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Reflections on the Apostles’ Creed

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As Faith Church concluded an 8-week sermon series on the Apostles’ Creed this past weekend, I took a few moments to reflect on some things I discovered about the creed in this journey.

Helpful But Not Infallible
One thing we emphasized throughout the study of the creed was that we were not “preaching the creed” but rather looking at various Scriptures that are the basis for why the creed says what it does. The creed is a helpful tool to summarize, explain, and clarify what we find in the Bible; the Bible is the basis for the creed and the authority for what we believe and how we act. Since the creed is not the authority for our faith, it is okay to say that the wording of it is imperfect or could be improved (for more on that, see the next point). At the same time, it is wise to remember that it has been used across centuries and continents. We should be cautious before critiquing it and do so with certain humility as it was developed and used by brothers and sisters in Christ. That said, it is a document written by fallible humans as they sought to explain what is found in the inerrant and infallible Bible; we do not defend the creed but rather the biblical beliefs found in it. 

Clear But Confusing (at times)
I always thought the traditional phrases of “he descended to hell” and “the holy Catholic church” were confusing, which is part of the reason we have adjusted these phrases as we recited the creed at Faith Church (as discussed in this post on “he suffered the agony of hell for me” and this post on “the holy Christian Church”). I was somewhat surprised that a question numerous people asked was concerning the statement “he rose again from the dead.” People noted the word “again” makes it sound as if this was something that happened multiple times. While we think of “again” as referring to a sequence of events that happen multiple times, it seems to have a slightly different meaning in the creed tied to how the original Latin was translated into English. The Latin word is essentially “resurrected” – but we don’t usually say things in English like “he resurrected.” “Rose again” is the idea that he came back to life, that he rose “anew” — not that this happened multiple times. The confusion actually comes because of the English translation and the way English has developed over time since the traditional translation. Perhaps a more clear contemporary rendition is “he rose from the dead” without the word “again.” Therefore, even this short summary of Christian faith can have some confusing phrases that may need clarification at times.

Simple But Also Profound
There is a certain simplicity to the creed in that it gets to the root of foundational beliefs of the Christian faith. It is simple enough to memorize – and that includes kids memorizing it (as my kids learned it in this series). However, each statement has a ton of meaning behind it, drawing upon numerous Scriptures and featuring many implications and applications. One of the things I love about the Heidelberg Catechism is that it further explains what is meant by each phrase as well as how it benefits, but even those do not exhaust the riches found in this creed that is simple enough to memorize as a child, but deep enough to ponder throughout the course of one’s life.

Statements But Also a Story
While we might think of the creed as a series of propositions that Christians believe, when you walk through it, you find that it is a story. One that begins with God creating the world, then turns to the ministry of Jesus, and finally moves to the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a person and the benefits of Christ that He confers upon those who believe. It is a reminder that the Christian faith is not a philosophical system but a narrative – a true narrative of what happens within history (as Jesus died during the reign of Pontius Pilate). It will be the culmination of all history at the end of time with the return of Jesus to judge and rise to everlasting life those who believe in him. Christianty is not a set of abstract philosophical affirmations, but the story of what God has done for us that causes us to live the stories of our lives differently.

Personal Reflections, Not Exhaustive Thoughts on the Subject
Those are my quick reflections – things that struck me as I studied the creed in this season. I’m sure if I studied it to the same degree again in a few years, new thoughts would emerge – and I am sure that you might have other thoughts and insights in this sense. We often move on from one thing to the next, so I would encourage you to take some time to think about what you learned, realized, and discovered through this focus on the creed – feel free to share those with me. And if you’re a reader of this blog and don’t attend Faith Church, I would encourage you to take some time to examine the creed and see where these beliefs emerge from Scripture – if you need help, our sermon series may help or a series of blog posts from June 2019 to September 2019 in the archives of this blog. 

Questions about the Bible or theology? Email them to Pastor Brian at Theology@WeAreFaith.org. You can also request to receive weekly emails with our blog posts by filling out the information on the right side.

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