Creeds - What Do You Thnk About Them?

Creeds are good as long as they are Biblical Creeds.

In our era today, I think the opposite exists than what was described. In that, people are more devoted to their "personal relationship" and felt nuances of emotionalism not steeped in truth. Instead worshiping God or following a movement, we have made God in another image of our own imagination.

 

My pardons to Oswald Chambers for twisting his words and meaning.

Today we have substituted personal beliefs for creedal beliefs
and that is why so many are divisions and disputes so few devoted to Jesus Christ.
People do not so much want to be devoted to Jesus but to their own personal convictions about him.
Jesus Christ is a source of deep offense to the mind of today that does not want him in any other way then way they want to see him.

Rob

 

I am a huge fan of Albert Mohler at SBTS, who in 2007-2008 did a series of 12 sermons on the Apostles Creed. Since we don't recite this at church, I had never thought much about the Apostles Creed, but as I listened to those sermons I came to realize what a great and timeless statement of our faith it is.

The sermons are on Dr. Mohler's website and can be accessed through this link: http://www.albertmohler.com/?s=apostles+creed

 

"'I believe,' says one, and he begins to repeat what they call the 'Apostle's Creed.' Hold your tongue, sir! That matters not; the devil believes that perhaps more intelligently than you do; he believes and trembles. That kind of believing saves no man. You may believe the most orthodox creed in Christendom, and perish. Dost thou trust—for that is the cream of the word 'believe'—dost thou trust in Jesus?" —Charles Spurgeon, A Divine Mission

 

When we learn things, often we do memorize things that we do not understand or can grasp. This is the basics of education; some call this stage of learning the grammar stage.

Yet, when you listen to people who recounted the Welsh revival, some talked about how God moved in the town. One recounted how the catechisms helped bring more fuel to the fire. In other words, as one person noted the revival she said that the revival grew hotter because years ago people prepared with memorizing scripture and catechisms. When the revival hit, this person said, the fire had healthy wood to help burn hotter.

 

Spurgeon was not attacking creeds or catechisms. He even developed his own catechism for people in his congregation to learn.

 

"Do not dream that, to have a formal creed, or a something which is said not to be a creed, but 'a declaration', or some other style of confession,—I know not how to mention the nondescript invention,—is enough. Without intensely hearty belief of truth, these precious documents are wretched affairs. Declarations of the kind I refer to may be compared to flags, which may be useful if carried by brave standard-bearers; or they may be tawdry ornaments, used for meaner ends." —Charles Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry

 

I agree with his statements. However, he was not against creeds. He was against creeds without a heart for God. Yet, he was not against creeds itself. I think both are clear in his teachings.

 

"we grossly mistake if we think that orthodoxy of creed will save us. I am sick of those cries of 'the truth,' 'the truth,' 'the truth,' from men of rotten lives and unholy tempers. There is an orthodox as well as a heterodox road to hell, and the devil knows how to handle Calvinists quite as well as Arminians. No pale of any church can insure salvation, no form of doctrine can guarantee to us eternal life. 'Ye must be born again.'" —Charles Spurgeon, Nothing But Leaves

 

We hear on all sides great outcries against creeds. Are these clamours justifiable? It seems to me that when properly analysed most of the protests are not against creeds, but against truth, for every man who believes anything must have a creed, whether he write it down and print it or no; or if there be a man who believes nothing, or anything, or everything by turns, he is not a fit man to be set up as a model. Attacks are often made against creeds because they are a short, handy form by which the Christian mind gives expression to its belief, and those who hate creeds do so because they find them to be weapons as inconvenient, as bayonets in the hands of British soldiers have been to our enemies. --Charles H. Spurgeon in his sermon: The Church As She Should Be

To say that "a creed comes between a man and his God," is to suppose that it is not true; for truth, however definitely stated, does not divide the believer from his Lord. So far as I am concerned, that which I believe I am not ashamed to state in the plainest possible language; and the truth I hold I embrace because I believe it to be the mind of God revealed in his infallible Word. How can it divide me from God who revealed it? It is one means of my communion with my Lord, that I receive his words as well as himself, and submit my understanding to what I see to be taught by him. Say what he may, I accept it because he says it, and therein pay him the humble worship of my inmost soul.--Charles H. Spurgeon upon Censure from the Baptist Union in which he was partially charged of creedalism. He defended himself by stating creeds are good.


I am unable to sympathize with a man who says he has no creed; because I believe him to be in the wrong by his own showing. He ought to have a creed. What is equally certain, he has a creed—he must have one, even though he repudiates the notion. His very unbelief is, in a sense, a creed.--Charles H. Spurgeon upon Censure from the Baptist Union.

The objection to a creed is a very pleasant way of concealing objection to discipline, and a desire for latitudinarianism--Charles H. Spurgeon upon Censure from the Baptist Union

My creed is part of my being. I believe it to be true; and believing it to be true, I feel its living force upon my nature every day. When a man tells you that his creed is a dead thing, do not deny it for a minute; there is no doubt of the fact. He knows about himself better than you do. Oh, dear friends, let us never have a dead creed! That which you believe, you must believe up to the hilt; believe it livingly, believe it really; for that is not believed at all which is only believed in the letter, but is not felt in the power of it.--Charles H. Spurgeon in his sermon "Life From the Dead"

 

Amen and glory hallelujah!

Here is a good thought on this subject as well. It is actually used as a signature line by someone on BB as well - I'm pretty sure.

The modern cry, ‘Less creed and more liberty,’ is a degeneration from the vertebrate to the jelly fish, and means less unity and less morality, and it means more heresy. …It is a positive and very hurtful sin to magnify liberty at the expense of doctrine.
--An Interpretation of the English Bible, B.H. Carroll
First President, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (1908-14)

 

"It is a great mistake to fancy that to endorse sound doctrine is the same thing as possessing saving faith, for while saving faith accepts the truth of God, it mainly concerns itself with the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and its essence lies in reliance upon Jesus himself. I am not saved because I believe the Scriptures, or because I believe the doctrines of grace, but I am saved if I believe Christ; or, in other words, trust in him. Jesus is my creed. He is the truth." —Charles Spurgeon, Faith's Dawn and Its Clouds

 

"he who means to be a man of God to the fulness of his manhood will feed upon the word of God at first hand. Like the Bereans, he will be of a noble spirit, and he will search the Scriptures daily. 'I want,' saith he, 'to obtain my creed, not at second hand from others, but directly for myself from the very word of God itself—the pure well of gospel undefiled.' This is a very important point." —Charles Spurgeon, The Hold Fast

 

I think the ecumenical creeds are a good tool. While they aren't authoritative in and of themselves, they express biblical truth.

 

"I am persuaded that the use of a good Catechism in all our families will be a great safeguard against the increasing errors of the times, and therefore I have compiled this little manual from the Westminster Assembly's and Baptist Catechisms, for the use of my own church and congregation. Those who use it in their families or classes must labour to explain the sense; but the words should be carefully learned by heart, for they will be understood better as years pass."―C. H. Spurgeon

 

We hear on all sides great outcries against creeds. Are these clamours justifiable? It seems to me that when properly analysed most of the protests are not against creeds, but against truth, for every man who believes anything must have a creed, whether he write it down and print it or no; or if there be a man who believes nothing, or anything, or everything by turns, he is not a fit man to be set up as a model. Attacks are often made against creeds because they are a short, handy form by which the Christian mind gives expression to its belief, and those who hate creeds do so because they find them to be weapons as inconvenient, as bayonets in the hands of British soldiers have been to our enemies. They are weapons so destructive to theology that it protests against them. For this reason let us be slow to part with them. Let us lay hold of God's truth with iron grip, and never let it go. After all, there is a Protestantism still worth contending for; there is a Calvinism still worth proclaiming, and a gospel worth dying for. There is a Christianity distinctive and distinguished from Ritualism, Rationalism, and Legalism, and let us make it known that we believe in it. Up with your banners, soldiers of the cross! This is not the time to be frightened by the cries against conscientious convictions, which are nowadays nicknamed sectarianism and bigotry. Believe in your hearts what you profess to believe; proclaim openly and zealously what you know to be the truth. Be not ashamed to say such-and-such things are true, and let men draw the inference that the opposite is false. Whatever the doctrines of the gospel may be to the rest of mankind, let them be your glory and boast. Display your banners, and let those banners be such as the church of old carried. Unfurl the old primitive standard, the all-victorious standard of the cross of Christ. In very deed and truth—in hoc signo vinces—the atonement is the conquering truth. Let others believe as they may, or deny as they will, for you the truth as it is in Jesus is the one thing that has won your heart and made you a soldier of the cross.--Charles H. Spurgeon