He takes joy, he is jealous, he is love, he is just, he has anger and wrath, he has grace and mercy. God is not a “life force” or some impersonal mystical vibe floating around outer space.
God is spirit, so he is a perfect, eternal, spiritual Person. God is a Person, but he’s not a mortal or created person. That’s (part of) what makes him God – he’s the maker of everything. Heaven and earth didn’t just appear in a magical moment of self-actualization they didn’t just always exist they didn’t just develop by happenstances. We are not “the maker of heaven and earth.” God is. “We believe,” it says, “in God.” The way the confession is phrased asserts exclusivity and identity. “We believe,” the Creed says, not in some gods (as if multiple deities exist) or in a god (as if God is some vague, unknowable higher power we hope exists). It “makes” the confession “We believe.” The Apostles’ Creed Meaning: God, the Father Almighty It would include the phrases “We think” and “We feel.” But the gospel at the center of the Apostles’ Creed is the shaper of the lives who confess it. Our creed would have asserted (not confessed) the accomplishments of ourselves.
It was formulated by them, of course, but it came from what really happened in history and what really happened in their hearts and lives as a result of what really happened in history.Īt our best, apart from God’s intervention, we would not have created a philosophy that confessed God’s supremacy and glory. The Apostles’ Creed is not the invention of theologians, just as it was not the invention of the apostles. When we read the creed in this way, then-as doxological confession and as a proclamation of the gospel storyline of the Scriptures-we help ourselves see the powerful depth and beauty in the old familiar lines. This is what “the life everlasting” corresponds to – Jesus’ renewing all things, not simply our receiving a ticket to heaven when we die.