Understanding The Spirit of the Scriptures

NICENE CREED

. . . who spoke by the prophets.

This is the first statement among the Creeds that gives recognition to the authority of the Scriptures, though the statement’s credence is equally associated with the statement on the Holy Spirit speaking through the holy prophets (2Pet.1:19-21; Heb.1:1-4). Therefore, the Creed suggests that the Spirit only speaks through what is presently revealed as a closed Canon of works and letters recognized as the prophecy of Scripture by which we may find direction for and interpretation of God’s secret, Providential will of the history of the creation (Rev.19:9-10; Acts 1:6-8; Isa.46:8-10; Dt.29:29).

Therefore, this is not talking about the Spirit’s work of illumination and intercession through the prophetic voice of the spirit of prophecy (Rev.19:10; Rom.8:26-30; 10:14-17; 1Cor.2:6-16), according to the New Testament office of a prophet who serves as a testimonial sign of the truth of the living Rhema (Word) (Lk.11:29-30; Matt.12:40; 1Cor.11:3-5, 7-11, 26; 14:1, 3, 24, 29-32; 2Tim.4:1-5; Heb.4:12-13), but of the Spirit’s work of revelation of the written and unchangeable Logos (Word) as the standard of faith and practice until the Lord returns in glory, which is also living and active as the prophets who embody the credit of the work of the Spirit in these works (2Tim.4:1-2; Jude 3; 1Cor.14:36-37; 15:3-5; 2Tim.2:8-9; 3:14-17; 2Pet.3:15-16; 1Tim.6:20-21).

It was by this same word (Logos) that God spoke the history of the universe into existence (Gen.1:1,3; 2:4; Heb.4:3), and by the same word the universe is preserved to go out of existence as through the fire that extinguishes every element that was fixed to uphold natural life within it (2Pet.3:1-7), which is why it is called the second death (2Pet.3:10-13; Rev.20:11-21:1). Spiritual life, as holiness to the Lord, ceased to exist through the original sin (Gen.2:16-17), which is why the church is uniquely a spiritual people reborn as one new man and creation from the two types of man (Rom.5:12-21; Eph.2:14-16), in the death of Christ as the last Adam so that we should be created in the image of the Lord from heaven (Jn.3:6-8; 1Cor.15:45; Rom.6:3-6), who never dies because He is the life-giving spirit in distinction from the life-destroying soul of Adam’s corruption (1Cor.15:36, 42-49).

This new man from the two is created for a new economy of everlasting life, not as a second continuation of the first Adam (2Cor.5:16-17), but a new creation of the perfection of the second man created for the Lord from heaven as a “heavenly man” (1Cor.15:47-49; Eph.4:13; Heb.2:10; 5:9; 7:28; 10:14; 11:40; 12:23; James 1:17). This spiritual man looks for a new heavens and a new earth wherein righteousness dwells within him apart from the corruption of his earthly body, though being preserved in glory as a heavenly man (2Pet.3:13; Heb.9:27-28; Rom.8:23-25). Therefore, the image of Christ’s death and resurrection is the hinge of the door upon which the image of death and the image of life face the reality of the entrance of eternity through the two spiritual types built into every man coming into the world through Adam’s fall into sin and death (Ps.51:5-6; Rom.5:12-14; Ecc.3:11; 7:27-8:1; Jn.10:1, 7-9). Therefore, Christ is the exclusive key to enter eternity with a face formed by truth (in the inward parts) (Rom.8:29-30; 12:1-2; Ps.5:9; 51:6; Lk.11:39), according to His (incorruptible) image (Col.1:15-18; 2Cor.3:17-4:6; 1Pet.1:4, 23; 3:4), or a face formed by the lie that suppresses the truth of this reality of spiritual death leading to the second death (Rom.1:18-25; 2:2-3; 1Cor.13:12-13).

Therefore, it is this same Logos that preserves and prepares a place for the heavenly man when it is appointed for the spiritual man to put off his natural order and put on his heavenly order in perfection of the glory of the unchangeable standard of this eternal Word (Jn.14:1-4; Rom.9:21-24; Eph.4:22-24; Col.3:9-11; Rom.6:6; 7:24; Job. 42:5-6). Therefore, we come under this statement by which the Spirit spoke through the holy prophets because they were spiritual men of the heavenly order by divine preservation of the same power that upholds the natural order of life in the present (2Pet.3:1-7; James 2:1, 5, 7, 12-13; 1:21-27). That’s how true the reality is regarding the authority of the Canon of Holy Scripture (Phil.3:16; Gal.6:16; 2Cor.10:13, 15-16; Rom.16:25-27). The Canon of Scripture is the perfect law of liberty to the Christian by which he can measure the spiritual nature of his faith in obedience to the word of God through the spirit of prophecy (James 2:14, 26; 2Cor.13:4-6; 1Cor.11:2-5, 26-32; Rom.6:15-18).

The Scriptures, then, are the spiritual source by which we gauge the direction of our life and faith (1Jn.5:6-10 (NKJV)/emphasis: v.9; Rom.7:12-14; 2Tim.3:12-17). So we have this standard by which we know if the witness of the Spirit has testified to us of the assurance of the veracity of these holy things being given, not only to us but made alive in us as God’s own elect people (Rom.8:16; 1Jn.2:20-21, 24-27; 3:1-3; 1Pet.2:6-10; Jn.3:3-8, 11-13, 30-36).

This completes our study of the use of creeds in connection with baptism in the first three centuries. The conclusion to which the impressive array of evidence points stares us in the face: declaratory creeds of the ordinary type had no place in the baptismal ritual of the period. If in the fourth century and thereafter their role was, as we saw, secondary, prior to the fourth century they had no role at all. An affirmation of faith was, or course, indispensable, but it took the form of the candidate’s response to the officiant’s interrogations.

 J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, Third Edition. (London; New York: Continuum, 2006), 48.