Creeds & Confessions

“Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” — 1 Timothy 6:12

From the earliest days of the Church, Christians have summarized their faith in brief, authoritative statements — creeds and confessions that distill the essentials of the gospel into words that can be spoken together, taught to new believers, and defended against error. These are not additions to Scripture but summaries of it — the Church’s corporate answer to the question, “What do Christians believe?”

The Word and the Practice

The English word “creed” comes from the Latin credo — “I believe” — the opening word of both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. The Greek equivalent is homologia (ὁμολογία) — “confession, agreement” — a term Paul uses when he speaks of the “good confession” Timothy made (1 Timothy 6:12). A creed is a public declaration of shared belief, and creedal language appears within the New Testament itself.

Creedal Fragments in the New Testament

Long before any formal creed was composed, the apostolic Church confessed its faith in brief, structured formulas:

• “Jesus is Lord” — Kyrios Iēsous (Κύριος Ἰησοῦς) — is perhaps the earliest Christian confession (Romans 10:9; 1 Corinthians 12:3; Philippians 2:11). In the Roman Empire, where Kyrios Kaisar — “Caesar is Lord” — was the oath of political allegiance, the confession that Jesus is Lord was both a theological statement and an act of defiance.
• 1 Corinthians 15:3–5 — Paul passes on what he “received” — a pre-Pauline summary of the gospel: Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, was raised on the third day, and appeared to witnesses. This creedal formula dates to within a few years of the resurrection itself.
• Philippians 2:6–11 — The great Christ-hymn, confessing that Christ, “though he was in the form of God,” emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, was obedient to death on a cross, and was exalted by the Father so that “every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”
• 1 Timothy 3:16 — “He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” This rhythmic, hymn-like passage reads like an early liturgical confession.

The Apostles’ Creed

The Apostles’ Creed, though not written by the apostles themselves, developed from the baptismal interrogations of the early Roman church. Candidates for baptism were asked three questions corresponding to the three persons of the Trinity: “Do you believe in God the Father? Do you believe in Jesus Christ His Son? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?” The answers, expanded over time, crystallized into the creed we know today by the eighth century, with roots reaching back to the second-century Regula Fidei — “Rule of Faith” — described by Irenaeus and Tertullian.

The Apostles’ Creed follows a Trinitarian structure:

1. God the Father — Creator of heaven and earth
2. Jesus Christ — conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; descended to the dead; rose on the third day; ascended into heaven; seated at the right hand of the Father; will come to judge the living and the dead
3. The Holy Spirit — the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, the life everlasting

The Apostles’ Creed is used across Western Christianity — Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist, and many evangelical traditions — as a baptismal confession and a summary of faith.

The Nicene Creed

The Nicene Creed (more precisely, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) emerged from the great theological controversies of the fourth century. When Arius of Alexandria taught that the Son was a created being — the highest creature, but a creature nonetheless — the Church was forced to articulate with precision what Scripture teaches about the relationship between the Father and the Son.

The Council of Nicaea (325 AD) produced the original Nicene Creed, which declared the Son to be homoousios (ὁμοούσιος) — “of the same substance” — with the Father. This single word, nowhere found in Scripture, was adopted to safeguard a thoroughly biblical truth: that the Son is not a lesser god or a created intermediary but fully and truly God. For a fuller treatment of the Trinity and its historical development, see those articles. The Council of Constantinople (381 AD) expanded the creed, particularly its section on the Holy Spirit, affirming that the Spirit is “the Lord, the Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified.”

The Nicene Creed is the most widely accepted creed in Christendom, confessed by Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist, and many other traditions. It is the closest thing Christianity has to a universal statement of faith — the shared grammar of “mere Christianity.”

The Filioque Controversy

One word divides East and West to this day. The original creed states that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father.” Western churches gradually added filioque — “and the Son” — so that the creed reads “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” This addition, formalized in the West by the eleventh century, was one of the contributing factors in the Great Schism of 1054. The Eastern Orthodox churches regard the addition as both theologically problematic (subordinating the Spirit’s procession to the Son) and procedurally illegitimate (altering an ecumenical creed without an ecumenical council). Western churches defend the filioque as a legitimate theological development grounded in Scripture (John 15:26; 16:7; Galatians 4:6). This question, though seemingly obscure, touches the deepest mysteries of Trinitarian theology and remains a significant point of ecumenical discussion.

The Chalcedonian Definition

The Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) produced not a creed for liturgical use but a precise theological definition addressing the person of Christ. Against those who confused Christ’s two natures (Eutyches) or divided them into two persons (Nestorius) — trinitarian heresies applied to Christology — Chalcedon declared that Christ is:

• Truly God and truly man
• One person (hypostasis, ὑπόστασις) in two natures (divine and human)
• The two natures united “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” — asynchytōs, atreptōs, adiairetōs, achōristōs (ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως)

The Chalcedonian Definition is accepted by Catholic, Orthodox, and most Protestant traditions. The Oriental Orthodox churches (Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Syriac) did not accept Chalcedon’s formula, though modern ecumenical dialogues have revealed that the disagreement may be more linguistic than substantive — both sides affirm the full deity and full humanity of Christ. For a fuller treatment of Eastern Christianity and the Oriental Orthodox tradition, see the companion article.

The Athanasian Creed

The Athanasian Creed (also called the Quicunque Vult, from its Latin opening, “Whoever wishes to be saved”) is a longer, more detailed exposition of Trinitarian and Christological doctrine. Though attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria, it was likely composed in the fifth or sixth century in the Latin West. It is notable for its rigorous precision and its insistence that right belief in the Trinity and the incarnation is essential to salvation. While not used as widely in worship as the Apostles’ or Nicene Creeds, it has been valued in Western Christianity — particularly in Anglican and Lutheran traditions — as a teaching document.

Later Confessions

The Reformation era produced a proliferation of confessional documents as Protestant churches articulated their distinctive convictions:

• The Augsburg Confession (1530) — the foundational Lutheran confession, drafted by Philip Melanchthon
• The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) — a warm, pastoral Reformed catechism structured around guilt, grace, and gratitude
• The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) — the comprehensive Reformed confession of the English-speaking world
• The Canons of Dort (1619) — the Reformed response to the Arminian Remonstrance, articulating the “five points of Calvinism”
• The Baptist Confessions (1644, 1689) — adapting Reformed theology for Baptist ecclesiology

The Catholic Church responded with the decrees of the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and later the documents of the First and Second Vatican Councils. The Orthodox churches have continued to regard the seven ecumenical councils (325–787 AD) as their confessional standard.

Why Creeds Matter

Some Christians, particularly in the free church and evangelical traditions, are wary of creeds, preferring to affirm “no creed but the Bible.” Yet even this slogan is itself a creedal statement — a summary of conviction about authority. The reality is that every Christian community confesses something, whether formally or informally. Creeds serve the Church by providing a shared language of faith, a guard against heresy, a tool for teaching new believers, and a bond of unity across centuries and cultures. When a congregation recites the Nicene Creed, it joins its voice with Christians in every century and on every continent — a living testimony to the faith “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.” — The Nicene Creed