Today's Devotion

Friday, June 12, 2026 (The Ecumenical Council of Nicaea) - John 14:1-17

Friday

June 12, 2026 (The Ecumenical Council of Nicaea)

John 14:1-17

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

In the summer of 325 AD, the Emperor Constantine called an ecumenical council so that the church could finally end its divisions and dissensions about two related theological matters of great importance: the Trinity and the Two Natures of Christ. At that time, there were two factions: the followers of Arius (the Arians) who held that Jesus was not Creator but rather a creature, effectively denying the Triune nature of God, and, the older, traditional faction, known as Catholics (based on the Greek word that describes the church as universal and holistic in her faith), who opposed Arius and the Arians. The Catholic faction was led by the soon-to-be bishop Athanasius of Alexandria. After prayerful reflection on the Scriptures and the testimony of the fathers, the Arians were declared heretics and condemned. The Catholic faction won the day – and Catholic Christians were known for quite some time as “Athanasians.”

Of course, the doctrine of the Trinity didn’t begin at Nicaea. The Nicene Creed is a confession of Scripture. And our reading from St. John’s Gospel today is a case in point.

Shortly before the beginning of His passion, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also…. I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.” Our Lord uses the highly charged “I am” to describe His relationship to the Father. There is a unity in essence, but a distinction of persons, between Father and Son. The Father is glorified “in the Son.” But the divine essence isn’t limited to these two persons, for Jesus here speaks of “another Helper” besides the Father and the Son, whom He calls here “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive.” Unlike the world, the Spirit dwells in the church, just as the Father dwells in the Son and the Son dwells in the Father.

The Trinity is confessed by the Nicene Fathers, not as a new doctrine, but rather as a clear confession of the old, Biblical doctrine of who God is. For Jesus is God, capable of keeping the Law perfectly, without sin; He is also man, capable of shedding His blood and dying as the perfect Sacrifice for the sin of the world (John 1:29). Jesus is the uncreated God (John 1:1-3), and yet, He “became flesh and dwelt among us” creatures (John 1:14).

These truths about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – into whose unified, singular name we are baptized (Matt 28:19) – and the truths about our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, were those same, consistent, Biblical truths revealed in Scripture and confessed in our creeds.

As we laud the Father, we honor our fathers in the faith; as we worship the Son, we sing the praises of those sons of the church who faithfully bore witness about the Son; as we bow before the Holy Spirit, we nod with assent along with those Spirit-filed confessors of old whom the Holy Spirit inspired to search the Scriptures and bear witness of the Most Holy Trinity! For “We all believe in one true God, who created earth and heaven…. We all believe in Jesus Christ, His own Son, our Lord…. We all confess the Holy Ghost, who in highest heaven, dwelling with God the Father and the Son” (LSB 954).

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.