The Apostles’ Creed — foundational to our Apostolic Christian faith
I BELIEVE or WE BELIEVE IN:
The Apostles’ Creed
We believe JESUS will JUDGE the living and the dead.
The Quick and the Dead
Death becomes a more serious matter IF WE consider an inevitable after-life of our lifeless flesh and blood and in a prepared place of our created soul.
This failing flesh, weakening sinews, crumbling of bones, flow through our heart and quickness of brain will not endure…
nor will the very breath of our brief mortal life.
And yet.. this created soul will remain…
What then?
Redemption OR Judgment?
Structure of Christian CREEDS
Here’s a brief outline of the fundamental objects of our faith found in The Creed:
God
Jesus Christ
the Holy Spirit
and the Virgin Mary
Jesus was crucified
and was buried
He rose from the dead
He ascended to heaven
Siteth at the right hand of the Father (ye olde English)
Whence He cometh to judge the living and the dead
more…
source: apostles-creed.org
We believe Jesus will judge the living and the dead
During His incarnation as the Son of Man and prior to His crucifixion Jesus had confessed:
The Apostle Paul helps us with this look at the judgment of the quick and the dead:
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you,
he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
We know it and recognize the the Apostles borrow this from the Gospel of what Christ has taught during His incarnation.
from the Greek [ζωοποιέω] it more specifically means:
to produce alive, begat or bear living young
to cause to live, make alive, give life
and as Jesus used it in a parable pointing to death:
of seeds quickened into life, i.e. germinating, springing up, growing
For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.
Gospel of John 5:21 KJV
Think of the implication of this to a mortal like us as we look toward the dust.
An the Lord Jesus assures the faithful:
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing:
and you believers with ears to hear, listen to this:
the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Gospel of John 6:63 KJV – the word of Jesus, the son of Man and Son of God
from Christ to the Apostles to Christian Creeds
The Apostle Paul writes to the church in Ephesus — a worldly cosmopolitan city with the temple of the Greek goddess Artemis (the goddess Diana of the Romans) — in about AD 60, quoting the Prophets:
“Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.”
See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Ephesisans 5:14b-16 NKJV
And the risen Christ speaks a warning against turning back from sins and heresies leading to hell, which had seduced many of the Ephesian ‘christians‘:
“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.
Revelation of Jesus Christ to John 2:5 NKJV
Their great falling from grace in Ephesus having taken place in the AD 90’s, a mere three decades after the Apostle Paul had pastored their church.
The historical record of the Church beyond the first century AD points to both firm doctrine and similar falling away from Christ.
Augustine of Hippo on the Apostles’ Creed
Born: AD 354, Augustine lived an early 'willfully, decadent, pagan life' in Carthage, even taking a mistress who bore him a bastard son.
Source: The Confessions of St. Augustine, Rosalie DeRosset – intro
In Carthage, Augustine’s knowledge.. he admits, made him, “swollen up with vanity” (Bk 3, chap. 6). — probably made him prey for the Manichean religion. The chief characteristic of this sect was Gnosticism, an extreme dualism that claimed evil and good as equal.
ibid. pp 13-14
In just four centuries heresies had encompassed and seeped into the churches. Later after after St. Augustine and the fall of Rome, considerable idolatry and various heresies would invade the Catholic Church and later after Luther, the Protestant Church.
READ what Augustine later taught about THE APOSTLES’ CREED:
“Thence He shall come to judge the quick and dead.”
The quick, who shall be alive and remain;
the dead, who shall have gone before.
It may also be understood thus: The living, the just; the dead, the unjust.
For He judges both, rendering unto each his own.
To the just He will say in the judgment, “Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” For this prepare yourselves, for these things hope, for this live, and so live, for this believe, for this be baptized, that it may be said to you, “Come ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
To them on the left hand, what?
“Go into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Thus will they be judged by Christ, the quick and the dead.
We have spoken of Christ’s first nativity, which is without time;
spoken of the other in the fullness of time,
Christ’s nativity of the Virgin; spoken of the passion of Christ; spoken of the coming of Christ to judgment.
The whole is spoken, that was to be spoken of Christ, God’s Only Son, our Lord. But not yet is the Trinity perfect.
Here’s a brief outline of the fundamental objects of our faith found in The Creed:
God
Jesus Christ
the Holy Spirit
and the Virgin Mary
Jesus was crucified
and was buried
He rose from the dead
more..
source: apostles-creed.org
The Apostles’ Creed
Our outline above used for this SERIES taken from the Old Roman Creed (vide ante) from which the Apostles’ Creed was adapted and possibly in use before the mid-2nd century.
The Apostles’ Creed and other affirmations of faith were adopted corporately by the Church to refute permeating heresies plaguing believers since the time of the Apostles.
Roger@TalkofJesus.com
We believe He descended to hell.
On the third day he rose again.
He rose! Is there Life after Death?
Jesus frequently had asked, “Have you never read the Scriptures?”
One of the great Jewish divisions in doctrine had been that many did not believe in life after death. But some of the Pharisees, like Nicodemus, believed that the body and soul rose from death at the Last Day.
In fact, recent evidence had been overwhelming, since Lazarus rose from his grave in nearby Bethany.
Temporary Resurrections until a later death.
“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.”
.. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died,
Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
Jesus said to her [Martha], “Your brother will rise again.”
Now listen carefully to Martha's response:
Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
Gospel of John 11:11-24 excerpts ESV
Jesus said to her,
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Gospel of John 11:25-26 ESV
She said to him,
“Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
John 11:27 ESV
Lazarus rose.. and then Jesus would rise that all might live.
Martha and Mary could not have known what was about to take place at the command of Christ calling her brother from his tomb.
Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.
Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”
.. he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.”
The man who had died came out…
John 11:38-44 excerpt ESV
Lazarus, Mary and Martha could not have known that their friend Jesus, the Son of God, would soon enter Jerusalem, followed by adoring crowds. Or that He would be crucified, dead and buried.
But then He too rose from the grave, as all had just witnessed of Lazarus at the command of Christ.
Yet neither that of Lazarus or of Christ is the resurrection of the Last Day.
Hell, the dead and waiting…
What happens after we die?
Some versions of the Creeds omit, “He descended into Hell” or “He descended to the dead.”
Even the Catholic Church later minimized the punishment and depth of the pit of purchased sins.
While there are many that deny Heaven, Hell, or both, the Bible teaches that the righteous go to eternal life and the unrighteous to eternal destruction. Jesus said,
“And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matt 25:46 NAS)
Mary and John had witnessed the death of her Son and his Master, Lord and friend. Lazarus has risen to witness his friend — the all-powerful Son of God who had called him out of the grave.
Once again, JESUS — in His resurrected body — would touch, teach and influence hundreds of disciples who would follow Him to the death.. and eternal life.
But what about you? — Do you embrace an Apostolic faith confirmed in the Apostles’ Creed?
He rose from death!
He descended into hell;
The Scriptures teach Christ went to Sheol or Hades.
The word “Hell” is the specific location where sinners go for punishment.
“Gehenna” in Greek.. was an actual valley outside of old Jerusalem that was a smoldering garbage dump at the time of Jesus.
Hell is also the Greek word “Tartaros.” It is the name of the subterranean region, doleful and dark, regarded by the ancient Greeks as the abode of the wicked dead, where they suffer punishment for their evil deeds.
The penalty for our sin is not only dying, its remaining dead and suffering the eternal punishment of God.
Christ could only do this because He is fully God and Man.
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
The FACTS established, now the Apostle to the Gentiles must convince believing Corinthians influenced by cultural ‘scientists of Promethean logic‘ about the truth of the nature of the resurrection of the dead.
How can worshippers of myths — a myriad of made-up gods and goddesses — purport LOGIC as truth?
How can we present the resurrection of the dead as truth rather than myth (upon which Greek religion tenuously stands)?
This is Paul’s cultural challenge — and ours.
Resurrection is Key to the Gospel
Even Jerusalem’s Sadducees denied the truth and evidence of the resurrection.
Certainly many Greek worshippers of pagan gods held philosophies allowing the evil of the body to coexistence with a soul (hopefully) worthy of heaven.
Paul had encountered such opposition in Athens just before he arrived in Corinth to preach.
Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked...
Note that this mocking at mention of the resurrection is similar to that in Jerusalem at the time many Jews received the Holy Spirit.
They believe these things, but hate them; and they also hate God.
WARRANTED CHRISTIAN BELIEF P.291
Is it not so? Hasn’t this hatred of God also been your experience simply at the mention of Jesus Christ?
Pagan ridicule of the resurrection provides false evidence to their Promethean proofs justifying the sins their flesh-indulged minds.
This was the challenge of the Apostle Paul in A.D. 55, as it is ours in this Common Era of indulgent inclusion.
IF Christ is risen..
Paul has established the indisputable facts of the bodily death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now he continues in his key logic of the gospel of resurrection of the body and spirit.
1 Corinthians 15: –
“.. this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
1 COR 15:11b BSB
: RESURRECTION IS: CERTAIN (15:1-34)
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead,
how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
Paul now addresses those believing doubters of the resurrection influenced by the surrounding pagan culture.
The Apostle follows a step-by-step logical argument:
But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
1 Cor 15:13 ESV
These logical Greek Corinthians hear the argument of the Pharisee (Saul of Tarsus) refuting the unbelieving Sadducees.
— AND Paul has just presented the FACTS and evidence that Christ was raised from the grave after His crucifixion.
And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
1 Cor 15:14 ESV
SO — You are a follower of The Way – a saint of your local church…
WHY THEN did we preach Christ to you and your fellow saints?
Is your faith in a myth just vanity?
And Paul continues rhetorically challenging the veracity of his own preaching of the Christ and Jesus' resurrection from DEATH on a Roman cross in Judea.
The apostle of this gospel self-convicts in this alternative scenario concluding:
We are even found to be misrepresenting God,
because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.
1 Cor 15:15 ESV
Heresy!
What is the Apostle’s proposition?
YOU — Corinthians — (and YOU, Common Era questioners) — must judge the TRUTH of the RESURRECTION of the dead based on the FACTS & EVIDENCE that the Lord Jesus Christ was the first man raised from death for your sins.
Why do I make the bold point that this would be HERESY?
Other translations provide a more pointed translation of the Greek that may help us understand the seriousness of Paul's alternative false proposition.
NOW Paul continues in the only logical conclusion: :
But now [at this very moment] is Christ risen from the dead
1 Corinthians 15:20a – KJV [def. Gk. νυνί]
The Apostle here is emphatic in his belief proclaimed in his closing.
“But in fact..,” “At this very moment..,” “And now..,
Christ hath risen out of the dead,” read just a few English translations of Paul’s logical Greek argument.
Then Paul proclaims the benefits of Christ’s resurrection applied to the death of those in Christ.
Christ’s resurrection + the firstfruits
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep…
.. Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
1 Cor 15:20,23b ESV
Between Paul’s representation of the resurrection of Christ and resurrections of ‘those who belong to Christ’ — (faithful saints of the Church redeemed in Him) — the Apostle points back once more to original sin and the source of death replacing eternal life with God.
IN THE BEGINNING…
For as in Adam all die…
Paul proclaims:
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
IN THE BEGINNING God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void…
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed… But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:
for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Genesis 1-2 KJV excerpts
IN ADAM… ALL DIE.
IN ABRAHAM & JACOB.. ALL DIE.
IN MOSES ALL DIE
and IN DAVID… ALL DIE!
in Christ all will be made alive. For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits; afterward, at his coming, those who belong to Christ.
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