10th June 2025

2025 is the 1700^th anniversary of the Nicene Creed and was marked in May by special services in London and Jerusalem. Brendon Metcalfe, from Friends of the Holy Land, said of the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD: ‘It was the first time the Christian Church came together and determined a statement of faith. The Nicene Creed unites us.’ ¹

Early in the 4^th century, the church was struggling with the question of how best to talk about the Father God, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and how they related to one another. What are the right words to use? How do we balance the seemingly conflicting truths that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God, yet there is only one God? How does this all work? 

Arius, a pastor from Alexandria, Egypt, thought it didn’t work. Out of the right desire to protect the holiness of God the Father, he argued that God could not have become an unholy human, therefore, Christ is not God incarnate, and so Arius demoted Jesus Christ to a created being. Meanwhile, a pastor in training, Athanasius, was teaching that God the Father and Christ the Son were equally divine, and a row erupted with church members quickly choosing sides.

In a quest to address and resolve Arius’s heresy – known as Arianism – that challenged the divinity of Jesus, more than a thousand Christian leaders came to Nicaea for a meeting that lasted from May to July of 325 AD. The most significant outcome of the meeting was the formulation of a new statement regarding the divinity of Christ, which became known as the Nicene Creed. In 381 AD, at the First Council of Constantinople, the creed was expanded to include additional clarification around the Holy Spirit, finishing the work begun at the Council of Nicaea. The result of these two councils (with some later editing) is known as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, often referred to as the Nicene Creed. Here is the text 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 men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. 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. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He 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. ²

The basic truths affirmed in this creed are held in common by Christians around the globe. It’s able to do what Arius wouldn’t: affirm the divinity of Christ. Christ is ‘of the same substance’ as the Father, and coeternal with him. The Nicene Creed also affirms the profound mystery of the three-in-oneness of the Trinity – three persons, yet one essence. These theological truths, which we will explore in the coming weeks, are foundational to our Christian faith.

¹London and Jerusalem join together for service to mark 1700 years since First Council of Nicaea
²1975 ecumenical version agreed upon by the International Consultation on English Texts the+nicene+creed.pdf

Local congregation:
Grace Communion West Hampstead 
Sidings Community Centre
150 Brassey Road
West Hampstead
London
NW6 2BA

Meeting time:
Sunday 12.30 pm

Local congregational contact:
Gordon Brown
gordon.brown@gracecom.church

Word of Life contact:  
wordoflife@gracecom.church