Tuesday, October 30, 2007, 5:39 PM
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Epistle of Saint Paul Apostle to the Romans, 10:9)
THE APOSTLES CREED
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell; the third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
To say the Apostles’ Creed means to declare one’s faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ whom God sent to the world for us, and whom he appointed as our Judge, “whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts, 17:31). It means also that the Deposit of the Faith that Jesus entrusted to the Apostles has reached us intact. Our Faith in God is therefore inseparable from our trust in men.
• The God of Christians is not a “force” that moves the world, bur a real Personal God, He is strictly One, He is the same God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob in whom Jews and Moslems believe. God is called Father because he loves His creatures, and most of all human beings, who are the ultimate purpose of His Creation.
• Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, that is the Messiah, announced by the Scriptures, who has dwelt among us as a man, and who will return in the Glory. Jesus is Son of God not “from eternity”, but generated by God in the fullness of time from the Blessed Virgin Mary. He is true God and true man, inasmuch as He joins in Himself by generation the Divine nature of God his Father and the human nature of his Mother, the Virgin Mary. This is the greatest Miracle and Mystery of Christianity. In Jesus has been fully expressed God’s Wisdom, which had already been deployed at Creation. The Word, or God’s Wisdom, is therefore not a distinct person neither from God, nor in God, and it is not even a “project” of Creation, but an eternal attribute of the Eternal God.
• Creation is tied to the One God Father by a twofold bond. Creation is Nature, which obeys the laws that God imposed upon it in His Wisdom. In Nature the Divine Providence expresses itself as Order and Harmony, with reference to the General (although Nature includes also breaches of order and catastrophes). But God acts also directly upon Creation, with actions that are addressed to the Particular. This direct action and presence of God in His Creation, is called by the Scripture Holy Spirit. God manifests Himself by His Spirit both as inspiration in humans chosen by God, and as miracle in Nature’s extraordinary events.
Go back to Strict Monotheism
(Jesus and the Apostles, St Laurence, Chapel of St Aquilino, Milan)
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Epistle of Saint Paul Apostle to the Romans, 10:9)
THE APOSTLES CREED
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell; the third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
To say the Apostles’ Creed means to declare one’s faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ whom God sent to the world for us, and whom he appointed as our Judge, “whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts, 17:31). It means also that the Deposit of the Faith that Jesus entrusted to the Apostles has reached us intact. Our Faith in God is therefore inseparable from our trust in men.
• The God of Christians is not a “force” that moves the world, bur a real Personal God, He is strictly One, He is the same God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob in whom Jews and Moslems believe. God is called Father because he loves His creatures, and most of all human beings, who are the ultimate purpose of His Creation.
• Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, that is the Messiah, announced by the Scriptures, who has dwelt among us as a man, and who will return in the Glory. Jesus is Son of God not “from eternity”, but generated by God in the fullness of time from the Blessed Virgin Mary. He is true God and true man, inasmuch as He joins in Himself by generation the Divine nature of God his Father and the human nature of his Mother, the Virgin Mary. This is the greatest Miracle and Mystery of Christianity. In Jesus has been fully expressed God’s Wisdom, which had already been deployed at Creation. The Word, or God’s Wisdom, is therefore not a distinct person neither from God, nor in God, and it is not even a “project” of Creation, but an eternal attribute of the Eternal God.
• Creation is tied to the One God Father by a twofold bond. Creation is Nature, which obeys the laws that God imposed upon it in His Wisdom. In Nature the Divine Providence expresses itself as Order and Harmony, with reference to the General (although Nature includes also breaches of order and catastrophes). But God acts also directly upon Creation, with actions that are addressed to the Particular. This direct action and presence of God in His Creation, is called by the Scripture Holy Spirit. God manifests Himself by His Spirit both as inspiration in humans chosen by God, and as miracle in Nature’s extraordinary events.
Go back to Strict Monotheism
No comments:
Post a Comment