Unifying Beliefs: Exploring the Nicene Creed

The story of the Nicene Creed is a journey through history, confronting controversies that once threatened the unity of the early church. The Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople played pivotal roles in shaping this creed. In today’s episode, our focus centers on the Nicene Creed, a cornerstone of Christian theology, formulated to unify believers under a common doctrine, especially concerning the Trinity and the divinity of Christ.

References from the show
What is the Nicene Creed? https://www.gotquestions.org/Nicene-creed.html

What is the Nicene Creed? https://www.gotquestions.org/Nicene-creed.html
Historic Creeds and Confessions, electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Lexham Press, 1997).

John H. Leith, ed., Creeds of the Churches: A Reader in Christian Doctrine from the Bible to the Present, Third Edition. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1982), 28–29.

A. E. Burn, The Nicene Creed, ed. Leighton Pullan, Oxford Church Text Books (London: Rivingtons, 1909), 4.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast where we learn how to live for Christ in our daily lives. I am Dwan, your host, and I would like to invite you on a journey with me to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Christ. Hey, everyone, welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast, where we strive to encourage you to live for Christ faithfully by offering guidance on how to study the Bible, how to understand the Bible better and how to remain faithful to historic Christianity in a contemporary society. So we are back with another episode about creeds and confessions of the Christian faith. Last time we talked about the Apostles Creed, so go back and listen to that if you haven't heard it. Next we are going to be looking at the Nicene Creed, but before we get into the Nicene Creed, we talked about the important functions of creed, confessions and catechisms in the life of the church. Remember there were six of them, so I'm just going to recap and go over those again. So the first one they provide doctrinal clarity by giving a clear, unified expression of Christian faith, such as the nature of God, christ, the Holy Spirit and salvation. Two they guard against heresies and doctrinal errors by clearly defining what Christians believe. Three, they're helpful for instructing new believers and guiding Christian education. Four they serve as concise summaries of the Christian faith, making it easier to teach foundational Christian beliefs. Five by reciting creeds in worship, it helps to connect believers with the historic faith of the church. And then number six is the last one it fosters a sense of community with the past generation of Christians, reminding us of our shared faith. So remember, we always say that it's important for us as believers to know what we believe and why. And early in Christian history, or early in Christendom, they developed creeds, confessions and catechisms to help believers have a summary of the key tenets and doctrines of the Christian faith. So in today's episode we are going to dive into the Nicene Creed. All right, first let me read the Nicene Creed. It says one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, god of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us, man, for our salvation, came down from heaven and was incarnated by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. It was made man and was crucified, also for us, on the punctious pilot. He suffered and was buried and the third day he rose again, according to the scriptures, and ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of the father and he shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the holy ghost, the lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who, with the Father and the Son together, is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets, and I believe one holy Catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Speaker 1: 5:00

According to gotquestionsorg, other than the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed is likely the most universally accepted and recognized statements of the Christian faith. So the Nicene Creed was first adopted in 325 at the Council of Nicaea, at the Council of Nicaea. This is when the Roman Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea in an attempt to unify the Christian church with one doctrine, especially on the issue of the Trinity and the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, which was the main thing about the deity of Christ. So in the book Historic Creeds and Confessions it says, while there are similarities between the text of the Nicene Creed and the text of the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed is more defined and explicit than the Apostles' Creed in the statement of the divinity of Christ and the Holy Ghost. The Nicene Creed provided the needed clarification to combat the heresies of the Nicene Age and is useful to combat those same heresies that often reoccur in our world today. And then, like I say, the Nicene Creed is a product of the Nicene Council, which was in 325 AD, 25 AD and then also the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD.

Speaker 1: 6:42

So what was the controversy that led to the construction of the Nicene Creed? Well, it was a inferential parish priest, but he was also a false preacher in the early fourth century ad in alexandra, egypt. So what a did? He denied the deity of Christ as the son of God. He held that Jesus was created by God as a first act of creation and that the nature of Christ was unlike that of God, the Father. And his view is what they call Ariism, and his view is what they call Aries, and it's a view that Jesus is finite, created being with some divine attributes, but he's not eternal and that he is not divine.

Speaker 1: 8:02

So, aries, he kind of got carried away with his false logic as he was, you know, wrap his head around jesus being god and man, and it kind of let him down some like rabbit holes. So eris wondered that what does it mean in the name the son mean like? What does son mean? Like the son of god? What does son mean? So if son is a son you know he was thinking more biologically he might have existed after his father, once he, and so once he didn't exist. So he, the son, can't exist before the father. That's he was trying to wrap his head, wrap his head around, so he was saying, are thinking that there's a time when the sun, the sun was not. So his logic that he was kind of following, you know, required a little bit more deduction in his mind. It says, if there was a time that the sun was not, then he was not uncreated but a, a created creature.

Speaker 1: 9:01

So this kind of brought areas to kind of a dilemma. So either he must consider teaching that there are two gods, jesus being one god and god, the father being one god, are a higher and a lower, or he must consider teaching that is right to worship a created being, which is idolatry, you know. And then it would only have been possible for him to, you know, escape this if he would like, totally deny the lordship of, of jesus and then also coming to the conclusion that jesus was also, you know, god and man. So, aries, he was kind of promoting what he believed, that jesus was a created creature. And the bishop alexander kind of got wind of what aries was teaching and that he was saying that christ, aries was saying that christ was the eldest and highest of god's creation and he denied that christ was god and, you know, tried to explain away the meaning. So the bishop of alexander met with aries, you know, trying to interview and trying to like change his mind, saying that that wasn't a correct view of correct view of Christ. But Ares, he was so, so sure of himself that he kind of hinted that the Bishop was um favoring a heresy called Sibelianism, sibelianism.

Speaker 1: 10:43

So Sibelianism was emphasized, kind of like in the third century by a presbyter called Sibelius, and Sibelius believed in the oneness of God, you know, as opposed to the Trinity, god being in three persons. Sibelius went as far to say that there were no distinct persons of the Godhead, distinct versions of the godhead. So he was. Sibelius, said that the one god, or god, manifests himself at different times and for different purposes and in different modes. So so he, sibelius, said that god manifested himself as the father in creation and then as the son in redemption and then as the spirit in sanctification. So eris was accusing the bishop of alexander that he was um on the heresy of sibelius.

Speaker 1: 11:45

Sibelius, because he was believed, he, he was thinking that he was believing in the, the oneness of God instead of three persons. But of course, ares, he, he was under the belief that Jesus was not God, that he was a created being, where, that's where he got off. So when Ares was spreading all of this teaching among different people, he had a lot of people that were following him because they were kind of like afraid or rejected the heresy of Sibyleism and they were ready to believe in what Ares was teaching. So he, even Ares, even kind of like, made up fun tunes to popularize his, his, his I can't say doctrine, but his beliefs. That kind of help spread. Spread it, because you know music helps when you sing something, the song tends to stick in your head more than you know just reciting something. So he actually made songs out of his beliefs.

Speaker 1: 13:05

So Eris' theology, you know, it grew and spread and it caused more and more controversy. Where it got to the ears of the emperor constantine and he had, he sent a bishop of cardova to kind of, you know, talk to eris and try to make peace, but there was no making. There was no to eris and try to make peace, but there was no making. There was no peace to be made with eris because he was staunch in his beliefs that that jesus was a created being. So constantine, um, I can't say created, but he, he organized, or had a council organized of the bishops of the Christian church and this is what came to be known as the Council of Nicaea. And at the Council of Nicaea this is where they talked about the teachings and false doctrine of Arius. At the council they also denounced the teachings of Arius and they came up with a summary of beliefs about the person and deity of Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: 14:22

So when you read, if you go back and read the Nicene Creed, you can kind of see the emphasis on the deity of Christ in relationship to God, the nice thing tree it's. It's a good summary of christian doctrine and it it builds and expands on what we see or what we have seen in the Apostles Creed. So if you, like I say at the top of the episode, if you haven't gone, haven't listened to the episode on the Apostles Creed, go back, go back and listen to that. I think the Nicene Creed it kind of gave a shape and foundation for what Christians believe and it has lasted over the centuries. It's given us a unified declaration of our faith. It affirms the Trinity, it affirms the deity of Jesus Christ and it emphasizes the presence of the Holy Spirit. So the Nicene Creed also kind of puts together like how we think about, you know, the Trinity and how all of the all God the Father, son and God the Father, jesus and the holy spirit are all god yet are also one.

Speaker 1: 16:17

So you can see that the this nice thing in creed came together because of a dispute of theological differences or not differences, or heresy, mainly the Arian heresy. So it continues to be kind of like a core statement of Christian orthodoxy. And the Nicene Creed is often recited in churches, is studied in theology in churches, is studied in theology and it reminds us of our shared belief that we hold as believers of historic christianity with christians around the around the globe and for generations. So hopefully this was helpful for you in learning about the nicene Creed. Hopefully at some point I will do a episode on the Nicene Council. We can get some more context for that. But thanks for tuning in to this episode and remember God is always good and is always faithful. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Do me a favor by following the podcast and leaving a review to help spread the word. I look forward to hearing from you.