by Tim Giles

Created on: March 04, 2010

GOD

 You know who Steve Spurier is? The football coach at South Carolina, formerly of the University of Florida, whence this riddle arose in Georgia: What’s the difference between Steve Spurrier and God? Answer: God doesn’t think He’s Steve Spurrier.

 My interest in this stems from the realization that I do not know the Nicene Creed by heart, even though I have mumbled it an estimated 4,254 times in my life. I have memorized the Apostle’s Creed.

The Nicene Creed was devised in the year 325 by the Council of Nicea in ancient Turkey, presided over by the emperor Constantine. It was designed to resist heresy. Its second sentence is:

 “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from True God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.” Do you believe that Jesus was and is the Creator, co-eternal with the Father?

 It is a defiant definition of the Incarnation, God became man in Jesus Christ. Jesus was fully human and fully divine. No to Arianism ( not fully divine) and Monophysism (not fully human)

 Within the Trinity, there is a third person, the Holy Spirit, formerly the Holy Ghost, who is with us always. It’s a mystery. So is long division.

That a creator would condescend to live with his creatures is mind-boggling, literally incredible. Only Christianity believes this. The Jewish Messiah was never thought to be an Incarnation. I just learned this last week. http://www.jewfaq.org/mashiach.htm. How about this: For people already in a loving relationship with God, there is no need of an incarnation?  The alternative, that the Jews missed the realization of their own prophecies, leads (lead) to anti-semitism.

 On top of the Incarnation is the fact that it occurred in a remote occupied country. Today it would be like Puerto Rico. Hey, there’s a prophet in Arecibo who cures periodontal disease. Wanna see him?

 Jesus had the most miserable life of anyone. He died a horrific death by slow suffocation. He owned nothing but the clothes he had on. His friends deserted him. His neighbors rejected him. The authorities denounced him. He wrote no memoirs. In light of that, no one can rightly complain of their lot in life.

 How could he be fully human if he had a god card? He only used it once for his own benefit when he disappeared in the midst of his neighbors who chased him after he

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