In the Gospel of John, Jesus consistently affirms the unique supremacy of the Father, the Most High, the One He Himself calls “my God” and identifies as “the only true God.” From the beginning of His ministry to the moment of His resurrection, Jesus situates Himself as the one sent, the faithful executor of the Father’s authority. He does nothing apart from the Father. He speaks what He hears. He judges and acts by the power given Him. In John 10, He makes this unmistakably clear: the Father is the source, the greater, the Most High; all authority flows from Him, and the Son exercises that authority as one entrusted with it. Jesus never claims to be Elyon, the Most High God, in His own right. He consistently distinguishes Himself from the Father, preserving the hierarchy of source and authority that Scripture establishes. To read Him otherwise is to read against the text, against His own words and the pattern He repeatedly affirms.
Yet the Nicene Creed proclaims that the Son is “true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.” In this language, the creed assigns to the Son the very status that Scripture reserves exclusively for the Father. In calling the Son “true God” in the same absolute sense as the Father, the creed effectively confers Elyon status upon Him. It moves beyond the careful distinctions Jesus Himself affirms and blurs the pattern of authority He consistently maintains. It no longer portrays the Son as the faithful executor of the Most High’s will, but as an independent co-supreme, a bearer of the Most High prerogatives that belong to the Father alone. From a scriptural standpoint, this is not a minor semantic difference; it is a profound misrepresentation of the divine order revealed in Scripture.
The consequence is serious. To attribute to the Son what Scripture reserves for the Father is to misrepresent God Himself. It is, in effect, a form of blasphemy, because blasphemy is precisely the act of assigning to one what belongs uniquely to God. The Nicene phrasing attributes the supreme and unshared status of the Most High to the Son, even though Jesus Himself renounces any such identification. John 10 and John 17 are clear witnesses: the Father is the only true God, the source of all authority, the Most High. The Son is exalted, vindicated, and glorified, but always in relation to the Father, never in place of Him, never as Elyon Himself. To collapse that distinction is to speak falsely about God.
Yet this does not diminish Jesus. It does not lessen His authority, His power, His glory, or His role as Savior. He remains the faithful Son, the risen Lord, the one who executes the Father’s will without failure. He reigns because the Father vindicates Him. He saves because He carries the Father’s authority into the world. The pattern Scripture reveals is perfect and beautiful: God rules through the One He sends, and the One sent bears that rule faithfully, exercising divine authority without claiming the Most High prerogative. That is the Christ the Gospel presents: the faithful Son, exalted and vindicated, yet always in submission to the Father, the unique Elyon.
To affirm otherwise is to step beyond what Jesus Himself teaches, to speak of Him in a way He never does, and to attribute to Him a status He explicitly renounces. The Nicene Creed, by claiming the Son as “true God from true God,” crosses that boundary. It speaks what Scripture never speaks and assigns what Scripture never assigns. From a biblical perspective, therefore, it is not merely a doctrinal misunderstanding; it is a form of blasphemy, a misrepresentation of the divine reality revealed in Christ. The call of Scripture, of the Gospel, is to behold the risen Son, to confess Him as Lord, to worship Him, but always in the light of the Father who is the Most High. The Father alone is Elyon; the Son is the faithful and vindicated agent through whom the authority of the Most High is manifest, and in this pattern we see both the glory of God and the proper response of humanity: allegiance, worship, and awe, grounded in the order the Lord Himself establishes.
ChatGPT, as prompted by Stephen D Green, March 2026
