“Credo”; I Believe. We say that every time we say the Creed. “I believe in God …I believe in Jesus Christ… I believe in the Holy Spirit.”
We are used to saying the long complex Creed known as the Nicene, and also the Apostle’s Creed used at baptism and the daily offices. At our school chapels and Family services we use the so-called Children’s Creed, a very simple and short form. I grew up like most believing that the Nicene was the original, the Apostle’s a reduction and simplification of it and the Children’s a further simplification.
As I was researching for the Creed class, I discovered a startling, and wonderful truth – I had the process backwards. The earliest Christians were baptized using what are essentially the simple declarations that are found in the Children’s Creed. This was what was known to the Church from the Gospel of Matthew and the Great Commission: “Go into the world, baptizing in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” The candidate for Baptism was asked then as now, “Do you believe in God the Father? Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe in the God the Holy Spirit?” This is the essence of our declaration of faith and belief, the fundament as it were for Christianity, the belief in the Trinity.
The later Creeds were really expansions on these foundations, expansions of understanding, answers to challenges posed by the many trying to modify our understanding, those now seen are heretics. It is a fascinating study, and answers as well as possible the understanding we have come to have about the nature of Christ.
Still the Creed is in the service not as a recitation of the description of God, but rather a radical (meaning foundational) prayer of connecting to the Godhead who loves us.
I believe in God above
I believe in Jesus’ love
I believe the Spirit too
Comes to teach me what to do
I believe that I should be
Good and kind dear Lord like thee
