Credimus Or Cogito | Sunday, June 8, 2025

Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know... Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ... Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. (Acts 2:22, 36, 41)

On the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed and the birthday of the church, two small Latin words reveal how the modern world lost its footing—and how the gospel restores it.

A Summer of the Creed

Many of our students are now officially out of school for the summer, which means a new season. It has become our custom to pause our normal study—this year the Gospel of Luke—during the summer to focus on a different passage. Last summer we studied Hosea; before that, Daniel, Nehemiah, and Esther. As I considered what to study this year, 2025 happens to be a significant anniversary—not just for our church, but for the global church.

In the 4th century AD, the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Some historians object that it wasn't a true conversion, claiming he did it for political reasons because Christianity was rapidly gaining converts. Whether real or not is somewhat beside the point: his conversion radically changed Christianity's position in the world. In 313 AD his Edict of Milan made it no longer illegal to be a Christian in the Roman Empire.

Prior to that, especially through the 3rd century, Christians were severely persecuted and their faith was largely underground—as it still is in places like Iran today. After the Edict of Milan, Christians were not merely tolerated but began to hold an increasingly dominant position in the Western world. Once they were no longer living in fear, doctrinal conflicts within the church came to the surface: What does the church believe, and what does it teach?

The Council and Creed of Nicaea

The major issue concerned the nature of Christ. A pastor outside Alexandria, Egypt, named Arius taught his followers that Jesus was not divine but merely a man, and this caused a break within the church. Constantine decided the best way to deal with it was to gather all the bishops for a council. So in the summer of 325 AD—1700 years ago this summer—the bishops gathered in the city of Nicaea, in what is now northern Turkey, for the entire summer. At its end they produced the Nicene Creed.

If you grew up in a Roman Catholic or Orthodox church, the Nicene Creed may be something you remember and quoted. In a "low church" like Cross Connection, it's not something you generally hear, yet it puts forward the foundational teachings of the Christian faith. This summer we'll be going through the Scriptures, using the Nicene Creed almost like a table of contents to examine what the church has believed for 2,000 years.

The creed only formally codified what the church already believed. When you read it, if you know the New Testament, you'll recognize, "That comes from this passage," because it simply states in formal terms what is already there in Scripture about God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the church.

Pentecost: The Birthday of the Church

Today is also an important holiday—the celebration of Pentecost. The Jewish holiday of Pentecost celebrates two things: the first harvest after the springtime planting around Passover, and, more importantly, the receiving of the law, commemorating Moses bringing the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai.

But for the Christian, Pentecost is the birthday of the church. In Acts 2, the gospel was preached to the gathered pilgrims in Jerusalem, and on that day a large multitude became believers and the church was born. We've made it our custom to celebrate Pentecost with a birthday celebration—and a barbecue. Since we're Gentiles, we're having pulled pork, so it's not kosher at all.

One more thing worth noting: because of Dan Brown's fictional book The Da Vinci Code, many people misunderstand the Council and Creed of Nicaea. Some skeptics say, "Don't you know that Emperor Constantine selected the books of the Bible at the Council of Nicaea?" That is totally untrue; the council had nothing to do with that. By 325 AD the canon of the New Testament was already firmly fixed. Bart Ehrman, a critical scholar at the University of North Carolina who is not even a Christian, wrote against The Da Vinci Code, saying it "is wrong about just about everything it says about the Arian controversy, the emperor Constantine, and the Council of Nicaea." It's a fun beach read, but it's not history.

Reading the Creed

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father... For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven... For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures... We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life... We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

A woman who grew up Roman Catholic told me she remembered it verbatim, because in many Catholic and Orthodox churches it is quoted regularly. It's impressive to recognize that some two billion people on earth today—a quarter of the world's population—believe the core teachings we just quoted. We divide on all kinds of other things; we are Reformed Christians who came out of the Reformation. But on these points we agree with Roman Catholic and Orthodox believers.

That word "catholic" simply means universal—it does not mean Roman Catholic; in 325 AD there was no such thing as the Roman Catholic Church. A significant portion of the world's population finds its identity in these beliefs, establishes truth based on them, and receives guidance for daily practice. When you become a Christian, you find a new identity in Christ and His church, you discover truth as God has revealed it, and it radically transforms how you live.

From Credimus to Cogito

The fascinating thing is that the Western world, whose foundation rests on these beliefs, has reached a point where it grounds truth, identity, and practice in other things. There is an increasing number of people who do not seat truth, identity, and practice in Scripture but in a new creed—a new set of beliefs.

This is not new in the sense of the last couple of decades; you can't blame it on the millennials. The reordering started far earlier and became visible in the 17th century. One thinker who pushed this new framing forward was the French philosopher René Descartes. One small phrase from his 1637 book Discourse on Method has completely changed the way Westerners think about truth, identity, and practice. Descartes stands at the very beginning of what we now call the Enlightenment, where there was a shift from a worldview that was theocentric (God-centered) or christocentric (Christ-centered) to one that is anthropocentric (man-centered).

Point number one: a groundbreaking shift in Western culture resulted from the move from *credimus* to *cogito*. The creed's opening words, "We believe," are the Latin credimus. But Descartes put forth a new idea: Cogito ergo sum—"I think, therefore I am." This shift from "we believe" to "I think" is significant. It moves the center of truth, identity, and practice from God onto the individual.

The Avalanche of the Self

Have you ever interacted with someone who says, "Well, my truth is..."? We've all experienced that, especially in recent years. Or have you seen people having a hard time understanding their identity, calling themselves "identity confused"? You might think this is new, that it only happened in the last 10 or 15 years. No—this shift goes all the way back to relocating truth, identity, and practice in the individual: you get to decide who you are, what is true, and how you ought to live.

Descartes doesn't exactly trigger this shift; he signals a move already underway. But he becomes like the first big rock in an avalanche that has continued ever since. Have any of you been shocked by the individualistic, selfish, self-absorbed, identity-confused culture of 2025? It didn't happen all of a sudden. It started with this shift away from a God-centered worldview that finds truth, identity, and purpose in God as He defines it.

It radically changes how you see yourself. Are you the master of your own destiny, the captain of your own ship? Or do you say, "God made me for a purpose, and He has a purpose He would like me to fulfill"? Descartes arrived at his conclusion through radical doubt. Doubting everything, he reasoned that the only thing he could be certain of was that he, the doubting, thinking one, exists. So he became the one who frames all reality. Hundreds of years later, we live with the effects: truth is subjective, identity is your choosing, and nobody gets to say anything because you choose for yourself.

Truth and Identity in Christ by Faith

We see the confusion and the effects, and we wonder how it can be fixed. How can we find solid ground and a level path that leads to a coherent reality? Point number two: we must find truth and identity in Christ by faith. That's the only way.

At its core, the Nicene Creed is an affirmation of who Jesus is—that He is God, and therefore the one who establishes the ground of truth and who we are, including our value, dignity, worth, and purpose. We see it four times: "We believe" in one God, in one Lord Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, and in His one church united together.

Going back to Genesis 3, when man moves his focus from God as the center to himself, the results are not good. In the fall, the serpent promised the woman that when she ate, her eyes would be opened and she would be like God, knowing good and evil—getting to define for herself what is true and real. The result of that rebellion was anguish, brokenness, chaos, and death.

But the gospel says that Jesus came—God became a man, as the creed says—to reorient our focus back to God, resulting in radical transformation by grace. We see this same cycle repeating throughout history. The Enlightenment is one picture of it, shifting man's focus once again from God to himself, and the effects have not been wholly good. There are great things to point to in the scientific revolution, but the underlying philosophy leads to anguish, brokenness, confusion, and death—which is what we see in our culture today.

The Gospel Is the Answer

So what can we do about the chaos of this world? The answer is not newer and better technology, legislation, politicians, or policies. That's the temptation—to think that newer and better things will fix it. But it won't, because we must find truth and identity in Christ by faith. The answer is found in part in what happened at Pentecost in Acts 2.

In Acts 1, Jesus ascends into heaven, but first tells His disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father. Ten days later, on a Sunday morning, the 120 early believers are gathered for the feast of Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit is poured out powerfully. They begin to speak in languages they themselves had not learned. The crowds gathered in Jerusalem hear a sound like a mighty rushing wind, see this scene, and conclude these people are drunk.

Then Simon Peter—the very fisherman from Luke 5 whom Jesus called to be a fisher of men—stands up and fishes for men. He says these people are not drunk, since it is only nine in the morning, but this is what the prophet Joel spoke about. Then he preaches the gospel:

This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear... Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:32–33, 36)

The crowd was "cut to the heart" and asked, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Peter answered: "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call."

Point number three: the gospel is and will always be the answer for a broken and chaotic world. This is so important for Christians to hear and affirm. Unfortunately, there are seasons in the church where we forget this, and the American church has recently been through such a season—seduced into thinking the fix is political, legislative, technological, or economic. It is not. Our culture's confusion, anguish, and brokenness will only continue, because the problem is not political or economic. The problem is sin, and the gospel is the only answer for that.

Three Thousand Saved

This is the same Simon Peter who, just seven weeks earlier, three times denied that he knew Jesus—radical transformation. As he preached, Acts 2:40 says he testified and exhorted them with many other words, his core message being, "Be saved from this perverse generation." What can rescue us in this broken, perverse culture? Only the salvation of Jesus Christ.

Those who gladly received his word were baptized, and about 3,000 souls were added that day. That number is striking. Pentecost celebrates the giving of the law at Sinai—and when Moses was on the mountain, the people made a golden calf and worshiped it scandalously. When Moses came down, God's judgment fell, and 3,000 people died because of the punishment of the law. I don't think it's a coincidence that at the giving of the law 3,000 died, while at the giving of the Holy Spirit 3,000 were transformed and saved.

This same gospel message has been preached billions of times since, bringing salvation to countless people over nearly 2,000 years. People believe and receive the gospel every single day, and the Lord adds to His church daily those who are being saved. He will continue to do so until Christ returns.

What Baptism Is and Why We Do It

Baptism is a public demonstration of a person's faith and commitment to Christ. It does not save you—but the faith it proclaims does. When a person trusts that Jesus is the Christ, that He is God, and that His work on the cross saves them from sin, baptism is simply the public proclamation to others that they have done so.

Here at Cross Connection Church, we baptize for three reasons. First, in obedience to Jesus's command: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19–20). Second, in identification with Him, declaring that we are His followers, just as He Himself was baptized in Matthew 3. Third, in association with His death, burial, and resurrection—as Paul says in Romans 6, we are buried with Him in baptism and rise to walk in newness of life.

The word baptizo in Greek simply means to immerse or dip in water. Churches divide over this, but we immerse people because that is what the word means.

When should a person be baptized? Acts 8 gives a perfect answer. Philip is told to go down the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, where he meets an Ethiopian man reading Isaiah 53—the passage about the one wounded for our transgressions. Philip asks, "Do you understand what you are reading?" The man replies, "How can I, unless someone guides me?"—a perfect softball pitch. Philip jumps into the chariot and explains the gospel from Isaiah 53. As they pass some water, the Ethiopian asks, "What hinders me from being baptized?" Philip answers, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." The man says, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God," and they went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.

Point number four: baptism is a public proclamation that you trust, obey, identify with, and associate with Jesus. When one believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, they ought to be baptized.

Many scholars place Jesus's crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension between 29 and 33 AD. Using 30 AD as an easy number, that makes today, Pentecost, the 1,995th birthday of the church—1,995 years of preaching the gospel and calling those who believe to be baptized. We will do the same today, with a barbecue, birthday cake, and a baptism. If you believe that Jesus is the Christ and have not yet been baptized, I would encourage you to do so—in obedience to His command, in identification with Him, and in association with His death, burial, and resurrection, that you would walk in the newness of life Jesus gives.

Closing Prayer

God, thank You for Your word. Holy Spirit, we thank You that You show up just as You did 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem on Pentecost—You show up when the gospel goes out, when the message is heard and received and inspires faith, repentance, and obedience. We thank You for the way You work in our lives, and we pray that You would continue this work, that it would be demonstrated in us every single day as we follow You by faith.

I pray for those today who are wrestling with the decision to go into the waters of baptism. Would You help them get over the hurdle of fear, embarrassment, or questioning, to fully trust You—knowing that it is not the waters of baptism that save us, but You who have saved us as we trust in You. Yet it is an obedient step to declare publicly that we trust in and follow You. So would You move hearts today, we pray. We thank You for Your goodness and Your grace. It's in Your name we pray. Amen.