In a special event on February 1, 2025, Christian Students on Campus (CSOC) hosted Kyle Barton, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, who presented a lecture to illustrate the Nicene Creed and its enduring impression on our understanding and experience of the salvation of Christ. Central to his discussion is the towering figure of Athanasius and his vital contribution to the normative Christology (the study of Christ’s Person, nature, and work) and soteriology (the doctrine of salvation) affirmed in the creed.

He is called “Athanasius the Great.” Among Egyptian Christians, he is called “Athanasius the Apostolic.” Furthermore, because he stood up for the truth against so many, he is sometimes called Athanasius contra mundum, a Latin phrase meaning “Athanasius against the world.”

In his early twenties, Athanasius clearly understood the full extent and efficacy of Christ’s salvation according to the apostolic teachings. Threatening this understanding and the course of Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxy was the advancing heresy of Arianism. To combat this deviation, Athanasius appealed to the revelation in the Bible of the nature of Christ as fully God and fully man in His incarnation.

The entire formulation and subsequent debates from the greatest theologians in Athanasius’ time played out at Nicaea in AD 325. For two months, more than 200 theologians convened to debate these central precepts; the resulting articles of faith were catechized as the Nicene Creed. This credo of orthodox confession echoed down through the centuries into our own time as a brilliant summary of the Gospel, relevant to all Christian students today.

The Nicene Creed is more than a synopsis of orthodox teachings of the New Testament. Similarly to the Ethiopian eunuch who did not merely recite Philip’s preaching, but believed (Gk. Πιστεύω, cf. Acts 8:37) from all his heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Nicene Creed is not only an orthodox formula, but a confirmation of the established truth of the Scriptures.

Within a year of Jesus’ crucifixion, the development of the gospel of salvation began from the event (τὰ γενόμενα) of Christ’s death and resurrection, to the news (εὐαγγέλιον), proclamation (κήρυγμα), instruction (κατήχησις), outline (ὑποτύπωσις), and confession (ὁμολογία) of this established belief (πιστεύω). As a crystallization process drawn out over several centuries, the Nicene Creed codified in AD 325 is an itemization of the faith which conformed to the same historic pattern to confirm the sacrosanct truth of the New Testament.