The Nicene Creed

The Rt Revd Dr Peter Brain

Our public Sunday services make provision for a congregational affirmation and commitment to the three persons of the Godhead in either the Apostles or Nicene Creeds. Since we are looking at aspects of the Holy Communion Service our focus is upon the Nicene Creed which serves as a doctrinal reminder of the greatness of each person of the Trinity and their grace in bringing us salvation.

Creeds have been described as ‘a never-ending Mexican wave’ echoing around the world by believers from many nations and many church backgrounds. They remind us of our essential unity in Christ. By affirming the four marks of the church in the words: We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church we help each other to see that we are to do all we can do to maintain the unity we have in Christ, live lives of godliness, rejoice in and express our fellowship with believers across the world as they, and we, teach and uphold apostolic doctrine and behaviour.

In these ways the creed is a challenge and an apt reminder of the privilege to have been drawn into fellowship with our Creator. By identifying with the Lord Jesus Christ, we experience the joy of knowing God, the Father, the almighty, maker of heaven and earth, not as some vague force, nor impersonal architect but as our dear Father. At this point we see the clarity of the Creed and its dependence on the apostles teaching for the fuller picture of revealed truth. The Eighth Article of Religion reminds us that the three creeds; ‘ought thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture’. It is these Scriptures that alert us to the sheer privilege of being able, by grace, to know Almighty God as our ‘dear father’ (Matthew 6:9,26 and
Romans 8:15-17).

Along with any kind of set liturgy the creeds are often criticised as being mere mechanical expressions or replacements for a vibrant relationship with the living God. Whilst this can easily become the case, it certainly does not need to be so. The Nicene Creed speaks to us of a vibrant living God. For example, God as the maker... of all that is seen and unseen proves a timely reminder that he is neither to be found impersonally in the creation nor uninvolved with it. As its maker, he actively sustains it, giving us the responsibility of being creative stewards and wise subjects who heed the makers ‘inscripturated’ instructions. The Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life is clearly active having granted to us new birth from above which was prayed for in infant baptism, and celebrated in confirmation or believer’s baptism.

The Bible therefore exhorts us, to be filled with and to keep in step with the Spirit, neither grieving nor putting out the Spirit’s fire. We are to expect the Holy Spirit to make the written word alive, and like a double-edged sword to correct and comfort us as we read it. Through our risen Lord who is seated at the right hand of the Father we experience his living presence as we pray to our Father and rejoice that because of his becoming truly human in his incarnation and death in our place on the Cross, he is our sympathetic high priest, mediator and advocate. Reciting the Creed together as affirmation and reminder, is all about our relationship with the loving triune God who brings us into fellowship with each other.

In a world full of lonely people, with many Facebook friends but few real friendships, the grand Christian teachings taught in the creed and amplified in the prophets and the apostolic deposits entrusted by God to his people to expound and to live by, come into their own. The bishop’s prayer in the Confirmation service fill us with wonder and awe in his presence, point us to the real realities that he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom (which) will have no end. Such a hope can only be looked forward to with the confident affirmation: We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come because of the forgiveness of sins made possible for all who turn to Christ Jesus who suffered death and was buried and On the third day (he) rose again in accordance with the Scriptures. Riches that money cannot buy.