I’ve been exploring some of the very modern worship songs as an old guy 😀. But now, I’ve decided to alternate between very modern hymns, old hymns, and in-between hymns, namely the worship songs from the 60s to the 90s that feature in hymnbooks such as Mission Praise. Today it’s the turn of the very modern hymns.
Today’s song is This I Believe (The Creed) from 2014.
Most of my life was spent in reasonably conservative traditional evangelical churches. You’d hear about strange fads or scandals in modern evangelical movements, and you’d tend to distance yourself from them. Perhaps that makes sense, but their not all bad. Whenever I met people from “trendy modern” churches, I found them little different from people from non-trendy churches. And it’s heartening to see this Hillsong hymn that’s focused on historic creeds. In actual fact, when I analyze any of the modern Christ songs, I can find little or no fault with their doctrine. The style is contemporary, but the old hymns were contemporary in their time 😀. It can feel more spiritual being somewhere old, but is that true spirituality or is it the kind of feeling you get when you visit an old cathedral or castle?
During the lockdown, I used to watch a service from a Welsh independent evangelical church, which was very much my kind of church. I was a little surprised to see them reciting the Apostle Creed together, but that’s no bad thing. It’s thoroughly based on Scripture. It might seem strange hearing an independent church declaring their belief in the “Holy Catholic Church”. But we believe that the Holy Catholic Church consists of all true believers throughout the world and down through history. It’s not a denominational label. In the early centuries, some sects, such as Gnostics, did base some of their teaching on Scripture, but mixed it with other stuff. Modern cults do this too. In fact, it’s hard to think of any religion that doesn’t include Jesus in it in some way. But the early churches wanted to distinguish themselves from all these heretical sects, which is why they included the Holy Catholic Church in the creed.
Here’s the actual text of the Apostle creed. Given that it’s close to 2000 years old, hopefully I’m not breaching copyright 😀.
I believe in God the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ, His only Son,
our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell; the third day
He rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven, and sits at
the right hand of God the Father
almighty, from thence He shall come
to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.
Amen.
The one part that people sometimes wonder about is “He descended into hell”. But the word “hell” in Greek has a range of meanings. Sometimes it simply means the place of the dead. So, many see the term in this context meaning that Jesus was as dead as anyone would be. Others think if Jesus as going into hell to declare victory, and some have more bizarre speculations. Today’s hymn doesn’t include that line.
Unlike Scripture, we shouldn’t see creeds as inspired, but they help us to summarize Scriptural teaching. And in churches, to prevent a church being infiltrated by heretics, we sometimes insist on them holding to a statement of faith. Sometimes, such statements might include secondary doctrines. For example, in a Baptist church, we might declare that we believe that Christians should only be baptized after they believe. It’s not that others aren’t welcome to the worship services. But if it’s a Baptist church, the core members, who make the decisions, should agree on the approach to baptism. If other Baptist churches are supporting it financially, they might want to ensure that it’s not going to morph into something else in a couple of years.
Many modern evangelical churches don’t have statements of faith. But I wonder if they’ll last as long as Baptist church have lasted in Ireland. The Cork church began back in 1640. I’ve attended various types of evangelical churches, but I’d be sorry if all historic churches disappeared and you only had “pop-up” churches. I don’t have any biblical grounds for insisting on historic denominations, but though I put the Bible well above tradition, we can learn from and be encouraged by Christians of the past. And when I do my armchair travelling to various cities on Google Earth and YouTube, I like viewing old church buildings around the world. They might not be evangelical, like I am, but at least people got the opportunity to hear about Jesus, and hopefully to repent and trust in him.
Anyway, here are some other versions of today’s song:
Hibernia Gospel 