1 The Apostles Creed part 1: Believing the Trinity Deut 6:4 My fear for the church I fear for the evangelical church. I fear that we worship a God or maybe even three gods, that we have created in our image. An almighty, vengeful God of wrath, a nice gentle Son named Jesus who keeps his dad in check and some impersonal force that energizes us. I fear that we see Jesus as a white, evangelical, Baptist, republican male. I fear that we think Jesus would be happy with our 60+ hour work week and okay with our five bedroom houses and content with our 5% giving because the economy is hurting and would pat us on the back because at least we attend church when none of our neighbors do. I fear that we think doing a Beth Moore Study makes us a better than average Christian and doing a Kay Arthur one makes us even better than those puny fluffy Beth Moore studiers. I fear that we actually believe that America is Christian or that we at least think America used to be so much better back in Little House on the Prairie days because everyone was conservative and there was no such thing as postmodernism and we all knew what was right and wrong. I fear that we think Israel is somehow a holy nation, that if we block the poor from our mind they will actually go away, that homosexuality is somehow the worst possible sin and that someday really soon some of us will just disappear leaving our clothes in a heap and mass pandemonium on earth during a great tribulation. I fear that we distrust people who baptize their babies. I fear that we despise people who have popes I fear we are suspicious of the Russian Orthodox both because they split with Rome before we protestants did and because they have the name Russian right in there and we know they are the evil empire. I fear that we evangelicals will jump on any bandwagon that sounds spiritual or has the name Christian in front of it. That everything that mentions God must be Christian That putting a Jesus loves you sticker on a CD instantly qualifies it as holy That because someone in an old war movie prays, we must side with them against the obvious bad guys. I fear that we actually think That if King James English was good enough for Paul than it is good enough for me That the red letters of scripture are what Jesus actually said That if you refuse to go to the creation museum you are obviously a heretic. That the Bible was passed down for 2000 years the same
2 I think you get the idea. The class I teach at Washington University fascinates me. I teach about half Christians and half other religions from Buddhism to Islam to atheism. I find that not only do the Buddhists, Muslims, and atheists not understand what Christians believe, neither do the Christians. We listen to pop theology in the afternoons on WAVA and we hear ideas bandied about as facts and we buy them easily. WE fact check our presidential candidates (okay maybe that s not true), but we never fact check preachers because they would never lie to us. Or apparently even be mistaken. Here is my goal for the next several weeks. I want to talk about what we as Christians believe, and of equal importance what we don t believe So I won t be doing what I pretty much always do. I won t be working through a book of the Bible for the next few weeks. Instead I will work through a summary of the Bibles biggest teachings about God and us. It won t be the Bible, but it will be biblical, and I intend to use some of the actual Bible to show you that. The Apostles Creed The summary that I chose is one that has been recited for millennia. Millions of churches every week, say this statement together and it goes all the way back to the apostles. Well more or less. Sometime in the Second Century we find a creed that seemed to have been recited and compelled on those baptismal initiates. Early on they probably called it the Roman Creed, we call it the Apostles Creed. So here we are in our conservative, non Catholic, Baptist church where we seldom do anything that sound too ritualistic and now you are hearing about the Apostles Creed. But, No creed but Christ Some of you know the saying No creed but Christ so you are immediately concerned. Some of you grew up in Roman Catholicism repeating a dead creed that had no meaning and attending a church where you didn t see the Spirit and then you found glory in the grace of Jesus and my mentioning this creed makes you cringe just a little. So let me ease some of your fears this morning by talking for a minute about Creeds and specifically about the Apostles Creed. A Creed is nothing more than a brief statement of. A creed is nothing more than a short statement of faith. A very brief summary of what we believe. In fact the word Creed comes from the Latin word credo which is how this creed begins. Credo in Deum. I believe in God.
3 So, belief is central to a creed. We have statements of belief in the Bible and we have them gleaned from the Bible. Some early creeds in the Bible You know some of the ones we find in the Bible. How about this one: Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. From Deut 6:4 Simple, concise statement that means more than we can probably say in a thousand sermons. We have them in the NT too. The same basic creed is mentioned in Rom 10, I Cor 12:3, 2 Cor 4:5 and Phil 2:11 Jesus is Lord. Simple, concise statement that packs a punch. It says this in relation to believers so it assumes a loyalty and commitment to this Jesus. It says he is king and so we are not. It even says that Jesus is in a particular relationship to God. Both of these one-line creeds say a lot. Creeds say a lot, but not everything But they don t say everything. There is nothing in either of these creeds about what I must believe about the millennial reign of God. Nothing on six literal days of creation. Nothing on penal substitutionary atonement. Nothing on whether to vote Republican, democrat or libertarian. Nothing on inerrancy. Nothing telling me what the actual connection between God and Jesus is. Nothing clarifying Jesus divinity or humanity. Nothing on whether he is even a good king or not. So something I will say often in this mini-series, is that creeds don t tell us everything. And one of the main reasons I want to do this little series is to remind us that while we have a very strong foundation on which to stand, we don t have it all figured out. I want to make sure you know you are, I am, inserting my own baggage into what I think should be believed. I still remember my first Introduction to Theological Studies class when Richard Pratt asked us to shout out all the things that were necessary for us to believe in order to be a Christian. We spent several minutes naming everything we could think of. Most of us, even the ELITE wannabe pastors and scholars, still thought our own convictions were the same as those of Jesus. I want us to focus on humility while still standing for something. So a creed is a summary of important things that we believe but it is not exhaustive. It doesn t take the place of Scripture, but it tries to summarize important parts of Scripture. Creeds exist whether you state them or not. You always have in your mind something that is your belief system. But we used to recite this in our Roman Catholic Church
4 Now this particular creed, the apostles Creed, is the most famous of them all. I know you may have recited this in your dead liturgical church, but how it was used or how you perceived it probably needs to be rethought. It s a good creed. It s called the Apostles Creed not because it was written by the apostles, but because it summarizes the important features of the Apostolic faith. Did the apostles write it? It was probably written late in the second century and was originally called the Roman Creed. Of course there are other creeds. The most well known are the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian creed and both of these kind of start at the same place the Apostles Creed does but they are trying to protect something specific. The Nicene Creed is written to defend the hypostatic Union of Jesus against Arianism. The Athanasian Creed is to defend the Trinity. But the apostles Creed was likely the first and simplest form to quickly and not exhaustively say what Christians think about things. What they believe. What does it mean to say I believe? Notice, on this creed, the constant use of the words I believe Let s talk about that for a second. What does it mean for you to say I believe? 1. Assent. First it at least means your assent to the proposition that follows. I believe in fairies means that you agree that they do exist. You have checked that off on your list. I think this is the primary definition we should focus on in the Apostles Creed. After all this may have been stated at baptism, it s the things you believe in contrast to what the world believes. 2. Trust. But faith or belief in a Christian context meant far more. It meant trust. In fact in the Latin, credo in deum, it could and was often translated as I have confidence in God, or I Put my trust in God or simply I trust in God. So it s more than saying we believe that Jesus existed, it s putting our trust in him. As an example recall Hebrews 11 and 12 where it defines Faith as Being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Then it goes through to illustrate what faith looks like by and showing how individuals like Abraham went to strange land because they trusted God. 3. Commitment. But it s more than that. It s a commitment. Alistair McGrath says it s a throwing open of the doors of our lives and inviting God to enter, not merely as our guest, but as our Lord and master. 4. Obedience.
5 And let me add one more. It s obedience. Maybe it s appropriate to distance these logically, but practically you can t truly believe, as the creed says without actual obedience. How do you show you believe in Jesus? By doing what he commands. So it s a commitment to follow. To summarize: Belief may seem like a simple assent, but when we connect it to the idea of God or Jesus or the Spirit, we mean certainly assent, but we go further into trust, commitment and obedience. But what is it that we do believe and what do we not automatically believe when we speak of God? It begins with I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. So we have the fatherhood of God, the power of God, the creator-ness of God. But look first to the big picture of the Creed. Notice the general structure. There are three major areas that are set apart. I believe in God the Father Almighty I believe in Jesus Christ I believe in the Holy Spirit. There are three I believe statements in the historic creed and each of these begins with God. God as Trinity Let me say this differently, even though the Athanasian Creed is centuries away and the Trinity won t be defined explicitly and definitively till then, the Apostles Creed is Completely Trinitarian. So let me say some basic things about the Trinity. 1. The word Trinity First, let s admit that the word Trinity isn t in the Bible and it isn t in the Creed. 2. The concept Trinity Second, let s not take the other extreme and say the idea is foolishness. The concept of Trinity is in both the Creed and the Bible. It s in the Creed by emphasizing these three I believe statements and it s in Scripture by good and necessary consequence. That is, when we see that all three of these persons are given the attributes of God and the perfections of God and given worship as God, then we should assume there is a sense in which all of them are God. 3. Trinity in the Old Testament Scholars seem divided on whether the Trinity is seen in the Old Testament or not. I tend to think that it is not. I don t think Genesis 1:2 referring to the Spirit is meant to be Trinitarian. I don t think the Angel of the Lord is necessarily Jesus. I don t think Wisdom being in the beginning is referring to a person of the godhead. I don t think Isaiah is pointing to Jesus as God. I just don t think it is there and if you asked an OT person whether God was in any sense a plurality, they would look at you strangely. However, I am willing to admit there are hints even then, under the Spirits guidance, that are seen more clearly later.
6 4. Trinity in the New Testament In fact, I would say the same thing about the New Testament. There are no verses you can turn to that give us the Trinity, but there are many hints that pulled all together have become universally agreed upon that God is a Trinity. But what does that mean? Saying that three persons are all given worship, are all attributed power, are all focused on the same goal, doesn t clarify things very well. How are they all God? 5. There are no sufficient analogies, anecdotes or stories to explain The problem with trying to explain this is there is no narrative I can go to for explanation. I can t make an analogy like an apple or an egg or ice. God is not like an egg where one part is the shell, the other the yolk, the other the white. Because the shell by itself is not God. The same goes for an apple analogy. He is also unlike ice. He doesn t manifest himself in different persons at different times. So the early Christians did not believe that God became man and therefore stopped being the Father. All are eternally existent. We are not modalists. I can t tell a story about a man who goes to a shack in the middle of the woods to meet with Papa, a large African American Woman, Sarayu, a small Asian woman and Jesus, a middle Eastern carpenter and expect this not to throw up some major red flags. 6. Monotheistic Let s say this clearly. We don t have gods, we have God. The Bible and the creeds are wholly monotheistic. The Nicene Creed clarifies by saying we believe in one God. It s not making this up, it s coming from Scripture. Deut 6:4 for instance: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Even Captain America Agrees as he is about to jump out after Loki. Natasha: These guys come from legend, Captain. They're basically gods. Steve Rogers: There's only one God, ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like *that.* [Captain America leaps out of the Quinjet] But some clarification is probably needed here too because it sure looks like Christians have three Gods. So monotheism? 7. Not strictly how people understand monotheistic We are not strictly monotheistic in a normal sense. We aren't like Islam which sees God as an undifferentiated monad that is, there is no community of being within him. Mohammed actually thought that we had a father, mother and son, but this is not the
7 concept we are talking about. We are saying there is unity of essence (that s the mono part), diversity of person. It s not tritheism, it s not bitheism, it s not polytheism 8. Not polytheistic We are in the category of monotheism. That is, we are not polytheistic. We don t believe in a plethora of equal gods. 9. Kind of henotheistic or monolatrist Nor are we strictly henotheistic that there are many gods, but we see one as supreme. But there is a sense in which we are henotheistic or even monolatrists, only one God that we worship. That is, it all depends on how we define God. If we define god as a divine being then we have a lot of room for debate. Certainly the word elohim shows up throughout the Old Testament and refers to many other gods. Psalms even proclaims God above the gods. That looks very much like Zeus as exalted above the other gods henotheism. We could even say that we, as humans, become god. Whoa! We become god. God speaks to Moses and says that he will be God to Aaron. Augustine himself said 'God was made man, that man might be made God' " (xiii de Temp ST III, q. 1 a. 2). Athanasius (the guy who goes with the later creed on the trinity) agreed "God became man so that man might become a god." (cf. St. Athanasius, De Incarnatione or On the Incarnation 54:3, PG 25:192B; also Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 460) Aquinas said the same thing. Of course they don t believe that we become God himself, Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth. They were saying that the incarnation that Jesus is God and Man, means that we participate in Jesus divine nature. We are raised with him. We become like God, in some sense divine. So we are divine, spiritual beings are divine and God is divine. What we mean when we say we are monotheists is simply that there is no god like God. You can call lots of things gods and that is legitimate, but only one can be proclaimed as above all. He is not just different in our worship, he is different in his very nature. He gives life to all other gods. He is that God. In the sense of
8 1 Kings 8:60, when Solomon proclaimed: The Lord is God... there is no other In Psalm 86:10, David sang to the Lord: You alone are God. In 2 Kings 19:19, Hezekiah prayed: You alone, O Lord, are God. In Romans 3:30, Paul insisted: There is only one God. 10. The NT does have something to say Only one God, but seen in three persons. Earlier I said the NT didn t give us a trinity, but I should probably go a step further here. What I meant is, that it doesn t spell out a trinity. It gives us good and necessary consequence. That is, even the Great commission which says that we are to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and Spirit, doesn t say there is a trinity or define it, but it does say quite a lot. Singular name, plurality of persons. The father is said to be God in Phil 1:2 Jesus is said to be God in Titus 2:13 The Holy Spirit is said to be God in Acts 5:3-4 But they aren't the same person because the Father sent the son into the world (John 3:16) and Jesus prayed to the Father (John 17) and returned to the father (John 16:10) and the Holy Spirit was sent into the world by the Father and son (John 14:26; Acts 2:33) And don t forget the baptism of Jesus as the Spirit descends and the Father speaks. What a great picture 11. Not a contradiction, ontology vs economy It s important to also note that this is not a contradiction. One God, three Gods. How ridiculous. No, we are saying that he is one in one sense that is, his essence, his being. But that he is three in another sense, that is in person. We could add to that that while his ontos, being, is singular, each person of the godhead has different roles. We will see those roles more clearly as we get into the three parts of the creed.
9 12. Relational Monotheism You might want to call this relational monotheism. He is one, but in relationship with a trinity. This doesn t work out all the details and it doesn t do that on purpose. It is trying to say what we do know. That each person in the trinity is God above all. And it will leave room for great mystery. (one with himself I cannot die ) First, the Trinity reveals that God is ultimately personal. He has been in relationship from eternity. The way we all "should" relate to each other is reflection of the way God relates to himself. In this sense, it is the ground of true love. When I look deep into my wife's eyes or I am feeling the joy of being a dad who could not imagine loving anything more than his kids, there is an eternal analogue to this in God himself. He did not just make this up out of thin air. This is who he is in himself. This is how he wants us to relate to each other. This is how he wants to relate to us!! So much that he died so it could happen. The death and resurrection of Jesus is grounded in Trinitarian love that God wants to share with us. (I am not talking about us being able to participate in God's essence directly. We participate through Christ.) Now, as much as I disliked that story about Mack and the Shack (Look out old Mack is Back, Go Bobby Darin), there were some things that it tried to accomplish (albeit poorly). It tried to show the relationship between the Father, the son and the Spirit. It showed them laughing. It showed Jesus spilling something on the floor and Sarayu cleaning it up while everyone was laughing together. It showed Papa and Sarayu gardening in the back together, cultivating souls it seems. It showed them talking about their adoration of each other. Granted it didn t do it theologically well, but I am not sure a novel even has the ability to deal with this mystery without making it heretical. Any emphasis of the one to the expense of the plural is heresy in someone s book. Any emphasis of the plurality at the expense of the one is heresy in someone s book. It s just not an appropriate medium for this so don t read it, I think the fad is way over now anyway but I do think it reminds us of the love God has for himself. Maybe I can go a step further and remind you that God adores himself. His goal is to glorify himself and to exalt himself. Not as some maniacal arrogant fiend, but as the one on whom reality rests. It s not arrogance to glorify yourself if there is nothing greater in which to magnify. God is about his own glory because he alone is worthy of glory. Second, it helps me make sense of my longings. My deepest longing for love, acceptance, meaninful relationships, etc. are grounded in God. Science cannot explain these things so they explain them away. Love is just a the release of a particular hormone because we need to mate to survive. My love for my children is an illusion created by my genes so that I will protect my child in order to pass my genes along. It is not to say that hormones and genetics do not play a role. We are not docetists. But to believe these things are real, we need a God who makes them real. They are real because they are real in God. Third, it helps me make sense of my personality. God is three persons, one substance. There is a very loose analogy with a human being here. I am the person Pj. Pj is a business man, a father, a husband, a teacher, an administrator, etc. I am many different people in one. When I am acting as an administrator, I am different then when I am acting as a dad but me being a dad influences what I do as an administrator. I am one person, who is many persons. I am the substance Pj, who
10 plays many different rolls. You wouldn't call me schizophrenic because I am all these people. We intuitively understand that the notion of Pj holds these things together even though they are very different. They are 100% of me and part of me simultaneously. The notion of the most real thing in the universe--the Trinitarian God--makes sense of our ability to do this. He is about our submission to one another because Jesus submitted to the Father. He is about our loving each other, because he exists in an eternal state of loving mutuality in the trinity. The trinity is our base for life, for reality, for who we are and what we do. It calls us to something, submission, love, humility, relationship. This is not some stuffy doctrine that just must be believed, it is the basis of our relationships with one another. It is perfect unity and perfect mutuality. It is beautiful.
11 Get your own dirt We believe in God the Father, Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. This line says a lot. It is jam packed full of relevant information about theology proper, that s the technical category for the study of God. What do Christians believe about God? We believe he is a father, he is almighty, he is creator. So God is our father. This is not making a statement about his fatherhood of Jesus, that comes in the next line, but it is defining God as a father. Don t think literally. He does not have progeny (even when you read the next line next week). He isn t Jesus dad. The idea here is that he is the father of all. The Forgotten Trinity by James White (book)