“Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die …” John 11:26

In my last Post we began to explore the “basics” of Christianity as we looked into the Old Roman and Apostles Creeds, and what they said.  Now, let’s dig into what they mean.  To do this we’ll focus on the Apostles’ Creed because it’s the version that is prevalent in the Christian World today.  We’ll break it down, concept by concept, to make sure we understand the meaning of each of the statements the Creed makes.    This will probably require two Posts, so don’t get impatient.  We’ll cover the entire thing.  So, without further Preamble, let’s jump in …

The first line of the Apostles Creed begins with, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth …”  What do we mean by that?

“I believe in God,” means that Christians believe in God as a specific entity, not some fuzzy concept or theological construct.  This is the fundamental starting point for most of today’s main-stream Religions.  Christians believe that He EXISTS.  That He is REAL and that He can be communicated with.  And that He wants (more than anything else) to communicate with us (more about this later).  Christians may also refer to Him as “Father,” “Abba,” or any number of other names.  But they all refer to the singular Entity most commonly known as “God.”

Judaism (the religion of the Hebrew people) has a number of names for God, one of the oldest of which is “Yahweh,” or “I Am” when translated into English (another translation is “I Am Who I Am”).  “Yahweh” has also been transmuted into “Jehovah” over the millennia.  When Moses asked who he was addressing when he was speaking with the Burning Bush (Genesis 3:15), this was God’s response.  Other names used by Judaism include El and Elohim.  All are meant to express a different aspect of God, or to worship Him with a different title, but all refer to the same fundamental Being.

Islam commonly refers to God as “Allah” (the God) but has catalogued 101 names for Him.  Again, the different names connote differing aspects of Him or speak of Him in differing manners of worship.  But, they too refer to the same fundamental Being.

So, if we accept and believe that there IS a God, and that He exists, then what are His Qualities?  What are His Aspects?  Or, how else can He be described?

Attempts to answer this question have taken up thousands of pages over thousands of years which we won’t go into here.  But the Apostles Creed gives a succinct answer further into the same line, “…Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth …”

This phrase gives us two critical aspects of God.  First that he is the “Father,” meaning that from Him, all else comes.  He is the progenitor of all things.  The First Being, from which all else flows, and thus is the “Father” who “begat” all things.

The second is that he is “Almighty,” attempting to convey the awesome and all-encompassing power of God.  Not only does he exist, but he is “All Powerful.”  In much of today’s theological understanding, this is taken to mean not just that God is the most powerful Being in the Universe, but rather that He IS ALL the power in the Universe.  In other words, there IS no power in the Universe other than God’s.  He is omnipotent, meaning that He is capable of ALL THINGS …. Including the creation of this little blue ball we now call “Earth.”  There is nothing that He cannot do, and any and all “power” comes from Him [John 5:30].

“…Maker of Heaven and Earth” was meant to demonstrate that nothing would exist except at His Will, and that He had been the author of everything in the, then known, Universe.  At the time these words were first written, all that was known of the Universe was “Heaven and Earth.”  There was no concept that anything like the solar system or galaxies existed.  This phrase was intended to express His all-encompassing Power.  When faced with a Being of such profound Power, Might, and Majesty, the worshiper is meant to feel awe, respect, humility, insignificance, and maybe even a little fear.

So, the opening line basically states:  I believe that there IS a God; I believe that He is the Supreme Being in the Universe, that he is All-Powerful, and that He created the entire Universe.

That’s what “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth,” means.  How could we as simple, small, insignificant, things feel anything but a sense of worship for such as God?  We will come back and explore some of these concepts in greater detail, but for now, let’s move on.

So, we continue with, “and in Jesus Christ His only Son, Our Lord …”

(A brief aside … Jesus’ name was not actually “Jesus Christ”.  His actual name was “Jesus”, and probably in the parlance of the time he would have been commonly called “Jesus Bar- Joseph” (or “Jesus, son of Joseph,” who, as husband to His mother, Mary, would have been considered as Jesus’ father).  “Christ” is actually a title derived from the Greek “Khristos,” meaning “anointed,” and translated in today’s English as “Christ.”  So, technically, we should be speaking of “Jesus the Christ,” or “Jesus the Anointed,” not “Jesus Christ.”  However, the usage of the title had already become so conjoined with Jesus’ name by the time the first Books of the New Testament had been written, that He was commonly referred to as “Christ Jesus” or “Jesus Christ.”  We continue in that tradition today.)

When Christians say that we “believe” in “Jesus Christ” we are referring to a real, actual person who has been historically verified (as much as is possible given the records of His day).  We know of Jesus not only from the Bible, but from other sources, including Flavius Josephus who mentioned Jesus in 93 AD and others’ near-contemporary writings.  Since then, many books have been written concerning the “historical” Jesus.  One of the more recent and popular is “The Case For Christ,” written by Lee Strobel, first published in 1998.  If you have any doubt as to Jesus’ historical actuality, I recommend this book to you.  For me, I consider the fact that there was a Jesus as “case closed.”  Hence, I “believe in Jesus Christ.”

“His only Son” refers to the belief that Jesus was the product, not of marital congress between Mary and Joseph, but rather that Mary conceived Jesus via the action of the Holy Spirit (a/k/a “immaculate conception”).  Since the Holy Spirit is seen as one aspect of God (more on this later), Jesus was the son of God as visited upon Mary.  The Bible, which is the predominant source of information concerning the factual Jesus, makes no references to any other person who was conceived by God.

It was not uncommon at the time for persons of power and influence (Kings, Emperors, etc.) to either claim divinity or for others attempting to honor them to claim that their birth was the result of conjugal relations with a “god”.  Many of the Greek heroes were said to have been born after a god (or gods) had ‘visited’ their mothers.  Some attributed such divinity to Alexander the Great who had preceded Jesus by approximately 300 years.  However, the Son of God as we are presented by Jesus is (to my knowledge) unique to history.  I am unaware of any person, other than Jesus, who was actually born via immaculate conception.  Hence, Jesus is the “only Son” of God (there is more to this concept which we will explore in future Postings).

“…our Lord.” Is fairly straight-forward.  In the culture of the day, a man’s first-born (or only surviving) son was due the same respect, honor, position and allegiance that was due to his father.  Unless otherwise determined by the father prior to his death, everything the father had would ultimately be inherited by his oldest surviving son, and that son would become the head of the Tribe/Household after his father’s passing.  Any property, slaves, servants, livestock, land, or other goods owned by the father at the time of his demise would subsequently belong to and be “below” the son who had inherited his father’s position.  He would command the same reverence, respect, loyalty and allegiance that had been given to his father.

In this vein then, Jesus, who was the only Son of the Father would be the ‘inheritor’ of all that His Father had created or ‘owned’.  Everything that was due to God was also due to Jesus.  Everything “under” God (which would have been …  everything) would automatically be “under” Jesus.  Thus, Jesus would be the “Lord” over everything (and everybody).

So, we can also say that:  We believe in the historical Jesus, that He was the only begotten Son of God, and that He is therefore Lord over everything, including us.

In our next Post we’ll continue to explore the true meaning of the statements in the Apostles Creed.  Until then, remember that I’m looking for your questions, comments and suggestions for other topics.  I’d love to discuss them online with you.  So, feel free to respond to this website, or email me at richard.explorechristianity@cox.net.

Let’s do remember though that this is a Christian website, so we want to maintain politeness and civility at all times.  And, as the site’s Author, I reserve the right to edit and/or remove inappropriate content from the site.

Have a Blessed Day, and I’ll look forward to hearing from you.

Richard

June 22, 2018