The Christian Faith
Catechist. Recite the Apostles’ Creed, the Articles of your Belief.
Answer. 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 Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on 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 Ghost; The holy Catholic Church; The Communion of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The Resurrection of the body, And the Life everlasting. Amen.
Note that the words in the Creed He descended into hell are considered as words of the same meaning as He went into the place of departed spirits.
Catechist. What do you chiefly learn in these Articles of your Belief?
Answer. I learn to have faith in the one true God: in God the Father, who made me and all the world; in God the Son, who redeemed me and all mankind; and in God the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies me and all the people of God.
Catechist. What do you mean by ‘the people of God’?
Answer. I mean Christ’s holy Catholic Church into which I have been baptized. Then may all say:
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Brass tacks, y'all. We're into the details. Without this, you aren't a Christian. A lot of the things we divide over aren't vital to the faith, but these points are the foundation of all of it. If you don't believe it, you shouldn't claim the title. Here we go, one question at a time.
The Apostles' Creed is the foundation of the faith. It asserts the Trinity (God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one in three and three in one--not something that can be easily explained because it is not something our human minds can comprehend adequately). God made the world and all that is in it. Jesus came to live as a human who was also God at the same time, so that He could teach us more about what God wants of us, and so that He could pay the debt we could never pay ourselves. His death defeated ours, and His blood washes us white as snow so that we can spend eternity with Him. Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost), who dwells within us and speaks to us and for us.
Note that the "holy Catholic Church" means the "holy worldwide Church", all denominations. It has nothing to do with the Roman Catholic Church except that it's part of the great multitude of believers.
The Communion of Saints is all of the believers who have gone before us, whether we know of them or not, for all Christians are saints, though not all are memorialised or canonised as Saints. But they are those who show us how to live good Christian lives, whose faith bolsters our own.
The Forgiveness of sins is offered thanks to Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. (See above for more on that.)
The Resurrection of the body is what we see with Jesus. It's something we need to remember, because there are those who think that spirit and body are completely separate, and that after we die we are only spirit, and the resurrection we are promised, which will come when Jesus returns, will only involve our spirits. So asserting that our bodies will be resurrected at this time, that matters. Jesus' resurrection involved reanimating His physical body. Our resurrection will also involve our physical bodies. Humans are physical beings, and our bodies matter. Scripture identifies our bodies as being temples. We were not created as spirit and then dropped into physical bodies; rather, Genesis 2.7 clearly states that He formed man physically and then animated him by breathing life into him. We need the Spirit or we are not living beings.
And the Life everlasting? That's eternity with God.
The next part of this section takes far fewer words to explain what I just said, but also it's important to understand what these concepts really mean, because of how words change meanings over time.
I love that it's phrased as something we learn from the Creed. The Creed is a statement of faith, but it is also a teaching tool and a reminder that we repeat at every single service in the Anglican Church (or very nearly so; there may be some during Holy Week that go without).
I want to look at sanctification briefly here, since it's mentioned in relation to Holy Spirit. Sanctification is the process of being made holy, of being set apart for God's purpose. It's what we're asking for when we sing "Refiner's Fire":
Refiner's fire, my heart's one desire is to be holy, set apart for You, Lord. I choose to be holy, set apart for You my Master, ready to do Your will.
Sanctification isn't easy. It isn't one and done. It's how we work out our salvation and how we become more and more like Christ. It's the Becoming.
This last question is brilliant. Basically, who are the people of God? And the answer is also brilliant: all Christians are the people of God.
And then it ends with the Glory Be, which is perfect as it reaffirms the Trinity.
There is so much theology in this and I feel so inadequate to really explain it, but I am sure that you know someone who can help you if you have questions. Your priest (or pastor, if you are not of a denomination that has priests) should be able to explain everything in this section, and if they cannot or if they say something here is not true, that's a warning sign.
And yes, I may well have gotten some bits mixed up. That's to be expected. But the actual statements of the Catechism, they are Truth.
The next section is about the Commandments.
I look forward to exploring them with you.
Peace & Blessings.
No comments:
Post a Comment