This document provides background information on the creeds of Christianity, which were formulated in response to heresies that arose in the early church. It summarizes the key points of disagreement between orthodox Christians and Gnostics, including debates over the incarnation of Jesus and the resurrection of the body. It then outlines the formation of the Apostles' Creed and Nicene Creed, which aimed to clearly define core doctrines like the deity of Christ in order to refute heresies like Arianism.

1. The Creeds
Guardians Against Heresy
This deck: http://bit.ly/18Ne2ue
Study Sheet: http://bit.ly/1gz79RV

2. What language was the New
Testament written in?
Why?
2

3. Like all languages, it is very
tightly bound to the culture of
the people who speak it…
3

4. “In the beginning was the
Logos, and the Logos was
with God, and the Logos was
God… Through him all
things were made; without
him nothing was made that
has been made.” – John 1:1,3
4

5. λόγος
“form”, “reason”, “symbol”, etc.
It’s the root we get “logic” from
5

6. Plato
6

7. Physical instances of things
(e.g., chairs) are but
shadows of the true reality
(“chair-ness”)
7

8. The “essence” is perfect
and eternal
good
8

9. Physical things are
imperfect, die and decay
evil
9

10. Logos
Flesh?
10

11. “The Logos became flesh
and made his dwelling
among us.” – John 1:14
11

12. But wouldn’t that mean that
the perfect became
imperfect? The “good”
became “evil”?
12

13. What does God have to say
about that idea?
13

14. Gnostics
14

15. The Gnostics
taught a
particular mixture
of Platonist
thought and
Christianity
15

16. They identified God closely
with “The Logos” and believed
that you are saved because
God grants a mystical union
with you, and you are therefore
enlightened and are brought
closer to God
16

17. Isn’t that what Orthodox
Christianity teaches?
17

18. “Gnostic” comes from the
same word as our word
“knowledge,” and basically
means “Those in the know”
18

19. Today this appears in the
form of Charismatics,
Pentecostals and
anabaptists
19

20. The “new gospels” that
occasionally pop up are
generally Gnostic texts
20

21. One recent example in popular
culture referencing them is
“The Da Vinci Code”
21

22. The Epistles of John are
largely attempts to counter
the enormous influence of
Gnosticism
22

23. Apostle’s
Creed
23

24. “I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of Heaven
and Earth,”
24

25. The Gnostics held that the
physical universe is evil and
that therefore God, who is
Good, did not make it
25

26. “And in Jesus Christ, His
only Son, Our Lord, Who
was conceived by the Holy
Ghost, Born of the Virgin
Mary,”
26

27. The Gnostics denied that
God had taken human
nature or a human body
27

28. But no “real” Christians
would need to be told this
Right?
28

29. Much of the stigma
surrounding all things
“carnal” is based in
remnants of this heresy
29

30. Sex, for example, is often seen as a
“necessary evil,” and that’s the primary
reason why Roman Catholicism insists
on the perpetual virginity of Mary, since it
teaches that she was untouched by sin
See, for example, sections
499-500 in the
Catholic Catechism
30

31. “Suffered under
Pontius Pilate,”
31

32. While the Bible contains a lot of doctrine, it is
above all True. True in the spiritual sense
AND in the historical “flesh and blood” sense
32

33. “Was crucified, dead, and
buried; he descended into
Hell.”
33

34. Here the Creed hammers home the point
that he was really dead
The reference to the descent into Hell here
makes it clear that the death of Jesus was
not just an illusion, a swoon or a coma, but
death in every sense of the word…
34

35. “I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic church, the
communion of saints,”
35

36. The Gnostics believed that the
most important Christian
doctrines were reserved for a
select few:
those “in the know” who have
had a special mystical
experience
36

37. Hence the term “catholic,” or
universal, which distinguished
them from the Gnostics
37

38. “the forgiveness of sins,”
38

39. The Gnostics
considered that
what men needed
was not
forgiveness, but
enlightenment
Ignorance, not sin,
was the problem
39

40. “the resurrection of the body
and the life everlasting.
AMEN”
40

41. The chief goal of the
Gnostics was to
become free forever
from the taint of
matter and the
shackles of the body,
and to return to the
heavenly realm as
Pure Spirit
41

42. They totally rejected any idea of
the resurrection of the body
42

43. When people think that we’re meant
to live as spirits (angels?) forever in
the presence of God, they’ve only
got it half right…
43

44. We are meant to live in physical
bodies
44

45. As it says in Revelation 21, God will create a
“new heaven and new earth” for us to live in
The physical world will be remade for us to
inhabit (albeit with a great many changes)
45

46. Writing The
Apostle’s Creed
46

47. Legend has it that each of
the twelve “verses” was
done by Inspiration by each
of the 12 Apostles
47

48. While there were references
to it by the second century,
the first known writing in its
current form was from
around 710 AD
48

49. Because it was focused
primarily on a particular heresy
and very general statement of
faith, it left a lot of room for
many other heresies
49

50. Arius of
Alexandri
a
50

51. When Arius of Alexandria
petitioned Constantine for
support in 327 AD, it
became clear that a more
formal, precise statement
of what “Christian” means
was needed
51

52. The Arian heresy is often
described as the denial of
the deity of Christ
Like everything with that big
an impact, it’s not nearly
that simple
52

53. According to the Arians, Christ
is “the first and greatest creation
of Jehovah God and His active
agent in creating all things.”
“the Son is a mighty god but not
Jehovah God.”
53

54. What modern heresy is a
direct descendant of the
Arian heresy?
54

55. Jehovah’s Witnesses, who
point to Arius as one of
their Church Fathers
55

56. Nicene Creed
56

57. “We believe in one God, the
Father, the Almighty, maker
of heaven and earth, of all
that is, seen and unseen. We
believe in one Lord, Jesus
Christ, the only Son of God,”
57

58. Here and elsewhere (such as John
1:14) the Greek has “monogenetos
huios”
An English translation may read
either “only Son” or “only begotten
Son”
58

59. “eternally begotten of the
Father,”
59

60. Arius was fond of saying,
“The Logos is not eternal.
God begat him, and before
he was begotten, he did not
exist.”
60

61. The Athanasians (Bishop
Athanasius was the leader
of those that battled the
Arians) replied that the
begetting of the Logos was
not an event in time, but an
eternal relationship
61

62. “God from God, Light from
Light,”
62

63. A favorite analogy of the
Athanasians was the following:
Light is continuously streaming
forth from the sun
The rays of light are derived from
the sun, and not vice versa
63

64. The analogy is further appropriate
because we can know the sun only
through the rays of light that it emits
To see the sunlight is to see the sun
64

65. As Jesus says, “He who has
seen me has seen the Father.”
(John 14:9)
65

66. “true God from true God,
begotten, not made, of one
being with the Father.”
66

67. This the Arians simply
could not interpret as
meaning what they
believed
67

68. “Through him all things were
made. For us and for our
salvation he came down from
heaven: by the power of the Holy
Spirit he became incarnate from
the Virgin Mary, and was made
man. For our sake he was
crucified under Pontius Pilate; he
suffered death and was buried.”
68

69. Only pausing here to note that the older
translation of the last phrase here was
simply, “He suffered and was buried.”
Apparently by the time of Nicaea, it was no
longer necessary to emphasize that Christ
had really died at Calvary, as it had been
spelled out in the Apostles’ Creed
69

70. “On the third day he rose again in
accordance with the Scriptures; he
ascended into heaven and is seated at the
right hand of the Father. He will come
again in glory to judge the living and the
dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord,
the giver of life, who proceeds from the
Father [and the Son].”
70

71. The words shown in brackets,
“and from the Son,” are a
Western addition to the Creed
71

72. Without going into too much detail, the
Eastern Church did not agree with this
choice of wording and the fact that the
West “slipped it in” drove further the
wedge between East and West
(Technically, the East had a legitimate complaint against how the Western Church
handled the situation, though they were wrong in their understanding of the doctrine)
72

73. “With the Father and the
Son he is worshipped and
glorified. He has spoken
through the Prophets.”
73

74. This line was directed against
the view that the Holy Spirit
did not exist, or was not
active, before Pentecost
74

75. “We believe in one holy
catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism
for the forgiveness of sins. We
look for the resurrection of
the dead, and the life of the
world to come. AMEN”
75

76. The “one baptism” part will
become important later
when St. Augustine battled
the Donatists...
76

77. Briefly, the Donatists
believed that if you
received an “illegitimate
baptism” then it didn’t count
and you needed to be
baptized again
77

78. Where do you hear this
heresy today? What is the
Biblical answer?
78

79. Left Unsaid
79

80. As with anything of this type, it
should be noted the kinds of
things that were left out of Creed,
because in doing so the framers
were essentially saying that
disagreements about such things
were not considered heretical
80

81. For example, many of the
“practical” teachings of Jesus
are missing entirely, especially
that which has to do with the
Kingdom of God and the
Kingdom of This World
81

82. Constantine, for one, would never
have allowed a Creed that spoke
against worldly ambitions
That omission would be used
when the Church started to gain
tremendous worldly power
82