Are creeds OK?

Occasionally you will hear a preacher say, “We have no creed but the Bible!” We all agree God’s word is primary for all teaching and all Christian teaching should and must be evaluated on the basis of scripture. What about creeds such as the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed, and what about larger statements like the London Confession or Westminster Confession? Have they any place in teaching Christian faith?

God’s word has been under attack since the very beginning of the church. Writing of the need to defend the faith, Jude wrote “Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” Paul charged Timothy to “preach the word; … For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” Peter encouraged Christians to always be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect”.

The various creeds and confessions have been written to contend for the faith, to answer those who develop their own false myths, and to defend the faith taught in scripture. These summations of the faith help Christians both to understand their faith more fully and to prepare to defend salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

The detailed Westminster Confession and London Confession of 1859 give detailed help for believers to understand and apply God’s word to their lives. The Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed, being much shorter, summarize the most basic teachings of scripture. Their brevity makes them suitable for recitation in worship.

The creeds and confessions are needed to defend against false teaching. In the fourth century a man named Arius falsely taught that Jesus was not eternally God but only became God before creation. More recently, teachers have said that Jesus did not truly exist but was only a myth made up by early believers. The creeds correct these false teachers whether ancient or modern.

Describing the Father, the creed makes clear that He is almighty, He is a father to us, and He is creator of all things both visible and invisible. Since some questioned scriptural teaching that Jesus is also God, the creed emphasizes His Godhood with the words, “God of God, Light of light, very God of very God.” The creed also makes clear that the holy spirit is God as “the Lord and giver of life” who proceeds from the Father and the Son and who is to be worshipped and glorified with Father and Son.

Any who may be tempted to set aside the creeds or confessions ought to remember that sermons are also forms of confession. They ought also listen to the words of C. H. Spurgeon, great London preacher of the mid 1800s, as quoted in L. Charles Jackson’s Faith of Our Fathers, “You are not such wiseacres as to think that you can expound the scripture without the assistance from the works of divine and learned men who have labored before you in the work of exposition ... It seems odd that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what He has revealed to others.”

Test all things by scripture. Take to heart the teaching of those who went before us.

Always remember:

Only one life ‘twill soon be past

Only what’s done for Christ will last.