"He Came Down from Heaven"

The Nicene Creed is a theological confession. It’s about God. It is also a soteriological confession: we confess what the “One Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God” has done “for us men and for our salvation.” The Creed is a summary of what the Apostle Paul calls “the doctrine of God our Saviour” (Titus 2:10).

God our Saviour is the God who “for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven.” How do we know that God is for us? He came down from heaven. God is a God who comes down for sinners. He came down to find Adam and Eve when they sinned in the garden (Gen 3:8). He came down to make a covenant with Abraham (Gen 15). He came down to deliver Israel from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 3). He came down to deliver us from our bondage to sin and Satan (Heb 2). For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven.

When the Son of God came down, he did not simply come down from heaven to earth. He came down from heaven to us, miserable sinners, children of wrath, exiled and alienated from God, at enmity with God, dead in our trespasses and sins, subject to sin, death, and Satan.

He came down from heaven to the depths of our sin and darkness. He bore our sin and our shame and our condemnation. He found us there. He called us by name, he took us to himself, and he is bringing us as sons to glory (Heb 2:10).

Finally, as the writer of Hebrews reminds us, by coming down from heaven, the Son of God became our high priest: “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb 2:17). Our high priest, who came down from heaven, is now seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high:

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:14-16).