The Creed of Nicea (III)
Vol. 57 No. 4 The Fourth Sunday in Advent December 21, 2025
Christmas Communions: Baptized Christians admitted to Communion should receive the sacrament on Christmas (Dec. 24 at 5 p.m. or 11 p.m.; Dec. 25 at 11 a.m.) or on the days following. (Dec. 26 at noon; Dec. 27 at 11 a.m. and Dec. 28 at 8 a.m. or 11 a.m.)
In the “first edition” of the Nicene Creed (325 AD), the Holy Ghost received a bare mention, largely because there was no controversy about him. It’s not unusual for the Holy Ghost to be minimally acknowledged: self-effacement belongs to the person whose mission in the world is to glorify Christ (John 16:14). As the Arian controversy continued, however, the status of the Spirit came into question along with the Son’s; for the Arians proposed that he also be considered a creature subordinate to and radical other than the Father. As with the Son, however, the subordination of the Spirit threw into question the gospel itself. For how can a created spirit have the power to impart the life of the Creator to human beings? How can the Spirit impart to men the life of God, as Scripture says he does, if he is not God himself?
Accordingly, at the Council of Constantinople in 381, when the Nicene faith of the Son’s deity was confirmed in the “second edition” of the Creed, it was decided to enlarge the treatment of the Spirit. To build the widest possible anti-Arian consensus in support of the this creed, the council fathers chose temperate and biblical affirmations of the Spirit’s deity. Like the Father and the Son, he is confessed as “the Lord”, the conventional representation of the divine Name; and as the “Giver of Life”, for Scripture testifies both that life is the gift of God, and also that “the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life” (2 Cor 3:6). As God he “spake by the prophets” (1 Peter 1:21), for scripture testifies that what the prophets spoke was the word of God, and that the Spirit was its author.
The most important language for establishing the deity of the Spirit is found in the clause “who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified”. In accord with Christ’s command to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”, the church offers the Spirit the same honor and glory it offers the Father and the Son. This can only be justified if they have the same indivisible divine nature. Identity of honor (conglorification) implies identity of being (con-substantiality).
The description “proceeding from the Father” (John 15:26 and 1 Cor 2:12) excludes the notion that the Spirit is directly dependent on the Son and not on the Father, in a hierarchically graded triad of beings. In the version used in the Latin west, however, a clarifying phrase was added, “and the Son” (filioque, in Latin), in accord with the teaching of Augustine. If the Son is everything that the Father is, except ‘Father’ (the Athanasian teaching), it follows the Son must also be the origin of the Spirit as as well as the Father. Though rejected by the churches of the east to this day, there is good reason to retain the teaching of the “double procession”. For to deny that the Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as the Father, leaves an opening for an account of the Son as other or less than the Father, and so undermines the Christological center of the gospel. But Scripture is explicit, that the Spirit of the Father is also the Spirit of the Son.
As the Son is of one indivisible and immaterial divine substance with the Father, so also is the Spirit. The co-inherence of these persons is paralleled in the co-inherence of their works, which is apparent in the parallel between the articles of the second and third paragraphs of the Creed. For after the Creed affirms the deity of the Son, it affirms his true humanity; and after affirming the deity of the Spirit, it acknowledges the mystical Body indwelt by the Spirit, the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church”. (Though the Prayer Book version omits the word “holy” for reasons unknown, these cannot be theological objections, as the Apostles’ Creed teaches faith in “the holy catholic church”.) Likewise, as the Creed affirms the son’s redemptive suffering for us on the cross, so it also acknowledges “one baptism for the remission of sins”, the sacrament by means of which we receive the benefits of his passion. As the Creed affirms Christ’s resurrection, ascension, and coming again in judgment, so also it teaches us to “look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come”, when he comes again. The Creed thus teaches us to believe that what the Son accomplishes “for us men and for our salvation”, the Spirit accomplishes in us, by his sanctifying work. By the Spirit’s work of regeneration, do we share in the benefits of the Son’s redemption. In confessing this faith (acknowledging it openly as our own), so we lay claim to these benefits.
This coming feast of Christmas is a celebration of the faith of Nicea. We give thanks for the Son of God’s Incarnation, made known to us in his Nativity. “God of God, / Light of Light, / Lo, he abhors not the Virgin’s womb; / Very God, / Begotten not created, / O come let us adore him”. We give thanks that the Son of God was made Son of Man, so that the children of men might become the children of God. “Mild he lays his glory by, / Born that man no more may die,/ Born to raise the sons of earth, / Born to give them second birth… Hark, the herald angels sing!” It is not one birth but three that we celebrate at Christmas; for the one born in time of the Virgin Mary is the very same who was begotten of the Father from all eternity; and by his Spirit, “we being regenerate, are made his children by adoption and grace”, to share in his eternal Sonship, in heaven’s eternal Christmas Day.