Understanding the Council of Nicaea is appropriate in 2025 for milestone reasons. It's been appropriate every year before now, just to be clear. But this is the 1700th anniversary. And this is significant because in 325 AD, some important things took place at a location in Turkey. And these slides behind me are going to help us along. And what we have here is the outline answering seven questions. What controversy led to the Council of Nicaea? What didn't happen at the Council of Nicaea? What actually happened at the Council of Nicaea? What did the Creed of Nicaea say? What was the impact of the Creed of Nicaea? What and when were the updates to this creed? What is the content of the Nicene Creed? Here at Cosmosdale we have a vested interest in this congregationally because we recite the Nicene Creed together. We did it this past Sunday morning. And therefore understanding the origin and the history of things, the backgrounds to things, can be especially useful for our discipleship. and for our knowledge of scripture. The historical context is simply this. The church was seeking to defend what the Bible teaches about the Trinity, and in particular, the person of Jesus. Who is Jesus? This was a major question needing to be thought through carefully at a doctrinal level with several meeting at this location. Not just several, but many. The term creed is important for us. We use this word all the time, Nicene Creed, Apostles Creed. The word creed is from a Latin word, credo. which means I believe. So when we speak of a creed, what we are saying is this is something we say together because it is what we believe. And the Nicene Creed is one of those things. But it was the result of much controversy. And so what led to the controversy was a man who lived in North Africa. He lived in Alexandria, Egypt. His name is Arius. And in the 300s, he was causing a lot of problems. But he wasn't someone unknown. He was actually a church leader, which can often make things much more difficult when they're the ones causing the problems. I'm just saying. So you have an example here. He's a priest. He's known as a presbyter, a priest. And as a church leader, he was known for having theological opinions, and his theological opinions were desired. People wanted to know what he had to say, and he was not shy about what he taught. The thing about Arius and Arianism, that is the set of teachings stemming from this guy, Arius and Arianism. Arius did not believe that Jesus was truly God, not sharing the deity of the Father. He believed that Jesus was made. And he believed this because the scripture teaches, so he interpreted it, that the only begotten Son of God must mean that there was a time the Son was not. That's his most famous phrase, there was a time when he was not. That's what Arius was known to teach and he would not only say it in normal everyday speech, Arius would compose songs in order to have people join with him lyrically in saying things that the Bible did not teach in terms of orthodoxy. Arius believed he was a faithful interpreter of scripture. And so when he is convinced he's interpreting scripture faithfully, and as a church leader with theological opinions, and putting things in lyrical form for people to internalize, you see what a danger and threat this poses. It's quite serious. His most famous phrase, there was a time when he was not. The he there is the son. At some point, Arius believed that the Father made the Son. And that's why we speak of the Son as the Son of God. He did not believe that the Son was co-eternal with the Father or fully divine or truly divine as the Father is. And this controversy in this area came to a head in the 300s, where such disagreement among church leaders, and not just the presbyters, but people over them in the hierarchy called bishops, the bishops faced such conflict that the emperor Constantine called for a council. Now, when you've left the emperor, no choice, but to call a council, things must have unfolded theologically and conflict-wise, where now in the political sphere, the emperor is stepping in. He convenes a council in Nicaea in AD 325. But you need to know what didn't happen. There are some myths about this council and you hear them from time to time. I hear them in popular level teachings and TV remarks, anchors who are remarking about things historical and related to Christianity, mistakes that end up in various fiction books. One of the most famous example of this was the 2003 bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code, continued to perpetuate the notion of myth number one. that the council met to decide which books were in the Bible. And there are people who firmly believe this. I remember a conversation I had last year with somebody who does not come from a Baptist background, and he said to me, the council in Isaiah, isn't that where they chose the books that were in the canon? It is so common that if you haven't heard it, you know people who do know this, think this, and may say this to you at some point. It is a myth. One of the reasons we know this is because the resulting documents of the Council of Nicaea can be googled in their English translation, and the Council, in all of their available documents, had nothing to say or do with choosing any books in the canon. It is a myth. It is so easily historically falsified that we should be eager to step into that misunderstanding whenever somebody says that and we say, oh, no, no, no. All you need to do is look up Council of Nicaea, what were the resulting documents, what did they discuss, and you will not find anybody choosing and deciding the books of the biblical canon. So despite what you might read in fictional accounts like the Da Vinci Code, it turns out they don't give you sound Christian history. I'll give you an instance of this. One of the characters in the Da Vinci Code is named Li Tibing, and he says, this is a quote from the book, Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible which omitted those Gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished the Gospels that made him godlike. And boy, there's just no historical merit to any of those lines or words. I mean, that is just quite a claim that you cannot substantiate historically. Myth number two, the council met to invent the Trinity. And one of the reasons this would catch on is because there is Trinitarian language in the Nicene Creed. So you can imagine the misunderstanding that if part of this council ends up being creedal language, that maybe what they did when they all got here was they invented the Trinity itself. But of course that's not true because we have documents and theologians and writings prior to 325 AD. And we know what the church from the Apostles' Fort was teaching about the person of Christ. In fact, the conflict with Arius came to a head because prior to that, Arius was seen to be out of stream with his Arian teaching about Jesus being created. It had not been what the post-apostolic generation taught. And so the council does clarify some things. But clarifying things about the Trinity is not the same as inventing the doctrine of the Trinity. And so the council did not meet to invent the doctrine of the Trinity. Myth number three, the council invented the deity of Jesus. This is very common. It's common for people to think that early Christians did not believe Jesus was divine, that came later in church history. You'll see people say this in our culture and through various fictional settings, where Christians are being talked about and history is being spoken about, and they'll say, oh yeah, they didn't initially believe Jesus was divine. They added deity to him later, just like what happened in 325 AD. Except we have the works of early church fathers prior to 325 AD, who believe they are interpreting the scriptures themselves when they argue for both the true deity and true humanity of Jesus. These are examples of myths. The Council of Nicaea met in 325, but not to decide what books were in the Bible, not to invent the Trinity, and not to invent the deity of Jesus. So, what actually happened at the Council of Nicaea? The matters that they addressed are the following. Matters of church discipline, the fixing of the date of Easter for celebration, and a Christological controversy, which is the focus of our time tonight. But I want to make a couple brief comments about these other items. The matters of church discipline. included the question of whether if somebody falls into egregious sin, whether they can be brought back into the Christian community. Even questions about ministers in the church and how they are to administer sacraments to these people who seem to have gone into an apostate direction for a time. So they were thinking through matters of church discipline and communal restoration. Also the date of Easter. They established the date that Easter was to be on the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the spring equinox. Well, let's give it one more go. After the first full moon, no, it's the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the spring equinox. That's what they decided. That's why they met for so long, I bet. All right, so the Christological controversy was the main reason for gathering. And what you'll notice about this controversy and its location is that they met in 325 A.D. convened by Emperor Constantine during several months. This was not like they took out two days, hammered all this out. They met for weeks and weeks and weeks from May through July in 325 A.D. in the city of Nicaea in Asia Minor, which is in the town of Iznik in Turkey. So you can't see this clearly, but Nicaea is around here. And here's a zoom in. Here's Nicaea. And so over in this area, they meet. And what you have with this map is the Mediterranean Sea separates all of this. Here's Alexandria, where Arius is from. And so there's a lot of dots on here representing different places around the regions of the Empire where people would travel many, many miles to gather at a location for many weeks. Now, who gathered there? Well, over 300 bishops. Over 300 bishops. This is a massive gathering of church leaders. Now I'm talking about bishops. Arius was not a bishop. Even though he was present, it's historically unclear whether he had any strong speaking role, even though his teaching was key to this whole controversy. Not being a bishop, other people who held his position theologically and who were bishops would have been teaching. But Arius was there, and even though he was not a bishop and would not have had that kind of voting power. But over 300 bishops gathered there as leaders of local churches to discuss this. And they gathered throughout the Roman Empire in the town of Nicaea, which is now called Iznik in Turkey. And one group, one small group, sided with Arius. One small group was against Arius. The majority of the people were undecided. They were wanting to hear both sides. They didn't come in thinking, oh yes, we know where we stand. It seems that historically the majority of the people needed to hear all of the biblical argumentation. Which is why something like this could be valuable. Because I don't imagine the people against Arius necessarily adopted the opposite position by the end of it. Nor the people pro-Arius leaving that, though we would hope they would, and adopt a biblical take. The key is all the people in the middle who are undecided. They need to hear strong arguments from scripture so that they can be persuaded by truth and have error in front of them exposed. And so all of these hundreds of bishops gather for this occasion. Now, there is this story that is not historical, but it is humorous, that St. Nicholas on whom is based Santa Claus and that whole thing, that St. Nicholas was in attendance at Nicaea, and when he had the opportunity, he punched Arius in the face. This is a legend. It is not rooted as early as the Council of Nicaea. It's not in any of their documents. You can't go on Google when it says, and then Nicholas approached and swung. It doesn't say anything like that, but But it is kind of funny to think about it, to be quite honest, because you have this theologian, Nicholas, and the history that's all part of him connected to this strange legend. You'll see memes every once in a while circulate around Christmas time. Here's an example. I came to give presents to kids and to punch heretics and I just ran out of presents. So this is one of these examples of saying, this happened at the Council of Nicaea, right? It's funny to think about, maybe. It didn't happen historically. There's no evidence historically that that actually took place. So I don't imagine that was unclear in your mind anyway, but you may see that from time to time on social media and just to clear that part up. Now, what happened with the actual events and the results of Nicaea's reflections and argumentation? Several results. Arianism ends up being condemned with an overwhelming majority of the vote. By the time all of these weeks finish, only a handful of no votes, meaning no against what had been the main and orthodox teaching, only a few were holdouts for Arius. It was nearly unanimous. Now, there's no evidence in the documents from Nicaea of what the final vote total was. But you'll hear people say two or three votes. So in other words, we're not talking about 51-49 kind of split. That's not what this is. This was the situation where the overwhelming majority of the bishops, nearly all of them, were persuaded by Orthodox teaching about the sun, which is really, really good news. And part of what they concluded involved the inclusion of a word in a creed that was released, and the word homoousios refers to the son being of the same essence as the father. So that the father and the son are not different gods, but rather fully share deity and all that it means to be God. The Son is not other than that, but the same. He is God and not created. The inclusion of this word was very, very important, even though up to this point, plenty of people believe this theological truth. It was about putting it in creedal form. Now, I'm distinguishing between two statements of faith tonight. what we're calling the Creed of Nicaea and the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed is what we recite in the church and it's longer than this. So the Creed of Nicaea is shorter and it's the first statement that had some expansion on it in the years that came along. What did the Creed of Nicaea say? It said, we believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only begotten, that is from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one substance, homoousios, with the Father, through whom all things came into being. Things in heaven and things on earth, who because of us men and because of our salvation, came down and became incarnate. And becoming man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to the heavens, will come to judge the living and the dead." So, so far, this is about the Father and the Son. And the statements about the Son are longer. And the reason the statements about the Son are longer is because the controversy about the person of the Son was the point. So they add all of this clarifying language. And here's what they said about the Holy Spirit. And we believe in the Holy Spirit. That's it. That's what they said in the Holy Spirit. And then they added some what are called anathemas. May God's judgment and woe of condemnation be upon you. They said, but as for those who say there was when he was not. Boy, that's some trolling historically, if we've ever heard any. I mean, everybody knows who exactly they're talking about because this guy was going around saying this. For those who say there was when he was not, and before being born he was not, and he came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance, or is subject to alteration or change, these the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes, statements of condemnation. So, when I say to you that the result of the Nicene Council was the condemnation of Arius' teaching, I mean that historically they said, may the judgment of God be upon all those who embrace this condemnatory teaching. And so therefore, in this overwhelming majority, they released this creedal statement. And the impact was profound. Also present at this Council of Nicaea was a man named Athanasius. and Athanasius became a staunch proponent of the creedal language and of course already given his historical origin and rootedness in the Christian faith had been against Arius' teachings all along. We also know that on February 27th, 380, a Roman emperor issued an edict that the Creed of Nicaea represented, quote, the faith which we believe to have been communicated by the Apostle Peter to the Romans and maintained in its traditional form to the present day. Well, when your emperor says that this creed represents what we believe the Apostle Peter taught, that's a pretty significant political move. So the impact of the Creed of Nicaea was felt quickly, quickly, like in the 300s still. But there were some updates to the creed. Because Christian controversies can come in waves, and there was a time in 381 where the council of Constantinople met. In 381, the meeting resulted in what we call the Nicene Creed because it added additional language to address some things. The Council of Constantinople wanted to address the deity of the Holy Spirit. Prior to this, the Creed of Nicaea in 325 spoke of the Father and the Son as divine. The language was clear. It simply said, and in the Holy Spirit, without any further elaboration that you could draw biblically from to add. And so in 381, they added some additional statements about the Son and an entire section to the Holy Spirit. They added wording about the Son regarding that he was of the Virgin Mary. They spoke of his crucifixion, the language of baptism, the church and the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. All of that came in 381 to the Creed of Nicaea. And then the whole section about the Holy Spirit, that he's called the Lord and giver of life. So sometimes people have called this Nicene Creed, the Niceno Constantinopolitan Creed. We just call it the Nicene Creed. We all know what we mean by that. That's the shorthand. And we're not doing the long one that requires 25 syllables and a hyphen. So we know what this refers to, though. It refers to two meetings in 325 and in 381 where more language about the Trinity was clarified in light of what scripture teaches and in order to address controversies. One of the things we can appreciate about this historically is that Christians believed that truth and doctrine was worth fighting for, meeting about, hashing out. Biblically, we would not just say to people, well, you just go around saying about Jesus or about the Trinity, whatever you think. Rather, they were willing to dig their heels in and say, we want to hold to what has been taught from the apostles forward and deviating from that is not safe and no one should do so. And therefore, the Creed of Nicaea and these updates in 381 that add the section of the Holy Spirit were very key to clarifying. And then there was an episode in 589. In AD 589, at the Council of Toledo, there were a group of believers who added the words, and the Son, to the part about the Holy Spirit. So prior to that, the Nicene Creed said simply that the Spirit proceeded from the Father. And here, in 589 BC, believers thought that it would help clarify the deity of the Holy Spirit and the deity of the Son, that the Spirit proceeds not just from the Father, but also of the Son. In fact, they believed that they saw Jesus teaching this very thing in the Gospel of John. Jesus not only taught that the Father would send the Spirit, He spoke that He Himself would pour out the Spirit. And so this, and the sun, is from a Latin word called filioque, from the word filius, sun, and que, the word and. This is affectionately known as the filioque clause, when in 589, they added and the sun to the section about the Holy Spirit. Now initially, this may have seemed like a great idea to the people who gathered. It passed an overwhelming majority, but it did create controversy. because it wasn't rooted in the original Nicene Creed. And there are faith traditions to this day that don't recite the part, and the Son, in the section of the Holy Spirit. So if you attended a Greek Orthodox service, for instance, and if you heard them reciting the Creed, they would not include, and the Son. This is an example of them saying it was not part of the original Nicene Creed and the statement about the spirit in 381. So even though these people in 589 added it, they didn't want to recite it. Western Christianity did embrace this. And it's part of what we would consider as the text of the Nicene Creed to this day. In fact, when we recite the section about the Holy Spirit in our church, we include that the Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son. Even though that was not part of the 325 language or the 381 language, we do believe it is part of the Jesus language. And so we believe that is what Jesus taught. And so while this was updated, it is an update with good warrant. Now, the Nicene Creed, as we know it, has four parts. It has four parts. The creed that we call the Nicene Creed covers the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Church. Historically, this is in keeping with the layout, the template, in the 325 meeting. But in 381, and even the edition in 589, it's clear that this four-fold template is worthy of reflection and confession for the people of God. For instance, Regarding the Father, what do we say about the Father in the Nicene Creed? We believe in one God. So we're trying to say immediately a monotheistic statement. We're saying that, yes, we're going to make some statements about the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. These are not three gods. We believe in one God, and we're just going to make that clear. And He is the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. Meaning that there's nothing that exists that was not created by God. The Father's section is followed then by a lengthy section about the Son, and it's broken into two parts. The Son's section begins with His deity. We say that we believe in the one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. This affirms the deity of the Son. I want to notice a couple of these words here. In the language begotten of the Father before all worlds, this is a recalling of an old word. The word worlds is part of an old English habit of using world to mean age. So that before all ages or before all worlds, we believe in the one Lord Jesus Christ who's the begotten of the Father. He was begotten before all times, before all ages. So worlds or ages communicates creation, time, and he was begotten before those things. Because those things came into being and the Son did not. He was begotten of the Father before all worlds. God of God, light of light. The word of there, think of it as the word from. He is the Son from the Father, the begotten Son from the Father, God from God, and yet not two gods. He is light from light. Think of rays shining from the sun, or beams shining from a flashlight. He is light from light, the same source, the same substance. Very God of very God. The word very is from an old Latin word that means true. Like verily, verily, and truly, truly. The same kind of origin for this language speaks of very God, very God, as true God. He is true God. Very God of very God. Begotten, not made. They're just putting that in there. He's not made. No one made him. The Father did not make him. People taught that. The Council of Nicaea met about that controversy, and they say it is condemnatory doctrine to teach that the Son was made. Jehovah's Witnesses still teach that to this day though. They still teach, in their documents, as Jehovah's Witnesses, founded from the 1800s forward, Arian teaching. They teach that there was a time the sun was not, even if they don't put it that way. So after the deity of the sun, the humanity of the sun is addressed. We teach that and we confess that who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, this is the incarnation, isn't it? He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried and on the third day rose again according to the scriptures and ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of the Father and he shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead whose kingdom shall have no end. Now, the updates in 381 and in 589 are evident with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit section, we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life. Even those phrases right there clarify a lot. Because from 325 AD, it simply said, and in the Holy Spirit, which, you know, as Christians, you're like, yeah, I wanna believe in that, but can you give me more? And they did. So what they would say is, what's true about God, that he's Lord, that he's the life giver to his creation, they're gonna ascribe divine attributes or actions to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, Filioque clause, and the Son, who proceeded from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified. Is it appropriate to worship and glorify the Holy Spirit? Yes and amen. The Spirit is all that God is. There's nothing that God is that the Spirit isn't. And this language in the creed is meant to clarify the full deity of the Spirit. This Spirit, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, is the one who spoke by the prophets. You see, the prophets would say things like, thus says the Lord, so they have a word from God. Another way to say they have a word from God is the Holy Spirit is speaking. So this language is the effort that the writers are trying to make in clarifying for you the deity of the Holy Spirit. And then, about the church. The church, and we believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. Now these terms, especially for people who are new to the Nicene Creed, can be especially eyebrow-raising and you think, what exactly are we confessing here? I thought we were Baptists. Well, we are. We are. But look at each of these terms. The word one is about the unity of Christ Church, capital C. All these little local churches and congregations throughout the world, we praise God for all the diversity throughout the world in the churches of Jesus Christ. As they seek to follow Christ, and even though various faith traditions have formed along the centuries, we recognize that in the end, Christ has a bride. Christ has a flock. Singular. And so this language, the one church, is trying to recognize that in addition to Baptists, there are other believers. And so we're not talking here about a Baptist church, we're talking about the capital C Church of the Lord Jesus Christ that has existed and not just in the present, but for all times. His church, redeemed from every nation, tribe, and tongue. The word holy is not speaking about our moral righteousness because truly we are still people being sanctified, but it's a positional term. We have been set apart and we are his holy church. We've been set apart for holiness and to live lives set apart for Christ. The word Catholic is not about Roman Catholicism at all. It's a little c, not capital C word. Roman Catholic is not what this refers to. Little c Catholic refers to universal. The one holy and Catholic or universal church, it's again recognizing the generality and the universality of the saints of Christ throughout the world and throughout the ages. Apostolic refers to the fact that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. You see this in Ephesians 2.20. or that in Acts 2, the early church met devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching. They were a church built according to what Christ's disciples taught. So by calling the church of Christ apostolic, it's a way of saying the apostles commissioned by the Lord Jesus have rightly taught, interpreted, and written about the gospel in the Old Testament, and therefore their writings are crucial to the church of Christ. Foundational in Ephesians 2 verse 20, the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. In other words, the Church of Christ is prophetic and apostolic because we care about the written words God has inspired. And then, baptism for the remission of sins. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. The one baptism is not a question of mode here, but a reference to the fact that when they're baptized, they're baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. They're baptized in union with Christ. In other words, it's a baptism that has to do with our union with Christ, with whom we have died to sin, been buried with him, and been raised from the dead. It's the baptism. And we certainly grant that as faith traditions seek to follow their best understanding of this, not all the details of how all of that works out is agreed upon. But credally, let's recognize that the one baptism is a reference to the Christian baptism that refers to our union with Christ. And then we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. recognizing that in the creed, we are anticipating our bodily deliverance from the grave. And the life of the world to come is a way of speaking about the age to come, the times to come, what lies in the new creation, the new heavens and the new earth. So as we've looked at the content of the Nicene Creed and considered how it's expanded on some earlier councils, it informs more about why we confess what we do as a church. We confess these things as people who are convinced that the ultimate authority in all matters of faith and practice is the Bible, but history and councils matter. They matter because they give you insight into doctrinal controversies and clarifications throughout the age of the church. And sometimes people who grow up in conservative circles can struggle with this because they're used to seeing the Bible as the rightful authority in the Christian life. They see no role or insight that Christian tradition in history can play. So when the reformers speak of sola scriptura, that scripture alone, what they mean And this is historically demonstrable. What they mean is that scripture alone is our final authority in all matters of faith and practice. It's greater than all the popes. It's greater than all of his decrees. It's greater than all the stuff that they had to combat. It wasn't saying there's nothing else we look to in helping our discipleship outside the Bible because the creeds of the Christian faith have been historically useful from the early church forward. in the days of the Reformation onward. In other words, the reformers saw zero contradiction in affirming the ultimacy of the scripture as the authority for faith and practice and the usefulness traditionally of what the creed teaches. And the reason they saw no contradiction in that is because they believe the creed is summarizing what the Bible teaches. In other words, when we recite the Creed, we're reciting summaries of Christian teaching about the Father, Son, Spirit, and the Church. That's why we have this. So if somebody asks, why do you guys recite the Creed at Cosmo Steele Baptist Church? Don't you believe the Bible is your authority? Well, of course we believe the Bible is the ultimate authority in all matters of faith and practice. But we also believe that in the providence of God and in His wisdom and goodness throughout the ages, He has given all sorts of help to the Church of Christ through all sorts of controversies as people have stood for truth and clarified what they believe. One writer puts it this way, the Nicene Creed is not higher than the Bible, but it is higher than you. Now think about that for a second. Think about that for a second. The Nicene Creed is not higher than the Bible, but it is higher than you. What that means is, for somebody who says, well I just want to look at what the Bible says and don't give me any statements of faith, don't give me any creeds, don't give me any traditional historical stuff, I don't want to know anything, I'm just going to look at the Bible and I'm just going to conclude what it says. A lot of cults form that way. By people who believe they were just looking at what the Bible says. Arius Thought he was just looking at what the Bible says. So what I'm telling you is the guidelines of historical tradition through these creeds and councils are not higher than the Bible. But they are summarizing what Orthodox Christianity through the ages teach. And so we don't want to ignore them. We don't want to ignore them. We find ways to incorporate them. We incorporate them on Sundays and incorporate them in a time like this where we can consider the history behind what happened 1,700 years ago. In the months of May to July, they were meeting. And so 1,700 years ago, in this part of the year, friends, 1,700 years ago, over 300 bishops were having the most important conversations about the most important things. I love Kevin de Young's statement about the Nicene Creed, and we'll close with this tonight. Kevin de Young has written a book on the Nicene Creed, and in it he says what I think you could demonstrate to be true from a variety of evidences. He says, after the Bible, the Nicene Creed may be the most important Christian text ever written. Since the fourth century, the Nicene Creed has served as the most influential most ecumenical, and arguably most widely used statement of faith in the history of the church. It's hard to overstate the importance of what we confess in the lines of the Nicene Creed about the Father, Son, Spirit, and the church the triune God loves. Let's pray.