Faith of Our Fathers – The Nicene Creed

The Nicene Creed was written in A.D.325 by the famous Council of Nicea. This Creed, like most of the others was written against a certain heresy. In this case it was the Arian Heresy which stated that Jesus is the greatest creature, but is not God.

The Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed are very similar in what they say. The Nicene Creed just has some minor additions. Also the Nicene Creed uses the pronoun “we” instead of “I” because it was writen by a council and not as a baptismal statement. So then here it is:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And we believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And we believe one holy catholic* and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

*please note that the term “catholic” means “universal” and does not refer to the Roman Catholic Church.

Faith of Our Fathers – The Apostles’ Creed

My next few posts will just be all the creeds which our forefathers put together. Please don’t just skim them over, but really think about what they mean because they are foundational to our beliefs.

First is theApostles’ Creed which was written in A.D.150. It is attributed to the twelve apostles, but that is most likely not true. It is said to have come about during baptisms. When someone was baptized they were asked what they believe and this creed was their answer in most cases:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.  And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic* Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

*please note that the term “catholic” means “universal” and does not refer to the Roman Catholic Church.

Luther at War

                                           

Well before you read this don’t get worried. This isn’t going to be yet another history of Martin Luther and the Reformation. I’ll just be focusing on part of Luther’s character. From the title you could probably guess it…

Luther was a very godly man as you all know. I’ve been thinking about him lately and the more I think about him the more I can see Christ in his life. I started thinking about all of this while reading his book Bondage of the Will which he wrote against Erasmus’s Diatribe on free will. In Luther’s book he really attacked Erasmus and on almost every page had some kind of insult against him. Here are a few: “…your book, by comparison, struck me as so worthless and poor that my heart went out to you for having defiled your lovely, brilliant flow of writing with such vile stuff.” and “I thought it outrageous to convey  material of so low a quality in the trappings of such a rare eloquence; it is like using gold or silver dishes to carry garden rubbish or dung.” and “But may I ask you, my dear Erasmus, to bear with my want of eloquence, as I in these matters bear with your want of knowledge.” Now that was all just in the first few pages. Luther continues on this “war path” throughout the whole rest of the book. Before I read the book I read an introduction to it. In the introduction the guy said that perhaps Luther went too far with these insults that it became sinful. Well I don’t really think so. Luther took this as an attack on the church in the form of heresy, and that is what it was. It was a serious matter. Luther wasn’t insulting for fun. He was defending the faith.

Jesus also was sarcastic and insulted the pharisees and even got physical whil clearing the temple (John 2:12-25, Matt.23:16-22,33, Luke 11:37-54, John 8:42-47). Jesus was not always nice and kind. He is not only love. He is holy, just, etc. I like the way R.C. Sproul puts it in his book The Holiness of God – “The Bible does not say that God is love, love, love. It says God is holy, holy, holy.”

Well my point in all of this is to show that as Christians we are not to be kind doormats. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be kind, but rather that sometimes we are to take action. Maybe the kind of kindness that someone needs is a punch and a bloody nose in the form of a rebuke.

As Chrstians we are at war in this world against the powers of darkness. On our own we would lose the fight. Thankfully we are not on our own. We have Christ who conquered sin and death on the cross and who gives us the great gift of salvation. This war wich we fight in as Christians is already won. There is nothing that sin and evil can do to win. However, that does not mean that we can stop fighting. Just because we know we will win does not mean we can quit. It is just an encouraging fact. Another fact is that the battle still rages on in our lives.

While we are on this earth we should expect to struggle through this raging battle.

I’ll just finish off with this quote from Wilhelmus a Brackel in his book The Christians Reasonable Service. He says this, “Be reminded that bliss is reserved for heaven, and that this life is a time of battle in which the victory is an absolute certainty.”

The Feeling…

Whenever someone around us is acting strange (in a bad way), or someone around us is hurt or we catch them in sin, or we see a dead person on the street or when something bad happens to another person around us (whether we are the cause or not), we get a strange feeling in our gut. We get that same feeling in all of these situations and in many others. This feeling also comes when bad things happen to us. It is a hard thing to describe. It is like our concience is aching in some way. Still that is not an accurate description. One thing we do know, however, is that it is not a nice feeling.

It is in these situations where we get this feeling that we often begin to see our own sinfulness. We see how our hearts are bent only toward evil and we recognize, as Christians, our need of Christ. One day that I will never forget was the day my family and I were driving on the highway on the way to our holiday destination at the Kruger Park. While we were driving we saw that there was an accident that had just happened up the road. As we drove by we were shocked by what we saw. There was a worker lying dead in the middle of the road with a pool of blood next to his head. Prior to that we were all having a good time. Then we all were silent the whole rest of the way. This was one of the many moments where I got this “feeling”. My first reaction was just that of shock. Then I started thinking. I realized my need of Christ to free me from my sins which were now haunting me.

I’m sure many of you have experienced this before whether it was to this extent, greater or less. When these things happen to us, or when we do something wrong, we need to realize first of all that God is in control. These things are for our good. Now in the different circumstances that isn’t of much comfort. But what is encouraging is to later see how God used that in our lives. Secondly we need to realize that our recognizing of our total depravity is a good thing. It is a neccesary thing. God uses it in our lives. Whether it be to humble us or test us. Now recognizing this (by God’s grace) is of no comfort to us at all. We can know that it is a good thing, but we are not encouraged by it. This is one reason why we shouldn’t always listen to only our feelings. But that’s another topic.

So then where is the encouragement? Well it springs from our recognition of our sin. Although it is good to recognize it, we cannot focus on it. If we do we will become morbid and we will despair. Our point of focus must rather be on Christ. He is the one who gives us hope. He is the one who can (and has) saved us from our very own wickedness. So then we must look to him. There is no one and nothing else that can give us hope, but Christ and Christ alone.