This article is from a teaching I did at my church earlier this year.
For the past year, we have been working our way through the Nicene Creed at church, because as of this year, this historic orthodox creed has been on the lips of the faithful for 1,700 years.
If you believe these words, you stand with centuries of Spirit-filled brothers and sisters who have gone before us.
We will be looking at the beginning of the last paragraph of the Nicene Creed, which states:
“And we believe in the Holy Spirit, The Lord, the giver of life.”
Speaking on the Holy Spirit is always a little intimidating. After all, He’s generally the least understood and acknowledged person of the Trinity.
The Father we pray to. The Son we sing about. And the Holy Spirit?
Well, He’s often treated like the quiet roommate in a three-bedroom divine apartment. You know He’s there, things get mysteriously done, but He doesn’t always get invited to dinner conversations.
It is an unfortunate truth, but one that makes sense given our physical being and sight, that the Holy Spirit is sometimes overlooked in our daily worship and practice. Yet we have before us the third person of the Trinity. We are discussing God. The Lord. The giver of life Himself.
Why Do Creeds Matter?
You may have heard people say something along the lines of, “The Trinity is nowhere in the Bible.” Simply put, that is wrong. While the word “Trinity” is not found in the pages of Scripture, the teaching and profession of this doctrine is alive and well, and we see that reflected here in our portion of the creed.
We believe in one God, and yet, Father, Son, and Spirit are all identified as God in this ancient creed. Why?
Creeds themselves are not authoritative in the way Scripture is. They are only true and authoritative if they align with God’s Word, which uniquely has the ultimate authority for His people. Creeds provide a necessary guardrail to our understanding of God and the doctrines of our faith. They are geared toward a universal understanding of the faith for all believers.
Even those who do not profess to hold to a creed, when pressed, would give you some sort of profession of their faith and understanding of God’s Word. For example, if someone were to say something like, “I have no creed but Christ,” you could ask them, “Christ, who is that?” They would (hopefully) go on to tell you that Jesus is the Christ, the only Begotten Son of God, who was born of a virgin, and so on. Effectively, they would be giving you their creed or profession of faith.
We all have an understanding of God and His Word. The question is, what is it? That is your creed.
In this section of the Nicene Creed, we’ll look at three points about the Holy Spirit:
Focusing on the Spirit
The Spirit is Lord
The Spirit gives life
1. Focusing on the Spirit
Before our beloved creed was penned in 325 A.D., a few other creeds were already circulating. The most notable one was the Apostle’s Creed, written sometime in the mid-to-late second century.
Creeds and confessions that develop over time generally come out of the church battling heresies that are creeping in and corrupting the faith. That was the case with the Nicene Creed in 325. The main point of concern was fighting against the heretical view that Jesus is not God, so other points in the creed were not as heavily emphasized.
In God’s providence, these heresies that pop up over time in the New Testament church force us into His Word to really examine the faith. It is through centuries of using people’s lives for studying and learning the Scriptures, and even giving their very lives to keep and steward them, that we exist today.
The reason we have these words and terms like Trinity, Deity of Christ, and others to describe theological concepts is that God used someone before us, and probably some ancient heresy, to define a certain theological point. We often take for granted the blood, sweat, and tears that were required to hand down the faith and the Word of God that defines it today.
A much less well-known council took place in 381 A.D. in Constantinople, which is modern-day Istanbul. The issue floating around at this time was known as Pneumatomachianism (a $10 word that means “people who deny the full divinity of the Holy Spirit”).
This is not the Second Council of Nicaea, which met in 787 A.D., which was a heretical political charade used in an attempt to shoehorn unbiblical man-made traditions into orthodox Christian doctrine.
The original Nicene Creed was written in 325 and revised in 381. This is the creed we have today. The 381 council is not the Second Council of Nicaea, which came centuries later.
One of the concerns of the church fathers (a reverent term for the early church leaders who contributed to the creed) was that there was not enough emphasis on the person of the Holy Spirit in the creeds thus far.
As mentioned before, given our fleshly eyes that do not physically see the spiritual realm, the mighty Spirit of God is sometimes overlooked to our shame. Or, on the flip side, He is far too over-emphasized, which leads to the other ditch of hyper-spiritualized practice that goes beyond the confines of Scripture.
The Nicene Creed in 325 focused on articulating the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, as being fully divine. The council in 381 revisited the creed in light of a new heresy and emphasized the full divinity of the Holy Spirit.
So, they extended the section about the Holy Spirit, giving us the verbiage found in the fourth paragraph of the Nicene Creed today.
These heresies throughout church history are damnable, meaning if you truly believe them, it puts you outside the realm of genuine Christian faith and will lead you to hell. Yet as we see throughout Scripture, the enemy intends things for evil, but God intends them for good. He is in total control of all things at all times.
It is because of this heretical view of the Spirit that there is more emphasis on Him in this portion of the creed (the 381 revision) than in previous creeds, such as the original Nicene Creed of 325 or the Apostles’ Creed of the second century.
The Apostles’ Creed said only,
“We believe in the Holy Spirit.”
That’s it. Why? Because no one was opposing the Deity of the Spirit of God at that point. It was assumed that the Spirit of God is God.
Our brothers didn’t get this from their imaginations or a smoky back room at a council. They got it from the Word of God, which clearly teaches that the Holy Spirit is Himself a person who is also the one true God.
Triune, this is our God. Three persons, one being.
Do you find that hard to picture? I do. There is nothing like Him in all of creation. He is holy, which means He is set apart and separate from all other things.
As the Lord says to Isaiah in chapter 40, verse 25:
“fTo whom then will you compare Me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.”
So, if you find it hard to fully understand the Trinity, do not feel bad. God has designed it that way. He can be understood truly, but not exhaustively. There is nothing in all creation to compare Him to.
We now have the context for our next two points. The portion of the creed we are examining was revised in 381 not because the original writers didn’t believe it, but because everyone did.
2. The Spirit Is Lord
It was not just the opinion of the writers of this creed; they looked at God’s Word and said, “The Holy Spirit is God, and that is a necessary part of the faith.”
This is what makes the creed true. It is not true because the writers were smart or had new ideas, but because this is what God’s Word says.
The Nicene Creed was originally written in Greek, and the word used for “Lord” is Kyrios. This was intentional and significant.
The Bible was not originally written in English. Jesus was not a first-century British lad with His trusty KJV in hand. When Christ and the apostles referenced Scripture, they used the Greek Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Greek was the common language in Jesus’s time, while Hebrew was the language of the Israelites before Christ. Almost all of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and all of the New Testament in Greek.
The word Kyrios appears many times in the New Testament and simply means “Lord.” It is not always used of God, but most often it is.
So, when the writers of the creed used this word to describe the Holy Spirit, they were declaring that the Spirit is God. The word Kyrios in Scripture, depending on context, is often used to identify the Deity of God Himself.
A clear example is Romans 10:13:
“For t“everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Paul is quoting Joel 2:32, where “the Lord” refers to Yahweh, the covenant name of God. In the Greek Septuagint, the word used to translate Yahweh is Kyrios.
Paul continues this tradition in Romans, using Kyrios again in verse 9:
“because, if myou confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and nbelieve in your heart othat God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Paul intentionally applies the divine name Yahweh to Jesus, affirming that to call on Jesus is to call on the Lord of Joel 2:32.
This is a powerful affirmation of Christ’s full deity. This use of Kyrios was not accidental. It was the same word used by the Church in the Nicene Creed—first in 325 to declare Jesus as “The Lord,” and then again in 381 to declare the Holy Spirit as “The Lord, the giver of life.”
The Church fathers were deliberate in using Kyrios, a word rich with divine meaning, to identify both the Son and the Spirit as fully and equally God.
Another great example of the Holy Spirit being identified as both a person and as God is in Acts 5:3–4:
“But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has xSatan filled your heart to lie yto the Holy Spirit and zto keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but ato God.””
Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit. Have you ever lied to an impersonal force before? You cannot lie to gravity or electricity. You lie to people.
So, first, we see the personhood of the Holy Spirit. He was lied to. Then Luke says, “You have not lied to man but to God.”
Which is it? Did Ananias lie to the Holy Spirit or to God? Yes. Both. Because the Holy Spirit is God.
This is why the creed needed to call the Spirit “The Lord”, applying the Divine Name to the person of the Holy Spirit.
We are talking about who God is. If you reject who God is, you have rejected God. That is not a minor issue—it is a matter of salvation.
If you believe in a false god, you are an idolater and will not be saved. There is one God who can save you from your sins, and He has revealed Himself in the pages of Scripture.
So, praise God for the Nicene Creed, for its revision in 381, and yes, even for the heresy that made it necessary.
All of these things have been used providentially throughout history for our good and God’s glory.
3. The Spirit Gives Life
There are two layers to this statement. The Spirit gives physical life, and He gives spiritual life.
The Spirit Gives Physical Life
In Job 33:4, Job says:
“kThe Spirit of God has made me, and lthe breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
This echoes Genesis 2:7, where God formed Adam from the dust and breathed life into him. Job makes it clear: that breath of life was the Spirit of God.
Romans 8:11 says:
“If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus4 from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies bthrough His Spirit who dwells in you.”
Not only did He breathe life into you in creation, He will do it again at the resurrection. It is as sure as Christ Jesus, the firstborn of the dead, rising from the grave! Death has no power over our God.
The Spirit Gives Spiritual Life
Let’s go meet the Lord Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. It’s a cool eastern night. Under the cloak of darkness, He’s talking to a certain Pharisee named Nicodemus in John chapter 3.
Jesus tells him that unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus responds, paraphrasing, “You expect me to fit back inside my mother’s womb!?”
Oh, Nicky, my boy. Do you think Jesus chuckled at that one? Did I not start this post off by saying that we are so focused on the physical we sometimes neglect the unseen things of the spiritual world?
Jesus replies to him in verses 5-6,
“Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born qof water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 rThat which is born of the flesh is sflesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.3.”
Notice that one “Spirit” is capitalized. Jesus is talking about the miracle of regeneration—the new birth brought about by the Spirit of God.
This is what it means to be born again. To be raised from spiritual death to spiritual life by the power of the Holy Spirit, just as our creed says.
The Spirit of God truly is the Giver of life, both spiritual life and physical life.
Conclusion
My friends, this is not some theory created by radicals or a plot by political leaders to control the narrative. The Nicene Creed confesses these things because they are the clear testimony of God’s Word.
We can personally know the Spirit of God because of what Jesus Christ has done on the cross, bridging the chasm between man and God that was caused by our sin.
It is this Holy Spirit who breathed out the words of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16), who validates our creed, and who gives life.
And that is why:
“We believe in the Holy Spirit, The Lord, The giver of life.”
