“If we have one and the same faith in our heart, then we have one and the same confession in our mouth.” – John Calvin
A regular part of our worship services, is to profess our faith using the Apostles Creed.
We do not “recite” the Apostles’ Creed. We profess the Apostles’ Creed – we profess the faith of our hearts through the words of the Creed because the words of the Creed are the essential elements of our one Christian Faith.
So much so that the professing of the words of the creed is at the very same time the professing of the faith in our hearts.
The Apostles’ Creed is one of the oldest and most universally used creeds used in the Christian Church to profess the Christian faith.
And that is because the Apostles’ Creed contains the summary of the one Christian Faith.
So, it’s important, then, if in professing the words of the creed we are professing the faith in our hearts, then, it’s important to know what we are professing, when we profess the Creed.
There’s two main reasons that we’re going to be looking at the Apostle’s Creed.
First: It’s one of those things that over the years, I’ve been asked questions about. The two types of questions are first – questions about specific statements we make in the Creed; and second – questions about why we need this Creed or Creeds at all. Maybe you yourself fit into one of those categories.
Hopefully that first type of question will be answered as we go through the Creed; that second question I want to address now – Why do we need Creeds at all?
Creeds are inevitable; Creeds are beneficial:
Creeds are inevitable. Everyone has a Creed.
Some people object to the use of creeds because we already have the bible.
And so, some say, we ought to have “No Creed but the Bible”
But, that misunderstands the relationship of the Creed to the Bible – as if the Apostles Creed conflicts with or competes with the Bible. But no, the use of the Creed doesn’t detract from the Bible’s authority or centrality; rather, the Creed is a summary of what the Church believes are the main essential teachings of the bible, which is needed because the bible isn’t a systematic theology textbook.
But more than that, this misunderstanding fails to see that it’s impossible to not have a creed even though we have the bible. You might say, “I have no Creed but the Bible” – but as soon as you answer the question, “well, what do you believe the bible teaches?” – which is a fair question – then you start to create a creed – whether it’s written down or not.
And why should we keep reinventing the wheel? Why should we keep going back to the drawing board of synthesizing and summarizing the essential core tenants of the faith that the bible teaches? Is it really better to leave it up to each individuals’ current opinion, or to keep reinventing the wheel, than it is to receive the consensus of believers guided by the Spirit through the ages? Why wouldn’t we want to give more expression and visibility to the unity we have with all believers through the use of the Creed?
Quote: “The Creed takes the million-word Bible and boils it down to its essence. It is the SparkNotes of the biblical story”
All that “No Creed But the Bible” means in the end, is that ironically, the Creed of a particular church is unknowable and so can’t be tested by Scripture to see if it is biblical.
If Creeds are unavoidable, then its far better for the church to have a creed that’s written down, so that people can know it, learn it, question it, test it against scripture, personally affirm it or deny it, and be held accountable to it.
Some people object to the use of creeds because we already have the bible; Other people object to the use of Creeds because to some people Creeds reek of formalism – empty religion where we just go through the motions and mindlessly recite words.
And so they may say, “Christianity is just about a relationship – we don’t need to worry about Creeds”. Ok, but, a relationship with who?
Relationships presuppose and require personal knowledge of the person you are in a personal relationship with – and so as soon as you start to answer that necessary question of “a relationship with who?” – such as: what is this person like who you are supposed to be in a relationship with? how do we understand & know & relate to this person? What does living in and living out that relationship with this person mean and require from us?
As soon as you do that, then you have a creed – whether its’ written down or not.
And so a creed doesn’t take away from our personal relationship with God – it enables us to enter into it more fully by giving that relationship substance & meaning & direction.
Formalism has sadly characterized how Creeds are used in the church – but formalism has also characterized prayers; singing; preaching & teaching; fellowship; everything about the church! Should we just get rid of all those things?
No, we should reform how we use them. We should make sure that as I quoted earlier that the confession mouths is the faith in our hearts.
As I said before, we don’t recite the Creed; We proclaim our faith using the words of the creed. We use the creed to put us on common ground so that we can together, as a body, proclaim by our words the faith of our hearts.
Can you imagine, if we didn’t have a written Creed; and I asked, “Christian, what do you believe?” and people were just left to say whatever they thought they believed or what they knew they believed in their own personal words? What kind of confident response of solidarity would we get?
Not much of one.
The Creed – used the right way – doesn’t create formalism but guards against it – it preserves authenticity by enabling people to know what it is they are saying they believe when they say “I am a Christian”, and to say it from the heart, with sincere faith so that it means something profound when they say it.
I remember not too long ago, there was a news cycle about how some particular political figures didn’t recite the Apostles’ Creed at a funeral of a political figure. And the news cycle was all about how outrageous that was – and not to attack or defend any political figure – but, my response was, “well, maybe they don’t believe it; and if they don’t believe it, good for them for not reciting it because to recite it would be to profess it and to profess it if you don’t believe it is hypocritical” – in fact, I figured that there might have been a lot more people at that funeral that maybe should have joined them in what might have been a silence of integrity.
If you don’t believe this, you’re welcome here. But when I ask, Christian, What do you believe? Don’t read the words on the screen just because everyone else around you is and you might feel awkward remaining silent, unless you really do believe it – you don’t have to believe it perfectly; or understand it as deeply as everyone else; but if you don’t believe it, don’t pretend; we’re not just reciting empty words but proclaiming the faith we hold in our hearts.
The Creed is not empty religious formalism. It is a solemn act of the church which confesses the truths it stands on. Those truths that create its very identity. Those truths for which the people of God believe and live their lives for and many have given their lives for.
In our haze of cultural Christianity we forget the radical nature of the Creed – that as Christians profess their faith in “Jesus as Lord” – how countercultural that simple statement was – in fact, I believe that – “Jesus is Lord” – was the first and most basic Creed of the earliest church – which in professing was taking a stand that put oneself at odds with both the religious and pagan world all around.
That’s why I ask the question: “Christian, what do you believe?” I don’t say, ok, now it’s time to recite the Creed, so everyone here just mindlessly say the words whether or not you believe them irregardless of any loyalty and commitment to the God and the faith mentioned in the Creeds.
Sort of like the pledge of allegiance is for American citizens – The Creed is the pledge of allegiance for citizens of the kingdom of God – to declare their loyalty to their king – and if Jesus isn’t your king we’re glad you’re here but when I ask “Christian what do you believe?” that question isn’t for you because the answer isn’t yours.
Creeds are unavoidable; creeds are helpful:
They’re good for the church. The Apostles’s Creed is sort of like the guard-rails of orthodoxy for the church; that keep us from veering off one side or the other into heresy; and that help the church preserve it’s one-of-a-kind message of hope to the world.
Quote: “We either confess our faith before the world; or we accommodate our faith to the world.”
Because the world has it’s own creeds:
-follow your heart
-it’s ok to do whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone, as far as you know
-it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe it with all your heart
-you have to find your own truth
-all religions are basically the same
-you just need to learn to forgive yourself
As the Church, We don’t want to say what we hear from the world; we don’t want to say what the world already hears from plenty of other voices; we want to speak truth to the world, and the Creed summarizes and preserves that truth and enables us to speak it with boldness and clarity; and protects the church from being seduced by or mimicking voices of falsehood all around us.
This Creed clarifies and preserves the unique voice of the church so that Christians know what they stand for, and so that the world around knows what Christians stand for.
Second: The Apostle’s Creed reminds us not of our differences with other believers, but of our unity and common ground.
Division rather than unity, is the norm of the world; and that’s to be expected to some degree. But division, rather than unity, is the norm of the Church; and that’s tragic.
And I don’t believe that every denominational line is necessary wrong although I think we should all wish there were less of those; and I don’t think every local church distinction is wrong or even unideal; but the truth of our passage in Ephesians 4 is something that the state of the visible church sometimes obscures: that we – all Christians are one; all true Churches; are one.
That is the invisible unchangeable reality. We are one. That the point of this – v4 – “there is one body and one spirit” – that there can no more be 2 bodies of Christ than there can be 2 Spirits of Christ. “There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism” – there can no more be more than 1 Christian faith than there can be more than 1 Jesus.
Stott: “The unity of the church is as indestructible as the unity of God himself.”
People sometimes ask me something like: “what kind of Christianity is your church?” and I know what they mean but the real answer is: ‘the only kind of Christianity”.
And this unity doesn’t mean uniformity – Paul in Ephesians 4 goes on to talk about the God-given diversity of Churches in light of the differing God-given gifts which God gives to bind the church together in mutual dependence for the strengthening of the church. It’s unity in diversity – a unity that incorporates together and exists underneath all other differences that according to the worlds wisdom would divide us but in God’s wisdom ought to bring us together.
And so, there’s something interesting here:
The church is one. There is one body; one faith – as much as there is one Spirit, One Lord, one Father.
The church is one. And so, v3: “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”
We are one; so make every effort to be one.
What Paul is saying, then, is to live out the unity that we have. To give expression that unity by living in peace with one another.
That starts with how we live out the Christian life right here within our local church – this local expression of the body of Christ.
But it doesn’t end there. We as a church want to remind ourselves that the body of Christ extends far beyond here.
And one small way we do that:
Through the professing of our one faith, using the Apostle’s Creed: which reminds us not of our differences with other believers, but of our unity.
The Church has incredible diversity; but there is one thing that has united Christians from every tradition, in all times, in all places: The Apostles’ Creed.
Three ways the Apostles’ Creed reminds us of our Unity within the body of Christ:
1 – The Apostles’ Creed tells the 1 gospel story: complete with characters, plot, beginning, middle, crisis, climax, & conclusion; when we profess the creed we are retelling that 1 gospel story – we are telling one another, we are telling the world, and we repeat it because there is no better story.
2 – The Apostle’s Creed tells us of what’s primary – core & central – in our faith – and not only does it tell us of those things that are primary; but it reminds us to keep primary those things that are primary and to keep central those things that are central.
We often make secondary things primary; or peripheral things central; or preferential things necessary; and when we do that we inevitably make primary things secondary; central things peripheral, necessary things optional.
There are certain things, that aren’t necessities of the Christian faith. There are important, but nevertheless non-central issues of Christian faith. But then, there are other things, that are core, necessary, extract-these-and-you-extract-the Christianity out of Christianity; you’re left with a empty shell of religion that really is no different than other religions.
And particularly as reformed Christians, we’re very good at knowing and focusing on what is distinctive to us which separates us from other Christians; and those things may not be unimportant; but the Apostle’s Creed helps us put those things in the proper perspective.
3 – It tells us who we are primarily and centrally. We are the Church. We are Christians.
As the people of God, we are not primarily, first and foremost, Presbyterians; or baptists – since most of us here aren’t really Presbyterians anyway. We are not primarily, first and foremost, American Christians – as if you can put any nationality as a modifier to “Christian”. We aren’t first and foremost “reformed”; even if we consider important some of those tenants of the reformation.
Because the Apostles’ Creed reminds us that we are Christians first. We might be reformed Christians; and that might be important to us; but that’s secondary.
And the extent of the body of Christ thankfully extends far beyond the walls or confessions of reformed churches, or presbyterian, or whatever other doctrinal distinctive or denominational grouping we could have.
Quote: “The Apostle’s Creed was purposefully created to bring people together. It is a lean summary of what all Christian believe.”
This Creed is unique in that it was not formulated by a council in response to controversy; it wasn’t at all political but a grassroots summary of the central tenants of the Christian Faith.
And although it wasn’t in it’s finalized form until the 6th century, it was used in it’s basic form as early as the 2nd century, with bare elements of it coming directly from the NT – and so it’s nearly as old as the new covenant church itself.
In fact, the reason it became to be called the Apostles’ Creed was the belief that each 1 of its 12 articles was written by one of the 12 apostles.
Now, that’s very unlikely to be true; but the importance of that is what it tells us about how the early church viewed the Creed: they viewed it as a summary of the Apostles’ Teaching – the teaching of the NT.
And so now we’re going to close by just looking briefly at those first two words of the Creed: “I believe”
I Believe
Unity has to be based on something. The Creed shows us what our unity is based on.
Christianity is not just about “my believing”; but it’s believing in something – a certain set of knowable beliefs.
The world’s view of believing, is that the act of believing is of primary or exclusive importance – such that it doesn’t matter what I believe, so long as I believe it sincerely.
And, well, that doesn’t really work. Because sincerity of faith may be what makes that faith real to me, but it’s not what makes that faith powerful, meaningful, or effective.
You can have sincere faith in something completely false; and that faith may be real because of it’s sincerity, but the faith itself doesn’t ultimately help you any more than you can help yourself, if the object of your faith is false.
The idea that the content of our faith is unimportant, only the sincerity of it matters – that doesn’t really work with anything anywhere; but it really doesn’t work in Christianity – where the content of one’s faith – what we are putting our faith in – is crucially important – without which our faith means nothing and is nothing and does nothing.
Christianity isn’t just about sincerity of faith; it isn’t just about the personal having of faith, apart from the object of that faith – the content of what that faith is placed in.
It is assent to those truths; but it’s more than that. Belief, in the biblical view, isn’t just about intellectual assent to a certain set of truths; it’s about personal commitment to those truths
I Believe
It’s not just about the act of believing; but nevertheless, there has to be a personal having of faith; there has to be a sincerity of faith. It’s not just enough that there exists out there a set of beliefs that constitute Christianity; it’s not just enough that you know what those are or what they mean; it’s not even enough that you can identify or explain them and how they are set apart from other belief systems; you have to believe them personally & sincerely.
The Apostles’ Creed was originally used as a baptismal confession – when people were entering into the church, they confessing this creed because they were taking a stand upon these truths – a personal stand – they were making a personal identification between themselves and the triune God and the church confessed in this creed.
As people entered into the Christian Faith – this was how they affirmed their commitment – their “pledge of allegiance”, so to speak – to our Triune God.
And, it’s important that we say, “I believe”, not “we believe” – because though we speak with the church, we don’t rightly speak if we’re not speaking for ourselves, personally.
When we say the creed, we take the words of others – the words of the church through the ages – and make them our own words.
It’s like saying traditional wedding vows. I’m always in favor of using the traditional wedding vows even if you want to add to them with your own words – because with the traditional wedding vows, we aren’t just making something up; we aren’t just saying whatever we feel at the moment;
No, we are taking the words of others, and making them our own.
We take time-honored promises, pledges & commitments that constitute the essence of marriage, and we say, “I do” “I promise” “I will”.
We pledge our own personal investment commitment and buy-in to those words – we take the words of others and make them our own.
That’s what we do in the Creed. We say “I believe.”