4 Patterns of Biblical Argument in the Nicene Creed

How the Nicene Creed concludes centuries of biblical reflection on God and Christ

I live in a neighborhood with Muslims and Hindus. So my evangelistic setting requires me to affirm the triunity of God against Muslims and the oneness of God against Hindus. Even thirty years ago, my evangelism could assume that everyone I talked to rejected the God of the Bible and the Christ of Scripture.

We often focused on showing how the Bible is true, how people sinned, and pointed them to believe in Christ. And that is because most North Americans had Christianity as the default religion. They rejected God and Christ, but Christianity was the religion they knew.

That is no longer true in North America. Even when someone comes from a family that was historically Christian, the internet has opened up a world of religious options to people. Christianity is simply one competing faith in the world.

This is the kind of religious setting that led to the Nicene Creed in 325 and its update in 381 at Constantinople. Christians needed to define their worship of God and Christ in a world where polytheism and religions were everywhere. They needed a way to clarify Christianity and protect Christians from adopting pagan views of God by osmosis. They needed a rule or canon of faith.

That rule was created in the 100s as the Rule of Faith, placed in churches as baptismal creeds in the 200s, and finally universally put into a universal Creed at the Council of Nicaea in 325 and in a slightly updated form in 381 at the Council of Constantinople.

Because we are living in a world much like the church fathers, I believe the Symbol of the Nicene Creed, as a symbol for our faith, matters today more than it has at any other time in the last one hundred years.

So briefly, I want to articulate four patterns of Scriptural argument from the creed:

Father and Son Share Divine Creative Power: The Biblical Basis for the Son's Divinity

Genesis 1 tells us who God is and who creatures are. God made everything. What is not made is God. And passages like Hebrews 1:2, Colossians 1:16, and 1 Corinthians 8:4–6 place the Son on the side of the Creator with the Father. And since the God who created is the God who is, as Deuteronomy 6:4, the Lord our God who is one God, that places the Son and Father in the same definition of the one God of Israel.

John 1 makes this clear as the Christian Creation account:

"1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men."

This Word was with God in the beginning. So he has no beginning. He is not made. He was with God the Father, but distinguishable from God the Father as his Word. And he was God, meaning that he is one with God. And it is this Word that is the Creator of heaven and earth. When God said, "Let there be light" and it came into being in Genesis 1, God the Father created by his Eternal Word.

This is why the Creed says: “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, ... by whom all things were made.”

It follows the exact wording of passages like Hebrews 1:2, Colossians 1:16, and 1 Corinthians 8:4–6, and John 1 to show that: The Father and Son are the one God of Israel, the Creator of heaven and earth.

Distinguished Yet One: How Scripture Reveals the Father and Son's Divine Relationship

If Father and Son are the one Creator God, not made, but the Maker, how can we be sure they are in fact Father and Son and not just two theophanies of God? The Church Fathers argued primarily for two reasons in Scripture.

First, the name Father and Son reveals a distinction between Father and Son. A Son is from a Father, and a Father begets a Son. This is true naturally among us. We have sons as fathers, and they are begotten of us, and we beget them. You can see this language in Genesis 5, for example; or in John's Gospel of the Son and Father. But it's primarily the relationship that the names Father and Son require. It's necessarily implied in their names that they are distinguishable.

Second, the Bible almost always distinguishes the work of Father and Son by the use of prepositions. The church fathers recognized through a careful analysis of the biblical text that God the Father and Son inseparably create the world — from the Father and through the Son.

Consider 1 Corinthians 8:6: "for us there is one God, the Father, FROM whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and THROUGH whom we exist."

The fathers knew this, and so they used John 1:3 to explain how the Son is the creator in the line: "by whom all things were made." The biblical details of Nicaea and arguments are based on careful and close readings of even the prepositions in holy Scripture. And they give us insight into how we can show that God is the One Lord God and yet Father and Son.

Consubstantial: Understanding the Biblical Foundation of the Son's Divine Nature

The word consubstantial appears in the Creed precisely as a summary of a long set of biblical arguments for how the Son relates to the Father as the one God of Israel. The Creed as a Symbol symbolizes a long list of arguments from the Bible.

You can see a lot of them summarized in the Creed: “and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made.”

Notice the phrase One Lord Jesus Christ, which comes directly from 1 Corinthians 8:6. Notice the word begotten (begotten, not made), which shows Father and Son have a natural relationship, which comes from Genesis and John's Gospel but also implied in the names themselves. Notice the phrase not made to show that the Son is Creator—as noted in the Scripture cited above. Notice that he is true God from true God, not just God from True God—because he is not the first product of the Father, as Arius said.

All of these biblical arguments aimed to convey that the Father and Son are ONE naturally as Father and Son. But Arius could affirm most of this and say that Father and Son are ONE in will because the Son was MADE of the Father.

So they added the word consubstantial, which means “of one nature,” to clarify how the Son's relation of being begotten from the Father meant that the Father and Son are included in the definition of the one God of Israel. Notice the order in the Creed: “begotten from the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.”

Because the Son is eternally begotten of the Father before all time, he can be true God from God, begotten not made, and thus of one nature with the Father. The relation of Father and Son, one of eternal generation, meant to early Christians that Father and Son are both naturally the one God of Israel.

The word consubstantial has no other meaning than being a placeholder for these biblical arguments. It is a symbol of meaning, but the meaning is found in Scripture.

The Shema Fulfilled: How 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 Reveals the Divine Identity of Father and Son

Speaking of Scripture, it is important to realize that the Creed aims to be a Symbol of the faith given by the apostles and found in Holy Scripture. And the language here is very important. Consider the two credos in Father and Son:

“We believe, …

in one God ... and in one Lord Jesus Christ.”

While these phrases represent the whole Bible's teaching, they particularly point to 1 Corinthians 8:4–6 and Deuteronomy 6:4.

Deuteronomy 6:4 says: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Paul draws on this passage but he identifies the one Lord our God as the one Lord Jesus Christ and one God our Father in 1 Corinthians 8:4–6:

“we know that 'an idol has no real existence,' and that 'there is no God but one.' For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many 'gods' and many 'lords'— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”

Notice one God, the Father and one Lord, Jesus Christ. The Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4 remains true, but we find that in the definition of the one God of Israel, we include God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who are the one Lord, our God.

Notice that creation is from the Father and through Jesus Christ as well, placing both on the side of the Creator yet distinguishing them.

Other passages like Ephesians 4:4–6 also follow this pattern of naming the one God of Israel, the One Lord our God:

“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—

one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

Once again, the Lord Jesus Christ is one Lord while God the Father is the one God in order to include both Father and Son in the definition of the one Lord our God, the God of Israel, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.

The Trinity is thus a biblical doctrine through and through, and the Creed at Nicaea aims to represent symbolically the apostolic arguments as found in Holy Scripture.

So What?

We need to know how the Bible affirms the oneness of God, and the triunity of Father, Son, and Spirit. I have shown you some of the patterns of arguments the early church used to both affirm that the Father and Son are the one God of Israel, and yet are distinguishable. In a future article, I will talk about how the Holy Spirit fits in.

But tomorrow's apologetics will focus on God and Christ. We must have an answer for the hope of the Gospel that is in us. For only if the eternal Word from the Father became flesh could he destroy sin, abolish death, and crush the head of the serpent. Only the Eternal Son of the Father could save us. So we can preach the Good News that:

For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven; by the Holy Spirit he was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried; on the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.