Understanding the Spiritual Relevance of the Nicene Creed

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul reminds his faithful brethren that the Word of God is near you and on your lips and in your heart (that is the word of faith which we preach because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.[1] St. Paul’s direct communication to his fellow brethren reminds them of the importance of confessing their faith in Jesus as revealed through His Word. This important narrative is the foundation of our assent to proclaim belief in the Trinity with the words, “I believe” that initiate our Profession of Faith, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed recited every Lord’s Day.

This Tuesday, May 20, 2025, marks the seventeenth hundredth anniversary of the institution of the Nicene Creed at the Council of Nicaea, 325 A.D., the first ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The significance of this date, I argue, should not be understated as it addressed the Arian controversy, the first great doctrinal dispute where a priest named Arius professed to teach that the Father and Son were not of one substance, thus denying the divinity of Christ, Christ being consubstantial with the Father-homoousios.

The singular nature of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit forms the basis of our Christian identity at baptism and ushers a salvific path that we are reminded of every time we profess the Creed. This formula of faith is derived from the Word of God and thus is meant to echo the Word of God understood as the deposit of faith. In the Creed, we announce our intention to follow Christ and proclaim our love for him in word and deed. The fact that we are children created in the image and likeness of God brings to reality the significance of the Nicene Creed every time we profess our faith at Mass, beginning with the words “I believe,” as an important spiritual facet of our relationship with Christ.  

In describing the nature and purpose of a creed, St. Cyril of Jerusalem tells us that,

This synthesis of faith was not made to accord with human opinions, but rather what was of the greatest importance was gathered from all the Scriptures, to present the one teaching of the faith in its entirety. And just as the mustard seed contains a great number of branches in a tiny grain, so too this summary of faith encompassed in a few words the whole knowledge of the true religion contained in the Old and the New Testaments.[2]

The Catechism reminds us that our profession of faith begins with God, for God is the First and the Last, the beginning and the end of everything.[3] The entire credal formula is very important toward understanding the spiritual relevance of the Nicene Creed in our relationship with Christ because it is meant to remind us of our intimate identity with God and the joy of proclaiming a loving relationship with Him. The relationship between the virtue of love and the creed became a living reality through Jesus Christ, who came to bring light to a fallen world that had spiritually disintegrated its identity as children of God. Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, is central to understanding the spiritual relevance of the Nicene Creed because the content of the Creed rightfully proclaims and professes that Jesus Christ is both fully human and divine. The Incarnation is the doctrinal pathway toward understanding the relevance of the Mass, the Profession of our Faith to Jesus Christ and His Church, and the reception of his body and blood in the Holy Eucharist.    

The spiritual relevance of the Nicene Creed reminds us that Jesus Christ came to bring salvation to the world by way of death. St. Paul reminds us that we are baptized into Christ and his death to walk in a newness of life.[4] The significance of the Nicene Creed echoes the beginning of the Penitential Rite, where it begins, “I confess to almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned…” The words “I confess” associated with the words “I believe,” revealing what St. Paul explains as one dying to Christ and no longer being enslaved to sin.

We know that our former man was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.[5]

In conclusion, the spiritual relevance of the Nicene Creed, if properly understood, means that it is a path of metanoia, the opportunity to proclaim the words “I believe” that confirm your profession of faith to love Jesus Christ more than your sins. And if this is the case, then without hesitation, you eagerly desire to receive our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh in the Holy Eucharist. This, I argue is the central spiritual relevance of the Nicene Creed.