The Dust Completely Shaken Off Like A Rug In The Wind

NICENE CREED

and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried

Continuing with a meditation on the Creed at the point of Christ’s death as a man, we recall our note about how the Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed signify Pontius Pilate as the historical figure who crucified Jesus of Nazareth. We mentioned that his name carries a great weight of importance to validate Christ’s witness in history. The historical facts concerning Christ cannot be denied because of this crucial statement regarding Pilate. There is no question as to what Christ claimed to be in history due to Pilate being the marker of this historical validation of our faith. What Christ claimed to be and what other holy witnesses said about Jesus can be denied as matters of faith, but what was said about him and what happened to him in truth cannot be denied as historical fact (Jn.19:10-15). Therefore, Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under Pontius Pilate (Jn.19:19-22).

Now, this Creed differs regarding the Apostles’ Creed in that she makes no mention of Christ’s descension as the summary point and purpose of His sufferings and His death in the body of our likeness because of sin (Rom.10:6-7; Eph.4:9-10; Jn.3:13; 6:62; Matt.12:40), which is put off through burial as the satisfaction of God’s justice according to the law’s demand (Rom.6:5-6; 8:3-4), for that which is derived from the dust must return to the dust (Gen.3:14, 19; Ps.22:15; 44:25; 104:29; Ecc.3:20; 12:7). Therefore, Christ’s descension into the body of death and hell was so that sin could be buried from out of God’s sight among those He has chosen to save from the second death (Ps.119:25).

Therefore, Christ’s sufferings didn’t begin under Pilate but when He was conceived in the womb of the virgin and being born of a woman (Gal.3:10-14; 4:4-5). This is Christ’s descension into humility to be buried from the face of those who love His name and His appearing that they may see Him apart from shame (Isa.53:2-3; 2Cor.5:16; Heb.12:2; Ps.73:20 NKJV). Therefore, the Nicene Creed rightly credits Pilate with the crucifixion in distinction from the Apostles’ Creed by stating His sufferings beyond what was suffered under Pilate (1Pet.3:20; Rom.9:22; 1Cor.13:4). Therefore, Christ indeed did taste death for everyone by which His death preaches righteousness to all (Heb.2:9), but He only faced hell as the substitute for those who believe through His name (2Pet.2:5). So those sins that are not buried with Him will rise again in those who have not confessed His name to face their shame in the face of His wrath (Rev.20:11-15), for they tasted of the fellowship of His goodness where he tasted the fellowship of their bitterness (1Pet.2:3), but they spit out His mercies upon the memorial of His empty grave and are without excuse (Rom.2:1-16).

But the sins of the saints are buried and put away to be remembered no more against them (Jer.31:34). Christ has carried the guilt of those sins as far as the east is from the west to haunt them no more with the weight of their rightful condemnation (Ps.103:12). Christ says, “Paid in full,” as the bill of receipt against the accusation of those sins (Jn.19:30; Isa.43:25; Acts 3:19), and nothing can blot out the power of His blood that serves as the ink that has written the names of the saints in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Jn.10:28-29; Rev.3:5).

Therefore, by way of application, we now live the Christian life as one putting off the conscience of sin (Heb.9:14; 1Pet.3:21-22), in recognition of the old man that grows corrupt (Eph.4:22; Rom.8:10-11), being buried with Christ in baptism (Rom.6:4-6), but being transformed in the inner man awaiting the body of glory that lives apart from sin and can die no more because of the weakness of the flesh under the curse of the natural law (Rom.6:8-11; 8:23).

It is not without significance that the declaratory creed, in all the rites of which we have descriptions, was pronounced before the candidate actually entered the baptistery and came to the water. The process of its amalgamation with the baptismal liturgy proper can be studied most instructively in the Roman usage. Later, with the virtual disappearance of adult baptism, the baptismal rite underwent a drastic alteration, many of the ceremonies properly belonging to the catechumenate being squeezed into the service of baptism.

11 J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, Third Edition. (London; New York: Continuum, 2006), 40.