Robert Jenson famously lamented the lack of fixed dogma on Christ’s atonement. Although the early church responded to trinitarian controversy regarding the person of Christ, with the First Council of Nicaea providing an initial ecumenical judgment, the work of Christ remained a flexible doctrine for centuries. When contrasting the Apostles’ Creed and the Creed of Nicaea affirmed in 325, the major addition to the second article focused on elucidating the true divine nature of Christ. However, some precise wording connected the motivation for the incarnation to the Apostles’ Creed’s outline of Christ’s ministry, implying a theological imperative for belief about Christ’s work as well. This connection could serve to define modern heretical views of the work of Christ which would have been rejected by the fourth-century universal church.
This paper will utilize the theology of the church fathers to highlight bounds for a work of Christ which does not run afoul the Creed’s soteriological implications. First, I will highlight the relation of the person and work of Christ in the Apostolic Fathers to show the underpinnings of the noncontroversial addition to the Creed of Nicaea that the Son came down “for us and our salvation.” Second, I will review the soteriological basis for Athanasius’s critique of Arianism to help interpret the Creed’s assumed connection of the motivation for the incarnation and the scope of Christ’s work. Third, I will outline selected modern atonement models that do not cohere with the Creed of Nicaea’s union of the person and work of Christ. The Council of Nicaea was focused on the divine nature of Christ and did not establish an “atonement theory,” but it certainly reaffirmed boundaries for the Church’s interpretation of Christ’s work for salvation.