7. Do you believe in Jesus Christ?
Yes. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.
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The Nicene Creed is as interested in laying out who Jesus is in relation to God as it is in laying out what Jesus has done on our behalf and will yet do on the scene of human history. And the first thing it bids us do is own Jesus as our “Lord,” indeed, as our “one Lord.” This was the most basic confession or creed of the earliest churches. Paul writes to the Christians in Rome: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9 NIV). Similarly, he writes to the Christians in Corinth: “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). This was a declaration not merely of belief, but also of allegiance. In a setting of competing “gods” and “lords,” to own only one God and one Lord was a declaration of loyalty (1 Cor. 8:5–6). And the confession “Jesus is Lord” has implications for how one would live. As Jesus himself would pose the question: “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46 NIV). To confess Jesus as “Lord” is to obey Jesus as Lord.
When we confess Jesus Christ, we are not using a surname but a title. Calling Jesus the “Christ”—the “Messiah,” the “anointed one”—anchors our faith in the Son of God in the story of the historic people of God as the fulfillment of their hope as expressed in the Old Testament Scriptures, whether or not they realized this. We also confess Jesus to be the “only Son of God.” The Greek word here (monogenes) is used frequently in John (1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; see also 1 John 4:9) and holds up Jesus as one of a kind, as Son in a way that the “many sons and daughters” (Heb. 2:10 NIV) are not. That is because the Son is “eternally begotten from the Father” while we are “born of the Spirit” or even “adopted.” He is Son by nature; we are sons and daughters by gracious action.
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For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16 NIV)
“Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:36)
For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Cor. 8:6)
See also Mark 9:7; Matt. 3:17; Rom. 10:9; Phil. 2:11; Jude 1:4
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This is an excerpt from Christian Faith and Doctrine: An Annotated Catechism for the Global Methodist Church. Seedbed is pleased to partner with The Global Methodist Church to offer this companion resource to A Catechism of Christian Faith and Doctrine for the Global Methodist Church.
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