Why did God the Son come to earth in human nature? The question takes us to the heart of the Christian faith. It prompts reflection on the greatest of mysteries: God the Son became incarnate. Why would he step down from heaven to endure the shame of living and dying in the form of a servant (Phil. 2:5–11)? The Nicene Creed, first written in 325 AD and expanded in 381 AD, helps us contemplate this profound matter. In this article, I will briefly reflect on the Nicene Creed’s statements on God the Son while reflecting on the personal nature of Christ’s salvation.
Who is God the Son?
The statement about Christ is the longest section in the whole Creed. By my count, it takes up some fifteen distinct lines, each making its own contribution to our confession about God the Son incarnate. By comparison, we have two lines about the Father and nine lines about the Holy Spirit (in the post 381 AD iteration of the Creed at least). Christ is very much the heart of the Nicene Creed.
This long statement about Christ has roughly two sections. First, the Creed reflects on Christ’s person as God the Son. This first part dwells upon the reality that Christ is truly God, equal with the Father in every respect but distinct from him in relation of origin. It reflects upon Christ’s divine identity. Second, the Creed outlines Christ’s work, namely as he became incarnate. Under this heading, the Creed says,
Who, for us men and for our salvation,
came down from heaven
and 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 the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures;
and ascended into heaven, and sits 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.[1]
1. Chad Van Dixhoorn (ed.), Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms: A Reader’s Edition (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022), 17.
This section reflects upon Christ’s humanity.[2] Specifically, it states the work and mission that the Son performed according to his human nature when he became incarnate.[3]
2. The relation of Christ’s divine identity to his human nature was clarified later in the Chalcedonian Definition in 451 AD. In the Nicene Creed, the Son’s deity is the more emphatic assertion.
3. Jared Ortiz and Daniel A. Keating, The Nicene Creed: A Scriptural, Historical, and Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2024), 103.
The Nicene Gospel
The Nicene Creed is rightly known as a statement of trinitarian faith. It is less often appreciated enough as a summary of the gospel.[4] In this respect, the opening line explaining Christ’s incarnation is the first mention about us: “Who, for us men and for our salvation.”[5] The Creed does not provide a detailed description of how Christ’s life, death, and resurrection are the historical grounds of his saving work. In the Creed, we do not have a precise statement of penal substitutionary atonement or of justification by faith alone. Those truths are left unsaid here. After all, the focus is more on confessing the truth about Christ even as we come into view concerning his incarnate mission.
4. Philip Cary, The Nicene Creed: An Introduction (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2023), 103–4; Ortiz and Keating, Nicene Creed, 106–7.
5. Cary, Nicene Creed, 103.
The Creed does provide an overview of what Christ did that was for our salvation. Accordingly, the Creed’s first line about Christ’s coming to earth states the purpose for the Son’s incarnation.[6] The Son then had in view our salvation as he came to earth. This insight on the Creed’s view of the Son’s purpose in his incarnation then raises something worthy of our reflection concerning the creedal logic of the gospel in connection to personal salvation.
6. Ortiz and Keating, Nicene Creed, 105.
The Personal Logic of the Nicene Gospel
The purpose of the incarnation as aimed “for us men and for our salvation” clarifies the shape of the gospel. In recent years, the so-called “King Jesus Gospel” has suggested that the gospel is really about the announcement that God the Son has come as the incarnate king. This view poses the creedal statements about the events in Christ’s life as a summary of the gospel. By turn, advocates suggest that the blessings of salvation are merely benefits of the gospel, not to be confused with the gospel itself. The explicit implication of this dichotomy is to downgrade personal salvation in connection to the gospel. In other words, Christ’s atonement and our justification are not properly the gospel message. Rather, the raw description of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection—seemingly apart from their significance—constitute this so-called “King Jesus gospel.” The so-called “King Jesus Gospel” emphasizes the historical events of Christ’s life as the gospel itself without intrinsic connection to their saving value.
True enough, the events of Christ’s life constitute a gospel summary. One problem with the so-called “King Jesus Gospel” is that it diminishes the creedal connection of those historical events to their divine purpose. The triune God determined that the Son would come as our Savior. In that role as our saving mediator God determined, the Son would also be the risen king with all authority in heaven and on earth. If we are to remain faithful to creedal Christianity, Christ’s office of king cannot be disconnected from his purpose to work personal salvation for his people. A major problem in the so-called “King Jesus gospel” is its false dichotomy between Christ’s kingdom and personal salvation.
That creedal logic is plain in the repeated phrase “for us.” It appears twice in connection to aspects of Christ’s work. Best I can tell, it is the only repeated qualifying phrase appearing in the Nicene Creed. Thus, it may not be predominant, but is nevertheless an emphatic feature of creedal teaching about the incarnation. Christ’s incarnation had saving purpose for us in view.
Those in the so-called “King Jesus Gospel” camp criticize the common Reformed and evangelical concern for the gospel’s significance for personal salvation. They say instead that this personal dynamic was not a traditional concern in articulating the gospel. Some, instead, pose a more corporate understanding of salvation.
Proponents of the so-called “King Jesus gospel” may highlight that the “for us” creedal statements are plural rather than singular. One of their premises is that the traditional Protestant understanding of the gospel is too “me centered” by focusing on personal, namely individual, salvation. Does the Nicene Creed give them the foothold needed to criticize the concern for personal salvation?
Hardly. Stepping briefly outside the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed spotlights personal salvation as the central concern in confession the trinitarian faith, opening, “Whoever desires to be saved…”[7] The creedal tradition at least has a clear view to individuals finding salvation. Yes, the Nicene Creed includes a confession that Christ came to save plural “us.” It also begins, “I believe” as the church confesses these truths together. Of course, Christ came to save all who believe in him. Contrary to the so-called “King Jesus gospel,” the corporate breadth of Christ’s saving work in no way undermines its personal significance.
7. Van Dixhoorn, Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms, 21.
Personal salvation is then an aspect of creedal emphasis concerning the gospel and the Christian faith itself. This creedal point coheres exactly with biblical concern as well. Paul was clear: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). In this pivotal verse, Paul maintained a thoroughgoing emphasis on the explicitly personal and even individual relevance of Christ’s life, death, and overall saving work. Paul, who serves as an example for us in this respect, was fully convinced that God the Son had enough love for him personally—even as one whom the triune God had individually elected in eternity for salvation—that he came to give his life as a substitution for Paul in order to gain his salvation.
Saving faith then includes the idea that we are persuaded that God the Son came to save me. Paul set that example for us. Heidelberg Catechism 21 explains:
True faith is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in his Word; it is also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit works in me by the gospel, that God has freely granted, not only to others but to me also, forgiveness of sins, eternal righteousness, and salvation. These gifts are purely of grace, only because of Christ’s merits.[8]
8. Van Dixhoorn, Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms, 296 (emphasis added).
This expression of Reformation Christianity affirms that faith receives Christ as having given himself with a view to save me specifically.
Conclusion
This perspective ought to be profoundly humbling. Why would God the Son, who is all-glorious and has enjoyed all the privileges of boundless joy in the eternal life of the Godhead, step into history to suffer on my behalf? I am a sinner who cannot earn his affection. Yet, he has granted it in full. He lived, died, and rose to constitute the gospel message. Yet, that gospel message is not the sheer fact of these events. The gospel’s valence is in how Christ did all his incarnate work, even reigning as the risen king, for us men and for our salvation. The Creed points us to our glorious Savior as God the Son who came in our nature with the express mission to rescue his individual people.
