the apostles' creed: part 1

confessing the faith like a boss

Image by falco from Pixabay

Last time, we started looking at the creeds and their role in the church, both historically and today. This time, let’s dive into one of those creeds to understand where it came from and what it says about the Christian faith.

Let’s start by reading the Apostles’ Creed:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.¹

Now, there may be a word or phrase in there that you’re not sure about or even that makes you uncomfortable; we’ll take a look a little later at what the creed says, but first, let’s explore where it comes from.

so, the apostles wrote it, right?

The Apostles’ Creed has a long history in the Christian church, as you might assume from the name. The legendary origin of the creed is that the Apostles, on or shortly after Pentecost, were inspired by the Holy Spirit to compose the creed, so that as they traveled in different directions to spread the Gospel, their teaching would be unified by the confession. Peter began by saying “I believe in God the Father Almighty,” followed by another disciple with the next phrase, and so on.

It’s a neat legend, but the story only appears around the end of the fourth century.² Though the apostles themselves did not compose the creed, that doesn’t mean its name is undeserved. The creed’s name refers not to it’s origin but to the fact that it is one of the earliest summaries of the apostolic teaching.³

Philip Schaff sees the roots of the creed in the confession of Peter in Matthew 16:16, and he finds its basic origin in an early baptismal confession.⁴ That confession, along with the Lord’s Prayer, would then be used in private devotion and later in public worship.⁵ Various congregations may have had slightly different versions, but always with the core formula of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One of these versions became known as the Old Roman Creed. This version is attested before A.D. 341 and contains all of the same elements of the current creed except the phrases “creator of heaven and earth,” “He descended to the dead,” and “the communion of the saints.”⁶

All of this to say it wasn’t written by the apostles themselves, but it’s really old! It definitely goes back to before the east/west schism, and so it is still accepted by both branches of the church. Equally, in the next great schism, the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther said of the creed “Christian truth could not possibly be put into a shorter and clearer statement.”⁷ Aside from those branches of Christianity that reject creeds altogether, the Apostles’ Creed is universally accepted.

Unlike other creeds, the Apostles’ Creed was not written to combat a specific heresy or settle a controversy, but developed over time “as a summary of basic Christian doctrine for converts to learn, and as a way of condensing Christian faith into its main elements of profession.”⁸

what does it teach?

“I believe”

Starting at the 35,000 foot view, the very structure of the creed (especially as it is formatted above) shows two significant things. Notice that it can be easily divided into three sections, each one starting with the phrase “I believe.” Alister McGrath points out that this phrase carries more meaning than we may think at first glance. He says that to believe means at least four things: assent, trust, commitment, and obedience. “The English translation ‘I believe in God’ could just mean ‘I am of the opinion that there is a God,’ when in fact it is meant to be a much stronger statement— ‘I put my trust in God.”⁹ McGrath goes on to point out that this trust leads to commitment—noting the close relationship in the early church between the creed and baptism—and to obedience, which Paul says “comes from faith.”¹⁰

the trinity

The second thing that we may find at that high view is that while the creed doesn’t explicitly proclaim the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, each of its three parts begins with an acknowledgement of one of the three persons of the Godhead. Certainly, more could be said about the Trinity, but the creed definitely affirms and aligns itself with this core tenet of the faith.

Father, almighty, creator

The statement about the Father is short and leaves out a lot about who he is, but consider what it does tell us. First, he is the Father. It quickly dismisses the notion of an impersonal God. Of course, so much has been said about the implications of God as Father. It is an incredibly important and deep doctrine rooted in the life and teaching of Jesus. The creed shows that it continued to be a core tenant of the faith of the early church.

Second, he is almighty. This was significant in the ancient world: this God was not simply one of the many gods of the Roman world, he is the almighty God, the source of all authority. Third, he is the creator of heaven and earth, which in ancient language means everything, including ourselves.

These three characteristics of the God of the Bible, expressed in the first few words of the Apostles’ Creed, set him apart from any other god, ancient or modern, that has ever been proclaimed.

Christ, son, Lord

The creed goes on to describe Jesus, first of all, as the Christ. Remember, of course, that Christ is not his last name, but a title and a role, singular in the story of the world: messiah, savior.

As we said, the creed doesn’t explicitly confess the doctrine of the Trinity, but calling Jesus the Son of God goes a firm step toward it. If Jesus is the son of the Father, it doesn’t take much reasoning to come to the conclusion that he is of the same kind as the Father, just as it is no coincidence that my son is the same species as me. (More on that next time, in Nicaea.)

Then the creed confesses Jesus as Lord.¹¹ Lord is a word that we hear so often in church that we tend to grow numb to the true meaning. Lord clearly denotes authority,¹² and a Christian who confesses Jesus as Lord is submitting to that authority. Paul goes as far as to describe himself as a slave of Christ. Although the word slave has some significantly different connotations in the modern world than it did in Paul’s day, this is still an extreme statement! And in fact, when the Old Testament was translated into Greek, the word they used to translate the sacred name of God was the same one the New Testament writers used to describe Jesus: Lord.¹³

the birth and death of Christ

The next two lines affirm the miraculous origins of Jesus. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. This has always been a pivotal belief of the church. The creed clearly points to the dual nature of Christ as fully God and fully man; early Christians rejected alternate theories: that Jesus was a mere human who was adopted by God or that he was a divine being who only appeared to be human.¹⁴

The next line says that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” This line is especially interesting. Notice that only two people outside of the Trinity are mentioned in the creed: Mary and Pilate. Obviously, Mary is someone whom all Christians hold in high regard as the mother of our Lord. So why does Pilate, the fellow who sent Jesus to be crucified, get the same level of recognition? It’s not out of respect. Rather, his inclusion proclaims that Jesus’ story is historical fact. Unlike other ancient religions, Christianity is not based in legend but in history. Christians believe that both Jesus’ crucifixion and his resurrection are historical events, and Pilate’s inclusion here reminds us of that fact.

haven’t we left a few things out?

Notably, the Apostles’ Creed jumps right from Jesus’ miraculous birth to his suffering and death, completely skipping over his ministry and teaching. This may seem like a big oversight, but keep in mind the purpose of the creed. It is meant to be a succinct, easily memorized confession of what a Christian believes. The inclusion of something like “I believe Jesus taught X, Y, and Z,” just wouldn’t quite fit in with the purpose of the creed and would inevitably leave out some important teachings anyway. Today, we’d just be asking why his teaching on “W” wasn’t included! Spreading Jesus’ teachings was obviously one of the core purposes of the ancient church, which is why they preserved for us the Gospel accounts of his life and teaching.¹⁵

it is (not) finished

We’re only about half way through the creed, and we can already see that there is a lot to be said about it! Indeed, whole books have been written about what this short creed teaches.¹⁶

Next time, we’ll finish our survey of the teachings of the creed and round it out with some ideas of how Christians can use the Apostles’ Creed today.

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Read Next:

1. This version is found in the Book of Common Prayer, 2019, as published by the Anglican Church in North America. Because the creed is translated from Greek and/or Latin, you may find versions with slightly different wordings.

2. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom: with a history and critical notes, vol 1, The History of Creeds, 6th ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1919), 22.

3. Justin S. Holcomb, Know the Creeds and Councils (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014), 25.

4. Schaff, 1:16.

5. Schaff, 1:17.

6. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom: with a history and critical notes, vol 2, The Greek and Latin Creeds, with Translation, 6th ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1919), 47.

7. Schaff, 1:15.

8. Michael F. Bird, “To Creed or Not to Creed: Why You Need Creeds in the Christian Life,” Word by Word (blog), Logos, https://www.logos.com/grow/why-you-need-creeds/.

9. Alister McGrath, I Believe: Exploring the Apostles’ Creed (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 20.

10. McGrath, 21-22.

11. Word nerdery: the English word Lord comes from the Anglo-Saxon hlaf wearden, literally “loaf warden,” or “guardian of the bread.” A fitting title for one who called himself the Bread of Life!

12. Strong’s defines it as meaning “supreme in authority,” https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g2962/esv/mgnt/0-1/.

13. McGrath, 42.

14. McGrath, 45-46.

15. Some of his teachings can also be found in an early church manual called the Didache, dated to the late first or early second century! We’ll be covering that in the future.

16. I’ll recommend a couple of those in my next post.