The Ecumenical Creeds 2

Creeds in the Bible

This post is part of a series on The Ecumenical Creeds of Christendom. If you would like to go back to the beginning of this series you may do so by clicking HERE.

A creed, in its most basic sense, is simply a statement of what a person, or group of people, believes. As such, creeds abound everywhere. If you pay attention, you will likely find it difficult to get through a whole day without encountering someone making a creedal proclamation of some sort. Of course many times these creedal statements are rather shallow, such as, “I believe Taylor Swift is the best singer/songwriter who has ever lived” or “I believe the Lions are going to have a better season next year,” etc. While people utter things like this, about every conceivable topic, they often don’t think too deeply about what they are saying, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t uttered something which they sincerely believe. As Philip Schaff noted above from the first chapter of his Creeds of Christendom, “Faith, like all other strong conviction, has a desire to utter itself before others.” The die-hard Swifty and the die-hard Lions fan are the same in this one way, they both very much believe what they are saying, whether the evidence supports them or not, or whether they have considered their claim very closely or not.

The Christian creeds are, of course, a product of much more prolonged and sustained consideration about issues of far graver importance than music or football. These creeds address matters such as the existence of God, the nature of Christ, the reason why God sent his Son into the world, and many other issues of central importance to both Christianity and the fabric of reality itself. In the lessons following this present one we will read and discuss what are typically referred to as “the ecumenical creeds” which were produced in the first several centuries after the completion of the New Testament canon. It is those creeds which most people, in Christian circles, generally have in mind when they refer to “the creeds,” but it would be a mistake to think that there were no Christian creeds prior to these.

In fact, the Bible contains many creeds within its pages. There are numerous places where confessions are made about what a person believes or what, more importantly, the entire community of faith in Yahweh and his Christ believe. Though this present reading will be far from exhaustive on this topic, let’s consider some examples of creeds in the Christian Scriptures, both from the Old and New Testaments.

The Original Creed: The Shema

The most obvious example of a Creed in the Old Testament comes to us in Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one.” This simple statement of affirmation was central to the Hebrew faith and is still affirmed by Chrsitians everywhere today. The statement comes right on the heels of Moses’ having restated the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments, which were originally given to God’s people shortly after their departure from Egypt (c.f. Exodus 20), were restated and reaffirmed among God’s people immediately prior to their entrance into the promised land of Canaan (c.f. Deuteronomy 5). This creedal statement is referred to as “the Shema” which is derived from the Hebrew word  שְׁמַע meaning “to hear.” For centuries faithful Jews have started their day by reciting the Shema to themselves as a way of confessing their faith in Yahweh as the one true and living God above all other so-called gods. This belief, that Yahweh alone really deserves the title of God, is the most central tenet of the Hebrew faith. It is this affirmation which, when truly believed, moves the confessor to obey all that Yahweh has commanded him to do and which motivates him to be diligent to teach the ways of God to his children.

Let’s consider Deuteronomy 6:1-9 for greater context. In verses 1-3 we see that Moses charges the Israelites to fully obey Yahweh’s commandments, which they have just heard once again, and he tells them that God will bless them for their obedience.

“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules —that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Following the charge to obey, and the promise of blessing, comes the justification in verse 4. In other words, then comes the answer to the question “why should the Israelites should obey God?” The confession of faith is simply this:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 

It is in light of this fact, that Yahweh alone is truly God (which he demonstrated by delivering the people out of the land of Egypt, out of the hand of Pharaoh), that the Israelites should love and honor Yahweh wholeheartedly and teach his ways to their children at every opportunity. Moses continues, in verses 5-9, to instruct the Israelites, saying that if they “hear” this truth then they should act in light of it. 

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

This simple creed defined the people of Israel. It was what made them distinct from all of the myriad of polytheistic religions that swarmed around them on every side. It separated them from the Egyptians, Sumerians, Canaanites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans. The Shema says, “Ra, Osiris, Anubis, and Thoth are not God, Yahweh is God.” The Shema says “Enlil, Ereshkigal, Nammu, and Ninurta are not God, Yahweh is God.” The Shema says “Zeus, Hermes, Apollo, and Poseidon are not God, Yahweh is God.” And so on and so forth. The Shema is the ultimate affirmation of faith that Yahweh alone is the true God, the Almighty Maker and Sustainer of all things in heaven and on earth, and that all other competitors are just cheap knock-offs of the real deal. As Moses tells the people of Israel, just a bit later in Deuteronomy 32:16-17, when the Hebrew people in a time of unfaithfulness had offered sacrifices to foreign gods they really just offered them to demons. 

They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods;

    with abominations they provoked him to anger.

They sacrificed to demons that were no gods,

    to gods they had never known,

to new gods that had come recently,

    whom your fathers had never dreaded. 

The Shema, it should be noted, is a creed in the truest fashion. This is not only because it is a simple statement of what the people of Israel believed, but also because it was a clear affirmation of what God has always, in many words and in various ways, said to his people about himself. A true Christian creed always confesses and agrees with what God has already said himself. From the very beginning God tells us that he alone existed before all things. Genesis 1:1 tells us “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” When nothing else was there, God was. He cannot fail to be there because he is the uncreated Creator, the “I AM” who called to Moses from the burning bush. From the very first verse of Genesis, throughout all the years which are included between creation and the moments before Israel entered the promised land, Yahweh had been revealing himself to the Israelites as he is, the one and only true and living God. The Shema is an ancient Hebrew creed, a short statement, which affirms the truth of what God had always been telling his people about himself. It is formulaic, easy to remember, and can be repeated and affirmed again and again by all who know and believe that Yahweh alone is true God over all.

There are numerous places in the New Testament which contain creedal sayings, but for brevity’s sake, we will consider only four of these. 

First, let’s consider Peter’s confession in Matthew 16. For the sake of context we will look at verses 13-20.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Peter’s confession here has the same kind of gravitas as that which we saw in the Shema in the book of Deuteronomy. To affirm monotheism in the ancient world truly made the people of Israel stand apart from the gentile nations, but the proclamation which Peter made (which Jesus called a revelation from his Father) was just as revolutionary to many Hebrews as the Shema had been to the gentiles. For Peter to declare that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” was to challenge the prevailing theological opinion among the religious leaders of Israel. 

Now, it is important that we understand something here. Had Peter said, “you are the Christ, the son of David” that would have been both thoroughly true and a very important proclamation, but less significant than what Peter actually said. To call Jesus the Christ and Son of David would have been to affirm that Jesus’ ministry and works had sufficiently demonstrated that he was the Messiah and King whom God had promised, long ago, to send to Israel. Indeed, others do say just this about Jesus. Consider poor blind Bartimaeus who, upon hearing that Jesus of Nazareth had come nearby, began to shout aloud, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” That one of David’s descendants would come and sit on his throne and reign forever was a Messianic promise in the Old Testament Scripture, one which all the Jews knew very well. Bartimaeus’ faith was well founded when he called Jesus the “Son of David,” but this is not what Peter said. Peter proclaimed Jesus to be “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

Peter’s statement is perfectly inclusive of Bartimaeus’ claim, but it goes a great deal farther. Peter has come to recognize that the Messiah, the descendent of David, is not a mere man, but the divine Son of God. This confession, by a Jew, who had long confessed the Shema and affirmed the unique status of Yahweh as God alone, is no small thing. In Jewish thought sons carried the authority and identity of their fathers. To affirm that God had a Son was to affirm the divinity of Jesus! This is part of the biblical doctrine which later came to be known as the Trinity, that God is one in his being (or essence) and yet exists in three distinct, co-equal and co-eternal persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). 

Peter’s confession became the confession of all Chrsitians after him. We believe that “God is One” (with the Shema) and that Jesus is the divine “Son of the living God” who carries all the authority of his Father. As Jesus himself puts it, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Again Peter’s confession is a Creed in the truest sense because he is only affirming what God has been saying about himself all the while. Even in the Old Testament we read in Psalm 2:

Why do the nations rage    and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves,    and the rulers take counsel together,    against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,

“Let us burst their bonds apart    and cast away their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens laughs;    the Lord holds them in derision.

Then he will speak to them in his wrath,    and terrify them in his fury, saying,

“As for me, I have set my King    on Zion, my holy hill.”

I will tell of the decree:The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;    today I have begotten you.

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,    and the ends of the earth your possession.

You shall break them with a rod of iron    and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.”

Now therefore, O kings, be wise;    be warned, O rulers of the earth.

Serve the Lord with fear,    and rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the Son,    lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,    for his wrath is quickly kindled.Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Here we see the Psalmist clearly saying that Yahweh has a Son. And though some interpreters have tried to say that “the Son” here refers either to David or one of his merely human descendents, or to the position of King in Israel in general, this is not so. As Peter points out at the festival of Pentecost, in Acts 2, and as Paul says in his epistle to the Hebrews, the various things which are said about the Messiah in the Old Testament Scriptures cannot possibly be fulfilled completely by a merely mortal man. Peter tells the people gathered in Jerusalem, for the festival of Pentecost, that David himself, in the Psalms, wrote about the Messiah and not himself.

For David says concerning him,

“‘I saw the Lord always before me,    for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;

therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;    my flesh also will dwell in hope.

For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,    or let your Holy One see corruption.

You have made known to me the paths of life;    you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’

“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

The same Peter who confessed that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God” also refutes those who identify the concept of the Messiah with a merely mortal king like David or one of his merely natural sons. Jesus is, indeed, in the line of David by his mother’s side and by legal adoption under Joseph, but his true Father is God himself. This was Peter’s creed, and it is the creed of all Chrsitians after him which we confess to this day. There is only one true and living God and Jesus is his Son.

In the apostle Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth he addressed the many questions he had been asked and also dealt with numerous other matters which needed his attention due to confusion and misunderstanding in the church. Among the matters which he wrote to them about was that of the resurrection of Jesus. Some of the Corinthians had apparently been disturbed by false teachers who claimed that there is no resurrection of the dead (a false idea which the Sadducees firmly believed and which the Greeks also nearly held almost uniformly). Paul launches into a full scale defense of the centrality of the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, making it clear that it is quite literally the hinge upon which the truth of Christianity rests. He tells them, 

if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

As part of Paul’s defense he layed out the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus in a formulaic way in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7. Notice the repetition of the word which is translated into English as “that.” 

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

The Greek word “ὅτι” is the word behind the English word “that” which is used here, as well as in many other places in the New Testament, to introduce a formulaic saying which believers are meant to memorize and use as a confession or creed in their worship (both private and public).

Paul says, with his full apostolic authority, and in no uncertain terms, that this is what Chrsitians confess together. In other words, if anyone were to ask you, as a Christian, why they should believe your claim about Jesus raising bodily from the dead you should tell them “that!” Christians confess that Christ died, was buried, raised from the dead on the third day, and that he was seen by a myriad of witnesses, both by individuals and by groups of people, some small some large, by both those who would have been eager to see him alive again (his disciples and family) and those who wouldn’t have been (Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of the church). You should remember all of “that” and you should ask those who doubt the resurrection of Christ to explain away, if they can, all of the overwhelming numbers of witnesses “that” saw Jesus alive after he had been clearly dead.

Paul also goes out of his way to make it clear “that” all of these things are “in accordance with the Scriptures. In other words, these things are in complete harmony with what God has said he would do to save his people. We have already seen that Peter showed the people at Pentecost that Christ would not be left to decay in his grave and therefore the resurrection is in accordance with the Scriptures. We could also mention numerous other passages from the Old Testament which foretold, foreshadowed, or gave us types of what was to come in the person of Jesus Christ. Whether it be the prophet Jonah who was three days in the belly of the whale and then brought back to light and life to preach God’s word, or whether we refer to the many other Messianic psalms, or whether, like Matthew in his gospel, we were to take time to show the many ways in which Jesus fulfilled the prophecies given to us in the Old Testament, etc., we see that the life, death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus was all thoroughly in accordance with the Scriptures. 

Let’s consider just one striking passage which strongly supports the idea that this “Resurrection Creed” is simply confessing what God has already said and is, therefore, a creed in the truest sense. In the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapters 52:13 through 53:12, the prophet foretold:

Behold, my servant shall act wisely;

    he shall be high and lifted up,

    and shall be exalted.

As many were astonished at you—

    his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,

    and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—

so shall he sprinkle many nations.

    Kings shall shut their mouths because of him,

for that which has not been told them they see,

    and that which they have not heard they understand.

Who has believed what he has heard from us?    And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a young plant,    and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,    and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men,    a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces    he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs    and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken,    smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;    he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,    and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;    we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him    the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,    yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,    so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away;    and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living,    stricken for the transgression of my people?

And they made his grave with the wicked    and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence,    and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;    he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt,    he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,    make many to be accounted righteous,    and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,    and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death    and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many,    and makes intercession for the transgressors.

A very long time could be spent here showing the various ways in which this prophecy, hundreds of years before the incarnation of Christ, clearly pointed to the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and showed him to be “the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” It would be time well spent to do this, but for our purposes here it needs only be pointed out that it was Christ’s death on the cross where he was “pierced for our transgressions,” after having been so badly beaten and whipped by Pontius Pilate that his “appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance” and “his form [appeared] beyond that of the children of mankind.” Further, it was on the cross where he “bore our griefs” and “carried our sorrows” and took upon himself all of the “inequities” of his people, because “it was the will of the Lord to crush him” so that we might, through his “chastisement,” gain “peace” with God. All of this is thoroughly according to the Scriptures. Jesus was “numbered with the transgressors” he identified with the sins of his people, though he himself knew no sin, so that by “his wounds” they would be “healed” from their sins. Not only this, but even though he died in our place and his soul made “an offering for guilt” still Isaiah said “he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall proper his hand.” 

Who else, I ask you, after death lived on to see his offspring (the many who would believe in his name)? Who else, after death, prolonged his days (even to everlasting)? Who else, after death, prospered in all that he did? No one but the one and only Jesus “that” died in accordance with the Scriptures, “that” was buried, “that” was raised, and “that” was seen by many witnesses alive again forevermore.

Another example of a creed in the New Testament (which is doubly great because the apostle Paul uses two formulaic methods to draw your attention to it) comes to us in Paul’s first letter to Timothy. He writes to young Timothy, who was a pastor in the church at Ephesus, to encourage him and give him further instructions about how the local church was to be governed and what was required of those who would desire to serve as a deacon or elder in Christ’s church. In the first chapter, in verse fifteen, Paul wrote, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” Notice the use of  “ὅτι” or “that” is here once again to tell us that a formulaic saying is being used (just in case you missed the other major indicator where Paul said “the saying is trustworthy”).

This is a confession of the early church, that Jesus came into this world to save sinners like you and me. Paul added to this confession that he viewed himself as “the foremost” or “chief” of all sinners. Of course this is also something that every Christian should be able to confess with equal gusto. None of us knows the heart or inner thoughts of our neighbor, but we do know, all too well, the darkness and struggle with sin in our own life. Unless we are incredibly callous to our own sin, all of us who desire to follow Jesus faithfully will resonate with Paul’s claim to be the worst sinner he knows. 

This early and simple creed affirms a central truth of the gospel, a truth which Jesus himself had already said in many ways and at many different times, namely, that he came to save those who cannot save themselves. As Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Jesus is the friend of tax collectors and sinners. He is the one who sat with beggars and received prostitutes into the kingdom of God. Jesus is the one who saves thieves and liars and murderers, but he has nothing to offer those who are certain of their own personal righteousness before God. 

This “Sinner’s Creed,” as I have elected to call it, is a true creed like the others before it because it is a formulaic and memorable expression of something which God had already said about his Son. In Luke 18:9-14 we get this remarkable story about Jesus’ teaching:

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

This creedal statement is worthy of memorization and recitation, both in our private exercises of devotion and in our public worship, because it captures a fundamental truth of the good news of Jesus, namely that Jesus came to save bad people, not good people. Jesus came to save you and me.

Of all the creeds contained in the Scriptures, the one we encounter in 1 Tim. 3:16 may be the most like those later statements which we have come to think of as “the creeds.” Paul writes, “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” Here we see the seed of what would later be developed into the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. 

Consider what all this short creed confesses. 

1. When the creed says “He was manifested in the flesh” it affirms the incarnation of the divine Son of God and implicitly acknowledges his former pre-incarnate existence as the eternal Word of the Father. In this it echoes, in simple summary fashion, that which is taught elsewhere in Scripture, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

2. When it says that Christ was “vindicated in the Spirit” it affirms the fact that God demonstrated the righteousness of Jesus, despite his association with sinners and despite his dying a cursed death on a tree (the cross), which he did by the Spirit of God raising him from the dead. As Paul proclaimed to the Athenian philosophers, God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

3. In saying that he was “seen by angels” the creed affirms that Jesus is more excellent than the angels, because “After making purification for sins… sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”? Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”? And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God's angels worship him.” 

4. When the creed says he is “preached among the nations” it acknowledges the Great Commission which Jesus gave his disciples, commanding them to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

5. When the creed says that Jesus has been “believed on in the world” it affirms that the gospel message “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” No one is excluded, the message of God’s saving grace is not just for the Hebrew people, but for the gentile nations as well.

6. When the creed confesses that Jesus was “taken up in glory” it reminds us that Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father and that he is one day coming again, just as he left, to judge the world in righteousness. As Luke records in his church history, “So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

That’s an awful lot all packed into a short creedal statement and it is clearly the seed form of the later more developed statements we see in the ecumenical creeds such as the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. This “Gospel Creed,” as I have dubbed it, is the earliest of the creeds to not merely offer a formulaic saying about a particular doctrine, but to offer a kind of summary of the core tenets of the great Christian message into one memorable statement. 

Conclusion

These above mentioned creeds are not the only ones that could be mentioned in the pages of Scripture, but they make for a good sample of the way creeds have been used to make simple affirmations, easy to remember and recite, of crucial doctrines about God, about his Son, about the atonement and resurrection, and about the message of the gospel which Christians declare to the whole world. This sample is certainly enough to prove one simple and important point, namely, that the development of creedal statements, statements which agree with what God has said already, is a perfectly biblical and godly practice. These biblical examples give us precedent, from God’s own word, for the practice of making creeds to clarify and summarize the teachings God himself has given to his people. Insofar as creeds accurately report, summarize, clarify, or expound upon what God has already said himself, the practice of writing creeds and confessions is perfectly biblical and edifying to the body of Christ. Creeds are useful for explaining the faith to non-Christians and new converts alike and they are a great tool for making known what God has said.

Study Questions

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What is a creed in its “most basic sense?”

2. What sets the Christian creeds apart from the more common everyday statements of belief people tend to make?

3. What is “the Shema” and how did it get its name?

4. What made the people of Israel “distinct from the myriad of the polytheistic” religions which surrounded them?

5. What does a “A true Christian creed” always do?

6. What is the “Petrine Creed” and who first uttered it?

7. What is significant about the fact that Peter called Jesus “the Son of the living God” rather than the “Son of David?”

8. How did Peter show that “the Son” in the messianic psalms were not references to David or any other merely mortal king?

9. According to Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Christians, how important is the bodily resurrection of Jesus?

10. What are the four main elements of the “Resurrection Creed” which are identified by the Greek word “ὅτι” (or “that” in English)?

11. What Old Testament passage was used to show that the death and resurrection of Jesus was all “according to the Scriptures?”

12. What is “The Sinner’s Creed” and how is it obviously meant to be a creedal statement?

13. What is “The Gospel Creed” and of what other creed(s) does it appear to be the “seed form?”

14. What things must a creed do in order to be “perfectly biblical and edifying to the body of Christ?”

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. In what way is the statement “I believe the Lions are going to have a better season next year” a creed even though most people wouldn’t think of it like that?

2. Why might creeds be helpful in addressing “matters such as the existence of God, the nature of Christ” and many other issues when the Bible already addresses all of these things in many places?

3. Given the fact that the ancient world was full of “polytheistic religions” what might best explain how Israel came to affirm that there is only one true God?

4. The author of this essay stated, “A true Christian creed always confesses and agrees with what God has already said himself.” Why is this essential to being a true Christian Creed? Why can’t a true Christian creed say something new about God or salvation, etc., which God has not said?

5. The “Petrine Creed” makes clear that Jesus is divine and not a mere man. Why is this so important to the Christian faith?

6. In “The Resurrection Creed” the apostle Paul made it absolutely clear that the bodily resurrection of Jesus was a non-negotiable doctrine. Why is this? Why could we not have Christianity without the resurrection of Jesus? 

7. How is the passage from Isaiah, which shows that Christ’s death and resurrection were “according to the Scriptures,” very helpful in establishing that God had always planned for his Messiah to die and rise again?

8. Why is “The Sinner’s Creed” a vital part of the gospel message that every Chirstian should be able to affirm?

9. In what way is “The Gospel Creed” unique in comparison to the other biblical creeds examined in this lesson?

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. Given our present reading, do you think it is possible to be a Christian and reject the use of any creeds whatsoever? Why or why not?

2. Do you think it is a beneficial practice for individual Christians to develop their own creeds? What might be the good in attempting to do so? What dangers might there be in attempting to write a personal creed? 

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read 2 Timothy 2:11-13. Do you think this is another example of a creed in Scripture? Why or why not? Defend your answer with reason.