: ) Was the author of 2Peter the

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried.    Nicene-Constantinople Creed Why did Jesus have to die? Because he was a human being. To be born is to die; we start dying the day we're born. Every woman who gives birth gives birth to a child who will come to natural death eventually--or, God forbid, premature death.  The big thing was the Incarnation. Everything else flows from that. Did God want His son to die? You hear that question, but I think it is absurd.  It sounds as if they sat around in heavan planning it out, "and then--crucifixion."  No, I don't think so. The decision was to be fully human. The will of the Father was "don't interfere." Don't interfere with their free will; don't interfere with nature; live it out to the very end. He took on our life and He took on our death. Why crucifixion? Was that of His own choosing? Look to mankind for that. Men invented that and myriad

F or us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.                                                                       Nicene-Constantinople Creed Of all the great tenets of Christianity, Incarnation is the most logical. God, being entirely Love by nature wants--needs--to draw men to Himself. We could not bridge the huge gulf dividing us from God, the gulf the Church calls Original Sin, or simply sin. Only God could bridge that gap.  We could not go to Him, He had to come to us. and so,  the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us...                                                                        John 1:14

.. .the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.    Through him all things were made.                                                                                                   Nicene-Constantinople Creed  I n the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. John 1:1-3 The Trinity falls into the area of "things too wonderful for me" to understand. What I do get is that God is Love and there is a logic to the assumption that in Love there must be a lover, a beloved and the love that passes between them.  The Son, the Word is the beloved part of the one Love.  Obviously, as John 1 shows,  Christians were clear on the "One in Being" part by the beginning of the second century AD.