The Apostles' Creed

And in Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord

The creed turns to the center of the faith: Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord. Every word carries weight. Jesus is his human name; Christ means the promised Anointed One; only Son means he is uniquely and eternally God's own, not a creature; and Lord means he is God, worthy of our whole allegiance. To confess this line is to bow before the Son whom the Father sent because he so loved the world.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.John 3:16 (KJV)

What this line confesses

Four titles are packed into a single phrase. Jesus, the name the angel gave, means the Lord saves. Christ is not a surname but a title, the Greek for Messiah, the Anointed One long promised to Israel as prophet, priest, and king. His only Son sets him apart from all others: while all who trust him become children of God by adoption, Jesus is the Son by nature, eternally begotten of the Father, sharing the Father's very being. And our Lord confesses that he holds the authority that belongs to God alone, and that we are his.

Together these words say that Jesus is not merely a great teacher or a prophet among prophets. He is the unique Son of God, and to call him Lord is to give him what no mere man may receive, the loyalty and worship due to God.

Its biblical basis

The most famous verse in the Bible states it plainly: God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. John opens his Gospel by declaring that the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and that the Word was made flesh in Jesus. At his baptism and again on the mountain, the Father's own voice said, This is my beloved Son.

That Jesus is Lord is the earliest Christian confession of all. Paul writes that God has given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and that no one can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit. Thomas, seeing the risen Christ, fell down and said, My Lord and my God. The creed simply gathers these confessions into one line.

Why it mattered: against making the Son a creature

This confession stood against a powerful ancient error. In the early fourth century a teacher named Arius taught that the Son, though the highest of all beings, was still a creature, made by God, so that there was a time when he was not. If Arius was right, then the one we worship is not truly God, and God did not really come to save us in person.

The creed answers with the word only. Jesus is God's only Son, not one made thing among others but the eternal Son, of the same being as the Father. What the Apostles' Creed says in a word, the Nicene Creed would spell out at length against Arius: begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father. To confess Jesus as the only Son and our Lord is to confess that in him the true and living God has come to us.

Christ: the Anointed prophet, priest, and king

The title Christ is not a second name but an office. It is the Greek for Messiah, the Anointed One, the deliverer long promised to Israel. In the Old Testament, prophets, priests, and kings were anointed with oil to mark them out for God's service, and Jesus is all three at once and perfectly. As Prophet he speaks God's final word, for he is the Word. As Priest he offers the one sacrifice for sins, his own life, and ever lives to pray for us. As King he reigns forever, the true Son of David whose kingdom has no end.

To confess Jesus as the Christ, then, is to say that all the hope of the Scriptures comes to rest on him. Every promise God ever made finds its yes in him. He is the one Moses and the prophets wrote of, the seed of Abraham in whom all nations are blessed, the suffering servant and the coming King held together in one person.

The last word of the phrase, our Lord, makes it personal. It is not enough to know that Jesus is the Anointed One in general; the creed teaches us to say our Lord, confessing that he belongs to us and we to him. To call him Lord is to hand him the keys of your life, to follow where he leads, and to find, in that surrender, not a burden but the freedom of belonging at last to the One for whom you were made.

The love behind the sending

The verse at the heart of this article does not begin with the Son but with the Father's love: God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. Before Jesus is born, before the cross, the creed's confession rests on a love that moved first. The Father did not send a stranger or a servant to save us; he gave what was dearest to him, his only Son.

Notice how wide that love reaches. God so loved the world, not a favored few, not the deserving, but the world in all its rebellion and need. And notice how personal the invitation is: whosoever believeth in him. The gift of the only Son is held out to every person without exception, and it is received not by earning but by trusting.

This is what keeps the second article from being mere doctrine. To say Jesus is God's only Son is to stand inside the greatest love ever shown, a love that gave everything to bring you home. The One who is the eternal Son, equal with the Father, was given up for you. When the wonder of that lands, the only fitting answer is the one the creed teaches: to call him my Lord, and to entrust your life to the love that gave him.

What it means for us

If Jesus is the only Son of God and our Lord, then he cannot be a private opinion or a figure we admire from a distance. To meet him is to meet God, and to receive him is to receive the Father who sent him. His love is not the affection of a good man but the love of God himself reaching for you, for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

And if he is Lord, then following him is not one option among many; it is the response his identity requires and his love makes joyful. To confess this line is to answer the question Jesus asked his own disciples, who do you say that I am, with the church's oldest and gladdest answer: you are the Christ, the only Son of the living God, and you are my Lord.

This is the question the whole creed presses upon you, the question Jesus once asked his friends by the roadside: who do you say that I am. You cannot answer it from a safe distance. If he is only a good teacher, you may admire him and pass on; but if he is the only Son of God and the Lord of all, then everything changes, and he asks for your trust, your worship, and your life. The creed has already given the church's glad answer. It waits now for yours, and the One it describes is nearer than you think, ready to be known.

A note for all traditions: the creeds are not a fourth authority above Scripture but a faithful summary of it. Christians hold them in different ways, some reciting them weekly in worship and others rarely, yet the faith they confess is broadly shared across the church. Where believers differ on secondary matters, the creeds mark the ancient center that unites us: one God, and one Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

Related: I believe in God the Father Almighty · Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary · Who is Jesus? · The Christian creeds