Christ of the Father's love begotten

Ligon Duncan goes to the heart of the Nicene confession: begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father. This breakout session looks at the eternal generation of the Son and the language the church chose to guard it, such as God of God and Light of Light.

Ligon Duncan, “Christ of the Father’s love begotten,” breakout session, Nicea Conference 2025, Istanbul.

Introduction

It’s 3:15 and so it’s probably a good time for us to start. Let’s open with prayer together. Heavenly Father, we thank you that we have the privilege of thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ who is of the Father’s love begotten. And we pray that as we meditate on the issues surrounding the council of Nicea and on the orthodox biblical scriptural answer to those challenges to the faith that we would be enriched in our own Christian life that we would appreciate the great affirmation of the church of the biblical truth of the full deity and consubstantiality of the Son. And we ask all of these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. If you pick up a copy of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is a product of the British sort of further reformation period. So the reformation comes to England through Thomas Cranmer and Nicholas Ridley and some of the great early men in the days of Henry VIII and then in the 17th century Puritans in the Church of England seek to reform the Church of England to be more consistent with the Protestant churches on the continent of Europe. They began working on the 39 articles which had been penned by Cranmer and sort of refining it and editing it and updating it. They get 15 chapters in and they decide, you know what, we’re going to write a new confession of faith. And so they end up writing something called the Westminster Confession of Faith. It’s called the Westminster Confession because it was composed in Westminster Abbey in London, England. And one of their finest statements is their statement on the doctrine of the Trinity. And if you look at Westminster Confession chapter 2 section three in one compound complex sentence they managed to summarize two centuries of theological debate about the doctrine of the Trinity in the person of Jesus Christ. So here’s their sentence.

In the unity of the godhead there be three persons. You can hear that English style from the 17th century. There be three persons of one substance. There’s that word substance that you’ve heard several speakers mention comes out of the Greek word ousia of one substance power and eternity. So they share essence, power, and then you remember Dr. DeYoung talking about the two ways that early theologians thought about the relation of time, the relation of duration and the relation of eternity. So the Godhead is of one substance, power and eternity. And then here’s this description. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. In the listen to this part of the sentence, the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding.

The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. By the way, notice that the confession sort of throws in the filioque clause which becomes one of the big debates between east and west later on when the western church adds and the Son filioque to one little section of the creed as a way again of affirming the full equality and deity of the Son. Now when the confession does this, it’s not only affirming Nicene and Constantinopolitan and Chalcedonian Christology and doctrine of the Trinity. It is affirming something very important that is rooted in the Scriptures. For early Christians, 2 Samuel 7 was one of the most important passages for understanding who Jesus is.

The Son of David, the Son of God

If you will remember, 2 Samuel 7 is the passage where God makes a promise to David. And that promise entails several things. One, he is going to give David a son. And that son is going to build the temple that David had initially expressed to God and to Nathan, his friend, the prophet, in the early part of 2 Samuel 7 that he wanted to build. God said, “No, David, you’re not going to build a temple for me. Your son is going to build a temple for me.” And then God says to David that his line, his descendants will reign forever on the throne.

And this of course causes a great problem when the exile comes and Zedekiah, the last king in David’s line, is carried off in chains to Babylon after his children are slaughtered right before his eyes. And the whole second half of the Old Testament is asking, have God’s promises failed? God said that David’s heir would always be on the throne. And now there is no heir of David on the throne in Jerusalem. And so that that problem you’ll find it in almost every book in the second half of the Old Testament. You’ll find it in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the minor prophets, a lot of the Psalms, the great books of history are asking the question, KK Kings and Chronicles and Samuel, what has happened to that promise? And it is not a mistake that the New Testament opens up with these words. This is the genealogy of or these are the generations of Jesus Christ the Son of David. So the very first verse of the New Testament identifies Jesus as the one that God was talking about in 2 Samuel chapter 7. And you’ll remember by the way the words of 2 Samuel 7. Why don’t we if you don’t have your Bibles, I’ll read them to you.

Verse 12. When your days are fulfilled, this is God speaking to David.

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. [2 Samuel 7:12–14]

Now, what’s important about that? A lot of things important about that. One is this. There’s only one individual in the Old Testament who is identified as the Son of God.

And that individual is the Son of David. The son of David is the only individual identified as the Son of God in the Old Testament. You’ll remember Israel collectively is identified as God’s son. That happens in the book of Exodus. You remember God sends Moses to Pharaoh and says, “Let my son go.” Who’s his son that he’s talking about? The people of Israel. Israel collectively. Is the Son of God. But only one individual in the Old Testament is identified as the Son of God and that is the heir of David, the Son of David, the one that God was going to put on the throne. So the New Testament opens up identifying Jesus as that son. And if you go on in the Gospel of Matthew, that truth will be emphasized in virtually every chapter, but especially chapter 3.

Remember what chapter 3 has the baptism of Jesus. And in Matthew chapter three, if you look at the end of that great chapter, we read these words. When Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were open to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and coming to rest on him, and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” It’s as if God himself is publicly saying, “This is the one that I was talking about in 2 Samuel 7. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And so the idea of the Son as the beloved Son of the Father is a very important New Testament theme interpreting the Old Testament. You get it in Colossians where Jesus is called the beloved Son or the Son of the Father’s love.

And of course, you get the idea of the Father’s love and the giving of the Son and the Son as the only begotten in one of the most famous verses in the New Testament. What verse is that? John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

And the early pro-Nicene hymn of the Father’s love begotten is begins by meditating on John 3:16. So this idea of Jesus as the only begotten has a wonderful rich biblical theological history in the New Testament’s interpretation of the Old Testament prophecy about the coming Messiah. And it’s that theology that plays a key role in Alexander of Alexandria and in Athanasius of Alexandria’s response to Arian teaching because the keystone of Arian theology was its conviction of the absolute transcendence and perfection of God.

What the Arians taught

For the Arians, God was absolutely one. He was an undifferentiated monad. Sorry, translators. He was absolutely one. And therefore, no one else in the proper sense of the word could be God. God was unendered, uncreated and everlasting to everlasting without source. He was the source and origin of whatever existed. And his being, his ousia was incommunicable.

And if any other being were to share that divine nature, then there would be a plurality. According to the Arians, God by definition is unique and therefore anything else which exists must have come into being come into existence by an act of creation on his part and must have been called into being out of nothing. The inescapable corollary of this teaching is a drastic subordination of the Son. The Son, the word Jesus Christ is not of the same essence as God.

He is a creation. If God in Arian theology, if God desired to create a world, he needed an instrument or an agent to create that world. Why? Because the created order could not bear the weight of direct interaction with the uncreated eternal God. One theologian said that Arius looked at the reality of the uncreated God who was absolutely transcendent and could not conceive of how the transcendent uncreated God could directly interact with the creation itself. And the theologian said Arius drew this deduction. What I cannot understand cannot be true.

And that that’s a death knell. You know, if our finite understandings are the limit of what God can do, we’re in trouble theologically. And so according to the Arians, when you think about the word, when you think about the Son, you’re thinking not about someone of the same essence with God. You’re thinking of a creature, a perfect creature created by God, created out of nothing. You remember we used the word yesterday ex ousia out of the essence of God or ex nilo out of nothing. Well, they said he’s not ex ousia. He’s not out of the essence of God. He’s ex nilo. He’s created out of nothing just like the rest of creation.

And so he is as a creature. He has a beginning. And that’s where that little ditty comes that Arius was teaching people to sing. There was a time when he was not. There was a time when the Son was not. There was a time when the logos was not. There was a time when the word was not. That was to emphasize that he is not co-eternal and co-substantial with God, but that he is the firstborn of all creation. By the way, they take that line out of Paul’s theology and twist the meaning of it. This is one of the challenges of the church fathers. The church fathers wanted to use scriptural language to respond to the Arians, but the Arians had corrupted the interpretation of so many of the important passages that testify to the divinity and the consubstantiality of the Son. And so the church fathers had to come up with language that the Arians could not affirm in order to uphold the proper interpretation of Scripture. And that very often happens. Very often people will teach false teaching using scriptural language but changing the meaning of it. And so this is one of the things that makes the work of the fathers at Nicea so difficult.

So according to the Arians as a creature the Son had a beginning. There was a time when he was not. Arius said the Father remains ineffable to the Son and the word can neither see or know his father perfectly or accurately. But what he knows and sees in the same way and in the same measures as we know by our own power. That is according to Arius the Son had no real knowledge of the Father. You can see the gap that is created in his teaching between the Father and the Son. And so the Arians declined to draw the inference from the Scriptures that the Orthodox party drew.

If Christ was really the Son, the word must share to the full with his father’s nature. And the important verse that Athanasius and others went back to regularly is from the gospel of John. I and the Father are one.

I and the Father are one. Or another important passage from John 14. If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. John is so important for the controversy between the Arians and the orthodox party. Now over against this, one of the most important theological assertions of the creed of Nicea is that the Son is of or from the substance of the Father.

He is the only begotten of the Father. And this was a deliberately formulated counterblast to the principal idea of Arianism. The idea that the Son had been created out of nothing and had no community of being with the Father. And at the council, the orthodox fathers wished to come up with a more biblical expression to indicate that it was inappropriate to suggest that the Son was created out of nothing. And their preference was to use John 8:42.

They wanted to use John 8:42. If God were your father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. But the Arians had already laid their hands on that text and they referenced it. They interpreted in light of Paul’s words where Paul says, “Yes, but all things are from God.”

So Jesus is from God like all other things are from God. And so the Father said, “Here’s the way we’re going to express the biblical teaching. He is only begotten of the Father out of his essence in order to uphold the truths which 2 Samuel 7 and Matthew 1 and Matthew 3 and John 10 and John 14 and John 8 and so many other passages including John 3:16 set forth.

Singing the creed

Now, it’s this doctrine that is picked up and put into the version of a hymn. A hymn that was written not long after the council of Constantinople. You remember in this city in 381 around 50 or so years after the council of Nicea, the council of Constantinople slightly edits and expands and confirms the work of the council of Nicea and the emperor Theodosius promulgates that Nicene doctrine throughout the empire and Christians begin writing ing pro-Nicene hymns. Let me mention a few of them that you may be aware of. One of them is a little song that I bet a lot of you will find in your hymnal or at least in the back of your hymnals if you have a church that uses hymnals is the Gloria Patri.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Amen. Now, what is the it in the glory of the Trinity as it was in the beginning, the triune God, father, son, and Holy Spirit. So, it’s not that you have God and then he creates Christ. No, from before the beginning the Father Son and Spirit the triune God is. So the gloria is one of those songs. The sanctus based on Isaiah 6 was put into use in the 4th century to affirm the triune God. Holy Lord God of hosts. Or you may have heard of one of the hymns of Ambrose of Milan.

Come thou redeemer of the earth. Or his hymn, O splendor of the Father’s glory, or eternal maker of all things. Or some of you may have sung the Te Deum Laudamus. Again, another one associated with the theology of Ambrose and Augustine, exalting Christ as the everlasting Son and incarnate redeemer and enthroned Lord. But one of the most famous ones was written by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius and it’s called of the Father’s love begotten from whom the title of this breakout and by the way the title of this breakout was given to me. I didn’t come up with a title. So all credit to the organizers of the conference for coming up with the title of this breakout. And part of it of course comes from this hymn. Let me read you the text of this hymn.

of the Father’s love begotten ere the world began to be. He is alpha and omega. He the source the ending he of the things that are that have been and that future years shall see ever more and ever more. At his word, the worlds were framed. He commanded it was done. Heaven and earth and depths of ocean in their three-fold order one. All that grows beneath the shining of the moon and the burning sun. Evermore and ever more. He was found in human fashion, death and sorrow here to know that the race of Adam’s children doomed by law to endless woe may not henceforth die and perish in the dreadful gulf below. Oh that birth forever blessed when the virgin full of grace by the Holy Ghost conceiving bore the savior of our race and the babe the world’s redeemer first revealed his sacred face. This is he whom seers in old time chanted with one accord. Whom the voices of the prophets promised in their faithful word. Now he shines the long expected. Let creation praise its Lord. Oh ye heights of heaven adore him. Angel hosts his praises sing. All dominions bow before him and exalt our God and King. Let no tongue on earth be silent, every voice in concert ring. Christ to thee with God the Father and O Holy Ghost to thee, hymn and chant and high thanksgiving and unwearied praises be honor, glory and dominion and eternal victory ever more. Ever more.

Now that hymn you can hear it. It combines a number of wonderful things. It has a strong affirmation of the Nicene doctrine of the eternal begottenness of the Son and it combines it with the early Christian emphasis on Jesus fulfillment of the old testament which of course comes from Jesus himself. Jesus himself in Luke 24 teaches not only the disciples on the road to Emmaus but his disciples back in Jerusalem that when they read the Old Testament Bible, they’re reading a book about him. It’s not that the Old Testament is about Israel and the New Testament is about Jesus. Jesus says the Old Testament is a book about me.

Prudentius and his hymn

And in fact, he says he’s going to begin with Moses, which surely means he’s going to go back to the Torah written by Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And then from the prophets, and so that’s a Hebrew way of talking about the whole Old Testament, the law and the prophets, Moses, and the prophets. I’m going to show you from the whole Hebrew Bible that the Christ had to suffer and be exalted. And surely that means starting at least at Genesis 3:16 and expounding the truth that the seed of the woman was going to be bruised on the heel but was going to crush the head of the serpent. And then working all the way through the Old Testament. And you can see that emphasis even here in this song whom the voices of the prophets promised in their faithful word. Now, who was the author of this hymn? Aurelius Clemens Prudentius was born in northern Spain. And by the way, you’ve already heard several heroes mentioned in this battle for the affirmation of the full deity and consubstantiality of the Son. One of those heroes is from Spain Hosius of Cordova who presided over the council and maybe nudged Constantine into calling the council and maybe nudged Constantine into suggesting the word homoousios for the relationship between the Son and the Father. And by the way, a man who lived to the age of a hundred and as a hundred year old was taken captive. And it really reminds me a little bit of the treatment of Cranmer and Ridley and Latimer in England under the rule of Mary when they were tortured and eventually burned at the state. Hosius of Cordova was tortured as a hundred-year-old man. Was tortured and he recanted of the creed and then he recanted of his recanting on his deathbed just like Cranmer in England at the time of the reformation. So the Spanish theologians the western theologians were always they tended to be allin with the Nicene theology and so you get a lot of folks from what we would call modern-day Spain who were very significant in this. And then of course the Egyptians we have a number of Egyptians with us here at this conference. You know this if you’re an Egyptian Christian, you just have to be proud of Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius of Alexandria and the great Egyptian contributions. All Christians owe a great debt to our Egyptian Christian fathers and mothers who held to the great faith of the Scriptures in the third and fourth centuries against false teaching. And then you think of the Cappadocian fathers who later in the 4th century from this part of the world made such a contribution. Gregory and Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus two brothers and a dear friend who were greatly influenced by the theology of Origen but made a wonderful contribution to the Nicene faith. Well, Prudentius comes from that Spanish contribution. And it’s very interesting. Prudentius had been a very successful civil administrator and had had worked in public service until he was 57 years old. And then he retired and spent the rest of his life writing.

and he was probably the most distinguished poet of the time. He has been called the Christian Pender, one of the great poets of the age. And he prepared a set of hymns and poems many of which were designed to respond to heresies that had been circulating in the early church. He composed a poem that was designed to rem to respond to the heresy of Marcion. Marcion was a son of a pastor from the Black Sea area who had fostered this idea that the God of the Old Testament is not the God and father of Jesus Christ. And Prudentius writes up a poem against that and hymns against that teaching.

And he also wrote against pagans in the time of Julian the apostate and other times there were revivals of paganism in different parts of the Roman Empire. And so he wrote sort of an apologetic poem against paganism. But he also wrote against Arianism and this hymn of the Father’s love begotten is one of his great contributions to that cause. So let’s look especially at the c first couple of stanzas that pertain to the Arian controversy. Of the Father’s love begotten heir the worlds began to be. So there immediately there is an affirmation that before anything was created. The Son and the Father were in an eternal relation of love of the Father’s love begotten before the worlds began to be. Said there’s immediately a rejection of the idea that the Son is merely a creation or the greatest of the creation. No, he and the Father loved one another before the worlds began. And then he is given the title which he is given in revelation.

He is alpha and omega. He is the source. He is the ending. I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. So there’s another assertion of his eternity. And then he is the source of the things that are, the things that have been, and the things that future years shall see. So he is the source of all things. That’s the language of John 1, isn’t it?

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and there was nothing that was made that he did not make. All things were made by him and there was nothing that was made that he did not make. At his word, and this idea continues in the second verse, at his word the worlds were framed.

He commanded and it was done. So you know in Genesis 1, how is the world made? We use the Latin word fiat, which just it’s to speak. You God said and it was done and God said let there be light. So in the poem it’s Christ who’s speaking those words he commanded and it was done. Heaven and earth and depths of ocean in their three-fold order one. All that grows beneath the shining of the moon and the burning sun.

He created it. So he is not the creator created to be an instrument of creation. He is the uncreated creator of all things who existed with a father before all worlds. And yet, Prudentius goes on to say, “He was found in human fashion, death and sorrow here to know that the race of Adam’s children, doomed by law to endless woe, may not henceforth die and perish in the dreadful gulf below.”

So there’s a wonderful study Bible that was produced by English exiles in Geneva in 1560 called the Geneva Study Bible. And in the Geneva Study Bible in the notes to Genesis 12:2, the it’s almost as if the study Bible authors are speaking directly to Abraham. They write these words and the Geneva Bible was written in the time of Mary many Protestants from England fled to the continent. They went to different places like Strasbourg and Basel and other free cities where they were allowed freedom of religion. One of the places they ended up was Geneva. The Genevan exiles started translating a version of the Bible into English and then they put study notes with it. So that’s what the Geneva Bible is. And in their study note, Genesis 12:2, they say this again, it’s almost as if they’re speaking to Abraham. The world shall recover by thy seed the blessing that they lost in Adam.

The world shall recover by thy seed the blessing that they lost in Adam. And that’s exactly what Prudentius is talking about here hundreds and hundreds of years before the Genevan exiles wrote that note in the Genevan study Bible. And then of course he speaks of the virgin birth. Oh that birth forever blessed when the virgin full of grace by the Holy Spirit conceiving bore the savior of our race and the babe the world’s redeemer first revealed his sacred face. Now notice again prudentius does exactly what Athanasius did and that is and Dr. DeYoung talked about this today in his plenary. He tied together your doctrine of the person of Christ with the work of Christ. And he makes it clear Christ could not have done the work of redemption if he had not been of the Father’s love begotten. If he were merely a creature, he could not have done the work of redemption. How could a mere creature pay for the sins of the world?

He couldn’t have who he was absolutely necessary for what he did. So your Christology is foundational to your soteriology. Who Christ is in his person is absolutely essential to what Christ does in his work of redemption and salvation.

And so, Prudentius makes that same connection. And then he goes from Christology and soteriology to doxology to worship. Right? So, Christ to thee with God the Father, and O Holy Ghost to thee, hymn and chant with high thanksgiving, and unwearied praises be, honor, glory, and dominion, and eternal victory. And it’s interesting even today when evangelical theologians want to show you the doctrine of the deity of Christ, they will do it in several simple ways. They’ll go to the Scriptures and they’ll say, it’s very interesting. Jesus makes several direct claims about his person that we need to pay attention to. That’s part of the evidence of his deity. But also the names of God are given to him and the works of God are given to him and the worship of God is given to him.

The Lamb receives worship

And you see this especially in the book of revelation where those in heaven are worshiping God and the lamb. And every good Hebrew knew you don’t worship anybody who’s not God. And by the way that happens in Revelation. Remember John comes before a being who is so dazzling in his brilliance that he falls down before him and begins to worship. And the being who is an angel says, “Don’t worship me.”

But the Son receives worship. The lamb receives worship. And so it’s very clear to John, he ought to be worshiped. Why? Because he is the only begotten of the Father. He is the lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. He is God in the flesh and in the flesh forever.

Closing

As Kevin beautifully reminded us today John Duncan, who I wish he were a relative, no relative of mine, but a very famous Hebrew professor at New College Edinburgh in the 19th century said this very beautifully. He said, “Because Jesus took on flesh and he will perpetually be enfleshed at the right hand of the Father, the dust of the earth sits on the throne of heaven. Isn’t that amazing? And just as Kevin said, a there is a man at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Who ever lives to intercede. And Prudentius is picking up on all of these beautiful themes in this hymn. I’d encourage you to go and study some of these pro-Nicene hymns and maybe memorize some of them and when Christmas rolls around this year, sing them with a little extra zip and verve and remember the great truths that you have been thinking about this week here in Istanbul. Do we have time for questions? What time do we need to end?

4 o’clock. We don’t have time for questions. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.