Our Council has launched the Foundations of Faith series of sermons actually last Sunday with Anthony Yeo preaching on “God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. This is an attempt to lay out the basic beliefs of Christianity. They chose to have this sermon series based on what is commonly known as The Apostles’ Creed. Jean has requested me to give this little belated introduction about the Creed and to preach on the second article which is “And in Jesus Christ, his only Son and our Lord.”

To begin with the introduction, The Apostles’ Creed is the earliest creed of the Christian community. Even though it carries the name of the Apostles it was not formulated by the Apostles themselves. But it reflected what was believed to be the Apostolic teaching. The Twelve Apostles did not meet as a drafting committee and wrote the actual words of the creed. Even though as late as the fourth century C.E. Ambrose the Bishop of Milan, Italy who died in 397 C.E. as great a scholar as he was believed that the Apostles’ Creed was written by the Twelve Apostles who met in conference and each in turn contributed a clause. In his day it was asserted which clause had been contributed by each particular Apostle. Of course we know now that the Creed was not composed in that manner. We actually do not know who wrote the creed.

The doctrines that were embedded in the creed arose out of Christian experiences of the early Christian community. The early Christian writers did not really set out to compose the fundamental beliefs of the Christian movement. The writers of the New Testament were interpreting their religious experiences, responding to practical questions of faith, and recording historical events about the Jesus movement.

I John 1:3 “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us.”

As the Jesus movement developed and particularly when the Gentiles responded to the gospel and after the Jerusalem Council of the Apostles made the decision that the Gentiles no longer need to be circumcised, the Christian community was separated from the Jewish community and had to find a distinctive identity of its own. The rite of initiation was the act of baptism according to the tradition of the renewal movement which was initiated by John the Baptist.

The Apostles’ Creed seems to have originated in first-century Rome as part of the instructions given and to those preparing for baptism as a baptismal formula or ritual. By the end of the second century, a standard form of the Creed had emerged. The creed existed in two forms, one a declaration “I believe in …” the other as a series of Q & A, questions and answers. In the latter, an individual preparing for baptism stood in the water and was asked “Do you believe in God the Father Almighty?” The individual responded “I believe” and was immersed. This pattern was repeated with the articles concerning the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Over the next few centuries it continued to undergo modifications, until in sixth or seventh-century in France, the Apostles’ Creed as we now know it attained its final form.

So the Apostles’ Creed began as a practical necessity to develop a ritual for those who want to be baptized and recognized as members of the Christian community distinctively apart from Judaism and pagan religions.

There is also another purpose for formulating the Apostles’ Creed and subsequently other creeds of the Church and that is to counteract what was regarded as prevailing false Christian teaching. There were different interpretations of the Christian message and it was necessary to provide the parameters of true Christian faith. Cultic and sectarian beliefs and practices cannot be tolerated. It is never easy to identify who is a heretic. Many of them are honest and zealous Christians who are equally concerned with the promotion of true and authentic Christian teaching. But the line has to be drawn and it all depends how large circle we need to draw and how much dissenting views we can accommodate.

There were the groups of Judaisers who insisted upon Jewish customs and circumcision of the followers of Jesus. Some of them believe that Jesus is the Messiah while others say that he is just a prophet.

Another important alternate teaching was that of Docetism. If Jesus is divine he could not have suffered on the cross since God does not suffer and have what we know as human feelings. They believe that Jesus was only a phantom (not phantom of the opera) but an appearance: God putting on an act and appear to be human.

The later form of Gnosticism talked about the transcendent God who is impassible or has no passion, emotions or feelings. The God they believe in is too lofty and too holy to be involved in this world of evil and imperfection. The world of matter must have been created by an inferior being and not the holy God. This could explain easily the cause evil and a natural disaster of tsunami when it is regarded to have been caused by either Satan or a vengeful God punishing humankind for its sins.

The Apostles' Creed, drawn up in the first or second century, emphasizes the true Humanity, including the material body, of Jesus, since that is the issue that the heretics of the time were attacking.

So the Apostles’ Creed was responding to the theological questions that were debated in their time. It developed the theological doctrine of the Trinity which is never found in the New Testament of the concept of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit – the Three-in-One God.

The Apostles' Creed continues to be used today much as it was in the past: as a baptismal ritual and as a guard and guide against heresy. It has become a summary statement of the faith and an affirmation in worship. It has maintained in modern times its distinction as the most widely accepted and used creed among Christians.

The Apostles’ Creed when used needs fresh interpretation. It strongly insists on historical facts as they were known then but we must engage in historical-critical studies of the Bible to discover what these historical facts mean today. That is why there must be a continuous search for the historical Jesus and interpret it for our belief in the Christ of faith. It was said that we cannot separate the religion of Jesus from the religion about Jesus.

We must realize that Christianity is a historical religion about a historical person. It is an interpretation of historical events in this world and not a system of ideas, a body of doctrine, or a set of moral precepts. It is what we believe emerging from our relationship with God through Christ. The content of the Gospel is Jesus not just the Apostles’ Creed or a doctrine or theory about Jesus. It is a belief in the person of Jesus and not a creed. The words cannot be frozen or cast in concrete or carved in stone. Fresh interpretations must be given and that is why other church creeds were later developed and statements of belief formulated in succeeding generations.

As we study the Apostles’ Creed we must take into account its own historical perspective and the words for us have new meanings and fresh nuances when we have fuller knowledge and deeper experience today.

Let me close this introduction with this wonderful story about Carl Jung, the famous and brilliant psychologist.  Jung was interviewed when he was a very old man.  The interviewer asked him, "After all you've studied and done, do you believe in God?"  Jung answered, "No, I don't believe in God."  He was silent for a moment.  Then he said, "I don't believe in God, I know.  I know God." You may recite the creed but the bottom line is do you know God.

Now we turn to the words of the Apostles’ Creed, According to the traditional English punctuation and paragraphing of the Apostles' Creed the second article begins a new paragraph, but not a new sentence: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord." Without even a pause for breath we confess our faith in Christ as well as God.

This one full sentence affirms God is the Creator of heaven and the earth and in Jesus Christ. Allow me to say a word about Creator of heaven and the earth. In Biblical times know the flat earth where we find ourselves and we look to the skies and imagine heaven to be beyond the dome like a cup covering the earth and that is the place God resides. Below the ground where we stand is hell and that is where the condemned sinners will end. This is the three tiered universe imagined which governs the thinking of the people in those days. That is why there is the description of ascending up to heaven and descending down to hell in the original creed about resurrection and judgment.

Now geologists tell us that the earth is made up of pressurized layers. At the center is a hot metal core about 2,160 miles (3,500 kilometers) thick, the center of it solid and the outer layer molten. Then comes the hot, rocky mantle, about 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) thick. On top of that is the part we live on, a thin, cooler crust, perhaps 30 miles (48 kilometers) thick.

The crust is not solid and unbroken like the coating on a gumball. Rather, it is fractured into more than a dozen overlapping, rigid plates of rocky armor. The plates move relative to one another as they slide atop the hotter layers below.

The overlapping points between plates are called subduction zones, and that is where the biggest earthquakes strike, changing Earth's map slightly each time. Volcanoes most often erupt in these boundaries between the plates.

I circulated the brilliant and provocative article on “Tsunamis and this Thing called Humanity" by Manuel Valenzuela and I hope you will take some time to read and be mesmerized by it. Within the article is this view of the earth and humanity.

“Earth does not ask questions in its long journey through time. What transpired more than a week ago is but one manifestation of mechanisms that have shaped our home for more than four billion years. The mountains we see, the hills we climb, the valleys we cross, the canyons whose beauty we absorb, the oceans we traverse and the continents we live in are the result of timeless changes on the surface of our planet. Erosion, volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornados, typhoons, rivers, lakes, glaciers, gorges, shifting continents, crashing plates, conifer forests, impenetrable jungles, fertile lands, arid deserts and frozen tundra are all witnesses to the living energy that Earth has created since its formation. The world of today is a result of four billion years of history, of evolution, of constant changes, of slow mechanisms that take hundreds of thousands of years to mold and form, to destroy and create. One human lifetime, not to mention civilization itself, cannot possibly comprehend how many times the planet has been devastated, altered and damaged, only to become a living paradise over and over again.

In the life of Earth, over four billion years of history, there have undoubtedly been millions of tsunamis like the one that killed so many people. Many have been bigger, many smaller, yet before, mankind did not exist as we do today. We have only been around this tiny planet for a few million years, a few hundred thousand as modern humans. In the long life of Earth, we are nothing, a simple second or two in a twenty-four hour clock, one exhale of carbon dioxide out of billions taken. Yet to humans it is hard to contemplate centuries of time, much less millennia or entire epochs. Time is unfathomable to us, an exercise in futility to primitive brains and short mammalian lives. How can we comprehend hundreds of millions of years when our existence lasts, on average, 70 years?”

When we read an article like this our horizons are extended. Our understanding of God the Creator must include not this earth and time and humanity but the whole expanding universe that the scientists have described to us. The term universe encompasses everything in the heavens.  There are all sorts of objects that make up the universe: stars, planets, other objects and plain old empty space.  Stars, like our sun, are basically large chunks of matter.  But stars are so large that the pressure of all of their mass pressing in on itself fuses atoms together, releasing light and heat.  Stars tend to cluster together in groups called galaxies.  Our sun for example, is but one star in the milky way galaxy.  Even smaller in scale than a galaxy is a solar system.  Our solar system is comprised of one star (the sun) and nine planets circling around it.  Planets, like stars, are basically chunks of matter.  But relative to the size of a star, a planet is quite a small chunk.

Romans 8:22, ”We know the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now.”

After confessing that God is the Creator the Apostles’ Creed proclaims that Jesus Christ is the only Son. The creed was for the audience of the early Christian community about God the Father who has given to us His Son. This is the whole concept of the Messiah and the hopes of the suffering people under foreign domination. This was the historical situation of Roman domination that they were in. We have to identify Jesus as the promised Messiah to save the people and Israel from foreign rule.

When the Jews hear "Son of God," they would associate it with "king of Judah." It is related the liberator from the tyranny and humiliation of foreign rule. The fundamental significance of Jesus’ identity is that of the Messiah who inaugurates the rule of God by overpowering the foreign oppressors of Israel. The faithful people were waiting for the Messiah would be overthrow the foreign powers and be the king over Israel and rule forever. As David's seed had borne the title of "Son of God" (II Samuel 7:12-16), so likewise Jesus Christ bore that title.

Tracing ancestry is a very Jewish thing to do. Various genealogical lists appear in the Hebrew Scriptures which greatly aid our understanding of certain events. Even today, one meets Jewish people who proudly trace their family tree over many generations. A genealogy of Jesus' descent from king David was, and still is, an important evidence which establishes the claim of messiahship. It affirms his identity, confirms his status and provides his legitimacy as the promised Messiah. Most commentators agree that Matthew [Matthew 1:1-7] gives Joseph's ancestry and Luke [Luke 3:23-38] gives Mary's.

We have reformatted Mathew’s genealogy in the now famous invitation card for our FCC Christmas day. Let me quote Miak’s comment in his thank you letter “I wasn't very supportive of the original designs, but during the meeting when we were going through the designs, someone (Dominic I think) just suggested putting the genealogy of Jesus in the form of a Christmas tree, with words in red describing some of the less orthodox characters in the Bible. That design was nailed down in less than 10 minutes, and I think we had unanimous agreement on it. (very few occasions you have a bunch of gays and lesbian agreeing on design.....) Thanks Kavin - for the design of the card. The concept was there, but you made it beautiful! There were lots of compliments on the card. really really, great job.   Paul told the Colossians more about this Jesus whose birthday we celebrated, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:15-17). "For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Colossians 2:9).

As we talk of the fatherhood of God and Jesus as God’s only Son, all people are God's children by creation. The prophet Malachi asked, "Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us" (Malachi 2:10)? Even the most despised and contemptible person you know, the person you can't stand to be around, the one who drives you crazy, is a son or daughter of Adam who is a son of God (Luke 3:38). That old lonely men and women in Block 31 in Toa Payoh whose one room flats some you cleaned and painted are sons and daughters of God too In this sense, all humankind is one family. We are all brothers and sisters. "For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist" (1 Corinthians 8:6; see also Acts 17:29). All people, irregardless, are children of God by creation.

God’s chosen people are regarded as sons of God. A perfect obedience to the will and commands of God is a fundamental characteristic of being a Son. This is the traditional understanding of the relationship between father and son and that is one of obedience. Jesus Christ is known to be the only Son in whom God is well pleased and is always about doing the will of the Father. This is the uniqueness of Jesus Christ who was completely obedient.

Then the Apostles’ Creed states that Jesus Christ is our Lord. In English tradition, the word "Lord" usually suggests either a hereditary title for a "peer of the realm" or a life member of the upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords.

To any person living in the Roman Empire Lordship meant absolute ownership. The person who is called Lord is absolute master. People living in the Empire were expected to state that "Caesar is Lord". That indicated absolute royalty and also divinity. This is partly why it was so dangerous to be a Christian in the early days of the Church. Nobody who followed Jesus could say "Caesar is Lord." Only Christ is our Lord and He only is allowed to rule in my life and only He is worthy of my worship.

To say that "Jesus is Lord" is to confess that he is my master, my owner - I am his slave. This suggests not only the attitude of obedience of the Son but also loyalty. Lordship and loyalty are related concepts. What do we mean when we call Jesus, Lord. Jesus asked, "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I tell you" (Luke 6:46)? Many talk as if Jesus is Lord but act as if he isn't. When we believe that Jesus Christ is the only Son our Lord " it must work its way into our lives and make a difference.

The lordship of Jesus is in sharp contrast to the prevailing lordship of secular powers. It is renunciation of prestige and power. Jesus insists that the “son of man came not be served but to serve” Mark 10:45. It is a not a privileged position in the pyramid of power and prestige so says Methodist theologian Ted Jennings. It is the abolishing of systems of domination and structures of oppression as represented by the Roman rulers and the Temple hierarchy. It is the choosing of the way of sacrifice and service to the people as the distinctive path of Christian obedience and loyalty.

It is not enough to pay homage or to express adoration to God by calling Him Lord, Lord. Mathew has warned us that not everyone who calls Jesus Lord, Lord shall enter heaven or the reign of God but he or she who does the will of God.

The confessing of the creed that Jesus Christ is the only Son and our Lord is committing oneself to Jesus’ mission and ministry. It is the dedication to the liberating task of bringing in the reign of God in God’s creation.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus Christ we confess that you are the Son of God our Lord. You have called us to obedience and loyalty. You have come to inaugurate the reign of God in human life on this earth and has revealed to us the life of sacrifice and service. May we now commit ourselves to your mission and ministry and dedicate our lives to service and sacrifice in this created world. Amen.