The Apostle’s Creed is so good and yet so neglected. Remember when we used to recite it more?
Here it is:
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.Amen.
Note the phrase “Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary…” Life begins at conception. Any disagreement there?
Look at this quote from Lutheran’s For Life:
“To deny full humanity to a conceptus [embryo] is to deny full humanity to the Savior, ‘qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria virgine’ (Latin). We worship the coming Savior, we worship the ascended Lord, we worship the resurrected Son of Man, we worship the crucified Lamb, we worship the Boy in the temple, we worship the Babe in the manger, we worship the Conceptus in the womb of the Mother of God. Amen.”
Listen to Gene Veith, whence the substance of this post came from:
This is brilliant, decisive, and theologically unanswerable. The Son of God was incarnate when, in the words of the Apostle’s Creed, He was “conceived by the Holy Ghost” and later “born of the Virgin Mary.” If the fetus becomes a human being at some later point–when the soul enters the body, or when the fetus shows brain waves, or some other point–how does that apply to the Incarnation without falling into some kind of modalism or other heresy? Anyone who confesses the Apostle’s Creed must be pro-life when it comes to abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and the rest of it.
And here is a fitting devotion during Advent: Adoring Christ the Embryo.
Oh Come, Let Us Adore Him. You can see Gene Veith’s post here. It is substantially reproduced here.
December 5, 2007 at 10:45 pm
This is great, Les. Thanks.
At McIlwain on the first Sunday of each month we rotate between the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed, followed by the Gloria Patri. This way we are using it regularly without the charge that it becomes rote. We also say the Lord’s Prayer the same Sunday. By the way, that is also our communion Sunday, so first Sundays are always pretty standard at McIlwain.