Bible Study for The Athanasian Creed

This is the introduction for a Bible study/book I am writing. Written from a Lutheran perspective I think it will speak to Christians in every church body. While this is a rough draft I decided to post it anyway to "put it out there" partly to force me to continue to write. I have a stack of notes and I will post more when I research and write more.




Unless Otherwise Noted:

Bible quotes are taken from the English Standard Version (ESV) published by Good News Publishers.
Quotes from the Book of Concord are taken from “Concordia, The Lutheran Confessions” a reader’s edition of the Book of Concord (2005).
The English language version of the Athanasian Creed is taken from the Lutheran Service Book (2006).

Introduction

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

Called the Shema (“Hear“) this declarative statement from Deuteronomy 6:4 is an early creed of Israel’s faith in God and was, and still is, recited by observant Jews twice daily. This religion of one God set the Israelites apart from the other religions in Canaan with their multitude of gods as well as separating themselves from the religion of Egypt they had just escaped from. Moreover this concept of the oneness of God will set the stage centuries later for great theological fights that will require Emperors and Councils to work out and further statements of faith to correct.
Our Lord Jesus Christ used this statement in Mark 12:29-31 to answer the question, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” In answering this question Jesus was summarizing the two tables of the Law thus condensing the Faith into a smaller statement instead of reciting the whole Decalogue or even the whole Torah.
Statements of faith were used to admonish and to teach. In the time immediately following the Ascension of Christ the Apostles taught all who would listen about Jesus Christ and who He was. The Church in Jerusalem grew and slowly started to spread. Then God allowed His Church to be persecuted causing the Diaspora (dispersion). This scattering of God’s people lead to the Gospel being heard around the known world. Churches formed as the Holy Ghost converted many to “The Way”.


Enter the Creeds

Early Christians were at a disadvantage. The first few years there was no Bible as we know it. They had the Old Testament but not the New. But men of God started to write. The Gospels were written. The Apostles also wrote their Epistles to the Churches. The early Church started to compile these documents so they could be read and studied. Debates and arguments would ensue. Disagreements in doctrine would cause factions to be formed. Statements of faith started to arise that allowed the different factions to identify each other. We can find this starting to happen in some of St. Paul’s Epistles. Creedal statements can be found in I Cor 8:6
“yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist“, I Cor 12:13 “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-Jews or Greeks, slaves’ or free-and all were made to drink of one Spirit.“ I Cor 15:3-6 “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 that he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep”, and I Tim 3:16 “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: ‘He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory“.
We can see the beginnings of our Creeds in these words from Paul.
Paul also writes against preachers who teach something other than the Gospel he delivered to the saints. See II Cor 11:1-5 and Gal 1:6-9 and I Tim 1:3-11 for examples. In Gal 2:11-14, Paul even rebuked Peter to his face over Peter teaching false doctrine. So we see that even in the times of the Apostles false teaching was beginning and statements of Faith were used to a) help the saints to retain the Faith and b) admonish and mark those who taught false doctrine.
Some, if not most, of the disagreements centered around who God is. Remember the Shema mentioned in the beginning? If God is One then how do you explain the concept of the Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Ghost? More specifically who is Jesus. What was Jesus. Was he God or man? Was he both? How can a man be God? How can God become a man? How does this fit into our understanding of God the Father? These and other questions were asked and answered. Because of the Sinful nature of Man the answers were diverse and some led to a misunderstanding of Scripture. Thus heresy would lead people away from the Truth and into perdition.
Foundational to our understanding of our salvation is the answer to the question; “Who is Jesus“. What Jesus is directs our faith. If Jesus is who we profess he is in our creeds then our faith is directed towards God who is the source of our salvation. If Jesus is not whom we profess then our faith is directed elsewhere. That usually means towards ourselves and our ability to do good and earn our salvation by ourselves. Since we know through Scriptures that we cannot earn our salvation then putting our faith in a false Jesus leads us to death and hell.
The Early Church struggled to define Jesus. The devil attacked the Early Church much the same way he attacks today. He tries to undermine who Jesus is and His role in purchasing our salvation from the wages of our sin. Therefore if Jesus was not the Son of God, He would not be a fit sacrifice because He would be just a man. If Jesus was not born of a virgin He would be just one of us and not a fit sacrifice because He would not be the Son of God. If Jesus was just a good man then He could not pay the price for our sins. If Jesus was God just pretending to be a man then He was not one of us and could not pay the price. If Jesus did not raise from the dead then we have no hope. If Jesus is not who we confess in our Creeds then the Bible contradicts itself and falls apart. Defining Jesus led to statements of faith which led to public creeds used to counter heresies that arose and to unite the faithful.
The early Fathers have written about the public professions of faith by the church.

As early as 107AD Ignatius of Antioch wrote a form of creed in his Epistle to the Trallians ix.
"Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you at variance with Jesus Christ, who was descended from David, and was also of Mary; who was truly born, and did eat and drink. He was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate; He was truly crucified, and [truly] died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. He was also truly raised from the dead, His Father quickening Him, even as after the same manner His Father will so raise up us who believe in Him by Christ Jesus, apart from whom we do not possess the true life.
Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you at variance with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was descended from David, and was also of Mary; who was truly begotten of God and of the Virgin, but not after the same manner. For indeed God and man are not the same. He truly assumed a body; for "the Word was made flesh," and lived upon earth without sin. For says He, "Which of you convicteth me of sin? " He did in reality both eat and drink. He was crucified and died under Pontius Pilate. He really, and not merely in appearance, was crucified, and died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. By those in heaven I mean such as are possessed of incorporeal natures; by those on earth, the Jews and Romans, and such persons as were present at that time when the Lord was crucified; and by those under the earth, the multitude that arose along with the Lord. For says the Scripture, "Many bodies of the saints that slept arose," their graves being opened. He descended, indeed, into Hades alone, but He arose accompanied by a multitude; and rent asunder that means of separation which had existed from the beginning of the world, and cast down its partition-wall. He also rose again in three days, the Father raising Him up; and after spending forty days with the apostles, He was received up to the Father, and "sat down at His right hand, expecting till His enemies are placed under His feet." On the day of the preparation, then, at the third hour, He received the sentence from Pilate, the Father permitting that to happen; at the sixth hour He was crucified; at the ninth hour He gave up the ghost; and before sunset He was buried. During the Sabbath He continued under the earth in the tomb in which Joseph of Arimathaea had laid Him. At the dawning of the Lord's day He arose from the dead, according to what was spoken by Himself, "As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man also be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." The day of the preparation, then, comprises the passion; the Sabbath embraces the burial; the Lord's Day contains the resurrection."

And again Tertullian, in 200AD, wrote in The Prescription Against Heretics, chapter XIII another form of creed.
"Now, with regard to this rule of faith--that we may from this point
acknowledge what it is which we defend--it is, you must know, that which prescribes the belief that there is one only God, and that He is none other than the Creator of the world, who produced all things out of nothing through His own Word, first of all sent forth; that this Word is called His Son, and, under the name of God, was seen "in diverse manners" by the patriarchs, heard at all times in the prophets, at last brought down by the Spirit and Power of the Father into the Virgin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, and, being born of her, went forth as Jesus Christ; thenceforth He preached the new law and the new promise of the kingdom of heaven, worked miracles; having been crucified, He rose again the third day; (then) having ascended into the heavens, He sat at the right hand of the Father; sent instead of Himself the Power of the Holy Ghost to lead such as believe; will come with glory to take the saints to the enjoyment of everlasting life and of the heavenly promises, and to condemn the wicked to everlasting fire, after the resurrection of both these classes shall have happened, together with the restoration of their flesh. This rule, as it will be proved, was taught by Christ, and raises amongst ourselves no other questions than those which heresies introduce, and which make men heretics."


The Apostle’s Creed we say today started out as a statement of faith said responsively to questions prior to the Sacrament of Baptism. This public profession of faith was necessary to show the person being baptized understood the doctrines of the church in this early form of catechism. The early church took this so seriously that no one could be baptized without this public profession. No one could partake of the Lord’s Supper without being baptized. In fact in some of the Early Churches all un-baptized persons in attendance at a worship service were asked to leave and a person was posted at the door whenever the Order of Holy Communion was to begin. The Early Church understood the true life and death issues at stake in Word and Sacraments.
We do the same today in our Order of Holy Baptism in our hymnal. We repeat the Apostle’s Creed in our Worship services. We say the Apostle’s Creed when we say our Morning and Evening Prayers. We use the Apostle’s Creed as our public profession of faith. We start out by saying “I BELIEVE“. The first word in the Apostle’s Creed is CREDO in Latin. CREDO translates as “creed”. When we state any of the three Creeds publicly we are saying “THIS I BELIEVE“.

The Ecumenical Creeds

The Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed are called “The Three Ecumenical Creeds“. The word Ecumenical means “universal” or “general” and is used because, as a whole, the Early Christian Church adopted these Creeds as a standard of their confession. These Creeds were important enough to be included in The Book of Concord and are referred there in as symbols in the Formula of Concord (491.3). These symbols (I.e.; brief, concise confessions) were written against the heretics in the Early Church. The early Lutheran Fathers pledged themselves to these symbols and rejected all heresies and teachings against them.
The Apostles’ Creed sprung up naturally over time advanced by a need to declare one’s faith both personally and publicly. The foundation for this Creed can be found in the words of Christ recorded in Matt. 28:18,19;
…”All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”
Essentially, the Apostles’ Creed is an elaboration of this formula. An early form of this Creed can be found in what is called “The Old Roman Creed” delivered by Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra, to Julius, Bishop of Rome, c. 340. This “Old Roman Creed” was also written about by Rufinus, a priest of Aquileia in 404 and had been retained as a Baptismal Creed in the Roman Church. The older version from Marcellus reads as follows:
I believe in God Almighty
And in Christ Jesus, His only Son, our Lord
Who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was buried
And the third day rose from the dead
Who ascended into Heaven
And sitteth on the right hand of the Father
Whence he cometh to judge the living and the dead
And in the Holy Ghost
The holy church
The remission of sins
The resurrection of the flesh
The life everlasting.
While the Apostles’ Creed seemed to have an organic origin the Nicene Creed sprang from a need to address specific heresies. A theologian from Alexandria, Egypt, named Arius (c. 250-336) taught that God only meant God the Father. Jesus, according to Arius, was a perfect creature to be sure but does not share God’s very essence. The net result of Arius’ teachings was to reduce Jesus to a sort of half-God. This teaching of Arius quickly spread and a great schism started to form, particularly within the Eastern Church.