The Bridge That Stretches Across The Great Gulf

and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father

The Nicene Creed differs from the Apostles’ Creed in this portion regarding the Father having already made the emphasis that the Father is God and perfectly Almighty, whereas the Apostles’ Creed repeats the emphasis, stating, “He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father Almighty.” Therefore, the Nicene writers are making Christ the central focus of this portion rather than mingling them together as one (James 2:19). Therefore, it is a closer look and a zeroing in on Christ as God separate from the Father if that were possible, but it never is, for if either of these persons become separate from the other, each would cease to be God, but each is distinctly the form of God (Gen.1:26; Col.1:15; Phil.2:5-7). It also differs from the Apostles’ Creed, by how the Apostles’ Creed states the necessity of Christ first descending “into hell” before He could ascend into heaven (Jn.3:11-13). Where the Apostles’ Creed says that Christ descended into Hades, the Nicene Creed, as we already stated, says, “Who for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven,” regards His descension apart from the confession that the state of mankind was under the curse of death and damnation, but simplifies it with “for our salvation,” which is why the Apostles’ Creed emphasized the descension into the hell as the climax of Christ’s death like the period upon the sentence of a man condemned to die bearing the penalty of a capital punishment. Therefore, the Nicene Creed softens down its own poetry slightly different than the Apostles’ Creed, but is essentially saying the same thing with the sting of death partially removed from its flavor (1Cor.15:56-57).

No one has ascended into heaven who has not first descended, and for us, this means natural death, but for Christ, it means taking on our human defilement and entering death (Rom.8:3-4; Gal.3:10-14; 4:4-5), which is spiritually called Death and Hades (Matt.16:18; Acts 2:27; Rev.1:18; 6:8; 20:13-14). Therefore, this act makes Christ the divine ladder which the sons of God ascend or descend upon in heaven’s economy (Lk.2:34-35; Jn.1:51; Jn.6:62). This position gives Christ all the authority of His Father to judge the world, the whole world (Jn.5:22-27; 12:42-50). That’s why the Apostles’ Creed emphasizes the Heavenly Father as God the Father Almighty so that we recognize that Christ’s seat of authority comes from the power of the Almighty God to bring us to Himself in Christ (2Cor.5:17-21), who preserved for us every spiritual blessing that is from God as yes and Amen in Him from the Mighty hand of the Father (Eph.1:3-14; 2Cor.1:20-22).

Now, what does the ascension mean, but that like Samson, who was handed over to the Philistines by his own Jewish heritage to be condemned by the Philistines (Jdgs.15:9-15), defeating them even at his weakest point (Jdgs.16:20, 25), and claiming victory over them for the heritage of his people to continue by the grace of God (Jdgs.16:28-30), Christ, too, was handed over to Pilate to be condemned to save the Jewish heritage (Matt.1:21; Jn.11:47-53), but He arose from death taking victory, not only over the Roman cross, but the very heritage of the Jewish tomb that writes every man off as a sinner written in stone through the heritage of the their law (Jer.17:1; Isa.30:1; Rom.2:15; Ezk.36:26; 2Cor.3:3). Christ broke this seal of Death and Hades and established a new seal of eternal life (Jn.5:8-12, 15-18; 1Cor.15:55-57), the life of His holy and awesome name (Matt.27:66-28:2; Jn.6:27, 62-63; Acts 4:12), who now forever lives to intercede for those who are crucified with Him in the body of death and of sin (1Cor.11:26; Rom.5:8-10; 6:3-6; 7:24-25; 8:10-11), to arise with Him in the resurrection and the life of His eternal image that never fades (1Pet.1:4; 5:4; Rom.8:23, 29-30), given to them by the seal of the Holy Spirit from the seat of power that has been established through the Father’s right hand (2Cor.1:21-22; Eph.1:13-14; Acts 1:8-9).

Therefore, if you will, here in lies the understanding of the exclusive work of Christ’s Mediation between the sinner and the Almighty (Gal.3:19-20; 1Tim.2:5), first, for His descension into the heart of the earth (Matt.12:40), and second, the ascension into this glory of the Father’s right hand (Matt.22:41-45), which was even His before the foundation of the world (Jn.17:5), has been made the bridge that stretches across the great gulf that divides the presence of God’s love and favor for His own children from the presence of God’s righteous wrath and hatred of sin found in the sinner who loves the father of his death (Lk.16:23; Jn.8:44; Eph.2:3; Rom.2:4-9). Christ is the stairway for the sinner into heaven and the key to escape the bars of Hades (Jn.1:51; Matt.16:18). If we deny His ascension (2Tim.2:11-13), we deny any escape from our present condemnation (Jn.3:18-21), and we suffer justly under our own sins without hope (1Cor.15:12-19, 29-32). But if we look at Christ’s descension, we have hope in His ascension (Jn.3:14-15), for when we look at His descension (Jn.3:16-17), we see the destruction of the serpent’s lie and the fulfillment of the promise that God provided for eternal life (Gen.3:15; Ps.110:1; Jn.17:3; 1Jn.3:8; Heb.2:14-15).

Therefore, we do not honor any image of Christ abiding on a cross (Heb.6:4-6; Jn.20:17; 2Cor.5:16), for the spirit of the world cannot hold Him under its power (Jn.11:25; Acts 2:31; Rev.1:18). To worship such an image is to love and serve the serpent’s lie and to love the violence of His death (Pr.8:36; 1Jn.3:14; Heb.10:28-29). This descension only serves as a signpost to point us away from sin and death (Matt.12:39-40; 1Cor.11:26; Matt.10:41); we worship a risen Savior who defeated this death (1Cor.15:55).

As regards the New Testament stage, there is no doubt that belief was considered the indispensable precondition of baptism from the earliest times. So much is clear from the essence of the rite as constituting admission to the Church. And to be assured of belief a profession of faith of one kind or another must have been demanded. The most circumstantial New Testament narrative illustrating this is that of the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:36–8. As the story runs, the eunuch was so affected by St Philip’s sermon on the Suffering Servant that he asked, “Look, there is water. What is to prevent me from being baptized?” St Philip’s reply, according to the reading of the Western text (which gives a clue to primitive Christian practice even if it is not original), was, “If you believe with all your heart, it is permissible.” The eunuch then confessed his faith, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,” and St Philip straightway baptized him.

J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, Third Edition. (London; New York: Continuum, 2006), 41.