(Nicene Creed Sermons 1 of 5)
We begin today a series of five sermons on the Nicene Creed and this sermon serves by way of introduction. You may find it helpful to have the order of service open at the Creed.
Nicene means ‘from Nicea’ which was a city in what is now Turkey. The modern name is Iznik. A Council of Bishops was held there in AD 325, 1700 years ago. In fact, what we generally know as the Nicene Creed is not the original version agreed at that Council. It was expanded at another council at Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) in 381. Its technical title is the Niceno-Constanipolitan Creed, but that’s impossibly unwieldy so most people stick with ‘the Nicene Creed’. The other ancient creed is the Apostles’ Creed.
The Nicene Creed started to be used in eucharistic worship in the 5th century and this usuage gradually spread through both the Eastern and Western Churches. Like the apostles’ Creed it is a creed from the time of the undivided Church and so is ecumenically important. It is what the whole Church, the Catholic Church believes. ‘Catholic’ here means universal or worldwide. Sadly, there is one small but significant difference of wording which the Western Church introduced into the Creed that is controversial. Apart from that, when we say this creed we stand together in faith with the whole Christian Church. As the Lord Jesus prayed, ‘May they all be one’.
There is an integral connection between the Bible and the Creed. A very helpful phrase I came across some years ago is, ‘What the Bible says at length, the Creed says briefly’. Let’s look at that.
‘We believe in one God’ the Creed starts out. The Bible starts in Genesis 1 with ‘In the beginning God …’ and goes on ‘created the heavens and the earth’. So with our Creed. The Creed starts where the Bible starts. So too with the end: ‘we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.’ The Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, has in its final chapter the vision of the heavenly city descended into the midst of creation and ‘… his servants will worship him; they will see his face … the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign for ever and ever’ (Revelation 22.3).
What about everything between the beginning and the end? In the Creed we jump over the story of Israel, God’s ancient people, to the coming of Jesus Christ. This is the longish central part of the Nicene Creed. It’s the longest bit because it reflects the major debating point of the Council of Nicea. Was Jesus truly divine? Was Jesus Christ truly God?
In terms of the Bible we are now deep into the New Testament. Jesus comes for ‘our salvation’. ‘His name is Jesus for he will save the people from their sins’ the angel says to Joseph in Matthew chapter 1. Then, in the Creed we have the history of Jesus in brief – very brief! – incarnate, suffered under Pontius Pilate, died, rose again, ascended and will come again. Then the final section on the Holy Spirit, the Church and the Christian hope: the life everlasting.
What the Bible says at length the Creed says briefly. The Bible is a one great story: it has a plot line with a beginning, a middle and an end. It is God’s story from the creation of all that is, through to the great saving act, the coming of Jesus, and then leading finally to the restoration of all things. As the Letter to the Ephesians puts it: ‘a plan for the fulness of time, to gather up all things in him [Jesus] things in heaven and things on earth’ (Ephesians 1.10).
This Creed is not a mere list of things to be believed, it is a drama, a vision. When we confess (and I do think that is the right word for what we do with the Creed in worship) – when we confess the Church’s faith in the words of the Creed, we are expressing what we and the whole one Church of God believes. We are entering into a great drama that has begun in God and will end in God. The drama, the vision, the plan, is self-involving. The God witnessed to by the Creed is personal (Father, Son and Spirit) and active (makes, begets, comes down, suffers, dies, saves, ascends, comes again. gives life, speaks, forgives, raises from the dead). This self-involving drama involves not just us – which it certainly does – but it involves all people, indeed, all things in heaven and on earth. It is God’s plan for the world; it is the Christian vision for the whole world. That’s presumably why in some churches the Creed is sung. Christian faith and vision is worth singing.
As I said near the start, this Creed entered into Christian worship in the 5th century, and so it has remained in many parts of the Church. Worship at its heart is praise and thanksgiving offered by us created beings to God for all that God is, does and will do. The Creed naturally finds its place in the action that is worship.
The Old Testament is full of the mighty deeds of God, his wonders and saving acts. Again and again the Psalms take delight in this, ‘O sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth, sing to the Lord, and bless his name, tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvellous works among all the peoples’ (Psalm 96.1-3). This is why we read, listen and inwardly digest the scriptures every time we meet. So what better way is there to worship with and though Scripture than by confessing the Creed. In doing so, in the briefest of confines, we enter into the praise of God for who God truly is, what he has done, continues to do and will do for ‘all the peoples’.
God’s great plan, told in the story of both Bible and Creed, is self-involving. We are drawn in personally. It tells us who we are: a created, life given, saved, people – each of us, and each of us altogether. We are as the Creed tells: ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’. This is a vision entrusted to the Church to be lived out by the Church for the sake of all humanity. God’s plan is for the whole world not just those who are privileged to have entered into the ‘one baptism for the forgiveness of sins’.
The Church has a trusting hope, securely based on who God is and what God has done, for the future of the world and the future for each and every soul: resurrection from the dead and the life of the world to come. We have this faith and hope, and are these people, for the world not just for ourselves. That is what it means to be the Church built on the one foundation of Jesus Christ.
Every time deacons or priests are ordained, or appointed to a new post, they are asked by the Archdeacon if they own the faith of the Church. It begins with these words: ‘The Church of Englnd is part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Curch, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and set forth in the catholic creeds… ‘ The faith ‘set forth in the catholic creeds’. The priest affirms this faith in the presence of the Church. They say ‘Yes’ to it, an ‘Amen’ if you like. And that is the last word of the Creed: ‘Amen’. It’s our ‘yes’ made in response to God’s great ‘Yes’, God’s irrevocable affirmation of all that is and all that is to come.
Service: Canon Bill Croft 29th June 2025. (St John The Baptist Church Peterborough UK)
Reading: The Nicene Creed