The Apostles’ Creed

I’m writing this a few days before Easter. Perhaps when you read it, Easter will be past. If you’re looking forward to Easter, how can you prepare yourself? If you’re looking back, how can you remind yourself of the truths we were thinking about over Easter-time?

One way might be this. Before you go to bed tonight, put aside some time to read and re-read the Apostles’ Creed.

Not sure what that is? Well, let me explain. Over the centuries, Christians have drawn up many creeds. But the best-known of them all (at least in this country) is the Apostles’ Creed. Here it is:

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth:

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord;
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried;

He descended into hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost;
The holy Catholic Church;
The Communion of Saints;
The Forgiveness of sins;
The Resurrection of the body,
And the Life everlasting.

Amen.

Who? Where? When?

A creed is a summary statement of the things that Christians believe. It was probably some time between 150 and 200 AD that Christians – maybe in Rome – first drew up a summary of their beliefs in a form similar to the one I’ve just given you.

That early document was used widely and over the following centuries it was expanded and polished to become the Apostles’ Creed as we know it now. The earliest forms of the creed may have been written in Greek but the most widely used version was written in Latin.

Despite its name, there’s no reason to think it was actually drawn up by the apostles – the men whom Jesus chose personally to be his representatives and to whom he gave full authority to teach his message. But it is a fine summary of many of the great truths that the apostles laid down, designed to be memorised and recited by Christian believers.

Ever since the publication of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, Church of England congregations have used the creed in an English translation. In many parish churches, the creed would be displayed on a board at the front of the building, alongside boards with the words of the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer. Sadly, there are few Church of England buildings where those boards are still to be seen. But there are still some Church of England congregations that regularly recite the Apostles’ Creed in their worship services. There are slight variations in the wording that different congregations use – some prefer to use slightly modernised language (eg ‘living’ instead of ‘quick’). I have given you the words that are found in the 1662 Prayer Book (though not the spelling).

Why do we call such a list of Christian beliefs a creed? Answer: because the Latin word for ‘I believe’ is credo. Quite a number of creeds – including this one – begin with the words ‘I believe’. It’s easy to see how the word ‘credo’ gave rise to the English word ‘creed’.

Trinitarian, Christ-centred

Let me point out two obvious features of this creed. The first is the way that it presents the Christian faith as belief in God the Holy Trinity. As we recite this creed, we declare ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty…. And in Jesus Christ, His only Son…. I believe in the Holy Ghost’ (the word ghost back then didn’t mean what it means now: it was used simply to mean ‘spirit’).

The second is the fact that it has much more to say about the Son of God than about God the Father or the Holy Spirit. I’ve laid out the creed as four paragraphs. The first paragraph is about the Father, and amounts to two lines. The final paragraph starts with a single line about the Holy Spirit and then mentions four or five other truths we believe. But in between, we have two paragraphs – a total of eleven lines about Jesus Christ. In those lines, we declare:

that he is God’s only Son,
that he is our Lord,
that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
that he was born from Mary and that she was a virgin when he was born,
that he experienced suffering under the authority of Pontius Pilate,
that he was crucified,
that he truly died,
that he was buried,
that he descended into hell,
that he rose again from the dead,
that he ascended into heaven,
that he is now sharing his Father’s throne in heaven,
that he will come again,
that when he comes he will judge both those who are alive at his coming and those who have already died.

In eleven short lines, the Creed gives us a grand overview of the person of Christ, his life here on earth, his present position, and his future coming.

Knowing the Triune God

Why is there so much more said about Jesus Christ, God’s Son than about the Father or the Holy Spirit? Is it that the Christians who shaped the Creed thought that one person of the Trinity was more important than the others? No, they recognised that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equally God, that they share one nature. The Father is Almighty, All-knowing, All-glorious; the Son is Almighty, All-knowing, All-glorious; the Holy Spirit is Almighty, All-knowing, All-glorious. Each person of the Trinity is to be worshipped, loved, obeyed.

But they also understood that we only know God through Jesus Christ. God has revealed himself to us through his Son. For us, Jesus Christ is the way into God. As it were, our first contact with God is through Christ. The writers of the creed never put it this way but he is the interface between us and God.

Jesus himself declared, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life, No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6). When Philip asked Jesus to show him the Father, Jesus answered, ‘Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14:9). One New Testament writer puts it this way: ‘..in these last days he (God) has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature…’ (Hebrews 1:2-3). And the apostle Paul tells us that we see ‘the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4:6). It’s as we look at Christ that we see the glory of God.

If we want to know God the Father, we must look at Jesus Christ his Son, and to do that we must know the facts about him that are summarised there in the Creed. They’re only a summary of course. We have four gospels (or four accounts of the Gospel) to help us to see Jesus Christ and through him, to see the Father. But the ten lines we have here are a great starting-point.

And what about the Holy Spirit? What is his role? His role is to enable us to see Jesus Christ, God’s Son. Jesus said, ‘..the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you’ (John 14:26). ‘..when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me’ (John 15:26). Our first need is not to know about the Holy Spirit – it is to know the things the Holy Spirit wants to teach us about Jesus Christ.

Do you understand? We know the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit shows us the facts about Jesus Christ – who he is, what he did here on earth, what he is doing now, what he is going to do. And it’s as the Holy Spirit teaches us the facts about Jesus Christ, that we are able to know God the Father.

So the authors of the Creed – whoever they may have been – were absolutely right to focus on Jesus Christ – to list out so carefully the great truths about him that we must know and believe.

In fact, I wish they had said a little more about him. Especially, I wish they had said more about the reasons for his death. When Paul summarised the gospel he preached, he said, ‘..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). It seems strange that the Creed speaks of Christ’s death, his burial, his resurrection on the third day, but misses out the vital truth that he died for our sins. For Paul, and all the New Testament writers that was of first importance. Peter writes, ‘..Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God…’ (1 Peter 3:18).

Isn’t this where we see the glory of God most plainly – in the fact that he ‘loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins’ (1 John 4:10)?

Especially now at Easter that should surely be at the front of our minds. As you read the Creed and as you come to those all-important words, ‘suffered under Pontius Pilate – he was crucified…’, say to yourself ‘and it was for me! Christ died in my place, for my sins. He died to bring me to God…’

Three questions before I close

Three things that puzzled me when I first became aware of the Apostles’ Creed.

Descended into hell?

Question 1: What does it mean when it says that Jesus descended into hell?

Answer: We cannot know for certain what was in the minds of the Christians who first used those words. But it seems likely that they were referring to an idea that many Christians came to believe. They thought that the word ‘hell’ here does not mean the place of torment for lost souls but rather the place where all the souls of the dead were kept awaiting judgement. They believed that in the time between Christ’s death and resurrection he descended into this place of the dead in order to set free believers from Old Testament times and to bring them out to heaven.

I should emphasise that this belief (which has sometimes been called the harrowing of hell) isn’t taught clearly in the New Testament or in the earliest Christian writers of the next generation but it developed in the centuries that followed and was widely believed. So maybe that’s what the Creed was intended to teach. But I’ve no reason to think that teaching is true.

A second explanation is slightly different. Some Christians argue that the words in the creed refer to a belief that Christ descended into hell in order to proclaim his victory over Satan and all his demons: to declare to them that he had defeated them by his death on the cross. There are some verses in the New Testament that could hint at that (especially 1 Peter 3:19) but they are far from clear. When I use the words of the Creed, it’s not that idea I have in mind.

A third explanation, which was held by the Protestant Reformers, especially Calvin, is that when we say that Christ ‘descended into hell’ we are simply saying that on the cross he experienced the agonies and miseries that the lost will experience in hell. He experienced the wrath of God as the Father punished him for the sins of the elect. He went through hell for us. He took our hell upon himself.

Understood in that way, the words of the creed are a very powerful and moving statement of what Jesus endured for us. They sum up a wonderful truth, taught clearly in the Bible. But I am not sure that that was what the shapers of the Creed were aiming to teach.

So what do I mean when I say, ‘he descended into hell’? I think the word ‘hell’ here should just be taken to mean the place or state of the dead – those whose souls have been separated from the body. Read in that way, the words of the Creed are simply an assertion that Jesus Christ died a human death. He experienced the full horror of death. His body was buried. His soul was torn from the body until the moment of resurrection. Death – the separation of body and soul is always unnatural, the consequence of human sin. Christ who bore our sins, had to endure that dreadful separation.

That’s the truth that comes home to me when I repeat once more those words in the Creed. And I find that truth very moving. I know that unless Christ returns first, I shall die. The thought that my soul and body will be torn apart may fill me with dread. But then I remind myself that Jesus Christ my Lord has faced that himself and will be there for me on that day.

Holy Catholic Church

Question 2: What do we mean when we say, ‘I believe in… the holy Catholic Church?’ Does that mean the Roman Catholic Church?

Answer. No. Obviously, when Roman Catholics recite the Creed that is likely to be what they have in mind. But it is not implied by the actual words. The Greek word katholike just means general or universal. The New Testament uses the word ‘church’ (ecclesia) in two ways. In many verses it means the company of Christian believers who actually gather in a particular place (a local church). In other verses it means the whole number of believers who ever have been or ever will be – God’s elect people from all centuries and all nations (eg Ephesians 1:22 / 5:23-25).

When we say, ‘I believe in the holy Catholic Church’ we are declaring that all those people are a single body. They form the universal – the catholic – church and they will gather together as one in the world to come.

Local churches are visible. We can see the people who make up a local church gathering. But the universal – catholic – church is invisible. We cannot see the links that join every believer – past, present, future – together, making them a single body. But the Bible assures us that that is the reality. So in faith we say, ‘I believe in the holy Catholic Church’.

It’s worth adding that when we use those words we are actually denying the claim that the religious organisation based in Rome is actually the true Church. One well-known theologian puts it like this. ‘Strictly speaking, “Roman Catholic” is a contradiction of terms. Catholic means universal; Roman means particular. It is the Protestant and not the Romanist who believes in the catholic church…’ An organisation fixed in a particular earthly place cannot rightly be called ‘catholic’!

Those last six lines?

Question 3: The line ‘I believe in the Holy Ghost’ followed by a list of other things we believe, each summed up in a single phrase. It seems an odd list. Is there any reason for the order in which they come?

Answer. I believe there is an order here. First we have the statement about the Holy Spirit. But then we have a list of five things that Holy Spirit brings about. The Holy Spirit unites believers across the world so that they become a single body – the true Catholic Church. The Holy Spirit enables those believers (saints – holy ones) to have communion (the word means a shared life) with each other. The Holy Spirit brings us to faith so that we receive forgiveness of sins. The Holy Spirit will grant to us resurrection – he will raise our bodies to life everlasting.

Let’s get started

Well, I’ve suggested that you should read the Apostles’ Creed tonight. It will prepare you for Easter (or remind you of the Easter that has passed). But don’t just read it once. Read it again. And again.

But why stop there? Why not do the same tomorrow? And the day after. Take it line by line. Make sure you understand what each sentence means. As the days go by, meditate on each phrase. Turn it into prayer, thanking and praising God for the truths that are summed up so succinctly and powerfully.

Keep going over it each day – until it’s firmly embedded in your mind and you can recite it from heart. And then come back to it at intervals – maybe once a fortnight or once a month – and refresh your memory.

Christians have been helped by the Apostles’ Creed – in one form or another – for coming up to nineteen hundred years. It would surely be very rash for any of us to say, ‘I don’t need it: it’s got nothing in it for me’!

All Bible quotations in this article are taken from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, published by HarperCollins Publishers © 2001.