The Importance of Creeds in the Early Church

By Brian Litfin

Lack of Doctrinal Clarity in the Early Church 

One heresy claimed the God of Israel was foolish and Jesus had come to proclaim an unknown, better God (Marcionism). Another heresy said salvation didn’t come from Jesus on the cross but through mysterious secrets whispered to the special few (gnosticism). Yet another heresy claimed that Jesus didn’t have a real, physical body, but was more like a ghost who only seemed human (Docetism).  

Lots of people wanted to believe in Jesus. The problem was knowing what to believe! 

The Importance of Creeds in an Era Prior to Widespread Written Material 

That’s where creeds came in. When people got baptized into true, biblical churches, the leaders made sure all the converts knew exactly what they were accepting. Of course, many ancient people couldn’t read very well, if at all.  

Books were so expensive that most people couldn’t own them. Instead of learning correct theology through private reading, the converts of the ancient church were given pastoral instruction for several weeks (sometimes even for several years) prior to their baptism. This time of learning was called catechesis, from the Greek word for teaching. 

A major assignment during the prebaptismal class during this era was to memorize a creed. These words were said to be “handed out” by the instructor, then “given back” to the bishop when the convert went down into the water. The recitation of the creed wasn’t a final exam from a doctrine class. It was more than just head knowledge. Instead, the baptized person was shifting stories—changing from one narrative about the world to a vastly different one. The converts of those days had been born into paganism and were steeped in Greco-Roman mythology. The deeds of Jupiter, Apollo, Venus, and a horde of other deities had shaped the person’s world. 

But now, the new believer was switching to the biblical narrative of Israel’s God, a story that reached its high point in Jesus Christ and would surely culminate with his return for judgment and rewards. Creeds were memorized in catechesis and recited in the water, so the convert would have a brief, handy summary of the new story they were joining. 

Why Creeds Are Important in the Church  

Creeds, then, were more than just doctrinal summaries. They were short stories that served as abridgments of a longer tale. They articulated the creative work of God, the mighty deeds of his Son, the coming of the Spirit in the church, and the Christian’s hope at the end of the age. This was a glorious new narrative to replace the decrepit myths of the gods. 

Creeds were part of Christian worship right from the beginning. Jewish synagogue worship included many recitations of blessings and prayer formulas. The earliest Christians, who were Jews, kept this practice going and added new truths about Jesus to their verbal professions about the one, true God. 

The central idea of these earliest, most primitive creeds is “Jesus is Lord.” This is a kind of stock Christian saying, a fixed expression that signals belief in Jesus’s mighty resurrection. Paul tells us in Romans 10:9 that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Notice that for Paul, inner belief of the heart wasn’t enough. He told the Romans to believe, then to confess their beliefs out loud. 

The word “confess” is an important creedal term. In Greek, it is homologeo, which means to be one-minded, or more literally, to “say the same word.” When we confess a creed aloud, we are “same-saying” the words that other believers accept as well. What a beautiful picture of church unity! On Sunday morning, creeds articulate the truths that countless believers through the ages have likewise professed, and which fellow Christians around the world are also proclaiming on that day. Or when a creed is recited in the waters of baptism, each new believer, no matter their background, is embracing the same core truths about the mighty work of God. Verbal confession of creeds expresses the unity of the universal church. 

The Continued Role of Creeds Providing Doctrinal Clarity in Ministry 

What happened next? Over the coming decades, the ancient Christians expanded the simple New Testament formulas so the words memorized and recited in baptism would more fully explain the new story being embraced.  

Some defenders of the faith also realized that these brief summaries of Christianity could be used to refute heretics, who told a countermyth to the authentic Chistian story. Creeds could also guard against erroneous Bible interpretation. No preacher should ever claim to find concepts in Scripture that contradict the central storyline about the Creator and his Christ. In all these ways, creeds helped the early church hone its understanding of sound doctrine. 

And they are an essential way for us to do the same! 

This article has been adapted from Bryan Litfin’s book The Story of the Trinity: Controversy, Crisis, and the Creation of the Nicene Creed published by Baker Books. This clear, readable introduction reveals how the early church discovered the biblical doctrine of the Trinity and developed the Nicene Creed as a beautiful and balanced confession of our faith.  

Bryan M. Litfin is the coauthor of Herod and Mary, and author of Early Christian Martyr Stories, After Acts, and Getting to Know the Church Fathers, as well as the Constantine’s Empire series of historical fiction. He earned his PhD in ancient Christianity from the University of Virginia and his ThM in historical theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. A former professor of theology at the Moody Bible Institute, Litfin now teaches in the Rawlings School of Divinity at Liberty University. He and his wife have two adult children and live in Virginia.