Believe Rightly · The Apostles' Creed, Line by Line · Lesson 1
I believe in God, the Father almighty
The Creed opens by naming who God is before it says anything about us. Take the first line apart, word by word, with the Scripture under each word.
A creed is a summary, not a substitute. The Apostles' Creed is the oldest short summary of the Christian faith that ordinary believers have learned by heart, and every line of it stands on Scripture. This course takes it one line at a time. We begin where the Creed begins, with God himself:
"I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth."
Four things are said about God in one breath, and a fifth about the person speaking. Take them in order.
"I believe"
The Creed does not start with "there is a God", as if God were a fact to file. It starts with trust: I believe. And it is said together, by the whole church, which is why one believer can say it with a shaking voice on a hard week and be carried by the voices around him. Belief here is not a mood. It is allegiance to a person.
"in God": one God
Before the Creed says anything about what God is like, it fixes how many of him there are. One. Israel confessed it every day, and Jesus called it the first commandment's foundation:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.
Deuteronomy 6:4 (BSB)
"the Father": he is not far off
Jesus taught his disciples to pray to God as Father, and the Spirit makes that cry the believer's own. God's fatherhood is not a metaphor borrowed from human families at their best; human fatherhood is the copy, and his is the original. The first line therefore rules out the distant God of the philosophers. The Maker of everything is a Father to his people.
So then, this is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.
Matthew 6:9 (BSB)
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery that returns you to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption to sonship, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
Romans 8:15 (BSB)
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8 (BSB)
"almighty": nothing outruns him
Almighty means all-powerful, and the Psalms put it in throne language: his kingdom rules over all. This matters more than philosophy. A God who is loving but not able might sympathise with you in Babylon and still leave you there. The Creed's God is able, and his ability is ruled by his character: he is Father first in the sentence, and almighty second.
The LORD has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.
Psalm 103:19 (BSB)
"Creator of heaven and earth": he made you
The Creed's first line ends where the Bible begins. God is not one item inside the universe. He is its Maker, and heaven and earth, everything other than God himself, exists because he willed it. Isaiah presses the point against every idol and every fear: the Creator of the ends of the earth does not tire. Heaven's throne room agrees, and says why he is worthy of worship:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1 (BSB)
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary; His understanding is beyond searching out.
Isaiah 40:28 (BSB)
“Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things; by Your will they exist and were created.”
Revelation 4:11 (BSB)
What this line rules out
One sentence of the Creed quietly closes four doors. Not many gods: he is one. Not a distant god: he is Father. Not a weak god: he is almighty. Not a god who found the world ready-made and merely manages it: he is Creator of heaven and earth. Learn to say this line slowly, and you have already learned how to answer a surprising amount of unbelief.
Words to know
- Creed. A short summary of the Christian faith, confessed by the church, always subordinate to Scripture.
- Almighty. All-powerful. In the Creed it means God's kingdom rules over all (Psalm 103:19); nothing outruns him.
- Adoption. God bringing believers into his family as sons and daughters, so that they cry "Abba! Father!" (Romans 8:15).
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