What is the Nicene Creed?

The Nicene Creed is the world's most widely used confession of faith, and has been for over a thousand years. Sunday after Sunday in their worship services, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and others recite the creed to profess their beliefs. Those who do not know the creed—who have not learned it by heart from years of repetition—are a minority in the Christian world. Why say the Nicene Creed? The creed is a Bible-based summary of the gospel of Jesus Christ. To say the creed is to say who God is—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and who Christ is: the only-begotten Son of the Father, God from God, who for our salvation became incarnate, which is to say fully human, and was crucified, raised from the dead, and now sits enthroned at the right hand of God the Father. Joining other Christians in saying and believing in the creed is thus a way to come to know God. There are other creeds, most importantly the Apostles’ Creed (so called because its teaching goes back ...