The Nicene Creed E-Book

Kevin DeYoung

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Foundational Tools for Our Faith
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 108

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Bestselling Author Kevin DeYoung Explores the History, Meaning, and Importance of the Nicene Creed The Nicene Creed is a fundamental text that Christians have memorized and recited in church services and personal prayers for centuries. Despite its deep roots, many believers today recite the creed as a routine, often without fully understanding its meaning and significance. Part of the Foundational Tools for Our Faith series, this book delves into the origins, theological meaning, and modern relevance of the Nicene Creed. Each chapter provides insightful analysis of key terms and phrases within the creed. By examining the truths the creed affirms and the errors it opposes, bestselling author Kevin DeYoung aims to help readers recite this essential statement of faith with understanding and clarity.  - Comprehensive: Explores the historical, theological, and devotional significance of the Nicene Creed - In-Depth Analysis: Each of this book's 7 chapters examines a specific term or phrase in the Nicene Creed - Accessible Resource for Many: A great guide for laypeople and students as well as for pastors, church leaders, and ministry leaders - Part of the Foundational Tools for Our Faith Series: A trilogy by Kevin DeYoung dedicated to exploring 3 important historical texts in the Christian faith

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“Like the Nicene Creed itself, Kevin DeYoung has given us important truths in a short space. Historically informed, theologically informative, and biblically sensitive, this little book will help you understand why the Nicene Creed may be the most important words ever written outside of the words of the Bible.”

Mark Dever, Pastor, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, DC

“Kevin DeYoung’s introduction to the Nicene Creed really puts the creed into our hands as something every believer can make intelligent use of—truly a foundational tool for our faith. At just the right length and in just the right tone, this is just the right introduction to the creed.”

Fred Sanders, Professor of Theology, Torrey Honors College, Biola University

“All Christians need creeds, and the Nicene Creed is for all Christians. Well-informed, persuasive, and clear without being simplistic, this book sketches what we believe and why it’s important. It will benefit a wide range of readers.”

Brandon D. Crowe, Professor of New Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia

The Nicene Creed

Foundational Tools for Our Faith

By Kevin DeYoung

The Lord’s Prayer: Learning from Jesus on What, Why, and How to Pray

The Nicene Creed: What You Need to Know about the Most Important Creed Ever Written

The Ten Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them

The Nicene Creed

What You Need to Know about the Most Important Creed Ever Written

Kevin DeYoung

Foundational Tools for Our Faith series

The Nicene Creed: What You Need to Know about the Most Important Creed Ever Written

© 2025 by Kevin DeYoung

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

This book is an expansion of a series of sermons on the Nicene Creed preached by Kevin DeYoung and subsequently published on Clearly Reformed, https://clearlyreformed.org/: “The Nicene Creed: We Believe,” December 10, 2023; “The Nicene Creed: The Only-Begotten Son of God,” December 17, 2023; “The Nicene Creed: ‘For Us’ and Filioque,” January 21, 2024; and “The Nicene Creed: One Church and One Baptism,” January 28, 2024. Used by permission.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates, Inc.

Cover design and illustration: Jordan Singer

First printing 2025

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-5975-4 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-5978-5 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-5976-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: DeYoung, Kevin, author. 

Title: The Nicene Creed: what you need to know about the most important creed ever written / Kevin DeYoung. 

Description: Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, [2025] | Series: Foundational tools for our faith | Includes bibliographical references and index. 

Identifiers: LCCN 2024029693 (print) | LCCN 2024029694 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433559754 (paperback) | ISBN 9781433559761 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433559785 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Nicene Creed. | Creeds—History and criticism. 

Classification: LCC BT999 .D49 2025 (print) | LCC BT999 (ebook) | DDC 238/.142—dc23/eng/20240926

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024029693

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024029694

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2025-01-29 03:46:18 PM

Contents

  Preface

  Note on the Creed

  Introduction: From Nicaea to the Nicene Creed

1  We Believe

2  Only Begotten

3  One Substance

4  For Us and for Our Salvation

5  Who Proceeds from the Father and the Son

6  One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church

7  One Baptism for the Remission of Sins

  General Index

  Scripture Index

Preface

After the Bible, the Nicene Creed may be the most important Christian text ever written. Since the fourth century, the Nicene Creed has served as the most influential, most ecumenical, and arguably most widely used statement of faith in the history of the church. True, the Apostles’ Creed is probably more familiar to many Christians today, and that doctrinal “symbol” (the more formal theological name for a creed) is also ancient and immeasurably important. But the Nicene Creed, unlike the Apostles’ Creed, was officially adopted at an ecumenical council and declared to be binding on the whole church. The Nicene Creed also differs from the Apostles’ in that we know where it came from, when it originated, and why it was written. The two creeds share a similar structure and use some of the same language, but undoubtedly the Nicene Creed is more theologically precise and more doctrinally robust. The Nicene Creed doesn’t merely merit the label “orthodox”; it summarizes and defines orthodoxy itself.

Without exaggeration it can be said that every church and every Christian ought to know the Nicene Creed. As we come to the seventeen-hundred-year anniversary of the Council of Nicaea—the ecumenical council that met in AD 325 and from which the theology of the Nicene Creed originated—now is an opportune time to learn (or relearn) where the Nicene Creed came from, what it means, and why it still matters. Whether you grew up reciting the Nicene Creed, are vaguely familiar with the Nicene Creed but don’t really understand it, or have never heard of the thing before, you would do well to spend some time traveling to Nicaea.

There are several ways to teach through the Nicene Creed. Go back to that sentence in the middle of the last paragraph: “now is an opportune time to learn (or relearn) where the Nicene Creed came from, what it means, and why it still matters.” We can think of these phrases as representing three approaches: historical (where the creed came from), theological (what it means), and devotional (why it still matters). I want to look at the creed from all three angles. We will start with some history, but then I mainly want to explain what the Nicene Creed is all about—what errors it was trying to oppose and what truths it meant to affirm. Along the way, I’ll pull in some application for the church today.

The outline for this book is simple. The introduction will look at the historical background to the Council of Nicaea and to the Nicene Creed (which was not actually written at the council that met at Nicaea). Following this historical survey, there will be seven chapters, each one examining a specific term or phrase in the Nicene Creed.

Chapter 1  We believe

Chapter 2  Only begotten1 (monogenēs)

Chapter 3  One substance (homoousios2)

Chapter 4  For us and for our salvation

Chapter 5  Who proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque)

Chapter 6  One holy catholic and apostolic church

Chapter 7  One baptism for the remission of sins

I hope to touch on the entire Nicene Creed, but I’ll focus on these seven phrases. That’s where we are headed. But first, some history.

1  For consistency, I have presented this term without hyphenation throughout the book, including in quotations where it originally appeared with a hyphen.

2  I will use the nominative form homoousios throughout the book in order to avoid confusion for English readers.

Note on the Creed

What we know as the Nicene Creed actually comes from the second ecumenical council, which met at Constantinople in AD 381. This Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (as it is sometimes called) expands on the earlier Creed of Nicaea (325) by including a much longer statement on the Holy Spirit, as well as new wording about the Virgin Mary, the crucifixion, baptism, the church, the resurrection of the dead, and the life everlasting. As arguably the most important doctrinal statement in the history of the church, the Nicene Creed is recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, and every branch of Protestant Christianity. In 589, at the Council of Toledo, the Western church added the words “and the Son”—filioque in Latin—in describing the Spirit’s procession from the Father. This addition is reflected in the translation below. The English text is taken from the Trinity Hymnal, revised edition (Great Commission Publications, 1990).

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth,

of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God,

begotten of his 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 and for our salvation

came down from heaven,

and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary,

and was made man;

and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered and was buried;

and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures,

and ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father;

and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead;

whose kingdom shall have no end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son;

who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified;

who spoke by the prophets;

and we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church;

we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;

and we look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Introduction

From Nicaea to the Nicene Creed

By the beginning of the fourth century, the church was still trying to discern how best to articulate the doctrine of the Trinity and define the person of Christ. The church knew that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit were profoundly the same, but the church also grasped that in some important ways they were distinct. Likewise, Christians understood that the Son of God was to be worshiped. The followers of Jesus had done that from the very beginning. At the same time, Jesus had been born, lived, and died as a real Jewish man. It took many years to come up with the right language to express these realities in a way that made biblical, theological, and philosophical sense. The church didn’t invent the truth about Christ, but the church needed time and careful biblical reflection both to speak the truth and to safeguard it from error. That’s what the Spirit uses to guide the church: the Bible, time, and people using their heads very carefully.

And controversy.

That’s the other thing the Spirit usually employs to help the church articulate sound doctrine. Sometimes there must be arguments and factions in order for the truth to be more fully known and articulated (1 Cor. 11:19). This was certainly the case with the Nicene Creed.

A Theological Plague from Egypt

The controversy erupted in Alexandria, Egypt, in AD 318, when a presbyter named Arius (ca. 250–336) started airing his theological opinions more publicly. Arius was confident and impressive in speech, a well-educated man who took the Scriptures seriously. As best as we can tell, he was sincere in his convictions; he was also concerned that Christians should follow the example of Christ in their daily lives.

The problem was that Arius didn’t believe Christ was truly God, or at least not God in the same way that the Father was God. The issue in Arius’s mind was not how a man could be God but how God could become a man. Arius wanted to protect monotheism and the unity of God. He saw himself as defending the majesty and sovereignty of God the Father. If Jesus was God just like the Father, he reasoned, and if Jesus suffered, died, and endured limitations, then aren’t we saying God is weak, God can suffer, God can die, and God can be changed? That hardly seems like God, Arius thought.

Behind these objections were particular Greek philosophical assumptions. The