The Apostles' Creed

• by: Andre Coppin 10/17/09

In this issue we will be looking at the Apostles’ Creed: maybe the most well known of all the creeds.

The Apostles’ Creed was likely developed as a verbal tradition from an old Roman creed used as a baptismal recital sometime in the 2nd century. Verbal traditions were stories, important historical facts or tenants of faith that were passed down from generation to generation via oral transmissions. Simply put, people teaching people via recitation. It is sometimes called the “Old Roman Creed” because of its origins among the Roman Christians. Some historians will predate the creed much earlier than the 2nd century giving penmanship credits to each of the twelve Apostles. Whatever position the historians take has little effect on the fact that this creed is among the most important of our Christian history.

During the centuries after Christ there were many false teaching that distorted the truth and attempted to hold captive the hearts and minds of people. Most creeds were developed as a reaction to a current erroneous and false teaching. The Apostles’ Creed was no different. It was developed as a rebuttal against the teaching of Gnostism. Gnostic sects of the time held that Jesus was not fully God but merely an instrument through which the Spirit of Christ worked. They denied that Christ was embodied in humanity and died on the cross. We can see that with this type of hieratical teaching being postulated around, many people could be lead astray.

Having a creed that can be learned and recited could give all men a defense against the “sweet and deadly” philosophy of the time. Most people of the 2nd century did not have the luxury of going to a Christian book store and buying the latest Bible to read and study from. They had only what was taught to them through the verbal traditions and maybe, separate letters written by Apostles and other church leaders to rely on. From this we can see the importance of this creed to the 2nd century person. It was a powerful, yet simple recital of the most important facet of our faith: that Christ is fully God and He died for our wretched souls.

Why is it as important to us today as it was for the 2nd century Christians? Because of one fundamental reason: our faith is still being diluted and raped by the fantasies of men. We have a creed that is as true today as it was in the 2nd century. Let us be knowledgeable and stand guard against the attacks of humanistic ideologies that deny our Christ His rightful position as God.

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,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day, He rose again.
He ascended to 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 life everlasting. Amen.

From reading the creed you can clearly see that certain statements are made to succinctly deal with certain aspects of a false teaching. Let’s look at the statement, “who was conceived by the Holy Spirit”. This statement was probably written in response to those who were saying that Jesus was just a man and that Mary was not a real virgin. Even to this day, there are people who believe and teach that Mary was not a virgin.

Some of you might have noticed “the Holy Catholic Church”. This was once held to mean the Holy Universal Church, as in all True Christians worldwide and not as a representation of a particular denomination.

The aim here is not pick apart the entire creed, but to give a background as to why it was written, and to encourage us to learn the beautiful writings of our Christian faith, that are as important today as they were in the early days of our church. This creed can become part of your prayer life, as a way to center your mind and heart on Christ.