From the church’s inception it has had to wrestle with how to correctly understand what God had revealed through the prophets and ultimately through the person of Jesus. Likewise, we today also need to give effort toward developing a clear understanding of Christian doctrines and beliefs. Primarily, we must recognize which of our beliefs are nonnegotiable and which are not. It is necessary to distinguish between essentials and nonessentials. The way the early church did this was to boil their shared beliefs or common affirmations from the Bible down to confessions and creeds like the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. You might have even grown up in a church in which the recitation of one or both of these creeds played a significant role in worship and/or the education and discipleship process of young Christians. Or, if you were like me, you were impoverished by your complete ignorance of our faith’s history, believing that most of those who preceded us simply “got it wrong,” up until now.
One thing that I’ve tried to do over the past few years is to familiarize myself with those ancient creeds. I’ve worked to memorize and internalize them. What it has done is given me an easily accessible map to the essentials of the Christian faith. And as John Schwarz rightly notes in A Handbook of the Christian Faith, “The better we understand and can articulate our beliefs, the more confident we will be in sharing our faith.”
As an example of one of these ancient Christian confessions take a look at and reflect upon the Nicene Creed.Â
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, and of one Being with the Father, through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnated of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; 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. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”?
UPCOMING CLASS:
This fall I will be co-teaching a 5-week Sunday morning seminar (10:00am) with Dr. Matt Hickey. We will be walking through many of these essential beliefs of the Christian faith. For more information check the Sunday morning EQUIP Adult Education page on this blog.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS:
1. If you grew up in church, what was your experience of the ancient Christian creeds?
2. What elements stand out to you after reading this creed?
3. Do you think we ought to, in any way, utilize tools like the Apostle’s Creed and Nicene Creed in church today? If so how?
6 Comments on “The Nicene Creed”
Brent,
Excellent post.
A superb contribution to understanding the creeds of the Christian faith is Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005).
From the Back Cover:
“Credo proves once again-if proof were needed-why Jaroslav Pelikan, learned, passionate, and literate, is the premier historical theologian of our time.”-Lawrence S. Cunningham, John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology, The University of Notre Dame
Pastor Brent,
Thank you for addressing issues that have an affect on our Christian beliefs, values, and understanding. To address question #3, I was wondering if the church’s Beliefs and Mission Statement are a type of creed for us today. As I read the Creed my mind quickly referred to our belief statement.
Growing up Lutheran, I am very familiar with a variation of this creed. Every week in church this creed was said but does it then just become words? The statement “one baptism” is one that I am stuggling with right now. My family joined the Lutheran church when I was 14 yrs old and within a few weeks I was baptized in order go to confimation but between then and now I did many things undeserving of God’s glory.
Having accepted Jesus as my savior in December and asking for his forgiveness, I now question my baptism and find myself wishing to be baptized again because I now know what it means to be baptized trying to live in God’s glory.
When is baptism really real? At 14 years old I was baptized because it was what my parents wanted in order for me to be confirmed. It ment nothing to me, but now that it means something to me where do we go? Is knowing that I was baptized, wandered from His grace, then repented and welcomed back enough?
Janea,
I don’t believe baptism is really meaningful unless you have received Christ personally and wish to do it as a public proclamation of your faith. If your baptism meant nothing to you, I’m not sure that it really meant anything to God. It would be like telling everyone you are a Christian when inwardly you do not believe in God. You are saved, and cannot become unsaved even if you were never baptized, so don’t worry about that! If you feel God calling you to get baptized for real, I say go for it! There’s nothing wrong with doing it again, especially if the first time was meaningless. Just know that it is not directly connected to your salvation, you are saved without it.
Alyssa/Janea,
Janea I think Alyssa is right, if you feel God telling you to be Baptized again go for it. Do not stiffle the Holy Spirit. I was Baptized in ’96 but never really accepted Christ into my heart until ’97! I make sure that I tell all I witness to that just because your baptized doesn’t mean your saved. Sometimes I feel that maybe I should be re-baptized but I think the Holy Spirit is telling me that the first time was good enough, I saved now and that it is Satan who is trying to make me a prisoner of my guilt for it “not meaning anything” the first time. Actually The Lord said to me after I accepted Him into my heart in “97 that when I confessed Him in ’96 and was Baptzed in His name that I was deep down inside calling out to Him for help. So later I kind of had a headon collision with that old rugged cross, it knocked me to my knees (my life had fallen apart by this time because of my life style) God reached down and grabbed me by the collar and shook the Devil outta me! Stood me upright and loosed me and set me free, and I am free indeed! Praise be to Jesus for that! To Him be the Glory and my life is for Him! Jeana don’t let Satan keep you a prisoner! Your free if you’ve really have Jesus in your heart.
Janea,
The phrase “one baptism” is not in reference to the one time that a person might have been baptized. Rather, it speaks of the solidarity or unity of the body/group/people into which a person comes (the church). The Apostle Paul hits this point home in his letter to the Ephesians (4:4-6) when he writes, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.â€
Baptism, as defined in the Bible, is “the pledge of a good conscience toward God†(1 Pet 3:21). And while God does not require us to engage in this physical/symbolic practice each time we might “pledge†or “rededicate†some part of our lives to God (for we are constantly giving over more of ourselves to Him), it is appropriate for us to willfully, and in an informed manner, engage in the powerful experience of being immersed in water. So, if you feel as though your reasons or motives were somewhat mixed when you were first baptized, it would be completely appropriate to be baptized again. Remember, there is nothing magical transpiring in the process. You are simply and profoundly saying to the world that you are identifying yourself with Jesus—your old life having been buried with him and now raised to newness of life.