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Reading DeYoung on the Nicene Creed: Reflections and Review

Reading DeYoung on the Nicene Creed: Reflections and Review

Last updated on: December 22, 2025 at 4:33 pm by Jeff McLain

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Reading DeYoung on the Nicene Creed: Reflections and Review 2025-12-22T16:33:38-05:00 Jeff McLain

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The Nicene Creed (2025) by Kevin DeYoung. A Review.

In The Nicene Creed (2025), part of Crossway’s Foundational Tools for Our Faith series, Kevin DeYoung offers a concise but theologically profound exploration of the Nicene Creed—its origins, meaning, and ongoing significance for the Church. At roughly ninety pages, the book provides a “30,000-foot view” of the creed and its development while slowing down at several moments of doctrinal tension that shaped its final form.

DeYoung is clearly Reformed and, even more clearly, credal. Readers will sense that throughout the book. That posture undoubtedly shapes the book’s tone and trajectory, so do not expect an unbiased view. The chapters follow the structure of and movements in the creed itself, moving through: We Believe, Only Begotten, One Substance, For Us and Our Salvation, Who Proceeds from the Father and the Son, One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and One Baptism for the Remission of Sins.

The book includes both a general index and a Scripture index, making it useful not only as a short read but also as a reference tool for teaching or group study. I personally appreciated DeYoung’s work, thoroughness, and voice on The Lord’s Prayer in this same series more than this one.

Why The Nicene Creed Matters

One of the strengths of DeYoung’s work is his insistence on the historical weight of the Nicene Creed. I highlighted a significant percentage of this book with notes to come back to. As he points out well, unlike the Apostles’ Creed—which developed more organically over time—the Nicene Creed emerged from the Church’s first official ecumenical council. It was forged in controversy, tension, and difficulties, but also shaped by theological conflict, intended to unify the Church around shared convictions while confronting the heresies of its day.

DeYoung does not explicitly judge whether the council ultimately “succeeded,” but he clearly believes the creed has served—and continues to serve—the Church well. I have mixed thoughts on the success of the Creed. It certainly pushed back on some problems, like the heretics who were ripping the divinity from Jesus. Still, it failed to address all the matters of their day, squashing all heresies, or truly becoming “owned” ecumenically. As he notes, while the Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed share a similar structure and overlapping language, “the Nicene Creed is more theologically precise and more doctrinally robust” (DeYoung 2025, 9). No one can deny that.

That precision, however, comes with a cost. Unlike the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed also bears the marks of its cultural moment—power, politics, and philosophical categories that feel less accessible to many modern readers. As someone who is less creedal by instinct, though not anti-confession or anti-doctrine, this is where my tensions with the Nicene Creed begin to surface.

Six Reminders DeYoung Draws from the Nicene Creed

DeYoung argues that a careful study of the Nicene Creed reminds the Church of six enduring truths. The first three, in particular, are strong and convincing.

First, “The Nicene Creed stresses the importance of believing the right thing” (DeYoung 2025, 83). Doctrine matters, and belief is not merely emotional or experiential—it has content.

Second, “The history of the Nicene Creed teaches us that new statements (and modified statements) are often necessary to combat new errors” (DeYoung 2025, 83). Theology develops not because truth changes, but because challenges require clarity.

Third, DeYoung rightly acknowledges that “The Nicene Creed doesn’t tell us everything we need to know and believe” (DeYoung 2025, 83). This admission is crucial, and it is also where my own struggles with creedal statements begin to emerge. No creed, however faithful, can bear the full weight of the biblical witness.

DeYoung also argues that the Nicene Creed models the centrality of the Trinity, a point I strongly affirm. The remaining three reminders are less compelling to me, though still worth engaging. DeYoung suggests that the creed underscores the importance of “religion” for Christian life and worship, that it is unapologetically soteriological in focus, and that it points the Church toward the future as a still-living ecumenical confession.

I agree most strongly with his emphasis on salvation. In a cultural moment that often minimizes sin, redemption, and resurrection, the creed’s clarity here is needed. Where I remain unconvinced is in the way the creed—and at times DeYoung’s presentation of it—can flatten lived faith into intellectual assent rather than prophetic invitation to continue the discipling and ecumenical work of the church.

My Hesitation with Creedalism

It is worth explaining what I mean when I describe myself as “not creedal.” A significant risk of creedalism is its tendency to foster a kind of theological border-patrol culture, where technical precision becomes a tool for exclusion rather than an invitation into discipleship. When historical formulas are over-prioritized, faith can become fossilized—dynamic, Spirit-led truth trapped in ancient philosophical language that no longer resonates with lived experience.

Creeds can also create hierarchical environments where the creed functions as a glass ceiling for interpretation, subtly subordinating Scripture to a human-authored summary. In practice, this often produces a checklist spirituality—perfect intellectual assent without personal transformation, and orthodoxy without fruit.

I like the Nicene Creed, but I don’t think it went far enough or had resolved sufficient of the conversations at hand.

Why Form Still Matters

At the same time, a faith “without form” is equally dangerous. Clear convictions, framework, and shared confessions provide necessary anchors for a community. We see this throughout the New Testament, Didache, and other early church documents and fathers. Clear convictions establish boundaries for discipleship and ensure that post-baptismal life is not lived in a theological vacuum.

When used well, confessional frameworks offer a roadmap for growth, transforming abstract beliefs into commitments that shape character and guide practice. Without that clarity, discipleship struggles to withstand cultural pressure or sustain long-term maturity. The challenge, then, is not whether the Church should confess its faith, but how it does so.

Sometimes, especially about my Reformed friends, it can feel like the Creeds are “Gospel.”

Strengths and Limits of DeYoung’s Approach in The Nicene Creed

This book is a solid and accessible starting point for anyone seeking to understand the Nicene Creed. The broader Foundational Tools for Our Faith series continues to offer helpful introductions to essential Christian doctrines, and this volume fits that purpose well.

Where the book falls short is in its lack of prophetic forward movement. It often reads more like a defense of the creed than a summons to deeper fidelity in theology and life. Alternative viewpoints are acknowledged but rarely explored in depth, and the black-and-white clarity DeYoung favors sometimes leaves little room for mystery, development, or lived complexity.

Like many Reformed treatments of doctrine, the creed (and this book) gives relatively little attention to the Holy Spirit and says little about Jesus’s earthly life and ministry. The creed summarizes Christ’s birth and death but largely skips his teachings, practices, and call to “the way, the truth, and the life.” That absence is creedal, not DeYoung’s invention, but it remains a theological gap.

That said, DeYoung’s strongest sections are his treatment of substance, begottenness, and the state of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation. I will visit these parts again and again. His unpacking of these concepts is careful and historically grounded. Though I am eschatologically amillennial, I also appreciate the creed’s restrained eschatology—it points forward without over-specifying. The seatbelt is an important reminder for the church. However, the book also fails to reflect further on the eschatological hope, futurist teaching, and the creed’s eternal view in great detail.

As William Lane Craig has noted, and this book does well, the Nicene Creed does not invent the Trinity; it solidifies it. From the earliest Logos theology of the Greek apologists, Christ was understood as divine. Studying this creed makes that continuity unmistakable.

Reading from the Margins

I read The Nicene Creed from the margins. I pastor a small church of misfits and walk daily alongside men and women experiencing homelessness. In those spaces, theology must be more than precise—it must be pastoral, memorable, teachable, and form disciples. Creeds matter as tools, but they lose their power when they are written for a readership many will never inhabit, or if they take 90 pages to explain the history. My concern is not whether the Nicene Creed is true, but whether it can be embodied in communities shaped by suffering, instability, and hope. We must also be careful not to regulate parts of Christ’s life as less important to confession—his teachings, practices, compassion, and call to follow—because discipleship is formed not only by what we believe about Jesus, but by how we learn to live like him.

Final Verdict

Is this a good read? Yes. If you want a clear, compact introduction to the Nicene Creed, this book is an excellent starting point. It will serve pastors, students, and thoughtful lay readers well. While I remain cautious about creedalism and wish DeYoung pressed the Church forward more prophetically, this is still a significant and worthwhile contribution. As another Amazon Reviewer said, this book is “all the history and theology needed to understand the Creed.”

Crossway provided this book in exchange for an honest review.

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About Jeff McLain

Jeff McLain is a pastor, writer, and doctoral student passionate about helping others rediscover a simple, quieter faith. Jeff is a pastoral leader at River Corner Church in Lancaster, PA, and serves as Director of Pastoral Ministries at Water Street Mission. Through his Lead a Quiet Life blog, Jeff explores Scripture, spiritual formation, and community—inviting readers to slow down, live faithfully, and follow Jesus in everyday life. You can read more about the author here.

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