Catechism Sermon Series: Apostles' Creed
Large Catechism:
Apostles’ Creed
In
the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The
Catechism starts with the Commandments and moves to the Creed because this is
the proper order of Law and then Gospel. The Commandments teach what we ought
to do. But the Creed tells us what God does for us and gives to us. These are
the two very different doctrines of the Law and the Gospel. And yet both
doctrines are absolutely necessary. If we could keep the Ten Commandments by
our own power as they should be kept, then we wouldn’t need the Creed or the Lord’s
Prayer. On the other hand, if we only had the Creed and didn’t know the Law, then
we would never know why God had to send His Son to save us and the Gospel would
be meaningless.
We should also recognize the difference in
how we come to know the Commandments and the Creed. The Ten Commandments or
God’s Law are written on people’s hearts, although this understanding is
incomplete and twisted due to sin. Still, there is some natural knowledge of
God’s Law even without the inspired Word. But no human wisdom can come up with
or understand the Creed. The truths confessed in the Creed must be taught by
the Holy Spirit in His Scriptures.
This also means that the Ten Commandments do
not make a Christian. Only the message of the Holy Trinity and the redemption
of Christ, only the Creed can bring pure grace to sinners and make us righteous
and acceptable to God. And only once a Christian believes the Creed and
receives the grace God offers there is he able to go back to the Commandments
and begin to keep them with God’s help.
Each in their proper place, the Commandments
and the Creed agree and reinforce each other. This is seen most clearly in the
very first words of the Creed: I believe
in one God… This is exactly what the First Commandment requires. You shall have no other gods. So the
Creed keeps the First Commandment by declaring I believe in the one true God. The
rest of the Creed is really a commentary on the First Commandment, answering
the question that arises: Who is this one God we are to have? The Creed
answers: He is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and this is what He does.
The Creed can then be divided into three
articles, each confessing a different Person of the Holy Trinity, and each
confessing a particular work of God. So the First Article confesses God the
Father and creation. The Second Article confesses God the Son and redemption. The
Third Article confesses God the Holy Spirit and sanctification. Of course, all
three Persons of the Trinity are involved in all three works, but in the Creed
we ascribe these works to a particular Person.
So as I said, the First Article confesses
God the Father and it gives Him the credit for the creation of the world. Not
only the creation of the whole universe, but also the creation of me. I am His
creature. And along with me, God has created and provided everything I need for
this life and everything I could possibly enjoy in this life: food and sunsets,
clothing and chocolate, family and thunderstorms, government and the Milky Way.
In this way, the First Article of the Creed also matches up well with the Fourth
Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: Give us
this day our daily bread – which includes all earthly things in this life. And
besides creating this wonderful world, God still sustains it. He didn’t put it
together, wind it up, and let it go. He is still active in it. He is what makes
the world go round. And not only does He guide the hurricanes, and keep the
planets spinning, and provide food for birds, He also takes an interest in me. He defends me against all danger, guards and
protects me from all evil.
All
this He does only out of fatherly divine goodness and mercy without any merit
or worthiness in me. I did
not call myself into being. I did not
choose to be born. I did not create
anything in my life out of nothing. If
we could truly realize this, we would not be so proud and defiant towards God
our Creator. If we would truly
believe this, we would not abuse the good gifts of God for our own selfish lust
and luxury. He is the Potter, we are
nothing but the clay in His hands. The
One who spoke a Word and created all things, He made you. He knows you, and He has counted every hair on your head.
The Second Article confesses God the Son, and
it gives Him the credit for the redemption of mankind. If you want to boil down
the Second Article to its simplest form you could say, “I believe that Jesus
Christ, God’s true Son, has become my Lord.” But then we have to follow up
with, what does it mean to become Lord? It means that He has redeemed me from
sin, death, and the devil. Before this I did not have a Lord, but was only a
prisoner, held captive under the devil’s power, condemned to death, and stuck
in sin and blindness. After all, it was the devil who led us into disobedience.
So we then fell under God’s wrath and displeasure and were doomed to eternal
damnation. But the Second Article speaks of God’s compassion: How He sent His
Son from heaven to become one of us and join our cause. How this Son suffered
and died in our place to pay the price for our sins and to satisfy God’s wrath.
And how this Son rose in victory over death and the devil and became our
champion, our deliverer and defender. He has rescued us poor, lost people from
hell, He has won us, and made us free, and has brought us back into the
Father’s grace and favor.
All that is what it means to be our Lord. It
means the same as Redeemer and Savior. It means He is the One who has brought
us from sin to righteousness, from death to life, from Satan to God. This
Article also teaches us how much it cost Him to redeem us. Salvation is a free
gift to us on account of this Son, but it was costly to God. Our eternal life
cost Him His own: His holy blood and death. But it was a cost He willingly,
gladly paid to have us. And soon, this same Son will come again to completely
deliver us from this world of death, and give us a new life in His eternal
kingdom. There is so much in this Second Article that we have to spread it out
over the course of the year, so we can treat its various parts, especially at
the appointed times, such as Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. But the
entire Gospel that we preach day after day, is all based on this article. This
is the absolute source and center of the Christian religion.
Then the Third Article confesses God the
Holy Spirit, and it gives Him credit for our sanctification. Or to put it even
more simply: the Holy Spirit makes people holy. It’s right there in His name. The
rest of the Third Article then confesses how the Holy Spirit makes us holy. He
preaches the Gospel to us. He calls us and leads us into His holy congregation
and so places us into the Church. And within the Church He continually preaches
to us and brings us to Christ for the forgiveness of sins. We could never know
anything about Christ or believe in Him unless the message of the Gospel were
preached and given to us by the Holy Spirit. The work of salvation was done and
accomplished by Christ on the cross. But now that salvation must be delivered
to us. So God has caused the Word to go forth and be proclaimed. In the Word He
has the Holy Spirit bring forgiveness to us and make it our own.
This also means that wherever it is taught
that we should be saved by our works, the Christian Church is not there. Where
Christ is not preached, there is no Holy Spirit. No Holy Spirit, then no
forgiveness of sins and no Christian Church and no salvation. So we should also
recognize that the one holy Christian Church is a creation of the Holy Spirit. Which
is why it is an article of faith: I believe in the holy Christian Church.
We can only see its outward form, which is constantly attacked and diluted by
sin and hypocrites. But we nonetheless believe the Church is real, created by
the Spirit, and it is holy. This is also why we explain the holy Christian
Church as the communion of saints. It
is the gathering, the congregation of believers in Christ. The Church is nothing
more or less than sinners gathered by the Holy Spirit around the Word of God
and the Sacraments in order to be forgiven. Everything in the Church should be
ordered toward this one goal. We should daily receive in the Church nothing but
the forgiveness of sin through the Word and Sacraments, in order to comfort and
encourage us as long as we live here. In this way, the work of the Holy Spirit
will carry on until the Last Day.
I think it’s a little difficult to find one
Bible passage that deals with all three Persons of the Trinity. The doctrine
confessed in the Creed cannot be found in one neat chapter of the Bible, but
they are drawn from the entire Scriptures. Still John 3 does a pretty good job
of covering all three Persons. And it covers them in the way we actually come
to know them.
We typically think of the Trinity in the
order of the Creed: First: God created the universe. Second: The Son, Jesus
Christ, died and rose for all mankind. Third: The Holy Spirit delivers
forgiveness and creates the Church. But it’s at this last part where it all
meets up with you: In my Baptism, in my hearing His Word, in my eating and
drinking Christ’s body and blood, that’s where I come to know and believe that
everything God has done has all been for me. So then you can work backwards
through the Creed and see how the Trinity has you in mind every step of the
way: The Holy Spirit calls and forgives me by telling me about Jesus. Jesus
died for me and so He shows me that God loves me. Then I can know that the God
who created me is my Father who takes care of me.
And this is how John 3 shows us the Trinity
too: First, you are born again of water and the Spirit and so brought into the
kingdom of God. Then you hear about the Son of Man who was lifted up on the
cross for you, so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. And
finally, you come to know and believe that God the Father loves the world, and
He loves you.
In
the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
