“Christ made… everything in heaven and on earth” (Nicaean Creed). What did the phrase δι᾽οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο τά τε ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ καὶ τὰ ἐν τῇ γῇ mean in Nicaea? Looking at the later theological formulation can help answer many questions about the earlier meaning of similar biblical complexities. This presentation will compare the language employed in the creed to examine the possible meaning of “heavens and earth” terminology in Ephesians. There are many interpretations of “the heavens” in Paul’s letter to the Church in Ephesus. Some consider the plurality of the noun (e.g., οὐρανοῖς) to merely be “probably stylistic” (e.g., Merkle); others believe that Ephesians exhibits a refined cosmology (e.g., W. H. Harris III). Many reasonable approaches land between those two interpretations e.g., Lincoln). However, the presentation proposes that the Nicaean doctrine about Christ’s creation of all things draws from an interpretive warrant that simultaneously considers the material arenas (cosmology) created by Christ as well as the real spiritual beings (anthropology) that populate them. Put more simply, the Nicaean creed corrects modern interpretations of the “heavens and earth” in Ephesians, particularly those kinds of interpretations that seem to stop short of historical comparison with similar literature.
First, the presentation will compare the Nicaean creed’s specific terminology with similar Ephesians phrases (e.g., 1:9-10, and 4:9-10). Assessing the grammatical and lexical data requires attention to the meaning potential for “heaven and earth” in the ancient Greco-Roman context and other comparable literature. Care will be taken to nuance the cultural and theological differences between first and fourth-century uses of the terms involved. The presentation additionally looks at patristic and other early Church literature to assess the range of possible uses of the concept and then propose some possible meanings for the phrase in Ephesians 1:10. The presentation argues that (borrowing the Nicaean formulation) Christ’s production of “all heavenly and earthly things” requires both cosmological and anthropological creation, a place and creatures to fill it.
Next, the presentation compares Christ’s creation with a broader biblical theology of the Son of God’s creative activity. The presentation will explore passages that attribute creativity to Jesus or OT types of Christ: Heb 1:3, Col 1:16-17, Prov 8:22-31, and Gen 1 with John 1, including Gospel texts that contain an overlap of heavenly and earthly realms.
Finally, the presentation concludes that the Nicaean Creed helps to interpret Eph 1:9-10 and that the passage can accommodate cosmology and anthropology, namely the population of a spiritual-physical realm with spiritual-physical beings. Such semantic accommodation is tantamount for interpreting Ephesians because Paul argues that God “headed up everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in him” (Eph 1:10). Many benefits come from this interpretation—if accurate—including a deeper, higher connection with the saints who have gone before, not least including those saints who bequeathed to us the Nicaean Creed.