Apostles and Nicene Creeds Part 4

Hey everybody. Hope everyone in America reading this had a great 4th of July weekend. I get some views from others in other countries. Not sure if they actually read it. I'll never know and wont let it bother me either. Thanks for reading this, anyways.


Alright, back to the creeds:

I don't know how I made this mistake before, but the Apostles Creed according to my source, does not have "according to the scriptures." A very important part of the Nicene Creed nevertheless.

Apostles: "he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead."

Nicene: "he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end."

       First, I want to touch on a piece from a previous part of the Nicene Creed, the part that says, "he descended into hell." We have mention of this, for what reason? Did Jesus go to hell? Did he make a visit to the devil and beat him up for his lunch money? No. He didn't. The term "hell" is used in our culture as the place that people go who do not have salvation, the people who choose a life other than with God. Historically, and in the particular meaning of this creed though, "hell" is meant to mean nothing more than the place that the dead go - which is in the ground. It simply means that we believe Jesus was buried. It is mentioned to give further edification that Jesus really died, not just passed out or something else. He really died, and was thus buried as such.

       I wanted to touch on that because we have in today's blog "he ascended into heaven." Now, when we read "he descended into hell... he ascended into heaven" we want to weigh these two places with equal measure simply because of our understanding, our lexicon, and its cultural inputs. Try not to do that, ever. Understand first what that writer was attempting to say, period. Doing otherwise gets us into the hermeneutical anarchy we have among the Body today.

       The rest of this part of the creed(s) places emphasis on the place and purpose that Jesus has in our salvation history. It is both historical and prophetic. "he ascended... he is seated... he will come again in glory to judge..." Here we have what Jesus did, what he is doing, and what he will do.

       The Nicene creed mentions that Jesus will come in "glory." You should understand this word to mean "power, might, etc,."

       Lastly you must agree as any sort of Christian that "his kingdom will have no end." This is one part of the Church that I didn't completely understand before I was Catholic. James Cardinal Gibbons relays in his famous book "The Faith of Our Fathers" that the Church has five distinctive (and extremely biblical) characteristics - one of which is perpetuity which essentially means "never ending." Hebrews 12:26 reads "since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken." In Matthew 16:18 Jesus indicates to Peter that "upon this rock" Jesus will build his church, not yours and mine, and that "the gates of hell will not prevail against it." "Prevail against" is actually one Greek word, katischyō, which means that this other "hell" or "hades" will not "over power" or "be superior in strength." Notice that Jesus as Jesus said to Peter about "my church" we believe the same about "his kingdom."

       This was actually a huge argumental win for Catholicism for me when I was investigating. The idea, biblical, that in order to be a real part of the body which is the church, that church has had to have existed forever - which only the Catholic Church can claim. Protestants, orthodox, and others cannot claim this as they chose to separate from the church in differing millenia. But as sadly mistaken by many protestants, the Catholic Church teaches that each of the true followers of Christ regardless of denomination are part of the Body of Christ - not just Catholics. Again, it was a huge win for me when I learned what Catholics actually believe and where they actually come from.

Jesus will be king of all, and will reign for all time.

Nicene and Apostles Creed x2

This is part two. Welcome back.

Apostles: And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  

Nicene: I believe in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the father before all ages. God from God, Light  from Light, True God from True God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through Him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. 

So why the expanded profession of faith? Was it not enough for the Council of Nicaea to only believe in the three facts surrounding Jesus as we see in the Apostles creed? Surely, outside of this creed we believe many things; but why place something into a creed? What is so important about a creed?

What the average follower might not consider is the progression of the faith. Jesus tells the apostles in John 14:26 that "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit —the Father will send Him in My name—will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you." The first century Christians surely believed in the risen Christ and Peters confession of Him as the Son of God, but these beliefs were challanged in time and added to with heresy. The Gnostics didn't believe that Jesus was flesh, and therefore we have institutions of faith in the creed that say "and became man."

The Council of Nicaea devoted its efforts to many controversies but the chief reason for the council was to address Arianism. Arius was a priest in the late second century who eventually denied the deity of Christ - that he was not God. Much of his debate was with the relationship of Jesus and God, making one lesser than the other. Arius ended up convincing many people of this great lie.

Without boring the reader, can you now see why the Nicene creed places more emphasis on the person of Jesus, His relation to the Father, and His nature as the God-Man?

Meditation: focus and ponder on the progress of the Christian faith. We come to understand our faith more clearly when it is challenged by a heterodox teaching. We did not see much in the Bible about an argument for or against a trinitarian God, or a dispute about His birth of a virgin because while those were beliefs of orthodox Christians, there was no need to defend it because there was no adversary to its teaching. Chew on it.