The Christian church has always had a confession or a creed. There are creeds in Scripture itself, e.g., Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear O Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one.” This was recited in the synagogue as a confession of faith and it was recited in the apostolic-era Jewish-Christian congregations (James 2:19). 1 Timothy 3:16 has the hallmarks of a confession of faith:

Manifested in the flesh,
Vindicated by the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Proclaimed among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory.

This is a recitation of the history of our Lord’s incarnation, resurrection, ascension, and ministry in the world through the apostles, in the Holy Spirit.

Almost immediately after the apostles, the early post-Apostolic church began to speak of a “Rule of Faith” (regula fidei). We see the rule, in substance, in the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch very early in the second century. We also see it explicitly named and recited twice the work of Irenaeus in the late second century and again by Tertullian in the early third century. The Rule of Faith became what became known as the Apostles’ Creed. The Church also confessed a creed at Nicea (AD 325), which was expanded by the 1st Council of Constantinople in AD 381. In AD 451 at Chalcedon, the church again confessed the faith, and these ancient creeds were summarized by the Athanasian Creed perhaps as early as the late fifth century.

Christians were not allowed to dissent from these catholic (universal), ecumenical (universal) Christian creeds of the church.

In the Reformation, the the Protestant churches (Lutheran and Reformed) confessed their faith in a series of confessions. From the beginning of Reformation, the Reformed churches produced confessions in which the churches confessed to each other and to the watching world 1) how they understood the holy Scriptures; 2) how they understood the ecumenical creeds.

Early in the history of the Reformed churches it was expected that both ministers and people would confess, without exception, what the Reformed churches confessed. As the churches faced challenges from within, ministers were made to subscribe them, i.e., to write their names underneath the confessions as to say that the confession of the churches was their confession. The confessions were subscribed because they were biblical.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a certain degree of distance was allowed, in some places, between what the churches confessed and what ministers and others were required to subscribe. In this system, the confessions were subscribed insofar as (quatenus) they are biblical.

In the modern period most of the debate has been over the degree to which one can push insofar as and still be regarded as a subscriber of the confession. Read more»

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