Studying the Apostle's Creed; line 1, 2 and 3

Currently, I am teaching the Apostle’s Creed in my Adult Sunday School.

The 12-part creed, which is traditionally (though unlikely) credited to the 12 apostles around the time of Pentecost (circa 30 – assuming Jesus died in the Jewish month of Nisan, on the 14th, in the year 29) first appeared in history around the year 215.

A creed exists for a few reasons, here are three:

First, a creed is a summary of the faith. It is important not only to recount what we believe to non-believers without handing them the New Testament, but also to remind believers the details of their faith without memorizing the New Testament.

Second, a creed codifies certain softer (sometimes inferred) tenants of faith, and reaffirms them against contemporary heresies – the Apostle’s Creed, for example, is clearly a statement against the Gnostic's tampering of the Christian faith.

Third, the early church (and Lutheran's today) often used the Apostle’s Creed as a statement of faith proclaimed by believers at the time of baptism, but there are many creeds that have come about throughout the years. Some are better than others, but none are as well-accepted as the Apostle’s Creed.

Many of us know the Apostle's Creed since it has recently been popularized by Rich Mullins in his song (and Third Day's cool remake of) “The Creed” which are both on Christian radio all the time. Similarly, the early church would use chants and songs to deliver doctrine.

Many denominations, such as Baptists, are non-creedal. The Disciples of Christ, for example, have on their church walls “No Creed but the Bible” which typically is driven from the abuse by some leaders using creeds as a litmus test of salvation.

Let's look at the Creed:

1. I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth:
2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord:

As stated before, a creed can be to counter current changes in doctrine. The first two aspects (sometimes referred to as articles) of the Apostle’s Creed oppose Gnostic thought in two ways:

First, God made the earth. Gnostics believe a demiurge (sub-god), mistakenly created our universe, resulting in the evil of our physical world. God would only create perfect things, though as Jesus God teaches us salvation from our ignorance of special knowledge called logos (Greek word for ‘[the] Word’) or gnosis (Greek word for ‘knowledge’) - from which Gnostic is derived.

Second, Jesus is God’s son. Gnostics cannot believe in Jesus’ physical body because the physical world is inherently evil – while God is good.

The gospel of John, which is assumed to have been written around 69 AD, has lead-in statements of “in the beginning was the word and the word was with God” alluding to Gnosticism, using the Greek “logos” for Word, continues “and the Word became flesh, and dwelt amongst us” to clarify current Gnostic derivations in the Christian faith.

Although this is best combated by the well-known Nicene Creed from 325 (a product of Emperor Constantine) reading:

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; [God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.”

All that language about “begotten, not made” is a result of a contemporary heresy from Arias (called Arianism), a presbyter from Libya who proposed in Alexandria (in 325 AD): "If the Father begat the Son, then he who was begotten had a beginning in existence, and from this it follows there was a time when the Son was not."

Constantine’s 200 assembled bishops (or overseers) at Constantinople employed the Greek word “homo-ousios” to describe the Father and the Son as the “same substance”, codifying church doctrine and denouncing Arianism.

3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary:

The third aspect of the Apostle’s Creed has to do with the birth of Christ and the virginity of Mary. The virginity of Mary is questioned by certain scholars, making this line in the creed particularly relevant today.

Mary’s virginity is best confirmed four ways:

First, the apostles Matthew and Luke (in their respective gospels) both explicitly say Mary was a virgin. Such as Matthew 1:18 “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.”

Second, Jesus’ entire life was the fulfillment of some 300 hundred Old Testament prophesies, including the famous prophesy in Isaiah 7:14 that prophesies Mary’s virginity: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin [the Hebrew word is ‘’almah’ meaning ‘veiled girl’ (or virgin) the Septuagint uses the Greek word ‘parthenos’ meaning ‘virgin’] will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

More information: (http://bibleprobe.com/365messianicprophecies.htm)

Third, Jesus himself confirms (such as in Luke 2: 47) throughout the Scripture the paternal relationship to God the Father. Although this is not explicitly confirming Mary’s virginity, it is collaborating with the story and prophesies that assert it.

Forth, the Qu’ran. I recognize that the Qu’ran is not scripture, but interestingly Mary is the only named woman in the book, referring to her as the virgin mother of Jesus. It’s nice to have outside texts contribute to the Bible’s claims.

4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell:

… and that is as far as we have gotten in class. But I am excited to teach on the unpopular (meaning poorly known) doctrine of what Jesus did during the three days after his death.

The sin in doing what God wants.

It’s crazy, but most Christians have an inferior definition of sin. It's either too complex or too simple. Most folks consider sin to be against God. For example, if God wants us to turn left, sin would be turning right.

I would argue that sin is far simpler, or at least far different. In fact, I would argue that we can be with God (or in line with God’s will) and still be sinful.

Ultimately God gives you (and me, and all of us) only one choice. That is: to accept God as the lord, sovereign, leader, coach, pilot, head, master, guide, lead of your life – or you can freely choose not to allow God to sit on that throne.

The issue goes like this: when God is leading your life, he brings your actions into concert with his perfect will. He also responds to your acceptance of his love and leadership to bring salvation to you through a renewed righteousness.

A quick aside is that accepting God’s role as lord of your life is not a single act (although Salvation only occurs once) as the reins are regularly grabbed by our selfish wills in a split second. Reaffirming and accepting God in a place of ultimate authority in your life is a regular, daily, almost continuous decision.

But here’s the kicker…

Let’s say you deny God’s lordship over you and decide to make life decisions on your own. Can you? Of course, God gave us the capability to choose for ourselves in the very core and nature of our humanity.

Now let’s say, while you are your own pilot, steering your own ship, holding your own reins, driving your own vessel, you decide to turn left – and as it turns out God also wants you to turn left.

Then you are doing what God wants, aren’t you?

Nope.

Look, God has a plan for your life, but the heart of it is his relationship with you and his place in your life. That’s the only real choice we have and the only real choice God cares about. Everything else, even the stuff that looks good and right is… well, wrong.

This means that when Mormons, Masons, Jehovah Witnesses, some Catholics, Pagans, Heretics, Secularists, Humanists, Nazis, the well-intentioned, Grandmas, children, Nations, Companies, and Christians, too, that do anything appearing good but are not first anchored with the lordship of Jesus Christ through a personal relationship with God, have only the appearance of good and not a part or play in the perfect will of God.

Final take-away: good things and actions which are not prefaced with God’s prompting can and typically do result in bad results. Why do bad things happen to good people? Instead ask: Why do you call things bad? And why do you call people good?

At last...

Is drinking a sin? Is smoking a sin? Is anything a sin? Sin is not giving God full control of your life. The rest are meaningless questions. Truly meaningless questions - maybe even sinful questions. ;)

What are the bounds of a boundary?

It’s so common. Infinity is challenging. It’s confusing. And, you might say it’s big; however, it is as small as it is big. That’s really why it’s confusing.

You see, God is infinite. Because he is infinite, indeed, because everything about him has pretty much no reference in our world, God is confusing to us.

Let’s go back to the freshman philosophy/theology question of “can God make a rock so large he cannot lift it.” We know this question is a play on words. Nonetheless, God’s infiniteness seems in conflict there because he is infinitely strong and infinitely powerful as a creator.

This begs the question of “what are God’s real limits?”

Let’s go to the starship Enterprise for a second. You are Captain Kirk, traveling to the outermost regions of the galaxy. In fact, you are traveling farther than anyone has ever traveled before. It could be said that you are setting the new “edge” of traveled space.

Now, as Captain Kirk, someone asks you, “How far out into space has mankind traveled?” You smile and point at your shoes and say, “right here.” Then with a smirk you walk to the other side of the room and announce, “actually, right here.”

The issue here is, you are defining the “standard” or boundary of how far out man has traveled into space. This means, to ask YOU how far out man has traveled is meaningless because where you are is how far.

Similarly is God’s infinite goodness.

You see, God is neither good nor bad any more you, as Captain Kirk, are at the edge or past the edge of human space travel. Where Captain Kirk goes, so defines the edge of man’s travels and whatever God does defines the definition of what is good.

The “good” here is different than what is, for example, “right” when an average person makes a decision. The good insofar as God’s actions refers more to a foundational or elemental “way” that compliments and aligns with the proper operation of existence.

Here’s what I mean. There is nothing that exists that was not created by God. God, of course exists, but he is a substance often referred to as the “prime” or “first” mover which in the causality of creation was never created.

As a result, the mechanism in God that causes creation will reflect his nature. This means that the creation is a complimentary substance to that of God and that God, accordingly, operates in such a way that corresponds to that compliment.

Now, let’s back into what we mean by “good” for a second. Good is best understood as the thing or act that compliments the trajectory of existence at the time of creation.

Although it could be argued that the trajectory of creation cannot be altered, but for the sake of this conversation let’s continue with the assumption that it can and has – at least internally.

Because creation and God’s natures were initially complimentary, the essence of creation and God’s continuing, immutable, nature remain complimentary. This means that God’s actions, which are an outcome of his nature, are a “good” in the context of creation.

The short is “what God does is good because God is doing it” and there is no way to determine if God’s actions are good other than to prove they are by him.