This year, the Nicene Creed is 1700 years old. Way back in 325 A.D., there was the First Council of Nicaea, where a large number of church leaders gathered primarily to discuss the relationship of Jesus Christ to God. There had been this ongoing controversy (Arianism) on whether or not Jesus was created and thus not the same as God the Father. Everyone considered Jesus to be divine but what was his relationship to God the Father? It came down to two Greek words, homoousios, Jesus being “of one substance” with God the Father, or homoiousios, Jesus being of a like substance to the Father. Arianism held that Jesus was the first created being, inferior to the Father but like him, and still superior to all other beings. The Council of Nicaea firmly rejected Arianism and chose homoousios. I believe homoousios fits much better with what the Bible says.
Emperor Constantine had called the church leaders together because this controversy was dividing the Church. He got the church leaders together and he let the church leaders decide the controversy and did not influence the decision. Everyone of the church leaders voted for the creed except for two holdouts. Emperor Constantine had hoped this would resolve the issue, but unfortunately the controversy continued.
In 381 A.D., at the First Council of Constantinople, the Nicene Creed was amended with the biggest change being the fleshing out of the third article which is about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was not the focus in the original creed. All the other changes have been minor. And that is how the Nicene Creed came to be.
The Nicene Creed makes it very clear that Jesus is God who became human. It says
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; … became man, …
And at the end of the original Nicene Creed it said
But as for those who say, there was when He was not, and before being born He was not, and that He came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance, or created, or is subject to alteration or change – these the catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes [strongly condemns].
The original creed also made it clear what the wrong beliefs were. The key point of the Nicene Creed is that Jesus is God, a person of the Trinity, who became human for our salvation.
Today there is a falsehood going around that Emperor Constantine called the council because he wanted to make Jesus a so-called mortal human being who was a prophet into a deity and thus suppress the sacred feminine (symbolic of fertility and reproduction and being representative of mother earth). This is a completely different narrative from the historical documents, and the idea of the Trinity (three persons and yet one God) had already been established so it was not a new idea introduced at the Council of Nicaea.
And another falsehood that people believe today is that at the Council of Nicaea, the books of the Bible were selected and the Gnostic Gospels were suppressed at that time. Nothing about that is true. The Biblical Canon was not discussed at all. It had already been set by consensus. Again the false idea is that Emperor Constantine was suppressing the sacred feminine by banning the Gnostic Gospels. The funny thing is the Gnostic Gospels are much more anti-feminine than the books of the Bible. Be careful of the lies that surround the Council of Nicaea. Unfortunately “The Da Vinci Code” popularized many of these lies.
heinsite 
You wrote and quoted:
The Nicene Creed makes it very clear that Jesus is God who became human. It says:
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; … became man, …
And at the end of the original Nicene Creed it said:
But as for those who say, there was when He was not, and before being born He was not, and that He came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance, or created, or is subject to alteration or change – these the catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes [strongly condemns].
The original creed also made it clear what the wrong beliefs were. The key point of the Nicene Creed is that Jesus is God, a person of the Trinity, who became human for our salvation..
Let me also insert here the opening statement of this creed, which says:
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
It should be borne in mind that this creed is a summation of the Nicean’s interpretation of Biblical writings. It’s not canonical scripture in and of itself. And with that in mind, I find one major problem with it, and another assumption it makes which is not fully Biblically defensible.
First, its opening statement is false and is easily, easily negated by John’s statements in John 1:1-3, where he wrote,
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
I know we’ve talked about this before, but here we are again. I’m still amazed that the Niceans got their opening line in their creed so patently false and so easily disproven, which is why I no longer repeat its third and fourth clauses if I’m in a corporate recitation of this creed. John firmly attests that Jesus was the Creator of all things, and that “without him, nothing was made that has been made.” It’s very simple. Yes, one of the members of the Trinity says in Genesis, “Let us make man in our own image …”, but I do not believe that was the Father who spoke that. John leads me to believe that it was Jesus who proposed it to the other two divine beings — the Father and the Holy Spirit (the latter of whom had been moving over the face of the primordial waters in the very beginning of this world). And according to John, it was Jesus who continued his creation by forming a man’s body out of the dust of the ground, after which the man’s spirit was imparted into it.
Second, the Niceans insist that Jesus, the Son, was not created — that he was “begotten, not made” — yet they offer no explanation of what John’s use of the descriptor “begotten” actually meant. While it has been awhile since I’ve looked into this, as I recall, a simple reading of Scripture offers no solid refutation of Jesus having been created by the Father. Certainly he pre-existed Creation since he — the Son, the Word — created everything, so when Moses writes in Genesis 1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” and when John writes in John 1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and that “he was with God in the beginning”, the only thing that’s certain is that the “beginning” both these men refer to is the beginning of time and space in the natural physical world and universe. It is the beginning of Creation as we know it in the natural. It cannot be assumed to refer to the beginning of the supernatural realm, because that’s beyond the scope of the Bible and what it describes. The Bible reveals next to nothing about the prehistoric events preceding Creation, except that the angels rejoiced when they saw Creation unfold. Job mentioned in 38:7 that “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” when the earth’s foundations were laid.
And at some indeterminate point either before or after Creation week — it’s not clear — Lucifer (and his followers) fell from grace, and it was probably then when he (and presumably they) were cast out of heaven with great, great force. Jesus said in Luke 10:18 that he watched while Satan fell from Heaven like lightning. At some point afterward, Lucifer then temps Adam and Eve into sinning (we tend to forget that Adam was present when Eve was lured into sin, and Adam did not stop her from taking the bait). But other than angels rejoicing as the earth was being formed, and Satan himself sinning and being cast out of heaven with enormous speed, I’m not aware of any other references in Scripture to anything else pre-Creation, so we have absolutely no clue about the order of pre-earthly, pre-natural (i.e. supernatural) creation events, when Heaven and the angels were created, nor do we know anything about how the Trinity came to be or what their pre-Genesis decisions, actions, and interactions had been during eternity past. That part of history has been almost completely withheld from us. Heck, we don’t even know when all human spirits were created. We really don’t know if we spiritually pre-existed our lives here on earth or not. All we know for sure is that we did not or will not have multiple lives in this world (Heb. 9:27). That’s all we know.
I’m aware there are varying interpretations of “begotten”, so since I have a sizable collection of Bible commentaries, I will have to look up the various opinions on this to see if I can find enough believable, justifiable substance in any of them to argue with certainty that Jesus, even though he was begotten by his Father and is lesser than the Father (John 14:28), is nonetheless equally eternally pre-existent with the Father and was not created. I’ll have to get back to you on that. This goes beyond a simple creedal statement … and I suspect there is no definitive answer for this question to be had in this life short of special divine revelation.
Jeff
Thanks for the comment, Jeff. I understand that the first article of the creed, really bothers you, but why did over 200 church leaders put in that statement? They must have thought it was biblical. The Got Questions website addresses your concern in an article. Check out “Is Jesus the Creator?” The end of the article states, “After a thorough study of Scripture, we can conclude that God the Father is the Creator (Psalm 102:25), and He created through Jesus, God the Son (Hebrews 1:2)”. I also have addressed your concern and some others in “The Trinity (Part 2)”. And along the same line, 1 Corinthians 8:6 states
yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
With regards to the word “begotten”, I think you are missing the point in the creed. The phrase “begotten, not made” is key. Jesus was not created or made. That is a very significant point in the Nicene Creed. Again I point you to the Got Questions website with the question “Was Jesus Created?” And I would add, if Jesus was created, then he is not eternal and he could not be the Alpha and Omega (Revelation 22:12-13) like God the Father (Revelation 1:8).