It's fitting we should say something about this word believe. After all it's this word which gives the creed its name - credo is the Latin verb meaning I believe. It's also the first thing confessed, by which we are distinguishing ourselves from others - "I am a believer" or put negatively, "I am not an unbeliever." That's a good place to start. Why bother considering something one doesn't believe?
But this word also has a range of meaning not always appreciated in popular usage. Many times it's just a synonym for "I think...", "it's my opinion that..." or maybe "I hope...". But the Bible means something very specific when it comes to belief or faith - particularly faith that leads to salvation. There are actually three distinct aspects to Biblical belief:
First, there is the knowledge aspect. Our faith is not a vague optimism but has a definite content or object that's being believed and of course this knowledge is the facts of the gospel. But simply knowing stuff - even of a gospel nature - doesn't constitute saving faith. James chides those who didn't get that: "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that -- and shudder," James 2:19.
Secondly, there is assent - we agree, given the facts, that this gospel makes sense; it holds together. This seems to be the level of faith Nicodemus had when he spoke with Jesus in John 3, "[Nicodemus] came to Jesus at night and said, 'Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.'" Yet Jesus goes on to tell him he doesn't yet know as he ought to know. There was something missing from his faith.
Thirdly, there is trust. Here we move on from simple knowing and assenting to the truth to putting our trust in it. We forsake all and fully embrace that salvation spelled out in the gospel. Yet it's at this stage we must understand that faith is much more than mental processing of facts leading to an agreeable conclusion.
John puts his finger on it by recording, "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God," John 1:12-13. This final aspect of faith - trust - involves an act of the will which flows out of a renewed heart.
Admittedly, the Apostle's Creed is weighted toward the first aspect of faith presenting to us, not so much the gospel proper - as in an evangelistic appeal - but the essential foundations of the gospel message; to which every one who's born again says, "I believe," in the fullest Biblical sense of the word.
