It s one thing to believe all that the Bible teaches. It s another to know and understand what it teaches. The historic Creeds of the orthodox christian church, ranging from the so-called Apostle s Creed of the 2nd century through the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds of the 4th century up to the creeds and confessions and catechisms of the Reformation period of the 16th and 17th centuries, represent the diligent and faithful labours of the servants of God in the church of Jesus Christ. They searched the Scriptures, carefully and consistently defining the essential doctrines of the faith which was once delivered to the saints. Their labours have become standard works which have stood the test of time.
Work so done, as B.B.Warfield once said, is done for all time.
The late Prof. A.A.Hodge of Princeton, in his Short History of Creeds and Confessions, writes, The real question is not, as often pretended, between the Word of God and the creed of man, but between the tried and proved faith of the collective body of God s people, and the private judgment and the unassisted wisdom of the repudiator of creeds. It has continued to be the Confession of Faith, of the Free Church of Scotland from 1843 and beyond the Union of 1900 to this present time - and also, of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia from its constitution as such at No.4 Hunter St. Sydney on Oct.10, 1846. This latter date is being remembered at the 1996 Synod of the PCEA at Armidale. Of this Westminster Confession, and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, also approved by the Church of Scotland in 1648, the late theologian, Prof. John Murray said, The Westminster Confession and Catechisms are therefore, the mature fruit of the whole movement of creed formation throughout fifteen centuries of Christian history, and in particular, they are the crown of the greatest age of confessional exposition, the Protestant Reformation. No other similar documents have concentrated in them, and formulated with such precision, so much of the truth embodied in the Christian revelation.