Nicene Creed: Forged in Controversy and Founded on God’s Word

Nicene Creed: Forged in Controversy and Founded on God’s Word

Introduction• Though the Apostles’ Creed is

considered a more ancient creed, the first fixed creed of the Christian Church was the Nicene Creed

• Why the Nicene Creed?• Creed was made at the Council of

Nicaea• Emperor Constantine convened the

First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325 AD

318(?) bishopspresent

Constantine

Arius

Athanasius

Introduction• The point of controversy that

prompted the calling of the Council at Nicaea was the person of Jesus and his relationship to God the Father

• Who is God?• Who is Jesus?

Second Article

• Read the Second Article of the Nicene Creed (Christian Worship, p. 31)

• “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God”

Second Article

• Read the Second Article of the Nicene Creed (Christian Worship, p. 31)


• Why “Lord” and not “God”?

Second Article

• The Athanasians’ choice of “Lord” is evidence of the care and thought given to every word used in the Creed. They could have used “God,” thus paralleling the First Article (and done the same in the Third Article). However, that could have confused the issue of the Trinity by speaking of three Gods. The use of the biblical word “Lord” makes clear that Jesus is God without leaving any room for confusion. (Waterstradt, Nicene Creed, 5)

Second Article


• What does the Bible call Jesus? (John 1:1-3,14; 10:30-33)

• Word = God; Jesus calls himself God• If there is one God, why do we say there

are three persons? (Matthew 3:16,17)• God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are

distinguished in the Bible

Second Article

Second Article


• Why “Jesus”? (Matthew 1:21)• Jesus = “the Lord saves”• Why “Christ”? (John 1:41; Acts 4:26-27)• Christ/Messiah = Anointed One; anointed to

do something special

Second Article


• See Philippians 2:5-11• “being (existing) in very nature God” = Gk. ἐν

μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων• “taking the very nature of a servant” = Gk

μορφὴν δούλου λαβών • “Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father”• See Colossians 2:9

Second Article

• “…eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made …”

Second Article

• Arius argued that if the Son was “begotten by the Father,” it meant that there was a time when he did not exist. Therefore the Father and Son cannot be one and the same

• Arius was denying that the Son of God is eternal

• Arius countered by calling Jesus God’s “First Production,” the highest of all creatures

Second Article

• See Psalm 2:1-9• See John 1:14,18 – “One and Only” =

Gk. μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός ... μονογενὴς θεὸς

• How would you answer Arius?• Jesus is God, and God is eternal, so

Jesus is also eternal

Second Article


• What does “Light from Light” mean?• Like lighting one candle from

another, can’t tell which one came first, they both look the same

Light from Light

Second Article


• What does “begotten, not made” defend?

• Arius taught that the Son was the first of God the Father’s creations, and thus inferior to God the Father

Second Article• “…eternally begotten of the Father, God from God,

Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made …”

• It is true that an earthly son is younger than his father, and that there is a time when he is not yet what he will be. But God is not in time. Time, like distance, is relation between physical events, and has meaning only in the contest of the physical universe. When we say that the Son is begotten of the Father, we do not refer to an event in the remote past, but to an eternal and timeless relationship between the Persons of the Godhead. (Waterstradt, Nicene Creed, 5)

Second Article

• “… of one being with the Father.”• There was much debate at Nicaea as to the

appropriate word to use to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son

• Some argued for homoiousios (“of a similar substance with the Father”)

• Eventually the Council decided on homoousios (“of the same substance with the Father”)

Second Article

• “… of one being with the Father.”• Latin: consubstantialem Patri• German: mit dem Vater in einerlei

Wesen (“existing in the same essence with the Father”)

• See John 10:30• See Hebrews 1:3 – Gk. χαρακτὴρ τῆς

ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ (full expression of his being)

Second Article• “… of one being with the Father.”• This line was the crucial one, the acid test. It was the one formula that the

Arians could not interpret as meaning what they believed. Without it, they would have continued to teach that the Son is good, and glorious, and holy, and a Mighty Power, and God's chief agent in creating the world, and the means by which God chiefly reveals Himself to us, and therefore deserving in some sense to be called divine. But they would have continued to deny that the Son was God in the same sense in which the Father is God. And they would have pointed out that, since the Council of Nicaea had not issued any declaration that they could not accept, there was room for their position inside the tent of Christian doctrine. Arius and his immediate followers would have denied that they were reducing the Son to the position of a high-ranking angel. But their doctrine left no safeguard against it, and if they had triumphed at Nicaea, even in the negative sense of having their position acknowledged as a permissible one within the limits of Christian orthodoxy, the damage to the Christian witness of Christ as God made flesh would have been irreparable. (Waterstradt, Nicene Creed, 6)

Second Article

• What’s at stake? Why is this all so important?

• We need God to be our Savior, and if Jesus is not God, there is no salvation.

• God as our Savior gives us the confidence in our salvation.

Nicene Creed 325 vs Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381

• And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance (homoousion) with the Father,

• And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance (homoousion) of the Father,

Second Article

“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ”

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Nicene Creed: Forged in Controversy and Founded on God’s Word