FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
ARIUS AND THE PROPHESIED ROLE OF ARIANISM TO THE RISE OF THE PAPACY
“Usurped powers increases like an avalanche.” – Merle D’ Aunbigne (church historian).
Regarding the early “influencea clustering around the bishop of Rome…everything tending toward his speedy elevation to the spiritual dominance of Christendom [in the erstwhile Roman Empire], Uriah Smith says in his book Daniel and the Revelation, pp. 120-122:
“But the FOURTH century was destined to witness an OBSTACLE thrown across of this ambitious dream [of the bishop of Rome then]. The prophecy had declared that the power represented by the little horn would ‘subdue three kings.’ In the rise and development of ARIANISM early in the fourth century and the CHALLENGE it presented to papal supremacy, we find the CAUSES leading up to the plucking up of three of the KiNGDOMS of Western Rome by the papal power.”
Who was Arius? “Arius, parish priest of the ancient and influential CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA. promulgated his doctrine to the world, occasioning so fierce a controversy in the Christian church that a general council was called at Nicaea, by the emperor Constantine in A.D. 325, to consider and rule upon its teaching.
“Arius maintained ‘that the Son was totally and essentially distinct from the Father; that He was the first and noblest of those beings whom the Father had created out of nothing, the instrument by whose subordinate operation the Almighty Father formed the universe, and therefore inferior to the Father, both in nature and dignity.’ This opinion was condemned by the council, which decreed that Christ was of one and the same substance with the Father. Hereupon Arius was BANISHED to Illyria, and his followers were compelled to assent to the CREED composed at that occasion.” -Uriah Smith, ‘Daniel and the Revelation, pp. 120, 121. Southern Publishing Asso., 1994, 1972.
Ask yourselves these questions:
- Does the Bible require that the Christian must have a “creed” such as Nicene Creed? If Yes, what and where is it found?
- Do you know with a certainty what the nature of Jesus Christ is, before and after the incarnation? Can you present the Scripture evidences? If not, we might not really know Him whom we call “Jesus our Lord and Savior.”
- What religions, churches or denominations teach the same or variant versions of Arianism—that Christ is the first of created beings, that He is inferior essentially and substantially for the Father, etc.?
May your research be blest, NMF