The Prologue
The noble and venerable formulary known as the Apostles’ Creed, though presenting the essence of their Belief and Testimony, cannot be positively credited to the Apostolic Age. Indeed, whatever may have been the practice of individual churches, there 1s no trace in Christian Literature of any definite summaries of Christian Belief till a much later age — the age of Ireneus and Tertullian.
“It 1s sufficiently evident,’ writes Principal Tulloch, ‘‘ that ‘Confessions of Faith, or ‘ Rules and Standards of Truth’ existed in the Ante-Nicene Church from the last quarter of the second century
. but tt ts equally evident that there was no Rule of Faith universally accepted by the Church, or authoritatively imposed by any Catholic body up to the time of the Nicene Council.”
The earliest form of this Creed ts contained in the Confessions of Faith, presented to Julius, Bishop of Rome, by Marcellus, the Bishop of Ancyra, about the year A.D. 336. He describes it as the faith, which he “learnt and was taught from the Holy Scriptures.”
Vv
wil. THE PROLOGUE
Substantially then the Apostles’ Creed was in existence probably from the end of the Fourth Century, though there ts no evidence of tts general reception, in tts completed form, till about the middle of the Eighth Century.
It has always captivated the Christian Imagination and Heart, because of tts simplicity, tts brevity, tts freedom from elaborate theological phraseology; and probably a larger number of Christian people, of all churches and sects, could unite in reciting tt, than any other statement of Christianity tn existence. For this reason I venture to term tt the CREED OF CREEDS.
Probably tt is the one Creed in which all Christendom could unite. A striking evidence of this was given in the recent World-Baptist Congress, when at the request of the venerable Dr. Maclaren, the entire assembly of three thousand delegates, from all parts of the earth, stood and repeated, with impressive emphasis, these well-known clauses. The episode was the more remarkable, as the Baptist denomination has always shown itself very conservative in the adoption of forms or liturgies of any kind. It is recognised, however, among all branches of the Church of Christ, that no one communion can claim any exclusive proprietorship in this great Creed. All schools of theology may meet in its ancient precincts, piled by builders who have long since passed from faith to sight.
In preparing these brief expositions of tts several clauses, I have made use of notes gathered long since, in one or two of the earlier of which are traces of the Boston Lectures. JI cannot recall any others to whom I should make acknowledgment. This little treatise ts placed at the service of the One Church, in the underlying Unity of which we all believe, and when the time arrives for the outward manifestation of that Unity, surely the Apostles’ Creed will take a foremost place in the expression of the common and universal Faith.
The Uncertainty of Natural Religion
It cannot be denied that races which lie outside the sphere of Revealed Religion have possessed materials of arriving at the knowledge of God. The creation of the world has made known His power and Godhead; sunshine or rain, fruitful seasons and fertile soils have told of His daily care; great prophets and teachers, rearing themselves aloft above their fellows, have caught the beams of His glory, and reflected them; the Light that lighteth every man coming into the world has illumined conscience and heart; the geographical situation and location in the world’s development have been so contrived as to induce men to seek after God and fumble about the latch of his Glorious Temple, if haply they might find Him; and thus many have attained to very wise and true conceptions of the Divine Nature. We have only to quote some of the expressions in the ancient Vedic Hymns, or paragraphs from
the writings of Seneca, to establish this. And it is in reference to such conclusions of the human mind, apart from the clear teachings of Revelation that the last of the prophets cries: ‘“‘ From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord, and in every place incense is offered unto my name and a pure offering.”
But at the best there was deep uncertainty mingled with all these conclusions, however wise and good. In Athens, an altar was erected to the unknown God, whom this very religious people worshipped in ignorance. In Egypt one of the most famous Temples bore on its portico the legend, “I am He that was, and is, and shall be, but no mortal hath lifted my vail.” Granted that the summer spoke of God’s love, what of winter with her storms. Was not the message of the Pleiades cancelled by that of Orion? Did not the brightest and longest days descend at last into the dark tomb of the night? The mind of man hovered between the two extremes, but on the whole yielded to the darkest suspicions and fears. Hence the awful rites with which Priests, on behalf of their fellows, sought to propitiate and soothe the Divine Nature. The conclusions of Natural Religion find an apt expression in the Book of Job: ‘“Touching the mighty, we cannot find Him out... .« Oh that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat!”
Equally uncertain were men in their conclusions about Forgiveness and the Future Life. They hoped that their sins might be pardoned, but they were never sure how much was required for the Divine satisfaction. Should they give their first-born for their transgressions, the fruit of their bodies for the sins of their souls? And as to the existence of the soul beyond death, — it passed, so the wisest said, to a land of darkness and of the shadow of death, a land of thick dark- - ness, as darkness itself; a land of the shadow of death, without. any order, and where the light was as darkness. The bewildering uncertainty of the wisest and best of men was very pitiful. They peered into the thick curtain of black night which surrounded their lives, and said that they were reminded of the flights of a sparrow through a brilliantly lit hall, coming out of the wintry blasts on the one hand, and after a brief space of warmth and colour, returning to them again, but no one knew whence or whither.
We can hardly realise the intensity with which the mariners of those days, as they heard the surf beating on the rocks, longed for day to break on the spiritual horizon. Agitated by conscience, driven by fear, conscious of a Presence they could not comprehend, approaching the infinite mystery of an impenetrable secret, the heart of man cried aloud for light, that it might live in hope and die in peace.
There is something of this in our own age also. To many amongst us black gulfs of doubt open on every side, and in desperation multitudes are flying for refuge either in positivism which leaves out of account the yearnings, the instincts, the peremptory facts of the soul, or in the assumed infallibility of the Roman Church, which rules the spirit through the confessional and strives to silence it by papal edicts or interdicts. Amid these false harbours, and misleading lights, how great a relief it is to turn to the calm certainty of Christian truth.
The Certainty of the New Testament
From Matthew onward to the Apocalypse, however much the books of the New Testament differ in other respects, they are marked by one invariable characteristic which accosts us on every page; and that is the solemn tone of certainty which pervades them. There is not a single breakdown into speculation or balancing of probabilities. Such was the verdict of a beloved friend of mine, the Rev. Edward White, who, after a life of vigorous conflict came to be as much revered for the saintliness and sweetness of his disposition as he was respected for his learning and acumen. It is not necessary to have recourse to his pages for sufficient evidence of this special trait in the New Testament writers. The signs of it are to be discovered on every page.
Writing to his friend, Theophilus, the Evangelist Luke affirms that the facts of the Gospel were surely believed amongst the Christians with whom he consorted, and that he had set himself to a careful and accurate tracing down of them all from the very first, that his friend might fully
5 know the certainty of the things in which he had become instructed (Luke i. 1-4).
The Apostle Peter asserts that they had not followed cunningly devised fables, when his fellow apostles and himself had made known the power and coming of the Lord Jesus, but that the word of prophecy had been made sure to them (2 Peter i. 16, 19). And he does not hesitate to describe the basis of Christianity as a Rock, a solid Rock, so that he who believed and built on it could not be confounded (1 Peter ii. 6-8).
John, the beloved Apostle, is not less emphatic. He tells us what he had seen with his eyes, and handled with his hands, concerning the Word of Life, and that he bore witness and declared what he had seen and felt, that his readers might share with him the joy of a certain knowledge (1 John i. 1-4). His First Epistle rings with the words we know. “We know that the Son of God is come.”... .; “* We know Him that is true.”.: “We know that we have passed from death unto life.” .... “We know that we shall be fike: Him 33. 6
Or if we turn to the Epistles of the last and greatest of the Apostles, the most cursory examination of his Epistles is sufficient to convince the enquirer that his mind and heart reposed on the most absolute certainty of the Gospel which he proclaimed — both in the facts on which it rested and the deductions which were made from them. His favourite word is Epignosis to describe the deep and searching knowledge of the Christian disciple. He says that we must no longer be — children tossed on the waves and carried to and fro by every current, but ought to arrive at the unity of the faith of the thorough knowledge of the Son of God (Eph. iv. 13). He protests that he dared not cease praying until his converts have been brought to a condition of thorough knowledge, according to the Image of Him who has created them (Col. i. 9; iii. 10). He insists on the full assurance of understanding, the solid certainty of fact on which the Christian faith rested, and the confidence or boldness which were the necessary result (Col. ii. 2; 2 Cor. iii. 12; see also Heb. iv. 16, x. 19). He said, “‘ We believe and therefore speak;” and again, “We know that if this earthly house be broken up, we have a house not made with hands; and yet again, “Though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any Gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema.”
Throughout, the sacred writers speak as those for whom the vail had been rent, and the darkness dissipated. They know whom and what they had believed, and were persuaded. They asserted that they had received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which was of God, that they might know the things which ordinary men had not seen with their eyes, nor heard with their ears, though they had been freely given them by God.
It was this accent of assured certainty that captivated the world. Just at the moment when the old religions which had held the allegiance of the foremost races were tottering to their fall, and when the most absolute despair that had ever enwrapped the world was settling like a pall over the minds of men, there burst on their astonished ear the assertion, on the part of simple and unlearned witnesses, that they had found the Truth and the Truth had made them free.
The witness-bearers were put to every conceivable test. Their quality was tested by fire and sword. They were confronted by every kind of opposition from the sneers of Roman proconsuls to the contempt of Athenian sages, but they never wavered. Had they stood as sponsors for a new system of philosophy, they might have yielded to superior intellects, and been put to shame and silenced; but when it was a question of facts which are equally within the cognisance of fishermen and artisans as of philosophers, they could not renounce their affirmation that God had been manifested in the flesh, seen of angels, believed among the Gentiles, and received up in
glory.
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If so much Certainty, why all the Diversity?
THERE is Diversity! Christendom resembles a mosaic of different patches of colour. The Greek, the Roman, the Anglican Churches, and some hundred differing denominations, fill the air with their protestations that they possess the Truth. They profess that what they teach is the original doctrine of the Apostles, and some of them add, that to diverge from their doctrines and formularies is to run the risk of perishing everlastingly.
Now it should be admitted at the outset that each of these bodies has some truth given it in charge, else it could not continue; and that speaking generally, the affirmations are true, whilst the limitations and negations are false. But why is it, since the Apostles were so positive in their declarations, that these infinite varieties exist? The answer surely lies in the distinction between the facts on which Christianity rests, and the deductions or doctrines which have been made from them.
In the facts the immense preponderance of
Christians are agreed. That Jesus the Son of
Mary after the flesh was born in the days of Cesar Augustus, lived, died, and rose from the dead, that He ascended into Heaven and gave the Holy Spirit to His Church, are accepted as facts by the most diverse sections of the professing Church. A striking illustration of this was given during the debates in the House of Commons on the Education Bill. Between Mr. Healy, a loyal son of the Roman Church, and the large numbers of Free Churchmen, Radicals, and Socialists who crowded the benches on one side of the House, there could have been as small a degree of common ground as between him and - the Anglican Churchmen who sat on the other, but the whole house was hushed and united in the sense of a great unity, as in a voice broken with passionate emphasis and emotion, he closed his speech with these touching words, “‘If there be one thing which I and mine have a grip of, it is this — the belief in the Infinite Christ to come; yes, and the belief that our children, whatever be their distresses, their misfortunes, their poverty, if they have listened to the teaching and put in practice the lessons given them by the priest in the Catholic schools, they will hereafter reap a rich and an exceeding great reward.”’
With the explanations which the Apostles give of the facts of the Gospels, there is also very general accord. It is the unvarying assertion of the Apostles that those explanations were revealed to them by the direct teaching of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul, for instance, says that God made known to him the inner meaning, or mysteries of the gospel of the Spirit, and that he spoke in words which the Holy Spirit taught. He declares most solemnly that the gospel which he preached was not after men, neither was he taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. He refers also to the mould of doctrine into which the faith of his converts had been poured. On the whole it may be said that Christendom accepts these explanations, and reads into the facts recorded in the Gospels thoughts and conceptions which would not otherwise be associated with them; as for instance, that the Death of the Cross was a sacrifice for the sins of the world, and the Resurrection and Ascension an entrance into the Holiest of the High Priest.
But it is when we come to the deductions drawn from these explanatory statements that the infinite varieties of the creeds of churches assert themselves. Opinions are as numerous as minds. The pure light is reflected from thousands of different facets and angles. Human views and conceptions of truth are distorted by the medium through which they reach us, by the prevalence of preconceived notions, by the effect of heredity and early training, by hasty generalizations and one-sided views, and by the strong effect which one mind exercises over another. For these and similar reasons, we group ourselves differently, arrange ourselves under diverse flags, take up strong dogmatic positions, and crystallize into Churches and Denominations.
If we trusted less in our intellect and more to our heart, if we calmed and quieted ourselves as weaned babes in absolute childlikeness and simplicity of soul, if we were slower to speak and quicker to listen, if instead of reprimanding one another we were more eager to bring others into the unity of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God, if we magnified essentials more and non-essentials less, if we put Christ before creeds, and His Glory above Churches, it is probable that the Lord’s Prayer for our manifested oneness would seem less of a far-away dream, and more of a practical reality.
But it must be re-affirmed, for it is so often lost sight of, that there is substantial agreement among Christians of every name “that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; that He was buried, and that He hath been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures; that as by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead, and as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name unto all the nations.”
No Special Claims of the Apostles’ Creed
Ir is not possible to trace it to its origin. Almost certainly it was not the product of the Apostolic Age. But it has commended itself to all Christian people, because it deals almost exclusively with the great facts of the Gospel story, and with the simplest inspired explanations of those facts; whilst it abstains from those niceties of definition which accost us in the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds. It was this characteristic that led the venerable Dr. Maclaren to call on the World’s Assembly of representative Baptists in 1905 to join with him in repeating the Apostles’ Creed, as an expression of their oneness with the entire Church of Christ. There can be no thought of imposing this or any other creed on the Christian conscience. No man or set of men has any right to insist on the acceptance by individuals or churches of any form of words, however venerable of age, or consecrated by use. No formulary known to man can comprehend the whole horizon of truth; and there are probably thousands who might not accept every item even of the Apostles’ Creed, simple and elementary as it appears, but their
names are undoubtedly written in the Lamb’s
Book of Life, and they are included in the Holy Church of the Redeemed.
How thankful we should be that the truth about God’s Redeeming Grace is not given in a series of abstract propositions, but in the living Person of Jesus, in His life and words, His wonderful deeds and death! There is as much difference between the conceptions of theologians and the narratives of the Gospels, as between the Laws of Scientists and the outspread face of Nature. Thank God, we say again, that the Apostles’ Creed is not an integral part of Scripture, else only those would be stamped with the mint-mark of Christianity who accepted it, whilst those who hesitated about its least particular would be consigned to the uncovenanted mercies of God.
No, our salvation does not consist in any intellectual Credo. The devils believe and tremble; whilst the dying thief who had only the dimmest possible vision of the nature of Christ was saved. The faith of the mind may be perfectly orthodox, and yet exercise no Saving effect upon character or life, but it thereby shows itself to be a dead faith, since it is without works or fruit. Whereas the faith of the heart, which may fasten on some tiny fragment of Christ’s Person, which touches the hem of His garment, which opens its window in the dark to admit the cassia fragrance of His Person is certainly accepted and instructed. Salvation does not consist 1m our belief about Christ, but in our trust in Him. There must, of course, be some knowledge of His Person and Work, but this may be very fragmentary and slender, and yet the soul’s faith will link it to Him that was, and is, and is to come, for evermore. Not the Bible, but Christ of whom the Bible speaks, not the Creed, but Christ of whom the Creed is true, not the Sacraments, but Christ who instituted them, not the Atoning Death of Christ, but Christ who made the Atonement, - must ever be the object of the soul’s faith. And again, we repeat it, there are many who may be unable to pass the test of the Creed, to whom, because the soul has exercised the right attitude towards Him, our Lord will say at last, “Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the World.”:
But though the obligatory use of the Creed, as a test of Christianity, may be resisted, it will be generally admitted that it serves aS a most useful synopsis and compendium of the great facts of our Common Faith, and in this sense it may be made use of and prized by all Christians.
It is deeply impressive to hear a great company of men and women repeat these noble words. On the great Pacific or Atlantic liners, in log-shanties, in the midst of Mohammedan, Hindoo, or Chinese populations, the heart must be torpid and irresponsive indeed that is not moved by the recitation of these venerable sentences. In face of the Infidelity that says there is no God, of the Agnosticism that cries we cannot know, of the Pantheism which confounds God with His works, of the Followers of the False Prophet who assert that Mahomet is the supreme Prophet of the Most High, it is a great act for a group of people, who would probably agree in nothing else, to stand together to affirm that they believe in the Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth, and in ch Christ, His only Son, their Lord.
The position of the Apostles’ Creed in the Service of the Church of England is specially noteworthy. Coming as it does after the great outbursts of adoration and worship, and before the Intercessions and Supplications of the congregation, it seems almost the climax of the Liturgy, the highest point of the upward climb from the lowest penitence to the shining tablelands where God Himself is Sun.