Journal: Journal of the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies
Volume: JIRBS 10:1 (NA 2025)
Article: Is Nicaea A Caveat Or A Control? A Comparison Of Ancient And Modern Approaches To Exegesis
Author: Daniel D. Scheiderer

JIRBS 10 (2025) p. 1

Is Nicaea A Caveat Or A Control?
A Comparison Of Ancient And Modern Approaches To Exegesis

Daniel D. Scheiderer*

*Daniel D. Scheiderer, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Christian Theology at International Reformed Baptist Seminary and has served in Reformed Baptist gospel ministry since 2016.

Qui bene distinguit, bene docet (he who distinguishes well, does well). This special dictum of theological discourse leads to the charges of “fighting over minutiae,” but, in reality, it protects against the misrepresentation of the eternal God whom we worship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is, in fact, the careful work of making distinctions that protects our exposition of the trinitarian faith, allowing us to speak of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three yet one, how the Son is both God and man, and how it can be said that the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son without collapsing his procession and mission. Distinctions make the difference, and when theology becomes uncareful in making distinctions, it affects the interpretation of Scripture and arguments made from particular texts. Distinctions must be rightly placed if they are to accomplish their purpose in clarifying the truth to the minds of the auditors of such teaching.

“And [We believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only begotten, that is from the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father,

JIRBS 10 (2025) p. 2

through Whom all things were made, those in heaven and those on earth, who for us men, and for our salvation, came down, and was incarnate.” These words of that beautiful symbol, the Nicene Creed, accurately summarize the biblical teaching on the relation of the Son to the Father, the fact that the Son is of the same substance as the Father, and the fact that the same Son took to himself our nature. Certainly, the debates surrounding Nicaea in 325 and in the subsequent councils were debates over the true teaching of Scripture, particularly regarding our confession of the Son. It is, as John Behr memorably frames it, the church’s work of answering Jesus’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” on the basis of Scripture.1

In light of the biblical teaching on God’s nature and what is owed to the Creator distinctly (i.e., worship), the church confessed, as she always has, that the divine Son who assumed a true human nature is of one essence with the Father even while he assumed the true human nature. Note, then, that two things are true of the debates surrounding Nicaea: first, they are about the true interpr...