What we Believe
The Apostles' Creed
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I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy universal church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
The Apostles’ Creed has served as the essential summation of the Christian faith since the early centuries of the church, and we stand in continuity with this age-old confession. Even so, because many churches claim this as their basis of belief - and because those churches can often look, sound, and feel quite different - here we briefly elaborate upon several tenets of the creed. These are not meant to be exhaustive statements but brief reflections which shed light on what we take to be worth emphasizing in each and which are representative of what is distinctive in our theology.
God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” declared Jesus. We come to know the Father through the Son. Jesus himself teaches us to understand God - to relate to God - in the same way he himself does, as a loving, generous, patient, forgiving Father worthy of obedience. God is love, and God creates as an act of self-giving love.
God the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord
The incarnation names the foundational mystery of the Christian faith: the infinite, eternal God took on finite human form and entered our world. Jesus is both fully human and fully God, thus he is both the fullest revelation of who God is and the fullest revelation of what it is to be human. God’s ultimate revelation comes to us embodied in flesh and blood.
God the Holy Spirit
Just as Jesus promised in his earthy life, following his death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, the Holy Spirit comes to be God’s abiding presence, to lead and to guide, to comfort and to provoke, to inspire and to empower, to form and transform the church. Just as Christ reveals the Father, it is the Spirit whom Christ sent who continues to reveal him until he comes again.
God the Trinity
As the church has long confessed, we believe in one God in three eternal persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God exists forever as relational unity.
The holy universal church
The community called together to follow and worship Jesus is the Body of Christ - in a sense, a visible incarnation of Christ himself. Christ can be found anywhere, but he primarily is to be found in a faithful community which embodies the very truth it proclaims, a city on a hill whose light shines for all to see.
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The communion of saints
In addition to its particular local communities (like our church), the church also exists across space and time. We believe in seeking communion with other churches/communities here in Luxembourg and around the world, and we especially seek to draw upon the witness and wisdom of Christians who have lived faithfully throughout the centuries.
The forgiveness of sins
Sin names all that separates us from God and God’s purposes, all the ways we have failed to love God and our neighbor. We believe in the reality of sin, but we also believe in the forgiveness of sins, that God, in Christ, is reconciling the world to himself.
Christ will come to judge the living and the dead
Both the living and the dead await the coming of Christ in final victory, when he establishes his kingdom in full. Then all that is wrong will be made right, all injustice will meet justice. Christ will judge what we have done - both the bad and the good. Righteousness and unrighteousness, holiness and sin, have consequences. What happens in this life matters.
The resurrection of the body
To be human is to be embodied, and our salvation must be embodied as well. Christ is forever incarnate, his flesh forever transfigured. God’s ultimate intention is not to abandon his creation but to redeem and restore it. God does not take us to heaven so much as God brings heaven to earth. God will make all things new, including giving us new “spiritual” bodies which do not perish.
The life everlasting
We were never meant to die, and through Christ’s death and resurrection, death is defeated, God’s original creation restored and even surpassed in the new creation. Jesus taught us to pray that the kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven, and he taught us to conceive of salvation in terms of eternal life in that kingdom where Jesus is Lord.