The Creed We Call Nicene Wasn't Written at Nicaea
When a church stands together and says, “This is what we believe,” the words matter. A creed is not merely being studied as a historical document. It is being confessed as a statement of Christian truth. Every sentence therefore has to withstand the same test as any sermon, confession, council, or theological system: Does Scripture teach it?
That is especially important with what Christians commonly call the Nicene Creed, because the creed recited in Western and Reformed churches today is not the creed written at Nicaea in AD 325. It preserves Nicaea’s great confession of the deity of Christ, but it also contains substantial material added later.
That history does not make the creed false. But the creed must be tested by Scripture like every other human confession.
What Nicaea Actually Said
The Council of Nicaea met in 325 primarily to answer Arianism, which denied the full eternal deity of the Son. Its creed therefore concentrates on the identity of Jesus Christ. It confesses Him as the Son of God, begotten rather than made, “true God from true God,” and of the same substance with the Father. It declares that all things were made through Him, that He became man for our salvation, suffered, rose, ascended, and will return to judge the living and the dead.
Then comes its entire confession concerning the third person of the Trinity:
“And in the Holy Spirit.”
The creed then moves directly to anathemas against Arian claims about Christ. There is no confession of one holy catholic and apostolic church. There is no baptism clause. There is no explicit confession of the resurrection of the dead or life in the world to come.
Those familiar lines are not part of the Creed of Nicaea.
The central doctrine for which Nicaea is remembered is sound because Scripture teaches it. John says that the Word “was God” and that all things were made through Him (John 1:1–3). Thomas addresses the risen Christ as “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Paul says that all things were created through Him and for Him (Col. 1:16). Hebrews applies to the Son words addressed to God Himself (Heb. 1:8–12).
Nicaea did not make Christ God. It correctly confessed the God whom Scripture had already revealed.
The Longer Creed Came Later
The substantially longer creed used today is traditionally associated with the Council of Constantinople in 381 and is therefore more accurately called the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.
At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the original faith of the 318 fathers at Nicaea was read, followed separately by the creed identified as the faith of the 150 fathers at Constantinople. Chalcedon affirmed both.
The expanded creed contains much additional material that Christians rightly confess: Christ’s incarnation by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, His crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, His burial, His place at the Father’s right hand, His coming kingdom, the full deity and work of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal life.
But the later creed also reflects broader fourth-century baptismal and doctrinal formulas. Cyril of Jerusalem, writing before Constantinople, taught a creed containing language strikingly similar to the later form: the Holy Spirit who spoke through the prophets, one baptism “for the remission of sins,” the holy catholic church, the resurrection, and eternal life.
The creed Christians now call Nicene therefore did not simply come from Nicaea. It developed through the doctrinal controversies and baptismal practice of the fourth-century church.
“One Baptism for the Forgiveness of Sins”
One clause deserves particular scrutiny:
“We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.”
The language is biblical. John preached “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4). Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). Acts 22:16 likewise connects baptism with washing away sins.
But Scripture does not teach that baptism itself removes guilt before God. We are justified by faith (Rom. 5:1), apart from works (Rom. 3:28), and the thief beside Christ entered paradise without baptism at all (Luke 23:39–43). Baptism identifies the believer publicly with Christ and the salvation already received through Him.
That is also the Baptist confessional position. The Second London Baptist Confession calls baptism “a sign” of fellowship with Christ, union with Him, and “remission of sins” (29.1). Reformed Baptists therefore do not object to connecting baptism with forgiveness. We object to making baptism the instrument that produces forgiveness.
The historical context makes the distinction important. Cyril of Jerusalem spoke of baptism as purging sins and ministering the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is a sacramental understanding of baptism that a confessional Baptist cannot affirm. The similar baptismal language in the later creed therefore cannot simply be imported into Baptist worship without explaining what we mean by it.
A Reformed Baptist can confess those words only in the sense expressed by the 1689 Confession: baptism signifies remission of sins. We cannot confess the sacramental doctrine that baptism itself causes or obtains remission of sins.
Baptism declares salvation. It does not produce it.
The Filioque Came Later
The Constantinopolitan form says that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father.” The Western church later added Filioque—“and the Son.”
That phrase was not in the Creed of Nicaea in 325 or in the Constantinopolitan form associated with 381. Its first clear appearance in the creed is at the Third Council of Toledo in 589. It spread gradually through the West, and Rome adopted the interpolated form liturgically in 1014.
Reformed Baptists rightly confess the doctrine itself. The Second London Baptist Confession says that the Spirit is “proceeding from the Father and the Son” (2.3). Scripture supports that confession: Jesus says that He sends the Spirit (John 15:26; 16:7), and Paul calls Him both “the Spirit of God” and “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9), as well as “the Spirit of his Son” (Gal. 4:6).
Unlike the baptism clause, our concern with the Filioque is historical rather than doctrinal. The doctrine is biblical; the phrase simply was not part of the creed produced at Nicaea.
That fact reinforces the larger point: what Western Reformed churches commonly call the Nicene Creed is not simply the text produced at Nicaea in 325. Later material can be true and still be later.
Creeds Under Scripture
None of this requires abandoning creeds. Creeds are valuable because doctrine matters. They preserve theological precision, expose old heresies when they return under new names, and allow Christians to confess biblical truth together. Nicaea’s defense of the deity of Christ remains one of the great doctrinal achievements of church history.
But usefulness is not authority.
The Second London Baptist Confession states the proper order. The supreme judge for evaluating “all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, teachings of men, and individual interpretations” is Holy Scripture.
That is simply sola Scriptura: Scripture is the final court of appeal. No council, father, creed, confession, tradition, or magisterial pronouncement stands above it.
The Bereans were called noble because they received Paul’s preaching eagerly while “examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). They did not treat a religious teacher’s claims as self-authenticating; they tested what they heard against God’s written Word. How much more must the words of uninspired councils and creeds remain subject to that test.
We confess that Jesus Christ is true God from true God because Scripture reveals Him as God. We confess the deity of the Holy Spirit because Scripture reveals Him as God. We confess that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son because Scripture reveals His relation to both Father and Son. We confess the resurrection of the dead because Scripture promises it.
And when the creed says, “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins,” we do not adopt the sacramental meaning that fourth-century churchmen attached to those words. We disagree with that theology. A Reformed Baptist can confess the words only in the biblical and confessional sense that baptism signifies and publicly declares the remission of sins received through faith in Christ. We are not confessing baptismal regeneration. We are confessing the salvation to which baptism points.
We may therefore use the same words, but we are not confessing the same doctrine where those words are understood sacramentally. Scripture—not the creed’s authors—determines what we may truthfully confess.
That is not disrespect for church history. It is submission to the authority that stands above church history.
The creed does not judge Scripture. Scripture judges the creed.