The Apostles' creed in the twentieth century

Front matter

Schenck, Ferdinand Schureman, 1845-1925.

The Apostles' creed in the twentieth centurv

3 ee aS sls

Contents

‘¢T Bexreve In “ig cA j ? é

Uses anp Asusts oF a CREED j 4 ;

“Gop THE FatHer AtmicHty, Maker oF Heaven anp EartuH” . j ; f

II

For through him we both have an access by one Spirit unto the Father—Epnu. 2: 18.

EFORE attending to the particular articles of the Apostles’ Creed it may be well for us to consider the nature and uses of a creed and the spirit in which it should be held; and then further the marked features of the general arrangement of this special creed. Some one has said that one does not know a thing or fact until he can tell it. Psychologists tell us that the mind has for its main object the adapting the whole organism to its environment; that the knowledge it receives by the senses is not clear and full until it in some way expresses itself in appropriate action. When one believes a truth he makes it more clear to himself by defining or describing it, and in this way he commends it to the attention and acceptance of others.

This is not only true of a single truth or fact but is emphatically true of a series of related truths. The nature and use of the particular 22 truth can be seen only when its relation to other truths is recognized and the nature and use of the whole series of truths can be seen only when they are clearly expressed in their order, and so carried out into appropriate action.

It is thus in the nature of the human mind to have a creed, and it applies to all the affairs of life as well as to religion. The one who learns a trade has a creed—the carpenter knows how to hit a nail on the head. ‘The difference between a good farmer and a poor one, between a successful stock-broker and a failure, is that the one knows his creed more fully and thoroughly—so thoroughly that he puts it in practice quickly and accurately.

It is so also with science. Every text-book of science states the particular truths of that science in their order and proportion. Our knowledge of any department of nature, as astronomy, geology, biology, is a creed of that department.

Now it is quite evident that the more clearly and concisely the truths of any department of nature can be stated the better for the complete grasp of the mind. And it is equally obvious that such concise statement of any great department may be the subject of much needed elaboration.

The headings of the chapters of a book on geology will state the various geological ages, and each chapter will fully describe each age; so in astronomy the different kinds of heavenly bodies; so in biology the different orders of vegetable and animal life. Concise, clear statements of truths in their proper order and proportion form creeds on various subjects. It requires clear knowledge and great care to prepare them. When well prepared they are of great value, though they may require much elaboration for their full understanding.

The Apostles’ Creed is therefore, as indicated by its name, a concise, clear and comprehensive statement of the truths of religion as taught by the Apostles in the Scriptures. It was made in the far past by students of the Scriptures: by whom we do not know. But they investigated the Scriptures to find the truths; they arranged the truths in what seemed to them the proper order and proportion according to the demands of the human mind, and we have the result of their work. Other creeds have been formed since, some of them far more elaborate, especially those formed in Reformation times.

The nature of a creed, therefore, is to state the truths of any department of nature and revelation in clear terms and in proper order and proportion.

The use of a creed, therefore, is to secure a higher kind of knowledge than can be gathered from considering only isolated truths. Each truth sheds light on related truth, and on the harmonious whole in its completeness and grandeur. It stimulates the spirit of investigation; the men who made it may have erred in statement or arrangement, and we are stimulated to go to their sources of information and find out for ourselves under their guidance. This particular creed deserves respect and veneration in that many succeeding generations have thus investigated it and commended it. When we are stimulated to such research we are following worthy examples.

The first use of a creed is, therefore, to lead to wide and clear knowledge. This particular creed has in this regard great value from its conciseness; it can be held in the memory easily and is often repeated with the voice still further fixing it in the mind.

Our knowledge in any great department when we contemplate the whole sphere of truth makes us humble; we know so little in our short lives and with our small powers. But when we compare our knowledge not with spheres of truth but with that of our fellow men it may make us arrogant and arbitrary. The Apostle Paul in teaching ‘Timothy commended a creed and especially taught him how to hold it. “ Hold fast the form of sound words in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” We are to hold fast the creed we believe in, but not arrogantly in pride over others, or trying to force its adoption by others, or condemning others for not embracing it—but “in faith and in love in Christ Jesus’: believing in Him and. having His spirit.

A second use of a creed, therefore, is it is the heart of a loving message to our fellow men, the basis of Christian teaching. The believer reciting the creed in worship—the Church in adopting the creed proclaims and commends it to the world. It virtually says we have received this statement after due investigation. We commend it to you as a clear, concise and comprehensive statement of truths of vast importance, the truths of religion. Investigate them, and accept them as far as our testimony will help you, and come thereby into the fellowship of believers and advocates. Our doors, our hearts are not only open, but have a great welcome for all.

It is a great abuse of a creed when it is relied upon as having authority in itself; it is only a cuide in the study of Scripture commended by an honoured course of such study; it is a great abuse when it fosters bigotry and intolerance, when it frowns upon candid investigation, when it crushes freedom of thought. It should always lead to the investigation of nature and the Scriptures; it should always lead to the love of mankind, to persuading men to be seekers of God to their highest welfare.

The first and second great uses of a creed are thus pervaded by the third, which cannot be separated from them except as we may hold it before our thought. It is not only to foster knowledge and keep it as free as possible from error, it is not only to give a clear message, a proclamation to the world, but it is to foster an experience of its truths and so to promote a life. Creeds in other departments are to lead to action. Surely a creed in religion is dead indeed unless it promotes life; it must live in the believer and so preach in his life as well as in his words.

Truths not merely defined and described as knowledge and proclaimed in words but experienced, influencing the depths of our nature, swaying our souls and lived out in loving lives before the world, these form our creed—this it is to believe, to have faith. Faith believes on sufficient evidence, is the insight in personal matters, has personal trust and becomes thus a principle of action; this faith has for its objects persons and conditions, as we see at a glance at the particular articles of this creed; and we can only reach the uses of a creed when it sways our lives.

Thus the Apostles’ Creed is an inheritance from the past; it sways the life of the present and so is proclaimed to the world, and thus it is handed down as a rich treasure to future generations,

Let us now consider the marked feature of the general arrangement of the Apostles’ Creed. A single glance at the whole creed shows there are three Persons the objects of our belief, and that each Person is the source of special conditions of our lives: the Father, of our creation, the Son, of our redemption, the Holy Spirit, of our sanctification; and still it is quite evident the creed does not speak of three Gods but emphatically of the one only true and eternal God.

The way in which we are to believe in each of these three Persons and of their acts towards us will be considered fully as we pass along the articles of the creed. We have now to consider what is called the doctrine of the Trinity—that there are three persons in the unity of God. As the creed leads to the investigation of Scripture we ask, How does the Scripture present this doctrine? In the first place it is very emphatic that there is but one God. Jesus Christ sums up the teaching of the Scripture when He says, “The first of all the commandments is, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” Just as emphatically Jesus also speaks of two persons when He says, “ I and the Father are one,” “The Father is in me and I in the Father.” Just as clearly Jesus also speaks of three persons when He says, ‘“ The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you.”

The Church in all the ages has kept this truth prominent in her worship when she uses the formula of baptism Christ gave her as stated in the last chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, and in her use of the Apostolic Benediction written by Paul in the last chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians.

In the one God then, according to the teaching of the Scriptures, especially according to the teaching of Jesus Christ, there are three persons—that is, there are three distinctions which are spoken of and which act and speak of themselves, as persons.

When we speak of a person we mean an intelligent conscious being independent in existence and action of all other such beings but in close relations with them. We may be sure the Scripture does not contradict itself, also that it no more requires us to believe what is absurd than to do what is sinful. God is not one Person and three Persons in the same sense. We may say with assurance that the distinctions in the divine nature which act and speak of themselves as persons are not limited by our idea of personality formed from our small experience, and that they in no sense conflict with the unity of God, the Person. Much thought has been given to this great subject through the ages, many definitions and distinctions have been made and even great controversy has been awakened, but little advance has been made. We are in the face of the mystery of existence. We cannot comprehend the mystery of our own little existence; surely we are not able to comprehend the mystery of God’s existence. In nature we are assured of the existence of God by His works, but the manner of His existence is but dimly seen. Having the revelation of this Trinity in the Scripture we may look again at His works in nature and see that they give some intimations of this mode of His existence. The sun gives forth three powers in one—light, heat and electricity. The matter of sun and earth, of the wide universe, is bound in one by the atom, the force and the law. Our own being is threefold—physical, mental and moral: body, mind and soul may each use the word person.

But the mode of God’s existence can be only made known by Himself, in nature dimly and if He chooses more fully in revelation. He has been pleased to reveal Himself in the Scriptures with special reference to the salvation of man from sin; and the revelation of the Trinity is at once seen to have special interest in man’s salvation,

It is not only to widen our mental horizon, to increase our knowledge of God, but it is specially to enlighten and enliven our souls in the experience of salvation in the full revelation of the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit. Our text sets forth the result. All mankind, divided before by the presence or absence of a special revelation into two great classes, are now to receive the revelation in Jesus Christ, and so both Jew and Gentile have access through Christ by the Spirit to the Father.

We are alienated from God, the Father, by our sins; we have arrayed His righteousness against our sins, and cannot in ourselves satisfy it; we have marred His image in our nature and we cannot restore it.

God the Father has given us His Son to save us from our sins. Jesus Christ our Divine Redeemer has satisfied the claims of righteousness against us, and by His righteousness has provided new life for us. God, the Holy Spirit, sent of the Father and the Son, teaches us the way of salvation and conforms us in faith and holy living to Christ. So we have access to the Father by Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.

The creed leads us, as do the Scriptures, not to arrogance and pride and intolerance, but to humility, reverence and faith.

We are to learn as much as we can of the nature of God; but we should always recognize that we can never fully comprehend Him. Our minds will be developed throughout eternity as we contemplate Him in His wonderful works, but we probably will never fully comprehend the mystery of His existence. He will ever lead us on in knowledge, in the development of all our powers, but He will always be in the lead. There will always be for us the honour of learning and the duty of reverence—the privilege of looking, of gazing and adoring. The creed leads us, as do the Scriptures, to learn now of God, of His nature and His works, all we need for our full salvation; and this knowledge on sufficient evidence leads us to an insight of His character and to a trust in Him and obedience to Him which is our salvation. A. mere intellectual acceptance of creed or Scripture will not suffice. We are to know, in order to love and trust and obey, the one only true and eternal God, the God of our salvation. The Scripture declares, “ Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Is not this creed enough? What the smallest quantity of knowledge of Jesus Christ may be enough to lead one to trust Him, we need not ask. Certainly the Scriptures present Him fully for our faith. Surely it is desirable we should know all that it is possible to know of Him, that we may be His intelligent followers, and may

USES AND ABUSES OF A GREED 33 rightly commend Him to others; and the more we know the more fully we should live in fellowship with Him. So we are incited by the creed, as we follow its articles, to a greater knowledge of the wonderful work of each of the three Persons of the Godhead in giving us salvation and so to the experience of the love of God in Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Il. ' Go unto my brethren and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father and my God and your God.—JOUN 20: 17.

“GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH”

FE are wonderful beings; the more we

\ \) contemplate ourselves the more the

wonder grows. Weare conscious of thinking, feeling, willing, that we are persons; we remember a long past, a personal past; we plan for an uncertain but hoped-for future—a personal future. Now we look out upon the earth and the sky, wonderful in themselves at the first thoughtful look, and the more steadily and intently we look the more the wonder grows.

The earth and the sky have had a long past; we read it, but it is not a personal past. The earth and sky, the more intently we look, have a wonderful order and arrangement, but they show no signs of intelligence, feeling, willing, that they are arranging themselves. The earth and sky have an uncertain future; the present evidently prepares for it, we may anticipate it, but it is not a personal future. We persons are in wonderful union and dependence upon our impersonal surroundings. We find our bodies are made of the same stuff that earth and distant stars are made of, only we can think and feel and will, and they cannot.

The universe—one system, one history, one future—what a wonderful thing it is! We too are a part of it, one with it: only we have a wonderful personality, and we find nothing like this in the rest of the universe.

How did the universe, including ourselves, come to be—come into existence? How is it, including ourselves, maintained and governed in such splendid order? What will be its future, | including ourselves? What wonderful questions, how hard to answer! And yet we must ask them, because we are persons. We would not be persons, would not be thinking, feeling, willing beings if we did not ask them. It is in our nature to ask them. Man as an intelligent person must ask these questions. Is there any answer? The Apostles’ Creed replies: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

Does this reply commend itself to our reason? |

Other replies have been given. Men, as they.

have advanced from savagery through barbarism to some high degrees of civilization, have believed in many gods of varied and often conflicting characters: but an appreciation of the oneness of the system we call the universe has set aside stch answers. Some have thought that the universe itself is God—that it accounts for itseli—by chance, by materialism or by pantheism; but no consciousness of personality can be seen in it, outside ourselves, and we know we are not God in any sense. Some have said we can never find out the answer, we have no powers of knowing. We may not bé able to _know all about God, but the insistence of the question in our intelligent personality implies there will be found a reasonable answer. Some have said, There must be a God, the maker of all things, but He has no longer any interest in them, any control over them. ‘This seems to be inconsistent with the needed intelligence of such a personal maker of the vast universe, including ourselves, persons.

Now as we look again carefully, intently at our surroundings, the universe outside ourselves, there is such a marvellous harmony and order in it, such a marvellous combination of forces and materials in one harmonious system, such stately order, such striking beauty, such marvellous usefulness in many directions that it begins to assume the nature of a message to us, to have a strange resemblance to a book that we are to learn to read and to follow.

This makes science possible. It investigates the various departments of nature, classifies the facts it discovers, forms theories as to the means that have brought them about; in other words it tries to read the message, and to turn its knowledge into practical channels of usefulness. Scientists strive faithfully to find the truth in the message; all honour to such earnest searchers for truth; but some do not attend to the natural inference that a message comes from one mind to another, that a book implies an author as well asareader. Other scientists adoringly acknowledge that they are simply trying to read the thoughts of God after Him, trying to read His message to them.

When we, as directed by the Apostles’ Creed, turn to investigate the Scriptures we find they teach from beginning to end the existence of one “God the Father Almighty, nalee of heaven and earth.”

The two books, that of nature and that of the Scriptures, speak to our questioning minds the same message: God exists, our Father. Sometimes these two readers, Science and Religion, have been intolerant of each other; this is not. because the two books are in any sense conflicting—they come from one author—but because the readers have had but small knowledge, and each proud of the little knowledge he possessed was contemptuous of eS little knowledge of the other.

The day of this conflict has almost passed away, very little of it remains, and it passes because the narrowness of knowledge is passing with its misunderstandings and errors,

Religion looks up into the blue sky on a clear day and says how beautiful God has made the heavens. Science says the sky is blue because the cosmic dust filling the air transmits all other rays and reflects only the blue rays of the sunlight, and thus she sees the way in which God has, through the ages, made the heavens beautiful.

Science was intolerant of the six days of creation described in the first chapter of Genesis because it thought the days were of twenty-four hours. Since it has learned that day in Scripture means a vast period—as the day of creation, the day of God’s rest, the day of judgment, the day of grace, and since it has seen in that chapter the same vast succession of creative acts it is studying in astronomy, geology and biology narrated in the same order as it finds written in the heavens and the earth, intolerance has given place to adoration.

Religion was intolerant of the immense periods of unfolding changes in the earth as indicated in the stratification of the rocks and of the vast periods of the evolution of forms of life upon its surface. But we have learned that the farther back we go and the greater the number of changes one takes in view the more a great deal does the mind observing these learn the far-reaching plans of the great maker of heaven and the earth.

Thus Religion and Science are sisters studying and admiring together the works of their heavenly Father. They look back through immense periods of time and see the cosmic light dawning from condensing star dust, as God said, “ Let there be light.” They see this little globe of the earth forming into shape and the gases and water and land coming into proper proportions.

Dead matter being prepared for its dwelling place the command of God brings vegetable life into existence; this life did not come from the matter but from the great Life-Giver. After long succession of abundant vegetation the air was so cleared of gases that sun, moon and stars could be seen and that present day movements prevailed. Thus when the atmosphere was prepared animal life in water and air was introduced, not from dead matter, not from vegetable life even, but from the great Life- Giver. After long succession of many forms of life, some now extinct, but whose vestiges are found in the stratification of the earth, God created man—a race distinct from all other races of life, though related to them as from the dust of the earth, but having distinctively the likeness, the image of the great Life- Giver. .

Thus man comes into existence at length in the plan and work of God, man the person, the thinking, feeling, willing being who can thus read the book God has written. Thus Religion and Science vie with each other in studying the works and word of God and in adoring Him. Science is becoming more and more religious, and Religion is becoming more and more scientific. Man the wonderful person becomes more wonderful as he learns of and adores “ God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.”

For there is also this feature of our nature as persons that we not only have to ask how the universe came into existence, a mere intellectual question perhaps, but we have feeling and will, and our whole nature craves another person, with whom we may have fellowship. As persons we are children of a great Father and the highest powers of our nature cannot be satisfied except as we find Him. |

The revelation of God in the Scriptures awakens and satisfies this craving. The craving may lie dormant in the savage—it may stir as if about to awaken in the advance through barbarism to civilization, and men only become conscious of their brotherhood to each other as they dimly recognize God as their Father. When Jesus Christ, the full revelation of God, comes in touch with the souls of men He gives them power to become the sons of God. He awakens fully the likeness of God in the soul, takes away all the barriers that separate the soul from God and we wonderful persons become more wonderful as we are inspired by our Saviour to think the thoughts, feel the feelings and choose the choices of God, and so have true fellowship with our Father in heaven.

Now not only has God made but He maintains and rules the heaven and the earth. The teaching of Christ is remarkable in that it brings God near to us, declares Him present and acting in all our surroundings and in our lives. In our limited use of language, dependent alone on our experience, we have made use of two words— Creation and Providence. We are makers of things and we speak of God as the maker of all things. But why do we make things? to throw them aside? Alas, yes, too often, as we are ignorant and trifling and often failures. But generally we make things for purposes we choose. We foresee, we provide for the future, we have a plan and end in view. Now with reference to the universe, including ourselves, we are certain, since in order to make such a universe God must be all powerful, all wise, and all good. He did not make it to throw it aside—He had a plai and end in view. He is the God of creation and of Providence. We persons look upon ourselves and upon our surroundings and read the thought, the feeling and the will of God not only in what He has done but in what He is doing now, and in what He will do in the future. God has a grand design, an end in view with reference to the great universe; this includes of course many particular ends tending towards it, and He employs means to accomplish the particular and the general ends, and in all He is infinitely powerful, wise and good.

We call this the Providence of God, the maintaining and governing the universe to attain the designed end.

And now as we look again and more intently at our surroundings and upon ourselves there arise at least three questions that greatly perplex us. Of course we can silence them by saying that we cannot hope ito find the full answer to them in this stage of our existence, nor until God’s plan is fully accomplished and the end He designed for the universe is at length realized and clearly seen by us. But we cannot think that God would have us thus stifle our questions; rather we feel He may be culturing our powers of thinking and our faith in Him by our trying to find some ‘satisfactory answers to them.

The first question is, Does God’s providence extend to the general outlines and to the great results only, or does it include the small and subordinate things and persons as well? Is it only a universal or is it a particular Providence as well? |

When we think of our own plans we recognize that unless due attention is paid to the small details the general plan is apt to fail. But in the universe there are so many apparently insignificant things. The spheres of existence in the heavens above us revealed by the telescope, the spectroscope, stellar photography in systems and galaxies of distant suns—all move in complete order and harmony. Surely the providence of God maintains and governs the heavens above us. Now we look within and beneath our own being and the microscope reveals spheres of existence of the infinitely small. God maintains and governs the stars—does He maintain and govern microbes and insects invisible to the naked eye as well? Now we reflect still further and see that atoms and force and law, the little as well as the great, are in the stars as well as in the insects. The great and the small are inseparably linked together. Nothing is too great for His control. Nothing is too small for His notice. And we begin to see that Jesus Christ stated a scientific truth when He said, “ Not a sparrow falls on the ground without your Father; the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”

Ad THE APOSTLES’ CREED

When we look upon the history of the race of man we see, the vast influence of the seemingly insignificant upon great movements, The wave of the hand of a savage sends the great discoverer to the south and Spanish civilization takes possession of South America, while North America is given to the Anglo- Saxon. The nod of the head of an ignorant peasant led Napoleon to order the charge which defeated him at Waterloo.