What Does “Begotten, Not Made” Mean?
Only Begotten Son of the Father
The Nicene Creed confesses that the Lord Jesus Christ is “the only begotten Son of God.” The Greek word translated “only begotten” is monogenēs, a word used five times in the New Testament with reference to Jesus (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9).
While most newer translations render the term “only” or “one of a kind,” the King James Version uses “only begotten” in those five Johannine verses. Whatever the proper translation of the word is in each of those five biblical instances, every English translation I’ve ever seen of the Nicene Creed renders the word “only begotten.”
Let’s think about the names “Father” and “Son.” God is Father because he has a Son; Jesus is the Son because he has a Father. That much should be obvious. And the way in which the Father relates to the Son is by “begetting.” The Father generates the Son, and the Son is “from the substance of the Father” (Creed of Nicaea). One thing we can say about the Father that we cannot say about the Son is that the Father is unbegotten. One thing we can say about the Son that we cannot say about the Father is that the Son is begotten.
Okay, but what does that all mean?
The Arians agreed that Jesus Christ was the only begotten Son of God. This specific language wasn’t the issue. The issue was what those words meant. In a letter to Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, Arius explained that God was “the begetter of his only Son before endless ages; through whom he made both the ages and all that is.” Arius would not have objected to saying, as the Nicene Creed does, that Christ was “begotten of his Father before all worlds.” But in the letter to Alexander, Arius also argued that the Son, “timelessly begotten by the Father,” was “created and established before all ages” and “did not exist prior to his begetting.”1 To counter this position, the Nicene Creed made four further statements in definition of “only begotten.”
The Nicene Creed
Kevin DeYoung
The Nicene Creed is a key Christian text essential for all believers. With each chapter focusing on a specific phrase from the creed, this book explores its historical background, theological meaning, and ongoing relevance to the Christian faith.
The Son is “God of God.” The phrase “God of God” is not a superlative like “Holy of Holies” or “King of kings” or “Lord of lords.” The “of” here might better be translated “from,” speaking of derivation. Jesus Christ is God from God, and the fact that God is used in both halves of the formula suggests that the Son is the same kind of God as the God from which he comes. The phrase also communicates that the Son is not a part of God. He is wholly God of wholly God. The generation of the Son does not imply the division of the Godhead or the multiplication of deities.
The Son is God; the Father is God; the Son is of the Father (the Father is not of the Son); and there is only one God. The Son is “Light of Light.” This claim is similar to the last, but not identical. Here we are dealing with a term rather than a title of divine identity. The argument is that if the term light means the same thing with both the Father and the Son, then they must both be of the same essence. The Son is not a different kind of light than the Father. To put it more technically, a property shared in common, with the same meaning in both, signifies a common nature.
The Son is not a lesser light than the Father. The Son is “very God of very God.” This clause is crucial, especially with regard to the Arian controversy. The defenders of Arius might have said that the Son was God of God. They might have affirmed that Jesus Christ was God and that he came from God. They might have affirmed these statements because they reckoned the Son to be a different sort of God than the Father. But the Arians would not have said that the Son is “very God,” for that implies that the Son is no less God than the Father (“very” is an archaic way of saying “truly”). The Word was God—that much was plain from John 1. But for the Arians, the divine Word was a different kind of deity (a created, lesser deity) than the Father. The Nicene Creed will not allow for an Arian misinterpretation of John’s Gospel.
The Son was “not made.” Now we come to the crux of the Nicene argument. There was no way that Arius or his party could possibly defend this assertion. For Arius, one could not be “begotten” unless he was “made” or “created.” Hence, the Nicene Creed is making the all-important affirmation that the Son’s begottenness is not like our begottenness, or not in every respect. The Son’s begottenness is an eternal begottenness. No one created the Son. There never was when the Son was not—not in time and not before time.
A Song to Be Sung
The doctrine of the Son’s begottenness from the Father is called eternal generation. It is a classic and crucial Trinitarian doctrine, but it also a mystery beyond human description. Eternal generation is like human generation in that one essence begets the same essence, but it is unlike human generation in that it does not involve physical reproduction. Eternal generation is hyperphysical (it is outside the physical or material realm), infinite (it does not take place in time), and ineffable (it cannot be fully comprehended). By eternal generation we do not mean that the Father created the Son’s essence, but rather that the Father communicates the essence he shares with the Son.
Nicene orthodoxy teaches us to hold several truths at the same time:
- The Son is of the same essence as the Father.
- The Son is to be distinguished from the Father.
- The Son is of the Father.
- The Father is never of the Son.
The language of “only begotten” helps explain how all these truths can stand together. The early church thought long and hard about how to explain that the Godhead can consist of multiple persons without there being multiple essences. The Son is equal with the Father because he was eternally begotten of the Father. The Son is also distinct from the Father because he was eternally begotten from the Father. When Jesus says he is in the Father and the Father is in him, he is speaking to the theological reality that the Nicene Creed means to defend (John 14:11). We know that a son is from the “stuff” of his father, and yet a son is not the same as his father, and the father does not come from his son. What we understand intuitively in an earthly sense, the Nicene Creed is trying to explain and safeguard in an eternal and theological sense.
If you find all of this is hard to understand, you are not alone. The most brilliant theologians in history have gladly acknowledged that the doctrine of the Trinity is full of mystery. We are dealing with realities beyond our ability to fully understand or articulate. But mysterious does not mean unreasonable or irrational. It means that we, as finite creatures, do not possess sufficient intellect to fully grasp the infinite. When faced with such glories, it is often wise to think of how we pray and how we sing. Intuitively, led by the Spirit, full of the word, we know that Jesus Christ is to be worshiped just as the Father is to be worshiped. We know, like the earliest Christians knew, that we should sing songs about Jesus and to Jesus.
Think of what we sing at Christmas in that brilliant hymn Adeste Fidelis (“O Come, All Ye Faithful”): “God of God, Light of Light. / Lo, he abhors not the Virgin’s womb. / Very God, begotten, not created.” The Christ child we worship in the manger is none other than “very God of very God,” the only begotten Son who is from the Father but was not created or made by him. Many of us have been reciting Nicene theology since before we could read or write. We know it to be true. We know it to be glorious. We know it to be beautiful. And so we sing.
Notes:
- Quoted in Donald Fairbairn and Ryan M. Reeves, The Story of Creeds and Confessions: Tracing the Development of the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2019), 55–56.
This article is adapted from The Nicene Creed: What You Need to Know about the Most Important Creed Ever Written by Kevin DeYoung.
Related Articles
Matthew Y. Emerson, Brandon D. Smith
The eternal communion of Father, Son, and Spirit is the grounds for our communion with him and one another. Our triune God, simple and perfect for all of eternity, has always been the one God.
Avoiding Heresy When Explaining the Trinity
There are better ways and worse ways to explain the Trinity. We can describe a pie chart where we split God up into parts, and this is one of the worst ways to explain the Trinity.
How the Persons of the Trinity Reveal Themselves
Each of the three persons of the Trinity is unique in the way they reveal to us this dimension of infinite depth behind their presence, so we ought to attend to them in different ways.
Podcast: What Was the Trinity Doing on Christmas Day? (Matthew Emerson and Brandon Smith)
Matt Emerson and Brandon Smith explain what the doctrine known as the inseparable operations of the Trinity is all about.
