Are Creeds Biblical?

The Christians of the New Testament era apparently saw the value of creeds...should we?

Imagine you've been a believer and have attended church for years—perhaps for as long as you can remember—and you’ve never seen a creed in your life (and maybe never even heard of one). What would you think if one day you came to church and the worship leader asked everyone to recite one?

If you were at church here at RBC two weeks ago, perhaps you don't have to imagine. At the very least, it's probably not every day that you and your friends get together to read aloud the Apostle's Creed (me neither). But more importantly, are creeds biblical?

First, we need to nail down what a creed even is.

Even though the earliest Christians didn’t have the New Testament yet, they obviously still needed a way to communicate their faith—and in a way that they could all agree upon! Creeds are one of the ways they filled this gap. A Christian creed is a short summary of what we believe about the Person we believe in; it's "a digest of the primary truths of our faith." As with marriage vows, or the Pledge of Allegiance, a creed is a way for us to confess where our loyalty lies, just as Romans 10:9 commands us to confess with our mouths that “Jesus is Lord.”

Paul gives us a great example of such statements of faith in 1 Corinthians 15: "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve" (verses 3-5; more on these verses below!). In the same way, creeds are not in any way meant to lead us away from the Bible's teaching; they protect us from straying from it.

They especially became useful for the earliest believers when witnessing to those who had not yet heard the good news. Why? Because new converts usually come to know Christ by someone summarizing the gospel message for them, and short summaries were needed so that these new believers knew what their faith was. For this reason, creeds were often used in connection with baptism as new believers declared their newfound faith in Jesus.

Creeds would eventually become useful in defending the faith. Whenever certain church leaders began to twist the facts of the gospel, creeds provided a short and effective way for the rest of the church to clearly explain how to properly understand God's Word.

Clearly, creeds have benefited the church wonderfully for centuries. But we still need to return to our original question: since creeds are pieces of tradition, and they are not scripture, are they biblical?

There's a snarky way to answer that question: “Well, are hymns or sermons biblical?" As we all know, something does not need to be Scripture to be biblical, so the fact that creeds are not in the Bible would not be a good reason to reject them…even if that were true.

But what if we were to discover that there actually are creeds in the Bible?

There are certainly at least creed-like traditions.

Returning to 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says in verse 3, "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance." Now, what do we call things that are received and passed on? Tradition.

What Paul has identified here is the tradition that he received from the earliest followers of Jesus. Not only was this piece of tradition floating around before 1 Corinthians, it also existed before Paul was even a Christian. Paul would not know what he knows about Jesus if it were not important for Christians to preserve traditional statements. In fact, we can comfortably assume that this passage preserves the earliest written record of Jesus's resurrection. It's no surprise, then, that this passage can be referred to as “an early creed which declares the absolute fundamentals of Christian faith," or "facts expressed in creedal form.” These verses may not represent a fully developed creed (like the Apostle’s Creed), but the creedal elements are there.

Generally speaking, we can say that Paul is using "traditional material" in this passage. Traditional material is just a fancy term for different sources of teaching that were available to the earliest Christians.

There are many different kinds of traditions that lie in the background of the New Testament, but today we are specifically looking at those that probably come from early Christian worship settings, especially creedal formulas or hymns. Because they both have such similar purposes (worshipping the Lord!), early creeds and hymns look almost exactly alike, but we can at least tell when some form of worship tradition is being used.

Knowing how to tell where they are is helpful, because even though there are several other New Testament examples, they are rarely introduced as clearly as they are here in 1 Corinthians. Most famously, these traditions can be found in Philippians 2:6–11, Colossians 1:15–20, 1 Timothy 3:16, and 1 Peter 3:18–22.

These passages stand out to us in part because they are so different from the rest of the letters in which they are found. This is because letters address very specific situations, while creeds and hymns are meant for everyday worship. It’s also possible that these passages come from a different writer than the author of the letters (much like how New Testament writers use Old Testament texts).

So what are those specific clues that let us know when a New Testament writer is probably citing one of these traditional pieces? In many translations, the passages begin with the words “who is…” or “he is…”, usually referring to Jesus. They are intensely focused on Christ, and even though these passages are found in letters addressing very specific situations, the passages themselves would make perfect sense even if we took them out and read them on their own, regardless of the context or the setting…which is exactly what we would expect if they really are creed-like statements that were also meant to be used in worship gatherings.

In other words, these passages make sense with or without the context of the letter. And because of this, they often have portions that aren’t directly related to the purpose of the letter either. Think about it like this: if I were preaching on a specific topic, I might quote a hymn that relates to what I am teaching on, but it’s unlikely that every part of the hymn will relate to the topic of my sermon. Instead, there’ll be some lines of the hymn that touch on other things besides the point I want to make. We see something similar in these New Testament passages.

Without boring ourselves with more details, there are still other clues that something like a creed is being used in these passages, including the fact that they almost always have terms that can't be found anywhere else in the letters we find them in (and often not even in the rest of the New Testament). But here’s the point of all this: we don’t need to be nervous about using creeds in our worship, not only because most Christians since the very beginning of the church have used them with great benefit, but because even our Scriptures use creedal traditions too. Instead, we can embrace these powerful traditions just as we embrace hymns, and even sermons. Interestingly, while our sermons do not have long traditions supporting them like our creeds and hymns do, every sermon you hear depends on the foundations that traditions of the past have laid. If a person does not see a place for creeds in our worship, there is really no reason to think sermons have a place either.

Next week, we’ll begin exploring the wonderful things these creedal passages teach us about Jesus, beginning with Colossians 1:15–20. I invite you to spend some time reflecting on these passages: Philippians 2:6–11, Colossians 1:15–20, 1 Timothy 3:16, and 1 Peter 3:18–22. They are some of the passages where Christ is most exalted and in the most beautiful way. You will not regret spending more time with them.



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If you're like me, the idea of creed-like traditions in the New Testament might be unfamiliar. There's a ton that has been written on this, and sometimes it's nice to know where an author is getting their information:

Books:
Christopher A. Beetham, Echoes of Scripture in the Letter of Paul to the Colossians (2008).
Donald Fairbairn and Ryan M. Reeves, The Story of Creeds and Confessions: Tracing the Development of the Christian Faith (2019).
Eckhard J. Schnabel, Law and Wisdom from Ben Sira to Paul (1985).
Jared Ortiz and Daniel A. Keating, The Nicene Creed: A Scriptural, Historical, and Theological Commentary (2024).
Matthew E. Gordley, New Testament Christological Hymns: Exploring Texts, Contexts, and Significance (2018).
Michael J. Gorman, Paul and John in Harmony: A Theological and Historical Exploration (2026).
Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (1999).
Thomas J. Sappington, Revelation and Redemption at Colossae (1991).

Commentaries:
Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Greek Text Commentary (2000).
David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (second edition), Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (2025).
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, 1 Corinthians, Anchor Bible (2008).
Gordon D. Fee, Paul's Letter to the Philippians, New International Commentary on the New Testament (1995).
Clinton E. Arnold, Colossians (second edition), Word Biblical Commentary (2025).
G. K. Beale, Colossians and Philemon, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (2019).
James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, New International Greek Text Commentary (1996).
Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy, Anchor Bible (2001).
Stanley E. Porter, The Pastoral Epistles (2023).
John H. Elliott, 1 Peter, Anchor Bible (2000).
Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter (second edition), Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (2022).
Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter, Hermeneia (1996).
Travis B. Williams and David G. Horrell,1 Peter, International Critical Commentary (2023).