For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 12, 2014): John 3

In 336, the theologian Arius travelled to Constantinople. Arius had had a trying time over the past few years preceding his visit. The various councils seemed to be confused about what it was that Arius was teaching. At some church councils he had been soundly denounced and removed from his positions inside the Christian Church only to be re-instated by his friends at the next council. At Constantinople, Arius hoped to be reinstated once and for all by the Emperor Constantine himself. But while he was in Constantinople, Arius died. The description of his death is gruesome. It has been said that his intestines and other organs were simply expelled out of his body as he went to relieve himself. For the Christians in the post-Nicene Creed World the death of Arius was the vengeance of God on a man who refused to stop spreading false doctrine. Contemporary researchers openly question if it is possible that Arius was poisoned – that someone in the fourth century simply took matters into their own hands in order to finally stop the heresy.

The heresy that Arius was spreading was simply that Jesus had a beginning –that he was not always co-existent with God. An examination of the Bible during many of the early councils left the framers of the Christian faith convinced that Arius was wrong. Jesus was involved with the creation of the world, he had always been present and he had always co-existed with God the Father. According to the Church Fathers, Jesus left his throne in heaven to be born of Mary. Part of the wonder of the incarnation is that God would willingly step out of heaven and come to earth – giving up in the bargain his existence in heaven to born in a forgotten manger on the earth. Arius seemed to believe and teach that Jesus existence started in the manger of Bethlehem. For the early church leaders, this was a teaching that had to be denounced.

And so the NIV phrases this verse using the words “one and only son” instead of the King James Version’s “only begotten son.” And part of the reason heralds back to the controversy that the church had with Arius 1600 years ago. For many, the phrase which has found its way into modern Christian thinking is that the assertion that Jesus was the “only begotten of the Father” comes way too close to the heresy of Arius – that there was a time when Jesus wasn’t.

Maybe it would be better to say that Jesus was the “only unbegotten of the Father’ – although the convoluted meaning of that phrase is somewhat contradictory. But the truth that the church has attested to down through the ages is that no matter what has happened throughout the long corridors of time that Jesus – as well as the other members of the Triune Godhead – has always been there. And maybe even more comforting to us is the related thought the Jesus always will be there. He will prevail through whatever it is that you are struggling with today.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: John 4