August 9, 2025 • 22 mins
In this thoughtful episode, we dive into the historical context surrounding the Athanasian Creed. Join us on Faithfullyliven: the Podcast as we unravel the creed's critical role in providing doctrinal clarity, protecting against heresies, and guiding new believers in their spiritual journey. Emphasizing the unity and co-equality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we explore why these foundational beliefs are not just theological concepts but are essential for salvation.
References from the show
What is the Athanasian Creed? https://www.gotquestions.org/Athanasian-creed.html
Historic Creeds and Confessions, electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Lexham Press, 1997).
Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes: The History of Creeds, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1878), 35.
Know The Creeds and Councils by Justin S. Holcomb (2014)
Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Check out the YouTube channel Faithfullyliven youtube.com/@faithfullyliven
Do you want to read about how to live faithfully? Check out the blog http://lyfe102.org
Get a free Road Map to get started learning how to study the Bible https://mailchi.mp/88f9c9405da0/bible-study-road-map
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast where we
learn how to live for Christ inour daily lives.
I am Dwan, your host, and Iwould like to invite you on a
journey with me to explore andlearn how to be a faithful
follower of Christ.
Hi everyone, welcome toFaithfully Living, the podcast,
(00:27):
where we strive to encourage youto live for Christ faithfully
by offering guidance on how tostudy the Bible, how to
understand the Bible better andhow to remain faithful to
historic Christianity in acontemporary society.
Where we are back with anotherepisode about creeds,
confessions and confessions ofthe Christian faith.
So we're on our last episode ofthis series.
(00:50):
The last episode we talkedabout the Nicene Creed.
If you haven't heard that, goback and listen to it.
Today we are going to belooking at the Athanasian Creed
Athanasian Creed, but before weget into the creed, I just want
(01:10):
to remind you that we've talkedabout the importance of creeds
and also the importance of asbelievers.
It's so important for us toknow what we believe and why.
And these creeds from the earlychurch creeds, confessions and
catechisms.
They were helpful for believersbecause they summarize the key
tenets and doctrines of theChristian faith and they held an
(01:35):
important function in the lifeof the Christian church.
So if you remember or you maynot remember from last time, I'm
just going to go over whatimportant functions did they
have for the church and they canalso have for us today.
So they provided doctrinalclarity by giving a clear,
unified expression of Christianfaith, such as the nature of God
(01:58):
, christ and the Holy Spirit andsalvation and the holy spirit
and salvation.
Two, it can guard againstheresies and doctrinal errors by
clearly defining whatchristians believe.
Three, they are helpful forinstructing new believers and
guarding christian education.
Four, they serve as a concisesummary of the faith, making it
(02:21):
easier to teach fundamental,foundational I'm sorry christian
beliefs.
Five, by reciting the creedsand worship, it helps to connect
believers with historic faithof the church.
And then the last one, itfosters a sense of community
with past generations ofChristians and remind us of our
(02:45):
shared beliefs.
All right, let us dive into theAthanasian Creed.
All right, so first let's readthe Athanasian Creed so you can
(03:10):
kind of get a feel of what it'sabout.
This is a long creed, so justbear with me as I read through
it.
Whoever will be saved, beforeall things, it is necessary that
he hold the Catholic faith.
Which faith, except every oneto keep whole and undefined.
(03:31):
Without doubt, he shall perisheverlasting.
And the Catholic faith is thisthat we worship the God in
Trinity and Trinity in unity.
Neither confounding the persons, are dividing the substance,
for there is one of the Father,another of the Son and another
(03:55):
of the Holy Spirit, but theGodhead of the Father, of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit isall one, the glory equal, the
majesty co-eternal, such as theFather is, such as the Son and
such as the Holy Spirit.
The Father uncreated, the Sonuncreated and the Spirit
(04:17):
uncreated.
The Father incomprehensible,the Son incomprehensible and the
Holy Spirit incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Son andthe Holy Spirit
incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Soneternal, the Holy Spirit eternal
, and yet they are not threeeternals but one eternal, as
also there are not threeuncreated, nor three
(04:40):
incomprehensible, but oneuncreated, oneprehensible.
So, likewise, the father isalmighty, the son is almighty,
the spirit is almighty, and yetthey are not three almighties
but one almighty.
So the father is god, the sonis god, the holy spirit is God,
(05:03):
and yet are not three gods butone God.
So, likewise, the father isLord, the son is Lord, the Holy
Spirit is Lord, and yet they arenot three lords but one Lord,
for like as we are compelled bythe Christian veracity to
acknowledge every person byhimself to be god and lord, so
(05:26):
we are forbidden by catholicreligion to say that there are
three gods or three lords.
The father is made of none,neither created nor begotten.
(05:53):
The son is of the father aloneand not made nor begotten.
Sorry, the father, sorry norbegotten, but proceeding so
there is one Father, not threeFathers.
One Son, not three Sons.
One Holy Spirit, not three HolySpirits.
And in this Trinity there is,and in this Trinity none is
(06:19):
afore or after another, none isgreater or less than another,
but the whole three persons Areco-equal and co-eternal and
co-equal, so that in all thingsas aforesaid, the unity in
Trinity and the Trinity in unityIs to be worshipped.
(06:42):
He, therefore, that will besaved Must thus think of the
trinity.
Furthermore, is it necessary toeverlasting salvation that he
also believe, rightly, theincarnation of our lord jesus
christ.
For the right faith is that webelieve and confess that our
Lord Jesus Christ is.
(07:03):
Lord Jesus Christ, the son ofGod, is God and man, god of the
substance of the father,begotten before worlds.
A man of substance of hismother, born, born in the world,
perfect God and perfect man, ofimmeas measurable soul and
human flesh, subsiding, equal tothe father as touching his
(07:28):
Godhead, and infernal, inferiorto the father as touching his
manhood, who, though he is Godand man, yet he is not two but
one Christ.
One, not by conversion of theGodhead into flesh, but by
taking that of manhood into God.
One altogether, not byconfusion of substance but by
(07:55):
unity of person, for as thereasonable soul and flesh is one
man, so God and man is oneChrist.
Who suffered for our salvation,descending into hell, rose
again the third day, so God andman is one Christ.
(08:19):
To judge the quick and the dead, all those coming, all men
shall rise again with theirbodies and shall give account of
their own works, and they thathave done good shall go into
life everlasting, and they thathave done evil in eternal fire.
(08:43):
They that have done evil ineternal fire.
This is the Catholic faithwhich, except a man believe
faithfully, he cannot be saved.
(09:05):
All right, so that was.
That was kind of a long one.
So, as you can hear, theAthanasian Creed is another
early summary of Christiandoctrine.
So, like the Apostles' Creed,the origin of the Athanasian
Creed it's unknown.
(09:25):
It's suggested that itoriginated from, you know,
athanasius, which is kind oflike the name that it's ascribed
to.
But since the 19th century andthey've kind of ascribed it to
Athanasius, the Bishop ofAlexander, who was an arch
(09:49):
defender of the deity of Christand the doctrine of the Trinity.
But there's a traditional viewwhere some historians and
scholars have challenged thatkind of like in the mid 17th
(10:09):
century, that people arescholars and historians
abandoned the, the idea thatathanasius actually wrote the
athanasian creed.
So somebody else probably wroteit.
Um, so that's why I say wedon't know.
So the the creed.
And they came to thisconclusion because they couldn't
find the creed or any of whatthe creed said within the
writings of athanasius or likeany of his commentaries.
(10:32):
So that's why they've decidedthat are believed, like
traditionally, that he didn't.
He didn't write this creed.
So let's talk a little bit aboutAthanasius.
Who was he?
So Athanasius, he was bornaround AD 298.
(10:56):
He lived in Alexandria, egypt.
He was the Archbishop ofAlexandria and kind of lived in
the 4th century.
He was a pastor, a preacher, atheologian.
He was one of the defenders ofthe doctrine of the deity of
(11:17):
Christ at the Council of Nicaeaand he was ardent in his defense
that the father and the son arethe very same substance At the
(11:43):
nations.
He was a very ardent defenderof the Christian faith and his
battles did not go withoutsuffering.
He spent a lot of time banishedfrom his position in Alexandria
and a lot of his work are stillin print today.
Some of the things he's written.
(12:04):
One thing he wrote the.
Some of the things he's written.
One thing he wrote the life ofthe anonity um.
It talks about a young man whogoes into the wilderness to
defeat his demons.
He wrote a book on on theincarnation and that talks about
or outlines the ramificationsof the bodily incarnation of
(12:26):
Christ.
So, like I said earlier,athanasius, he was there at the
Council of Nicaea and when heheard Ares' false teaching, he
immediately refuted the ideathat Jesus the Son was not
eternal.
Jesus the son was not eternal,that the begotten of the son are
(12:49):
the other ends of the word thatyou know.
Jesus was not God, he.
He denounced it and talkedabout the eternal relationship
between the father and the sonand that it was not or is not a
temporary event.
It's something that Jesus isnot a created being.
So, athanasius, he wasrecognized as the leading
(13:13):
spokesperson at the council, forhis view that the son is fully
God and that Jesus is co-equaland co-eternal with the Father.
And the majority of bishops atthe council agreed with
Athanasius, and so that's howthey went on to develop the
(13:41):
Nicene Creed and how that wasadopted.
(14:06):
Alright, so let's explore andread more about the creed itself
.
So the Athanasian Creed seemsto be written primarily to
refute the doctrines involvingthe deity and humanity of Christ
, such as we talked about in theepisode before Arianism.
We talked about it at theepisode before Arianism.
So in the book Historic Creedsand Confessions it says the
(14:28):
Athanasian Creed is noted forits strong focus on the doctrine
of the Trinity, and you couldkind of hear that when we were
reading through the creed alittle bit ago.
So he says Schaeffer notes thatthe Athanasian Creed is a
(15:08):
strong contrast with the is setforth is the undisputable
condition of salvation and thatthose who reject it will be lost
forever.
So he was essentially sayingthat if you don't believe in the
Trinity and incarnation ofJesus Christ, you're not
believing in the core belief ofhow we have salvation and
(15:33):
essentially who God is.
And then in this book called noDecrees and Councils by Justin
Holcomb.
He says the Athanasian CreedCalled no Decrees.
And Councils by Justin Holcomb.
He says the Athanasian Creedconsists of 42 articles, which
(15:54):
can be divided into three parts.
The first part addresses theTrinity, relaying heavily on
Augustine's ideas and evenquoting some passages from
Augustine on the Trinityverbatim, like strongly
indicating that it was notwritten.
So they're saying stronglyindicating this is given
(16:15):
evidence of why the AthanasianCreed was not written by
Athanasius himself, becauseAthanasius, when augustine was a
young man, so he, theseverbatim sections that come from
augustine's writings, could nothave been written by athanasius
(16:38):
.
All right, so the second part,um, they're saying it defends
the two natures of Jesus and inthe Chalcedon had explained and
summarized the results of thefourth and fifth century debates
and presenting them in thereality and then distilling them
(17:01):
in lyrical and Latin form.
The third part of the creedconsists of a set of
condemnations that assert thatany who would be saved must
adhere to the teachings of thecreed.
These statements, you know kindof, they say, left bad taste in
the mouths of some who do notlike to see you know opponents
(17:28):
damned.
But must recall that all earlyChristian creeds and confessions
contained anathemas, listing ofChristian beliefs, rendering
unacceptable to Christianconviction by truths expressed
in the very same creed.
And then there are some noteson the issue in the creed that
(17:52):
the phrase of the CatholicChurch we saw this in the
Apostles' Creed also, it doesnot refer to the Roman Catholic
Church but refers to Catholicmeaning, universal, if you
remember it demands the beliefthat in all of the tenets of the
(18:15):
creed for salvation, and thennot all of the tenets that they
list in there are not mandatoryfor salvation.
So to explain a little bit more, the creed demanded beliefs.
Like all of these tenets withinthe creeded were important for
salvation.
There are some in there that arenot important for salvation,
(18:39):
but all in all the athanasiancreed is a good summary of
christian doctrine on thesubject of the trinity, the
deity and then also the humanityof of jesus christ.
So you know, as believers thetrinity is often hard to
(19:00):
describe without, you know,being borderline on heresy.
You know, either you you makegod out to be three gods or you
make him out to be three personsFather, son and Holy Spirit
into a sham.
So when you look at history ofthe church, this creed gives a
(19:22):
thorough attempt to describe thedoctrine of the Trinity and it
sets boundaries to kind ofcombat and prevent heresies from
kind of like warming their wayin the church, even though we
have seen how people have eithersay they don't believe in the
(19:43):
trinity, um, bringing argumentslike the trinity is not in the
bible.
Of course we know the trinityis not in the bible, but the I
guess the best way I can put itis like the concept or the tenet
or doctrine of the Trinity.
We can see that evident, youknow, in the Bible.
(20:04):
So I think it's incredible tosee how the truth of God is
passed on throughout history, ispassed on throughout history,
how, you know, early believerswere thinking about things
within history but they werealso combating, you know, false
doctrine and heresies.
So even for us, you know, backduring that time they had to,
(20:30):
you know, fight against theheresies of the church.
But they also have to know whatthe bible says.
So you have to know what thebible says in order to, you know
, combat the false doctrines orheresies that we see in the
church and we definitely havethose, you know, in the church.
So I think it's, you know,helpful as believers in christ,
(20:53):
to you know, learn andunderstand the doctrines of the
bible and to understand thembetter.
You know, they're going to giveus a good understanding of who
god is, his nature and how wecan learn, how we can learn more
about him so we can, you know,definitely build our trust on
the truth and character of god.
(21:16):
That's going to always stand.
So I hope this episode washelpful and then also the last
couple of episodes talking aboutthe creeds of the christian
faith.
Go back and listen to thoseprevious episodes and then also
go back and like do some studyyourself about the, the creeds,
(21:36):
and look into the catechisms andthe confessions of the of the
christian faith.
They're, they're there to be ahelp to us as believers and to
help us understand, you know,what we believe, help us to
understand what we believe andto put in a way that helps us to
understand it better, kind ofsummarize it.
(21:57):
Of course, remember that thisdoes not take the place of
scripture.
It's just there to enhance ourmemory to, you know, get those
key doctrine and tenets of theChristian faith into our brain,
all right, well, thank you forlistening and until next time,
(22:17):
remember God is always good andhe's always faithful.
Thank you for listening to thepodcast.
Do me a favor by following thepodcast and leaving a review to
help spread the word.
I look forward to hearing fromyou.
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast where we
learn how to live for Christ inour daily lives.
I am Dwan, your host, and Iwould like to invite you on a
journey with me to explore andlearn how to be a faithful
follower of Christ.
Hi everyone, welcome toFaithfully Living, the podcast,
(00:27):
where we strive to encourage youto live for Christ faithfully
by offering guidance on how tostudy the Bible, how to
understand the Bible better andhow to remain faithful to
historic Christianity in acontemporary society.
Where we are back with anotherepisode about creeds,
confessions and confessions ofthe Christian faith.
So we're on our last episode ofthis series.
(00:50):
The last episode we talkedabout the Nicene Creed.
If you haven't heard that, goback and listen to it.
Today we are going to belooking at the Athanasian Creed
Athanasian Creed, but before weget into the creed, I just want
(01:10):
to remind you that we've talkedabout the importance of creeds
and also the importance of asbelievers.
It's so important for us toknow what we believe and why.
And these creeds from the earlychurch creeds, confessions and
catechisms.
They were helpful for believersbecause they summarize the key
tenets and doctrines of theChristian faith and they held an
(01:35):
important function in the lifeof the Christian church.
So if you remember or you maynot remember from last time, I'm
just going to go over whatimportant functions did they
have for the church and they canalso have for us today.
So they provided doctrinalclarity by giving a clear,
unified expression of Christianfaith, such as the nature of God
(01:58):
, christ and the Holy Spirit andsalvation and the holy spirit
and salvation.
Two, it can guard againstheresies and doctrinal errors by
clearly defining whatchristians believe.
Three, they are helpful forinstructing new believers and
guarding christian education.
Four, they serve as a concisesummary of the faith, making it
(02:21):
easier to teach fundamental,foundational I'm sorry christian
beliefs.
Five, by reciting the creedsand worship, it helps to connect
believers with historic faithof the church.
And then the last one, itfosters a sense of community
with past generations ofChristians and remind us of our
(02:45):
shared beliefs.
All right, let us dive into theAthanasian Creed.
All right, so first let's readthe Athanasian Creed so you can
(03:10):
kind of get a feel of what it'sabout.
This is a long creed, so justbear with me as I read through
it.
Whoever will be saved, beforeall things, it is necessary that
he hold the Catholic faith.
Which faith, except every oneto keep whole and undefined.
(03:31):
Without doubt, he shall perisheverlasting.
And the Catholic faith is thisthat we worship the God in
Trinity and Trinity in unity.
Neither confounding the persons, are dividing the substance,
for there is one of the Father,another of the Son and another
(03:55):
of the Holy Spirit, but theGodhead of the Father, of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit isall one, the glory equal, the
majesty co-eternal, such as theFather is, such as the Son and
such as the Holy Spirit.
The Father uncreated, the Sonuncreated and the Spirit
(04:17):
uncreated.
The Father incomprehensible,the Son incomprehensible and the
Holy Spirit incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Son andthe Holy Spirit
incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Soneternal, the Holy Spirit eternal
, and yet they are not threeeternals but one eternal, as
also there are not threeuncreated, nor three
(04:40):
incomprehensible, but oneuncreated, oneprehensible.
So, likewise, the father isalmighty, the son is almighty,
the spirit is almighty, and yetthey are not three almighties
but one almighty.
So the father is god, the sonis god, the holy spirit is God,
(05:03):
and yet are not three gods butone God.
So, likewise, the father isLord, the son is Lord, the Holy
Spirit is Lord, and yet they arenot three lords but one Lord,
for like as we are compelled bythe Christian veracity to
acknowledge every person byhimself to be god and lord, so
(05:26):
we are forbidden by catholicreligion to say that there are
three gods or three lords.
The father is made of none,neither created nor begotten.
(05:53):
The son is of the father aloneand not made nor begotten.
Sorry, the father, sorry norbegotten, but proceeding so
there is one Father, not threeFathers.
One Son, not three Sons.
One Holy Spirit, not three HolySpirits.
And in this Trinity there is,and in this Trinity none is
(06:19):
afore or after another, none isgreater or less than another,
but the whole three persons Areco-equal and co-eternal and
co-equal, so that in all thingsas aforesaid, the unity in
Trinity and the Trinity in unityIs to be worshipped.
(06:42):
He, therefore, that will besaved Must thus think of the
trinity.
Furthermore, is it necessary toeverlasting salvation that he
also believe, rightly, theincarnation of our lord jesus
christ.
For the right faith is that webelieve and confess that our
Lord Jesus Christ is.
(07:03):
Lord Jesus Christ, the son ofGod, is God and man, god of the
substance of the father,begotten before worlds.
A man of substance of hismother, born, born in the world,
perfect God and perfect man, ofimmeas measurable soul and
human flesh, subsiding, equal tothe father as touching his
(07:28):
Godhead, and infernal, inferiorto the father as touching his
manhood, who, though he is Godand man, yet he is not two but
one Christ.
One, not by conversion of theGodhead into flesh, but by
taking that of manhood into God.
One altogether, not byconfusion of substance but by
(07:55):
unity of person, for as thereasonable soul and flesh is one
man, so God and man is oneChrist.
Who suffered for our salvation,descending into hell, rose
again the third day, so God andman is one Christ.
(08:19):
To judge the quick and the dead, all those coming, all men
shall rise again with theirbodies and shall give account of
their own works, and they thathave done good shall go into
life everlasting, and they thathave done evil in eternal fire.
(08:43):
They that have done evil ineternal fire.
This is the Catholic faithwhich, except a man believe
faithfully, he cannot be saved.
(09:05):
All right, so that was.
That was kind of a long one.
So, as you can hear, theAthanasian Creed is another
early summary of Christiandoctrine.
So, like the Apostles' Creed,the origin of the Athanasian
Creed it's unknown.
(09:25):
It's suggested that itoriginated from, you know,
athanasius, which is kind oflike the name that it's ascribed
to.
But since the 19th century andthey've kind of ascribed it to
Athanasius, the Bishop ofAlexander, who was an arch
(09:49):
defender of the deity of Christand the doctrine of the Trinity.
But there's a traditional viewwhere some historians and
scholars have challenged thatkind of like in the mid 17th
(10:09):
century, that people arescholars and historians
abandoned the, the idea thatathanasius actually wrote the
athanasian creed.
So somebody else probably wroteit.
Um, so that's why I say wedon't know.
So the the creed.
And they came to thisconclusion because they couldn't
find the creed or any of whatthe creed said within the
writings of athanasius or likeany of his commentaries.
(10:32):
So that's why they've decidedthat are believed, like
traditionally, that he didn't.
He didn't write this creed.
So let's talk a little bit aboutAthanasius.
Who was he?
So Athanasius, he was bornaround AD 298.
(10:56):
He lived in Alexandria, egypt.
He was the Archbishop ofAlexandria and kind of lived in
the 4th century.
He was a pastor, a preacher, atheologian.
He was one of the defenders ofthe doctrine of the deity of
(11:17):
Christ at the Council of Nicaeaand he was ardent in his defense
that the father and the son arethe very same substance At the
(11:43):
nations.
He was a very ardent defenderof the Christian faith and his
battles did not go withoutsuffering.
He spent a lot of time banishedfrom his position in Alexandria
and a lot of his work are stillin print today.
Some of the things he's written.
(12:04):
One thing he wrote the.
Some of the things he's written.
One thing he wrote the life ofthe anonity um.
It talks about a young man whogoes into the wilderness to
defeat his demons.
He wrote a book on on theincarnation and that talks about
or outlines the ramificationsof the bodily incarnation of
(12:26):
Christ.
So, like I said earlier,athanasius, he was there at the
Council of Nicaea and when heheard Ares' false teaching, he
immediately refuted the ideathat Jesus the Son was not
eternal.
Jesus the son was not eternal,that the begotten of the son are
(12:49):
the other ends of the word thatyou know.
Jesus was not God, he.
He denounced it and talkedabout the eternal relationship
between the father and the sonand that it was not or is not a
temporary event.
It's something that Jesus isnot a created being.
So, athanasius, he wasrecognized as the leading
(13:13):
spokesperson at the council, forhis view that the son is fully
God and that Jesus is co-equaland co-eternal with the Father.
And the majority of bishops atthe council agreed with
Athanasius, and so that's howthey went on to develop the
(13:41):
Nicene Creed and how that wasadopted.
(14:06):
Alright, so let's explore andread more about the creed itself
.
So the Athanasian Creed seemsto be written primarily to
refute the doctrines involvingthe deity and humanity of Christ
, such as we talked about in theepisode before Arianism.
We talked about it at theepisode before Arianism.
So in the book Historic Creedsand Confessions it says the
(14:28):
Athanasian Creed is noted forits strong focus on the doctrine
of the Trinity, and you couldkind of hear that when we were
reading through the creed alittle bit ago.
So he says Schaeffer notes thatthe Athanasian Creed is a
(15:08):
strong contrast with the is setforth is the undisputable
condition of salvation and thatthose who reject it will be lost
forever.
So he was essentially sayingthat if you don't believe in the
Trinity and incarnation ofJesus Christ, you're not
believing in the core belief ofhow we have salvation and
(15:33):
essentially who God is.
And then in this book called noDecrees and Councils by Justin
Holcomb.
He says the Athanasian CreedCalled no Decrees.
And Councils by Justin Holcomb.
He says the Athanasian Creedconsists of 42 articles, which
(15:54):
can be divided into three parts.
The first part addresses theTrinity, relaying heavily on
Augustine's ideas and evenquoting some passages from
Augustine on the Trinityverbatim, like strongly
indicating that it was notwritten.
So they're saying stronglyindicating this is given
(16:15):
evidence of why the AthanasianCreed was not written by
Athanasius himself, becauseAthanasius, when augustine was a
young man, so he, theseverbatim sections that come from
augustine's writings, could nothave been written by athanasius
(16:38):
.
All right, so the second part,um, they're saying it defends
the two natures of Jesus and inthe Chalcedon had explained and
summarized the results of thefourth and fifth century debates
and presenting them in thereality and then distilling them
(17:01):
in lyrical and Latin form.
The third part of the creedconsists of a set of
condemnations that assert thatany who would be saved must
adhere to the teachings of thecreed.
These statements, you know kindof, they say, left bad taste in
the mouths of some who do notlike to see you know opponents
(17:28):
damned.
But must recall that all earlyChristian creeds and confessions
contained anathemas, listing ofChristian beliefs, rendering
unacceptable to Christianconviction by truths expressed
in the very same creed.
And then there are some noteson the issue in the creed that
(17:52):
the phrase of the CatholicChurch we saw this in the
Apostles' Creed also, it doesnot refer to the Roman Catholic
Church but refers to Catholicmeaning, universal, if you
remember it demands the beliefthat in all of the tenets of the
(18:15):
creed for salvation, and thennot all of the tenets that they
list in there are not mandatoryfor salvation.
So to explain a little bit more, the creed demanded beliefs.
Like all of these tenets withinthe creeded were important for
salvation.
There are some in there that arenot important for salvation,
(18:39):
but all in all the athanasiancreed is a good summary of
christian doctrine on thesubject of the trinity, the
deity and then also the humanityof of jesus christ.
So you know, as believers thetrinity is often hard to
(19:00):
describe without, you know,being borderline on heresy.
You know, either you you makegod out to be three gods or you
make him out to be three personsFather, son and Holy Spirit
into a sham.
So when you look at history ofthe church, this creed gives a
(19:22):
thorough attempt to describe thedoctrine of the Trinity and it
sets boundaries to kind ofcombat and prevent heresies from
kind of like warming their wayin the church, even though we
have seen how people have eithersay they don't believe in the
(19:43):
trinity, um, bringing argumentslike the trinity is not in the
bible.
Of course we know the trinityis not in the bible, but the I
guess the best way I can put itis like the concept or the tenet
or doctrine of the Trinity.
We can see that evident, youknow, in the Bible.
(20:04):
So I think it's incredible tosee how the truth of God is
passed on throughout history, ispassed on throughout history,
how, you know, early believerswere thinking about things
within history but they werealso combating, you know, false
doctrine and heresies.
So even for us, you know, backduring that time they had to,
(20:30):
you know, fight against theheresies of the church.
But they also have to know whatthe bible says.
So you have to know what thebible says in order to, you know
, combat the false doctrines orheresies that we see in the
church and we definitely havethose, you know, in the church.
So I think it's, you know,helpful as believers in christ,
(20:53):
to you know, learn andunderstand the doctrines of the
bible and to understand thembetter.
You know, they're going to giveus a good understanding of who
god is, his nature and how wecan learn, how we can learn more
about him so we can, you know,definitely build our trust on
the truth and character of god.
(21:16):
That's going to always stand.
So I hope this episode washelpful and then also the last
couple of episodes talking aboutthe creeds of the christian
faith.
Go back and listen to thoseprevious episodes and then also
go back and like do some studyyourself about the, the creeds,
(21:36):
and look into the catechisms andthe confessions of the of the
christian faith.
They're, they're there to be ahelp to us as believers and to
help us understand, you know,what we believe, help us to
understand what we believe andto put in a way that helps us to
understand it better, kind ofsummarize it.
(21:57):
Of course, remember that thisdoes not take the place of
scripture.
It's just there to enhance ourmemory to, you know, get those
key doctrine and tenets of theChristian faith into our brain,
all right, well, thank you forlistening and until next time,
(22:17):
remember God is always good andhe's always faithful.
Thank you for listening to thepodcast.
Do me a favor by following thepodcast and leaving a review to
help spread the word.
I look forward to hearing fromyou.
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