This blog is contributed by Andrew Moore, one of our preachers and small group pastors. In it he questions how we are professing The Apostles’ Creed as a church.
Not “we” but “I”.
Our small group have been studying doctrine in the form of the Apostle’s Creed and I wanted to share a thought from church last week. This statement of Christian belief summarises some particularly important Biblical teaching, and we often say this out loud to each other in church. But something was different about the words last week.
Our approach in our small group has been to read a commentary on the Creed by Henrich Bullinger. Bullinger is probably most famous for co-authoring another couple of documents called the Helvetic Confessions which was adopted by protestant churches throughout Europe at the time. He was a contemporary and close friend of the great theologian John Calvin. He served the cause of the Lord Jesus with fervour and was a very astute Bible teacher.
Now where am I going with this? Last Sunday we said the creed and we changed one of the words, and it hit me because of what our group had learnt about the Apostle’s creed from Bullinger. We had changed the word “I” to “We”. Here is what Bullinger wrote-
By the way, we should particularly note this, that when we pray we say, “Our Father in heaven … give us today our daily bread”. But when we confess our faith, we do not say “We believe”, but “I believe”. For faith is required of every one of us, for every particular person to have without deceit in their heart, and without double meaning to profess it with their mouth. It was not enough for Abraham to have faith for all his offspring. Neither will it be of any use to you for another person to believe if you yourself are without faith.
It’s not wrong to say “we” but it’s powerful to say “I”. What’s more important, my relationship to you or my relationship to God?
And by saying “we”, might I be tricked into thinking Christianity is more about community than the vertical relationship?
God saves people groups and families, even a nation, in the Bible. He raises the importance of love to spouse and parents and children. But ultimately salvation is individual. There is an Israel within Israel, a true Israel. There is the church visible and the church invisible (the heavenly church). At the last judgement there will be sadly, a division within churches and a division within families. We are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul.
Let’s keep saying “I”. And when you next say the Apostles’ Creed let’s consider our individual relationship with God. Do I believe this? And am I harbouring deceit in my heart (for even a parrot can be trained to repeat the Creed)? Am I being double minded?
And if the answer is “yes I truly believe”, well that is absolutely wonderful!
This contribution reflects well our concern to ‘Learn Always’ - as we all seek to learn, always. Always disciples, always teachable, always reformable, always growing. So I am challenged by this learning and will look forward to changing the way we participate in this confession in church from this new (or is it old?) learning. Thanks for the wise encouragement, Andrew.