The following is the edited text of my WSC chapel lecture on the Nicene Creed for their series on the Creed from the Fall of 2025

One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church

My purpose in this post is to address that section of the Creed which speaks to the attributes of the church: “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.” Reformed Christians usually emphasize the marks of the church (preaching of the gospel, the proper administration of the sacraments, church discipline, and for some, prayer) before discussing the attributes of the church. When confessing the Nicene Creed the matter of the attributes or characteristics of the church moves to the fore. What are those attributes which must be confessed as necessary in order for the marks of a true church to be present?

There are four classical attributes of the church found in the Creed and embraced in different forms/ways across various Christian traditions: These attributes are 1). Unity, 2). Holiness, 3). Catholicity, and 4). Apostolicity. The Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and the Reformation churches all confess these same attributes but understand them in fundamentally different ways. There may be less catholicity here than elsewhere. I will cite from several Reformed writers and our confessions to make these differences apparent.

Several Reformed theologians have pointed out the classical attributes confessed in the Creed are not merely descriptive, they are also an exhortation. These are the ideal–the aspirational goal for which the church must strive. When seen in this light, these attributes are both a gift and a mandate. There is an eschatological dimension as well–these attributes tell us what the church is, what it should be, but they direct us ahead to that day when they will all be realized in perfection when the Lord Jesus returns.[1]

Briefly, I will go through the four attributes from this line in the Creed and then wrap up with a look at 1 Corinthians 1:1-2, where all four attributes are explicitly mentioned by Paul.

We Confess that the Church Is “One”

We begin with our confession that the church is “one.” It will come as no surprise that Rome anchors unity in the papacy. Ubi papa ibi ecclesia – “Where the Pope is, there is the church.” And we can add “where the Pope is, there is the true church, pure doctrine, and apostolic succession.”[2] In Ratzinger’s Called to Communion, he contends that “the Roman primacy is not an invention of the popes, but an essential element of ecclesial unity that goes back to the Lord and was developed faithfully in the nascent Church.”[3]

The Eastern Orthodox understand unity in terms of visible communion of the saints in the Eucharist. It is not bishops which hold the church together, leading Kallistos Ware to ask, so “what then holds the Church together? [The] Orthodox answer, the act of communion in the sacraments. . . . The Church is not monarchical in structure, centered round a single hierarch; it is collegial, formed by the communion of many hierarchs with one another, and of each hierarch with the members of [Christ’s] flock.”[4]

In contrast, the Reformed depart from both Rome and the EOC in terms of how we understand the attributes of Christ’s church. When it comes to unity, we speak in terms of an invisible and a visible church. Invisibly, Christians enjoy a common union with Christ, by one Spirit, through one faith, hope, and love. God calls Christians to strive to give expression to this unity visibly (in part, but not exclusively, through external organization). Berkhof notes, the Reformers “did not find the bond of union in the ecclesiastical organization of the Church, but in the true preaching of the Word and the right administration of the sacraments.”[5]

The Belgic Confession, article 27, speaks of “one single catholic or universal church” and concludes by affirming Christ’s church is “joined and united in heart and will, in one and the same Spirit, by the power of faith.”

According to Herman Bavinck,

This unity, though primarily spiritual in character, nevertheless exists objectively and really, and it does not remain completely invisible. It manifests itself outwardly—albeit in a very imperfect way—and at least to some degree comes to light in that which all Christian churches have in common. No Christianity exists above or beneath religious differences, but there is indeed a Christianity present amid religious differences . . . . That which unites all true Christians is always more than that which separates them.[6]

We might say that unity of organization, of some sort, is one of the things we strive for, but the elements of institutional unity do not depend upon a single, worldwide ecclesiastical structure centered in the Papacy–a standard Roman polemic.

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