Journal: Journal of the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies
Volume: JIRBS 10:1 (NA 2025)
Article: "The Nicene Creed: An Introduction" by Phillip Cary A Review Article
Author: Cameron G. Porter

JIRBS 10 (2025) p. 41

The Nicene Creed: An Introduction
by Phillip Cary
A Review Article

Cameron G. Porter*

*Cameron G. Porter is pastor of Free Grace Baptist Church, Chilliwack, BC, Canada.

On a Lord’s day sabbath morning in the autumn of 1855, a 21-year-old Baptist preacher delivered a sermon at New Park Street Chapel, in Southwark, Central London wherein he pressed upon his audience the Christian church’s rich heritage of truth that stretches back to antiquity. Emphasizing his love to proclaim our “strong old doctrines,” he confidently stated:

By this truth I make a pilgrimage into the past, and as I go, I see father after father, confessor after confessor, martyr after martyr, standing up to shake hands with me…[T] aking these things to be the standard of my faith, I see the land of the ancients peopled with my brethren—I behold multitudes who confess the same as I do, and acknowledge that this is the religion of God’s own church.1

A proper Christianity is a Christianity connected to its history. If Christ promised to build his church; if he promised to send the Spirit of Truth; if he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men—then a Christianity born of modernity that rejects the echoes of

JIRBS 10 (2025) p. 42

her Spirit-led men and repudiates the giftings of her Victor, is no true Christianity at all.

Unto the end that Christians appreciate the deposit of faith that their ascended Lord has entrusted to his church, Phillip Cary sets out to help them “understand their own faith better, and thus to grow in the knowledge of God, by learning what the ancient teachers of the Nicene faith had to give us” (4).

Before we explore the content of The Nicene Creed: An Introduction by Phillip Cary,2 commending it to the reader, we should note the structure of the book, which is likewise commendable. Cary has ordered the book according to the specific architecture of the creed itself. After introducing the historical setting of The Nicene Creed (1) and treating the opening clause (“We believe,” in the English; 17), he organizes his content consistent with the creedal language expressed: “Article 1: God the Father”; “Article 2, Part 1: The Eternal Son of God”3; “Article 2, Part 2: God Incarnate”; and “Article 3: The Holy Spirit.” Each article is sub-divided according to the verbatim clauses (or even single words) that constitute each topic. This almost “exegetical” approach