And Jesus saith, “And you, Simon, son of Jonah, who do you say that I am?”
And Simon answered and said to Him, “Verily, thou art the Second Person of the Trinity, co-equal in substance with the Father and the Holy Ghost, being verily God and man in hypostatic union, one unified person and will in two natures conjoined and yet not conmingled, co-eternal with the Father, co-equal with the Father as regards thy Godhood and yet subordinate to Him as regards thy manhood, the same being one Christ whereal.”
And Jesus saith unto Him, “Say what?!”
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The earliest creed was almost certainly, “Jesus is Lord.” Anyone who was prepared to accept Jesus as Christ and Lord, and to follow His commandments, was welcomed as a follower of the Way.
As time passed, the definitions of the Holy Trinity and of the Two Natures in Christ became spelled out in inordinate detail, each guarding against the bad effects of a heresy. (And to do justice to the early Fathers, this was not philosophical infighting about nitpicky definitions to them; they saw the negative effects on the faith of the various heresies, and their definitions of orthodoxy were intended to protect against those bad effects, not to play exclusionary games.
Most modern Christians of denominational allegiance adhere to some formulary founded on the Nicene Creed and Act V of the Council of Chalcedon defining the nature(s) of Christ. The Assyrians and the non-Chalcedonian Oriental Orthodox (Copts, Jacobites, and Armenians) are working ecumenically towards definitions and formulae that will allow them to bring their historical understanding into union with the Catholics and Orthodox.
Many Protestant groups prefer Articles and Statements of Faith to the ancient creeds, but the content relative to the Trinitarian and Christological issues is nearly always very close to or precisely identical.
There are exceptions to every rule: the United Pentecostal Church holds to what is essentially Unitarian doctrine; our old friend His4Ever was opposed to the Chalcedonian definition for several years before finally grasping and accepting it.
But in general, most Christian groups define themselves as Trinitarian and Chalcedonian in doctrine.
This does not mean, however, that individual understandings are obliged to subscribe to that theology, on pain of being called non-Christian.
“Jesus died for your sins” does not mandate an Anselmian understanding of how someone both God and man mediated the offense which man was obliged to pay but only God could. It simply says that in some manner Jesus through his death was able to atone and bring back to unity God and man.
And so on. For all the formularies.
I’m prepared to accept anyone who has an understanding of who Jesus was (historically) and what he taught, and who in consequence wishes to follow him, as a Christian, and let the theological details work themselves out over time. This does not mean I wish to water down the rich theological understanding built up over centuries – just not use it to bar the door to someone seeking after Jesus.
