Importance of Creeds

Reasons for Creeds and Confessions

Creeds are not only still important, but they are also central to the life of the church. The structure of our Christian beliefs depends on the language used within the community. Creeds provide not only the grammatical foundation for the church’s vernacular but also construct the scaffolding for our narratives. I believe “Christians must learn the grammar of Christian intimacy” (p. 3) to communicate effectively with one another and, more importantly, with God. Creeds allow us to understand our history and to continue the tradition that has been faithfully preserved.

In December 1992, a home church began from the muddy ground of a Winter camp in Big Bear, CA. I was a 19-year-old apostate coerced by love for my mother to join her at a Vietnamese Christian camp. The sovereign grace of God’s salvation apprehended my insubordinate heart and forced me to abandon my degenerate trajectory. My mind had only one thought: God is in me! Armed with an extraordinary conversion testimony, ecstatic utterances, a bible, and supernatural outpourings of divine healings and deliverances, I started a house church with my family. People came from all over the city daily for prayers, and soon, we were forced to institutionalize our group at a commercial building as directed by the police department. Our little church was known within the Vietnamese community for exhibiting miraculous signs and wonders; people were delivered from demonic possessions and vices, marriages were reconciled, and physical infirmities were vanquished. We baptized over 500 people in 8 years without knowledge of any Christian creeds. Even though I had only a cursory knowledge of creeds and confessions, I felt they were too dogmatic and esoteric, reserved for the sanctimonious Latin-chanting church down the street. I was more focused on demonstrating the power of the gospel than reciting some old creeds.

Though many people were baptized, only a handful of us continued to serve. People came for healing and deliverance but only came back on holidays. We were not making disciples; we only knew how to put on a powerful display of God’s miraculous work. People knew we believed in a mighty God, but they did not know who this God was, and we did not have a standard way of talking about the Triune God. We had our bibles and studied them well, the echo of Jesus’ statement to the Sadducees, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God” (Mat 22:29). The Jews learned their scriptures but without knowing how to interpret it, they lived in error. The disciples, in contrast, witnessed their scripture come alive in the Living Word when they followed Jesus and learned directly from Him. People who came to our church became converts; we did not know how to disciple them. We relied on our personal experiences of faith to talk about God; we “invented Christ according to our own fantasies” (p. 4).

The Christian faith is grounded solely on the Bible, but how the church interprets it must be based on a tradition of hermeneutics. The words God uses to communicate with us are written in human language; however, as Jesus declared, “they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). We need the Spirit’s help to understand God’s will and intentions. In the conversation with Nicodemus, the Lord says, “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things” (Jn 3:12)? To understand heavenly things, we must rely on those who have been under the Lord’s teaching and have faithfully transmitted their learning to us.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;…That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
—1 John 1:1,3

The apostle tells us that the gospel has been transmitted faithfully so we may fellowship with the saints, the Father, and Jesus Christ. Although not on the same level as scriptures, creeds and confessions continue the same tradition of transmission to help us shape how we speak about the Triune God coherently and cohesively. By reciting creeds and studying confessions, we learn how to use the grammar of our tradition of faith and speak consistently and compellingly about the subject and object of our faith, the Lord Jesus.