Grasping Truth

 

"Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord"

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When we claim 'Jesus', we are claiming a real historical figure (Matthew 1:21), but when we claim 'Christ', we are claiming something a general historian won't. Christ means "Chosen One of God", so when we say 'Jesus Christ', we are confessing that we are in need of a Savior who will save us from the punishment for our sins and that this Savior's name is Jesus, God's only Son, the eternal second Person of the Trinity (John 1:1-3). This Savior is also the Lord of all, sovereign and in charge over everyone and everything (Philippians 2:5-11).

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"Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit"

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It's important that we do not speculate on this line, but trust Scripture when it says that the Holy Spirit conceived Jesus by overshadowing a virgin named Mary (Luke 1:35). Virgins cannot give birth, so what we confess with this line and the next is a miracle, and this miracle proves that Jesus is God.

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"Born of the Virgin Mary"

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Alternatively, the fact that Jesus was physically born proves His humanity. Jesus was born, was hungry, was tired, was thirsty, felt pain, felt emotions, and was tempted but never sinned. Jesus has always been God but He became a man, and now is 100% God and 100% forever. This matters because only God could take on God's wrath for our sin and survive but only a man could die in our place for our sins.

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"Suffered under Pontius Pilate"

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Jesus did not just 'die' but suffered physically (Isaiah 52:14), emotionally (Matthew 26:56), and spiritually (Matthew 27:46). The reason He suffered was for us (Romans 5:8) for "by His wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53), because "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin" (Hebrews 9:22). This wasn't a tragic plot twist, but the plan from the very beginning as God sent Jesus to die for our sins. And this even was not forced on Jesus, but He suffered willingly, out of love and for the joy set before Him.

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"Was crucified, dead, and buried."

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He was crucified - tortured and executed on a cross even though He was perfectly innocent. He was killed - fully taking on Himself the wrath of God for our sins and finally, fully, and forever purchasing salvation. He was buried - experiencing and conquering death for us. In all this, we see the horrors of sin and the depth of God's love: that Jesus experienced what He did not deserve so that we who deserved it would never experience it.

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"He descended into hell."

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This can be a confusing line and has been poorly understood and backed up by mishandling Scripture, so we need to tread lightly and never go further than Scripture. But by confessing "He descended into hell" we mean that He went to hades, the realm of the dead, not gehenna, the place of eternal torment. We confess that He descended into the realm of the dead to say that Jesus was not sleeping, in a coma, or in any way alive, but died to defeat death itself.