Nicene Creed

Dear brothers and sisters, This week marked the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed. On the 20th May 325AD a council was called, at a place called Nicea, and those gathered came up with the first version of the Creed.  The purpose of calling the council in the first place was to clarify and affirm the core Christian belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. A controversy had arisen in the early church, where an outspoken priest began to teach that Jesus was a created being, not eternally existent, and not divine. This teaching caught on, and became so popular that it threatened to destabilise the entire Roman Empire. So Emperor Constantine (who professed to be a believer himself) called a council so that the greatest theological minds of the day might come back to first principles. What does the bible say about Jesus? What should we believe?

The end product of many hours of theologising was the Nicene Creed. It is a statement of belief that is based on what the bible teaches about God, who is Father, Son, and Spirit. There are not many other 1700 year old compositions that are read on a regular basis, and, while the Nicene Creed is not scripture, the concepts within are collected from our Bibles, and are put in such a way to help us remember who God is. In Christ’s Love, Craig Olliffe Senior minister