One God

Introduction

Sales of the Bible reached a record high in the UK in 2025, increasing by 134% since 2019 – the highest since records began.

One Christian publisher, put it like this:

“As we face worldwide political and social change, including the after effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, global wars, the rise of AI, and a growing mental health crisis, individuals are re-engaging with questions of meaning and spirituality.”

But the picture of what is happening is complex:

A brand of Christian nationalism designed for political gain has now become part of the UK political conversation. At a Unite the Kingdom carol service in December, far right figure Tommy Robinson stood beneath a banner which read: “Jesus saves.”

Moreover, Christopher Gasson of a major OnePoll survey, delightedly observed that religion might be making a come-back in the UK with 70% of participants saying they identified as “spiritual”;

Meaning: ‘seek a deeper connection with the universe, nature, or a higher power.’

Yet when you dig a little deeper,  

The ways in which such spirituality was expressed were:  

• enjoying nature (45%),  

• mindfulness (31%),  

• connecting with other people (29%),  

• enjoying music or art (26%),  

• meditation (25%),  

• exercise (25%),  

• getting involved in good causes (24%),  

• participation in religious practices (22%),  

• and supporting a sports team or fandom (10%).

What is clear, is that many people exploring spirituality or Christianity are not clear about the God of the Bible.

Context

This isn’t a new issue. To be religious in the ancient world was to feast from the all you can eat buffet of the Greco Roman pantheon of gods.

Scholars estimate there were more gods of different varieties than Pokémon – the idea was the same - collect them all.  

And this would have appealed to a Roman just as it would a Mancunian.

Imagine-

• The night before your MOT you’d pray to …

• On the day of your exams…

Just like there’s an app for anything, back then there’s a god for anything…

• To marry

• To conceive

• To skip the hospital waiting times…

Your spirituality was bespoke to your life circumstances and preferences.

So when the Bible teaches something that is confirmed by the early church, in their earliest creeds – that there is in fact one God – it was controversial.

The Roman scholar called Celsus – publicly called Christians dangerous atheists precisely because

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they refused to worship multiple gods, but only one.  

Yet, the Bible is clear from Genesis 1:1:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

This is radically different to the creation stories of the ancient Mesopotamian world, where creation, it was believed, came about through the interactions of many gods.  

No, the Israelites held the sacred words of the Shema [Deut 6:4]

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  

This was the great bat sign to the surrounding nations that Yaweh was different. That the Israelites were different: one God, not many.  

It is still the defining liturgy of the Jewish faith today.  

• But what is the one God like?  

• And what does this ‘one-ness’ mean?  

Would become the running street fight for the opening centuries of the early church – climaxing around a gathering in 325 in the emperor Constantine’s holiday home in Turkey.  

But this is more than a history lecture -  

Key Question – What if the God is more wonderful than you realise?

Structure

• Context

• A God who can be known

• A God who can truly save

Context

In 318 a church leader from Alexandria in Egypt – called Arius started to teach that: “Yes Christians believed in one God, but that one God only includes God the creator.”

“Jesus,” he said, “Was a created creature – to be exalted and honoured – but the one-ness of God did not include him.

Arius was a master marketeer – mobilising viral sermons and catchy ‘Euro-vision-esq' songs, deploying marching gangs around the city like violent choirs to proclaim the slogans of his beliefs.

And it worked!  

What became known as Arianism spread like Covid throughout the empire – Afterall it was so simple – God is ‘only creator’ -  but such was the outrage at  taking a crow bar to the Trinity, cleaving out Jesus and hacking out the Spirit,  

many church leaders understood the horrific implication: the God you have left is not the one true God, it is a mutilated, impotent God who can offer no Salvation.

And so Emperor Constantine gathered church leaders across the empire for the dramatic council of Nicaea – aimed at debating the issue at settling it once and for all!

For those of you who think church leader conferences are dull – think again!

• 300 or so bishops came

• They were allowed to bring three mates – for the jolly

• Part of the conference was devoted on still trying to figure out why Easter moves each year?

• Legend has it, Saint Nicholas of Myra (the original Santa Claus) shows up at the council and becomes so angry with Arius that he stands up, walks across the chamber, and punches him.

But in this heavy-weight theological bout – the headline fight, was Alexander of Alexandria, supported by the North African genius – Athanasius – known by the nick-name the “Black Dwarf” - vs – Arius, supported by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who may scholars believe was the first Slytherin.  

So what happened?

The council agreed that Arius was wrong, and that the God of the Bible, is one God, consisting of three divine persons who are all fully God: Father, Son and Spirit.  

Unity of one – distinction of three persons.  

The ancient Theologian Gregory Nazianzen helpfully summarises this when he said:

“ No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendour of the three; no sooner do I distinguish them I am carried back to the one. When I think of anyone of the three I think of this as the whole...When I contemplate the three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided light.”  

Or more pointedly,  

The famous Theologian John Calvin went as far as to say:  

‘If when you think about God, you do not have in mind Father, Son and Spirit, then you are not thinking of the God of the Bible’.

But if you’re not a Christian, why should you fiercely pay attention to a trinitarian God?

Application 1: A God who can be known

In Acts 16 Paul goes to Athens and sees a monument to ‘the unknown God’. It is a universal human instinct is that we want to worship something. It’s why back to the stats from the start, its hard to find an atheist in Manchester, most people want to believe that there is something out there.  

However Arius’s version of ‘one God who is only creator’ offers a God who cannot be known.  

For the Bible teaches:  John 14:7   ^“If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

But, if Jesus is not really God, only an informed creature, he cannot truly reveal what God the Father is like.  

And of course, it’s worse, for if Jesus was only a creature who was made, then there would be a period of time in eternity past where God was not a Father, therefore ‘fatherhood’ is not the essential, the intrinsic aspect of who he is.  

For Arius, Jesus can only sketch an outline of God, a shadow in the distance through the mist – is he good or bad, who can know, who can tell.  

Many people confuse myself and Ralph. In fact some of you are convinced that I am Ralph. I am not.  

Some people think we are the same, we are not. If someone thinks they have met me and therefore they know that needs to be known about Ralph – they are truly mistaken.  

Arius’s Jesus cannot reveal God to you, because Arius’ Jesus is not God. Therefore the Gospels are great stories but they do not reveal the God you long to know.  

What then can we know about Arius’ (single person) God?

• We know he is not eternally Father.  

• We know that is not eternally loving, for much of eternity past he was on his own.

• We can only assume such God made the world because he was lonely, or looking for worshipers, or looking for minions.  

This is a poor God, in comparison to the Trinitarian God: Father, Son and Spirit who loved each other for all eternity, and who abundant love led to creation of the world for the purpose that more could be enveloped in that love and share the delight, satisfaction and joy of the God-head.  

If you are a non-Christian looking to find God, then refuse to settle for a God who is not trinity. You think, merely a creator of the universe God is simpler, but instead you inherit a God lurking in the shadows.  

Application 2:  A God who can truly save

Ok, so what’s the gospel...?  

(Jesus Christ died so that you could be forgiven and go to heaven). Great, but that message suggests that the thing we are most excited about is getting to Heaven.

As if trusting in Jesus was just fire insurance from the heat of Hell.

However, if God is Father, Son and Spirit united so intimately by the most perfect love that the world has ever known, that they are one. Then suddenly we begin to understand that the climax of the gospel is not a one way ticket to heaven, where Jesus is the heavenly bus conductor, but better than that, the gospel is the invitation to join the wonderful fellowship that God enjoys between himself.  

You see if the Christian God was a single person, it would leads to a dynamic of: I am God and you are not - obey me.

That’s exactly what we see with Islam. Allah is looking for obedience not sharing his family table with you. The muslim view of heaven , sees Allah as a land lord that allows you to stay in his property but he’s not there with you.

It is the ultimate power play, I'm stronger and you're weaker do as I say. God becomes a heavenly tyrant where all he wants from you is your behaviour.

But because the Christian God is Father loving the son and spirit, and spirit loving the Father and the son, and the son loving the father and spirit...like all great relationships they long to share it with others.

Suddenly verses like John 17:20-21 makes sense, where Jesus praying to his Father on the eve of going to the cross asks that all those who

“believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

In other words, the aspect of the gospel that is most beautiful, most attractive indeed most persuasive is the invitation to enjoy the unity, the love, the fellowship of the oneness of God the father, son, and spirit.  

Can you see the gospel suddenly becomes technicolour? If you’re a beloved son or daughter of God, loved by the father with the same love that he has for Jesus –  

• doesn’t that make you go wow!

• Doesn’t it move your heart to want to pray to this God, knowing that he will listen because you’re his child enjoying the privilege of being joined to God the father, in Christ, through the Spirit.

• Doesn’t that give you the encouragement to persevere in suffering and difficulty,

1. knowing that even though you have no idea why it’s all happening to you,  

2. why it’s happening like this  

3. and why it’s happening right now,  

isn’t it encouraging to know that this God who loves you as passionately as the Father loves the Son, is in control and will not let you go.  

Jesus said it best in [John 17:11], when he says: “I long for you and I to be one just like my father and I are one.”

Whereas for Arius, who has excluded Jesus from the oneness of God. Faith in such a creature may result in many things, but it cannot unite you with God. For how can Jesus give you something that he does not have himself.

• As much as might say I’d like to pay off your mortgage – I can’t.

• Or say come and stay at Buckingham Palace – I can’t.

If Jesus isn’t God, then he cannot give to you what he has not got himself.

Arius’ version of God has no assurance.  

• You fear that God is disappointed with you for constantly messing up – For Arius – He genuinely might be.

• You fear that your sin is too great and you don’t feel united to God, and you feel the God is distant from you – For Arius – He is far from you, for there is no divine spirit of God to live within you.

Whereas, to put the full wait of your trust on the one God (Father, Son and Spirit), means that even when you don’t feel...

I’m sorry if your head is spinning a little this afternoon, but we’ll be thinking further on these truths as we travel through this series on the Nicene Creed over the next few weeks.  I hope you’ve been able to glimpse something of wonder and awesomeness of the God we serve, and I particularly hope you’ve had even just a taste of how these truths can impact us today.

Finish

John Bradford, born in Manchester (1510).  

He grew in his faith, became a young professional based in London, but continually travelled back to Manchester to share the Gospel, and encourage believers.  

In the reign of Mary 1^st he was arrested for his faith, and put in the tower of London until he renounced his beliefs. If he refused he would be burned to death.

• Many others renounced their faith...why wouldn’t he?  

• what would give him such confidence that God was worthy of his loyalty?  

• such confidence in the hope of heaven?

• such confidence that what he had in Jesus was beyond anything that could be taken from him?

• what did he see about the promises of God that meant he would rather be burned alive than deny God?

In 1555, like Christ he was publicly killed. Like Christ he was fixed by his hands and feet to wood, but for John, the wood was set on fire.

And turning to the frightened man who was being burned beside him, he said:

“Be of good comfort, brother, for we shall have a happy supper with the Lord tonight”.

To understand, why his faith was unshakeable, why his faith was so radical, you can look through his many writings, and one of the most personal  

Let thy mighty hand and outstretched arm, O Lord, still be our defence; thy mercy and loving kindness in Jesus Christ thy dear Son our salvation; thy true and holy word our instruction; thy grace and Holy Spirit our comfort and consolation unto the end and in the end. Amen

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