The word creed comes from the Latin word credo and simply means I believe. Thus a creed is a statement expressing what one believes as to a certain topic. Faced with the invasion of Gnosticism, the early christians sought for a way to keep the doctrine of the church pure. Perhaps the earliest creed was what is known as the apostles creed and dates to around the end of the first century. By including such statements as I believe in Jesus Christ….born of the virgin Mary…..crucified…buried…resurrected….ascended, it tested in brief form the integrity of those who denied the incarnation of Christ. Those who denied this creed were barred from fellowship.
Though this creed contained statements that were based on Biblical truth, it proved to be insufficient. Two hundred years later The Nicene Creed added I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and later, The Athanasian Creed added He is not two but one Christ. These are perhaps the most famous of the creeds, but as time went on other topics were incorporated and deleted, depending on the cultural influences and issues of the time. As denominations proliferated, creeds served to differentiate and identify them, entrenching denominational positions while at the same time exposing the contradictory nature of the various creeds.
We need to ask the question as to on whose authority these creeds were formulated and enshrined. Did they come from God or men? If from God then God is incriminated in self-contradiction, which cannot be true, so they are derived from men. Jeremiah said, It is not in man that walks to direct his steps (10:23) and so if a man does not have the ability to innately direct his spiritual steps he cannot direct the spiritual steps of others. Such automatically makes creeds, which originate with men, unreliable. Our choice lies between the creeds (wisdom) of men and the word (wisdom) of God. Such a choice should not be too difficult. On that day we will be judged, not by the various creeds, but by the words of Christ. (Jn 12:48)
What are the problems with creeds? First, they tend to become the authority, rather than the word of God. A man’s faithful standing is measured by his confession of a creed, rather than by his submission to the word of God. And if the creeds are the authority, what shall we do when they change? In 1910 the Methodist church revised its Discipline. One article in the creed was totally reversed. Prior to 1910 it read….. children are born in sin. When the creed was revised it read… children are born in Christ. A more complete contradiction could not be imagined. If the creed was right BEFORE 1910, it is wrong now, If it is RIGHT now, then it was wrong before 1910. It illustrates the danger in placing one’s faith in the fallible creeds of uninspired men. It’s a pity that the followers of John Wesley would not listen to his words on this point: Would God that all party names and unscriptural phrases and forms which have divided the Christian world were forgotten, and that we, as humble, loving disciples, might sit down at the Master’s feet, read His Holy Word, imbibe His Spirit and transcribe His life into our own. Twenty years ago the Southern Baptist Convention announced a new creedal statement had been approved. The spokesman said that it had not been updated for many years, and it was time to do so. The mind boggles. In contrast, the Bible is a creed that is infallible and needs no revision, being the product of men inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is sufficient to make a person complete ((2 Tim. 3:16,17), but the creeds of men delineate and cement division and confusion. The old hymn, The Church’s One Foundation , has the lament her doctrine rent asunder, by names and creeds distressed..
Second, creeds, by their very nature, do not say enough. As it has been well said, a creed which contains less than the New Testament contains too little, and a creed that contains more than the New Testament contains too much. Now it is obvious that when one quotes a scripture one is quoting less than the New Testament, and one is telling the truth. This is legitimate for Christ and the apostles all quoted individual verses or particular sections of scripture. But this is not the same as a creed which supposedly encapsulates the entirety of an ‘orthodox’ position. Who decides how little or how much of scripture one must subscribe to in order to ‘pass muster’? What is included and what is excluded? What we end up with is some sort of lowest common denominator that has been decided by men.
So, third, the truth is ultimately divided up into necessary and non-necessary components. Though all of scripture is inspired of God ( 2 Tim. 3:16,17), we end up with having various divisions of scripture which are compulsory while others are optional. If a creed is taken faithfully from the Bible, why not let the Bible itself be the creed? Can a creed be better than the Bible? If it is better than the Bible, how so? It ought to be evident that any creed differing from the Bible is objectionable, because its difference proves it to be false. If God saw fit to inspire the entire body of scripture, then wouldn’t that suggest that God thought it was all necessary? The fact differences exist amongst believers is not solved by reducing scripture to a minimum we can agree on, but serves to expose the lack of study and obedience to His word. Ironically, these differences are often perpetuated by the creeds themselves! Rather, let us strive toward the unity of the faith (a unity that already exists because every word of God is pure and therefore consistent and does not have to forged by man) by submitting to all scripture.
Creeds are looked to as a means to forge unity, and unity is a laudable goal. Some suggest that, say, a passage like Eph.4:4-6 is the irreducible minimum and the inexpandable maximum inasfar as the quest for unity is concerned. It talks about things like one God, one body, one baptism etc., but if unity is disrupted Ephesians 4:4-6 gives no aid to restoring fellowship. The passage describes the characteristics of unity, but not how to establish unity. Others suggest other passages but have the same problems. It is the entire New testament that is crucial to that process.
The conclusion of the matter is that all men ought to submit to the New Testament in its entirety, and in doing that men will be pleasing to God and unity will be achieved.