This I Know Is Most Certainly True :: Apostles' Creed
I pray that you have started studying Luther’s Small Catechism every day and begun working your way through the Large Catechism. There had been many medieval catechisms before Luther wrote these for our Church. But none of those were as invaluable as these. Luther has given us a proper distinction between Law and Gospel.
After hearing the fullness of the Law in the form of the Ten Commandments, this week we turn to the fullness of the Gospel in the Creed. Whereas some theologians have tended to emphasize one article of the Creed more than another, Luther brought balance to the three. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the author of Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification. Each of these works of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit show us what God has done and continues to do for us. It teaches us to know the fullness of God (Eph 3:19) and therefore, confess the Gospel.
THIS I KNOW IS MOST CERTAINLY TRUE.
I.
We’ll start with the first article: I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. To confess this means to acknowledge, first and most prominently, that God is the Lord of my life, that God has made me and all creatures, that he has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them.
In other words, it fully confesses the truth that God is for me.
In an age in which men complain they didn’t choose to be born, that they didn’t choose to be born this way or that way ... or in which they protest the absurdity of life, we can still make this confession that “God has made me.” He has given us life and life abundantly. Since God is the maker of heaven and earth, we realize that all we are, all we will ever become, and all we possess depends entirely on our Creator.
Here we don’t enter into the questions of the seeming inequities of life. We simply confess that our life is of God ... that our lives are all gifts of God. ... Yet they are more than gifts. Out of his fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, God supplies our daily needs. He protects us and defends us. He doesn’t do this because we’ve done something good. He doesn’t do this because we earned a prize or because we are special in any way.
Without him, we cannot be. Without him, we have nothing. Without him, we cannot continue. But because we are his, we are bound to live a life of thanksgiving and praise, service and obedience to him. This is most certainly true.
II.
Although it’s easy for almost all people to say that they believe in “God” ... and that he must be the “Creator” of all things ... most people don’t recognize what kind of god he actually is ... one who not only creates but interacts with you because he is “for you.” Most of the world actually thinks God is a hands-off God. The second article of the Creed teaches us to wholly disagree with the world’s understanding of God.
In the second article, we confess that God is not only the Lord of creation, but that he is Lord of the fallen creation. God has entered our world through the person of Christ to redeem it from the corruption of sin and to bring it back into true Fellowship with him. On account of the original sin and the life of sin we now live in, we couldn’t go to God, so he came to us.
Jesus is the fulfillment of all the promises of the Old Testament. God’s only son, our Lord, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. In other words, Jesus is True God and True Man. He was born to redeem us from sin. He did this by first living under the law, obeying all of the law, and then suffering and dying on a cross before rising from the dead.
The enemies ... sin, death, and the devil ... plague us all through life. They distort and mutilate our life. They pervert, destroy, and place under bondage all that God has created for us out of the goodness of his fatherly heart. But Christ has stood in our place, and so liberated us.
Salvation for us was not won by the things of the creation, not silver, not gold ... but by the very righteousness and death of Jesus, the God-man. He shed his blood for you. He died in your place. And he did this precisely, so that all who believe in him, who trust him, who have faith in him, that we might be his own and live under him in his kingdom.
Jesus has set us free from all that terrifies and haunts the life that God has given us. Now we’re free to fear and love God. Now we know that we don’t have to be terrified by any enemy, but can put our entire trust in Christ. The proof of it is that he is risen from the dead. God the Father raised Jesus from the dead to make him both Lord and Christ. By the resurrection he is king. He is Lord so that we, too, may live under him into all eternity. This is most certainly true.
III.
The reason we believe this is because the helper has come, just as Christ promised (Jn 15:26-27). As we learn in the Third Article, I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, but the Holy Spirit calls me by the Gospel, enlightens me with his gifts, and sanctifies and keeps me in the one true faith. In the same way he does this for the holy Christian church on earth, to receive the forgiveness of sins, await the resurrection of the body, and live life everlasting. This is what sanctification really means.
Sanctification is often understood to refer to our good works. But here, Luther uses it, as the Bible often does, to describe the entire work of the Holy Spirit bringing us salvation, including justification. Luther drives home the point that “Church” is, first and foremost, the people the Holy Spirit is gathering together through the preaching of the Gospel. Church is not primarily this place. It is best to understand it as the communion of saints. It is not holy because of our works. It is holy because of the Holy Spirit’s work in our midst. Within the church, the Holy Spirit through preaching and signs ... that is, sacraments ... forgives us and keeps us in the faith. He nurtures us with his Word. He refreshes us with baptism. He sustains us with the Lord’s supper, in communion with each other.
What the third article of the creed is saying to us is that the Gospel always comes to us from the outside .... it always comes from God. The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to us to bring to us the truth of what God has done for us in Christ. The new man within us is no longer outside us. It is not something we should attain to, but it is something God gives. For us to try and do something to gain it, win it, earn it, is only to destroy it again by making an idol out of our own efforts. The Gospel of freedom, forgiveness, life, and salvation is God’s alone to give.
What Christ has done to liberate us from our enemies of sin, death, and the devil, the Holy Spirit makes a reality for us. It is his work to actualize this liberty within our lives. The Holy Spirit frees us from the bondage of unbelief to appropriate this freedom of the Gospel for ourselves.
And there you have it. Here you have the entire divine essence, will, and work revealed most completely in short yet rich words. The whole world with all diligence has struggled to figure out what God is, what he has in mind, and what he does for us all. If only the world would recognize the truth in the creed. For here, in all three articles, God has revealed himself and opened the depths of his heart and love to us all. He has created us for this very reason, that he might redeem and sanctify us. In addition to giving and imparting to us everything in heaven and upon earth, he has given to us his Son and Holy Spirit, who brings us to himself.
That is our creed.