the former states only what is essential, the latter descend into detail and include a large number of disputable and highly contentious propositions.”4
Obviously there must be a recognized framework of Christian teaching if Christianity is to possess any substantial character at all. To become a Christian, or to be a follower of Christ, or to believe in the Gospel means nothing until something explicit is offered to show what such an act of allegiance covers. If I say that I believe in Napoleon Bonaparte, what do I mean? Do I mean that I am convinced he was truly an historical person, or that I approve of his military policy, or that I sanction his rather questionable personal life? Such a statement means nothing until something is specified about it. To say that you believe in Christianity but not in creeds is like saying you believe in education but not in schools, or that you believe in justice but not in laws, or that you believe in mathematics but not in the multiplication tables. Christianity is a way of life and it must have a road to travel with directions, landmarks, and recognized points of progress.
After all, what do the historic Creeds include? Briefly they consist of the following:
Creation Of All Things by God.
The Incarnation.
The Crucifixion.
The Resurrection.
The Ascension.
The Final Judgment.
The Holy Ghost.
The Church.
Holy Baptism.
Eternal Life.
Expunge any one of these from the Christian faith and you have a mutilated Gospel which is not Christianity.
The historic Creeds are a protection to the integrity of the Gospel. They are a unifying bond extending throughout the Christian world. They preserve the continuity of the Christian religion. They maintain a standard by which all developments of Christian doctrine may be tested. They are a compass for Christian travelers and an anchor against spiritual drifting. They serve as a constitution for the Church and a check upon changing by-laws and disciplinary regulations. They make for stability of purpose in the Church as a whole, and the recitation of them is a powerful aid in fortifying the faith of every individual Christian.
The public recitation of the Creeds often raises a question which in some instances is a matter of conscience and in other cases an alibi. How can one stand in a congregation and go on record as believing these articles of faith when some of them are beyond one’s ability to understand and about which one’s belief is certainly dubious? How can I say, “I believe” when I am not sure whether I do or not? The difficulty here lies in a misconception of the purpose of the Creed. It is not a contract especially drawn up for each individual worshipper. It is a statement of the Church’s faith in which the individual shares as a member of the Body of Christ. To hesitate over it is like a man questioning his family relationship because he cannot understand some of his father’s peculiarities. No one can say he completely understands every item mentioned in the Creed, but that need not prevent him from reciting it in unison with his fellow-worshippers. There are plenty of things about the human body which the physician does not understand. Yet he does not wait until he is sure about everything before treating his patient. He must treat his patient as a whole person even though some parts of him he may not understand. Those unanswered questions he holds in suspension while he goes about his healing business. So the individual Christian may have questions in his mind which he cannot resolve, but he holds them in suspension while he says the Creed with the rest of the Church. He is not announcing to the wide world that he knows all about it. He is pledging his allegiance to Christ and stating his adherence to the Church which teaches that faith.
If we think of ourselves as isolated persons dealing with God separately, we shall always be in intellectual trouble. When we learn to consider ourselves as parts of a corporate society, we shall see how the Creed serves the Body of which we are members. The members come and go, but the Body lives on in order to produce and nourish new members.
1 William Temple, “Personal Religion and Life of Fellowship,” Longmans, Green & Co., N. Y., pp. 1-2. The entire passage is most pertinent.
2 Acts 8:37.
3 The Athanasian Creed is really a doctrinal hymn intended to reflect the special teaching of St. Athanasius, but not prepared by him. It appeared in the fifth century, and was used for instruction of congregations in the south of France. To some extent it found entrance into public worship in much the same way as the Te Deum. It is an instructive historical document on a footing quite different from that of the historic Creeds.
4 Charlts Harris, “Creeds or No Creeds” E. P. Dutton & Co., N. Y., p. 251.
VII
THE INCARNATION
Words, in the usage of Holy Scripture, are more than so many vocal noises. They belong to the person who utters them and are part of him. They are imbued with a certain power and reality, as though bearing part of the very personality of the speaker. When “the word of the Lord” came to the Old Testament prophets, it meant that divine authority including something of God’s vital energy reposed in it. Thus in our Lord’s parable of the Sower, “the seed is the word of God,”1 possessed of a living spark which grows on its own power. Said our Lord,” The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life”;2 “now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you”;3 and He warns us that “every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”4
Upon this background the prologue of St. John’s Gospel was written: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”5 Briefly, that tells the story of the Incarnation. Jesus Christ has been God since the beginning of all things. At a certain point in human history He assumed human nature and for a brief time lived as Man among men. He was not a man who was in some mysterious way endued with divine properties. He was God who for a short time and for a special purpose took upon himself human properties. The Christian Gospel is not something which originates with man and reaches up to God. It is something which comes from God and descends upon men. If Christ were no more than a divinely inspired man, He would be only a beautiful example of what God can do with one responsive life. We would look and wonder and be helpless. But the Incarnation tells us that God became Man, that He injected a new spiritual power into human nature in which we may share by union with Christ. He is Representative Man. Through that One Man God does something for all men. As St. Paul puts it, “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.”6
Always men and women have been in search of personal contact with God. But how could it ever be accomplished? Man is a small speck in creation. God is the supreme power over an enormous universe. The gulf is too great. How could a man see God and live? In electricity, if you connect up a small machine with a huge dynamo, the excessive electrical energy will blow out the little machine and reduce it to ruin. Therefore a means has been devised by which the power may be stepped down through a transformer and be adjusted to the capacity of the feeble machine so that it will help rather than destroy. In some such way we might say that Christ is a transformer of God’s divine life, adjusting it to our human capacity of reception. I know the objections to such an analogy but at least it is suggestive.
