Song 3: Credo: “The Creed”

Your faith is a personal thing.

A connection to God

When Elijah the prophet was ready to give up, when he felt he had failed and all was lost, that was between him and the Lord. “Take my life,” he said. “I am no better than my ancestors” (1 Kings 19:4). And in a gentle whisper, the Lord was there for him, just him.

The Lord is there for you personally whenever you say the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. You get to declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and to believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. Whatever else may be weighing on your soul, saying the creeds puts you in contact with the gentle whisper of the gospel.

A connection to other believers

But your faith is more than something personal. By God’s grace, your faith connects you to others of the same faith. Elijah needed the Lord, but he also needed other believers. He needed the Lord to assure him that there were still seven thousand believers like him in Israel.

So also, the creeds help you remember your connection to fellow believers. The faith you confess in the creeds is the faith every Christian confesses. Already in the second century, Baptism into Christ’s church was accompanied by the confession of an early form of the Apostles’ Creed. The Nicene Creed, celebrating its 1,700th anniversary this year, has served as a defense against heresy and a rallying point for believers since the fourth century. The Western church started confessing the Nicene Creed together in church in the 11th century, and believers everywhere still say the creeds in worship today. In our own circles, we use the Nicene Creed when Holy Communion is offered, the Apostles’ when it isn’t. Either way, we call it the Credo (CRAY-doe), Latin for “I believe.”

Whether spoken or sung, the time-tested, pure gospel content in the Credo brings the age-old confession of the church into the here and now.

You need to know there are other believers like you. In this increasingly fragmented world where a Christian can become easy prey for the devil’s attacks, the Credo testifies to a body of believers numbering far more than seven thousand. To confess the creeds is to celebrate your connection to believers of every time and place. They know what it is to carry their cross and follow Jesus just like you do, and the day is coming when we will all be able to praise our triune God with one voice. You are not alone. You are a member of the holy Christian church.

Though the Credo is one of the five songs of the liturgy, we don’t usually sing the words unless it’s a special occasion. But whether spoken or sung, the time-tested, pure gospel content in the Credo brings the age-old confession of the church into the here and now. Week after week, the creeds help us to rejoice in the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord and to remember the connection we have with believers everywhere. The triune God is with us, and we are his people.

This is the third article in a four-part series on the songs of the Ordinary. Read parts one and two. 

Author: Jon Zabell
Volume 112, Number 05
Issue: May 2025