Nicaea 2025 Part 2: What is the Nicene Creed?
This post is part of our Faithfully Asked Questions series, in which we provide answers to common questions of faith. In this Lenten season, we are presenting a special series on church unity, as we celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed and a shared Easter date for all Christians in 2025. Have a question you want answered? A story to contribute? Email Matt at mcomer@ststephenumc.net.
Last week, we explored the historical background and significance of the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the first ecumenical or worldwide gathering convened with the purpose of finding Church-wide consensus on matters of doctrine and practice. Nicaea is historically significant for several reasons, but chief among them is its creation of the first version of our Nicene Creed. In this week’s edition, we explore this creed specifically and ask what it means to us, as heirs of Nicene Christianity, today.
What is a creed?
A creed can also be called a confession or a statement of faith. It is usually, though not always, a short statement of the beliefs and core tenets shared by a religious community. In Christianity, the Nicene Creed is among the better and near-universally known, though many Christian denominations also use the Apostle’s Creed. As the United Methodist Church further explains: “Creeds, or Affirmations of Faith as we call them more generally, help us declare the Christian faith. They affirm our unity in Christ with those followers who first wrote them, the many generations who have recited them before us, and those who will recite them after we have gone.”
What is the Nicene Creed and why is it important?
The Nicene Creed encapsulates the basic and core tenets of Christian belief and doctrine. Nearly all Christians around the world today hold to the Nicene Creed, which represents the overwhelming and mainstream theological foundation of virtually all Christian denominations, including United Methodists. Some argue that a trinitarian Nicene Christianity is the only legitimate Christianity and accuse non-Nicene Christian groups of heresy (or “adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma”). Non-Nicene groups include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Oneness Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and, historically, the Unitarian and some Universalist churches. The Nicene Creed and its original use in the fourth century as a condemnation of Arianism (see more below or in last week’s edition) also helped draw lines of distinction between Christianity and early Islamic belief in the fifth and sixth centuries, when Islam was initially characterized as an Arian heresy.
Warren Smith, professor of historical theology at Duke Divinity School, upheld the central importance of the Nicene Creed in a recent World Methodist Council webinar on March 4 discussing this year’s 1700th anniversary of Nicaea.
“The Trinity is not in the New Testament, but the problem of the Trinity is,” Smith began, paraphrasing New Testament professor Arthur Wainwright. Though Scripture speaks about the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” it does not describe the exact relationship between the three.
The New Testament’s language is ambiguous and “nature abhors a vacuum,” Smith said. “If [people] do not receive guidance from the Church, then they are apt to make up their own interpretations” — some may be wise, others silly, and some theologically dangerous. So, the Nicene Creed, like all creeds generally, provides a “theological grammar” for reading Scripture and speaking about God. “Nicaea’s value is as a guide for interpretation,” Smith shared.
The Nicene Creed continues to be an important source of ecumenical unity for Christians today. Many denominations affirm the creed, even if they don’t necessarily include it in official doctrinal statements; for example, the creed is not found in the United Methodist Church’s doctrinal standards (though it is in the Hymnal, on page 880).
The creed, Smith said, connects United Methodism to the larger Church universal, representing a “theology in the catholic spirit”: “Wesleyans do not exist in isolation. We are one tradition in the larger tradition, the catholic tradition, uniting us to other churches” that are themselves “united in central convictions — essential points — about who God is, as expressed in the Nicene formulation.”
The Nicene Creed’s first and later versions
The Nicene Creed we have today is more accurately called the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, having first been adopted at Nicaea in AD 325 and later revised and reaffirmed at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. This later version is the creed with which most of us are familiar today.
As you’ll recall from last week’s edition, the Council of Nicaea was called primarily to achieve some kind of Church-wide and empire-wide consensus on Christian belief. A strong impetus for this need for unity was an ongoing debate on the nature of Christ and Christ’s relationship to God. Alexandrian priest Arius had been teaching a minority view, advocating that, while divine in some sense, Jesus was not God, had been created by God, and was not co-eternal or equal with with God.
The debate over Arius’ beliefs, what we call Arianism, clearly informed the content of the first Nicene Creed. The translated English text is below, and if you’ve ever recited the creed before, you may see some familiar words and phrases. I’ve also bolded the portions directly dealing with the Arian controversy, including some added anathemas (“condemnations”), at the end. These condemnations were appended to the creed to make doubly sure Christians at the time got the clearest message possible, with no room for misinterpretation or misunderstanding — almost as if the original writers were saying, “Just in case we didn’t say this clear enough the first time, let us make it abundantly clear again.”
We believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the Son of God,
begotten from the Father, only-begotten,
that is, from the substance of the Father,
God from God,
light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten not made,
of one substance with the Father,
through Whom all things came into being,
things in heaven and things on earth,
Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down,
and became incarnate
and became man,
and suffered,
and rose again on the third day,
and ascended to the heavens,
and will come to judge the living and dead,
And in the Holy Spirit.
But as for those who say, There was when He was not,
and, Before being born He was not,
and that He came into existence out of nothing,
or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance,
or created,
or is subject to alteration or change
– these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.
What is the current version of the Nicene Creed?
In this second version, currently in use by most Christians, the condemnations at the end were removed and an additional section on the Holy Spirit was added. The concept of the Trinity was largely known and accepted at the time of the Council of Nicaea, but this doctrine’s development — and the debate over its details — had continued in the ensuing decades. Today, we recite this modern English translation of the creed:
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son✭,
who with the Father and the Son
is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic☆ and apostolic church.
We acknowledge one baptism
for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
✭ — Western Christian traditions (those largely stemming from the Latin-speaking Roman Catholic Church, including United Methodists) insert the phrase “and the Son” or “and from the Son,” a phrase not used by Eastern Orthodox Christians. This was inserted into the creed in Western traditions in the sixth century. This is a contributing factor to the continued debates and divisions between Western and Eastern Christians. The Anglican Communion (e.g., Church of England, Episcopal Church) has removed this phrase, and the World Council of Churches has recommended churches drop this phrase.
☆ — a Greek word meaning “universal.”
For an in-depth, line-by-line exploration of this modern English translation of the Nicene Creed, see this explainer from the English Language Liturgical Consultation.
In our next edition, we’ll explore how and why, in most years anyway, Western and Eastern Christians celebrate Easter on different dates.