The Biblical Basis of the Nicene Creed’s Credo on the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit as Lord and Giver of Life
The Nicene Creed can sometimes feel like a strange document with little relevance today. Novels like Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code portray it as emerging from some secret event full of political intrigue. And when we read it now, we might scratch our heads at some of its peculiar language.
What does it mean that the Son is consubstantial with the Father? What does it mean to believe in one, holy, and catholic church? And much more besides.
In this article, I want to give you a big picture overview of the Creed and focus on one specific article of its confession—the confession of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because most of us have only a fuzzy grasp of the Holy Spirit and what Scripture says about him. I want you to, as the Creed says, "adore and glorify the Spirit with the Father and Son."
We believe...
... in the Holy Spirit, who is Lord and who gives life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified; who has spoken through the prophets;
in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church. We confess one baptism for the remission of sins. We await the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.
What is the Nicene Creed?
The Nicene Creed is called the Symbol of Faith because it symbolizes what Christians everywhere taught about the Father, Son, Spirit, and the Church. The articles of the Creed about God, Christ, the Spirit, and the Church already appeared in the 100s as something called the Canon of Truth or Rule of Faith. These became creeds that Christians confessed in the 200s during baptism. The Nicene Creed in 325 AD was a way to formally agree in a universal manner to this ancient canon of truth.
The Creed needed to be formulated because heretics would use the earlier Canon of Truth or baptismal creeds (which were Bible verses ordered together) and claim to believe them just like everyone else—while denying that the Son or Spirit were God. The Nicene Creed added key words and phrases to the earlier creeds to ensure that one could not use deceptive theology to deny essential Christian doctrines.
The Spirit as "Lord and Giver of Life"
Put positively, the Creed is about rightly reading the Bible. It consists of Bible verses put together in a certain order to show the main points of the apostles' teaching. It also includes a few key phrases that clarify theology.
When you read the Creed, note that it organizes Bible verses and highlights key points in Scripture about God. Consider the phrase for the Spirit: "Lord and Giver of Life."
The Creed follows the words in Scripture. For the term "Lord," it draws on Paul who says "the Lord... is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18).
For "Giver of Life," it draws on passages like: "When you send forth your Spirit, they are created" (Psalm 104:30), or when God's breath brought Adam to life (Genesis 2:7). The word "breath" is also the word for "Spirit." As Elihu says, "The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life" (Job 33:4).
Ultimately, it follows Jesus himself, who says, "It is the Spirit who gives life" (John 6:63). Also, Genesis 1:2 tells us, "And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."
Here, the Creed represents 300 years of reflection on the key identity of the Spirit: He is Lord and Giver of life.
The Spirit's Relationship to Father and Son
The Creed tells us two important ways that the Spirit relates to the Father and Son:
who proceeds from the Father and the Son who together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified
The word "proceeds" comes directly from the Bible: "But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me" (John 15:26).
But notice in the Creed how the Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son (or perhaps we should say from the Father through the Son). I should put a note here. The Creed itself in its original form did not say “Father and Son.” It only said the Spirit proceeded from the Father. However, church fathers like Basil of Caesarea and others argued that the Spirit belongs to both Father and Son in a special way, which is why we can say that the Spirit “with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified.” The rest of this article, therefore, cheats a little bit by drawing on a patristic pattern of argument that the Creed relies on to conclude that the Spirit should be “with the Father and the Son … adored and glorified.”
With that said, here is something really important: the Spirit relates to the Father and Son in a special way. The Father and Son, by their names, tell us about their relationship: the Father is the Father of a Son; the Son is a Son of the Father. The way to distinguish and relate Father to the Son is built into their names!
But the Spirit is different. The name "Holy Spirit" is not unique in the way "Father" and "Son" are. Father, Son, and Spirit are all HOLY; and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all SPIRIT. As Jesus says, God is Spirit (John 4:24).
So what's happening here? The fathers followed the pattern of teaching in Scripture which talks about the Spirit as the common possession of Father and Son.
Consider these passages:
Acts 16:7: "the Spirit of Jesus"
Matthew 10:20: "The Spirit of your Father"
Romans 8:9: "The Spirit of God" and "the Spirit of Christ"
Galatians 4:6: "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts"
Philippians 1:19: "the Spirit of Jesus Christ"
1 Peter 1:11: "Spirit of Christ"
These examples increase when we consider the titles of the Spirit. The Spirit is "the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation" (Ephesians 1:17) and "the Spirit of truth" (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13). Both Wisdom and Truth are names of Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:30; John 14:6).
We begin to see that the Spirit has a mode of existence that we can distinguish from the Father and Son. The Spirit is the common possession of the Father and Son, and through this relationship, he is said to proceed from Father and Son.
This explains why the Bible frequently calls the Father and Son "God," but rarely does so explicitly for the Spirit. It's not that the Spirit isn't fully God, but that the Spirit's mode of existence is to be the Spirit of the Father and Son.
Paul puts it this way: "These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:10–11).
As our spirits are us—our inner selves—we might say, by analogy, the Spirit of God and Christ is the one Holy Spirit, the common possession of the Father and Son, since the Father, Son, and Spirit are the one God of Israel.
This is why the Creed says the Spirit "together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified," because the Spirit is worshipped with the Father and Son as the Spirit of both. This phrasing is meant to represent the unique way the Bible talks about the Spirit.
The Spirit and the Church
This also explains why we say, "in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church." The Spirit who belongs to Father and Son also belongs to the Church of God through faith in Christ. We have this very same Spirit. And so we become one HOLY church that is catholic (meaning universal). We are one body because we have the one Spirit of Father and Son.
The biblical rationale for this unity comes from passages like Ephesians 4:4–6 which points to God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, an the one Spirit who makes the body of Christ one:
“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
The sevenfold oneness of Christianity represents the perfection of church’s life in the triune God: one body in one spirit, one Lord, and one God who “ is over all and through all and in all.”
One can also look to Christ’s high priestly prayer in John 17 that seeks the oneness of the church, as the one body of Christ, as well.
The Spirit's Eternal Presence
Finally, the Creed tells us that the Spirit was always with God when it says he "has spoken through the prophets." This tells us that the Spirit of God inspired the prophets who wrote Scripture, and that he was with God from the beginning of his work. This is evident from places like Genesis 1:2 as well, but it's worth emphasizing!
Conclusion
I hope I have shown you that the Creed symbolizes the Christian Faith by highlighting what the Bible emphasizes about God, Christ, and the church. And I hope I have shown you how the language of the Nicene Creed speaks of the Spirit in ways that reflect his particular manner of existence, which differs from that of the Father and Son.
Through the Creed, we can better understand not just an ancient document, but the living faith it represents and the vibrant relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that stands at its center.
Thanks for this! I'm going to post it outside my office door at church -- I think it will be quite helpful for some of our people.