I believe in
God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in
Jesus Christ, God's 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 into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and 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 the life everlasting. Amen.
*The word
“catholic” refers not to the Roman Catholic Church, but to the universal church
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate 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.
CHALCEDONIAN
CREED (451)
Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all
with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus
Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and
truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with
the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with
us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards
his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his
manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the
God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in
two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without
separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union,
but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming
together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into
two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord
Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our
Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed
down to us.
ATHANASIAN
CREED (500)
We worship one God in trinity, and trinity in unity, neither confounding the
persons nor dividing the substance. For the person of the
Father is one; of the Son, another; of the Holy Spirit, another. But the
divinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one, the glory
equal, the majesty equal. Such as is the Father, such also is the Son, and such
the Holy Spirit.
The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the
Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is infinite, the Son is infinite, the Holy Spirit is infinite. The Father is eternal, the Son
is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal. And yet there
are not three eternal Beings, but one eternal Being. So also there are not
three uncreated Beings, nor three infinite Beings, but one uncreated and one
infinite Being.
In like manner, the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, and the Holy
Spirit is omnipotent. And yet there are not three omnipotent Beings, but one
omnipotent Being. Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit
is God. And yet there are not three Gods, but one God only. The Father is Lord,
the Son is Lord, and the Holy Spirit is Lord. And yet there are not three
Lords, but one Lord only.
For as we are compelled by Christian truth to confess each person distinctively
to be both God and Lord, we are prohibited by the Catholic religion to say that
there are three Gods or Lords. The Father is made by none, nor created, nor
begotten. The Son is from the Father alone, not made, not created, but
begotten. The Holy Spirit is not created by the Father and the Son, nor
begotten, but proceeds. Therefore, there is one Father, not three Fathers; one
Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.
And in this Trinity there is nothing prior or posterior, nothing greater or
less, but all three persons are coeternal and coequal to themselves. So that
through all, as was said above, both unity in trinity
and trinity in unity is to be adored. Whoever would be saved, let him thus
think concerning the Trinity.
THE
STATEMENT OF FAITH OF THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (681)
We also proclaim two natural willings or wills in him
and two natural operations, without separation, without change, without
partition, without confusion, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers --
and two natural wills not contrary to each other, God forbid, as the impious
heretics have said they would be, but his human will following, and not
resisting or opposing, but rather subject to his divine and all-powerful will.
For it was proper for the will of the flesh to be moved naturally, yet to be
subject to the divine will, according to the all-wise Athanasius. For as his
flesh is called and is the flesh of God the Word, so also the natural will of
his flesh is called and is God the Word's own will, as he himself says: "I
came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the Father who
sent me," calling the will of the flesh his own, as also the flesh had
become his own. For in the same manner that his all-holy and spotless ensouled flesh, though divinised,
was not destroyed, but remained in its own law and principle also his human
will, divinised, was not destroyed, but rather
preserved, as Gregory the divine says: "His will, as conceived of in his
character as the Savior, is not contrary to God, being wholly divinised." We also glorify two natural operations in
the same our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God, without separation, without
change, without partition, without confusion, that is, a divine operation and a
human operation, as the divine preacher Leo most clearly says: "For each
form does what is proper to it, in communion with the other; the Word, that is,
performing what belongs to the Word, and the flesh carrying out what belongs to
the flesh." We will not therefore grant the existence of one natural operation
of God and the creature, lest we should either raise
up into the divine nature what is created, or bring down the preeminence of the
divine nature into the place suitable for things that are made. For we
recognize the wonders and the sufferings as of one and the same person],
according to the difference of the natures of which he is and in which he has
his being, as the eloquent Cyril said.
Preserving therefore in every way the unconfused and undivided, we set forth
the whole confession in brief; believing our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God,
to be one of the holy Trinity even after the taking of flesh, we declare that
his two natures shine forth in his one hypostasis, in which he displayed both
the wonders and the sufferings through the whole course of his dispensation,
not in phantasm but truly, the difference of nature being recognized in the
same one hypostasis by the fact that each nature wills and works what is proper
to it, in communion with the other. On this principle we glorify two natural
wills and operations combining with each other for the salvation of the human
race.
QUOTES REGARDING
CREEDS
Many
Christians in many evangelical churches these days are confessionally
challenged in that they are either cynical, critical,
or altogether skeptical of all things confessional — confessional documents,
confessional churches, and confessional Christians. We might hear confessionally challenged Christians say things, such as
“My only creed is Christ” or “I don’t need theology, just give me Jesus” or
“Confessions divide, Christ unites.” Such Christians are actually under the
impression that their churches don’t have confessions, when in truth every
church has a confession, though it may not be written down and though it may
constantly change according to the whims and fancies of the pastor. They have
been somehow deceived into thinking that all of the various historic Reformed
confessions only serve to divide the church of its unity and disarm the Bible
of its authority. Nothing could be further from the truth, for what is so
amazing about Reformed confessions in general is not how different they are
from one another but how similar they are — how they each use biblical language
in affirming the faith once delivered to the saints.
Burk Parsons
Confessionally
Challenged, Tabletalk, April, 2008. Used by Permission.
Creedal
statements are an attempt to show a coherent and unified understanding of the
whole scope of Scripture.
R.C. Sproul
Norma
Normata – A Rule That is Ruled, Tabletalk, April, 2008. Used by Permission.
So, although
Scripture is our sole infallible authority, we must interpret it within the
boundaries of the so-called “ecumenical” (meaning universally held) creeds,
such as the Apostles and Nicene creeds which faithfully express the fundamental
doctrines of the New Testament. Indeed, the Reformers considered agreement with
these creeds as necessary for a genuine Christian profession, and rightly so
since the creeds define the essential doctrines of orthodoxy which all the
cults deny.
John
Thompson
The Sufficiency of Scripture: By What
Standard? April 3, 2003, www.visionforumministries.org,
Used by Permission.
True
salvation is not to be found through the mere reception of any creed, however
true or scriptural. Mere “head notion” is not the road to heaven. “You must be
born again,” means a great deal more than that you must believe certain dogmas.
The study of the Bible cannot save you! You must press beyond this; you must
come to the living, personal Christ, or else your acceptance of the soundest
creed cannot avail for the salvation of your soul. Salvation lies in Jesus
only!
C.H. Spurgeon
There
never was a man in the world without a creed. What is a creed? A creed is what
you believe. What is a confession? It is a declaration of what you believe.
That declaration may be oral or it may be committed to writing, but the creed
is there either expressed or implied.
B.H. Carroll
The motto
“deeds over creeds” has once again captured the imagination of the evangelical
world… But as it turns out, creeds really do matter. Any unity like the kind
now being urged on us that is formed apart from creeds and the need for them,
is doomed to produce the kind of unity that is polluted by doctrinal impurity.
It is the kind of impurity that in the final analysis ends up compromising the
truth of the gospel.
Gary L.W. Johnson
Deeds Over
Creeds, September 2009, Tabletalk, p. 65. Used by Permission.
Men must
interpret to the best of their ability each particular part of Scripture
separately, and then combine all that the Scriptures teach upon every subject
into a consistent whole, and then adjust their teachings upon different
subjects in mutual consistency as parts of a harmonious system. Every student
of the Bible must do this, and all make it obvious that they do it by the terms
they use in their prayers and religious discourse, whether they admit or deny
the propriety of human creeds and confessions. If they refuse the assistance
afforded by the statements of doctrine slowly elaborated and defined by the
Church, they must make out their own creed by their own unaided wisdom. The
real question is not, as often pretended, between the word of God and the creed
of man, but between the tried and proved faith of the collective body of God’s
people, and the private judgment and the unassisted wisdom of the repudiator of
creeds.
A.A.
Hodge
A Short History of Creeds and Confessions, 1869.