Transcript Slide 1

Jesus,
Son of God
November 16, 17, 19
Welcome
• Thank you for your
presence
• Journey together
• Looking forward to a
deeper look at our Creed
Question
• How do you follow
Jesus?
Overview of
evening
• Prayer
• Age specific breakout
– Grade 10 - Adults Fr Tom
– Grades 6-9 Dennis
– Grades 1-5 Libby
– 3-5 years old Maureen
– Closing prayer around font
Focus
• GOF focus for the year
• The Creed (“I believe”)
• Use Bible & Catechism as
main sources
• Numerous sources from Fr.
Bob to Luke Timothy
Johnson
Creed
• Longest part devoted to the Son
of God
• Two sections
– First describes his relationship
with God the Father, maker of
heaven and earth
– the second deals with his
involvement with humanity, from
his incarnation to his second
coming
Distinction not division
• It is the One Lord Jesus Chris
who is proclaimed in the Creed
• To focus on his “divinity” and
then on his “humanity” should
not lead us to separate them
• The Creed asserts
simultaneously: he is once fully
human and divine
Creed
• This first part of the Creed
characterizes Jesus’ relationship
to God in order to safeguard the
belief that Jesus Christ is our
savior
• Jesus was the way in which God
became human and through that
humanity made it possible for all
humans to share in the divine life
Creed
• Developed through theological
debates
• Greatest disputes are about
identity of Jesus – specifically
how he was related to God – in
third and fourth centuries
• Present Creed language defines
even more closely the core truths
challenged by heretics
CREED
• We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
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.
For 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.
Thought
• A mystery is
something we can’t
say enough about
One Lord, Jesus Christ
• CCC 430
• Jesus means in Hebrew: “God
saves”
• At Annunciation Gabriel gave
Jesus his proper name
• In Jesus, God “will save his
people from their sins”
One Lord, Jesus Christ
• CCC 436
• The word “Christ” comes from
the Greek translation of the
Hebrew Messiah which means
“anointed”
• Anointed by the Spirit of the
Lord at once as king and priest,
and also a prophet
One Lord, Jesus Christ
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Gal 4:4-5
Mark 1:1
God has visited his people
Fulfilled the promise made to
Abraham and his descendants
• He has sent his own “beloved
Son” CCC 422
• We acknowledge his authority
over our own hearts
One Lord, Jesus Christ
• To say Jesus is Lord because of
his resurrection meant that he
had entered into the life of God
and therefore shared in the
power and authority of the Lord
God, creator of heaven and earth
Only Son of God
• Acts 9:20
• Gal 1:15-16
• Jesus’ Baptism (Mt. 3:17) and
Transfiguration (Mt. 17:5)
• CCC 455 – The title “Lord”
indicates divine sovereignty. To
invoke Jesus as Lord is to believe
in his divinity (1 Cor. 12:3)
Begotten
• Assert truth: that Christ came
from and returned to God in a
way that no other human being
has or will or could, because
when he came from God he
remained what he had been and
when he returned to God he
returned to his own place
• In response to Arianism (reduce
Jesus to a creature)
Begotten not made
• CCC 460 - The Word became
flesh to make us “partakers of
the divine nature”. For this is
why the Word became man, and
the Son of God became the Son
of man: so that man, by entering
into communion with the Word
and thus receiving divine
sonship, might become a son of
God
Begotten not made
• CCC 460….. – For the Son of
God became man so that we
might become God. The onlybegotten Son of God, wanting to
make us sharers in his divinity,
assumed our nature, so that he,
made man, might make men
gods
Begotten
• Not talking about birth of Jesus as a
human but part of God’s life
• This begetting is not a making by God
but a sharing by the Father out of
himself (begotten, not made)
• Johns gospel (1:1-18) speaks of the
Word becoming flesh
• Helps us to think in spiritual not
physical terms
One in Being
• Trinity
• CCC 262 – The Incarnation of
God’s Son reveals that God is the
eternal Father and that the Son
is consubstantial with the Father,
which means that, in the Father
and with the Father, the Son is
one and the same God
All things were made
• Creation
• Genesis
• God, Maker of heaven and
earth
• seen and unseen
• If Jesus is “maker” he is not
made (Jn. 1:3, Col. 1:15-16,
Hebrews prologue)
The Incarnation
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CCC 461
John 1:14
The Word became flesh
The Son of God assumed a
human nature in order to
accomplish our salvation in it
• Phil. 2:5-8
The Incarnation
• CCC 483 – The Incarnation is
therefore the mystery of the
wonderful union of the divine
and human natures in the one
person of the Word
Incarnation
• Incarnation is not an afterthought, not a rescue operation
• Implicit from the beginning
• Gen. 1:26 from the beginning
God created them Male and
female…
• Image of Christ, in which the
new creation, we are being
formed
For our salvation
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The heart of the Creed
Confess that Jesus is Son of God
Reveals God’s love for us
A passionate God
Salvation - 2 Peter 1:3-4
Salvation not a rescue or
restoration but an elevation
(Rom 5:12-21)
Heaven
• “For our salvation he came down
from heaven……”
• CCC 326 – heaven can designate both
the firmament and God’s own
“place” – “our Father in heaven” and
consequently the “heaven” too which
is eschatological glory
• This says two things Jesus is divine in
origin and is truly among us
Holy Spirit
• CCC 485 – The mission of the
Holy Spirit is always conjoined
and ordered to that of the Son.
The Holy Spirit, “the Lord, the
giver of Life”, is sent to sanctify
the womb of the Virgin Mary,
causing her to conceive the
eternal Son of the Father in a
humanity drawn from her own
Born of Virgin Mary
• CCC 484 – Mary was invited to
conceive him in whom the
“whole fullness of deity” would
dwell “bodily” (Col. 2:9)
• CCC 487 – What the Catholic
faith believes about Mary is
based on what it believes about
Christ
Immaculate Conception
• CCC 490 – To become the
mother of the Savior, Mary was
enriched by God with gifts
appropriate to such a role.
• CCC 491 – proclaimed in 1854
• CCC 511 – She uttered her “yes”
in the name of all human nature
Conclusion
• The Creed helps us speak about
our experiences of God, Jesus
and the Holy Spirit
• God entered our world
• Fully human and divine
• Change our hearts and help us to
see ourselves, others and this
world differently