Because the Service of the Word is the part of the service where our Lord Himself serves us, and gives us His gifts through His holy word, it is one of the climactic points in the service and receives much of our attention in this series on the Liturgy.
Having begun with the Lessons, the Service of the Word moves forward with the confession of the Christian faith in the Creed. “Creed” comes from the Latin Credo, which means “I believe.”
There are three creeds confessed by all Christians, either explicitly or implicitly. These are the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed.
The Apostles Creed is so named because it is an expression of the teaching of our Lord’s apostles under His direction. It was used very early in the church as what an adult must know and confess and believe in order to receive baptism into the Christian Faith.
The Nicene Creed contains all that is in the Apostles’ Creed, but also emphasizes the Deity of Christ. This was done because false prophets had arisen in the church that denied that Christ was fully God as well as man.
The Athanasian Creed is a longer Creed, found on page 29-30 in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary. It was written to express the Biblical teaching that the True and Living God is one God and at the same time three persons. This was necessary because false teachers were again troubling the church with a misrepresentation of the nature of God.
As you recite the Creed, notice that our faith is based in history – in what God has done at a particular place and time to become man, to suffer on our behalf, to die in our place, and to conquer sin, death, and the Devil in the Lord’s resurrection.