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Into Clear Focus
To be a birdwatcher, you need some binoculars. If you use binoculars correctly, they bring distant things into focus.
Psalm 98:2-3
To be a birdwatcher, you need a set of these. You need some binoculars. You see something flitting around in the tree tops out in the canopy, and you can’t tell exactly what it is. You can’t tell what kind of bird it is or what exact variety, species, does it have bars on its wings? Is the breast spotted? Does it have a ring around its eye? And so you use binoculars. And what the binoculars do is they take something that’s hard to discern, that seems far away, and they bring it in close so that you can see it very clearly.
Now that’s when you’re using the binoculars the right way. You don’t see a lot of people walking around the woods with the binoculars like this looking through the wrong lens, because what that does is that takes that object that’s somewhat far away and makes it seem even further. Well, I got to thinking the other day that the creeds of the church, the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, in some ways they’re like binoculars. Because what the creeds do is the creeds take the teachings of Scripture found throughout the Bible, say the teachings about the Trinity, about God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And they take these things which are scattered throughout the pages of Scripture, and they collect them, and they bring them in close for us to see.
The creed that you probably know best, is the Apostles’ Creed. Think of the Apostles’ Creed as like a your average pair of binoculars. They work pretty well, and they bring something that’s a little bit distant, hard to really wrap our heads around, discern what it is that we’re seeing in the pages of Scripture, and they bring it in close so that we can see it. So if the Apostles’ Creed is like a regular pair of binoculars, think of the Nicene Creed as a high end pair. Really powerful optics. High magnification brings the teaching about especially the relationship between Jesus as God the Son and God the Father, brings that relationship into clear focus so that we can see and understand who exactly Jesus is. That he is the very God of very God. He’s begotten, not made of the same substance as the father, and so on.
Well then there’s another creed that that Christians use all over the world, the Athanasian Creed. And that would be like maybe one of those really powerful spotting scopes, taking everything that the Bible says about the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, bringing it into clear focus, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. But there aren’t three gods. There’s one God. The Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, the Holy Spirit is almighty. But there’s not three almighty, there’s one almighty. The Athanasian Creed brings those really hard to understand and discern things about God into clear focus.
Again, if I use the binoculars correctly, they bring that bird into focus so I can see and discern what I’m seeing. If I use it incorrectly. It only makes it seem further away. And that’s kind of what we do, if we were to take what the Bible says about God and use our reason first to understand, to try and make sense of what it says. Well, something can’t be three and one at the same time. And so if I use reason to try and understand God, I end up making him seem even further away harder to discern. But using Scripture, taking God’s Word as it stands, brings it into clearer focus.
The Bible talks about this or a verse that I like, as far as all of this goes, is from the book of Psalms, Psalm 98, verses two and three.
The Lord has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. (Psalm 98:2-3)
The next time you’re in church, maybe confessing the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed. I think of a pair of binoculars and how, when we use them correctly, how they bring God salvation, our Savior, Jesus Christ, and what God has done in and through him into clear focus, so that we can understand, discern, so that we may believe and have everlasting life. And God bless and keep you all. Amen.
