Understanding Creeds and the Nature of Faith

The word 'creed' itself comes from the Latin verb 'credo', which means what? We have some pastors here that I know -- it means I believe. And the idea for a creed which many people find somewhat distasteful in the twentieth century because there've been so many controversies and so much hostility generated over church creeds and confessional statements, and so many people say will say, well why do we even need any creeds at all. [00:00:13]

Because as history would indicate the earliest Christian creed traced back to the New Testament itself, was very simple. It was the simple affirmation Jesus is LORD. The 'Jesus ho kurios,' 'Jesus is LORD.' And then as we try to put the pieces of history together, because not all the documents from antiquity have survived, and some of this is conjecture and scholarly opinion. [00:00:52]

But the general consensus is that the idea of creeds emerged rather gradually, beginning, very early in the New Testament time period in the early church with a catechetical questions and formulas. Somebody wanted to join the church. And before they were accepted for baptism or for membership in the church, certain questions were posed to them. Do you believe that Jesus is Lord? [00:01:23]

And so the creedal statements were really either baptism or catechetical formulae given to people who wanted to join the early Christian community. And then as time passed the church began to make positive creeds rather than interrogative creeds -- that is, question and answer type formulations -- and usually those kinds of a solidifications of doctrinal confessions in creeds are provoked by some problem that the church engages. [00:01:52]

Well, also, church historians tell us that this Gnostic movement which threatened to undermine the Christian community in the second century provoked the church to establish what they called the churches symbol. Not symbol in the sense that we use the term symbol as a sign or pointer to something beyond itself. But rather it was that which incorporated the essence of the churches faith. [00:02:39]

And so at first we had what was called the Roman symbol. Which contained for the most part the basic outlined that is now found in the Apostles' Creed, and then as the years passed certain other tiny points were added to the Roman symbol which wasn't really finalized until somewhere around the year 400. But the Roman symbol was in use certainly in the second century and maybe even at the end of the first century. [00:03:15]

Faith of course is so vital to Christianity that sometimes Christianity isn't even called a religion but it's called what, the Christian faith. And the word faith is sometimes used as a verb, that is, it's when I refer to my faith in something or I believe, that belief is something that I do that I'm involved with, but also sometimes its used as a noun to refer to the content of Christianity. [00:04:50]

So often faith is seen in antithesis toward or opposition with, on the one hand 'reason.' And on the other hand what I'm going to call here 'sense perception.' Now, I realize that this term is somewhat philosophical and you could even put here science or you could put here empiricism, if you will. So, that here faith is set in opposition to other ways in which we learn things, ways in which we know what we know. [00:06:00]

Now, the question we have is how does faith fit into this? I read in a novel not too long ago where the novelist was narrating a dialog that was taking place between a priest and a scientist. And the novelist makes the editorial comment at the end, the priest expressed his faith, the scientist expressed his reason. And here we saw a clear example of faith being set in poor opposition to reason. [00:10:37]

And people say, you know, that we walk by faith and not by sight. Does that mean that faith repudiates sight? No, but do we ever walk in areas where we don't see where we're going. Does God ever call us to commit ourselves to things that no one has seen? Does God ever call us to believe in things that none of us have ever seen? Has anybody in this room ever seen God in the sense of a visible experience of God Himself? [00:17:10]

Christianity, whatever else it is, is a revealed religion. That God not only reveals Himself through nature, but as Francis Schaeffer has said, we don't just believe in a God who is there, but a God who is spoken. Now, when we talk about faith is the evidence of things not seen, what we're talking about here is believing God. Not just believing in God, but biblical faith is believing God. [00:19:00]

They say there're at least three distinguishable elements of biblical faith. And they set it fourth in Latin, and we'll do that here, the first is what's called the 'notae,' or what we would call in English simply 'the data.' When we say justification is by faith alone does that mean it doesn't matter what you believe just as long as you're sincere? Am I justified by, in the presence of God because I believe the moon is made out of green cheese? [00:23:11]