“The word of faith which we preach,” Part 2 (Rom. 10:8-13)
First Council of Nicea, by Vasily Surikov (Image from WikiMedia Commons) In the early fourth century, a presbyter of the famous church in Alexandria by the name of Arius introduced a dangerous heresy into the church. Arius believed that the Son of God was a created being: greater than any other created being, to be sure, but created, nevertheless. One of the things he and his followers would say is that “There was a time when the Son of God was not.” His heresy was overwhelmingly condemned at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, and then again in AD 381 at the Council of Constantinople. However, it took a long time before the church was no longer in danger of completely succumbing to the heresy. Arius therefore has been called by one scholar, “the greatest heretic in antiquity.”[1] Then, in the late 16th century a man by the name of Faustus Socinus began to teach anew the doctrine that Jesus was not of the same substance with, and was not therefore eternally co...
