Joel Snider's Sermons from FBC Rome

January 13, 2008

Smyth and Helwys: No Creed But the Bible

John 1:14-18

In the small town in which I grew up in West Virginia, the two largest faith traditions were the Roman Catholics and the Methodists. Roman Catholic because for decades Italians, Poles, and Czechs had moved in to mine the coal and they brought with them their Roman Catholic Religion. Methodists, I don’t know why the Methodists. West Virginia is the only state where Methodist is the largest faith tradition. Did you know that? So in the town I grew up in, there were more Methodist churches than Baptist churches. I think it is the only place I have ever lived that has been like that.

As a child, probably similar to some of the children who were sitting on the steps listening to Miss Prissy, as I tried to understand what it was that set apart Baptists from others, particularly the Methodists and the Roman Catholics of which there seemed to be so many, one of the things that I was taught was, “Well, they have a creed.”

“What’s a creed?”

“A creed is the Apostle’s Creed.”

That was the answer I got.

“It’s the Apostle’s Creed.”

Every Sunday they say the Apostle’s Creed, and they have to say this creed in order to be Roman Catholic or Methodist. Now those of you who grew up in one of those faith traditions or one similar, you know what a caricature that is. That is going to be my point. But as a child, and then later as a teenager, often I heard that Baptists believe in no creed but the Bible. How that distinguished us from other faith traditions was that they used the Apostle’s Creed. That’s what I understood as a child and as a teenager, and I have come to understand that is wrong.

I was talking to a member of this church on Wednesday night. It was very good. I am glad I had the conversation because I get to use it in my sermon. But he grew up in a small town here in Georgia, attended the First Baptist Church where they said the Apostle’s Creed every Sunday morning. Now, there is something wrong with those Baptists, isn’t there? No, not really.

In 1905, when the first meeting of the Baptist World Alliance—which is sort of this huge convention of Baptists that get together from all over the world—meet in England, one of the things they did in worship together was recite the Apostle’s Creed.

In 2005, on the 100th anniversary when they met in England again, they also recited the Apostle’s Creed. I have discovered that what we believe as Baptists about no creed but the Bible really doesn’t have anything to do with the Apostle’s Creed. If you have grown up thinking that, then I am here to help clarify that for you this morning.

At the end of this month, and I mention this because every Sunday there is somebody here who wasn’t here last week, but at the end of this month there is another large Baptist meeting that will take place in Atlanta. Most of my adult lifetime, when Baptists meet in groups this large, they tend to make headlines about agreements and disagreements. So one of the things we have set forth to do in the month of January in the morning worship services is to speak about those parts of our Baptist heritage which we cherish, to talk about these things so that if at the end of the month there are things in the news and you think, “Is that what we are like?” so that everybody will have a common base out of which to operate to say that this is what we understand, as our congregation, what it means to be Baptist.

In saying this, I want to tell you that I believe all Christian faith traditions have value and there are pieces, elements, and beliefs of every Christian faith tradition for which other faith traditions should be thankful.

Presbyterians. One of the major components of their belief is the sovereignty of God. We believe in the sovereignty of God, probably not in the exact same way that Presbyterians do, but we are indebted to Presbyterians for holding that particularly element of Christian theology up and reminding us of it.

Methodists. If you grew up Methodist, one of the things that I think about from my time of encountering Methodists is that Methodists believe that after you come to faith in Christ, you should grow to become more like Christ. What do you call that, those of you who used to be Methodists? Do you call that sanctification? All Christians, I think, owe a debt to Methodists for holding that up to us as a reminder that it is not simply becoming a Christian but it’s growing to become more like Christ throughout our lives.

One of the things that we hold up as Baptists for which I think all Christians should be thankful is the fact that we believe scripture is alive. We believe that scripture is alive and life shaping and you just never know when you might pick up this book and open it up and God speaks to us through it in a way that God hasn’t spoken before. The way that we have often phrased this is we say, “No creed but the Bible” but what we really mean is “This book is alive.”

Let me just mention a few experiences that maybe you have had one similar to that emphasizes this. There are times where we have read passages of scripture ten, twenty, thirty times, and then somebody reads it out loud or somebody sends it to us in an e-mail or we are having a moment of bewilderment or confusion or crisis in our lives and we pick up the Bible, open it up, and read this passage that we know we have seen before, but all of a sudden, it is just like BAM! It hits us between the eyes. Words that had never quite meant what they mean to us on that day, all of a sudden come alive to us and we hear God’s voice from these pages.

The passage of scripture for this morning is that famous statement in John’s Gospel “that the Word became flesh.” The Word, the revelation of God that is the same as we read in scripture became flesh in Jesus Christ. We believe that Christ rose from the dead. The Word is alive. The Word is alive in Christ. The Word is alive in the Book. The Word is alive and will not be contained. It will not be held down. For this reason, the Bible has often been perceived to be dangerous, and most commonly, it accompanies some sort of revival. Think about this dangerous part.

If you have ever traveled to countries where Christianity is repressed, a lot of times when you go through customs, one of the things they don’t want you bring is what? Bibles. There are countries in the world today where you better not take a Bible. Why? Because the Bible is dangerous, not just because it is printed on a page and not just because it is associated with Christians but because this book is alive and you don’t know when this book is going to speak. This is the part of our heritage that, as Baptists, we emphasize and I think all faith traditions should have some appreciation for what we do.

In the Reformation, one of the primary things that took place was the fact that the Bible was translated into the language of the people. Most of the early translators from the early period in the Protestant Reformation who brought the Bible from either Greek and Hebrew or from the Latin of the day into the language of the place where they lived were persecuted.

John Hus was from the area today that is the Czech Republic and John Hus believed that the Bible should be read in the language of the people. He propagated that idea, they arrested him, and they burned him at the stake. When they burned him at the stake, what they used for the bonfire were Bibles. They used the Bibles that had been translated into the language of the people to build the fire by which to burn him.

John Wycliffe had come before John Hus and many of the Bibles that they burned were Wycliffe Bibles because he had dared translate them. John Wycliffe had died a natural death in England. They decided this was so bad that they dug him up, burned his bones, and scattered his ashes at sea because it is so dangerous to put this Living Word into somebody’s hands.

In this tradition of the Bible, being dangerous, because it changes and shapes people, because it accompanies movements that other people cannot control, we come to the lives of Smyth and Helwys. Smyth with a “y.” They were Dutch and English. Helwys met Smyth in Gainsborough, England. Smyth was preaching at a Church of England parish as a fill-in when there was no pastor. When officials of the church became aware of this, Smyth was forbidden to preach. He left the Church of England as a result and hooked up with Helwys. Helwys, already the Separatist, was meeting with a group that included John Robinson, William Brewster, and William Bradford. The reading of the scripture and having scripture available in their language and the scripture working on their hearts, their lives, their minds, and their commitments is what brought them to this place. In our faith tradition, two of the names most commonly associated with the belief of using, holding up the scripture, and not needing anything else is associated with the names Smyth and Helwys.

We think about the Puritans. The Puritans wanted to purify the Church of England. The Separatists thought it was beyond help and they wanted to separate. Helwys was a Separatist as was John Robinson, one of the Pilgrim fathers. Robinson has one of my favorite quotes about scripture. He said, “God hath yet more light to break from His holy word.” God hath yet more light, more than what we have already read, more than what we have already understood, more than has already shaped our lives. God hath yet more light because this book is alive and growing. God hath yet more light to break from this Word.

So when Baptists talk about “No creed but the Bible,” what we really mean is that no other statement, no other summary, no other writing, says what the Bible says. Anything that I try to write about the Bible or if I try to write my best summary—I am going to write you a letter and tell you what the Bible says in ten pages—whatever I say is just my words and it is not going to live. So when we say “No creed but the Bible” we are saying no summary of the Bible, no statement about the Bible, none of those things can convey what scripture conveys. We will have no summary that we use in place of, or as equal to, the Bible. Nothing will take the place. Now why is this important today?

I don’t know how to say this but just to say it. We get portrayed a little at times as being the weird Baptists in town. If you are not aware of that, I will just tell you. If you are a guest today, it’s a good day. You are going to hear all about it.

For more than 150 years, this congregation was a part of the Southern Baptist Convention. We are not any more. The one primary key reason why we are not is this reason right here. There is a statement that Baptists have used since the early 1900’s called The Baptist Faith and Message. I tried to figure out a way to describe this for you, and I decided that it would be good if we thought about this like we think about software. The current Baptist Faith and Message is the Baptist Faith and Message 3.0.

Do you remember Windows 3.1 and 4.1? I have Adobe Acrobat 7.34 or something like that on my computer. Do you know how we number software by the number of versions that come out? The current version of The Baptist Faith and Message is 3.0. Why is it 3.0? It’s because no statement that we can write lives enough to stay current like scripture. So what was written in 1925 was 1.0. What was written in 1963 was 2.0. What was modified in 1998 was 2.1. Finally, in 2000, we got 3.0. If we all live along enough, we will probably hear about 4.3 or something like that. No statement that tries to summarize the Bible can say what the Bible says.

We voted like 97%. It’s hard to get that kind of vote in a Baptist church, but we decided that to say we are going to believe a statement 100% is not Baptist and that is what we were told we had to be. We would have to buy into this thing and we said, “No.” So as a congregation, we have very firmly said, “No creed but the Bible.” What that means to us is that the Bible is sufficient. The Bible is trustworthy. The Bible is unequaled by anything else somebody could write about it or try to summarize it. We believe that God speaks to Christians, not just to us but to all Christians through these pages, and the Bible will be sufficient for whatever challenge Christians face today or whatever challenge Christians face 10, 20, 100, 1,000 years from now, if Christ tarries.

Think about slavery. Two hundred years ago, a lot of Christians used the Bible to say that God ordained slavery but the Word of God would not be contained. The Word of God would not be restrained. Simply because slavery is mentioned in the Bible does not mean that God ordained or desires slavery. So the Word kept moving and it would not rest. I don’t know anybody that has any credibility in the world today who would say that the Bible ordains or condones slavery. The Bible moves. The Bible is a power. The Bible is alive with Jesus Christ moving the church, moving Christians in every place, moving us to understand better what God wants, and it is sufficient. Anything that I write today about something that may take place or something that is an issue 100 years from now is going to be dead words. The Bible is what we need. The Bible, in and of itself, is enough.

I had Keith print the Apostle’s Creed in the order of service today as a way of reminding us that when we say, “No creed but the Bible,” that statement is much deeper and much more profound that saying, “We don’t use the Apostle’s Creed.”

It is really kind of funny. If you grew up in a faith tradition that uses the Apostle’s Creed, I don’t know any church, any denomination, that says, “If you are going to be a part of us, you have to sign this or you have to say you believe it 100%.” It’s really not a creed. It’s really a confession of faith. It is a summary. It is a concise summary of faith that is intended to be just that. Some Baptists are the ones who have a document that says you have to sign it to be a Christian. Isn’t that ironic?

So let me say today, when we say, “No creed but the Bible,” I guess it is an unfortunate Baptist way of stating something positive in the negative. We do have a propensity to do that. What we really mean is that scripture is alive. We believe that scripture lives, moves, breathes, and speaks to each of us in such a way that there is no other statement that will do. There is no other document that will do because anything else will fade into oblivion as dated. It will fade into oblivion as the words of a particular generation that no longer hold weight. But scripture lives forever. Scripture lives, moves, changes, and causes me to relate to God in a new way. It causes me to change the way I think about things that happen in the world because scripture is alive.

So we may say, “No creed but the Bible,” but it has really nothing to do with The Apostle’s Creed. It has to do with the high conviction, the high trustworthiness, the high sense of impact upon our lives that this book has.

“No creed but the Bible” because the Bible is above all.

Copyright 2008. P. Joel Snider. All rights reserved.

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