It has been 1,700 years since the most important council in church history.

The Council of Nicaea opened on June 19, 325, at Nicaea, a town in the Roman province of Bithynia (modern-day Turkey).

This council was unique because it was Constantine who called it. The emperor had recently brought much of the Roman Empire under his rule and wanted a united Church as well.

Constantine’s involvement gave the gathering an official and potentially universal significance.

Turnout was indeed impressive. According to Athanasius, Nicaea brought together 318 bishops and church leaders, representing a large swath of fourth-century Christendom.

Despite an imperial presence, the Council of Nicaea was not fundamentally political, but theological.

The memory of a 1,700-year-old meeting might seem superfluous to many Pentecostals. Yet the creed it produced articulates theology that remains central to the gospel we proclaim.

The Nicene Creed affirms the divine nature of Jesus Christ. This matter is of primary importance, for if Christ were not Lord, He could not be our Savior.

Arius Denies

The issue during the fourth century was whether God’s Son is one in nature with the heavenly Father.

Those who saw Christ’s nature as different from the Father’s rejected the truth that Jesus (and by extension the Holy Spirit) is truly divine.

By refusing to accept the Son of God as one in nature with the Father, they denied God’s self-giving for the salvation of the world.

Leading this denial was Arius, a presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arius came into conflict with his bishop, Alexander, on the question of Christ’s nature.

Arius denied that the preincarnate Logos, or Word, in John 1:1–14 was divine. Arius even held that there was a moment before time itself time when the Word (Son of God) did not exist.

Still regarding the Son as a unique participant in all things divine, Arius claimed the Son was created out of nothing to create everything else, reflecting the Father’s glory in some lesser way.

Arius feared that the Son sharing the Father’s nature would divide and diminish that nature by subjecting it to suffering and change. By claiming the Father created the Son, Arius reduced Christ to the status of an exalted creature.

Though the Son’s eternality was not always adequately understood in the fourth century, Arius’ bold assertion was unprecedented.

Drawing from Proverbs 8:22, the third-century Alexandrian theologian Origen described the Logos as wisdom “created” to create all things.

However, Origen never used the qualifier “out of nothing.” In fact, he argued more than once that the Logos always existed. Origen placed a unique emphasis on the Son as eternally “begotten” of the Father without beginning.

Arius attempted to clear up the ambiguity in Origen’s teaching. Arius’ position was extreme, bringing urgency to the need to decide at Nicaea whether the Son of God was of the same nature as the Father.

Alexander Replies

Alexander, and Athanasius after him, hammered Arius with the point that if true deity resided only in the Father, the Son could not save humanity.

Texts like Hosea 13:4 bolstered their case: “You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me.”

Scripture points to Christ’s deity by revealing Him as the Savior whose name means “God with us,” (Matthew 1:21,23).

The Johannine tradition served Alexander and Athanasius particularly well. They looked to John 1, where “the Word was God” (verse 1; cf. John 1:18; Romans 5:9; Titus 2:13).

John’s Gospel implies a unity of the divine nature between the Father and Son. As life and light, the Son created all things according to the Father’s behalf (John 1:4–13).

The Spirit is essential to the divine life, too. The Son bestows the Spirit from the Father (John 20:22; cf. Acts 2:33), and the Spirit bears witness to Christ (John 15:26).

Alexander emphasized that the Son mediates on His Father’s behalf. This mediation takes place within, not outside of, the divine nature.

Christ is integral to God’s act of reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). The Son provides access to the Father and Spirit (John 14:6; 15:26).

One point of discussion was Jesus’ statement in John 14:28, “The Father is greater than I.” Alexander explained that Jesus was affirming His deity, not denying it. Christ’s identity and mission were greater than His listeners immediately recognized.

Alexander noted that Jesus also said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

The Faith of Nicaea

Arius and his sympathizers, including Eusebius of Nicomedia, prepared a statement for the Council of Nicaea defending their teachings.

The Son is eternally distinct from the Father, but also eternally one with Him in essence.

Their strategy failed, however.

According to one report, most of those in attendance rejected the assertions of Arius. In fact, someone went up afterward and tore the written statement to shreds.

Leaders introduced a new document that was critical of Arius’ views. This draft included the significant Latin term homoousios (meaning “of one nature”) to describe the relationship between the Son and Father.

Emperor Constantine proposed the term, though it likely originated with a theological advisor, Hosius of Córdoba.

Constantine noted that homoousios did not imply the material fragmentation of the Father’s nature, since the Father’s eternal begetting of the Son was not material but transcendent, eternal, and mysterious.

The language upheld Christ’s deity as essential to God’s self-giving for humanity.

Acknowledging that Christ suffered in the flesh, the church fathers maintained this neither diminished nor altered His divine nature. Rather, it was fitting for God to bear humanity’s burdens (Hebrews 2:10–11).

A council in Constantinople during 381 revisited and revised the Nicene Creed. Between the two historic sessions, several profound theological statements emerged, including the following four:

1. Jesus is “eternally begotten of the Father … begotten, not made.” While the original Nicene Creed in 325 also designated the Son as begotten of the Father, the addition of eternal language clarifies an important point.

In John 5:26, Jesus said the Father granted Him to have the same divine life in himself as the Father. Later, Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25).

John’s Gospel does not confine Christ’s divine nature to the Incarnation. After all, the Word was with God in the beginning, actively participating in creation (1:1–3). “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind” (verse 4).

Jesus added context in John 5. Having life in himself as the Father does means Jesus shares fully in divine sovereignty. This includes raising the dead and judging humanity (verses 25–27). The Father desires people to honor the Son just as they honor Him (verses 22–23).

Jesus said these things in response to the charge that He made himself equal to the Father (5:18). His statements affirm rather than deny that notion.

The crucial point here is that Jesus is not a created being. He is without beginning. The Son is eternally distinct from the Father, but also eternally one with Him in essence.

2. Jesus is “Light from Light, true God from true God.” This language appears in both the earlier and later versions of the Nicene Creed.

Christians during the fourth century commonly referred to Jesus as Light from Light, but not everyone viewed Him as one in nature with the Father.

The important phrase “true God from true God” maintains Christ’s divinity. John 1:4 says, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind.”

Jesus is Light from Light precisely because He shares the Father’s divine nature, which means He is also true God of true God.

3. Jesus is “of one Being with the Father.” The Son is eternally homoousios — of the same substance, or consubstantial — with the Father.

This language, which appears in both versions of the Nicene Creed, is arguably the hinge on which the other Christological affirmations of Nicaea turn.

“One Being” refers to a continuity of divine life the Son shares with the Father and mediates from the Father.

Arius and his sympathizers essentially sought to sever the Son from the Father. They placed the Son’s mediating role outside of divine life.

Absent from Arius’ theology was the vital biblical affirmation of Christ as the divine mediator of salvation. Arius refused to accept that God himself conquered sin and death.

Arius presented the Father as aloof and detached from creation, and the Son as an outside mediator who was not truly divine.

The implication of this error was that a barrier remained between God and Christians, and no one could really experience the fullness of eternal life Scripture promises.

Fortunately, the Nicene Creed adroitly refuted that notion.

Some have objected that the word homoousios is not in the Bible. But neither are other theological terms we commonly use, such as “Trinity,” “eschatology,” or even “Bible.” If we limited ourselves only to the words in Scripture, it would be difficult to have a meaningful theological conversation.

According to historical reports, the framers of the Nicene Creed wanted to keep the language biblical in nature. But homoousios seemed necessary to counter Arius’ claims of discontinuity between the Father and Son.

The Pentecostal Movement is committed to a Spirit-empowered proclamation to the ends of the earth of Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The question should not be whether a particular term appears in the Bible, but whether it conveys biblical truth.

4. The Holy Spirit shares in the divine nature and “is worshipped and glorified” with the Father and Son. This language was part of the revision at Constantinople.

The original Nicene Creed focused on Christ. It ended with a brief affirmation of belief “in the Holy Spirit.”

Perhaps the creed’s framers intended to apply the homoousios to the Holy Spirit as well. Whatever the case, there was a need for greater clarity.

The 381 version described the Holy Spirit as “the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.”

John’s Gospel informs this statement. In addition to portraying Christ as having the same nature as the Father (1:4; 5:25–27), John ascribed divine attributes to the Spirit.

In John 4:10 and 7:38, Jesus promised to give “living water.” This gift would become “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (4:14). As the Gospel writer explained in Chapter 7, “By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive” (verse 39).

The image suggests a river of life proceeding from the Father, through the Son, and toward the Spirit’s overflowing. Clearly, the divine life subsists fully and equally in the Spirit as well.

The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed thus biblically anchors the Holy Spirit’s deity in the designation “Lord” and “giver of life.”

To bolster belief in the Son’s deity during the centuries following Nicaea, Western Church leaders added a clause to the Nicene Creed affirming that the Spirit proceeds from the Father “and the Son.”

This clause is filioque in Latin. Churches of the East rejected the filioque because it seemed to rob the Father of His uniqueness as the fount or source of deity.

That was never the intent of Western theologians, however. In his commentary on John 15:26, Augustine wrote, “Jesus did not say the Spirit ‘whom the Father will send from me’ but ‘whom I will send from the Father’ showing namely that the Father is the beginning (principium) of the whole divinity.”

Augustine and others envisioned an eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father alone per Filium, or through the Son.

The designation of the Spirit as “Lord” in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed may surprise some, since this title typically refers to Christ (e.g., Ephesians 4:4–6).

Yet 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

In this passage, the apostle Paul first used “Lord” to describe Christ, but then applied the same title to the Spirit. It seems Paul regarded the Son’s lordship as manifest also in the unique presence and work of the Spirit.

This insight has practical significance. In Galatians, Paul urged believers to live in such a way as to please the Spirit rather than the flesh, that they might reap eternal life (6:8).

By implication, the Spirit is sovereign. Thus, it is fitting to glorify the Spirit along with the Son and Father.

Relevance to Pentecostals

By the Council of Nicaea’s conclusion, only a few of the 318 bishops present refused to sign the creed. Arius was among them.

Some signed reluctantly, more as a way of rejecting Arius than affirming without ambivalence every line of the creed.

The creed affirmed at Nicaea and later expanded at Constantinople was a decisive development in Christian theology.

This theology faced challenges even as it grew in clarity, significance, and influence.

Bishop Alexander, who first opposed Arius, died in 326. Alexander’s faithful assistant, Athanasius, assumed his office, leading the charge of defending the faith of Nicaea.

Years later, Athanasius’ writings played a key role in explaining that faith amid ongoing opposition.

During this time and later in the fourth century, the Cappadocian fathers (Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nyssa) added clarity by distinguishing between the one ousia (essence) and three hypostases (persons) in God.

This technical distinction, not used at Nicaea (though implied there), helped the Church understand even more explicitly why three persons sharing one nature does not lead to modalism, or the idea that there are no eternal distinctions or relations in God.

Although the faith
of the Church is more than a creed,
it is certainly not less.

The problem of modalism was the reason many early Pentecostals took notice of the Nicene tradition.

Oneness or Apostolic Pentecostals do not hold that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are eternal relations in God. For these groups, the three are manifestations of one God in the Bible’s description of the Christ event. Oneness Pentecostals see the Father and Spirit as alternate terms for describing the one God present and active through the sonship of the man Jesus.

In response, Trinitarian Pentecostals have focused on the Son’s preexistence in eternal communion with the Father (John 17:2,24) and His mediation of creation on the Father’s behalf (John 1:3–4; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2) as evidence of eternal relations in God.

However, common ground among all Pentecostals is arguably possible in the homoousios (one nature) of the Nicene Creed, in that we can all affirm the deity and lordship of Jesus as revelatory of the Father and present in the Spirit.

There are obvious differences between the two sides when it comes to deeper explanation of this confession, but loyalty to Christ as Lord in the power of the Spirit can be a strong point of agreement.

The creedal Christology of Nicaea did not end in its development at Constantinople. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 brought further insight to the Nicene Creed.

At the onset of Chalcedon, the gathered bishops listened to a reading of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and affirmed the document.

Members of the council then implied that not only was Christ homoousios (one in nature) with God in His deity, but He was also one in nature with us in His humanity.

The Council of Chalcedon explicitly confessed Christ as one Person with two natures (divine and human) that are distinct but nevertheless inseparable. It affirmed that Christ acted as the God-Man in all He did, including dying on the cross.

Anselm argued persuasively during the 11th century that the Atonement could only have been wrought by one who was both human (in representation of humanity) and divine (in representation of God).

This conviction inspires and informs the belief in Christ’s unity of nature with the Father. After all, only the incarnation of the Son who is one in nature with the Father can mediate salvation and new life. As the apostle Paul put it, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Tertullian, a theologian during the second and third centuries, famously asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”

The question reflected Tertullian’s concern about the corrupting influence of Greek philosophy on the Church.

Similarly, some early Pentecostals were suspicious of liturgies and traditions, arguing that the pure gospel and fresh move of the Spirit were enough.

Even today, Pentecostal ministers might wonder, What has Nicaea to do with Azusa Street?

I believe there are three reasons Pentecostals should care about Nicene Christology 1,700 years after that initial gathering.

First, the Council of Nicaea preserved the gospel of Jesus Christ we believe and proclaim. The Pentecostal Movement is committed to a Spirit-empowered proclamation to the ends of the earth of Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Nicaea defended that truth. Indeed, if Jesus Christ were not one in nature with the Father, He could not redeem us, nor could He send the Holy Spirit on the Father’s behalf. For only God can save, and only the Lord can pour out the Spirit.

After Jesus conquered sin and death, He was enthroned at the Father’s right hand. From that exalted position, Jesus poured out the Spirit He received from the Father (Acts 2:33–36).

Biblical truths Nicaea affirmed underscore the eternal significance of the Cross, the empty tomb, and Pentecost. Jesus is able to save, give life, and empower the Church because He is Lord.

Second, Pentecostalism shares with the Church down through the centuries “the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people” (Jude 3).

When reviewing church history, Pentecostals have often leapt from the Book of Acts to the Azusa Street Revival (perhaps briefly acknowledging the Reformation and John Wesley along the way).

Nevertheless, there is a growing recognition of a longer path of gospel milestones connecting those points in church history.

Sure, there are errors and problems dotting the landscape. But the proclamation of Jesus’ lordship has been the Church’s reason for being through the ages. Without that foundation of faith, there is nothing on which to build.

Finally, although the faith of the Church is more than a creed, it is certainly not less. We live this gospel, but we also confess it (Romans 10:9–10). Confession includes not only affirming biblical truths, but also defending them against distortions and errors.

Surely the language of any creed is fallible. We can discuss the adequacy of the term homoousios. The word is not as important as the truth it conveys — namely, that Jesus is essential to our salvation and central to our worship.

We affirm that the Father’s presence is inaccessible without the Son’s sacrifice (John 14:6), and that in Christ, we have eternal life, are incorporated into it, and glorify God for it. Without Jesus, we can do nothing (John 15:5).

If someone can come up with a better way of capturing these complex truths than homoousios, I would like to hear it. But even if we adopt new terminology, the voice of Nicaea will live on through that expression.

This article appears in the Summer 2025 issue of Influence magazine.