The word Creed means "I believe." Often people will say "I don't have a creed, I only have the Bible." However, such a statement would only work in a perfect world. Almost all christian denominations will say they teach scripture and yet come to different conclusions. If you ask someone what the Bible teaches they will inevitably start saying what they "believe" in their own words. They make up a creed on their own - it's inescapable. Either they refuse to have a formal creed because they don't take a hard stance on what scripture teaches or they don't realize they have a creed, (although less formal). A statement of faith cuts through the word play and draws truths out from scripture to interact with people's notions of God. When men make these statements it will either be Biblical or not Biblical. Statements of faith are not automatically contrary to scripture because in scripture there are people who make statements of faith all the time.
Even a heretic can say "I only have the Bible." In fact, during times when the Roman Empire was warming up to Christianity such heretics existed and denied Christ's divinity. The heresy was quite pervasive, causing difficulty in the Church and a council was convened to figure out how to deal with this teaching. The Church united to confess scripture truthfully in the words of the Nicene Creed, formulated in Nicea, 325 AD.
These kinds of councils weren't foreign to the Church. Even in the time of the Apostles, church councils were formed to deal with heresy. The Council of Jerusalem took place in Acts 15 and dealt with the problem of circumcision. In like manner, the council of Nicea re-confessed the teaching of scripture and thereby made a statement of faith. It simply clarified in a concise way what we receive from Christ by the Spirit in Holy Scripture.
Creeds are consequently an orderly way of marking boundaries of faith to positively express Christ, and to call those back to repentance who do not believe in the necessary teachings of scripture. It is also an appropriate way for us to confess and believe our salvation because it has been founded and elaborated in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - which is the name of God by which we receive our salvation.
The Creeds are always about Christ. (If it isn't about Christ it isn't Christian.) One of the most basic creeds comes from St Paul in Philippians 2. "Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus Christ is Lord." And so in the very early Church the most basic creed was "Lord Jesus Christ." Jesus meaning the man, Christ meaning the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, Lord that he is God. However even this needed to be quickly elaborated.
The creed kind of took a pragmatic shape throughout history. Because people would often twist what the Bible said, Christ needed to be confessed more fully and formally. So what you get from the early church was a basic expression and then out of necessity a unified expression. The basics needed to be unpacked by scripture to maintain its proper meaning and orthodoxy. Therefore the longer creed is still the same as the basic creed, however it is more thorough in defending those essential truths.
Like anything, even something simple, if you try to explain it and break it down, it will seem more complex. Surprisingly, the Creed is still pretty simple. If you quickly glance it over it might seem like head knowledge. But it's important to remember that the confession is not just an intellectual "I believe that" but its an "I trust in" statement which clings to Christ. The statements are all from the Bible, the word of God.
The Apostle's Creed was probably the first unified Creed. It wasn't written by the Apostles but only named after their teaching. the Apostle's Creed:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen
Before the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds, churches would each make their own creed locally. But as common heresies came up so did the need for common (formalized) confessions to maintain unity and fellowship in the faith. In confessing the Nicene Creed today, we recognize the Christians (saints) who went before us, who stood for sound doctrine. They passed on the true teaching of scripture to us through history, and we stand even with those who died for this confession. And so we confess with them and give testimony to the common confession of every Christian. When we stand up to recite the creed we stand in fellowship with all the company of heaven. We are united in one faith, one church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. The Trinitarian faith isn't new tradition, but we are tied into one ancient Church with the same, single confession: Lord Jesus Christ.
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