Our world was abuzz with God talk. There was no media news sourcing, no newspapers, only the latest rumors. Rumors spread across the known world about a missing body, the dead body of the man Jesus, taken down from his death cross and buried. This body is now reported missing. What shall we make of the rumored empty grave? What is the man on the street to think?
There were
spiritual centers but no organized religion. Many opinions flourished and then were
challenged. One’s God understanding had become a life and death opinion. Chaos
reigned. There were two major combatants, those who believed that the resurrection
of the man Jesus was a God event and those who believed that the man Jesus was God,
having the same stuff as God and co-eternal with God.
Going into
the fourth century after the Jesus event, the 19 years old Emperor Constantine
became the supreme God of the disintegrating Holy Roman Empire. There was chaos
in his empire and chaos on the streets. There was a cry for unity from all
quarters.
Emperor
Constantine threw a party for all the spiritual leaders of the day, at his home
turf at Nicaea, present day Turkey. Constantine wined and dined the spiritual
leaders of the known world for months and then turned to payoffs, bullying and
threats. It became clear that no one was leaving until there was an agreement.
This agreement
became the First Church Council at Nicaea, 325 A.D. The agreement declared that
Jesus was also God and possessing the same stuff as God. The Christian Doctrine
of the Trinity of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, was born. Seventeen hundred
years later, this is the unquestioned understanding among Christian believers.
To claim to be Christian is to accept the conclusion of the First Church
Council, (325 A.D.).
Three
spiritual leaders would not agree with this doctrinal conclusion. Emperor
Constantine banished Arius, the most popular spiritual leader and dissenter.
The other two dissenting spiritual leaders were murdered by the emperor.
Make of this
what you will. Is it enough to say that God can use evil to accomplish good?
G. Goslaw
Landers, Ca.
