Free Affirming the Apostles ’ Creed by J.I. Packer

Corinthians 3:17). These are the criteria by which we must judge, for instance, the modern “charismatic renewal” and Christian Science (reaching, perhaps, different verdicts in the two cases).
    So when I say, as a Christian, “I believe in the Holy Spirit,” my meaning should be, first, that I believe personal fellowship, across space and time, with the living Christ of the New Testament to be a reality, which through the Spirit I have found; second, that I am open to being led by the Spirit, who now indwells me, into Christian knowledge, obedience, and service, and I expect to be so led each day; and, third, that I bless him as the author of my assurance that I am a son and heir of God. Truly, it is a glorious thing to believe in the Holy Spirit!
    F URTHER B IBLE S TUDY

    The Spirit’s ministry:

John 7:37-39; 14:15-26; 16:7-15

Romans 8:1-17
    Q UESTIONS FOR T HOUGHT AND D ISCUSSION

How does the work of the Spirit differ from that of the Father and the Son?

What does the Holy Spirit do as “Jesus’ agent”?

What would you say to a professed Christian who doubted if he had ever experienced the ministry of the Holy Spirit?



You yourselves like living stones are being
built up as a spiritual house, to be a
holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ... you
are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people for his own possession,
that you may proclaim the excellencies of
him who called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light.
    1 PETER 2: 5,9

CHAPTER 15

    The Holy Catholic
Church

    I t is by strict theological logic that the Creed confesses faith in the Holy Spirit before proceeding to the church and that it speaks of the church before mentioning personal salvation (forgiveness, resurrection, everlasting life). For though Father and Son have loved the church and the Son has redeemed it, it is the Holy Spirit who actually creates it, by inducing faith; and it is in the church, through its ministry and fellowship, that personal salvation ordinarily comes to be enjoyed.

    Unhappily, there is at this point a parting of the ways. Roman Catholics and Protestants both say the Creed, yet they are divided. Why? Basically, because of divergent understandings of “I believe in the holy catholic church”—”one holy catholic and apostolic church,” as the true text of the Nicene Creed has it.
    R OMAN V ERSUS P ROTESTANT

    Official Roman Catholic teaching presents the church of Christ as the one organized body of baptized persons who are in communion with the Pope and acknowledge the teaching and ruling authority of the episcopal hierarchy. It is holy because it produces saintly folk and is kept from radical sin, catholic because in its worldwide spread it holds the full faith in trust for everyone, and apostolic because its ministerial orders stem from the apostles, and its faith (including such non-biblical items as the assumption of Mary and her immaculate conception, the Mass-sacrifice, and papal infallibility) is a sound growth from apostolic roots. Non-Roman bodies, however church-like, are not strictly part of the church at all.
    Protestants challenge this from the Bible. In Scripture (they say) the church is the one worldwide fellowship of believing people whose Head is Christ. It is holy because it is consecrated to God (though it is capable nonetheless of grievous sin); it is catholic because it embraces all Christians everywhere; and it is apostolic because it seeks to maintain the apostles’ doctrine unmixed. Pope, hierarchy, and extra-biblical doctrines are not merely nonessential but actually deforming; if Rome is a church (which some Reformers doubted) she is so despite the extras, not because of them. In particular, infallibility belongs to God speaking in the Bible, not to the church or to any of its officers, and any teaching given in or by the church must be open to correction by “God’s word written.” 1
    Some Protestants have taken the