Christian, What Do You Believe?

Introduction

It is a simple question, at least on the surface. One might answer, “I believe in Jesus,” “Jesus is Lord,” or “Jesus died for my sins.” Each of these statements is true, but each is also dangerously imprecise. Illustrated by the following examples, shared language does not equate to shared belief.

• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affirms all three statements, yet teaches that Jesus is a created being, not eternally God.
• Jehovah’s Witnesses likewise affirms them, while denying the Trinity and identifying Jesus as the Archangel Michael.
• Oneness Pentecostalism affirms them as well, while rejecting the Trinity in favor of a modalist understanding of God.

This question did not begin in a classroom, council, or theological debate. It was asked before the administration of baptism, under persecution and during public interrogation, and used in the defense against the false teaching that threatened the church from the beginning. For that reason, the early church learned to answer not with improvisation, but with an articulate, precise, and shared confession of faith.

Why Precision Matters

Few things sound more obviously Christian than the words “Jesus is Lord”. They are Biblical, ancient, and central to the faith. Yet we must recognize that the church has never assumed that shared language alone was sufficient.

History has shown repeatedly that the most serious errors speak fluent Christian. The early church learned this quickly. In the late second century, Irenaeus of Lyons could already appeal to a shared confession of faith known across the churches:

"The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, carefully preserves this faith, and hands it down as if she had but one soul and one and the same heart."

What mattered was not private interpretation, but the faith the church received and confessed together. Likewise, looking to chapter 7 of The Didache, which describes the process of the sacrament of Baptism, mirroring the Trinitarian pattern given in Matthew 28:19.

"And concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 28:19 in living water. But if you have not living water, baptize into other water; and if you can not in cold, in warm. But if you have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whatever others can; but you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before."

This is not intended to be an apples to apples comparison, but simply further illustrate that even in the 1st century church as it was being established by the Apostles, all evidence suggests 1st century Christians were used to thinking about their faith in very deliberate, precise, and systematic way.

Confession Under Pressure

The Church did not first encounter error and false teaching after the close of the New Testament. It emerged almost immediately, while the gospel was still being proclaimed and while the apostolic witnesses were still alive. False teachers did not arrive with entirely new ideas. They came armed with Christian texts and Christian language, subtly twisting and manipulating their meaning, not unlike Satan tempting Jesus with Scripture in the wilderness.

The inspired Scriptures of the New Testament themselves bear witness to this pressure. Paul warns the Galatians that some are already distorting the gospel he delivered to them (cf. Galatians 1:6-9). He likewise exhorts the Corinthians to reject any “different gospel” from the one that he and the other apostles had preached, even if it should come from a so-called “messenger of light.” We often associate Gnosticism with the controversies addressed by the early ecumenical councils, and rightly so, yet the epistles of John and Peter make clear that the seeds of these errors were already present and actively opposed in the first century.

This context helps explain why confession mattered so early in the life of the Church. It was not enough to say that one believed in Jesus. The Church had to confess which Jesus it proclaimed. Long before formal creeds were written, Christians articulated a recognizable rule of faith that distinguished apostolic teaching from its imitations. As Ignatius of Antioch warned at the beginning of the second century, error often arrived clothed in Christian speech:

"Be not deceived, my brethren. Those that corrupt families shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If those who do this according to the flesh have suffered death, how much more shall this be so if a man corrupts the faith of God for which Jesus Christ was crucified."

The Church confessed before it ever debated, because it first had to recognize the truth in order to defend it. Confession served as a boundary marker, preserving what had been faithfully received.

From Confession to Creed

Time went on and false teaching continued to spread. The apostolic fathers of our faith passed away and the canon of scripture was closed with a final Revelation given to John. The gospel was being proclaimed across regions, cultures, and languages as Jesus commanded but often to communities without direct access to an apostle, even before their martyrdom (sans John). Oral instruction alone had already become insufficient alone during the apostolic age, with a portion of our New Testament scripture being corrections and re-assurances, not given as new information, bu to correct misunderstandings or corruptions of earlier teachings.

Scripture itself reflects this need, Paul speaks repeatedly of the Gospel being a tangible and concrete thing, first received and then handed down, never redefined. He uses Timothy to “guard the good deposit entrusted to you” and warns against teaching that departs from “the pattern of sound words,” (c.f. 2 Tim 1:13-14). Jude challenges believers to contend for “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (c.f. Jude 1:3). These appeals assume a definable body of belief that would be recognized, taught, and defended.

Early Christian writers made this assumption explicit. Irenaeus of Lyons describes the church’s shared confession as a safeguard against teachers who quoted Scripture while reshaping its meaning:

"They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures, and allege that the apostles intermingled the things of the law with ' the words of the Savior."

What later generations would call creeds were the church’s response to this problem. They were not speculative theology, nor replacements for Scripture. They were concise summaries of apostolic teaching, designed to preserve the identity of the gospel when Scripture itself was being misused. Creeds exist because the church learned that Scripture must be confessed as well as read, and that shared language without shared meaning was not enough.

What Creeds Are (and Are Not)

Up to this point, “confession” has been something a church does: a public and shared declaration of faith. When speaking of creeds in the specific context, the focus is on early ecumenical summaries such as the Apostles Creed or Nicene Creed. These creeds arose directly out of the church’s lived confession and were intended to give durable shape to the belief already held and confessed.

This is distinct from later confessional documents produced during the Reformation, such as the Westminster Standards or Three Forms of Unity. Those confessions serve important purposes within particular traditions, but they operate on a different level of detail and address questions far beyond the core tenets of the Christian faith.

Scripture remains the authoritative rule of the church. It is the sole infallible and inerrant source of God’s self-revelation. Confessions and creeds do not rule the church, rather they serve the church. They discipline belief without dominating it, clarify essentials without flattening mystery, and preserved communion without demanding absolute consensus on every point of doctrine. They do not hold authority, and they are only inerrant so much as we believe they correctly condense down God’s word.

“No Creed but Christ” and Its Cost

The emotional reaction that gives rise to the phrase “No creed but Christ” is understandable. Scripture itself warns us against elevating the traditions of men above the Word of God. In Mark 7, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees precisely for this error, exposing how human traditions can obscure divine truth.

At the same time, Scripture also shows us that Christ is never confessed without definition. The Bible does not leave the identity of Jesus vague or undefined. When the apostles confess Christ, they do so with substance and specificity. We see this clearly in passages such as 1 Timothy 3:16 and, most notably, Colossians 1:15-20:

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross."

A clear example can be seen in Islam. Muslims affirm that they worship Allah, the God of Abraham and the God of Jacob. Yet Jesus is understood only as a prophet. He is honored, but not divine, and no atoning sacrifice is required, since forgiveness is granted as an act of mercy alone.

Christians likewise confess a merciful God, but the identity of that God is inseparable from the person and work of Jesus Christ. The God Christians worship is not merely forgiving, but holy, and His mercy is expressed through atonement rather than the denial of sin’s seriousness.

The difference is not semantic. It is a difference of identity. When Christians confess Christ, they are not merely naming Him, but defining who He is and what He has done. That is precisely why the church learned to confess its faith with care.

When the church rejects shared confession under the banner of “No creed but Christ”, the intent is greater faithfulness, but the outcome is greater ambiguity. Christ is always named, but not always carefully defined.

This is not a claim that churches without formal creeds stop discipling believers or teaching God’s truth. Many do so both sincerely and fruitfully. The concern is more subtle. When a church lacks a shared and explicit confession of who God is, what the Gospel is, and how Christ is understood, those definitions are often assumed rather than taught. Over time, believers may use deeply Christian language while holding meaningfully different beliefs without realizing it.

This often manifests as quiet drifting more often than loud scandals or controversy. Without the clear confession, the identity of the Triune God and the person of Christ become blurred and misunderstood.

Sidebar - The Apostle’s Creed

Many Christians pause when they encounter the line in the Apostles’ Creed stating that Christ “descended into hell.” The concern is understandable, many are just not comfortable with the idea of Christ our Lord physically inhabiting the realm of Hell, a place we think of as place of final judgement and punishment, or with the idea of expressing something Scripture does not explicitly outline. Allow me to re-assure you that this is a translation problem, not a claim of doctrine.

The Apostle’s Creed has its roots in an earlier proto-creed called The Roman Symbol, which emerged late 2nd century and was transmitted in Latin. When translated into English, we run into the problem that the word “hell” collapses down three distinct Biblical concepts:

• Sheol (Hebrew): the grave, death itsself
• Hades (Greek): the state of death
• Gehenna: final judgement

In Latin, the phrase was rendered inferos / inferna, that is to say, “the realm of the dead”. The Creed is not asserting Christ’s location, it is asserting his condition. He was crucified, buried, and was under the power of death for three days.

Conclusion

Creeds are not an attempt to modify, alter, or obscure Scripture or doctrinal truth. They are the direct result of what Scripture itself calls us to do.

Paul instructs us in Romans 10:9-10 of the importance of confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord, not merely believing in our hearts, but confessing with our mouths. Jesus himself stresses this truth in Matthew 10:32, promising that whoever acknowledges Him before men, He will acknowledge before the Father.

Scripture calls us not simply to hold faith privately, but to proclaim it, defend it, and confess it openly. So I ask you, Christian, what do you believe?

"I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen."