Jesus was executed as a common criminal. He was scourged, mocked, and nailed to a Cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. Though humanly a miscarriage of justice, his execution fulfilled God’s plan of salvation.
The Creed thus makes clear that Jesus’ life and death were real events that occurred at a particular time and place in Judea in the first century AD.
Jesus suffered as a sacrifice for our sins so that we could have peace with God, as prophesied in the Old Testament: “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”
All Jesus does as a human being he also does as God. His human words and deeds are saving because they are the words and deeds of God the Son.
At the moment of Jesus’ conception, the divine nature of the one eternal Person of the Son was united to our human nature. Therefore, Jesus Christ is fully and truly both divine and human, but without sin. His two natures are united without division, separation, mixture, or change.
Jesus was conceived not through a human father but by the Holy Spirit coming upon the Virgin Mary in power. The eternal Son, whom God named Jesus, assumed a fully human nature from his mother, the Virgin Mary, at the moment of conception in her womb. It is important to affirm that he is one of us: truly human, born to a human mother, and raised in a human family. While still a virgin, Mary submitted to the will of God and bore the Son of God. Therefore, she is held in high honor. However, in obedience to God, Joseph took Mary as his wife and raised Jesus as his son.
Jesus alone is God the Son, coequal and coeternal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. He alone is the image of the invisible Father, the one who makes the Father known. He is now and forever will be incarnate as a human, bearing his God-given human Name. The Father created and now rules all things in heaven and earth through Jesus Christ our Lord. I acknowledge Jesus’ divine authority over the Church and all creation, over all societies and their leaders, and over every aspect of my life, both public and private. I surrender my entire life to him and seek to live in a way that pleases him.
Jesus the Christ was anointed by the Holy Spirit to perfectly fulfill these roles, and he rules now as Prophet, Priest, and King over his Church and all creation.
“Jesus” means “God saves” and is taken from the Hebrew name Yeshua or Joshua. In Jesus, God has come to save us from the power of sin and death. Christos is the Greek term for the Hebrew title Messiah, meaning “Anointed One.” Old Testament kings, priests, and prophets were anointed with oil. Jesus the Christ was anointed by the Holy Spirit to perfectly fulfill these roles, and he rules now as Prophet, Priest, and King over his Church and all creation.
