The Nicene Creed and Conservative Messianic Judaism

The Nicene Creed is often seen by many as the defacto statement about belief in Messiah.  For a Conservative Messianic Jew or G-d Fearer (Gentile keeping Torah and practicing Judaism without conversion) this presents several issues we would like to discuss.

Traditional Nicene Creed has 2 points which demand special attention:
1.  Messiah as G-d (3 persons) - While we can trace the origins of the creed to see that what this means today to most people was not what was intended (originally language stressed coming from G-d, emanating from Ha'Shem), this 3 person language defies the central belief as expressed in Torah and repeated by the Messiah "Hear O Yisrael, the L-rd is God, the L-rd is One".  There is only One G-d, period!  Just as Judaism teaches, the Shekinak & Ruach eminate from G-d and are expressions are part of G-d.

2.  Equality with G-d (totally equal) - As above the 3 persons shapes this statement also.  Scripture teaches clearly Messiah emanates from G-d and does whatever G-d directs.  Messiah himself said "I only do the works my father shows me".

For our view in the Statement of belief (which is patterned after the RAMBAM 13 principles is posted as a separate blog entry) which replaces the Nicene Creed for CMJ (Conservative Messianic Jews) go to this blog entry: http://ucmjs.blogspot.com/2010/04/cmj-conservative-messianic-judaism.html

Derek Leman, whom is a personal friend and has greatly influenced my growth in Messianic Judaism, has some in depth discussion on his site Messianic Musings (http://derek4messiah.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/the-nicene-creed-and-mj/)

Toda