Throughout 2025, Christians around the globe will have the opportunity to reflect on the significance of the ecumenical council that met in Nicaea (in present-day Turkey) in 325 and on the creed that bears its name. That council articulated a particular description of the relationship between Jesus and God, leaving an enduring mark on how a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith is proclaimed up to this very day.
On this 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed, ELCA members can learn, listen and, with Christians of nearly every denomination, discern the theological legacy of the Nicene Council and its significance for the future of the universal church.
Though many in the ELCA are familiar with the creed (insofar as it is recited in worship on certain festival days and during certain seasons), the anniversary invites us to reflect on an essential resource for interpreting the testimony of sacred Scripture regarding the person and work of Jesus Christ.
This process will likely be both familiar and formidable—familiar insofar as the general theology of the Nicene Creed is known and normative in Christian life, and formidable in that this ancient creed, formulated in a language and worldview not immediately relatable to our own, still has the power to divide Christians as much as it unites them.
Exploring the Nicene Creed in greater detail, we get to the heart of basic Christian teaching: Who was Jesus of Nazareth, and what does he mean for our life together?
Why a council?
A council (sometimes called a synod) is a gathering of leaders to discuss and decide a particular question or set of agenda items. By the late first century, Christians understood a bishop to be the chief pastor and primary (but not exclusive) teacher of Christian doctrine for a particular region. Early Christian bishops took their cue of gathering to discuss controversial issues from the apostles themselves (see the “Council of Jerusalem” described in Acts 15).
Most early Christian councils or synods were smaller, regional gatherings because the church was smaller in number and the sporadic, state-sponsored persecution of Christians made such gatherings difficult. Despite such persecution, Christianity continued to grow. One source estimates the Christian population of the Roman Empire at 6 million people in the year 300—about 10% of the population.
The political and social circumstances of Christianity changed dramatically in 313 with the Edict of Milan. Though not yet a Christian, Emperor Constantine ordered that Christianity be tolerated throughout the Roman Empire. This decree made Christianity one of the state-sponsored religions of the empire and recognized the clergy of the church (especially bishops) as public officials. This was a dramatic reversal of circumstances, but the peace among Christians was short-lived. Soon the heated theological debate over the relationship between Jesus and God began to bubble out into the public forum, causing social strife and pitting bishops against each other.
Amid this conflict, Constantine—faithful to his imperial duty as pontifex maximus, responsible for the religious life of his citizens—used his political authority to convene an ecumenical (universal) council in May-June 325. Because this was an ecumenical council, all the bishops within the empire were expected to participate. To host the council, the emperor chose the lakeside city of Nicaea, which was near the then-capital, Nicomedia, and centrally located within the empire.
The conflict that led to the Council of Nicaea was rooted in Christianity’s understanding of radical monotheism: there is only one God and only that God should be worshiped. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus of Nazareth is not only a prophet (who proclaims “thus says the Lord”) but someone who speaks and acts with unmediated power and authority for God (“Your sins are forgiven,” “You have heard it said, but I say to you,” “the Father and I are one,” etc.).
The writings of Paul speak of Jesus as a preexistent being who “emptie[s] himself” to become human (Philippians 2:7), and the prologue of the Gospel of John beautifully declares Jesus to be the Word of God (Logos in Greek), who “became flesh [incarnate] and lived among us” (1:14). Christians were united in the belief that Jesus is the “Incarnate Word” of God and therefore acts with divine authority, offering salvation to the whole cosmos through his life, death and resurrection.
The conflict that led to the Council of Nicaea was rooted in Christianity’s understanding of radical monotheism: there is only one God and only that God should be worshiped.
The question soon emerges: If Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, what is the relationship between the Word (Logos) and God? Should God’s Word be understood as a separate reality or as an attribute of God? Would prayers to Jesus violate the principle of monotheism? If not, how should we understand the unity of God and Jesus/the Word while properly articulating the distinction between them (so we don’t end up affirming that there are “two gods”)? How might the biblical language of “Father” and “Son” help illuminate the question?
Arius of Alexandria (256-336) offered a way of thinking to address these pressing questions. Arius was a priest and teacher who sought to preserve radical monotheism while also affirming the unique, divine authority of Jesus as the Incarnate Word. Few of Arius’ works survive, but we can outline his thought with some certainty.
Arius began (rightly so) by absolutely affirming that there is only one God. Naturally he turned to sacred Scripture for a guide to understand how Jesus, as the incarnate Logos, fits into God’s work of salvation. Guided by the principle that one passage of Scripture can help explain another, Arius used Proverbs 8:22 to interpret claims about the Logos in both Paul and John. In this passage, Wisdom (another understanding of the word Logos) is speaking and declares, “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.”
Arius focused on the word “created” as his interpretive key, establishing a framework for God’s relationship to the created world as mediated by the Logos. Arius argued that before anything else, there was God—single, simple and solitary. At some point, before time began and entirely according to God’s will, God radiated out a Logos. After that moment, there were two divine beings: one who was truly God and another who was divine but not equal to God. Though both beings share many attributes, only one is God in the truest sense: the one who is the Uncreated Creator.
The Logos, then, is not God. In fact, as a “creature” (one who has its origin from something else), the Logos by definition cannot be God. Arius again pointed to the New Testament witness—in which Jesus refers to God as “Abba/Father” and to himself as “the Son”—as proof of this ranking between the two beings. God “the Father” is God in the truest sense; the Logos as “the Son” is the most perfect, most powerful and most divine creature—but still a creature and not on the same level as God.
Therefore, the “Father was not always the Father.” Likewise, we can say that the Logos is like God—certainly more so than any other creature is—but not God. Yet, once God had created the Logos, God used the Logos to create every other creature (as we read in Genesis, where God “speaks”—the Word—and the beautiful diversity of creation is brought forth).
Arius asserted that he preserved the church’s proclamation of radical monotheism, clarifying in biblically faithful terms the similarity between the Logos and God the Father, and affirmed the divine authority by which Jesus preaches and acts as the Incarnate Word of God.
Not everyone, however, was convinced that Arius had truly captured the biblical testimony. Among his critics were his own bishop, Alexander, and Alexander’s secretary, a deacon named Athanasius (around 296-373) who would succeed him as bishop in 326.
There are many nuances of perspective and vocabulary here that can only be summarized. The crux of the argument was Arius’ insistence that the Logos be understood as a creature, but his opponents argued that this understanding was incompatible with the claim that Jesus is Lord and Savior. The fundamental proclamation of the Christian faith is that Jesus, the Incarnate Logos, brings radical transformation and salvation from sin and death in this world and the next. Therefore, such change can be done only by God—we might say, the true God or God in the fullest sense—and not by a mere delegate, no matter how powerfully “like” God that creature may be. To hold fast to the gospel, one must say that the Logos who became truly human (Jesus of Nazareth) was fundamentally, and acted with the same power and essence as, God the Father.
The question soon emerges: If Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, what is the relationship between the Word (Logos) and God?
Athanasius both reflects on and reinforces the fundamental Christian claim: that in the incarnation, God has “divinized” (theosis or sanctified) the world, restoring the original blessing at creation—of union with God, self, others and creation—that was lost in the fall from grace. As Lutherans affirm, “Salvation is God’s work, not ours,” nor is it the work of any other being who is not God. Thus, though Arius may have solved one problem (how to speak of Jesus’ divinity while preserving the idea of monotheism), he could do so only by calling into question the fundamental proclamation of the gospel: that in Jesus of Nazareth, the true God was with us.
The question before the Nicene Council was: What summary statement could capture the heart of God’s work of salvation?
In summer 325, Emperor Constantine welcomed 250 to 300 bishops (and about a thousand other clergy, theologians and staff) to the imperial palace. As a sign of respect, he refused to take his seat in the assembly until they all had taken theirs.
Constantine is reported to have followed the conversations with interest, although without a particular outcome in mind. His main concern was simply that there be some decision that he could then enforce. A bishop chaired most of the council’s day-to-day proceedings.
Arius was present, and the bishops who supported him argued that the church should affirm that Jesus/the Incarnate Word is like or similar (Greek: homoi) to God the Father in essence (ousia). The phrase that identified their beliefs was homoiousios (“of like being”). Alexander, Athanasius and their allies insisted that the church should affirm that Jesus/the Incarnate Word is of the same (homo) essence as God the Father. The phrase that identified their belief was homoousios. Some bishops were dissatisfied with either option.
Conversations about words and their meaning ensure a shared understanding of important matters and are vital to our life together. But as many of us have experienced, such conversations can also exhaust and frustrate us.
The Nicene Creed
After three months, the bishops drafted a creed, a short summary of an essential matter of faith. Those arguing that God and the Logos share the same essence prevailed. The Nicene Creed begins with general affirmation of God the Father: “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” This, of course, is not all that could be said about God, but the nature of God (the Father) was not in question! So the bishops established a few basic statements before turning to the controversy at hand.
The heart of the Nicene Creed lies in its second paragraph, about Jesus the Incarnate Word. Several statements there contradict Arius’ position. We can divide this second part of the creed into two sections: the first concerns the relationship of the Logos to God, and the second (beginning with “For us and for our salvation …”) concerns the relationship of the Incarnate Word to humanity. Both sections inform the other to affirm a unified narrative.
Given our narrow focus here, let us examine the first section only: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.” With these words, the creed affirms the unique status of Jesus and the biblical titles used to describe him (Lord, Christ and Son).
Then, two different times, the creed directly contradicts Arius’ claim that the Logos is a creature: “eternally begotten of the Father” and “begotten not made.” Here the bishops made a subtle but important distinction between “begotten” and “made.” By using “begotten,” they acknowledged that the Logos/Son has its origin in or from the Father—as all things do. Yet, the difference from our normal experience is a matter of kind and not merely of degree. Whereas “Father” and “Son” in the created realm speak to a particular order in the created realm (fathers are naturally prior to sons), we should understand “Father” and “Son” to mean not a claim of prior existence but a kind of relationship (for example, a unity of love, understanding and will). That is why they emphasize “eternally begotten.”
In Jesus, we see a true human who was also true God, working within and for the benefit of creation. What a glorious mystery! What profound good news!
Contradicting Arius’ claim that “the Father wasn’t always Father,” the creed says that God has never been without Logos—though Father and Son are distinct, they are one in being. Likewise, by emphatically declaring that the Word was “not made,” council participants avoided the implication that the Logos is a separate being, fashioned into existence as a carpenter might craft a chair from a log.
Finally, the theology of the creed culminates in the clear phrase “of one (the same) Being with the Father” (that is, homoousios). Then a series of affirmations follow to clarify both the distinction between Father and Son and their singular shared essence: “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.” So understood, we are better equipped to understand the work of Jesus—the Incarnate Word—who, “for us and for our salvation,” was born, “became truly human … was crucified … suffered death and was buried … rose again … ascended … and will come again in glory.”
In Jesus, we see a true human who was also true God, working within and for the benefit of creation. What a glorious mystery! What profound good news!
Legacy of the Nicene Creed
As we consider the content of the creed, it’s also important to ponder its legacy as we discern its place in the church’s life and mission, today and into the future. There are some criticisms of the Nicene Creed, or at least aspects of its creation and reception, that are rightly cause for consideration today.
First, many may be surprised to learn that the Nicene Creed was a “work in progress.” Athanasius and others who opposed Arius didn’t explain how the divine Logos and the human Jesus interact. That would be the earnest work of later theologians, namely the councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451).
Also, the original version of the creed (from 325) had very little to say about the Spirit. Aside from one reference to the incarnation of Logos, the Nicene Creed ends with the simple statement “We believe in the Holy Spirit.”
Fifty-six years later, the Council of Constantinople (381) would both affirm the Creed of Nicaea and expand its third section. Thus, properly speaking, Christians today are reciting the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.
A subsequent issue related to the Spirit and later use of the creed—and one that caused problems between Orthodox Christians on one side and Roman Catholics and Protestants on the other—is the filioque (a Latin word meaning “and the Son”). The original version of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed stated that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father.” In subsequent centuries, the Latin-speaking churches of the Middle Ages added the phrase “and the Son” to combat a renewal of Arian ideas.
Roman Catholics and Protestants need to be aware that, by including the phrase “and the Son,” they are reciting a revised creed that Orthodox Christians see as an unwarranted and unauthorized edit. The Lutheran World Federation has been in dialogue with Orthodox Christians and issued a joint statement that gestures toward a positive resolution to the concern.
Additionally, some note that the creed declares things about Jesus but offers nothing about the teachings that come from Jesus. It’s all about the “head” (doctrine), not the “heart” (loving our neighbors). Likewise, some object to the use of philosophical language (for example, homoousios) that is not from Scripture. Though accurate, such criticisms misunderstand the purpose of a creed. It’s not meant to replace one’s engagement with Scripture. Instead, a creed guides our reading of Scripture, pointing us to the true identity of Jesus Christ and, thus, the authority of his teaching and example.
If we understand that God is speaking among us in Jesus—no mere prophet or representative—then God’s works of love, radical fellowship and forgiveness both proclaim and create new realities. Scripture and the creed exist in relation to each other. The authority of the Nicene Creed is secondary to Scripture, but as a concise summary of the person and work of Christ Jesus revealed in Scripture, it is also normative for Lutherans.
Reformers Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon were emphatic that a council cannot create new doctrines. At the same time, some councils (like Nicaea) are authoritative because they faithfully articulate the content of Scripture. They develop a “theological grammar” that guides the church’s preaching, teaching and sacramental practices. If Jesus is not of one being with the Father, then there is no gospel, no doctrine of justification by grace through faith, no good news to tell. That is why the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed was retained in Lutheran liturgical reforms, is affirmed throughout the Book of Concord, is enshrined in the ELCA’s constitution and is part of its ordination vows.
All the same, these doctrines are not meant to just be parroted but always to be interpreted and contextualized so that the ancient faith might speak to each new generation and circumstance.
This brings us to one final concern (in this nonexhaustive list): the close connection between imperial power and the institution of the church at the Council of Nicaea and in the era of Christendom that followed. The council was also a political entity, called and funded by an emperor and enforced by imperial decree (any bishop who opposed it was exiled). The “Constantinian Church” ended the persecutions, but it also established both the church’s bondage to political whim and the expectation that the state should enforce religious doctrine. For some radical reformers in the 16th century, the “true” church was lost in 313. Anything associated with this new, corrupted, imperial church (with its imposed doctrines and required structures of authority) must be either abandoned or held highly suspect.
Luther and Melanchthon parted ways from the radical reformers over the visible nature of the church and the enduring value of its core doctrines. Both men invoked secular authority to repress their opponents. While upholding their theological convictions, later Lutherans repudiated and repented of their historic political suppression of the radical Protestant movement. Moreover, the creeds were carried by missionaries of colonizing powers to other countries. While many people accepted the Christian faith, the liturgy and doctrines of the church were often imposed on them. They were required to conform rather than to offer their own language, images and means of discussing the essence of Christian faith.
In the desire to broaden the table of discussion and acknowledge the diversity of perspectives that can enrich the Christian tradition, we hear calls to “decolonize” Christianity. Surely, this effort is an acknowledgment of past sins and an expression of trust in the Spirit to lead and guide the church. As some global voices have pointed out, the seeds for such decolonization can be found in the Nicene Creed itself. Calling Jesus “Lord” is a rejection of any political or economic system that demands uncritical obedience. Affirming that the Spirit continues to guide the “one holy catholic and apostolic church” roots Christianity in the needs and realities of this world, speaking truth to power and universal reconciliation according to the example of Jesus, the Word of God.
In conclusion
We commemorate the Nicene Creed and its legacy not to resolve a divine mystery so much as to preserve one. The creed documents Christianity’s desire to honor the truth of a God who is beyond our comprehension and who speaks in time and space to reveal the truth of divine love and redemption through Jesus (that is, in word and sacrament).
A creed marks the boundaries of what can be proclaimed with confidence while humbly acknowledging the limits of human capacity. Scripture and faithful creeds affirm that God’s word is not without content or consequences. Given the profound challenges facing the global church generally and the ELCA’s particular discernment of ongoing faithfulness through our Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church, we should view the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed as a joyous grace and a providential invitation. Come, Holy Spirit!
For more information
- “The Three Symbols or Creeds of the Christian Faith” (1538) by Martin Luther (Luther’s Works Vol. 34). Despite the title, Luther offers an explanation of four creedal statements that authentically explain the essence of Scripture: the Apostles, the Nicene and Athanasian creeds, and the early Christian hymn the “Te Deum.”
- “On the Councils and the Church” (1539) by Luther (Luther’s Works Vol. 41 and The Annotated Luther Vol. 4—especially “Part II,” where Luther discusses the theological conflict). Regarding the theological content of the Nicene Creed, Luther writes that the council “did not invent this doctrine … that Christ is God; rather it was done by the Holy Spirit, who came openly from heaven to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost.” Luther contrasts the faith of the early ecumenical councils with the self-importance of later councils.
- “We All Believe in One True God” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship 411) is a vernacular paraphrase of the Nicene Creed. The hymn was written by Luther.
- The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters by Luke Timothy Johnson (Image, 2003) is a readable theological reflection on the Nicene Creed for a general audience.
- Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine by Khaled Anatolios (Baker Academic, 2011) is a more detailed study of the creed.
- “The Status of the Nicene Creed as Dogma of the Church (I),” Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue I-III (Augsburg Publishing House, 1965). The first official bilateral dialogue between Lutherans and Roman Catholics in the United States used the Nicene Creed as the basis for outlining basic consensus.
- “Lutheran-Orthodox Common Statement on the Filioque” (July 2024), Lutheran World Federation (search for “filioque” at here).
- World Council of Churches resources for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (2025) highlight the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed.
- “Healing Memories: Implications of the Reconciliation Between Lutherans and Mennonites” (Lutheran World Federation, 2010) reflects on the Lutheran misuse of political power against radical reformers, especially Mennonites/Anabaptists (search for “healing memories implications reconciliation” here).
