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You might be tempted to say in response to the Athanasian Creed, “Why do I need to acknowledge all of that about God? Isn't it enough to know that ‘whoever believes in Jesus shall not perish but have everlasting life?’”
People often refer to John 3:16 as “the Gospel in a nutshell”. But this long Athanasian Creed does not go the nutshell route, does it? “Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith. Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally.” Ouch. And then we spend thirty-nine verses of that creed going over what that “catholic” or “universal” faith is: the scriptural teaching of the Holy Trinity; the Two Natures of Christ; the Incarnation, Humiliation, and Exaltation of Christ. “This is the catholic faith; whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved.”
So much for the guy that used to be at the golf tournaments with the John 3:16 T-shirt and the rainbow clown hair. John 3:16 is not enough. The whole teaching of Holy Scripture is enough. The catholic or universal faith is this: God — the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — gave Himself for our salvation. Everything He is He gave through and in the Son. That's what Jesus means in John 3:16. Whoever believes in Him believes in the Holy Trinity. Whoever believes that Jesus gave Himself for our salvation believes the Holy Trinity gave Himself for our salvation. Jesus does not intend for His Words to be reduced down to just His Name, Holy and Precious as it is, because we sinners will not take the whole counsel of God that goes with that Name.
We cannot reduce the Gospel to “believe in Jesus.” The Arians, against whom the Nicene Creed and the namesake of the Athanasian Creed fought, could claim that they “believed” in Jesus. But they refused to believe that He was truly and fully divine. They insisted that Jesus was created — he essentially was made into God's perfect sacrifice for sins, and God did mighty things through Him. But if it is true that Jesus is not fully God — that He was a mere creation — there is no way that His blood is holy enough to pay for our sins. God had to give of Himself for us. There was no other way to make the holy exchange for us that God demanded of us. The Son could not have been created. He has to be eternally and only the one true God.
Further, all of the other unbelievers in world history could also make the same claim that they “believe in Jesus”. Nicodemus “believed in Jesus” to an extent. “Rabbi, we have known that from God you have come as a teacher.” A teacher. A teacher of definite skills, a systematician. Someone who teaches a system, a way of living or believing.
But the catholic faith is not a system. Jesus is not a new lawgiver, not just another leader and founder of a world religion. He didn't just teach us or show us how to live a good life.
Nicodemus then said, “Because no one is able to perform these signs which you are doing unless God might be with him.” God might be with Jesus? God might be on Jesus' side? Do you see that — whether or not we are talking about the serpent in the garden who questioned God's Word, or whether it is all the idolaters of world history, or whether it is Nicodemus, or the Arians, or today's Gospel reductionists — Jesus becomes just a good fellow, a godly man, a great teacher, someone on God's team. There are no new errors under the sun. When we fail to confess fully the catholic faith — who the Triune God has revealed Himself to be in and through His Son Jesus Christ — we start to believe in ourselves. Jesus becomes our coach, just our friend. Even worse, in today's contemporary and radically feminized Christianity, our boyfriend or lover.
The catholic faith, the scriptural faith of all times and all places, does not teach that Jesus was “with God” or that He is just “a teacher”. Jesus is God. Jesus must be fully God — God's eternal Son — and, at the same time, fully Man. Jesus must be the one sent from the Father in heaven, taking on our flesh, to reconcile the world to the Father. The catholic faith is this: “God and Man is one Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead, ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, God Almighty, from whence He will come to judge the living and the dead.”
The next question of the catholic faith is this: How is this Good News that the God–Man Jesus Christ — the fullness of the love of the Holy Trinity who has given Himself over in exchange for us — appropriated unto you? How are you made a partaker in this one, holy, catholic, and apostolic faith of all times and places? Or do you make yourself a part of that faith? What must you do to be saved?
This is where reducing things to “Believe in Jesus” or “John 3:16” still does not cut it. Jesus tells us, “Unless one shall be born from above, he is not able to see the Kingdom of God.” Nicodemus messed up what Jesus said. Jesus said “born from above”. Our translations join Nicodemus, because they see how Nicodemus understood Jesus, to be “born again”. Both meanings could be correct for the phrase Jesus used. But Jesus clarifies which meaning He meant: “Unless one shall be born from water and the Spirit, he is not able to enter into the Kingdom of God. The one who has been born from the flesh is flesh, the one who has been born from the Spirit is Spirit.”
God the Father lifted up His Son Jesus for us on the cross, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. This eternal life in Christ is given to us by the Holy Spirit in Holy Baptism. We receive the forgiveness won by Christ on the cross, we receive the reconciliation with the Father that He earned, we receive the gift of Christ's holiness, Christ's perfection, Christ's unity with the Trinity, in the waters of the font. The seal that tells us this is that, in Baptism, we are given God's Name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And if we have His Name, we have and are all that He is. In baptism, we receive forgiveness and life from the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit.
There is an icon of the early church that I mention often. God the Father, dressed in royal robes and triple tiara crown, is holding up the outstretched arms of His Son on the cross, giving Him to us. Here, in the middle of our mixed up, sinful humanity, God planted and gave His Son for our salvation, lifted up high on the cross, the only place for us to look in faith for our salvation. Out of one of Jesus' nailmarks on His hand comes the dove, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, even from their throne. But that throne is not in heaven. It is the cross from which our Lord Jesus reigns. And that is what is born from above to us — the true Pentecost, the true coming of the Holy Spirit, the true festival of the Holy Trinity — when Jesus breathed out His Holy Spirit from His dying wounds for the life of the world.
That Spirit comes from the nailmarks and the pierced side of our Lord Jesus in the blood of Holy Communion and in the bloody water of Holy Baptism. That Spirit sanctifies and justifies us before the Father with those gifts and gives us the righteousness and resurrection life of Jesus Christ the Son. Through the preaching of the Gospel, through the forgiveness of sins, through the blessed waters of Holy Baptism and the Holy Body and Blood from this Altar, we are born from above again and again by God's grace.
“At [Jesus'] coming all people will rise again with their bodies and give an account concerning their own deeds. And those who have done good will enter into eternal life, and those who have done evil into eternal fire.” Perhaps our creed has gone off the deep end here? Are they saying we must earn our salvation? If that is the case, it is necessary to reduce the catholic faith to “believe in Jesus”, because it will be much easier to fulfill.
But that is what we are saying in this Athanasian Creed! We must earn our salvation. The rest of the Creed has already told us the answer to this conundrum — and so have our other Creeds: for us men and for our salvation, God the Father has given us the gift of His Son, who earned our salvation for us in our place. And the Holy Spirit imparts that gift of His Son's holiness and righteousness — His “good deeds” — to you and to me through His means of grace. In Christ, we have “done good”. In unity with the Holy Trinity, we have “done good”. Let us give glory to Him, the blessed Holy Trinity, because He has shown mercy to us. Thanks to Him, we will enter into eternal life.
This is the catholic faith; whoever does not believe it — all of it — faithfully and firmly cannot be saved. Now, by that same catholic, universal faith in Christ, receive the gift of the Holy Trinity yet again in His Son's Body and Blood for the forgiveness of your sins, and to strengthen you in the confession of that one, true faith unto life everlasting.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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