Confirmation Class Lesson 1: The Apostle’s Creed
Instructor: Anthony G. Cirilla
The Apostle’s Creed is a powerful comfort of biblical truth well ordered to guide the mind and the soul through the essentials of the Christian faith. The Creed was not written by the Apostles, but is so-called because it is believed to reflect the apostolic faith delivered to the Church. Written some time in the 400s, the Apostle’s Creed has since ancient times been associated with preparation for the sacrament of baptism for adults and for the sacramental rite of Confirmation for those who were baptized as children. It is a distillation of the Gospels, somewhat like the blurb on the back cover of a book you might buy at the store. It is not meant to replace but to guide the mind as one navigates Scripture for truth.
Some of our fellow Christians will say, But isn’t the Bible enough? Why do we need the Creeds? Some will say, “No book but the Bible and no Creed but Christ.” However, it’s worth pointing out that that phrase isn’t in the Bible and Christ never said those specific words. If you listen to a sermon, or use a Bible study, or any other resources which help you to access the Bible, you already believe that the Bible is too important to read without use of resources. Here are some reasons for valuing historical documents of faith such as the Apostle’s Creed and 39 Articles: The form of the Creed is one we see patterned in Scripture, so Creeds are in that sense authorized by God’s Word. In fact, we can see that the Bible has short assertions that scholars agree appear to be creedal statements from the earliest Christians, or which affirm the value of creeds. We even see the early pattern of a creedal response in Matthew 16, where Peter is commended for affirming his faith. Romans 10:9, 1 Corinthians 12:3, 1 Timothy 2:5, 1 Timothy 3:16 and perhaps most famously John 3:16 have a creedal shape to them, and some of them appear, by the way they are discussed by the biblical writers, to have functioned as brief creeds at the time Scripture was being written. Philippians 2:6-11 and 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 are longer form examples which feel similar to the Creeds we know and likely influenced their composition. We even see in Matthew 16:15-19 an exchange where Peter’s statement of faith is vindicated by Christ when he confesses his faith. As my wife Camarie once pointed out to me, when we ask in this Church, “Christian, what do you believe?”, and we respond with a Creed, we are joining Peter as stones which build the cathedral of Christ’s catholic church.
Humility before God’s Word Written. There are 31,102 verses in the Bible excluding the Apocryphal texts, and between those verses there are as many as 63,779 cross references, passages where one Bible verse references another. Take a look at this image created by Chris Harrison, which gives a visual representation of every cross reference Scripture makes to itself. What an amazing rainbow of the colors of revelation! I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel equipped to say I can understand on my own that much content. The Bible is a pretty big book, and given the importance of it – to reveal to us God’s plan for mankind – we should have the humility to read it with the guidance of tradition. Tradition should never be allowed to replace or distort the Bible, but when it comes to asking what the Bible means, tradition supplies an answer that has sifted through all of that content to give us guidance. The Bible tells us to read it in an undertone day and night, and tradition is the effort of the church mulling over scripture not only day and night but year after year, century after century, and millennium after millennium. You could think of the Apostle’s Creed as a short sermon handed down through the ages about the essence of what Christians should believe in order to claim membership in the Kingdom of God. Tradition gives us a hedge against error and misunderstanding. If you study church history you will find that there have been many debates about what exactly the Bible is teaching, as people much smarter than me have tried to understand the meaning of those 31k+ verses written in three different languages. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 tells us, “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.” Verses out of context or with insufficient understanding have resulted in errors such as Arianism which denies the full divinity of Christ, Pelagianism which makes salvation a matter of our own effort, and others. It’s an excellent and noble thing to read the Bible for ourselves, something every Christian should do, but statements of faith like the Apostle’s Creed protect us from false teachers and also give us a sense of unity with the other branches of Christ’s church who use it.
Looking to tradition for help shows faith in God’s Word and in God’s Providence. Isaiah 55:11 reads, “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” While tradition does make mistakes because it is in the hands of human beings, the fact remains that if we believe in Providence, we can trust that the general witness of Christ’s church will settle on the best readings of Scripture available. This is what the Apostle’s Creed means by the catholic faith – it is the most universal understanding of God’s word available. Any Christian document that seeks to set forward a creed or statement of faith should always aim to be catholic in this sense – that it tries to uphold God’s Word Written, with a humble eye to what the Church has generally agreed is the case upon reception and explanation of its basic teachings through the process of time. While our brothers and sisters in Christ may have erred in our opinion, we nonetheless look to the common heritage of the first five hundred years of Christianity to see how God’s Word has been read.
The Apostle’s Creed affirms the biblical revelation of the Trinity, of the Father as Creator, as the Son and his mission to be incarnate as God in the flesh and save us from our sins, and from the Holy Spirit who works through the Church to secure us in God’s truth. Notice that the Articles we read tonight, Articles 1-5 of the 39 Articles, part of what are often called the catholic articles because the least controversial among most of Christ’s Church, are in many ways an expansion and exposition of the Apostle’s Creed. Article 1 sets out explicitly the nature of God as one God in three Persons implied in the Apostle’s Creed; Article 2 delves into the divinity of Christ and his purpose in coming to save us, article 3 specifies what Christ did on Holy Saturday, and article 4 takes us to Easter Sunday. Much like the second paragraph of the Apostle’s Creed, the Articles thus emphasize the work of Christ as God and Man, while Article 5 takes us to the third paragraph’s start with the affirmation of the Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Trinity. The mystery of the Trinity, I am sure, is something we will discuss further, the main thing to remember there being the words of Isaiah 55:8-9:8:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Any God worth worshiping will be a mystery, and so it comes as no surprise that our God fills us with awe as we learn about His character as three distinct Persons who are nonetheless fully the one and same God. The articles for next week, 6-8 and 35, take us through the big picture of the Apostle’s Creed in finer detail. I am so excited to talk about these fundamental Christian truths with you tonight, and I look forward to the questions you have to ask and thoughts you have about the reading. Let’s challenge our minds to grow to new and clearer understanding without pride, to do the Christian work of what Anselm famously called “Faith seeking understanding.” Like one grieving father once told Jesus Christ, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” We can come before the Lord and say, “Lord, I believe; help my confusion,” and while we will probably always have questions, we can always grow steadier in the sure faith in the finished work of the Cross. Amen.
Class Recording: First 5 Articles