Though the Nicene Creed is regularly recited in weekly church services, few understand its historical origins and connections to Scripture and key Christian doctrines. This volume bridges the gap, providing an accessible introduction that explains how the Creed is anchored in the Bible and how it came to be written and confessed in the early history of the church. The authors show how the Creed reflects the purpose of God in salvation, especially in relation to Christians' divine adoption as sons and daughters, leading to glorification. Each chapter includes sidebars highlighting how the Creed has been received in the church's liturgy. Professors, students, clergy, and religious educators will benefit from this illuminating and edifying guide to the Nicene Creed.

Christ came to save us from sin and death. But what did he save us for? One beautiful and compelling answer to this question is that God saved us for union with him so that we might become "partakers of the divine nature" (1 Pet 2:4), what the Christian tradition has called "deification." This term refers to a particular vision of salvation which claims that God wants to share his own divine life with us, uniting us to himself and transforming us into his likeness. While often thought to be either a heretical notion or the provenance of Eastern Orthodoxy, this book shows that deification is an integral part of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and many Protestant denominations. Drawing on the resources of their own Christian heritages, eleven scholars share the riches of their respective traditions on the doctrine of deification. In this book , scholars and pastor-scholars from diverse Christian expressions write for both a scholarly and lay audience about what God created us to be: adopted children of God who are called, even now, to "be filled with all the fullness of God" (Eph. 3:19).

This excellent set of essays firmly establishes the varied place and role that deification played in the Latin tradition. It will provide what will hopefully be the beginning of renewed interest in and scholarship of western ideas of deification. It will also end what has sometimes been cast as a distinctive and disjunctive relationship between eastern and western theologies. Each essay is well crafted, diligent, and meticulous in scholarship and an exercise in crisp and perspicacious expression. Ortiz is to be commended for bringing the collection together."" - Reviews in Religion and Theology