What Christians Believe
The Articles of Faith

Salvation

The Apostles' Creed contains a lot about salvation near the end. Some people have wondered why they are at the end, rather than some other place. And of course the creed itself doesn't really tell us. But, if you look at it, the way that it looks to me, is that the creed wants to establish the Godhead — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — to be sure that the experience of salvation is flowing from that Godhead, and not from any kind of human construct or human system. To know who God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is leads to the invitation and the promise that we can be saved if we confess our sins. And so I think those statements are at the end to show that the fruit of our relationship with God comes from the root of who God is in that Trinity. [Dr. Steve Harper]

The last three articles of faith in the creed deal with aspects of salvation. Specifically, they mention the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. In traditional systematic theology, resurrection and everlasting life are also treated under the heading of eschatology, the doctrine of last things. But for the sake of simplicity, we will only address them under the heading of salvation.

All Christians believe in the forgiveness of sins through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. We believe that if we confess and repent of our sins, God will not punish us in hell for them. And as the Apostles' Creed indicates, this has been the belief of the church from its earliest days. And we all know Scriptures that teach us that all those who are forgiven are blessed with eternal life through Jesus Christ. For instance, John 3:16-18 encourages us with these words:

God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life… Whoever believes in him is not condemned (John 3:16-18).

Eternal life belongs to every believer. In some respects, it begins the moment we come to faith, since our souls are given new life and will never die.

But the nature of the eternal life affirmed by the creed sometimes surprises modern Christians. Specifically, the creed speaks about the resurrection of the body. Sometimes, Christians make the mistake of thinking that the creed is referring to the resurrection of Jesus. But it is not. Jesus' resurrection is mentioned earlier in the creed, in the words "The third day he rose from the dead." This article of faith is not repeated. Rather, when the creed speaks of the resurrection of the dead, it is referring to the biblical teaching that all people will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment, and that they will go to their eternal fates, not as disembodied spirits, but as physical, bodily creatures. This is the consistent teaching of Scripture, and it has been an article of faith in the church for thousands of years.

As Jesus taught in John 5:28-29:

A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear [the Son's] voice and come out — those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned (John 5:28-29).

The creed's statements about salvation are taught clearly in Scripture and have always been embraced by biblical churches. Even so, many modern people who claim to follow Christ reject these basic, fundamental teachings. There are some who deny that God holds us accountable for our sin, and who insist that forgiveness is unnecessary. There are unbelievers in our churches who teach that this life is all there is, and that any so-called "eternal" life we possess is limited to our time on earth in our physical bodies. And there are many who wrongly believe that we will spend eternity as disembodied spirits in heaven. For reasons like these, the articles of faith in the Apostles' Creed are just as important and relevant for the church today as they were in the early centuries.

In summary, the Apostles' Creed focuses on doctrines related to God, the church, and salvation. In other lessons in this series, we will explore each of these concepts in much greater depth. But for now, we simply want to make sure that we understand the big picture: that this handful of doctrines is so central and fundamental that they have effectively defined the boundaries of Christianity for hundreds and hundreds of years.

So far in our discussion of the Apostles' Creed as the articles of faith, we have spoken of the history of the creed, and offered an overview of its theology. We are ready to move to our third major topic: the continuing importance of the articles of faith listed in the Apostles' Creed.