One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church

More notes about the Creed:

And I believe in One holy Catholic and Apostolic Church

I believe
• Again meaning “I stake my life on this”
• “One” is used again for the third time. This is to exclude purality

Church
• Ecclesia – Called out ones (called out of worldliness)
• The Church is not a building, it is people
• The Church is visible. It is not an idea. It is not a set of theological beliefs.
• We come from the Jews and they were visible. You were either Jewish or you weren’t. You could circumscribe the community and you can circumscribe the church.
• We are the Body of Christ. Not the club of Christ or the Society of Christ, etc. We are living stones being built into a spiritual house.
• We are literally the flesh and bone of Christ. We are one flesh and there is one head controlling the body.
• Christ says to Saul, “Why are you persecuting me?” He did not say, “My followers”, or “My organization”, etc.
• We know where the church is. We do not know who will be in it.

Westminster Confession Chapter 25
• Of the church, the catholic or universal church which is invisible consists of the whole number of elect…
• The church are true believers scattered about through the various expressions of Christianity. The church is dismembered, you don’t even know where the lines are. It won’t be clear until the end of the age who is in the church.
• The Orthodox says No! That is not right! If the Head were circumscribable, it does violence to that idea if we say the church (the body) is not also circumscribable.

The Orthodox Church says she is the church not because of her beliefs, but because it is on her birth certificate!

The Major Departures
• Non-Chalcedonians (5th Century)
o Fourth Ecumenical Council (451) confirmed Christ’s dual nature. Nestorius was the chief heretic and says that Christ only had a divine nature.
o The Egyptian churches (now referred to as the Coptics) did not accept the decision of the council. They said that to believe Christ has 2 natures is blasphemous. They then departed from the Church.
o 1 John 2:19. People left the faith. They were not wished well, nor did the apostles pray that God would bless their expression of the faith.
• Latin
o Reformation