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The Apostles’ Creed: A Guide to the Ancient Catechism by Ben Myers
Perhaps the earliest Christian confession consisted of just two words: Kyrios Iesous, “Jesus is Lord” (Romans 10:9; 1 Corinthians 12:3).
Another Christian confession, the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), gives eloquent voice to the personal center of faith when it begins with this question and answer: “What is your only comfort in life and death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.”
In the ancient church, the confession of Jesus’ lordship began to change the way Christians thought about one another. Christianity took root in societies that were rigidly stratified and hierarchical. There were clearly marked distinctions between men and women, rich and poor, Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free. But the Christian community did not accept that people were defined by those societal distinctions. All came to the same baptismal waters and confessed the same Lord. When they entered the baptismal waters, no one could tell the difference between rich and poor, slave and free.
The ancient institution of slavery didn’t vanish all at once. But when slaves and free persons stood side by side and confessed that Jesus is Lord, the days of slavery were numbered.
The Apostles’ Creed: Together We Believe by Matt Chandler
Jesus means “the Lord saves.” Christ is a title meaning “Messiah” or “Anointed One.”
Early Christians who professed Jesus as Lord were doing more than declaring a religious affiliation; they were declaring allegiance to only Jesus’ authority. The Roman law required everyone to acknowledge Caesar as Lord. Christians who proclaimed that Jesus was Lord were singled out as disloyal to Rome and the prevailing culture. Their disobedience brought condemnation and persecution.
Many Christians recognize the phrase “only begotten son” from the King James translation of John 3:16. Begotten, to modern ears, sounds like a synonym for created. However, the Greek word from which it’s translated is mongeneses, expressing not that Jesus was created but that He’s uniquely God the Son. Jesus is equal in substance and coeternal with God the Father.
While it’s difficult, if not impossible, to fully wrap our finite minds around the reality that Jesus is 100% God and 100% man, the glorious mystery of God’s love for us is revealed in Christ. As the second person of the Trinity, the Son has made a way for us to become children of God.
Jesus is the King of everything. Many in our culture feel that Jesus can be our Savior with no submission to Him being King, and this is a foreign concept in the Bible. Notice that Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” and was then unmistakably clear: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus may be popular and often well-respected, but belief in Jesus as the only way to truly know God and to live eternally in heaven is as divisive now as it was when Jesus spoke these words.
How would you describe the difference between knowing what people say about Jesus and personally knowing Jesus?
Affirming the Apostles’ Creed by J. I. Packer
And in Jesus Christ
When the Apostles’ Creed called God “maker of heaven and earth,” it parted company with Hinduism and Eastern faiths generally; now, by calling Jesus Christ God’s only Son, it parts company with Judaism and Islam and stands quite alone. This claim for Jesus is both the touchstone of Christianity and the ingredient that makes it unique.
“Christ” is an “office-title,” identifying Jesus as God’s appointed savior-king for whom the Jews had long been waiting. Since the Christ was expected to set up God’s reign and to be hailed as overlord throughout the world, to call Jesus Christ was to claim for him a decisive place in history and a universal dominion that all men everywhere must acknowledge.
The title Christ expresses the claim that Jesus fulfilled all three ministries for which men were anointed in Old Testament times:
- Prophet: A messenger from God;
- Priest: One who mediates with God for us by sacrifice; and
- King.
If Jesus is God the Son, our co-creator, and is also Christ, the anointed savior-king, now risen from death and reigning in the place of authority and power, then he has a right to rule us, and we have no right to resist his claim.
His Only Son
As Matthew 17:5 describes, “While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!'”
Jesus was not just a God-inspired good man. Nor was he a super-angel, first and finest of all creatures, called “god” by courtesy because he is far above me.
Jesus called God “my Father” and himself not “a” but “the Son.”
Jesus was, and remains, God’s only Son, as truly and fully God as his Father is.
The Apostles’ Creed: Discovering Authentic Christianity in an Age of Counterfeits by R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Christians are defined by one primary mark: we believe in and are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. This commitment to Christ is not just a modern evangelical phenomenon; it is also reflected in the ancient faith of the Apostles’ Creed.
It is not enough to say “I love Jesus” or “I follow Jesus.” As the confession reminds us, we must confess that we believe in “Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord”—the Jesus whose true identity and mission is revealed in Scripture.
In fact, the shortest and most universal declaration of any Christian is simply this: “Jesus is Lord.”
Jesus the Christ
Human ingenuity would not have arrived at the conclusion that Jesus is the Christ. Human investigation could not discern this. We need this reminder because, especially in the twenty-first century, there have arisen movements within institutional Christianity to try to find some other way of defining who Jesus is.
George Tyrrell, speaking of the quest for the historical Jesus, once aptly noted, “The Christ that [these scholars see], looking back through nineteen centuries of Catholic darkness, is only the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well.” What Tyrrell was saying was that the “historical” Jesus always ends up reflecting the values and biases of the scholars investigating him. This is one of the greatest attractions of heresy—to have a Jesus who is more like us. This Jesus might be more culturally acceptable, but he is certainly not the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
His Only Son
Jesus is God’s Son because he is the second person of the Trinity. The Nicene Creed uses clear, biblical language in order to communicate this notion, describing Jesus as the one who was eternally “begotten” and not “made.” Scripture clearly teaches the preexistence of the Son as the Son. The Son is sent (John 3:16).
Christ, Our Lord
Jesus came to save his people from their sins, and this led to the cross—not as an accident, not as an unexpected incident, but rather as God’s predetermined plan—and Jesus willingly emptied himself and subjected himself to death for us. As a result, Christ became the Lord, the eternal Davidic king.
Some claim that they can accept Christ as Savior but not as Lord. This assertion is a complete misunderstanding of New Testament theology and an unbiblical separation of Christ’s offices of Priest and King. As Jesus asks in Luke 6:46, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”
Apostles’ Creed by Alister McGrath
If Jesus is just a man, a human being like the rest of us, he shares our need for redemption—in other words, he can’t redeem us. He is part of the problem, not the solution to it. On the other hand, if Jesus is God, and God alone, he has no point of contact with us. He cannot relate to those who need redemption. Jesus’ humanity provides the point of contact. And, so we arrive at the conclusion that Jesus must be divine and human if he is to redeem us.
Jesus Christ, God’s Only Son, Our Lord…a key confession of The Apostles’ Creed that helps us shoot for the stars!