The creeds

What Are the Christian Creeds?

A creed is a short, shared confession of the Christian faith. The church wrote the creeds to do two things: to guard the faith against error, and to confess it together in worship and at baptism. The two most widely used are the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. Some traditions recite them every week and others rarely, but the faith they summarize is broadly shared, and it points in every line to one Lord, Jesus Christ.

Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.Jude 1:3 (KJV)

What a creed is, and where the word comes from

The word creed comes from the Latin credo, which simply means I believe. A creed is a brief, ordered summary of what Christians hold to be true, said aloud and held in common. It is not a replacement for the Bible and never claims to be. It is a way of gathering the heart of what the Bible teaches into a few lines that a whole congregation can confess together, that a new believer can be baptized into, and that a child can learn by heart.

The earliest creeds in the church were very short. The New Testament itself preserves one-line confessions such as Jesus is Lord, and Paul hands on an early summary of the gospel in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians. From these seeds grew the fuller statements we call the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. Both are structured around the three persons of the one God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Why the church wrote them: to guard and to confess

The creeds were written for two reasons that still matter. The first was to guard the faith. In the early centuries, teachers arose who denied that Jesus was truly God, or truly human, or that God had really made the world, or that the body would rise. The church needed a clear, shared line that said, in effect, this is what the apostles handed down, and that is not. The creed became a fence around the gospel, a way to tell the genuine faith from a counterfeit.

The second reason was to confess. A creed is not only defensive; it is worship. To stand with the whole gathered church and say I believe is to praise God for who he is and what he has done. Creeds were tied from the beginning to baptism: those coming to Christ were asked whether they believed in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit, and their answer was the seed of the creed. To confess the creed is to take your place in the long line of the baptized.

The biblical roots of creeds

The impulse to confess the faith in a few fixed words is older than the church. Israel had the Shema, Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord, recited daily to this day. The New Testament is full of compact confessions. Paul writes that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. He reminds Timothy to hold fast the form of sound words. He tells the Ephesians there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

Most important of all, Paul preserves what may be the oldest Christian creed we have, words he says he received and passed on: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. The later creeds are simply this same apostolic summary, unfolded and defended. When you say the creed you are doing exactly what the first Christians did.

Honestly: how the traditions hold the creeds

It is worth being honest that Christians do not all treat the creeds in the same way. In many churches, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, and others, the creed is recited every Sunday and is woven into worship. In some other traditions, especially among those who describe themselves as no creed but the Bible, the creeds are rarely said aloud, out of a concern to keep Scripture in the highest place.

Even there, however, the content of the creeds is almost always affirmed. Those who prize the Bible above all still believe that God is the Maker, that Jesus is his Son who died and rose, that the Spirit is God, and that the dead will be raised. The creeds do not stand over the Bible; they summarize it. Scripture remains the final authority, and the creed is a faithful witness to what Scripture says. That is why believers who worship very differently can still recognize one another as family when they hear the ancient words.

Beyond the two: the other creeds and confessions

The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed are the two most widely shared, but they are not the only ancient confessions. A third early statement, the Athanasian Creed, sets out the doctrine of the Trinity and of Christ with great precision; despite its name it was not written by Athanasius but comes from the Western church some centuries later, and it is used chiefly in the Western traditions rather than the East. The Definition of Chalcedon, from the council of 451, guards the truth that Jesus is one person in two natures, fully God and fully man.

Later still, the churches of the Reformation wrote fuller confessions of their own, such as the Augsburg Confession, the Westminster Confession, and the various Baptist and Reformed statements, each spelling out a tradition's understanding at greater length. These are more detailed and more particular, and Christians divide over parts of them.

What sets the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds apart is that they are ecumenical, belonging to the whole church rather than to one branch of it. They were received across East and West before the later divisions, and they confine themselves to the shared heart of the faith. That is why, of all the church's many confessions, these two are the common ground on which nearly all Christians can still stand together.

What the creeds mean for you

To learn the creeds is to receive a gift the church has been handing down for nearly two thousand years. When you confess them, you are not alone. You are joining a great company across every century and every nation who have said the same words in prison and in cathedrals, at the font and at the graveside. The creed steadies you when your feelings waver, because it rests not on how you feel but on what God has done.

Above all, the creeds are not an end in themselves. They are a door. Every line leads to the living Christ they describe, the one who was crucified, buried, and raised for you. You can read a summary of the faith and still not know him. The creeds are meant to bring you to the person at their center and to say to you, plainly, come and see.

If you have never said these words before, there is no better place to begin than at the beginning, with the whole church across the ages. You do not need to understand every phrase before you start, for understanding grows as you confess. Take up the ancient words, follow each line to the Christ it names, and let the faith once delivered to the saints become your own. The same Lord who gathered that great company is gathering still, and there is a place in it for you.

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: The Apostles' Creed explained · The Nicene Creed explained · Who is Jesus? · The Christian creeds