I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
Repeating “I believe” we put Our Lord into the same category as God the Father: we cannot know the identity of Jesus without the assistance of revelation and therefore of faith. He is Lord because he is both God and risen from the death: New Testament language suggests this meaning. His name, Jesus, means God (God’s name revealed to Moses) saves, and that is also his mission, to save. He is Christ, meaning anointed person, in Hebrew it is simply Messiah. To be anointed in the Bible meant to be given a mission. The Christ is also the one to suffer as part of that mission. Jesus is only begotten son of God. Son of God was a bible title given to the one sent with a special mission from God. Only begotten, apart from saying the Father has no other child, recalls Isaac and his father Abraham willing to give him up for God’s plan. We hear Jesus called “Only begotten” at his baptism and at the transfiguration – both moments pointing to his future offering.
Jesus was born before all ages, or rather God the Son was born of the Father. Not made as a creature, but generated from God the Father before time. Coming from the Father was outside time. There was no time when God the Son did not exist, but we can still say His origin is in the Father, we can say the same thing of the Holy Spirit. The Son is as much God as God the Father: he is God from God before all ages. Were he light, he would be as much light as the original light, again before all ages. While he was begotten or generated, he was not made or created.
Consubstantial means he is divine as the Father is divine. His being, essence is divine, the same divine essence as God the Father.
The final phrase is where the Creed begins to speak of the Son’s activity: creation was not made by God the Father alone, but through the Son. All things visible and invisible were made through him.
