One Evangelical Objection to the Creed

One objection against Baptists using the Creed comes from some Evangelicals’ personal experience of having said a creed before conversion.

Five Notes in Response:

*The saving Gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection is expressed in the Creed. That likely helped the person recognize the Gospel.

*One ought not reject Christian song in worship because a person sang before conversion. One ought not reject reading the Bible because one read it before salvation. Likewise, one ought not stop confessing truth about God because one read aloud that confession before conversion.

*Like sermons, creeds do not only have the purpose of offering the Gospel. They are also used for pedagogy and discipline. Pedagogy: They teach the basics of the Christian faith, from the Trinity to Christ to the Final Judgment to the Resurrection. Discipline: They repel heresy.

*Conversion is a sovereign act of divine grace that occurs instrumentally according to the proclamation of God’s Word, whether that comes through song, creed, sermon, or reading Scripture. Conversion is not an automatic event based on one human use of a means of Gospel proclamation.

*People often tell me they were glad for their exposure to the Gospel through a church’s use of the Creed. Let us praise God for their conversions! IMB missionaries tell me that affirmation of the Creed helps people see Baptists are not a cult. Praise God for credal orthodoxy!

Adding the Creed to the Baptist Faith and Message will have many positive functions, including helping Southern Baptists contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Let us praise God for the long history of Christian confession of the Gospel in the Creed!

Article XIX: The Creed

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father. By him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he descended from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again, in accordance with the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again, in glory, to judge the living and the dead, and his Kingdom shall have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son], and who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified. He spoke through the Prophets. And in one holy universal and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and we look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

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We encourage the Messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in June 2024 to affirm the Nicene Creed. We encourage the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in June 2025 to include the Creed as an article in the Baptist Faith and Message. We are also happy to include the Apostles’ Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and the Chalcedonian Definition.

Matthew Barrett, Andrew Brown, Matthew Emerson, Stephen Lorance, Steven McKinion, Stephen Presley, Rhyne Putman, David Rathel, Luke Stamps, Malcolm Yarnell