I believe in God, the Father almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come 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.
*that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places
A Concise Statement of Core Christian Truth
Philip Schaff in his magisterial work Creeds of Christendom calls the Apostles’ Creed, “The Creed of Creeds.” He writes:
“As the Lord’s Prayer is the Prayer of prayers, the Decalogue the Law of laws, so the Apostles’ Creed is the Creed of creeds.”
-Philip Schaff
The great reformer, Martin Luther, said of the Creed, “Christian truth could not possibly be put into a shorter and clearer statement.”
Augustine, one of the early church fathers, said that the Apostles’ Creed was a rule of faith–something worth reciting morning and evening.
Dr. William Shedd writes in his A History of Christian Doctrine, Volume II, that the Apostles’ Creed is:
“…the earliest attempt of the Christian mind to systematize the teachings of the Scripture, and is, consequently, the uninspired foundation upon which the whole after structure of symbolic literature rests.”
-William Shedd (as quoted in Schaff’s Creeds of Christendom)
The apostles creed is not only the oldest creed produced by the Christian Church that was widely accepted by the Church as a whole but it is the basis for many other early creeds that followed, such as the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Creed, and the Athanasian Creed.
It is called the Apostles’ Creed not because it was written by the apostles but because it is an early summary of the core teachings of the apostles. It represents the foundational, most fundamental teachings and doctrines at the heart of Christian faith as taught by Jesus’ earliest followers.
Studying the Apostles’ Creed with the Children
Early on in the Church, the Apostles’ Creed was used as a baptismal confession of faith for believers. Yet, far from relegating the Creed to something only useful in antiquity, the Christian Church still embraces the Creed today as a solid, statement of core Christian truth.
This Fall we are happy to announce that the children of the church will be starting a study of the Creed in children’s church. The creed will run 13 weeks and will look at each of the 12 articles of the Creed.
If you are not familiar with the Apostles’ Creed, I encourage you to take some time reading it and thinking over each of the 12 major points (or articles) found in the Creed (quoted at the top of this brief article). It may help to re-focus on you on the foundational teachings of our faith.
Notes:
For more on the importance of creeds, please see J. Warner Wallace’s excellent article “The Importance (and Early Use) of Creeds.”
