I want to start off by saving I appreciate these brothers, their podcasts and the work they do. I subscribe so that I can learn and enjoy what they have to say. My purpose is to make a statement about the council of Nicaea, as I’ve taught on this for over 50 years.
Gentlemen, the main issue we should have regarding the Council of Nicaea, is that it codified and legitimatized the official separation of Christianity, as a separate religion, from its Jewish roots. Particularly in terms of calendar, theology, and governance.
The Codification systematized, into binding ecclesiastical law and creedal formulae, the separation from the first Apostolic Church and produced a religion that would be unknown, and unacceptable to the real church fathers, the New Testament Apostles.
Examples:
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- Fixing the date of Easter not according to the Jewish Passover but via the Roman solar calendar. The Father records His Appointed Times and individual dates have eternal meaning and purpose. Jesus is our Passover Lamb, not our Easter ham. Individual dates are so important that a good example is that the destruction of both the First Temple and the Second Temple occurred on the same day on the Hebrew calendar, the ninth of Av.
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- Adoption of the Nicene Creed, which used non-Hebraic, Greco-Roman philosophical terms (like homoousios) rather than biblical language and patterns of the New Testament authors. I’m personally not against the creed, I understand the historical reason for it, and have recited it since a youth when I was a member of the Episcopal church, but the Council certainly rewrote the definition of “one holy catholic and apostolic church.”
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- Established a non-Apostolic hierarchical structure (bishopric rule over local elders), mimicking Roman imperial governance rather than the early apostolic community. In addition, it removed the function of true apostolic teams and companies from their interaction with the local elders. This allowed deception and doctrinal error, generated from the top, to be dictated across Christianity to all the local churches, thus removing all safeguards built into the Apostolic Church model as laid out by the Apostle Paul.
The Codification made the separation official, reproducible, and punishable (i.e., heresy for observing Passover).
After the Council of Nicaea, Constantine issued an infamous letter regarding the celebration of Easter, addressed to the churches. It is preserved in Eusebius’ Life of Constantine (Book III.18–20) and reflects open hatred toward the Jewish people.
“It appeared an unworthy thing that in celebrating this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are therefore justly afflicted with spiritual blindness. Since we have abandoned their custom, we can now preserve a more fitting order for future generations.”
“Let us then have nothing in common with that detestable mass of Jews, for we have received from our Savior a different way. A path both legitimate and honorable lies open to our holy religion. Let us, brothers beloved, with one accord adopt this course, severing ourselves from their shameful fellowship.”
This antisemitism, which started in the mid 2nd Century with early Christian leaders like Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, and Ignatius, is now at the imperial-level. This anti-Semitic declaration marked a formal theological and cultural separation from the Apostolic Church, not on biblical grounds, but based on hatred, antisemitism and supersessionist theology. (This was also true of the leaders of the Reformation.)
Constantine institutionalized Jew-hatred under the guise of doctrinal purity. (We’ve heard this before in the 20th century). This blame-the-Jews-for-Christ’s-death narrative was embraced by church leaders and codified in liturgical practice, and for the Roman Catholic Church didn’t end until the Vatican II Nostra Aetate, where the Roman Catholic Church rejects “deicide” accusation against Jews.
Replacement Theology and the Rejection of the Church’s Jewish Roots is codified and legitimized at the Council of Nicaea.
The anti-Jewish sentiment, calendar shifts, and episcopal authority already existed before the council. Nicaea legitimized these changes by giving them imperial and theological sanction. Constantine’s role was crucial here, his post-council letters expressed the feelings of the Bishops present. It is only since the 1960s have we started to see a shift back towards understanding our roots.
We are nearing the end of the “times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24) and consequently the unfolding of the “fullness of the Gentiles” (Romans 11:25). This will usher in “the one new man” Paul writes about in Ephesians 2:14–16. This can’t happen with our present church structure and leadership mindset at basically all denominations and non-denominational churches.
It’s time for Christians to understand that Christianity is not the religion of the New Testament. It is a religion that developed after the New Testament was written. In the New Testament, Jews did not convert to Christianity when they accepted Yeshua as their Messiah, they were, the natural branches, being grafted back into Messiah and as Paul says in Ephesians, the Commonwealth of Israel. We Gentiles are the wild branches grafted into the same root.
The Council of Nicaea birthed a religion based on antisemitism to worship a Jewish Messiah coming back as King of the Jews, with us Gentile believers being grafted in. We believers, both Jew and Gentile, are the True Church. This is especially important when so many today call themselves Christians, or belong to denominations in Christianity that have so perverted the truths of Scripture, they are now the false church.
Anyway, these are my thoughts.
Blessings