The Apostles’ Creed

This creed gradually took shape from about AD 200 to 750. It is called the Apostles’ Creed because it was believed to have been created by the apostles as a baptismal confession. While it is true that the creed is both a good summary of apostolic teaching and was used by the early church as a baptismal confession, the notion that its origin is apostolic is spurious.

"He descended into Hell" is the most controversial in the creed. It was unknown in earlier versions of the Apostle’s Creed and was not in the Latin creeds until it appeared in one of Rufinus’ versions in AD 390. Though he included the phrase he did not believe it referred to hell, but understood it to mean Christ descended into the grave and was buried. This is in harmony with the Greek form of the creed for hadēs can simply mean “grave.” It was not until AD 650 that the phrase was again included. Throughout the history of the church there have been three dominant interpretations of the phrase: (1) it is to be identified as the place of the dead, both of the righteous and the wicked (Hebrew, sheōl; Greek, hadēs). Thus it means that Jesus continued in the real state of death until the resurrection; (2) it signifies the intensity of Christ’s sufferings on the cross, where he tasted the pain of hell for sinners; and (3) it refers to an actual self-manifestation of Christ to the dead between the time of his death and resurrection. RBC believes that the statement ought to be understood in the first sense. This creed was developed to help refute Gnostic teaching that claimed the eternal Son of God did not truly become a man. This statement makes clear the point that Jesus died a real, human death as any ordinary human being.

When the creed makes reference to “the holy catholic Church” (Latin, catholicam which means universal) it means “the holy universal Church” that holds to the truth of the bible, not the Roman Catholic Church.