E-Book, Englisch, 96 Seiten
DeYoung The Nicene Creed
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-4335-5978-5
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection
What You Need to Know about the Most Important Creed Ever Written
E-Book, Englisch, 96 Seiten
Reihe: Foundational Tools for Our Faith
ISBN: 978-1-4335-5978-5
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection
Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte. He has written books for children, adults, and academics, including Just Do Something; Impossible Christianity; Daily Doctrine; and The Biggest Story Bible Storybook. Kevin's work can be found on clearlyreformed.org. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children.
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Weitere Infos & Material
1
The first word of the Nicene Creed is pisteuomen in Greek, or “we believe” in English. In Latin, the first word is credimus. The verb credo (“I believe”) is where we get the English word “creed.” A creed is something that the church is called to believe. We can think of creeds as statements about the God in whom we believe, while confessions are statements—usually longer and more comprehensive—about what we believe.1
Creeds and confessions are a response to the New Testament commands not to teach any different doctrine (1 Tim. 1:3), to follow good doctrine (4:6), to keep a close watch on the teaching (4:16), to teach the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness (6:3), to follow the pattern of sound words (2 Tim. 1:13), to hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, to instruct others in good theology, and to disprove the bad theology of those who disagree with sound doctrine (Titus 1:9).
Think of how important it is in the New Testament that God’s people believe the right things. Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” implying that knowing his true identity was of paramount importance (Matt. 16:13). The post-Pentecost disciples devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, the first mark of the primitive church (Acts 2:42). Paul often talked about the necessity of believing and confessing (Rom. 10:9–10) and of passing on the gospel tradition he had received (1 Cor. 15:3–11). The Epistles are full of early creedal statements such as “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5) and “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). God’s people are sometimes charged according to sacred truths about Christ (1 Tim. 6:13–16; 2 Tim. 4:1–2). In many places we see that the essence of the earliest Christian confession is that Jesus Christ is Lord (1 Cor. 12:3; Phil. 2:11).
The importance of orthodox theology in the early church cannot be overstated. Paul repeatedly tells Timothy to guard the deposit of apostolic truth entrusted to him (1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 1:13–14) and pass it on to others (2 Tim. 2:1–2). As a pastor in particular, Timothy must be able to teach (1 Tim. 3:2) and to correct his opponents with gentleness (2 Tim. 2:25). Similarly, Paul tells Titus he must be “able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9; cf. 1:13). There is a core of apostolic teaching that the Christian church must embrace if it is to be Christian and if it is to be a church.
Roman Religion
When we consider the context of the ancient world, it is amazing that doctrine should have been so nonnegotiable for the early church. Like the Jewish soil out of which it grew, Christianity believed in the supreme importance of certain beliefs. To be a Christian was to affirm specific facts about history (“Christ died . . .”) and a divinely inspired interpretation of those facts (“. . . for our sins”). From the very beginning, the Christian faith was irreducibly doctrinal.
This was not the case with Roman religion. We can think of traditional religion in the ancient Roman world as being expressed in four ways. These ways were usually more overlapping than mutually exclusive.
First and foremost, Roman religion was expressed as cultic ritual. The word cultic here doesn’t refer to a fringe religious group with a charismatic leader. I’m using the word in the more academic sense of referring to a system of practices and rites associated with worship. Romans believed things about their religion, but doctrinal definition was far less important than what took place with sacrifices, priests, and temples. Their religion often looks like superstition to us because there were always rites to observe or rituals to perform if people wanted good things to happen in their lives, in their families, and in their cities. Even today many religions around the world are about ritual observances more than anything else.
Second, Roman religion could also involve ecstatic experiences. While these experiences didn’t appeal to everyone (just as they don’t appeal to everyone today), they were important elements for many people. Smells, lights, sounds, touch, movement, music, food, drinks, and often sexual activity—these were often associated with religious observance in the ancient world.
Third, Roman religion could also include a variety of specific mystery religions. The word mystery here doesn’t mean spooky; think more of the word club. Adherents of mystery religions had secret rites, they shared meals, they wore specific clothing, and they revered oracles that claimed to speak for the divine or speak about the future. They were secret societies that provided benefits and shared experiences for their members.
Finally, Roman religion was inevitably bound up with civic virtue. Almost any kind of religion could be tolerated, as long as it didn’t upset the peace of Rome and didn’t undermine the honored position of the emperor. Giving explicit worship to the emperor—through sacrifices, oaths, and prescribed affirmations—was considered essential to the well-being of the empire.
I’ve painted with a broad brush, but it’s important to note that in none of these four overlapping expressions of religion is doctrine terribly important. The Romans had lots of stories about their own history and about the pantheon of gods and goddesses. To be sure, ancient people believed many things. But buttoning up your beliefs, carefully defining your beliefs, and conceiving of your whole religion as irreducibly bound up with certain beliefs—this was not how faith typically worked in the ancient world. Do the rituals (at least a few of them), pay homage to the gods and goddesses (the ones that work for you), and don’t rock the boat. That was the Roman way.
The Rule of Faith
Sadly, within some Christian traditions today, we see that doctrine is downplayed. We hear people talk about how right living (orthopraxy) is more important than right belief (orthodoxy) and how the Great Commission and the Great Commandment should caution us against spending too much time wrangling about doctrine. Almost all of us have heard the phrase (meant to be a good thing) that someone is “spiritual, not religious.” Even in evangelical churches, we too often settle for vague generalities. We are impatient with technical terms and careful reasoning. We prefer devotional platitudes instead of doctrinal precision.
But that’s not how the early Christians viewed their faith, at least not the ones who had enough education to write about their beliefs. Already in the second century, the church father Irenaeus (ca. 130–202) was referring to something called the “rule of faith.” And Irenaeus was only a couple of generations removed from the apostles. John had been Jesus’s disciple. He heard Jesus teach with his own ears; he saw the miracles with his own eyes; he was there on the Mount of Transfiguration, there at the empty tomb, and there in the upper room at Pentecost. This same John taught Polycarp (69–155), the famous (and ultimately martyred) bishop of Smyrna, who in turn taught Irenaeus.
In the second century, Irenaeus was a great champion for orthodoxy against the heresies of the Gnostics. How Irenaeus combated the Gnostics was almost as important as the specific arguments he made. He quoted from the Old Testament and from many of the documents we now know as the New Testament. In defending the truth, Irenaeus brought everything back to the past. That is, he tested everything against what had already been taught, what had been received, and what had been written down. He appealed, ultimately, to a “rule of faith”—a deposit of apostolic doctrine that had to be believed and should not be spoken against.2
In arguing this way, Irenaeus was articulating a Christian instinct that had been in the church from the beginning. Take the Apostles’ Creed, which probably originated in the middle of the second century, growing out of liturgical formulas already present in the church and called a “symbol of the faith” (“symbol” here is a technical term meaning “a formal authoritative statement or summary of the religious belief of the Christian church”3). Three questions were put to adults coming for baptism:
1. “Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty?”
2. “Do you believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and was dead and buried, and rose again the third day, alive from among the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead?”
3. “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, in the holy church, and in the resurrection...
