Do you believe in one God who is the creator of heaven and earth? Do you believe in Jesus Christ his only son? Do you believe that Jesus is begotten of the Father and not made? And do you believe that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Son? If your answer is yes, then you believe with all of Christian history in the Trinity. This is the same Trinitarian language used by the Nicene Creed, written in the third century to combat the heresy of Arianism, which believed that Jesus was not divine, but merely a man, just a little bit better than us. He was not equal with God. So why did the Nicene Creed seek to explain the Trinity like this? Why did they not just go to that one biblical passage which explains that God is eternal, that Christ is not begotten, that the Spirit eternally proceeds from Him? Well, because it's not there. There is no scripture which tells us this. Rather, we've got a large scriptural witness which points us to the Trinity. It points us to God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But it was necessary for these early Christians to do theology, to write things down in order to combat what Arius said. This also provides us with language. The sort of language that we might need when we speak to a Muslim, for example, who doesn't believe that Jesus is God. This is essentially what a creed is. The definition of a creed comes from the Latin word credo, which means to believe. A creed is essentially a statement of faith, a statement of what you believe. Even if you say, I don't believe in creeds, you're making a credo claim. Your belief is that you don't believe in creeds. So how did the writers of this early Christian creed decide what to include? Well they used scripture obviously, they used the entire biblical witness as well as the history of the church. They looked at what the apostles taught, they looked at what the early church fathers said about the Trinity, and they saw what Arius said about Jesus is completely different to what all of 300 years of Christian history has taught. Now importantly remember that Arius also used scripture to make his claims. It wouldn't have been enough to say let's agree to disagree on our interpretation since the council saw that these views held about Jesus struck at the vitals of what it means to be a Christian. And this is essentially what all of the ancient creeds tell us. Whether it's the Apostles Creed or the Chalcedonian formula or the Athanasian Creed, it tells us who Christ is. Whether it's in relation to God within the Trinity, like the Nicene Creed, or like the Apostles Creed, which tells us who Christ is as revealed in the Gospels. And this is probably why a lot of the early creeds enjoy widespread use within many church traditions. It's because they point us to the identity of God. Now for many of us it might seem strange to be using documents written by other people alongside the Bible to tell us what the Bible believes. And one of the primary reasons for this is we live in a radical individualized society where everybody has their own truth, their own interpretation of the Bible and their own understanding, which trumps that of the understanding of the church 2000 years. And what do we have as a result of this? Well, we've got Catholics, Lutherans, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Presbyterians, Pentecostals and Baptists all reading the same Bible, yet believing different things. So clearly, there is an issue with just reading the Bible. And if we conclude that the Bible isn't the issue, then it's with us. And it's because we all come to the scriptures wearing different lenses. Nobody is an objective Bible reader. We all seek to make sense of what the Bible teaches and our past and our present influence how we understand the text. The music we listen to, the books we read, the sermons we hear, the way we are raised, our families, all of these things influence what we believe the scriptures teach. So the question that many Christians have is not whether creeds and confessions are something Christians ought to do. We all do this, whether it's formulated using the language of the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed, or whether it's just our personal confession every day when somebody asks us, what do we believe as a Christian? The real question that we need to ask today is whether these old creeds and confessions are biblical. And that is what our sermon today will address. Are creeds biblical? This is the title of today's sermon. And instead of making several points, the sermon will be structured by asking several questions. And these are questions that I myself have had. These are questions that many of you have asked me And perhaps these are questions you haven't thought about yet. And so I will try and address several important questions concerning creeds today and how these relate to the Bible, ultimately pointing to our main question today, are creeds biblical? So our first question then today, do we see creeds in the Bible? This is a very good place to start. If creeds are in the Bible, then we might be able to conclude that they are indeed biblical. So we've heard Israel's Shema, the text in Deuteronomy that we read this morning. Many of us are familiar with this. Yer o Israel, the Lord our God is one. What might not immediately strike us when we read this is that the Shema or the Yer o Israel is actually a confession of Israel's faith as a collective nation. This is their fundamental doctrine, Israel's creed, if you will. At the heart of this confession lies the relationship between Israel and God. And this was the point of this creed or this confession. That Yahweh was supposed to be the sole object of Israel's adoration, affection and allegiance. This was Israel's external profession of faith based on an internal disposition of heart. outward confession mirroring an inward conviction and this is ultimately the purpose of creeds and confessions an outward mirroring of an inward conviction and we'll speak more about this in the sermon today but I I want to point this as we look at the Shema. God wanted his people to profess with their mouth what they believed about him And this provided them with a guardrail to make sure that they stayed within monotheism. This confession reminded Israel that their God was Yahweh. It's impossible to say, Yeru Israel, the Lord our God is one, and then bow down to idols. The Shema served as Israel's creed in order to remind them daily as they recited this, that their God is a jealous God and that he will not be worshipped alongside others. So why was it necessary for Israel's faith to be guardrailed? I mean, surely the law of Moses was enough guardrail. Surely they should have just gone to the Ten Commandments, read the first commandment and concluded, well, God is a jealous God, we should not worship any others. Why was there a need for this sort of creed? And this is the question many have today. Why do we need these guardrails if we have the Bible? If the creeds are based on the Bible, then aren't they unnecessary? Should we not just read the Bible? And on the surface, this is very compelling, but it misses two important aspects of our faith, as well as Israel's faith. Our faith is personal and it is particular. We see the personal nature of Israel's faith with God in the first words, Yer o Israel. This means that any Israelite who recited the Shema would be immediately struck at their core. Since this wasn't something meant for the other nations, it wasn't meant for other people. It was meant for Israel specifically. The Lord, our God. The Lord is one. Again, we see this personal relationship between God and his people. He's our God. He's not some God out there. He's our God. And then I also said our faith is particular. What was the one thing Israel struggled with particularly? If you said idolatry, you'd be correct. So this confession that God is one strikes at the particular sin which Israel struggled with. They needed a daily reminder that their God is the only one. Even though the law told them they could have reflected on the law daily. Yet here we see this confession necessary to remind them that God does not want to be worshipped alongside other gods. So yes, the Lord told them that Yahweh is the only God, yet they needed a personal and particular reminder that this was the truth. This is what creeds and confessions do as well. All of them are personal and address particular issues. Think of it. Many churches start the Apostles Creed like this. Christian, what do you believe and what are you willing to die for? These are personal questions. What do you believe? What are you willing to die for? The Nicene Creed using personal language yet it addresses a particular issue. Particular issue being the Trinity and making sure that we reflect on Christ not being just some form of higher human being but actually being God. I mean Perhaps you're still not convinced. The Shema is after all in the Bible mandated by God. Perhaps creeds and confessions are just tradition handed down from man to man. So page with me if you will to 1st Corinthians 15. We read this this morning. I'm just going to read it again. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and he appeared to Cephas and then to the twelve. So here we see Paul delivering to the Corinthians something of first importance. And I mean these things are important. Christ died, he was buried, he was raised, and he appeared to the apostles. This is the heart of the gospel. Essentially Paul is sharing the gospel with the Corinthians, something which we are all called to do. It is interesting that Paul before citing the gospel, before telling them the content of the message, he says that he is going to give them something which he received, passing on to them, delivering to the Corinthians something which he received. I don't know who of you did athletics when you were in high school, but there's a relay event which you use a baton, where the one guy runs 100 meters, gives a baton to the next guy and he runs, and if the guy drops it, they're essentially out of the race. This is what we see here. Paul received something, the gospel, and he's handing it over to the Corinthians as a baton, essentially expecting them to do the same thing. Here Paul is stressing the continuity of tradition. This is what tradition is. It's sharing that which we have received with either the next generation, our friends, our family. Paul is reminding the Corinthians of the basics of the Christian faith in this passage. Many commentators say that this was probably one of the earliest creeds in the early church. That Christ was crucified, buried and raised on the third day. Compare that to what we say in the Apostles Creed. I believe in Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried, descended into hell on the third day, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. The language is fairly similar. So, we see the gospel presented to the Corinthians by Paul as a tradition being received, and we see the gospel presented in the Apostles' Creed as well. So to answer the first question, do we see creeds in the Bible professing our faith? Yes, we see God's people using biblical language in a personal and particular way to reflect on who God is. Also providing God's people with a guardrail to make sure that they remain faithful to his word. But secondly, we also see these beliefs being handed down as tradition. We do not see tradition being something frowned upon by God or being frowned upon by the apostles. So this leads to a second question. So, okay, we see creeds in the Bible. We see examples in the Jews. We see examples in the early Christians writing down the things which they believed. Why did they do this? The second question is why is it important to know what we believe? Why is it important to know what we believe? I mentioned that the Shema as well as the creeds and confessions are an outward confession which mirrors an inward conviction. And this points to two important aspects relating to our lives as Christians. There's an outward aspect to being Christians and there's an inward aspect to being a Christian. So two examples of why it is important to know what we believe outwardly. Firstly, we need to know what we believe in order that we may be able to instruct future generations. Many parents here would know that in order to teach your children something, you need to actually know about the thing which you are teaching them. Similarly, pastors or teachers in the church need to know something about the Bible before they preach the Bible to their congregation. And so we see an example of this in the book of Exodus. Those with your Bibles, turn with me to pay to Exodus 13 verse 14. So as you're turning there, I'm just going to give you some context. We see God commanding Israel with this task. to tell their children about his deliverance of them in Egypt. As they partake of the Passover, they're supposed to reenact, remember, and rationalize the Passover. And so essentially what the Passover is, it's sharing a meal that reminded the Israelites of the rushing out of Egypt and God's deliverance and God's faithfulness of them. And in Exodus 13 we find this interesting command of God. Exodus 13 14. And when in time to come your son asks you, what does this mean? Referring to the Passover. You shall say to him, by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt from the house of slavery For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrificed to the Lord all the males that first opened the womb, but all of the firstborn of my sons I redeemed. So as Israelite families gathered and partook of this meal, God knew that the young in the family would come to the dad or the mother and ask them, why are we doing this? And we have young children in the church, you know, many times kids see us doing something and they're like, why are you doing this? So as these children partook of the Passover, Their parents had to explain to them the significance of this meal. They would recall God's mighty deliverance of them from this powerful Pharaoh and that God's judgment fell upon the firstborn of Egypt, killing the firstborn. God gave his word to his people in Egypt that he would deliver them, and then he delivered them. And then he gave them this way of celebrating his deliverance. And so parents had to explain to their children why they're doing this. God essentially instructed the Israelites to pass their knowledge down to the next generation, explain to them the significance of what God has done and who God is. Similar to first Corinthians, we see here a divinely commanded tradition within the Jewish religion. We see God commanding parents to explain to their children what he had done and who he is. They are to confess to their children the works of God. This is how tradition was passed down, in order that children might also, alongside their parents, be able to confess who God is. Another reason why this outward expression of our faith is important is when non-believers come to us. How many times have non-believers come with arguments and questions to you and you've struggled to make a defense for your faith? Well, we see in scripture in 1 Peter 3 that we should always be prepared to make a defense if anybody asks you for the hope that is within you, doing so with gentleness and with respect. And this is the second aspect of why it is important to know and articulate what we believe. We need to know what we believe in order to defend the hope within us. But we also need to know how to articulate our faith. This is, in my opinion, one of the biggest reasons why creeds and confessions are so helpful. They provide us with the language to defend our faith and the hope within us. So yes, 100% without doubt, the Bible should inform our faith and it is the standard by which we believe. Yet the creeds and confessions provide us with a biblical, personal, and particular way to address concerns regarding the faith. So two examples of this. Why are you called a Christian? Perhaps you've heard this question being asked of you. Why are you called a Christian? And for many of us it's like, yeah, well, I believe in Jesus, I believe in Christ, I'm a Christian. It's actually not a very easy question to answer. In Aribocatechism question 32, we find this answer to the exact same question. because by faith I am a member of Christ and thus a partaker of his anointing in order that I also may confess his name may present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to him and that with a free conscience I may fight against sin and the devil in this life and hereafter in eternity reign with him over all creatures. We are given the language to make a defense for the hope that is within us bearing the name of Christ. Or perhaps you've been asked about life everlasting. Many atheists don't believe that there's anything after this life. And we as Christians say that our hope is eternity. We believe in eternal life. So what happens when we die exactly? Do we go to heaven? Do we remain in the crown until Christ comes back? What exactly happens when we die? Westminster 32 tells us that the bodies of men after death return to dust and seek corruption, but their souls, having an immortal substance, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous being made perfect in holiness are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. Besides these two places for souls separated from their bodies, the scriptures acknowledge as none. Again, we're provided biblical, personal, and particular language addressing an issue regarding life after death, which is a question that we find very difficult to answer. Many of us have difficulties responding to questions and defending the faith. And so while I'm not telling us to run outside the Bible to seek answers, we find language and scriptures providing us with hope or a crutch, if you will, to make a defense for the hope within us. So we see biblical creeds running in two directions. They look back at what God has done, erecting monuments to remind the church of what he has done, but they also lean forward to educate the children and the church of what God has done and what he will continue to do. The scriptures instruct the church to take the Bible's teaching to study the Bible, to understand the Bible, and to proclaim the truth of the Bible to our friends, to our peers, to our children, in our own words, both to catechize children and to make a defense for our faith. And for this task, Christ has given the church teachers. Puritan Thomas Manton tells us that Christ has given prophets and apostles to the church to write scripture. But he has also given pastors and teachers to open and apply the scriptures so that it still might be delivered to the saints and to vindicate doctrine when it is opposed. And we see doctrine being opposed in every time, in every century. If you take church history, I mean, we can see Athanasius opposing Arius. We find Augustine standing against Pelagius. We find Martin Luther standing against Rome. We find Christians standing against false doctrine. We find teachers of the church standing against false doctrine throughout the ages. And creeds and confessions have provided these men with the language to do so for the ages. So in short, the Bible mandates the creation of a biblically subordinated tradition for the edification of the church and for the defense of the faith. The Bible tells us that we as Christians have something to profess to a dying world. We have something to tell this world that is perishing. It is as important for us to know what we believe as it is for our children to know what we believe. So these are the two outward ways in which the creeds and confessions instruct us. But I say that the creeds and confessions mirror an inward conviction. So how will we convince anybody of anything if we don't know what we believe? And so from the outset here I want to reiterate that the Bible is the foundation for what we believe as Christians. We find everything that pertains to life and godliness in the scriptures. The Bible is the rule of faith of life, the rule of faith and of life for us as Christians and every creed and confession is subordinate to the scriptures. So then why? Why do we need them to inform what we believe or profess? Well, for the same reason that the Israelites professed the Shema, even though they had the law. For the same reason why parents told their children what God has done, even though Moses wrote down what God had done in Egypt. For the same reason we use the creeds to make a defense for the hope within us, even though we have the Bible. They provide us with personal, publicly informed language to make sense of who God is and what we ought to believe about Him. In the same way that the creeds provide us with the language to make a defense for the hope within us, they also provide us with the language in our own personal lives to make sense of who God is. And they also correct us in the areas where we might be wrong. You know, we see many sects using the Bible as a justification for all sorts of heresies. And this is where the creeds and confessions are a helpful sort of guardrail, which keeps us within the bounds of what Scripture teaches. For example, if we hear somebody coming and telling us that Jesus was just a man created by God, We can with certainty say, along with those who drafted the Nicene Creed, that Jesus was indeed not created but rather begotten of God. It's important to articulate what we believe, that we might educate our children, that we might be able to make a defense for our faith. But it's also important for us to know what we believe in order that we might worship God rightly. Church, if we worship a God of our own understanding, we're ultimately worshiping an idol. We need to worship the God of the Bible as He has revealed Himself in the Bible. We are able to confess with Christians for the last 2,000 years who this God is. And this statement saying that we confess something with the church of 2,000 years leads to a third question. And the question is, are creeds and confessions not just dead orthodoxy? Are consulting the works of dead people and the writings of dead people not something that's dead? Is there any life in doing this? Hebrews 12 tells us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Therefore, we should lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and run this race set before us with endurance, looking to Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith. I really like this image being used in Hebrews where we're almost given this glimpse into the Christian life being a race in this big Olympic stadium with a great crowd of spectators, being a great cloud of witnesses. Now in the context of the previous verse, we know that this great cloud of witnesses is the saints, the saints going before us. And their witness of us is not just some spectators watching us, but rather they're testifying. Their life is testifying to us how we ought to run this race. The saints before us, the great cloud of witnesses surround us, filling the front rows of the stadium. From the first row, way to the back, we see the great saints standing with their gold medals, saying that they've run this race with endurance. They're sitting in the presence of God. Now for us as Christians, these great saints who've made it, they've done this Christian life, they've endured, it's similar to a runner running and looking up seeing Jesse Owens or Carl Lewis or Usain Bolt standing there and giving them encouragement. It's a runner running, seeing all of those who have actually done this and completed this race. Here we have Enoch, Abraham, Moses, David, all surrounding us. watching what we do, how we run this race, the race which they have indeed finished. We as Christians are not in this alone. As much as our individualized culture would like to tell us that we're running this Christian race on a treadmill at home personally just running along, the scripture shows us that we're actually surrounded by the saints that go before us observing how we run this race. and we would do well to learn from them. We have much to learn from the life of Noah, both in his trust of God and his failings. We have so much to learn from David, who was a man of their God's own heart, but had immense flaws as well. The lives of the apostles can teach us how to be bold in the face of persecutions and not wavering in the preaching of the gospel. Yet there's also much to learn from Augustine's confessions. or Martin Luther who did not relent on the sufficiency of Scripture. We can learn from John Bunyan and George Muller on what it means to trust God, and from men like George Whitefield and Hudson Taylor on what it means to count the cost in following Christ, going and preaching the gospel on the mission field. We as Christians are surrounded by the great saints looking at our lives as examples and we should look at their lives as examples and learn from them as they're currently sitting in the glory of God. They've actually done the thing which we are all doing right now. The creeds therefore do not only provide us with a glimpse into the lives of those who went before us, but it also tells us what they believed. It gives us a glimpse into the theology and the beliefs and the profession of this great cloud of witnesses. How did they articulate their faith in the midst of controversy? How did they make a defense for the hope within them? How did they catechize their children? It is important to consult the work and lives of those who went before us, as we have much to learn from them. Let us not fall into this modern trap of individualism, which sees a personal relationship with Jesus as the be-all and end-all of the Christian life. Yes, we do have a personal relationship with Jesus. Yes, we should read the Word of God and interpret it for ourselves and make sense of what it says. But we should also realize that we have been given a great tradition with personal, particular, and biblical language, which we can use to educate our children. We can use it to make a defense for the hope within us. We're surrounded by a great cloud of the saints that went before us, witnessing and watching how we're running this race, watching what we're doing with the things being given to us. So are creeds biblical? I would argue that yes, we see examples of creeds in the Bible. We see the importance of sharing our beliefs, our tradition with the next generation. We see in scripture the importance of articulating what we believe. We see that the things and the people of the past are not something to be disregarded. And we would be wise to do theology with the saints of the past, with the church of the last 2000 years, as they are all witnesses of the race which we are currently running. And with that, I would truly encourage us to think about this. as we as a church have confessions and creeds which we believe are important. So as we join for lunch this afternoon and perhaps for dinner during the week, I would truly invite questions from you guys. It would be nice to speak about this. But my heart and my hope with this sermon is that after today, we would see that these things are not just dead orthodoxy traditions written by men, but that these things are biblical, personal, a way for us to defend our faith and a way for us to be informed of the faith of our tradition of the last 2000 years. Let's close with prayer.