No Creed But Christ? Protestants and "Catholic" Creeds

I’ll never forget the first time my wife and I worshiped in a Presbyterian church. I was raised in independent Bible-churches where it was a given that we believed the Bible, but Roman Catholics relied on tradition. We affirmed “no creed but Christ,” which ironically is a creed in is own right—albeit a short creed. I knew of the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, but thought of these as relics of the past, which functioned as an end run around the authority of Scripture. This is why, I suspected, that Roman Catholics recited them. You can imagine how we were taken aback when the Presbyterian faithful recited the Apostles’ Creed with great gusto, including the line which, at the time, I could not bring myself to repeat, “one holy catholic and apostolic church.”

I soon learned that many Protestants still recite these ancient creeds. In fact, these creeds serve an important purpose in many of those churches whose roots are deeply planted in the Reformation, and committed to the full authority of Scripture. The Heidelberg Catechism even utilizes the Apostles’ Creed as a basic summary of those things which every Christian must believe. If you were to ask, “what is it that defines Christianity?” my answer now would be “the definition of Christianity is given us in the Creed.”

Question 22 of the Heidelberg Catechism asks, “What, then, is necessary for a Christian to believe?” Answer: “All that is promised us in the Gospel, which the articles of our catholic, undoubted Christian faith teach us in summary.” The articles of our “catholic, undoubted Christian faith” are then unpacked in the following questions and answers (Heidelberg Catechism, Q & A 22-58). This “unpacking” amounts to an exposition of the various doctrines set forth in the Creed by demonstrating their biblical basis. Protestants do not believe that creeds, confessions, and catechisms are infallible–that can only be said of Scripture. But Protestants who utilize these documents do believe that creeds, confessions, and catechisms are authoritative insofar as they accurately summarize the teaching of Scripture, which is their primary purpose.

Zacharius Ursinus–the primary author of the Heidelberg Catechism–tells us why the Apostle’s Creed was chosen for his own distinctly Reformed catechism as the summary of what it is that Christians must believe in order to be truly Christians. “It signifies a brief and summary form of the Christian faith, which distinguishes the church and her members from the various sects” (Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, 117).

In other words, if you are to set out those things which differentiate Christianity from all other religions, including monotheistic ones (i.e. Judaism and Islam), the Apostles’ Creed would provide an excellent summary of those doctrines unique to Christianity. The Creed sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity. It sets forth the basic economy of redemption–the Father is the creator of all things, Jesus is the only Savior, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gives us faith and then unites us to Christ. The Creed also affirms the basic historical facts of the gospel–our Lord’s virgin birth, his suffering, death, and resurrection. Furthermore, the Creed affirms Jesus’ descent into hell (which the Reformed believe refers to Jesus’ suffering the wrath of God upon the cross), his bodily resurrection, and his ascent into heaven where Jesus now rules over all until he returns at the end of the age to judge the world and raise the dead.

Next, the Creed affirms the person and work of the Holy Spirit, the existence of a “holy” (i.e., those whose only hope of heaven is in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ), and “catholic” church, a reference to the universal church (the body of Christ) which will exist from the time it was founded until Jesus returns. The Creed affirms the communion of saints (the fellowship of justified sinners with the Risen Christ), the forgiveness of sins (Christ’s work in fulfilling all righteousness and dying for the sins of his people), the resurrection of the body at the end of the age (as Jesus was raised bodily on the third day, so will we when he returns) and life everlasting (heaven).

Ursinus chose the Apostles’ Creed as the skeletal structure for the section of his catechism dealing with God’s grace, because the Creed so effectively summarizes the basics of the Christian faith that no Jew, Muslim, or heretic (Arians, gnostics, modalists, etc.) could possibly recite it. English novelist Dorothy Sayers recounts inviting a skeptical friend to church. The friend readily recited all of the Creed, but refused to recite the line [Jesus] “was crucified under Pontius Pilate.” To affirm this, is to acknowledge the truth of the Christian faith. In effect, the Creed defines what is Christianity, and what is not. An honest non-Christian cannot recite it.

But as Ursinus expounds upon the Apostles’ Creed, he also endeavors to demonstrate how Reformed Christianity differs from Roman Catholicism on such essential doctrines as justification by faith alone, the nature of the work of Christ, as well as the sacraments. So, while the Creed may set forth what is essentially and uniquely Christian, Protestants contend that the Roman Church defaults on these same doctrines at a number of critical points.

Because there is great need to summarize the teaching of Scripture and to identify with the faithful who have gone before, many Protestant churches still recite the Apostles’ Creed. This is why the Reformed churches consider the Apostles’ Creed to be the best summary of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith, and this why Ursinus placed an exposition of the Creed at the very heart of the Heidelberg Catechism.