I Believe In One God

Mark A. Smith

Jan 2, 20242 min read

The Nicene Creed

I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD . . .

Again, along with the Apostles’ Creed, there is a confession of God as Father in this Nicene Creed, but in addition, there is a distinction of the Father existing as one God, though without mention of equally co-existing as one God with the Son and the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, as the creed is further examined and studied, it is surely implied that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God. But before God is confessed as the Father Almighty, He is confessed as one God (Mal.2:10; Mk.12:32; Acts 7:35; Rom.3:30; 1Cor.8:6; Eph.4:6; 1Tim.2:5).

This implies sovereignty and judgment over the false gods that are not gods at all by nature or existence but are imaginations of sinful men who don’t know nor ever knew God (James 2:19), yet testify of the wrath of God and His existence in their conscience passed on through the corruption of their fathers (Rom.1:18-25). Therefore their imaginations cry out, not from a pure heart, but from the nature of their father’s disobedience, adding sin to sin in demonstration of the curse and work of the law of sin and death (Rom.2:15; Gal.3:10; 1Cor.15:56; Rom.6:6; 7:23-25; 8:2), which they were delivered over to in Adam’s fall from the divine representation (Gen.2:17; 3:4, 11-12, 22-24).

Therefore, this “belief” that is required to confess God as one God is not in them by nature of this law (Gen.2:17; Eph.2:1-3), demonstrating (in them) that they are of the works of the law according to unbelief (Gal.4:8; 1Jn.2:4, 15; Rom.1:25), which produces the fruit of death as dead works in God’s sight (Heb.6:1; 9:14; James 1:13-15; Rom.6:21-23). They are dead to God through trespasses and sins according to the curse of the law in relationship to God’s sovereignty (Col.2:13-14; Rom.8:2-8).

Creeds proper, it is alleged, took their rise in connection with the rite of baptism.1

1 J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, Third Edition. (London; New York: Continuum, 2006), 30.

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Quote of the Month

The Glory of Christ
The Glory of Christ in His Person

This is that glory which angels long to behold, the mystery they 'desire to look into' (1Pet.1:12). This desire of theirs was represented by the cherubim in the most holy place of the tabernacle, which were symbols of the ministry of angels in the church. This glory is the ruin of Satan and his kingdom. Satan's sin, as far as we can know, ... was his pride against the sovereignty of the person of the Son of God by whom he was created (Col.1:16). By this, his destruction is accompanied with everlasting shame in attempting to overthrow infinite wisdom but was himself overthrown by the power of the two natures in one person (Gen.3:15, 22). [*This is the glory that angels desire to look into but cannot possess because of the nature in which the fallen had sinned against God according to the likeness of their nature being created in perfection (Rom5:14; Ezk.28:12-15).]

John Owen; pg. [28-29]