Monday 5/9

The Traditions of Our Faith

The Apostles’ Creed

Lesson Two

 

 Tonight we begin with the statement that it is more important to know the meaning of the phrases than it is to know the origin of the Creed.  We accept the fact that the Church thought it to be important that each single statement in the Creed be related to the Scriptures, or – at the very least – be found in the writings of the Early Church Fathers who were the interpreters of the faith for the Church in the first six centuries.  It will be our task tonight and next week to ferret out the essential meaning and sometimes question the meaning that has been layered on these thoughts by later generations.  It is important, however, to remember that we are dealing with theology, a word that refers to our thoughts about God.  We have not yet been assigned the role of keeper of God’s important truths, an indication that we humans do make mistakes.  Our study may lead us to different interpretations of the same phrase, but this does not mean that either of us is right or wrong.  It simply means, as one eminent theologian has said, “We are all beggars seeking a crust of bread and willing to share what we find.”

 

“I believe in God the Father Almighty”

 

Although the exact phrase does not appear anywhere in Scripture, it is an obvious interpretation of what the Bible says.  So, let’s start at the beginning with the phrase that is dependent upon the first four words of the Bible – “In the beginning God…”  In a sense, “God” is a given!  As we continue in the first verses, we discover the power of God, the “Almighty” part of the statement.  God is Creator of all, everything!  That reveals his “almighty” characteristic, and it is repeated in an exact way, immediately:  “maker of heaven and earth”  A convert from Judaism would have no difficulty with the Creed thus far.  Now, in between God and Almighty, another word has appeared – “Father.”   Even here, there would be little difficulty in a convert from Judaism, but there would be a slightly different interpretation.  

 

In the Old Testament – Volume One of the Christian’s Bible – we discover that the Psalmist refers to God as “father to the fatherless and protector of widows”. [1] Another Psalm states “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on  those who fear him”[2] But, more than that, the image of God as caretaker, protector, sustainer – those things that might be associated with a parent – are an underlying theme.  The father image is compatible to the image of God as Creator.  That image is strengthened through the Old Testament by the scriptures’ insistence that God gave special care to the nation Israel, watched over “their comings and goings”, as the Psalmist declares.  Indeed, the Old Testament is the archival record of God’s dealings with Israel.  All history is seen in this light!

 

 

Now, let’s shift gears for a moment and look in on Israel in the years of the Eighth Century BC.  Things are relatively quiet in Israel, but it was the quiet before approaching death, that time when the body is wracked by a terminal illness.  In 742 BC, with terrible quickness, Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria struck at the northern borders of Israel, and – at the same time – a devastating earthquake shook the southern portion of the land.  It appeared to the people that the whole of Israel was being torn apart, figuratively and literally.  A prophet of the Lord, the man they called Isaiah, stepped to the center of confusion and announced that this was the result of Israel’s behavior:  they had been acting, he said, “like a wayward son of God”.  This is the first reference to a father-son relationship applied to God.  But, note that it is applied to the nation of Israel, not to an individual.  Occasionally, however, it was applied to the King, but only in the sense that he represented the nation.  In the New Testament, the relationship speaks only of Jesus’ relationship to God.

 

The Christian view of the word “Father” as it is used in the Creed, therefore, lends itself to a different interpretation than Judaism might hold.  Indeed, there is agreement in God as Father of the Universe and all that is in it, but there is a further reach – God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We realize, of course, that Jesus used the word “Father” in describing his relationship with God, using even the most intimate address, Abba (Daddy).  He made it reach further by saying that God is our Father, as well.  It gives us confidence to proclaim, in the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father, who art in heaven”.  The idea of the fatherhood of God is rather commonplace in religion today, but at the time of Jesus it was revolutionary. God was considered “holy” of course, but the meaning of holy is “separate”, “different”, “the wholly other”.  Sometimes the world, especially the Greeks,  viewed God as withdrawn, detached, and indifferent. Men did not comprehend such an intimate relationship with God.  Jesus made the sense of fatherhood reach as near to us as a father is to his child.

 

To summarize the first statement in the Creed:  we believe in a God whose infinite power, revealed as Creator, is invested also in unending love for his creatures, in the image of a father with his children.

 

“Maker of heaven and earth”

 

We have already touched on the definitive statement of creation in the first four words of the Bible.  But there is more!  The Prophet Isaiah describes God as the one

 

                        who created the heavens and stretched them out,

                        who spread forth the earth and what comes with it,

                        who gives breath to the people upon it,

                        and spirit to those who walk in it.

 

And again the Prophet hears God say,

 

                        I made the earth,

                        and created man upon it;

                        it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,

                        and I commanded all their hosts.[1]

 

Now here is a question that begs to be answered:  how did God create the world?

 

Was it by a simple six days work of miracles “and then he rested”?  If not literal, then what does the Genesis story mean?  Or was it “the big bang theory” in which some sudden collision of some things in space met and the world was the result?  Or was it a gradual “coming into being” kind of thing in which one form took another and the result, eventually, was humankind, standing on its hind legs and getting into all kind of trouble.  To spend an inordinate time on such questions is to forget that our time on earth is limited to somewhere what the Bible says is our “three score and ten” (or was that Lincoln?)  The greater statement is a simple one:  we are not wise to the ways of God – God’s ways are not our ways, and out understanding of such things is limited.  Our answer should be “God created the heavens and the earth…”.

 

There’s a story about the lady who was a member of

                        Harry Emerson Fosdick’s congregation in NYC when

                        he preached a series of sermons on the creation of the

                        world.  This was at the height of the arguments that

                        raged between the Evolutionist who espoused a slowly

growing creation and the Creationist who believed in

a six day progression as recorded in Genesis.  This debate

was some sixty to seventy years ago. The lady was not

sure which theory she believed, because she had it all figured

 out, she said.  God created the world and put it on the back of

                        great turtle who is slowly moving it across space. Dr. Fosdick

                        asked “How did the turtle come?” and she replied,

“Another turtle.”  When he asked “How did that turtle come

                        ?” she replied, “It was always turtles; it was turtles all the

way down!”

 

Is it important to know all the natural and mechanical laws that allow a huge aircraft to ascend into the heavens before we set foot on it, on a trip to see the grandchildren in some far reaches of the world?  Or do we simply trust?  I do not arise each morning wondering how God created the world;  it is enough for me to know that when I open the front door, the world will still be there.

 

The ancient Greeks had a wonderful concept of God’s relationship to the world.  They believed – and passed on to us in one form or another – in the “three storied universe”.  There was earth, the underground and the firmament.  Up in the firmament (the arch of

the heavens) there was a little trapdoor that occasionally opened and allow God to peer through to check on his creation.  God – and/or the gods – lived beyond the firmament that was visible to the naked eye.

 

The ancient Christians, on the other hand, saw God as much more involved in the world – through Jesus Christ, God incarnate, God come to earth.   And that brings us to…

 

“and in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord”

 

When we have been talking about the Almighty God, we have been reaching into the timeless spheres of eternity.  On the other hand, when the subject of Jesus is introduced, we find ourselves in the realm of time and history, and of historical events which are at the base of our creedal statements.  Helmut Thielicke, a German theologian of the Nineteen Fifties, said that the only way to see Jesus is through the eyes of the people who knew him and “…were overwhelmed by him”.  These are the witnesses upon whom we want the faith statements to be tested.

 

The Creed refers to Christ by his given name – Jesus.  Last week we remembered the importance of a name in the ancient world. in the Jewish home, the name that was applied at birth most often reflected the hope of the parents for the child, an expression of the faith of the family, or a circumstance of the birth.  When Jacob was born just seconds after his brother Esau, the Bible records that he had grasp his bothers ankle in the birth canal;  therefore, his name Jacob is said to mean “one who takes the heel” or “one who supplants”.  And indeed he did supplant, stealing by deception his older brother’s birthright.  His name, remember, is later changed to reflect his new nature – it become Israel which means “one who strives with God”, and it reflects the dream of wrestling with God at the foot of what we call Jacob’s ladder.[1]

So, what does the name Jesus mean?  it is a statement of his mother Mary’s faith and it means “Yahweh is salvation”.  It is the name that the Angel Gabriel decrees in his visit to Mary.  As we previously mentioned, it was a rather common name at the time of his birth.  The historian Josephus mentions no fewer than twenty people named Jesus, ten of whom are contemporary to Jesus.  Five of the chief priests at the Temple were named Jesus, and a magician mentioned in both Colossians 4:11 and Acts 13:6 is named Bar-Jesus.  It is significant that the Creed gives first his human name, as if to emphasize the humanity of Jesus.

 

The Creed also uses the name Christ, the Greek form of the Hebrew word Messiah, a word that often appears in the Hebrew Bible (that is, the Old Testament), referring to the deep desire of the people for one who comes by God to save them.  Now, the Creed could have used the word Savior, but this is a word that was commonly used among the pre-Jesus people to express their needs.  They applied it to their governors, as well as wealthy merchants and national heroes.  In this sense, the very word had been devalued.  The word Messiah is a better choice.

 

The Creed designates Jesus as the only son of God.  Why?  To the Jew who was looking for a Messiah, the word would have a certain importance.  In the Scriptures, certain kings were referred to a “the son of God”.  Indeed, a whole line of kings of Israel – good and bad – were so called.  But the word only elevates Jesus past those kings, putting him far above mere human rulers, and in a relationship with God shared by no other.  And, too, we have to acknowledge that in the generation of Jesus, there were many others who roamed the land, claiming to be “messiah” or “son of God”.  This use of the word only  was to set Jesus apart. The relationship between Jesus and God is unique. Jesus is exclusive!

 

The modifier Our makes it personal.  Judaism would declare that the Messiah was to come as the saving force for only the nation of Israel, for Israel was God’s only concern. It sounds like the Creed was devised only for a certain group of people, too.  But the our is not to make you and I the exclusive possessors of the Messiah:  it is to make definite not that Jesus Christ belongs exclusively to us, but that we belong exclusively to him.  It is our statement that we have pledged ourselves only to him!  There are no other Messiahs, no other anointed ones we have chosen to follow.  Jesus Christ is not among those whom we follow:  he is the One whom we follow.

 

The word Lord was not as exclusive as we have chosen to make it in our generation and vernacular (except in British royalty).  It was a rather common title of respect in Biblical times.  It was freely applied to royalty, of course, but also to property owners.  However, when it was committed to writing in the New Testament – some 600 times – it always and only applied to Jesus.  The New Testament set aside the title beginning with its common to its holy use.

 

The word Lord connotes absolute ownership.  It expresses the right of the owner to do absolutely whatever he wants to do with his property.  To the Christian, it means that we belong absolutely to the Lord – a title applied to God in the Old Testament and to Jesus in the New Testament.  The Apostle Paul suggests that we “have been bought with a price”, referring to a practice of the time by which a slave could buy his own freedom.  In the Greek and Roman world, some slaves had limited free time in which they could sell their services in the marketplace.  The money they earned might be taken to a priest at a temple of their choice and deposited.  It would be held in their name until they had accumulated whatever was the agreed upon going price for a slave at that time.  Then the priest would stand with the master and the slave to announce that a sufficient amount of money was to be given to the master and that the slave was now the property of the god in whose name the money had been kept.  The god had bought him and he was therefore free of any human constraints. Jesus paid the ultimate price for us, and we are now his!

 

“Conceived by the Holy Ghost and Born of the Virgin Mary”

 

And now we move into an area that is contradictory to the contemporary world. It is out of the realm of our ordinary life.  Here we have to remember the dictum about our study: it is not what we find in our contemporary world that brought this statement into the Creed, but what the early Christian church found in their beliefs.  There is little doubt that the belief came early to the Creed:  it was a common belief in the early church.  However, right at the beginning, let me remind you that a belief in the Virgin Birth is not essential to your faith nor is a rejection of it heresy.  And here’s how it happened!

 

The first century Christian and Jew would have little reason to doubt such a statement, for the Old Testament firmly places the Spirit in the role of creator.  Look back in Genesis at the second verse of the very first chapter:

 

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was

                        upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving

                        over the face of the waters.

 

The Spirit was a partner in Creation, the giver of life.  And so the Creed is affirming what we already know:  God is the father of the Son in the same manner that God is the father of all creation.  The First Century Jew always acknowledged the role of the Spirit in the birth of any child, saying “There are three partners in the production of any human being- the Holy One, blessed be he, the father and the mother.”  Their rationale is obvious:  conception does not always take place, and when it does, it is a special gift of God. Remember, to have a child is the purpose of marriage in the First Century, and a barren woman was thought to be out of favor with God. (Remember the story of Samuel’s mother and her shame of being barren;  remember the story of Sarah and her delight  that  she was to finally bear a child, even in old age)

 

There are two sides to a belief in the Virgin Birth

 

First, the two passages upon which such a belief is based:  Matthew1:18-24 which defines the relationship of Joseph and Mary as “betrothal” which, as we have heard so many times, is a step somewhat similar to an elevated concept of engagement.  Had Joseph died during the year of betrothal, Mary would have been considered “a virgin who is a widow”.  The couple were pledged to one another and could even live together, but they were not to become sexual partners in that period of time.

 

Matthew cites a passage in the Prophet Isaiah 7:14 as his evidence.

 

            Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.  Behold a young

            woman shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name

            Immanuel (God is with us).

 

The other passage is the Luke 1:26-38 wherein the angel Gabriel visits and tells Mary that she will have a baby, the work of the Holy Spirit.

 

            In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of

            Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name

            was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.”

 

Whatever else we might think, it was obvious to the 1^st Century Christian that Mary was the mother of Jesus and that she was indeed a virgin at his conception.  The early church fathers had no difficulty in accepting this, and we have several writings to this effect.

 

Just another note. The early church fathers believed that only the father

            was important in the conception of a child, for it was the sperm of the

            father that created the fetus. The mother was only the vessel in which

            the baby was carried until birth.  This was a prevailing view until the

            early 1700’s when the mother’s egg was discovered to be part of the

            process of conception.

 

Based on the theological view, it could be argued that if God was to make a special entry into the world, he might well do it in a special kind of way. . But remember,  the early Jew would not ask “Did it happen?” but “What does this teach?”  So, let’s look at the other side of the coin.

 

There are some problems with the scripture itself.  Not all early manuscripts agree.  The earliest manuscript that we have, after Christ, is the Syriac mss. It comes to us based on the early second century and it simply records the Matthew passage as “Joseph, to whom  was betrothed Mary the virgin, begot Jesus, who is called the Christ.” (1:16)  Another early manuscript leaves out the verse in Luke where Mark says “How can this be for I have no husband.”  She says simply, “Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

 

This does not deny the Virgin Birth, it only means that not everybody was aware of the belief.

 

Did Isaiah mean that a child would soon be born who would indeed

            deliver Ahaz’ nation out of its troubles?  A savior?

 

            Or did the Prophet intend this to be a prophecy of the future, not to

            be associated with the present time, but the time of Matthew?

 

In all likelihood, Isaiah was a prophet of his time, speaking a word of comfort to his king.

 

An now we come to the word that Isaiah used.  In the Hebrew language it means “a young girl of marriageable age”.  This is not the Hebrew word for virgin.  That word is definite: “bethulah”.  But, here’s the problem:  for some reason, when the scholars translated the word almah into the Septuagint they used the Greek word for “virgin”.  In three subsequent versions of the Septuagint, however, the word is dropped and the proper word for “young girl of marriageable age” is substituted.

 

Perhaps something else ought to be added:  the New Testament makes no further statement about the circumstances of Jesus’ birth other than the two passages in Matthew and Luke.  It is not mentioned in either Mark or John, Paul does not mention it (and indeed seems to make every effort to remind us that Jesus was born and lived exactly as we were born and do live), and none of the “pastoral letters” of the New Testament allude to it.  In addition, when the genealogies are included in the Gospels, they invariably trace the lineage of Jesus through Joseph (not Mary) in order to bring him into the lineage of King David, a necessary birth line to fulfill prophecies.  But, enough!  A belief or unbelief is simply not necessary to our belief in Jesus as Lord and Savior, Son of God.

 

“Suffered under Pontus Pilate”

 

Isn’t it interesting that the only human name mentioned in the Creed is the name of a Roman governor who was guilty of carrying out the horrible crime against Jesus? This statement in the Creed roots Jesus firmly in history, at an exact time when Pilate ruled in Galilee, between the years 26 and 36 A.D.  We know him as a man who did wrong things because he was afraid to do the right thing.  John even tells us that Pilate sought to release Jesus – tried several different stratagems – but failed.  What you might know about Pilate is that he is considered a saint in the Abyssinian and Coptic churches! His saint say is June 25^th.  And here’s the story.

 

                       Tiberius, the Caesar, was frightened when darkness fell over

                        the earth at the death of Jesus, and he put Pilate on trial as if

                        Pilate should have known that Jesus was the son of God and

                        refused the pleas of the Jews. “You should have sent him to me!

                        It  was plain that he was king of the Jews.” When those

                        words fell off his lips, all the images of the Roman gods fell

                        to the ground and became dust!  Pilate was ordered beheaded.

                        On his way to his execution, he prays to God that he not be

                        numbered among the wicked Hebrews, but asks for pardon for

                        himself and his wife.”  And a voice in heaven assures him

                        that it shall be so.