by Rev. D. MacLean, Glasgow
The value of creeds to the Christian Church is a very wide subject indeed. In order to confine its scope, I have decided to divide it into three heads.
- The Scripture and the Creeds.
- The history of doctrine and the Creeds.
- The practical value of the Creeds to the Christian Church.
I The Scripture and the Creeds
The word ‘creed’ comes from the Latin ‘credo’ — I believe — so that the creeds are expressions of what the Church believes. They are therefore an expression of the exercise of the faith of the Church. Since that faith is the gift of God, it is a belief in spiritual things, just as historical faith is a belief in historical events. The only source we have for our knowledge of spiritual things (or, to put it in another way, the things of the Spirit) is the Holy Spirit giving that revelation in the Word of God. Now, the first thing we must understand in order to find a relationship between the Scripture and the creeds is that the Scripture itself is inspired. I would like to make a few observations on that particular subject because it is one of great importance, not only in the Christian Church at large, but in the section of the Christian Church that goes under the name of Evangelical.
When we come to consider the doctrine of inspiration, we generally divide it into two sections. One section we call revelation, and the second section we call inspiration. Revelation is the act of God in revealing Himself and making Himself known. In creation, God has revealed His Godhead, His wisdom and power, to man as man; that is the first thing we must understand, that in the revelation of God given in creation, the person or individual to whom that revelation is given is man as man. Now, when we come to the Scriptures, we come to the revelation that God has given to man as a sinner. We must remember that great distinction. That distinction is altogether necessary for us because the revelation of God to man as man is of no value to us because we are sinners. The demonstration of the Godhead and the wisdom and power of God only brings us to understand that the God against whom we have sinned is the One of infinite power and the One who can deal with us and will deal with us on account of our sins. Therefore the revelation which God has given in the Scriptures is a revelation of God to man as a sinner — that is the revelation which is of untold, unspeakable value to us.
In revealing Himself to man as a sinner, God did so in a progressive way. Just as when He revealed Himself in creation He could have created the world in a moment of time, instead of that He did it over a process of six days as the Genesis account tells us. Now, similarly, God in revealing Himself to man as a sinner, did so progressively. He did so to Adam in the Garden of Eden in the first promise that was given. He did so to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. Down through Old Testament times, God was revealing Himself, making Himself known in various ways — by dreams, by visions, by personal appearances, by word of mouth, and so on. I do not intend to go into the intricate details of that revelation at the present moment, but what I do wish to emphasise is that this is God revealing Himself to man — this is not man imagining about God, but God revealing Himself to man and making Himself known to him. That revelation culminated in the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ was the Word of God. Just as the Scriptures are the written Word of God, the Saviour is the personal Word of God. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” So the revelation which God has given, the revelation which culminated in the coming of the Lord of glory to this earth, is a revelation through Christ Jesus the Lord.
These revelations, which God gave of Himself progressively down through the ages, came to be recorded, in a written form. All the revelations given were not recorded, just the revelations which God chose to be recorded. For instance, with regard to the Saviour Himself, we read that Jesus did many things which are not recorded in the Scripture. All these things which He did were revelations of God to man as a sinner, but they were not all recorded. The ones which were recorded were the ones chosen by God to give the complete revelation which God intended sinners of mankind to have.
Now, the doctrine of inspiration is that special influence of the Holy Spirit whereby He moved and bore along and guided those who recorded the revelations that God had given of Himself in written form in the Scripture. That is the real doctrine of inspiration. This means that the form of inspiration which they enjoyed and which was peculiar to them only, when they were recording the Scriptures, was a special influence of the Holy Spirit whereby they recorded what God wished to be recorded, recorded it in the words in which God wished it to be recorded. Consequently the agent in this recording, was the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead. Who is called the Breath of God. Therefore when we read that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, it does not mean that the Scriptures are inspired because the Holy Spirit breathed into them, but that they are God-breathed; they are the operation of the Spirit of God — so leading, so guiding, so bearing along those writers chosen by Him that they have recorded the Word of God in an infallable and inerrant way.
It is most important that we understand this clearly. You see, recently I happened to have an interview on Radio Clyde on this particular point; the interviewer said to me, “O, but surely other people are inspired.” People say that Rabbie Burns was inspired or that this man gave an inspired address. Now, all that has nothing whatsoever to do with the inspiration which is a special influence of the Holy Spirit, which none enjoy but those who wrote the Scriptures. So, when a man preaches the Gospel and when he preaches it with the liberty and unction of the Holy Spirit, this is a different exercise of power from that power exercised with regard to the recording of the Scriptures by divine inspiration. When the canon of Scripture was closed, then inspiration in that sense of the term came to an absolute and a complete end. This means that we now have in the Word of God that divine revelation of His divine mind secured in writing to us by the inspiration of the Spirit of God.
Scripture is therefore the all-sufficient rule of faith and practice. That we must always remember. We use a word in connection with being enlightened in the Word of God which we call illumination (e.g. this room is in darkness, someone puts on this light, then these lights illuminate this room). The Holy Spirit is the author of all divine light in the soul of man, He is the One who illuminates the understanding. That act of the Holy Spirit is different from inspiration; it is the Holy Spirit taking the Word of God and shining the light of that Word in the understanding. You have all heard of a gentleman called Karl Barth. He was a great theologian according to the principles of modern thought, and this was his fundamental error: he said the Word of God is inspired when it becomes inspired to you. That is the definition of illumination, not of inspiration. All these theologians have a great name — but when we come to examine what they really teach, we find that it is very flimsy and very lacking in true understanding. As I said, if all were sufficiently enlightened in the Word of God, there would be no need of creeds because everyone would then know the Word of God and everyone would then have the same light upon it. But, because man by nature is darkened in his understanding in the Word of God, and since those who are regenerated by the Spirit of God have varying degrees of light, it was necessary for the Church to express its understanding of the Scripture on the various doctrines of divine revelation. While, therefore, creeds are not inspired in the sense that the Word of God is, they are statements of divine truth insofar as they correctly state the doctrine of the Word of God. They are not inspired in the same sense as the Bible, but they are authoritative insofar as they correctly state the doctrines of the Word of God. A great deal is made by the opponents of creeds — and that’s nearly everybody nowadays, they don’t want to be tied by creeds — that they are only the words of men, and so seek to place them in contradiction to the Word of God. This is completely false, however. The real question is not between the Word of God and the word of men contained in the creeds, but between the tried and true faith of the collective body of the Church and the private judgment and unaided wisdom of the individual. That is a very, very essential distinction.
The Scriptures themselves contain expressions of the Church’s faith in the form of credal statements. Since the Church is a confessing and witnessing body, its language is “I believe; therefore have I spoken.” The believing was not to remain in the heart, but it was to come out by way of testimony or confession. “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” There is a good expression of the credal idea in the Old Testament confession of Israel, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one God.” In the New Testament also we have expressions of faith. Nathanael declares, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God.” That is a credal statement. Peter too gives expression to his faith, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” A fuller statement of a credal nature is seen in II Tim. 1:9,10. I would just like to read it out to you to give some idea how credal statements appear in the Scripture. “Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,” and then he goes on to say in connection with that, “Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.”
Since the creeds are expressions of the Church’s understanding of the Word of God, the question naturally arises as to whether they may be in need of revision. Those who object to creeds make a great point of this. They assert that God is always causing fresh light to break forth from His Word and that Christianity is always a developing religion. They regard creeds as stagnating Christian scholarship and bogging down Christian meditation. It may be observed in passing that to attain to the knowledge of doctrine displayed in the creeds of a Scriptural kind, requires a good deal of spiritual knowledge. It is of course always possible that creeds could be revised. There are, however, two points which must be observed in any attempted revision. (i) The revision must be in accordance with the Word of God and be demonstrated to be a better expression of a particular doctrine. (ii) Revision is only profitable and should only be attempted when the Church itself is on a high spiritual plane. These two principles also apply to new translations of the Scriptures. A device sometimes adopted to revise a creed or confession is to introduce a Declaratory Act to give the Church’s understanding, not of the Scripture, but of the confession itself. Instead of altering the confession itself, this Act purports to give the Church’s understanding. When the Declaratory Act is at variance with the clear meaning of the creed or confession, however, the Act becomes a piece of ecclesiastical deceit. It was the passing of such an Act in 1892 by the then Free Church which brought about the separate existence of the Free Presbyterian Church. In other words, instead of revising the Confession, they introduced a Declaratory Act which gave the Church’s explanation of particular sections of the Confession. Not only were they wrong in the attempts they made, but they did not give a proper expression of these doctrines themselves.
(to be continued)
Divine faith is a believing of what God has revealed, because God has said it or revealed it. And this divine faith is the product of the Spirit of God in the heart of a sinner, implanting the habit or principle of faith there, and exciting it to a hearty reception and firm belief of whatever God reveals in His Word.
Thomas Boston