The Apostle’s Creed: God the Father
The Apostle’s Creed – God the Father
“I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord: who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic (universal) church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen”
The next few Blogs will be about the Apostle’s Creed. I want to view it from the prospective of the 1st Century, for it is generally believed that it was the public statement/profession of faith that Christians made when they were going to be baptized. It served to assure the other believers that the person being baptized was truly a Christian, one with them in faith; not that saying these things made them Christians, but they said them because they believed them, because they truly were Christians. Remember, to publicly profess these things in the 1st century Roman world was to put a bulls-eye on your back; there was no “easy-believism” in the 1st Century, the Romans hated the Christians, and the Roman government actively persecuted them unto death!
The Apostle’s Creed is too simple for people today, but its brilliance and power is that it so succinctly states the basic doctrines of Christianity. It was not written by the Apostles, but since it dates from the time of the Early Church, and contains a summary of what they taught, it is called “The Apostle’s Creed”.
The first statement: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.”
This one statement is a bold, in-your-face, direct attack on the entire Greek/Roman religious system!
In fact every statement in the Apostle’s Creed would be virtually 100% antithetical to the Greek/Roman religious system and their way of thinking and seeing the Universe/Cosmos.
And I would say that the Apostle’s Creed in 100% antithetical to what the average humanist, evolutionist, believes today. Do you believe these statements to be true? How much differently do you think you would live if you believe them?
“I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth”, the Greeks and Romans believed in a plurality of gods/entities, each one controlling an aspect or area of the natural world or of the affairs of men. Neptune is the god of freshwater and the sea in Roman religion. He is the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon. While we refer to these gods, and the stories about them as myths, these gods are real entities: they are demons; angels who followed Lucifer in his rebellion against God. The entire Greek/Roman religious system was a highly organized worship of demons! Paul says, “I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God. I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.” 1Co 10:20
So this one statement, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” is a bold statement against the entire Greek/Roman religious system!
We Christians believe there is One God who alone is Almighty, he has no equal. That was unthinkable to the Greeks and Romans! They believed there were many gods. Each person had a god to whom he appealed for help; each city had its patron god; very much like Roman Catholics think of saints, and Hindus do of their gods. Because the Christians rejected the Greek/Roman system, saying the gods controlled nothing, they were called atheists, and as such, they were traitors to the State and the State Religion; they had committed treason!
Listen to the Christian assessment of the gods, “So concerning the eating of foods that are offered in sacrifice to idols, we know that an idol (the place where the demon interacted with people) is nothing in the world (has no power in the world), and that there is no other God but one. For there are those (the idols) who are called gods, and whether in heaven or in earth, there are many gods and many lords. But for us, we know there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist. And there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” 1Co 8:4-6 The thinking expressed in the first statement of the Apostle’s Creed, was clearly against the prevailing religious thinking of the 1st Century!
Regarding the word “Father”, think singular eternally existing “Source”; this is a statement that from Him comes life. He is the author of life, the fountain of life. All beings in the Universe get life from him; he created them and gave life to them.
When Paul spoke to the Athenians, he said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. For as I passed by and looked up at your objects of worship, I found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD, whom you therefore unknowingly worship, Him I proclaim to you. God who made the world and all things in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, a does not live in temples made by hands. Nor is He served by men’s hands, as though He needed anything, a since He gives all men life and breath and all things. He has made from one blood every nation of men to live on the entire face of the earth, a having appointed fixed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord so perhaps they might reach for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’ ” Act 17:22-28
Some Greeks had vague notions, logical conclusions, that there must be one eternal being, who has always existed, who is the source of everything, but they were ignorant of him.
That is true today! Quantum physicist today cannot answer two (2) very basic questions: 1) Where did matter come from, and 2) Where did energy come from; who wound the clock? They “know” there must be something/someone else, a pre-existing “source”, but they are ignorant of him. The most brilliant people are ignorant of the most obvious fact: there is a Source. What about you? You know there must be One Eternally Existing God from whom all things originate, but you neither know him, nor anything about him? If that is you, read the Bible; the Bible is his book to us!
Regarding the word “Maker” – this does not mean God worked with existing materials. First he made the materials; God made matter! There was a “time”, when there was no matter! Matter does not exist eternally; matter was made! The Greeks and Romans believed that matter existed eternally, just as people do today. That is the height of illogic.
The Bible clearly says, “By faith we understand that the universe was framed by the word of God, so that things that are seen were not made out of things which are visible.”
Heb 11:2
We Christians believe that God first made matter, and then infused it with energy. Most Christians believe that when Gen 1:1 says, “God said, Let there be light, and there was light,” that that was not just visible light rays, but the entire electro-magnetic spectrum, i.e. energy! God spoke and energy went forth from him and energized the Universe’s matter which he had just made.
We Christians are still asking Evolutionists those same questions: “Where did matter come from? Where did the initial Energy of the Universe come from?” But since they refuse to acknowledge God as the maker and source of energy, they have no answers!
They are able to calculate the amount of energy God has locked up in the atom, but they do not know him. Think about this: e=mc2 is not exactly correct; it is not reversible. It should be written as mc2 > e. A given amount (mass) of matter yields a given amount of nuclear energy, in relationship to the speed of light; but once that energy is released, there is no going back; that energy cannot become matter again!
So just as this statement, that there was One Creator, attacked the entire Greek and Roman system, it attacks the entire Evolutionary system of today.
Regarding the words “Heaven and Earth” i.e., the universe. There is nothing that was not created by God! Period!
“For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they are thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. All things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Col 116-17
In this first statement of the Apostle’s Creed, the 1st Century Christians were saying, and we Christian today are still saying, that there is only one God, that he is the source of life, that he made all things, that he energized them, and that he therefore owns them. The gods (demon idols) have no claim. They are in fact lying usurpers, saying they have authority, but having none; the entire Greek/Roman system was a lie, the entire Evolutionary system is a lie!
Do you see how this statement was a frontal assault against all that the 1st Century people believed; against the entire system of gods that they invoked to sustain them?
Do you see how this same statement is a direct attach on the Evolution thinking of today. The naturalistic, non-creationist origin theory that says all things came from nothing, is an illogical lie!
And just as the Greeks and Romans saw that Christianity was at absolute variance with their system, so too do Evolutionist rightly see that we Christians at 100% at variance with them; we are universes apart!
This one statement, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” is the line in the sand, a defining statement!