Faith and Practice. Frank E. Wilson
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are for a bad religion, the worse their case becomes.
For this reason the early Christians were in conscience bound to defend Christ against misrepresentation and to protect the very character of God. The whole question of Christian living hung on that issue—because “we tend to become like that which we worship.” Therefore when prospective converts presented themselves for Holy Baptism, they were expected to declare their faith. At first it was sufficient that they should make some such statement as, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”2 Then occasions arose when certain Gospel truths in support of this declaration were misconstrued and the required statement of faith was correspondingly expanded. Thus the Apostles’ Creed began to grow as a baptismal symbol. Nobody ever sat down and composed it out of his own imagination. It was hammered out on the anvil of Christian experience to preserve the fulness of the Christian revelation. The Apostles were the accredited teachers of the Gospel who passed judgment on the authenticity of the instruction given by any other teachers. As they gradually slipped out of the picture by death, it became desirable to have a brief summary of their teaching as a declaration of faith to be used by converts at baptism. Thus early in the second century, just after the apostolic age, simple baptismal creeds began to appear. There was the Creed of Antioch, the Creed of Jerusalem, the old Roman Creed, and others differing slightly in form but all serving the same purpose. They were seldom written down because in those days of persecution it was dangerous to have too many records available to persecutors. Often these simple statements were used by Christians as passwords to identify themselves one to another. Out of these several creeds the Apostles’ Creed finally emerged and was generally accepted.
In the time of Constantine (A.D. 312) Christianity came out into the open and the period of persecution ended. Almost immediately a queer distortion of Christian teaching appeared in Alexandria, in Egypt, under the name of Arianism. It accepted the current baptismal creeds, but twisted the meaning of them to such an extent that the apostolic tradition was fairly submerged. The difficulty became so acute that a General Council of the Church was called at Nicaea in A.D. 325 to settle the question. There the Church repudiated Arianism and put forth a conciliar creed so carefully phrased that misinterpretation would be virtually impossible. It was based on the earlier Creed of Caesarea. Another corruption of Christian teaching caused the Council of Constantinople to revise it in a few particulars. It has been commonly known as the Nicene Creed and was promptly accepted throughout Christendom as the authoritative summary of the Christian Gospel.
These two are what we mean by the “historic Creeds.”3 They have stood the test of many centuries of Christian experience. They are the only statements of faith adopted universally by the undivided Church. Everything in them is taken from the Holy Scriptures, and they consist chiefly of plain facts regarding our Lord Jesus Christ with little or no theological interpretation. Theology grows, changes, develops as human knowledge increases. But there must be something to develop. The creeds are the raw material on which theology works. In the past four centuries a number of other confessions of faith have been launched upon the Christian world in the breaking away of various denominational bodies until many people in a confusion of mind have protested against any creeds at all. But there is really a difference. The historic Creeds are not the creeds of a nation or of a separated body of Christians. They are the products of the universal Church living in unity and speaking in unison. “The Nicene Creed aims at promoting unity, the later confessions at justifying division; the former states only what is essential, the latter descend into detail and include a large number of disputable and highly contentious propositions.”4
Obviously there must be a recognized framework of Christian teaching if Christianity is to possess any substantial character at all. To become a Christian, or to be a follower of Christ, or to believe in the Gospel means nothing until something explicit is offered to show what such an act of allegiance covers. If I say that I believe in Napoleon Bonaparte, what do I mean? Do I mean that I am convinced he was truly an historical person, or that I approve of his military policy, or that I sanction his rather questionable personal life? Such a statement means nothing until something is specified about it. To say that you believe in Christianity but not in creeds is like saying you believe in education but not in schools, or that you believe in justice but not in laws, or that you believe in mathematics but not in the multiplication tables. Christianity is a way of life and it must have a road to travel with directions, landmarks, and recognized points of progress.
After all, what do the historic Creeds include? Briefly they consist of the following:
Creation Of All Things by God.
The Incarnation.
The Crucifixion.
The Resurrection.
The Ascension.
The Final Judgment.
The Holy Ghost.
The Church.
Holy Baptism.
Eternal Life.
Expunge any one of these from the Christian faith and you have a mutilated Gospel which is not Christianity.
The historic Creeds are a protection to the integrity of the Gospel. They are a unifying bond extending throughout the Christian world. They preserve the continuity of the Christian religion. They maintain a standard by which all developments of Christian doctrine may be tested. They are a compass for Christian travelers and an anchor against spiritual drifting. They serve as a constitution for the Church and a check upon changing by-laws and disciplinary regulations. They make for stability of purpose in the Church as a whole, and the recitation of them is a powerful aid in fortifying the faith of every individual Christian.
The public recitation of the Creeds often raises a question which in some instances is a matter of conscience and in other cases an alibi. How can one stand in a congregation and go on record as believing these articles of faith when some of them are beyond one’s ability to understand and about which one’s belief is certainly dubious? How can I say, “I believe” when I am not sure whether I do or not? The difficulty here lies in a misconception of the purpose of the Creed. It is not a contract especially drawn up for each individual worshipper. It is a statement of the Church’s faith in which the individual shares as a member of the Body of Christ. To hesitate over it is like a man questioning his family relationship because he cannot understand some of his father’s peculiarities. No one can say he completely understands every item mentioned in the Creed, but that need not prevent him from reciting it in unison with his fellow-worshippers. There are plenty of things about the human body which the physician does not understand. Yet he does not wait until he is sure about everything before treating his patient. He must treat his patient as a whole person even though some parts of him he may not understand. Those unanswered questions he holds in suspension while he goes about his healing business. So the individual Christian may have questions in his mind which he cannot resolve, but he holds them in suspension while he says the Creed with the rest of the Church. He is not announcing to the wide world that he knows all about it. He is pledging his allegiance to Christ and stating his adherence to the Church which teaches that faith.
If we think of ourselves as isolated persons dealing with God separately, we shall always be in intellectual trouble. When we learn to consider ourselves as parts of a corporate society, we shall see how the Creed serves the Body of which we are members. The members come and go, but the Body lives on in order to produce and nourish new members.
1 William Temple, “Personal Religion and Life of Fellowship,” Longmans, Green & Co., N. Y., pp. 1-2. The entire passage is most pertinent.
2 Acts 8:37.
3 The Athanasian Creed is really a doctrinal hymn intended to reflect the special teaching of St. Athanasius, but not prepared by him. It appeared in the fifth century, and was used for instruction of congregations in the south of France. To some extent it found entrance into public worship in much the same way as the Te Deum. It is an instructive historical document on a footing quite different from that of the historic Creeds.
4 Charlts Harris, “Creeds or No Creeds” E. P. Dutton & Co., N. Y., p. 251.