The Apostles' Creed: I Believe

(The first in a series of sermons on the Apostles' Creed, preached April 13, 2008.)

1 Corinthians 15:1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain.

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

Memory loss is devastating. Most of us have friends and family members who have lost their memory, and a number of us will lose our memories as we age. Some of us have known loved ones who have walked away from home, lost, and confused, not knowing who they are, where they came from, or where they are going. It’s sad and it’s sobering. Without memory we lose not only our past, but also our future.

God’s church can lose its memory, and the result is no less devastating. Without a memory of its past - and by past I mean the last 2,000 years - it is disoriented and confused.

Creeds like the Apostles’ Creed are a gift to the church. They keep it firmly anchored in the core beliefs of the historic Christian faith. When we recite the Apostles’ Creed we stand with all of God’s people by declaring what Christians have believed in all times and in all places. The Apostles’ Creed binds us to Christians who have gone before us, and to Christians in the generations to come.

Today we begin a brief series of sermons on the Apostles’ Creed. A word about the Apostles’ Creed. First, it was not written by the Apostles; however, it is a concise summary of the doctrine of the Apostles. The doctrines the Apostles’ Creed sets forth are foundational to the Christian faith. Deny any one of them, and you are something other than Christian.

The word “creed” comes from the Latin credo, I believe. A creed is a tool by which we confess what we believe.

At Westminster Presbyterian Church we recite the Apostles’ Creed in public worship, and well we should. Confessing a common faith is a fundamental part of worship. And confessing faith has been a part of worship throughout biblical history since at least the time of Moses.

A traditional part of Jewish morning and evening worship is the recitation of the Shema: “‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”(Deuteronomy 6:4-5) Each time Jews gathered for worship they confessed that they did not believe in many gods, like their neighbors. They confessed one God, and that one God was the God who revealed himself in Scripture. He alone is worthy of worship and entitled to all of our heart’s devotion and energy. The Shema is a bold confession: “We will not compromise: we are not polytheists; we serve the one true Lord.”

Move to the gospels. Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”(Matthew 16:15) Numerous answers to that question circulated through the countryside: Jesus - he’s a prophet, a reincarnated hero, an insurrectionist, a good teacher. But Peter gets it right: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16). Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ was the rock upon which Jesus builds his church (Matthew 16:18). When we recite the Apostles’ Creed we make Peter’s confession our confession: Jesus is the Christ, God’s promised Messiah who will overturn injustice, triumph over evil, and establish God’s righteous kingdom. God is building his church as men and women confess Jesus the Christ. “I believe in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Move on to Paul’s letter to the Romans. He exhorts the Roman church: “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”(Romans 10:9-10) In our Apostles’ Creed we stand together, united in confessing that Jesus is Lord, raised from the dead. Essential to salvation is verbal confession of Christ’s Lordship and resurrection. “I believe in Jesus Christ our Lord...on the third day he rose again from the dead.”

Then in the text at the beginning of the service, Paul uses what may well have been a creed in the early church: “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.” (1 Corinthians 15:3,4) In my opinion, this concise and balanced summary of core Christian doctrine was one of several creeds circulating among the churches of Paul’s day (other brief creedal statements are Philippians 2:6-11 and 1 Timothy 3:16). By repetition the church remembered the cardinal truths of the Christian faith. The Apostles’ Creed takes its basic pattern from these verses.

In the coming weeks, we will look at the biblical foundations of the Apostles’ Creed, and its declaration about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, as well as what it affirms about God’s church.

But before we jump into studying the Apostles’ Creed, let me share with you why I believe the Creed will help you and me.

First, the Apostles’ Creed helps us by declaring fundamental Christian truth. These truths are what Christians believe; none of them can be denied without denying the Christian faith.

Early in Christian history, creeds were tools used for instructing converts in the basics of the Christian faith. It was assumed that confessing Christ meant an intelligent confession. Christianity is not a set of vague religious propositions or mystical religious experiences that bypass the mind; the Christian faith rests on bedrock truth. You cannot live eternally if you’re ignorant of them. Therefore, prior to a new convert’s baptism, he underwent instruction in Christian doctrine, ethics, prayer, and the sacraments. Then, at his baptism, the convert would confess his faith using the outline of a creed.

For example, in this ancient creed from the early third century, the pastor asks the convert:

Do you believe in God the Father All Governing?

Do you believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was begotten by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died (and was buried) and rose the third day . . .

Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, in the holy Church, and in the resurrection of the body? [“The Interrogatory Creed of Hippolytus” in Creeds of the Churches, 3rd edition, ed. by John H. Leith (John Knox Press: 1982), p. 23]

Sadly, we often recite the Creed casually. There were times in church history, when reciting it demanded bold courage. Rome demanded the burning of incense at the altar, accompanied by the declaration “Caesar is Lord.” Uncompromising Christians refused. Why? In the words of the Creed, Jesus, God’s only Son, is “our Lord.” When Christians affirmed that “he would come to judge the quick (that is, the living) and the dead they meant that every ruler would be called to stand before Jesus’ tribunal of justice. Not even mighty Caesar can escape the Christ’s judgment. For a Christian to make such a bold statement took enormous courage. Believers had to deal with the reality that creeds prompts persecution. Says a second century writer: “Whenever the Christians proclaim that there is only one God and he is only known in Christ, a law is put in force against us.” [Athenagoras in Michael Horton, We Believe: Recovering the Essentials of the Apostles’ Creed (Word: 1998), p. 5]

In our own day, it will become increasing difficult to recite the Creed. Just about any form of religion or unbelief is acceptable except those that make exclusive truth claims. Those who make exclusive claims are deemed dangerous, and must not be tolerated.

But we make exclusive truth claims every time we recite the Apostles’ Creed. As one writer puts it, “But the ‘I believe’ of the creed means a turning from false gods and a choosing the one and only real God. Faith is freedom from false gods.” [C.E.B. Cranfield, The Apostles’ Creed (Continuum, 2004; 1st ed., 1993), p. 9]

Or as the Scots Confession of 1560 puts it: “We . . . acknowledge one only God, to whom only we must cleave, whom only we must serve, whom only we must worship, and in whom only we must put our trust.” [Cranfield, p. 10]

To understand the Creed, to confess it, and to live under the power of its truths is an act of courage both in the early church and in our own day.

Second, the Apostles’ Creed helps us by stating basic Christian doctrine with clarity. When we recite the Creed, we say, “I am a Christian, and therefore believe these things about God, his Son, the Holy Spirit, and God’s church.” So many of us are unable to articulate with clarity a basic outline of the Christian faith. We stammer and grasp for words to communicate the content of the Christian faith to others. The Apostles’ Creed is a good place to begin learning the basic outline of the Christian faith, and to state it clearly.

Third, the Apostles’ Creed helps us by protecting us from error. Mormons, Muslims, Jews, and Jehovah’s Witnesses all believe in Jesus, but their views of Jesus are not the views of orthodox Christians. The Apostles’ Creed, understood correctly, enables us to distinguish between false views of Jesus, and the Jesus revealed in scripture. Learn the great creeds of the historic church and you will be able to refute errors about Jesus’ person and work.

Sometimes someone will say to me, just saying Jesus is Lord is enough to make one a believer in Christ. Oh, really? Who is Jesus? Only a human teacher or the divine Son of God? You say he is Lord. I ask you, Is that merely a title of respect and honor, or does it refer to the risen Jesus exalted to the right hand of God the Father, and coming again to judge the world? The Creed helps us to flesh out the meaning of the biblical language we use.

Fourth, the Apostles Creed helps us by binding us to a common faith. Reciting the creed is like reciting your wedding vows. I never let a couple write their own vows for their wedding. Why? Vows are obligations imposed upon us by the Christian community. They are written in the light of what the word of God teaches about marriage. None of us has the right to limit the obligations of marriage. For example, some couples have written their vows, changing the words “till death do us part” to “till love ends.” That change of wording changes the whole meaning of marriage. It changes it from a relationship of life-long covenant commitment to a relationship with strings attached. As a Christian minister, I cannot permit people to redefine marriage, at least not in the wedding services of our church. In Christian marriage, the couple voluntarily obligates themselves to the common pattern of marriage, with words like: “I take you to be my wedded wife, and I do promise and covenant before God and these witnesses to be your loving and faithful husband in sickness and in health, in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, as long as we both shall live.”

Some of you have been officers in the United States military. At your commissioning, as you took your oaths, I bet none of you interrupted and said, “Wait a minute, there are a few lines in the oath that I would like to change. Instead of saying, ‘I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,’ would you mind if I deleted the part about foreign enemies? I’d rather stay close to home.” Of course, this is nonsense. Oaths bind officers to a common mission and common sacrifice.

The Apostles’ Creed binds us to a common faith. When we unite with the Christian church, we voluntarily assent to the great truths of the Christian faith. We must not approach basic Christian doctrine as if we’re strolling through the cafeteria, picking the food that suits us and passing by what doesn’t. “Yes, I believe that God is Almighty, but this virgin birth stuff seems a bit far-fetched. I believe in a resurrection, a spiritual one, but as a modern man I just can’t buy the notion of a bodily resurrection.” We simply cannot pick and choose the basic doctrines we believe. We claim those beliefs to be our beliefs when we intelligently profess our faith in Christ. As we recite the Apostles’ Creed, we are repeatedly brought back to the first principles of our faith.

Fifthly and finally, the Apostles’ Creed helps us experience the joy of trusting the Triune God. In the scriptures, belief and trust can often be used interchangeably. Belief in Christ is never just an intellectual understanding about the facts of who Jesus is and what he has done to reconcile us to God. To believe in Christ is to trust in Christ, personally resting in him and his finished work on the cross for our salvation.

If you listen carefully, before we recite the Apostles’ Creed, I ask either, “People of God, what do you believe?” or “People of God, in whom do you trust?” To believe savingly is to trust. I trust in God the Father almighty; I trust in Jesus Christ the Lord; I trust in the Holy Spirit who renews, comforts, and illumines God’s word for me.

I once heard an older Christian woman speak about the importance of the Apostles’ Creed in her life. She had known painful deprivation as she served Christ in a destitute area of the world. One member of her family was murdered; another died of a long and wasting illness. She recalled how when she was alone, plagued by doubt, and frightened, she would recite the Creed. It brought her back to the foundations of her faith; it produced in her comfort and joy. That testimony can be our testimony.

My sermon began with the preciousness of memory. Christians, we must never forget who we are. Are you plagued by doubt? Are you hit hard by physical or emotional suffering? Then you need the truths of the word of God to which the Creed points us. Believe . . . trust . . . and be satisfied.