"....the various creeds and confessions of the historic church have been a useful means of codifying and focusing key Biblical doctrines, and by extension are very useful in matters of church membership (covenants) or forming definitions of heresy for Protestants. An interesting problem arises, as many "Protestant" churches, especially evangelical and non-denominational ones, reject the creeds as binding on themselves re matters of discipline or doctrine. How does St Simeon the Patient Reformed Church know that First Fundamental Independent Baptist Church of Christ Unified down the street is trinitarian and orthodox, if FFIBCoCU refuses to publish (or even write down on paper) their "what we believe" document, and also refuses to deny or affirm SStPRC's own "what we believe" document?There is no simple way of determining whether some churches are "in the fold" of authentic Christianity or are apostate/heretical. We (the pro-creedal Christians) have to "take it on faith" that they (the anti-creedal Christians) are really our brothers in Christ. Now to some extent I'm exaggerating here in order to prove a point, but I think the question is a valid one.
I would never suggest that a creed is a substitute for Scripture itself, nor would I suffer accusations that creeds are fabrications of doctrine. I would say that creeds are excellent summaries of where Scripture speaks to certain subjects, and exist as historic documents as to who took what side in ecclesiastical/doctrinal disputes. IMO creeds were wisely formed to "redeem the time" (Eph. 5:16) when testing or investigating the confessions of a professing believer, and continue to be smart tools for the churches' use today.
Only those believers that individually and institutionally submit themselves to the historic creeds of the church can be said to be "in agreement" doctrinally. By their very nature, creeds define what two or more groups' shared beliefs are, and they provide a useful way for both insiders and outsiders to test themselves on whether they really are doctrinally and congregationally unified.
-- Alex Murphy, May 2, 2009
We want to be up front and answer the question most often posed when relating that we are confessional: "How can you hold a man made document above Scripture?" The answer is simple, we don't. We believe the that Confession we confess, the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith, to have authority in the church and amongst its members ONLY in that it agrees with Scripture and is a concise statement of sound biblical doctrines. We believe the creeds we confess to have authority in the church and amongst its members ONLY in that they agree with Scripture and are concise, yet thorough, statements of the orthodox faith. The Creeds and Confession are subservient to Scripture. Would they disagree with Scripture, we would reject them. But they don't disagree, so we don't reject them. They do agree, so we accept them.
Consider that most churches have a Statement of Faith developed from that church's understanding of Scripture. These statements explain what the church teaches and what its members believe. Members of the church are expected to understand that the Statement of Faith explains, as far as the church understands, proper doctrine in the church. In America, most of these statements are fairly ambiguous (some more than most). The Creeds and Confession are similar to a Statement of Faith, though much more thorough and much, much less ambiguous.