What We Believe

The Creed is our faith

The Creed is our faith, and it is essential for us to know our faith in order for it to be real and alive in us. Make the Creed part of your daily prayers and this will be a big help to you.

Our Creed — goes like this:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all worlds: Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father by Whom all things were made. Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from Heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man. And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried. And on the third day rose again according to the Scriptures. And ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father. And He shall come again, with glory, to judge the living and the dead, Whose Kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; Who spake by the Prophets.

And I believe in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins.

I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

This short statement of Faith is the essence of what we believe as Orthodox Christians and further, this statement of Faith is non-negotiable. In other words, if we don’t believe every part of this statement we cannot call ourselves Orthodox Christians; if we don’t believe every part of this statement we exclude ourselves from the worship the Church that has confessed this Faith for over 2000 years; if we don’t believe every part of this statement then we cannot approach the chalice to partake of communion.

In Ephesians 4.4–6 St Paul says: There is… one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all. In other words, this one faith that expresses what has been revealed to us by God is what we are baptized into and it is this unity of faith that we participate in and proclaim when we worship God and then partake of the Holy Eucharist. All of this is intimately connected. St Basil the Great says it like this: As we were baptized, so we profess our belief. As we profess our belief so also we offer praise (worship). As then baptism has been given us by the Savior, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, so, in accordance with our baptism, we make the confession of the creed, and our doxology (worship) in accordance with our creed.

One could say then, that if we deviate from the Creed we deviate from Christ but also that if we hold fast to the Creed we hold fast to our Lord Jesus Christ. Hold fast to the Creed beloved and so keep Christ in your heart.

Dogma and similarities

Often, I hear the comment (or something like it) — Do these dogmatic things really matter when it comes to our belief in Christ? Don’t most Christians believe the same thing generally? At first glance this objection seems to deserve consideration — do we really need to argue about who God is, what He has done for us and how we participate in that? Well, lets take a moment to think about this proposition — differences don’t really matter, its the similarities that are important.

Imagine that you are in pain and I have two small white pills in my hand and I tell you that one is arsenic (poison) and the other aspirin (pain killer) you would, no doubt, be very concerned with which was which… Sometimes, despite similarities, differences matter… Sometimes differences are life and death…

Now, does this mean that anyone who does not confess the Creed that we do as Orthodox Christians is going to hell. NO! As I have said many times — who goes to heaven and who goes to hell is up to God, not me and not you. So we return again to the question of why these dogmatic issues really matter. Take another example.

Imagine that you are sick, and the doctor tells you that you there are many medicines that you can take that might help you. Some are more potent than others but there is one medicine that is completely pure and guaranteed to heal you. Which medicine would you take? Obviously you would take the one that is guaranteed to heal you. Our Creed, that expresses our Orthodox Faith, is this pure medicine—guaranteed to heal us if we commit to it fully.

If we believe that the Church is Christ’s body (Col 1.18) then it would follow that the Church is the presence of Christ here on earth and it is our Lord Jesus Christ who heals us. We need Christ and the Orthodox Church is the fullest and truest expression—the most perfect presentation of Jesus Christ to humanity…This understanding is why the Church has always fought to preserve the teachings and dogma’s about who God is, what He has done for us in His Son and how we can participate in that. If the dogma’s about who Christ is and the doctrines that support those are not preserved in their fullness then the presence of Christ on earth is in jeopardy. Salvation—union with God—comes through Jesus Christ and He is made present to us through His body—the Church. How do we join ourselves to our Lord’s body? We begin with the first word(s) of the Creed.

When we utter the first two words of the Creed—I believe (one word in Greek—πιστεύω) —then we not only declare we understand and confess that something is true but we also open our hearts to that something—in the case of the Creed, we open our hearts to the God who we profess in the Creed. We can remember that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness (Rom 4.3). In other words, Abraham’s faith—his belief (the same root word in Greek)—opened him up to God’s transforming power. We also see that in so many of the healings that our Lord did that he asked the people if they believed He was able to do what they were asking—were their hearts opened to the transformative and healing power of God?

Remember this when you utter these words I believe—remember that you are opening yourself up to the transformative power of this God—the One True God—that you are confessing by saying this Creed and by participating in this holy liturgy that He has given us. This confession of belief is so that we can have real and true communion with Him for the healing of our souls and bodies.

One God, the Father Almighty

This week in our investigation of the Creed, after having established that we believe and that we open ourselves up to God and His transformative power—we declare that we believe in One God, the Father Almighty. The God that we believe in—is one God (Deut 6.4) Who is faithful and unique, Father (Mt 5.48, Jn 5.43) Who has a Son and is loving, and almighty (Ps 68.14) Who all-powerful and victor.

The oneness of God can be defined in two ways. First, in terms of number in relation to other things—there is one divine nature, one divine substance, one divine essence (there are many words that we can use to try to communicate this understanding)—there is only one God… there are no others (1 Chron 16.26, Ps 114.4, Is 2.8). Think about it this way—we all are human beings, there is no different king of human being that has a dog for a son or elephant for a father. Human beings give birth to human beings—in the same way there is only one kind of divinity. There are no other gods who can claim divinity—who can claim that they simply exist and are uncreated (Ex 3.14), that they are eternal (Deut 33.27), that they are creator (Is 40.28)—there is no equal to the God we believe in.

The second way that our God is one is in unity. Even though we believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—these three are united in their divinity, activity and will and these are unchanging. In other words it isn’t like paganism where one god wants one thing and another god wants something else and the stronger or more devious accomplishes what it wants—no—Father, Son and Holy Spirit are united in their activity and will. So there is one God and He is united and single in His action and will so that we need no worry about God’s faithfulness or love for us.

Next, our God is Father (Ps 68.5, Ps 103.13, Prov 1.8, Is 9.6, Is 63.16, Jer 3.19, Jer 31.9, Mt 5.48, Mt 6.9, Jn 4.21, Jn 5.17, Jn 5.43). One of the biggest heretical challenges that the Church faced early on was the the challenge of arianism—which is, in short, the teaching that the Son and Logos of God was created. If this blasphemous teaching were true this would mean that there was a time when God was NOT Father—which of course is wrong. If God is Father from eternity, He has also had a Son from eternity.

The fact that our God is a Father also means He cares for us as a father cares for his own children (Ps 103.13). Part of this care means that he will correct us or discipline us as a father (Prov 3.12) and part of this care means that He will always welcome us home as the father welcomes the son home in the parable of the prodigal son (Lk 15.11–32). Calling God Father also means that our God is personal in the sense that we can relate to Him in this intimate way as a child to a parent and that within the Godhead itself there is a relational aspect— Father to Son, Son to Father, Father to Spirit, Spirit to Father and Son to Spirit and Spirit to Son.

Finally, for today, God is Almighty (Gen 17.1, Job 5.17, Ps 68.14, Ez 10.5). He is all-powerful and there is no-one or no thing that is greater or more powerful than Him. Our God has defeated death itself—the last enemy (Lk 24.6, Rev 1.18 and 20.14).

As we contemplate these first descriptions about who our God is we at once understand that our God loves us (He is a Father), that He is all-powerful (He is almighty), that there is no other and that He is steadfast and faithful (He is one). In short, everything will be made right. The question is—will we cooperate with the One God who is Father and Almighty?

Let there be light

It is a dogma (a non-negotiable tenet or belief) of the Church that God created out of nothing. The fancy way to say this is ex nihilo (literally from, or out of, nothing). Often you hear people say that the “Big Bang Theory” of science, and Christianity, are not compatible. In other words, you cannot believe in both of these things. Is that really true? Think about it, if God said let there be light (Gen 1.3) and there was never any light before, that would be the biggest explosion the universe has ever known…

Another reason we insist that God created from nothing is that there was a common belief in the ancient world that the universe—or cosmos, as used to be the common way to say it— was eternal. In other words, that—like we believe about God—the universe had always existed. Well, first that is problematic because if there was never a starting point we, who find ourselves in this world, could never make it to this present moment…try that for a mind bender! But take a moment and think, how can there ever be a progression along a line of time if there is no starting point? The next reason we don’t believe that the universe is eternal is because there can’t be two eternal all-powerful things—God and the universe. This would mean that the universe is divine in some way but we established last week that God is One—there is no other. We also established that God is Father, meaning that He is a person and therefore relational—unlike a non-personal universe.

So God, created everything that exists from nothing and not just the things here on earth but in heaven and, those things seen and unseen. And very importantly, He created these things good (Gen 1.31). Included in things unseen are the holy angels as well as the devil and the demons, who were created first as good angels of God. As strong as the devil is—he is still a creature of God…

Now, some will ask, why did God create the devil? A fair question, but behind this question is another question…why did God decide to create at all if He knew that evil would come? Well, that would mean that even the possibility of evil is so bad…and so strong that it could keep God from creating, which is nonsense! God chose to create and to create all things good because He is humble and loving—not proud and selfish. Humble people empty themselves, they go outside of themselves and so we see that the act of creation itself is a humble act by God because He goes outside Himself through creating and we see that the freedom God gives His creatures is a loving act because as I have said many times, there is no love without freedom.

So, for today, God is the only eternal one who is creator of all things—heaven, earth, things seen and things unseen. God, who we have established is Father, is the fountainhead of all things and all things were created good. Those things given rationality by God—angels and human beings—were also given this gift of freedom which is the ability to choose God or not. This great and terrible gift of freedom bestowed on God’s creatures shows that God is almighty to create and to weave any dissonance of freedom ill-used (evil) into His Song of salvation where all is resolved in the end.