Credo: I Believe

“Christian, what do you believe?” In gatherings of the church, such questions are typically followed by recitations of the Apostles’ or Nicene Creeds. While some may balk at the inclusion of creeds in a worship service, many Christians have found these short summaries of core Christian doctrine helpful for unifying the church and instructing its members. The following article helps explains the history of these two creeds and what they affirm about the Bible’s teaching on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This article was adapted from the ESV Systematic Theology Study Bible.

Doctrine in the Creeds

The History of the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds

The Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds developed out of the baptismal practices of the early church, where those being baptized customarily confessed their faith in response to a series of questions framed along Trinitarian lines. This pattern derived from the words of Jesus in Matthew 28:19, where he told his disciples to baptize the nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The baptismal confessions growing out of this practice thus came to be associated with the apostles, although there is no evidence they ever composed a creed themselves. The Apostles’ Creed as we know it today is an eighth-century version of a much older statement of faith, perhaps from the second century. The Nicene Creed, on the other hand, was probably composed at or soon after the First Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381). It was certainly in existence at the Council of Chalcedon (451) and was mistakenly attributed to the First Council of Nicaea (325), which produced a similar creed no longer in use. The Apostles’ Creed belongs above all to the Western (Latin-speaking) wing of the ancient church. The Nicene Creed originated in the Eastern (Greek-speaking) wing and was not widely known in the West until the eighth century. In its Western form, which probably originated in Spain in the late sixth century, this creed states that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (Latin filioque), an addition never accepted in the East.

The First Section: God the Father

Both creeds open with a short confession of God the Father, described as the Almighty and the Creator of heaven and earth. The term “Almighty” translates the Hebrew El Shaddai, which occurs frequently in the OT, and the Greek Pantokrator, which is found only once in the NT (2 Cor. 6:18) apart from the book of Revelation (1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 21:22), although it expresses the divine sovereignty clearly fundamental to the biblical message as a whole. The reference to the Creator comes in the first instance from Genesis 1:1, but the Nicene Creed adds that he made “all things visible and invisible,” a phrase taken from Colossians 1:16 to express an emphasis found more in the NT than in the Old (see Rom. 1:20; Heb. 11:3). That God himself is invisible was always the belief of Israel, but the creedal statement refers to spiritual creatures like angels, who appear in the OT without any explanation of their origin or nature.

The Second Section: God the Son

The second section of the creeds is the lengthiest, expounding the earthly mission of God the Son in great detail, because here, more than anywhere else, the Christian church stood apart from Judaism and other religions and philosophies of the time. The Nicene Creed is generally fuller in its christological affirmations than the Apostles’ Creed, although the Nicene Creed only says that the Son “suffered and was buried,” while the Apostles’ Creed specifies that he “died,” responding to the contention of some that he merely swooned on the cross and was resuscitated in the tomb.

Looking at the christological section in order, both creeds begin with the affirmation that Jesus is the only Son of God. The Nicene Creed elaborates by adding that he is the “only-begotten” Son (from a dated translation of John 1:14) and that his birth was eternal (John 1:1–3; Hebrews 1). As in all births, the offspring shares the nature of its parents, leading to the confession that the Son is God from God, Light from Light, and so on. The scriptural basis for this is principally the prologue to John’s Gospel (John 1:1–14), but analogous statements can be found in Philippians 2:6; Colossians 2:9; Hebrews 1:8–9; 1 John 2:8, and elsewhere in the NT. The creeds stress the fact that he was not made as a creature but was born from the Father, a doctrine implied by John 1:3; Colossians 1:15–17; and Hebrews 1:3 but contested in ancient times by those who refused to accept that God the Father could have an equal in the Son.

The creeds describe the incarnation of the Son by saying he was “conceived by the Holy Spirit” and “born of the Virgin Mary.” That Mary was the mother of Jesus is clear from the Gospels (Matthew 1; Luke 1–2), and Matthew records that he was conceived by the Spirit in the womb of a virgin (Matt. 1:20). The virginal conception was prefigured in Isaiah 7:14, where the Hebrew world almah (“young woman”) was translated as parthenos (“virgin”) in the Greek version of the OT known as the Septuagint, which appeared two or three centuries before the birth of Jesus.

The creeds omit any mention of the earthly life and ministry of Jesus and move straight from his birth to his crucifixion, which they describe in terms taken from the Gospels. They are particularly concerned to insist on the historicity of the event, underlined by the confession that Jesus was sent to his death “under Pontius Pilate,” the Roman governor of Judea (A.D. 26–36) whose actions are amply recorded by all four Evangelists. That he suffered and was buried is also clear from their narratives, as is the fact that he was dead before being taken down from the cross (Matt. 27:50; Mark 15:39; Luke 23:46; John 19:33).

The most obscure and controversial statement in this section of the Apostles’ Creed is the statement that after his death he “descended into hell.” This confession appears to be based on 1 Peter 3:18–20, which says that Jesus went to preach to the souls imprisoned in the days of Noah. It is unclear how this should be understood, and the creeds do not elaborate. Some modern translations of the creeds change “hell” to “Hades” or “the dead,” a reminder that it is unclear where exactly Jesus went. On the other hand, the descent into hell reminds us that Christ suffered the penalty of sin for the elect (including damnation) and defeated the power of Satan (see Rev. 12:7–12), although this is not made explicit in the creeds themselves. Ephesians 4:8–9, a quotation from Psalm 68:18 that Paul amplified, may also support this doctrine, but its meaning is also hard to interpret.

From the descent of Christ into hell, the creeds pass immediately to his resurrection on “the third day,” which by inclusive reckoning is the Sunday following the crucifixion on Good Friday, the eve of the Sabbath. This was a key element in the apostles’ preaching, as can be seen from Mark 9:31; 10:34; Luke 9:22; 24:7; and Acts 10:40. The resurrection itself is amply attested by the Gospels and was a cornerstone of the faith of the first Christians, as Paul reminded the Corinthians (1 Cor. 15:3–19).

The ascension of Christ into heaven is recorded in Luke 24:50–51 and Acts 1:6–11, although it is not mentioned in the other Gospels. There is, however, a direct reference to it in Ephesians 4:8–10. His heavenly session “at the right hand of God” is taken primarily from Acts 2:33 and is well-attested elsewhere (Rom. 8:34; Col. 3:1; Heb. 10:12; 1 Pet. 3:22). His return in glory to judge the living and the dead is mentioned in Acts 10:42; 2 Timothy 4:1; and 1 Peter 4:5, and is supported by 1 Corinthians 15:20–28, although it is not specifically mentioned in that text.

The Third Section: God the Holy Spirit

The third article of the creeds touches on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The Apostles’ Creed does not develop this doctrine, but the Nicene Creed follows the pattern of scriptural proof for the divinity of the Holy Spirit presented by Basil of Caesarea (d. A.D. 379) in his book on the subject. Basil demonstrated that, according to the NT, the Spirit is addressed as Lord (2 Cor. 3:18); is the giver of life, a divine attribute (John 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6); proceeds from the Father (John 15:26); is worshiped and glorified along with the Father and the Son (Matt. 28:19); and has inspired the prophets, who spoke the Word of God (2 Pet. 1:21). The Western church came to believe that the Holy Spirit must proceed from the Son as well as the Father because he is the Spirit of the Son (Gal. 4:6), but the Eastern church has always rejected that interpretation, preferring to read John 15:26 as implicitly excluding procession from the Son.

The last section of the creeds deals with particular aspects of the Christian life and may be regarded as an appendix to the section on the Holy Spirit. First is the church, which is one, holy, catholic (or “universal”), and apostolic. The unity of the church is clear from 1 Corinthians, where Paul attacks schismatic tendencies that had taken hold of the congregation there, and is also alluded to in Ephesians 4:16. The church’s holiness is mentioned specifically in 1 Peter 2:9 and assumed almost everywhere in the NT Epistles, which constantly reiterate the need for believers to lead holy lives as a witness to the church’s mission. Its catholicity (or universality) is attested by Acts 2:9–11; Galatians 3:28, and every passage that discusses the place given to non-Jewish believers. Its apostolicity is expressly stated in Ephesians 2:20, and the theme runs through the Acts of the Apostles and most of the NT Epistles, whose authority rests on their apostolic origin.

Following the statement on the church is one regarding baptism for the forgiveness of sins, stated explicitly in Acts 2:38 and alluded to elsewhere (see Matt. 26:28; Rom. 3:25). The resurrection of the body is the main theme of 1 Corinthians 15:35–58, and the everlasting life that follows is the promise held out to believers both in that passage and elsewhere (1 Thess. 4:17; Revelation 21–22).

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