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080 | Five Christian Creeds
463 Plays3 years ago
The early church fought to defend the core doctrines of Christianity, and one of the ways they did this was through the creeds!These statements of faith have been handed down over centuries.
Learn how these creeds impact us and what we can learn from the early church.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Verity Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity Podcast. I'm your host, Felicia Mason-Heimer, and I am here to teach you how to know what you believe, to live it boldly, and to communicate it graciously to the world around you. I believe that women are ready to go deeper in their faith than ever before, and they don't have to go to seminary to do it. I am so glad you're here, and I hope you'll join me on this journey because every woman is a theologian.
Focus on Christian Creeds
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello friends and welcome back to Verity Podcast. This week we are talking about Christian creeds or statements of faith that have been passed down through history to Christians today. I apologize that this episode is going up a little bit late. I had hoped to do it a little bit earlier, aka on time, but I appreciate your understanding.
Challenges in Episode Production
00:00:55
Speaker
With all of these children and homeschool starting and every woman a theologian writing retreat that I hosted last weekend, I am behind on pretty much everything and I'm headed out on a trip to Colorado Springs tomorrow. So I'm trying to jam this in really quick on the day that it's actually supposed to be coming out.
00:01:16
Speaker
So thank you for your understanding with sometimes the sporadic nature of the episodes that I release. But the goal is for episodes to come out every Wednesday, on time, and one of these days I will get it together enough to batch record a bunch of episodes. I did it for the first time at the beginning of this season.
00:01:35
Speaker
And I did like four at a time and I have not been able to do that since. I think when I batch things, I get so excited that I batched it that I think, wow, I have four weeks off instead of doing it again so that I'm not sending these to Joseph last minute. So one of these days Felicia will get her beans together in the podcasting department. But for now, we're going to talk about Christian Creed's.
Significance of Creeds in Christianity
00:02:03
Speaker
Now, if you did not grow up in a liturgical church environment, and so when I say liturgical, I am looking at my Anglicans, my Catholics, my Orthodox, even some Methodist would count to me as liturgical church environments, Presbyterians, you may not be very acquainted with the creeds.
00:02:28
Speaker
Saying creeds or statements of faith that have been passed down through history from the early church is kind of a liturgical church tradition.
00:02:40
Speaker
churches that are more evangelical, that don't adhere to some of the traditions that we see among our liturgical brothers may not be as accustomed to hearing these creeds, although most of us are at least a little bit familiar with them, whether it's from being in a religious high school or reading them or simply studying the Bible because everything in these creeds is taken from scripture.
00:03:08
Speaker
So what is a creed? Let's just start there. It is a distinctive mark of Christians. That's what one writer put it that way. It's called a creed because it's an accurate summary of the apostles' faith. So we're looking at the early church. What did the church that Jesus founded believe about God, about Jesus, about the Trinity, about salvation, about themselves?
00:03:35
Speaker
And a creed sums up those beliefs for us. And it was used in worship. It was used in teaching new converts. This is what you're saying. You're building your life around. This is what you're saying you will give your allegiance to.
00:03:54
Speaker
In a way, a creed is almost like a pledge of allegiance to Christ. If you want to think of it that way, in America, we have something called the Pledge of Allegiance. It's basically a patriotic statement that says that I give my allegiance to my country that I love. And that allegiance is obviously a patriotic one, not just a spiritual one or shouldn't be a spiritual one.
00:04:19
Speaker
But for a Christian, a creed is kind of like that. It's kind of like a pledge of allegiance describing what we believe and who we have built our life on. And that's Jesus Christ.
History of the Apostle's Creed
00:04:31
Speaker
So we're going to look at five Christian creeds. There are more than just these five, but these are some of the heavy hitters, if you will.
00:04:41
Speaker
And I am going to start with the most well-known creed of all, the Apostle's Creed. So this creed is believed to have been based on an earlier statement called the Old Roman Symbol.
00:04:56
Speaker
And it was then developed into what we now call the Apostles Creed, which was finalized, some say, in the 5th century. Probably earlier than that, though, it's believed to predate the Nicene Creed, which we're going to look at in a second. And the Nicene Creed came along in 391 AD. So the Apostles Creed would be before that, probably in the 200s and 300s, it was developed.
00:05:25
Speaker
The Nicene Creed was much more explicit about the Trinity, and we will discuss why that is in a second. But the Apostles Creed was pretty general. It's a unifying creed across almost all denominations. So the Apostles Creed is used in Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational churches, as well as evangelical churches.
00:05:50
Speaker
but it is not used in the Orthodox Church. So Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches use the Nicene Creed.
00:05:57
Speaker
So some claim in the history of the Apostles' Creed that each tenet, each statement of the Creed was contributed by a specific Apostle. This is very unlikely because of when it was probably compiled, but it was based on the teachings of the Apostles as expressed in the New Testament based on the Gospels. So there's that. The Apostles' Creed was probably used as a confession of faith prior to baptism.
00:06:26
Speaker
or used in some kind of discipleship process before someone was baptized into the church. And if you listen to the baptism episode where we looked at the four different views of baptism, you'll note that baptism was often
00:06:42
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used as the pathway to church membership or seen as the first step in church membership. So this confession of the creed would then come before that baptism into church membership. It's saying, I believe these things. Now you are baptized. You're a member of the body of Christ.
00:07:00
Speaker
The Creed is also included in some martyrdom accounts. So like if you've ever read Fox's Book of Martyrs, which maybe pick and choose the day you want to read Fox's Book of Martyrs, it's pretty heavy stuff. But in some of these martyrdom accounts, we see Christians affirming the Creed as well.
00:07:19
Speaker
So I love the definition of Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton and I've talked about this across multiple episodes where we discuss what is Orthodoxy? What is sound teaching? So this is different than the Greek and Russian Orthodox Church. The term Orthodoxy simply means what is the core of Christianity?
00:07:41
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What is the core of it that must be held to in order to call oneself a true believer and follower of Jesus Christ? G. K. Chesterton said, the creeds and the historic conduct of those who held such a creed.
00:07:57
Speaker
are what qualify someone to be called a Christian. They're what qualify someone to be within sound teaching. And I think that definition is excellent because it is affirmed throughout those first one to 300 years of the early church and should continue to be affirmed that way today. And so the Apostles Creed is our baseline for this. And because it's short, I want to read it to you very quickly.
00:08:25
Speaker
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
00:08:43
Speaker
He descended to hell. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
00:09:07
Speaker
Okay, a couple of questions that come up with the Apostle's
Understanding Creedal Phrases
00:09:10
Speaker
Creed. The big one is, descended to hell. What does that mean? Was Jesus in hell for three days? Well, the original Apostle's Creed said, descended unto death. So there are two versions. They descend unto death, Jesus descended unto death, or he descended unto hell.
00:09:30
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And hell, in this case, with those who believe that he descended onto hell, is he's basically exercising his authority over Satan, over the enemy. This does not mean that Jesus was actually in hell suffering.
00:09:45
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for three days. The word for the grave is Hades, which eventually can become confused with the concept of hell. But when we have these different words for hell and the grave, so Shael, Hades, hell, place of eternal torment, Gehenna,
00:10:05
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When we have these different words, it can be easy to confuse them and confuse what they're referring to. And so the original Apostles Creed said, he descended unto death. Or Hades, Shael, the grave.
00:10:21
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and that came to mean Jesus was in hell. So my recommendation is to not read more into this than what scripture actually says. The early church was trying to encapsulate what Jesus did. He was victorious over death. He was victorious over Satan, over the enemy. This does not mean that Jesus was literally sitting in hell for three days because he turns to the thief on the cross and says, today I will be with you in paradise.
00:10:47
Speaker
So, it's more likely he descended unto death, unto the grave, than he descended unto hell. Secondly, in the latter half of the Creed, it says, I believe in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Catholic Church. Catholic means universal. So, the Christian Church of all times and all places. So, I believe in the Holy Universal Church, the body of believers around the world.
00:11:14
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after a three-year hiatus, Verity Conference is back and it's coming to Petoskey, Michigan November 4th and 5th. I am so thrilled to bring back Verity Conference after our short break of a few years for COVID and this time we are much bigger with two amazing speakers joining me to talk about apologetics and evangelism. How do we share our faith effectively in today's culture
00:11:42
Speaker
in a way that is both gracious and truthful. You'll hear from me, Jeremy Jenkins of All Things, All People, and Priscilla Dominguez, who is going to share with us how to love other people while also speaking the truth. Jeremy specializes in world religions and cults, and he will be talking about evangelism in that context. I am so excited for this event. I hope you can join us. You can grab the remaining early bird tickets on my website, feliciamasonheimer.com, if you click the conference tab.
00:12:13
Speaker
Next up, we have the Nicene Creed.
Development of the Nicene Creed
00:12:17
Speaker
So this is also called the Niceno-Constanapolitan Creed. Fancy. And this was developed during the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. This is the only ecumenical creed, meaning that it is accepted interdenominationally by Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant churches. That's really impressive.
00:12:41
Speaker
Note that the Apostles' Creed was accepted by everyone except the Orthodox. The Nicene Creed is accepted by everyone. There's one little unique piece of history surrounding the Nicene Creed, and that is the addition of something called the Filioque clause. And what this refers to is a little
00:13:04
Speaker
phrase of a few words talking about the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. Most churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, accept
00:13:20
Speaker
the idea that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. He comes from the Father and the Son while still being equal with them. But the Eastern Orthodox Church did not agree with this clause and agrees instead with the idea of the Holy Spirit proceeding only from the Father. So that's an interesting little difference between the rest of Christianity and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
00:13:46
Speaker
So I wanted to also read this Creed to you so you get an idea of where it differs from the Apostles Creed.
00:13:55
Speaker
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made.
00:14:17
Speaker
consubstantial with the Father. Through Him all things were made, for us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, He suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
00:14:38
Speaker
He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, and in parentheses, the Son,
00:14:55
Speaker
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. I believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.
00:15:15
Speaker
So as you can see here, this builds on the apostles' creed with more detail. We have a lot more regarding the life of Jesus, a lot more regarding the details of how the Trinity functions, and there's a big reason for this. In the 300s and prior, but specifically the 300s, is when the Trinity was under incessant attack.
00:15:37
Speaker
from the Arian heresy, which said that Jesus was not actually equal with God or a god, but he was a created being of God. So God created Jesus. He's like a secondary demigod kind of character. And you'll note that in the Nicene Creed, they specifically say that Jesus was true God from true God, begotten, not made.
00:16:03
Speaker
So this was put in there on purpose to confront that Arian heresy. And that was one of the main reasons for this gathering of bishops at the council that made this creed and united the church around it.
00:16:17
Speaker
So the third creed we're going to look at is actually very similar to the Nicene Creed. This was also written to defend against the Arian heresy and this is called the Athanasian Creed.
Exploring the Athanasian Creed
00:16:30
Speaker
So Athanasius was an African church father. He spent most of his life defending the Trinity and he was at the Council of Nicaea.
00:16:38
Speaker
Now, this creed differs from the Nicene in its specific focus on the Trinity and on the nature of Jesus. Each statement in it countered the claims of Arius, the heretic, that Jesus was created by God. For instance, it says that we worship one God in Trinity and the Trinity in unity.
00:17:02
Speaker
neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence. It also says that God is uncreated, immeasurable, and eternal. It's a really long creed, otherwise I would read it to you. It's worth looking up. I will try to put a link to it in the show notes when they go up on the blog. Felicia Masonheimer
00:17:23
Speaker
Under blog is where all of our show notes go and you can search them by the episode title. That's where they are listed and I will put a link to this Creed in there if you would like to read it. It's a really great read because you get to see exactly how Athanasius was countering the heresy of his day.
00:17:43
Speaker
The fourth creed we want to look at is actually not a creed at all.
Chalcedonian Definition Explained
00:17:48
Speaker
I know, sneaky. This is called the Chalcedonian definition. And it's called a definition because it's a commentary on the creeds, a commentary on the doctrines that were developed at the Council of Chalcedon in October of 451 AD. So now we've jumped ahead about 100 years.
00:18:08
Speaker
And this definition wouldn't be used in a liturgy or in a service like the other two. This instead is a commentary detailing kind of what scholars were thinking about the council, about these doctrines, and would have been used for teachers and leaders and bishops to refer to when they were discipling people, when they were using the creeds in their liturgy.
00:18:33
Speaker
So it focuses on Jesus' dual nature. Again, we're looking at Trinitarian doctrines here. Have you noticed how important this was to the early church? Very important. So it focuses on Jesus' dual nature, God and man, as is described in the second half of the Athanasian Creed. And it's also refuting two new-ish heresies.
00:18:58
Speaker
Now, we all know that heresy is never fully new. It's really just a repackaged version of something that came earlier. And that's kind of the case here. So the first heresy that's being refuted at Chalcedon in this definition
00:19:13
Speaker
is Nestorianism. Nestorius was, I believe, a monk who taught that Jesus was a man with a special power or connection to God. So he wasn't actually God, he just had this special power that connected him to God.
00:19:28
Speaker
And then the second heresy, and this one's a mouthful, is Utikianism. And I'm probably mispronouncing that. But the name of the guy who came up with it is Uticus. And he was also a monk. He taught that Jesus' nature
00:19:45
Speaker
God and man were so blended together that it actually was just one divine nature. It wasn't human and divine. It was just so completely blended that he wasn't human, he was divine. So one is saying, Nestorianism is saying that Jesus is just a man. And then Eudecus, or Eudecanism, is saying that Jesus is fully God but not man at all.
00:20:07
Speaker
Okay? And the difference between these two is profound. If you've ever wondered why the Trinity mattered, why does it matter that Jesus is both God and man? And why does it matter that we have God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and their natures are in essence of one and yet not blended altogether? It all revolves around our salvation. Because if Jesus is fully God and not man, he could not be an adequate substitute for humanity.
00:20:37
Speaker
The reason he came as a man was to stand in our place, to act as a ransom for humanity, the second Adam, as Paul puts it. But if he is fully man and not God, then he does not have the power to defeat death.
00:20:57
Speaker
right? So there's consequences to either side. He can't defeat death if he's purely man and not God, then he can't be our substitute if he's fully God and not man. So the focus of this definition
00:21:13
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is on the nature of Jesus, on the Trinity, because the Arians were teaching that Jesus and the Spirit were not equal parts and persons of the Trinity. And then all of this discussion about Jesus' nature and all of that that seems so heady and out there and philosophical trickles down to our everyday security and our salvation.
Importance of Jesus' Dual Nature
00:21:36
Speaker
If Jesus was not who he claimed to be, if he was not fully man and fully God, if he was not born of a virgin, a perfectly pure substitute for us who had the power to overcome death, we have no hope. And it's like what Paul said about the resurrection when he said, if we're wrong about the resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15, our faith is useless.
00:21:57
Speaker
and we are liars. And so there's a lot riding on this in the early church knew that and fought for the Trinity fought for Jesus nature over those first 500 years.
00:22:08
Speaker
So this Creed, the Chalcedonian definition, again, it's not a Creed, it's more of a statement, clarified the Christian beliefs further on the nature of Christ so people could make an educated decision about his claims. And it's written to teachers. It's written to leaders. And I just love that. If you are a ministry leader and you're listening to this, go look up the Chalcedonian definition and read it through because it was written for you.
00:22:33
Speaker
All right, we're going to look at our last creed, which again, isn't really a creed. It's really long. I love it. It is one of my favorite documents from the early church to read fascinating stuff. And this is called the Didache.
00:22:49
Speaker
So the other word for the Didache is the teaching of the 12 apostles.
Introduction to the Didache
00:22:55
Speaker
And this document outlined the beliefs of early Christians and also the fundamental Christian practices in the early church. So sacraments, gatherings, baptism, fasting. It also did a lot of teaching on true and false prophets and integrity and leadership. Isn't that appropriate for today?
00:23:16
Speaker
It was most likely used to educate new converts prior to baptism and membership in the church. And I wanted to read a little bit from this to you because I was reading it over the weekend and I thought, this is amazing. This is so helpful to understand what were the expectations of Christians in the early church. And what it does is it really goes through the commandments
00:23:41
Speaker
of God. Specifically, I'm looking at section two, it talks about the second commandment. And the first section talks about the first commandment. And it goes through how you are to live. So I want to look at the second section of the Didache point two, it says, thou shalt not do murder, thou shalt not commit adultery.
00:24:01
Speaker
Thou shalt not commit sodomy, thou shalt not commit fornication, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not use magic, thou shalt not use filters, thou shalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide. You shall not covet thy neighbor's goods." Okay, this was written in the first few centuries of the church. This was written in Roman culture, when all of these things that I just mentioned were completely acceptable and normalized. Completely acceptable and normalized.
00:24:32
Speaker
And as our culture, American specifically, changes and moves to endorsing these very things, embracing them, celebrating them, how appropriate that we return back to the teaching of the early church and the holiness that was expected of Christians. But it goes on to say this too, you shall not be double-minded or double-tongued, for to be double-tongued is the snare of death.
00:24:56
Speaker
Your speech shall not be false or vain, but completed in action. You should not be covetous or extortionate, nor a hypocrite, malignant, proud, nor should you make any evil plan against your neighbor. You shall hate no man, but some thou shalt reprove, and for some shalt thou pray, and some thou shalt love more than thine own life. Ugh.
00:25:25
Speaker
It's just beautiful and so convicting because none of us can stand in light of this, right? We need the Holy Spirit to walk in us and to walk with us and sanctify us into the image of Christ. And that is exactly what he was doing in those first few hundred years of the church.
00:25:46
Speaker
It goes on through the next sections all the way down to section 16 where it talks about keeping your eyes open for the end of days and after it's talked about leaders and how leaders should walk in integrity and how they should lead.
00:26:06
Speaker
With compassion and with truth, it tells us that we are to keep an eye out, keep our lamps lit, for we do not know in what hour our Lord will come. And so there they are looking forward to that day in 200 or 300 or whenever this was developed. And here we are still doing the work of the gospel as we await for Christ to return and to reconcile.
00:26:32
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all things. And I wanted to read what they said in this section because I think that it will be encouraging to some of you.
Early Church Teachings and Challenges
00:26:39
Speaker
For as lawlessness increases, they shall hate one another and persecute and betray, and then shall appear the deceiver of the world as a son of God, and shall do signs and wonders, and the earth shall be given over into his hands, and he shall commit iniquities which have never been since the world began.
00:26:56
Speaker
Then shall the creation of mankind come to the fiery trial, and many shall be offended and be lost, but they who endure in their faith shall be saved. And then shall appear the signs of the truth, first the sign spread out in heaven, then the sign of the sound of the trumpet, and thirdly the resurrection of the dead." I think it's so encouraging.
00:27:18
Speaker
to read through what the hope of the early church was, how they dedicated themselves to defending the truth of scripture in a society that normalized unholiness, that normalized doing whatever you want, however you want.
00:27:36
Speaker
in a society where their religion, their religion of worshipping themselves and any god they made with their hands was integrated into their government. And if you did not worship the way you were supposed to worship, you were called into question as a citizen of Rome.
00:27:57
Speaker
Does that sound familiar? We have to keep in mind the faithfulness of the early church and the truths that they held to. And remember, like G.K. Chesterton said that sound teaching Orthodox Christianity is holding to the creeds and the historic conduct of those who believed them.
00:28:19
Speaker
I hope this is an encouragement to you. And I hope that you're inspired to go and read these creeds for yourself, especially if you did not grow up saying them in your church environment. Go read them. Read the words that have been said and read for thousands of years because this is part of your family legacy.
00:28:42
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Verity Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, would you take the time to leave us a review? It helps so many other women around the world find out about Verity and about every woman a theologian as a ministry and a shop. We appreciate you and I hope you'll be back next week as we continue to go deeper into God's word and the heart of Jesus Christ.