The final section of the Creed has two parts, a brief statement of belief in the third person of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit, and five statements of belief.
With the understanding of the Holy Spirit not only being sent by God the Father with the Son, but that the Holy Spirit is an active part of the Holy Trinity, Christianity has a unique faith in the Trinitarian Godhead, with three persons with three distinct roles, yet all united as one God in their divinity and purpose. I’m not going to elaborate further on Trinitarian theology, I have thrown out enough heresies already in trying to illustrate the Trinity!
Five statements of faith follow to complete the Creed:
Faith in the “holy catholic Church”, that is, the worldwide body and bride of Christ defined by faith in Jesus Christ, and distinct from all who profess unbelief and heresy.
“Communion of saints” refers to the unity of the followers of Jesus made righteous through His blood on the cross, all who have turned to Jesus in faith throughout history to this day. We are in communion with these saints, as the Body of Christ.
“Forgiveness of sins” is recognition that we are in fact sinners, and only reconciled to God the Father because our sins are forgiven by Him through Jesus. We are assured of this because Jesus is risen, ascended, and sent the Holy Spirit as the seal and guarantee of His promise that this is so.
“Resurrection of the body” reminds us of the future promise of life in a perfectly formed body that has no infirmity, disease, pain or disability, and yet is as recognisable to the Lord and to one-another as we are now. How? It is an article of faith, but the Apostle Paul outlines his thoughts on it really well in 1 Corinthians 15.
“the life everlasting”… doesn’t have the same punch in our understanding as it did to the early Church. A better understanding is “life to the uttermost and fullest, always”. The emphasis is not on the length of time, but the closeness and intimacy of such time. The example used on Sunday was to contrast an hour on a cold, drizzly day alone waiting for a bus that never arrives, with an hour with the closest of friends or partner. The cold hour feels like ‘forever’ and not in a good way. The hour with our nearest and dearest feels like a moment of treasure, never enough and yet always remembered. Such will be “life everlasting”… everlasting closeness that we desire to never end.
“Amen”. We don’t say this lightly, as it affirms our agreement to all these beliefs. It is our “Yes”, “I say that these things are true”. But we do say ‘Amen’ because these are the life-changing and world-changing beliefs the Christian faith stands on.
To do as Jesus commanded and fulfil the Great Commission, it is time we took the Creed seriously. So take it seriously. Memorise it. Challenge it. Study it. Teach it.

After the brief affirmation of the belief in one God, the God of the Jews, the Creed moves into the longest section, outlining the historical events of God the Son, known to us as Jesus of Nazareth. He is the ‘Christ’, the long-promised Saviour who would usher into human history the first stage of the kingdom of God. He is “the only Son of God”, unique in His relationship with God the Father. He is “the Lord”, holding a unique authority in creation, within whom is all the power and glory of God.
This is a considerable disconnect to the Jewish understanding of God, and separates Christian faith from Jewish faith.
The key historical events of Jesus’ earthly life are highlighted, His supernatural conception by the creative will of God through the Holy Spirit, His trial at the hands of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, His humiliating crucifixion, death and resurrection.
Then we remember that while His death on the cross was physical, His work continued as He ‘descended to the dead’. A common interpretation of this is that Jesus asserted His authority over death and the realm of the dead, so that no place or power would be exempt from His sovereignty – ever or anywhere. His resurrection is proof of this authority, and the power given to Him “to judge the living and the dead” upon His return.
In between His ascension, and return, the Creed affirms that Jesus “is seated at the right hand of the Father”, where He rules the heaven and earth, jealously watches over His beloved bride, the Church, and actively intercedes with the Father on our behalf.
The emphasis of the Creed is that Jesus was a man who lived within human history, and He is so much more, and all will be revealed including His sovereign power and authority. Every power on earth and in heaven is made subject to Him, forever, regardless of what freedom they may believe they hold in this age. There will be a reckoning, and it will be whether each one is reconciled to God the Father through Jesus, or not.

The first stanza of the Apostles’ Creed reminds us of the element of continuance of Christian faith with Jewish/Hebrew faith in one God, the LORD (YHWH), Creator of the heavens and the earth. There are not numerous gods of many elements (earth, wind, fire, water, fertility, health, prosperity), places and people, but one God, the LORD of all, seen and unseen.
The Hebrew Scriptures (known to the Christian Church as the ‘Old’ Testament or revelation of God) unveil the teaching of God to His people through the Law, the journey from origins to people to one man – Abraham, and his descendants, and from there to a people called His own. The Wisdom books reveal deeper truths to His people, drawing from wisdom traditions in other cultures, but always pointing to the LORD their God as Truth. The Prophetic literature pointed the people back to the LORD when they strayed into beliefs and worship of idols, gods and paths that led away from the one true God.
When Jesus, born a Jew and living firmly within the Jewish traditions, taught about God the Father, we should remember His intimate and unique relationship with His Heavenly Father.
In the Lord’s Prayer we gain a glimpse of the simple trust and breadth of Jesus’ relationship with the Father, which He ultimately offers us through His death and resurrection. It is a simple prayer with eternal ramifications, without excessive rambling on or explanation. God is our Heavenly Father too, when we turn to Him in faith and trust through Jesus. As Creator, He willingly and creatively gives to His beloved children – so we should ask.
In the Two Great Commandments, Jesus confirmed the continuance with Jewish knowledge of God, quoting directly from Deuteronomy and Leviticus. “The LORD is one, He is God. Love Him with all of your heart, soul and mind, love your neighbour as you love yourself.”
The God of Israel is the God of Jesus, and He is real, present, and active.
He is “the Father”, but without the busy-ness, the absence, the distractedness, or even perhaps the wickedness, the laziness or the abuse of earthly fathers. He is patient, gracious and steadfast in loving-kindness, willing to creatively pour out His blessings on His children here on earth, as He does in heaven. He is the LORD, the God of Israel, of Jesus, of all.

I believe in God, the Father almighty, 
creator of heaven and earth. 
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, 
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, 
born of the Virgin Mary, 
suffered under Pontius Pilate, 
was crucified, died, and was buried; 
he descended to the dead. 
On the third day he rose again; 
he ascended into heaven, 
he is seated at the right hand of the Father, 
and he will come again to judge the living and the dead. 

I believe in the Holy Spirit, 
the holy catholic church, 
the communion of saints, 
the forgiveness of sins, 
the resurrection of the body, 
and the life everlasting. AMEN

During June 2018 our teaching ministry during the Sunday morning services was based on the Apostles’ Creed. While on the first Sunday (June 3) we celebrated a baptism, we also discovered how ‘the Apostles’ Creed came to be’.
The early Church was growing in understanding of who Jesus is, and how our understanding of God shifted in the light of Jesus’ person, life, death and resurrection, and teaching. Clearly, in Jesus, God had revealed Himself in a new way, a “New Testament”.
In the writings of the New Testament, phrases such as “Jesus is Lord”, “Christ Jesus”, and the “Holy Spirit” all signalled a new revelation of God, of three persons together within the Godhead. There was a continuance with Jewish understanding of “the LORD our God, the LORD is one”, and yet Jesus had claimed one-ness with God, and spoken openly of the past, present and future work of the ‘Counsellor’, the Holy Spirit – who would undertake work that is God’s alone to do.
The early Church wrestled and debated these ideas as they spread out across people without Jewish backgrounds, with the words of Jesus’ Great Commission resonating: “Go. Teach. Make disciples. Baptise in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
So the followers of Jesus did so, and developed a ‘rule of faith’ that began to define what Christians did, and did not, believe to be true of God. Over time this grew into Creeds, refined and robustly developed memorable statements that were used to fulfil the Great Commission.
The Apostles’ Creed was used to teach and disciple new believers. Initially it was unwritten, passed down orally to those about to be baptised. They were expected to not only recite the full Creed from memory, but also teach from memory the details of it to the gathered Church before their baptism.
The Creed provided a consistent statement of faith across cultures, languages and places, for teaching, for orthodoxy and above all, for faith in the risen Jesus. May it continue to do so today.