ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUENet AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION DOGMATICS 2 LESSON 12 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> This Sunday we as a congregation did something we do every Sunday. But this time it got me thinking. We spoke the Creed together. What role do our Creeds have in determining what we believe about Jesus? Are Creeds something the church added after our Bible came into existence? What are the christological sections of our Creeds. >> DR. DAVID SCAER: David, you know, this question is really more important than perhaps what you realize. And that is, sooner or later, perhaps already now, you come into contact with other Protestant churches. I think that's very good because you can only appreciate who we are and what we are as Lutherans when you speak to other people. That helps us to define the faith better. And one of the things that's going to come up very soon is that "You Lutherans have Creeds." And the others will say, "Well, it's not that we don't believe in the Creeds. But we're not going to have any man-made documents imposed upon us. We're Bible believing Christians. We want only the Bible and we don't want man-made Creeds." We have to address that question absolutely directly. Now in regard to people who say this, we should be very cautious and sympathetic because they will say that they accept the items which are included in the Creeds. Don't think that they are against the Creeds. They will say that Jesus is the Christ. Born of the Virgin Mary. Suffered under Pontius Pilate. That's not the issue. But they say that they are man-made. The evidence from the New Testament shows that already in the apostolic time, Creeds were in use. There are many statements in the New Testament which look like -- they look exactly like almost our Creeds. St. Paul says to the Corinthians, "I deliver to you of first importance that Christ died according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that on the third day, he rose again according to the scriptures." Well, that's the very heart of our Creed. And we can find the same thing in 1 Peter. That Peter after he died wanted to -- went and preached to the spirits in the present, which is hell, and that he rose and that he ascended in heaven and sat down at the right hand. That's our Creed. And let's go back one step further. There are three cases at least in the Gospel of Matthew. In fact, in all of the gospels in which Jesus predicts that he is going to be crucified, be buried and on the third day rose again, that's the very heart of our Creeds. So our response is that the Creeds come from the very mouth of Jesus. And we're not doing anything which we have invented. In fact, Jesus was quite specific in saying that if we do not confess him before men, neither will he confess us before his Father in the heavens. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***