July 19, 2025 • 17 mins
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.
Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Check out the YouTube channel Faithfullyliven youtube.com/@faithfullyliven
Do you want to read about how to live faithfully? Check out the blog http://lyfe102.org
Get a free Road Map to get started learning how to study the Bible https://mailchi.mp/88f9c9405da0/bible-study-road-map
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast where we
learn how to live for Christ inour daily lives.
I am Dwan, your host, and Iwould like to invite you on a
journey with me to explore andlearn how to be a faithful
follower of Christ.
Christ.
(00:33):
Hey, everyone, welcome toFaithfully Living, the podcast,
where we strive to encourage youto live for Christ faithfully
by offering guidance on how tostudy the Bible, how to
understand the Bible better andhow to remain faithful to
historic Christianity in acontemporary society.
So we are back with anotherepisode about creeds and
confessions of the Christianfaith.
Last time we talked about theApostles Creed, so go back and
(01:01):
listen to that if you haven'theard it.
Next we are going to be lookingat the Nicene Creed, but before
we get into the Nicene Creed,we talked about the important
functions of creed, confessionsand catechisms in the life of
the church.
(01:21):
Remember there were six of them, so I'm just going to recap and
go over those again.
So the first one they providedoctrinal clarity by giving a
clear, unified expression ofChristian faith, such as the
nature of God, christ, the HolySpirit and salvation.
Two they guard against heresiesand doctrinal errors by clearly
(01:45):
defining what Christiansbelieve.
Three, they're helpful forinstructing new believers and
guiding Christian education.
Four they serve as concisesummaries of the Christian faith
, making it easier to teachfoundational Christian beliefs.
Five by reciting creeds inworship, it helps to connect
(02:08):
believers with the historicfaith of the church.
And then number six is the lastone it fosters a sense of
community with the pastgeneration of Christians,
reminding us of our shared faith.
So remember, we always say thatit's important for us as
believers to know what webelieve and why.
(02:29):
And early in Christian history,or early in Christendom, they
developed creeds, confessionsand catechisms to help believers
have a summary of the keytenets and doctrines of the
Christian faith.
So in today's episode we aregoing to dive into the Nicene
(02:52):
Creed.
All right, first let me readthe Nicene Creed.
It says one Lord Jesus Christ,the only begotten Son of God,
(03:13):
begotten of the Father beforeall worlds, god of God, light of
(03:37):
light, very God of very God,begotten, not made, being of one
substance with the Father, bywhom all things were made, who
for us, man, for our salvation,came down from heaven and was
incarnated by the Holy Spirit ofthe Virgin Mary.
It was made man and wascrucified, also for us, on the
punctious pilot.
He suffered and was buried andthe third day he rose again,
(04:02):
according to the scriptures, andascended into heaven and sits
on the right hand of the fatherand he shall come again with
glory to judge the quick and thedead, whose kingdom shall have
no end.
And I believe in the holy ghost, the lord and giver of life,
(04:22):
who proceeds from the Father andthe Son, who, with the Father
and the Son together, isworshipped and glorified, who
spoke by the prophets, and Ibelieve one holy Catholic and
apostolic church.
I acknowledge one baptism forthe remission of sins and I look
(04:43):
for the resurrection of thedead and the life of the world
to come.
Amen.
According to gotquestionsorg,other than the Apostles' Creed,
(05:05):
the Nicene Creed is likely themost universally accepted and
recognized statements of theChristian faith.
So the Nicene Creed was firstadopted in 325 at the Council of
Nicaea, at the Council ofNicaea.
This is when the Roman EmperorConstantine convened the Council
(05:28):
of Nicaea in an attempt tounify the Christian church with
one doctrine, especially on theissue of the Trinity and the
deity and humanity of JesusChrist, which was the main thing
about the deity of Christ.
So in the book Historic Creedsand Confessions it says, while
there are similarities betweenthe text of the Nicene Creed and
(05:52):
the text of the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed is more
defined and explicit than theApostles' Creed in the statement
of the divinity of Christ andthe Holy Ghost.
The Nicene Creed provided theneeded clarification to combat
(06:13):
the heresies of the Nicene Ageand is useful to combat those
same heresies that often reoccurin our world today.
And then, like I say, theNicene Creed is a product of the
(06:33):
Nicene Council, which was in325 AD, 25 AD and then also the
Council of Constantinople in 381AD.
So what was the controversy thatled to the construction of the
Nicene Creed?
Well, it was a inferentialparish priest, but he was also a
(07:11):
false preacher in the earlyfourth century ad in alexandra,
egypt.
So what a did?
He denied the deity of Christas the son of God.
He held that Jesus was createdby God as a first act of
creation and that the nature ofChrist was unlike that of God,
(07:34):
the Father.
And his view is what they callAriism, and his view is what
they call Aries, and it's a viewthat Jesus is finite, created
being with some divineattributes, but he's not eternal
and that he is not divine.
(08:02):
So, aries, he kind of gotcarried away with his false
logic as he was, you know, wraphis head around jesus being god
and man, and it kind of let himdown some like rabbit holes.
So eris wondered that what doesit 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 hewas thinking more biologically
he might have existed after hisfather, once he, and so once he
(08:27):
didn't exist.
So he, the son, can't existbefore the father.
That's he was trying to wraphis head, wrap his head around,
so he was saying, are thinkingthat there's a time when the sun
, the sun was not.
So his logic that he was kindof following, you know, required
a little bit more deduction inhis mind.
(08:50):
It says, if there was a timethat the sun was not, then he
was not uncreated but a, acreated creature.
So this kind of brought areas tokind of a dilemma.
So either he must considerteaching that there are two gods
, jesus being one god and god,the father being one god, are a
(09:15):
higher and a lower, or he mustconsider teaching that is right
to worship a created being,which is idolatry, you know.
And then it would only havebeen possible for him to, you
know, escape this if he wouldlike, totally deny the lordship
(09:36):
of, of jesus and then alsocoming to the conclusion that
jesus was also, you know, godand man.
So, aries, he was kind ofpromoting what he believed, that
jesus was a created creature.
And the bishop alexander kindof got wind of what aries was
(09:59):
teaching and that he was sayingthat christ, aries was saying
that christ was the eldest andhighest 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 metwith aries, you know, trying to
(10:19):
interview and trying to likechange his mind, saying that
that wasn't a correct view ofcorrect view of Christ.
But Ares, he was so, so sure ofhimself that he kind of hinted
that the Bishop was um favoringa heresy called Sibelianism,
(10:41):
sibelianism.
So Sibelianism was emphasized,kind of like in the third
century by a presbyter calledSibelius, and Sibelius believed
in the oneness of God, you know,as opposed to the Trinity, god
being in three persons.
(11:02):
Sibelius went as far to saythat there were no distinct
persons of the Godhead, distinctversions of the godhead.
So he was.
Sibelius, said that the one god, or god, manifests himself at
different times and fordifferent purposes and in
different modes.
So so he, sibelius, said thatgod manifested himself as the
(11:26):
father in creation and then asthe son in redemption and then
as the spirit in sanctification.
So eris was accusing the bishopof alexander that he was um on
the heresy of sibelius.
Sibelius, because he wasbelieved, he, he was thinking
(11:49):
that he was believing in the,the oneness of God instead of
three persons.
But of course, ares, he, he wasunder the belief that Jesus was
not God, that he was a createdbeing, where, that's where he
got off.
So when Ares was spreading allof this teaching among different
(12:12):
people, he had a lot of peoplethat were following him because
they were kind of like afraid orrejected the heresy of
Sibyleism and they were ready tobelieve in what Ares was
teaching.
So he, even Ares, even kind oflike, made up fun tunes to
(12:38):
popularize his, his, his I can'tsay doctrine, but his beliefs.
That kind of help spread.
Spread it, because you knowmusic helps when you sing
something, the song tends tostick in your head more than you
know just reciting something.
So he actually made songs outof his beliefs.
(13:05):
So Eris' theology, you know, itgrew and spread and it caused
more and more controversy.
Where it got to the ears of theemperor constantine and he had,
he sent a bishop of cardova tokind of, you know, talk to eris
(13:25):
and try to make peace, but therewas no making.
There was no to eris and try tomake peace, but there was no
making.
There was no peace to be madewith eris because he was staunch
in his beliefs that that jesuswas a created being.
So constantine, um, I can't saycreated, but he, he organized,
or had a council organized ofthe bishops of the Christian
(13:49):
church and this is what came tobe known as the Council of
Nicaea.
And at the Council of Nicaeathis is where they talked about
the teachings and false doctrineof Arius.
At the council they alsodenounced the teachings of Arius
(14:13):
and they came up with a summaryof beliefs about the person and
deity of Jesus Christ.
So when you read, if you go backand read the Nicene Creed, you
can kind of see the emphasis onthe deity of Christ in
(14:34):
relationship to God, the nicething tree it's.
It's a good summary ofchristian doctrine and it it
(15:06):
builds and expands on what wesee or what we have seen in the
Apostles Creed.
So if you, like I say at thetop of the episode, if you
haven't gone, haven't listenedto the episode on the Apostles
Creed, go back, go back andlisten to that.
I think the Nicene Creed itkind of gave a shape and
(15:30):
foundation for what Christiansbelieve and it has lasted over
the centuries.
It's given us a unifieddeclaration of our faith.
It affirms the Trinity, itaffirms the deity of Jesus
Christ and it emphasizes thepresence of the Holy Spirit.
(15:55):
So the Nicene Creed also kindof puts together like how we
think about, you know, theTrinity and how all of the all
God the Father, son and God theFather, jesus and the holy
spirit are all god yet are alsoone.
(16:17):
So you can see that the thisnice thing in creed came
together because of a dispute oftheological differences or not
differences, or heresy, mainlythe Arian heresy.
So it continues to be kind oflike a core statement of
(16:40):
Christian orthodoxy.
And the Nicene Creed is oftenrecited in churches, is studied
in theology in churches, isstudied in theology and it
reminds us of our shared beliefthat we hold as believers of
historic christianity withchristians around the around the
globe and for generations.
(17:01):
So hopefully this was helpfulfor you in learning about the
nicene Creed.
Hopefully at some point I willdo a episode on the Nicene
Council.
We can get some more contextfor that.
But thanks for tuning in tothis episode and remember God is
(17:22):
always good and is alwaysfaithful.
Thank you for listening to thepodcast.
Do me a favor by following thepodcast and leaving a review to
help spread the word.
I look forward to hearing fromyou.
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast where we
learn how to live for Christ inour daily lives.
I am Dwan, your host, and Iwould like to invite you on a
journey with me to explore andlearn how to be a faithful
follower of Christ.
Christ.
(00:33):
Hey, everyone, welcome toFaithfully Living, the podcast,
where we strive to encourage youto live for Christ faithfully
by offering guidance on how tostudy the Bible, how to
understand the Bible better andhow to remain faithful to
historic Christianity in acontemporary society.
So we are back with anotherepisode about creeds and
confessions of the Christianfaith.
Last time we talked about theApostles Creed, so go back and
(01:01):
listen to that if you haven'theard it.
Next we are going to be lookingat the Nicene Creed, but before
we get into the Nicene Creed,we talked about the important
functions of creed, confessionsand catechisms in the life of
the church.
(01:21):
Remember there were six of them, so I'm just going to recap and
go over those again.
So the first one they providedoctrinal clarity by giving a
clear, unified expression ofChristian faith, such as the
nature of God, christ, the HolySpirit and salvation.
Two they guard against heresiesand doctrinal errors by clearly
(01:45):
defining what Christiansbelieve.
Three, they're helpful forinstructing new believers and
guiding Christian education.
Four they serve as concisesummaries of the Christian faith
, making it easier to teachfoundational Christian beliefs.
Five by reciting creeds inworship, it helps to connect
(02:08):
believers with the historicfaith of the church.
And then number six is the lastone it fosters a sense of
community with the pastgeneration of Christians,
reminding us of our shared faith.
So remember, we always say thatit's important for us as
believers to know what webelieve and why.
(02:29):
And early in Christian history,or early in Christendom, they
developed creeds, confessionsand catechisms to help believers
have a summary of the keytenets and doctrines of the
Christian faith.
So in today's episode we aregoing to dive into the Nicene
(02:52):
Creed.
All right, first let me readthe Nicene Creed.
It says one Lord Jesus Christ,the only begotten Son of God,
(03:13):
begotten of the Father beforeall worlds, god of God, light of
(03:37):
light, very God of very God,begotten, not made, being of one
substance with the Father, bywhom all things were made, who
for us, man, for our salvation,came down from heaven and was
incarnated by the Holy Spirit ofthe Virgin Mary.
It was made man and wascrucified, also for us, on the
punctious pilot.
He suffered and was buried andthe third day he rose again,
(04:02):
according to the scriptures, andascended into heaven and sits
on the right hand of the fatherand he shall come again with
glory to judge the quick and thedead, whose kingdom shall have
no end.
And I believe in the holy ghost, the lord and giver of life,
(04:22):
who proceeds from the Father andthe Son, who, with the Father
and the Son together, isworshipped and glorified, who
spoke by the prophets, and Ibelieve one holy Catholic and
apostolic church.
I acknowledge one baptism forthe remission of sins and I look
(04:43):
for the resurrection of thedead and the life of the world
to come.
Amen.
According to gotquestionsorg,other than the Apostles' Creed,
(05:05):
the Nicene Creed is likely themost universally accepted and
recognized statements of theChristian faith.
So the Nicene Creed was firstadopted in 325 at the Council of
Nicaea, at the Council ofNicaea.
This is when the Roman EmperorConstantine convened the Council
(05:28):
of Nicaea in an attempt tounify the Christian church with
one doctrine, especially on theissue of the Trinity and the
deity and humanity of JesusChrist, which was the main thing
about the deity of Christ.
So in the book Historic Creedsand Confessions it says, while
there are similarities betweenthe text of the Nicene Creed and
(05:52):
the text of the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed is more
defined and explicit than theApostles' Creed in the statement
of the divinity of Christ andthe Holy Ghost.
The Nicene Creed provided theneeded clarification to combat
(06:13):
the heresies of the Nicene Ageand is useful to combat those
same heresies that often reoccurin our world today.
And then, like I say, theNicene Creed is a product of the
(06:33):
Nicene Council, which was in325 AD, 25 AD and then also the
Council of Constantinople in 381AD.
So what was the controversy thatled to the construction of the
Nicene Creed?
Well, it was a inferentialparish priest, but he was also a
(07:11):
false preacher in the earlyfourth century ad in alexandra,
egypt.
So what a did?
He denied the deity of Christas the son of God.
He held that Jesus was createdby God as a first act of
creation and that the nature ofChrist was unlike that of God,
(07:34):
the Father.
And his view is what they callAriism, and his view is what
they call Aries, and it's a viewthat Jesus is finite, created
being with some divineattributes, but he's not eternal
and that he is not divine.
(08:02):
So, aries, he kind of gotcarried away with his false
logic as he was, you know, wraphis head around jesus being god
and man, and it kind of let himdown some like rabbit holes.
So eris wondered that what doesit 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 hewas thinking more biologically
he might have existed after hisfather, once he, and so once he
(08:27):
didn't exist.
So he, the son, can't existbefore the father.
That's he was trying to wraphis head, wrap his head around,
so he was saying, are thinkingthat there's a time when the sun
, the sun was not.
So his logic that he was kindof following, you know, required
a little bit more deduction inhis mind.
(08:50):
It says, if there was a timethat the sun was not, then he
was not uncreated but a, acreated creature.
So this kind of brought areas tokind of a dilemma.
So either he must considerteaching that there are two gods
, jesus being one god and god,the father being one god, are a
(09:15):
higher and a lower, or he mustconsider teaching that is right
to worship a created being,which is idolatry, you know.
And then it would only havebeen possible for him to, you
know, escape this if he wouldlike, totally deny the lordship
(09:36):
of, of jesus and then alsocoming to the conclusion that
jesus was also, you know, godand man.
So, aries, he was kind ofpromoting what he believed, that
jesus was a created creature.
And the bishop alexander kindof got wind of what aries was
(09:59):
teaching and that he was sayingthat christ, aries was saying
that christ was the eldest andhighest 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 metwith aries, you know, trying to
(10:19):
interview and trying to likechange his mind, saying that
that wasn't a correct view ofcorrect view of Christ.
But Ares, he was so, so sure ofhimself that he kind of hinted
that the Bishop was um favoringa heresy called Sibelianism,
(10:41):
sibelianism.
So Sibelianism was emphasized,kind of like in the third
century by a presbyter calledSibelius, and Sibelius believed
in the oneness of God, you know,as opposed to the Trinity, god
being in three persons.
(11:02):
Sibelius went as far to saythat there were no distinct
persons of the Godhead, distinctversions of the godhead.
So he was.
Sibelius, said that the one god, or god, manifests himself at
different times and fordifferent purposes and in
different modes.
So so he, sibelius, said thatgod manifested himself as the
(11:26):
father in creation and then asthe son in redemption and then
as the spirit in sanctification.
So eris was accusing the bishopof alexander that he was um on
the heresy of sibelius.
Sibelius, because he wasbelieved, he, he was thinking
(11:49):
that he was believing in the,the oneness of God instead of
three persons.
But of course, ares, he, he wasunder the belief that Jesus was
not God, that he was a createdbeing, where, that's where he
got off.
So when Ares was spreading allof this teaching among different
(12:12):
people, he had a lot of peoplethat were following him because
they were kind of like afraid orrejected the heresy of
Sibyleism and they were ready tobelieve in what Ares was
teaching.
So he, even Ares, even kind oflike, made up fun tunes to
(12:38):
popularize his, his, his I can'tsay doctrine, but his beliefs.
That kind of help spread.
Spread it, because you knowmusic helps when you sing
something, the song tends tostick in your head more than you
know just reciting something.
So he actually made songs outof his beliefs.
(13:05):
So Eris' theology, you know, itgrew and spread and it caused
more and more controversy.
Where it got to the ears of theemperor constantine and he had,
he sent a bishop of cardova tokind of, you know, talk to eris
(13:25):
and try to make peace, but therewas no making.
There was no to eris and try tomake peace, but there was no
making.
There was no peace to be madewith eris because he was staunch
in his beliefs that that jesuswas a created being.
So constantine, um, I can't saycreated, but he, he organized,
or had a council organized ofthe bishops of the Christian
(13:49):
church and this is what came tobe known as the Council of
Nicaea.
And at the Council of Nicaeathis is where they talked about
the teachings and false doctrineof Arius.
At the council they alsodenounced the teachings of Arius
(14:13):
and they came up with a summaryof beliefs about the person and
deity of Jesus Christ.
So when you read, if you go backand read the Nicene Creed, you
can kind of see the emphasis onthe deity of Christ in
(14:34):
relationship to God, the nicething tree it's.
It's a good summary ofchristian doctrine and it it
(15:06):
builds and expands on what wesee or what we have seen in the
Apostles Creed.
So if you, like I say at thetop of the episode, if you
haven't gone, haven't listenedto the episode on the Apostles
Creed, go back, go back andlisten to that.
I think the Nicene Creed itkind of gave a shape and
(15:30):
foundation for what Christiansbelieve and it has lasted over
the centuries.
It's given us a unifieddeclaration of our faith.
It affirms the Trinity, itaffirms the deity of Jesus
Christ and it emphasizes thepresence of the Holy Spirit.
(15:55):
So the Nicene Creed also kindof puts together like how we
think about, you know, theTrinity and how all of the all
God the Father, son and God theFather, jesus and the holy
spirit are all god yet are alsoone.
(16:17):
So you can see that the thisnice thing in creed came
together because of a dispute oftheological differences or not
differences, or heresy, mainlythe Arian heresy.
So it continues to be kind oflike a core statement of
(16:40):
Christian orthodoxy.
And the Nicene Creed is oftenrecited in churches, is studied
in theology in churches, isstudied in theology and it
reminds us of our shared beliefthat we hold as believers of
historic christianity withchristians around the around the
globe and for generations.
(17:01):
So hopefully this was helpfulfor you in learning about the
nicene Creed.
Hopefully at some point I willdo a episode on the Nicene
Council.
We can get some more contextfor that.
But thanks for tuning in tothis episode and remember God is
(17:22):
always good and is alwaysfaithful.
Thank you for listening to thepodcast.
Do me a favor by following thepodcast and leaving a review to
help spread the word.
I look forward to hearing fromyou.
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