Imagine a world without praise and worship music, tele-evangelists, Christian radio stations or Christian magazines.
What if there were no books written by Christian authors and the Bible as we know it did not exist. How would you know what to believe?
These were the conditions that faced first century Christians and were cause for great concern.
After Jesus death and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Christianity started spreading. First in Jerusalem and then later across Asia Minor, North Africa and Europe.
But with the spreading of the gospel came new challenges. As it extended throughout the Roman Empire, it was introduced to other cultures and religions, some of which started influencing it.
Not only that, but as time progressed and the early church fathers died out, the church had to contend with a multitude of false teachers who wanted to twist the gospel to suit their own ends. There was also the constant threat of persecution, so in order to address these problems, Christians had to come up with an easy way to remember and communicate the core beliefs of their religion.
The rise of the creeds
In response to the problem early Christians started formulating creeds to concisely sum up the core beliefs. The first creed-like statements appear in the Bible in written form as early as two years after the crucifixion.
What is a creed?
So what is a creed you may ask? Well in its simplest form a creed is a statement of faith. Essentially it says, This is what I believe. So for example the following scripture contains specific information about what the Apostle Paul believed.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
In the scripture above Paul affirms a couple of essential beliefs.
(1)Firstly he affirms that Jesus actually died and did so for our sins. Some people have claimed that Jesus did not die on the cross, but that he was removed from it prior to death and nurtured back to health.
(2)Secondly he affirms that Jesus was buried and was raised from the dead. Once again these affirmations are very important because if Jesus was not raised from the dead, we would have no hope of salvation.
The creeds offered an easy way to remember the core doctrines of the church. They were used as preaching and teaching tools, giving an outline for further discipleship.
They were memorized through frequent repetition, which helped the many believers who could not read and they also provided a doctrinal basis for different churches to accept one another, and to reject those who did not accept the basic truths.
The creeds anchored the Christian faith to a tradition that made it difficult for people or churches to be led astray by strange doctrines and to this day forms the doctrinal basis for almost all Christian churches. In fact there is more agreement in Christianity as a whole regarding the Nicene Creed than about which books should make up the New Testament.
It is important to note that the creeds are not man-made ideas but are all based on scripture.
The history of the creeds
The first written reference to a clearly formulated creed appears about 120 years after the death of Paul in the writings of Tertullian. In his writings called On Prescription Against Heretics Tertullian writes a document dealing with heretics, and quotes the The Rule of Faith in his defense. The Rule of Faith is one of the first creeds and was commonly used back in Tertullians day.
By the 3rd Century AD the Rule of faith is refined into what is called the Old Roman Symbol which is a shortened version of what we know today as the Apostles Creed.
But why did the creeds have to change at all?
Over time Christianity had to fend off various attacks. In the first and second letters of John for example, we find the apostle warning the early church against false teachers. Gnosticism, another religion of the day, was starting to become a problem for Christianity with many people falling for their teaching that we are in fact gods.
In his epistles John makes reference amongst other things to the divine and mortal nature of Jesus and the goodness and holiness of God. These concepts that affirm Jesus as both man and God, and God as light of very light are incorporated into the creeds as a defense against the Gnostics who believed that God the Father was actually evil and that Jesus was not really a man.
One of the people who were affected by this Gnostic philosophy was a man called Arius, an elder of the Egyptian city of Alexandria. He taught that there was one Creator, who created the Logos, the Word or Wisdom of God, who in turn created everything else. This Logos became Jesus Christ.
According to Arius, Jesus was the Son of God because God had created him. This sparked huge controversy in the church because the consensus was as it is today – that the Word, who became Christ, was God from the beginning.
Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, said that the Word was eternal, not created and he tried to remove Arius from his position. But Arius was popular and people respected him for his strict morality, his self-discipline and his teaching abilities. The people took to the streets in public demonstrations, chanting slogans for Arius.
The Nicene Creed
Around the same time there was a change in power in Rome. Up until then Christians were despised and often persecuted for their faith, but after Constantine was crowned Emperor of Rome, things started to change.
Constantine had not always been a Christian. Some Christian sources claim that at the Battle of Milvian Bridge he saw a vision of a cross with the words By this you win. Apparently he then commanded his soldiers to adorn their shields with the Christian symbol of the cross and subsequently led them to victory.
Once in power, Constantine sought to unite the Roman Empire under one religion namely Christianity, but Christianity was divided.
To resolve the problem he organized the council of Nicea in AD 325, where the divinity of Jesus was discussed as it was a burning issue. Contrary to what has been popularised in recent years, the council of Nicea was not responsible for the formulation of canonisation of the Bible as we have it today but was convened specifically to discuss the divinity of Jesus.
Only two bishops of the 300 present could not agree that Jesus was fully God and Man.
With virtually unanimous consensus reached, the Nicene Creed was penned, and to underscore the importance of the deity of Jesus, the following was added to the creed regarding Jesus; God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father.
This 99% approval of the creed made the Nicene Creed the most universally accepted Christian document even to this day.
The Holy Spirit also came under discussion. The Nicene council had merely said that we believe in the Holy Spirit, without saying anything about who or what the Spirit was, but by not addressing the issue it caused more problems in the Church.
You see, Arius had taught that the Holy Spirit was a created spirit being, but bishops such as Athanasius of Alexandria made it clear that the Holy Spirit is divine in the same way the Son is.
Over a period of 50 years the issue was debated until AD 381 when the council of Constantinople finally dealt with the matter. Theodosius was Emperor at that time and expelled the Arian supporters once the matter was resolved.
Conclusion
As we can see, the formulation and changes to the creeds as well as many of the books in the New Testament were in direct response to problems the church was facing. The creeds were a means to clarify and unify Christianity and was used to easily convey core doctrines. Even though theological differences still exist today amongst Christians, they are almost exclusively on fringe doctrines. Christians might disagree on what happens after you die, but they all agree that Jesus is the Son of God.
History proves that Christians can be distracted from the core beliefs of their faith, and that we need to contend for the faith that was once entrusted to the saints (Jude:3) .
Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed AD 381
We believe in one God the Father, the Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and 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 men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. 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). With the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified. He 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.
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(Translation by the International Consultation on English Texts, 1975, published in appendix A of Gerald Bray, Creeds, Councils and Christ, InterVarsity Press, 1984.)
** The word catholic means all-embracing or universal
*** The word apostolic in this context refers to the 12 apostles and not the Apostolic Church which is a modern Christian denomination.