Every week we normally affirm our faith with the Apostles Creed. Once we finish the sermon series on Revelation in mid-September, we will use the Nicene Creed for a few weeks instead. The reason is three fold.
Different creeds actually affirm different aspects of our faith, and while it is imperative to know what we affirm in the Apostles Creed, it is also important to know and affirm what is in the Nicene Creed, too.
Using different language in worship enriches the worship experience. All of our favorite things were new at some point. Allowing for new opportunities is a chance to let someone find their now favorite thing.
It is an opportunity for a short history lesson!
History of the Nicene Creed:
In the early churches around the year 300AD, there were several house churches that felt like Jesus was God and not fully human. There were other churches that affirmed yes Jesus was human, but not fully God. There needed to be consistency among believers if the young religion would endure the coming centuries.
Several church leaders from various churches came together to determine “what do we really believe about Jesus?”
The result was the Nicene Creed.
In it they affirmed that Jesus was incarnate, literally “of the flesh” and called him “truly human” and at the same time they affirmed he was eternally begotten meaning he has existed from all eternity with the Father. So this statement is where we get the idea that Jesus is not a mortal body with Godly spirit, nor is he a godly body with a human spirit.
Jesus is 100% human body and soul and 100% God at the same time.
Without Nicaea, we would still be debating what part of Jesus was divine, and what part of him was human.