“… And He was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary…”

Incarnate literally means “in the flesh”. Here the Creed tells us that Jesus Christ, Son of God from eternity, becomes a genuine human being. We see the Latin word carne, meaning flesh or meat in another common English word, Carnival. Not everyone realizes that this word originally had a religious significance. It breaks down into carne (meat) and vale (farewell). As we know from places such as New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro, to name just two, carnival is held just before the beginning of Western Lent. It means that people were saying ‘farewell to meat”. This shows that originally Western Christians gave up meat for Lent just as Orthodox Christians still do.
This doctrine tells us that the Virgin Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ and God is His father. Jesus Christ became a real human being, one who knew hunger, thirst, exhaustion, pain and ultimately death. In the early church there were some false teachers who said that Jesus Christ only ‘seemed’ human, so his humanity was only a costume, so to speak, and that He only pretended to feel hunger, thirst, etc. Some even said that he did not leave footprints in the sand when he walked. However, the church saw this as a false teaching early on. The Church realized that if Jesus Christ was not genuinely human, he could not have transformed and redeemed humanity. As St. John writes in his first Epistle:
“By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already. (1 Jn 4:2-3)
In the Orthodox Church, the Virgin Mary is often called Theotokos. This literally means ‘the one who bore God’ or ‘the God-bearer’. The Slavonic word “Bogoroditsa” means the same thing. One of the most important Orthodox prayers expressed this teaching:
It is truly meet to bless you, O Theotokos. Ever-blessed and most pure and the Mother of our God. More honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, without defilement you gave birth to God the Word. True Theotokos we magnify you.
Because Jesus Christ is genuinely human He also felt temptation although He never sinned:
“For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Heb 4:15)
This means that Jesus Christ understands temptation and helps us in our temptations if we pray to Him. Also, Jesus Christ was obedient to His Father.
“And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” (Phil 2:8)
In the early 5th century the Patriarch of Constantinople was a man called Nestorius. He wanted to affirm Christ’s genuine humanity which we count as true. But he went too far. He would not call the Virgin Mary “Theotokos” (God-bearer). He said that a human being could not be the Mother of God, so he called her “Christotokos”, the Christ-bearer. Although Nestorius did not intend to become a heretic he asserted Christ’s humanity so much he seemed to separate Christ’s divinity from his humanity.
The church realized that this was a danger to the faith and so in 431AD a Church council was held in Ephesus which condemned Nestorius and reaffirmed that the Virgin Mary is the God-bearer.
So the church affirms that Jesus is truly human and truly divine and the Virgin Mary is truly his mother in time, although He was begotten of the Father in eternity.

Fr. John

“… through whom all things were made.”

This passage tells us that Jesus Christ cooperated with God the Father and the Holy Spirit in the work of creation. We see this in St. John’s gospel “…all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:3) and St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians “… for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through him and for him.” (Col 1:16). Finally we should look at the Book of Psalms. In Psalm 33 verse 6 it says “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.”
In this verse we see “the word of the Lord” and of course we believe that Jesus Christ is the word of God. Also, the “breath of his mouth” is the Holy Spirit.
The first two passages above are from the New Testament so of course they express Christian teaching. The psalm verse is from the Old Testament. When we, as Christians, read the Old Testament we do so from our Christian faith. And when we do so we find the foreshadowing of Christian belief, as in the psalm. Above.

“… who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven…”

So Jesus came down from heaven. What does this mean? To save us from what? We have to understand that God created Adam and Eve for eternal life and unity with Himself. At the very beginning in the Garden of Eden there was no sin or death.
However, Adam and Eve sinned. Because of their sin they became subject to death. This was not part of God’s original plan. We should note though that Adam and Eve’s subjection to death and exile from Paradise is not entirely a bad thing. If they had stayed in the Garden of Eden they would have eaten from the Tree of Life and become immortal. This sounds wonderful. However, it would mean that their sin would have become immortal. They would have lived eternally with the burden of their sin. And so the expulsion from Paradise is also an expression of God’s love. So to answer the questions asked above, Jesus came to save us from sin and death. So the path to eternal life with God is re-opened for us by Christ. We see this expressed in John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
We see this same idea in one of the prayers of the Divine Liturgy every Sunday which says “… whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
We must remember though, when we say “came down from” that heaven is not literally above our heads. Heaven is something outside of time and space. In a sense heaven is everywhere. As John the Baptist says in St. Matthew’s Gospel: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Mt 3:2) and Jesus Christ Himself says in Mt 10:7 “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And as Christ says in Luke “…for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” (Lk 17:21). In other words, heaven is ‘breaking into’ or entering this world through the ministry of Jesus Christ. So in a very real sense we see a foretaste of heaven in this life. Above all, we participate in the Kingdom of Heaven in the Divine Liturgy where we worship God in the company of the saints and angels and receive the Body and Blood of the risen Christ.

Fr. John

“… light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made….”

This phrase continues the thought of the previous one stating that Jesus Christ is born of the father (begotten, not made) and so is true God of true God. It goes on to say that Jesus is light and in Him is no darkness (I John 1:5)

“… God is light and in him is no darkness at all”

This concept of Jesus Christ as ‘light of light’ is expressed in the hymn we sing at Vespers (evening prayer):
“O Gladsome Light of the Holy Glory of the Immortal Father, Heavenly, Holy, Blessed Jesus Christ! Now that we have come to the setting of the sun and behold the light of evening, we praise God Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For meet it is at all times to worship Thee with voices of praise. O Son of God and Giver of Life, therefore all the world doth glorify Thee.”

“… of one essence with the Father…”

This phrase is the most technical and perhaps the most difficult of the Creed. The quote above is from the translation of the Creed we use in the Orthodox Church in America, but there are different translations also. Let us look at a few:

“… of one substance with the Father”
“… consubstantial with the Father”
“… one in being with the Father”

The word ‘essence’ or ‘substance’ means one nature, what one is. For example we have a human being, Mary. Mary’s substance or essence is what she is, that is, a human being. She has a human nature. So we can say the substance or essence is what a person is and person refers to who the person is. In other words, Mary is the person. So, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit share the one, divine nature or essence, but they are three distinct persons in the Trinity.
One may ask why the Creed uses this technical, theological language. After all, “of one essence” is found nowhere in the Bible. Why do we need this technical language? The point is that Arius was willing to say that Jesus Christ is divine in some sense, but fundamentally was a creature. When one looks at the dividing line between the divine and human, between the maker and the made, according to Arius Jesus was on the human, created side. However, this phrase of the Creed states unmistakably that Jesus Christ is God in his very nature (Jesus also has a human nature but we will look at that point later). In other words, this phrase excludes anyone thinking that Jesus is a reature.
Even today there are many people who will say that Jesus Christ is a great spiritual or moral teacher, but not really God. But the phrase excludes the modern “Arius” as well.
The church had to write this in the Creed because it knows that if Jesus were not “true God of true God” He could not have fundamentally destroyed the power of sin, death and the devil. No created being, no matter how holy or wise, could not have done that. Only God can. So even if “of one essence” is a rather technical, theological language, it safeguards what the church has known from its being beginning, that Jesus Christ is God.

Fr. John

“… the Son of God, the Only-Begotten; begotten of the Father before all ages.”

The difficulty in understanding this phrase is the word “begotten”, a verb no longer used in English. To see what it means, let’s look at an older Bible translation of Matthew 1:2-3:
“Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram;….”
Now let’s look at these lines in a more modern translation:
“ Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram…”
So to beget means to become the father of. It is somewhat unfortunate that the word is no longer used because it makes clear that Jesus Christ is born of the Father and not made by him. In other words, we can say that like gives birth to like. An animal begets an animal and a human being begets a human being, and God begets a divine Son. The point is, Jesus Christ was born of God (begotten of God) and not made by Him. This crucial phrase is in the Creed, of course, because in the early 4th century AD the priest Arius was teaching that Jesus Christ was made by God, not born of him. In other words, Jesus Christ was a creature made by God. Arius said that Jesus was the greatest creature made by God, but still a creature. In other words, Jesus Christ was a  human being and nothing more. So this phrase is present to exclude the false teaching of Arius.
This phrase also defends against adoptionism. This is the idea that Jesus Christ was simply a human being adopted by God at some point, perhaps at his baptism.
Again, this would place Jesus Christ on the same level as the rest of Christians because we become adopted sons and daughters of God at our baptism. In other words, Jesus is always, eternally the Son of God. God begot Jesus before all time in eternity:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God;…” (John 1:1-2)
This means that God lives eternally. Even before the creation of angels, the cosmos and human beings, God the Father had an object of his love in Jesus Christ (and the Holy Spirit). If God is simply an isolated being, what or whom did he live before creation? Believing that Jesus is begotten of the Father eternally, helps us to understand how God is love in his very being from all eternity.

Fr. John

“… and in one Lord, Jesus Christ”

In the ancient Jewish bible there were no vowels, only consonants. In other words the name “Barbara” would be “Brbr”. The word “beautiful” would be “btfl”. As one can imagine, this made for certain difficulties in reading the words and some words are so obscure that even Jewish scholars don’t know how to pronounce them. One of the words is the “name” of God. In Exodus 3:14 God says to Moses “God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, `I AM has sent me to you.” The consonants for how “I am who I am” are “JHVH” or “YHWH”, and no one knows how they were pronounced in Hebrew or in any other language. For example older Bible translations give this name as Jehovah. Most scholars disagree and say that the name is best pronounced Yahweh, but no one knows for sure. However, the point is that pious Jews did not and do not pronounce the name of God. When they read this name instead they substitute the word “Adonai” which in English is best translated as “Lord”. In Greek the translation is “Kyrios” so Kyrios is actually a way of pronouncing the name of God. When we read the New Testament and we see the word Lord it is a translation of Kyrios. So when we see the word Lord used to address Jesus or describe Jesus, the Greek word is Kyrios. But the word Lord does not always have the meaning of God. For example:
“The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” (Jn 4:15 -RSV)
“The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” (Jn 4:49 – RSV)
We see that the word was translated as “Sir” in certain cases. The modern Greek word for “mister” is Kyrie. However, then as many cases where Kyrios really means God. For example:
“…for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Lk 2:11)
“Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”” (Jn 20:28)
“To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom 1:7)
 “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit be with you all.” (II Cor 13:14)
So the word Lord applied to Jesus was a way of saying that Jesus was God. The point is this, the apostles, as 1st century Jews, clearly believed in one God. However, through Christ’s words and deeds they came to understand that He was God, but they had to struggle to express this. After all, they did not have the theological vocabulary of Trinity, Person, Substance, etc. So by calling Jesus Lord, they could affirm their faith in the one God and to affirm the divinity of Jesus Christ.
We shall note that the name Jesus Yeshua in Hebrew means “Yahweh saves”, or loosely Savior. And of course, we should remember that Christ is not Jesus’ last name.
Our English word Christ comes from the Greek “Christos” which means Messiah. Messiah means the Anointed One. In the Old Testament prophets, priests and kings were anointed with oil. In the past kings and queens were anointed also. Even Queen Elizabeth is an anointed queen. In the church all of those baptized are also anointed.
But the “Anointed One” refers to the Messiah. So we see once again that the Bible is a very subtle book and one needs to pay close attention to draw out the meaning. And of course, we do not make up our own meaning but we accept the church’s interpretation, expressed in us in the writing of the Fathers and in the teachings of the church.

Fr. John