The Value of the Westminster Standards

While I am a Reformed Baptist, much of what is communicated in this brief article “Maintaining Unity in the PCA – The Usefulness of the Westminster Standards” by Pastor Nick Batzig would equally apply to the Baptist Confessions and Catechisms I hold to (original source here – http://gospelreformation.net/maintaining-unity-pca/):

In his short essay, “Is the Shorter Catechism Worthwhile?” B.B. Warfield told the following short story about the importance of loving the teaching of the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

A general officer of the United States army…was in a great western city at a time of intense excitement and violent rioting. The streets were over-run daily by a dangerous crowd. One day he observed approaching him a man of singularly combined calmness and firmness of mien, whose very demeanor inspired confidence. So impressed was he with his bearing amid the surrounding uproar that when he had passed he turned to look back at him, only to find that the stranger had done the same. On observing his turning the stranger at once came back to him, and touching his chest with his forefinger, demanded without preface: “What is the chief end of man?’”On receiving the countersign, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever”—”Ah!” said he, “I knew you were a Shorter Catechism boy by your looks!” “Why, that was just what I was thinking of you,” was the rejoinder.

My initial exposure to the Westminster Standards (i.e., the Westminster Confession of Faith, and Shorter and Larger Catechisms) was a significantly less advantageous experience. As a new convert, I was surrounded by a number of seminarians who seemed to principally appeal to the Standards in order to critique and correct the erroneous theology of others. This fostered in me the perception that the Standards were fundamentally polemical in nature. I began to view the Westminster Confession of Faith as a restrictive and contrarian document—as something akin to legal documents rather than a theological document full of spiritually rich expositions of biblical truth. Additionally, I have met numerous ministers in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) who have expressed almost a sense of embarrassment when speaking about the Standards on account of their antiquated origin and language.

Over the years, however, I have come to view the Westminster Standards, not through the lens of early pejorative experiences but through the lens of ongoing Christian experience and pastoral ministry. I now have a deep love for the Standards as being a succinct exposition of biblical truth and articulation of the doctrines of the Protestant tradition. The Standards are a doctrinal outline of the Christian faith—full of both doctrinal and experiential truth.

A Standard?

The Westminster Standards have long served as the doctrinal standards to which ministers and churches in Reformed Presbyterian churches adhere. While the Standards have been a staple of Reformed Presbyterianism for centuries, they were first and foremost ecumenical documents—the product of 120 of the greatest theologians in all of church history. The members of the Assembly, who themselves served in different ecclesiastical fellowships (having quite a number of differing theological opinions among themselves!) sought to walk together as far as they could for the sake of biblical fidelity and doctrinal unity. Meeting over 1,130 times in 6 years, the members of the Assembly have given us one of the most careful articulations of the Christian faith even written.

In Reformed Presbyterianism, the Westminster Standards are just that—the standard by which we vow to test our doctrinal formulations. Ministers and members alike are to appeal to them to express what we believe to be biblical teaching and to reject what lies outside the bounds of confessional orthodoxy. They are not inspired and inerrant documents. God has reserved those categories for His breathed-out Word. The Standards can, by proper process, be amended by our denomination—a process to which God’s Word may never be subject. While we acknowledge that the Westminster Standards are human documents—subject to revision—one old Southern Presbyterian professor stated so well the importance of the theology of the Westminster Standards when he said, “The theology of the Confession of Faith is not perfect; but, it’s better than yours; and, you can have your theology corrected by a diligent study of it.” That sentiment captures the high regard that Reformed Presbyterian ministers have had for the Westminster Standards.

The Usefulness of the Standards

Despite the fact that the Standards have always held a uniquely important place in Presbyterian church history, many American Presbyterian ministers have either denied their teachings, ignored their usefulness, or simply given lip service to the vows that they took to uphold and teach their truths. Downplaying the importance of the Westminster Standards lay at the root of the Old School/New School division in the 19th Century—a division that resulted in the toleration of doctrine and practices that opposed the clear teaching of Scripture and the Standards. Additionally, it was a neglect of confessional orthodoxy and a denial of the integrity of the vows that Presbyterian ministers took that led to an embrace of theological liberalism at the turn of the 20th Century in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and at Princeton Theological Seminary.

There will always be those who deny the teaching of the Confession, ignore its usefulness, or give lip service to the vows that they have taken to uphold and teach its truth. The last of these dangers is perhaps the most subtly pernicious. J. Gresham Machen explained that those who tolerated the shift towards theological liberalism in the Presbyterian Church, in the name of unity, were more dangerous than the theological liberals who were pressing for the diminution of doctrinal fidelity and confessional orthodoxy. In Christianity and Liberalism, Machen wrote:

Many indeed are seeking to avoid the separation. Why, they say, may not brethren dwell together in unity? The Church, we are told, has room for both liberals and for conservatives. The conservatives may be allowed to remain if they will keep trifling matters in the background and attend chiefly to “the weightier matter of the law.” And among the things thus designated as “trifling” is found the cross of Christ as a really vicarious atonement for sin.1

The tendency for ministers to utilize the subtlety of arguments that press for unity as over against truth (or, unity as being “weightier” than truth) ought to alert us to our own need to be diligent in defending confessional integrity in the PCA. Real and lasting unity is rooted in truth. We are far from immune to a shift toward theological liberalism. To think otherwise would be the height of foolish self-confidence.

This ever-present danger is intensified by the fact that we live in a day and age when men and women treat the vows that they have taken before God with little to no solemnity. Individuals throw away their marriage and walk away from local churches over the most inconsequential issues. The Scriptures are clear about the seriousness with which God deals with the vows that we take before Him. In Ecclesiastes 5:4–6, Solomon explained,

When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?

Both ministers and members of PCA churches take vows to “maintain…the purity and the peace of the church” (BCO 5-9 (i.3), 21-5 (6) and 57-5). Those of us who have taken ministerial vows must seek to keep those vows with the utmost seriousness. If we treated the quest for unity in our marriage as being more important than the quest for truth, duplicity, deceit, and infidelity would run rapid and ultimately destroy any and all unity. It is unimaginable that any Christian would desire anything less than loving unity in truth with his or her spouse. How equally zealous ought we to be for loving unity in truth in the Church of God, the bride of Christ which He purchased with His own blood! After all, ministers in Christ’s church have been entrusted with the great stewardship and principle task of maintaining the peace and the purity of the bride of Christ.

A consideration of our own experiences, the nature of the Standards, the history of American Presbyterianism, and the biblical teaching on vow-making should help awaken in us a desire to pursue confessional integrity in our own lives and ministries. Here are four ways that we, as ministers in the Presbyterian Church in America, can pursue such confessional integrity:

  1. Incorporate the Westminster Standards into our regular devotional and theological diet. We do ourselves an enormous disservice by failing to read the Standards regularly and devotionally. Whenever I have recognized such a deficiency in my own life and have returned to a meditative study of the Standards, I have come away sensing the enormity of the benefit derived. There is almost no theological subject upon which they do not touch. Additionally, the Standards have experiential warmth that is meant to stir the hearts of men and women unto a greater love for Christ and a deeper commitment to seeking after God.
  2. Assimilate the Westminster Standards into our regular preaching ministry. There is no better source of theological definitions than those we will find in the Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechisms. For instance, if we are preaching from the Scriptures on the subject of regeneration, justification, sanctification, adoption, faith, or repentance, we will find no more careful and succinct definitions than those which we find in the Shorter Catechism.
  3. Integrate the Westminster Standards into the ministries of our congregations. While some will have an initial reversion to it, one of the best things that we can do in our children’s ministries is to have our children memorizing the Shorter Catechism. A systematic approach enables us to cover nearly every precious doctrinal truth of Scripture with our covenant children. This is not to say that it should be a replacement to Bible memorization or teaching. However, there is no better supplement. After all, as Warfield expressed, we want our sons and daughters to grow up to be Shorter Catechism boys and girls.
  4. Defend the Westminster Standards in the courts of our denomination. We who have taken ministerial vows to the Standards should be diligent to defend their teaching in the courts of our church. This means that if we serve on theological examination committees (i.e., committees appointed for the examination of men for licensure and ordination) we should test all theological answers against the clear teaching of the Standards we have vowed to uphold.
  1. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman’s, 1923), 160.

Follow up video:

The Usefulness of the Westminster Confession | Nick Batzig & Nate Shurden from Gospel Reformation Network on Vimeo.

Creeds in Song

The Apostles’ Creed

… put together in song for memorization purposes.

Song words:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will 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.

The Nicene Creed Song

… put together in song for memorization purposes.

Song words:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father [and the Son],
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The Nicene Creed

This historic creed has stood the test of time as a means to keep God’s people in the truth, as well as to expose heretics who cannot adhere to it. The historic background of Arianism is explored (along with its modern day adherents, the Jehovah’s Witnesses) as well as a full debunking of the idea that the concept of the Trinity was introduced by Emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. This sermon has many applications for our own day.

THE NICENE CREED

325 AD and 381 AD*

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, Light of Light, Very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father**; By whom all things were made;

Who for us and for our salvation, came down from heaven,
and became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man;

For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, He suffered death and was buried, and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father; He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead; and His kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic*** and apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins****; We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. AMEN.

*The original Nicene Creed (325 AD) ended after the words,
“We believe in the Holy Spirit”. Content was added at the Council of Constantinople (381 AD). The Council of Ephesus (431 AD) reaffirmed the creed in this form and forbade additional revisions.

**“One in essence, three in Person” is the most concise definition
of the doctrine of the Trinity. The three divine Persons, are distinct in terms of their personal relationships to one another, but not in their essence or Being. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are co-eternal, co-equal and equally divine.

***The word “catholic” refers to the universal Church

**** Because water is a cleansing agent for dirt on the body, it is a fitting visible sign for the spiritual cleansing that God effects for our souls in Christ. But note that the reality of forgiveness to which baptism points comes to pass only as baptized individuals repent (Acts 2:38).

Creeds and Confessions

Article by Justin S. Holcomb who serves as Canon for Vocations in The Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida. He also teaches at Reformed Theological Seminary and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. (original source: whitehorseinn.org)

Tradition is the fruit of the Spirit’s teaching activity from the ages as God’s people have sought understanding of Scripture. It is not infallible, but neither is it negligible, and we impoverish ourselves if we disregard it. — J. I. Packer1

Obviously, Christianity did not begin when it was born, nor did our generation invent Christian thought. We live two thousand years removed from the time of our founder, and—for better or for worse—we are the recipients of a long line of Christian insights, mistakes, and ways of speaking about God and the Christian faith. Today’s Christianity is directly affected by what earlier Christians chose to do and to believe.

The fact that Christianity developed over time (as opposed to having spontaneously appeared)—that the sixteenth century, for instance, looked very different from the third, and that both look very different from the twenty-first—can sometimes lead us to wonder what the essential core of Christianity is. As a result, some people decide to ignore history altogether, and they try to reconstruct “real Christianity” with nothing more than a Bible. But this approach misses a great deal. Christians of the past were no less concerned with being faithful to God than we are, and they sought to fit together all that Scripture has to say about the mysteries of the Christian faith—the incarnation, the Trinity, predestination, and more—with the intellectual power of their times. To ignore these insights is to attempt to reinvent the wheel and to risk reinventing it badly.

Thankfully, the church of the past has given us a wealth of creeds, councils, confessions, and catechisms. These are tools the church has used to speak about God clearly and faithfully, to guide its members closer to God, and sometimes to distinguish authentic Christianity from the innovations, heresies, and false teachings the New Testament warns of. While their purposes differ, all try to communicate complex theological ideas to people who do not have sophisticated theological backgrounds (in some cases, to people who are illiterate).

Once the divine authority and sufficiency of Scripture are properly understood and established, we should regard the church’s ministerial authority (the theological statements from the tradition) as very useful tools. John Calvin writes:

Thus councils would come to have the majesty that is their due; yet in the meantime Scripture would stand out in the higher place with everything subject to its standard. In this way, we willingly embrace and reverence as holy the early councils, such as those of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus 1, Chalcedon, and the like, which were concerned with refuting errors—in so far as they relate to the things of faith. (Institutes of the Christian Religion 4.9.1)

What Is a Creed?

The English word creed comes from the Latin word credo, which means “I believe.” Church historian J. N. D. Kelly says that a creed is “a fixed formula summarizing the essential articles of the Christian religion and enjoying the sanction of ecclesiastical [church] authority.”2 More simply, the creeds set forth the basic beliefs of the church that have been handed down from earliest times, what the New Testament calls “the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people” (Jude 3). When teachers throughout history called parts of this faith into question (usually the parts that were taken for granted or less well-defined), the early church reaffirmed the essentials in ways that honored the traditional teaching. Continue reading

Creeds and Confessions in the Biblical Text

Deuteronomy 6:4

While John 3:16 is the most famous verse in the Bible, it is fair to say that in the Old Testament, the most well-known words are found in what the Jews call the Sh’ma, found in Deuteronomy 6:4. There in English we read these words, “Hear O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” This is nothing less than a creed for the people of Israel that was recited daily. It clearly affirms mono-theism – the belief in one God.

Jesus quotes the Sh’ma in Mark 12 (v.29):

28 One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?”

29 Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD;

30 AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’

31 The second is this, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’

Even in our own day, one Jewish theological website refers to the Sh’ma as “the centerpiece of the daily morning and evening prayer services and is considered by some the most essential prayer in all of Judaism. An affirmation of God’s singularity and kingship, its daily recitation is regarded by traditionally observant Jews as a biblical commandment… It is recited at the climactic moment of the final prayer of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, and traditionally as the last words before death. Traditionally, it is recited with the hand placed over the eyes.”

Through the many centuries of Israel’s history, the regular, repetitive reciting of the Sh’ma has kept many generations of Jews away from the gross idolatry that surrounded them. That was not always the case, of course, and yet this creed was used to keep Israel distinct and separate as God’s people.

Romans 10:9

When we come to the New Testament, Romans 10:9 outlines a simple creed of the early church – “Jesus is Lord.” The verse reads, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved…”

To get the full impact of what this entails we need to understand something about what it meant to live in the Roman Empire in the first century.

The Romans were polytheists, believing in many gods and all people in the Empire, without exception, had to acknowledge the divine nature of the Emperor, Caesar. There was an affirmation to affirm – two simple words, “Kaiser Kurios” which meant “Caesar is Lord.” As and when demanded, this creed had to be affirmed by all under Roman rule. Not to say this could well mean instant death. Many Christians were fed to the lions and wild animals in the Coliseum in Rome because of their stubborn, heroic refusal to recite this simple affirmation to Caesar.

This scenario is so foreign to us in our day and time that perhaps I have to spell it out so that we all grasp the true reality of all this. As they entered the dreaded arena, the Christians had only to say two words and they could live: “Kaiser Kurios” – “Caesar is Lord”. Instead they proclaimed, “Iesous ho Kurios” or “Jesus is Lord”, and paid for the privilege with their blood.

Story after story could be told of the brave Christians who, under the certain threat of death, would not renounce their Master, men and women who would not bow their knee to Caesar, acknowledging him as a god. Instead, they confessed the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It therefore meant something… really meant something, to recite this early creed.

1 Corinthians 12:3

This is the historical background for the statement in 1 Corinthians 12:3 – “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” This early creed “Jesus is Lord” was therefore supremely precious to the people of God. Allegiance to the creed was a matter of life and death. The Christians would rather die than, by their words, renounce Jesus Christ.

This confession of the Lord Jesus was admittedly basic and it is very evident that as Christians grew in their knowledge of God and of Scripture, so their creeds and confessions expanded and grew, and over time, became more broad and comprehensive. As novel (new) ideas and heresies spread in and around the church, the true Christians needed to expand the vocabulary of their creeds in order to stem the tide of the false doctrines.

1 Corinthians 8:6

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, affirms the monotheistic foundation of the Sh’ma while also acknowledging the full deity of Christ. Jesus is the Lord, Creator and Sustainer of all things.

“There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” – 1 Corinthians 8:6

Ephesians 4:4,5

Here we see a confession that affirms our unity in Christ between Jews and Gentiles.

The Apostle Paul writes, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

While physical differences remain in that males remain males, females remain females, and the ethnic distinctions of Jew and Gentile and color still exist, the dividing wall of hostility between them has been broken down and abolished forever (Ephesians 2:11-18). Though we are not all not identical, we are all one in Christ Jesus. While there are still Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, no division between these two groups should exist in the church. We are united in Christ.

1 Timothy 3:16

Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 3 were a confessional statement against the raging heresies of the day, as well as an affirmation of the truth:

“By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness:

He (God) who was revealed in the flesh,

Was vindicated in the Spirit,

Seen by angels,

Proclaimed among the nations,

Believed on in the world,

Taken up in glory.” – 1 Timothy 3:16

Concerning this verse, Pastor Tom Hicks writes, “This confession was written as the church faced a number of additional heresies, including Gnosticism, Asceticism and Paganism. It confronted these newer heresies even as it also confronted the older errors of Judaism. We learn from this that the older errors don’t go away, which is why the church must keep adding to its confession. The church needed to confess that Christ is Lord, contrary to Judaism. It needed to declare the full humanity of Christ over and against Gnosticism. It needed to affirm the sufficiency of Christ’s work to save, contrary to Asceticism. And it needed to confess that God is one, over and against the polytheism of Paganism.”

From the Garden of Eden to our own day, truth has always been under attack. Throughout Israel’s history and through to the time of the early Church, God has used the short creeds and confessions found in Scripture as a means to keep the faithful sound in doctrine.

A Case for Robust Confessions of Faith in the Churches

Article: A Case for Robust Confessions of Faith in the Churches by Tom Hicks, Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Clinton, LA. (original source here)

A question often arises as to whether the church should have a minimal confession of faith or a robust and encyclopedic confession of faith. Some argue that a church’s formal confession should be short so that Christians with a variety of views on secondary doctrines may all join the church, while the pastor is free to teach anything he believes the Bible means. But I submit that it is the biblical responsibility of the church as a whole, not just the pastor, to confess its understanding of the meaning of the whole Bible, and that the pastor is to submit to the confession of the church. The Bible says that “the church” is “a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim 3:12). Some worry that subscribing to a robust confession of faith is unworkable in a local church, but I disagree.

Historically in America, most early Baptist churches had comprehensive confessions of faith, two of the most influential of which were the Philadelphia Confession among Baptists in the North and the Charleston Confession among Baptists in the South. Both of those confessions are based on the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. Practically speaking, in our day, the churches need a robust confession in order to promote greater health and to remain faithful to Christ amidst the rising tide of secularism and individual autonomy. But most importantly, the Bible indicates that the church should confess its understanding of the Bible as a whole and therefore, the church’s confession ought to be robust.

1. The Basic Biblical Requirement of Confession

The Scriptures teach that Christians are to confess their faith. In the Old Testament, a basic confession of faith is found in the Shema. Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

In the New Testament, we see the content of a basic confession in Romans 10:9-10, which says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

So, at a very basic level, a confession of faith in Christ as Lord and Savior is required for salvation. But this basic confession will expand as Christians grow in their understanding of Scripture and as they disclaim doctrinal errors.

2. The Expanding Nature of Confessions in the Bible

When we study the confessions found in the Bible, one of the things we find is that as the church encounters new errors, it confesses more and more doctrine in order to confront those errors.

A Confession Against Judaism. 1 Corinthians 8:6 combines the confession that there is one God with the confession that there is one Lord Jesus Christ. It says, “There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” In this confession, the basic Jewish affirmation of monotheism is affirmed. But in order to distinguish themselves clearly from the Jews who denied the deity of Christ, the church also affirmed Christ as Lord and Creator of all things.

A Confession Against Division. Some professing Christians in the early church would have divided the church between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. But the Apostle Paul confessed in Ephesians 4:4-5, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” This confession affirms the oneness of all who are united to Christ.

A Confession Against Gnosticism, Asceticism and Paganism. We see a further expansion of the church’s confession in 1 Timothy 3:15, in which Paul writes so that “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by the angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” This confession was written as the church faced a number of additional heresies, including Gnosticism, Asceticism and Paganism. It confronted these newer heresies even as it also confronted the older errors of Judaism. We learn from this that the older errors don’t go away, which is why the church must keep adding to its confession. The church needed to confess that Christ is Lord, contrary to Judaism. It needed to declare the full humanity of Christ over and against Gnosticism. It needed to affirm the sufficiency of Christ’s work to save, contrary to Asceticism. And it needed to confess that God is one, over and against the polytheism of Paganism. Continue reading

Creeds, Confessions, Catechisms, and Covenants in Corporate Worship

Article by Jake Stone (original source here)

In his instructions to Titus, Paul writes that ministers are to “teach what accords with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1). The pulpit ministry that upholds and follows biblical exposition heeds these words of Paul. The pastor preaching the Scriptures verse-by-verse by using the historical-grammatical-theological/redemptive hermeneutic feeds his congregation. Theologically-rich, biblically based hymns are also a means by which the congregation is taught sound doctrine.

I would like to recommend a further means why which the preaching of sound doctrine can be faithfully taught in the corporate gathering of the saints each Lord’s Day. The 4 “Cs” are a way in which the congregation celebrates biblical truths, theology, and ecclesiastical bonds with the past. These four “Cs” are: creeds, confessions, catechisms, and covenants. Each of these is rooted in the Scripture: 1. an expression of doctrinal beliefs, 2. a reminder of the importance of church membership, and 3. a guide believers in the instruction of the faith.

Creeds

Perhaps you have heard that Baptists have “No creed but Christ” or “No creed but the Bible.” Some have boldly asserted these phrases to celebrate what they perceive as a Baptist distinctive: anti-creedalism. But Baptists are not anti-creedalists. While it is true that Baptists rejected creeds as a litmus test for citizenship, since Baptists abhor a state church, Baptists never disowned creeds as though they had no importance in the life of the church. Baptists have always held to Christian orthodoxy as expressed in the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. Both Particular and General Baptists affirmed the use of creeds. The Baptist Orthodox Catechism, edited by the Particular Baptist, Hercules Collins, says the Nicene Creed and Athanasian Creed ought to be taught. In The Orthodox Creed, the General Baptists affirm and encourage Baptists to learn and teach the aforementioned creeds. The early Southern Baptist theologian, B.H. Carrol, affirmed the importance of creeds, when he wrote: “The modern cry: ‘Less creed and more liberty,’ is a, degeneration from the vertebrate to the jellyfish, and means less unity and less morality, and it means more heresy.”

Why should Baptist churches use the historic, ecumenical, orthodox creeds in corporate worship? These creeds provide biblically faithful and understandable defenses and explanations of the Trinity, the hypostatic union of Christ, and other central tenets of the Christian faith. Continue reading

3 Reasons Every Christian Needs to Use the Creeds

Article by Timothy Massaro, staff writer for Core Christianity. He is the Social Media Manager for the White Horse Inn. (original source here)

When we think about the Christian faith, most people today rarely think about creeds, liturgy, or confessions, let alone see them as essential to their relationship with God. Our hesitation concerning creeds is understandable, especially when they are disconnected from our worship and love of God. People often see them as cold, mindless doctrines that have nothing to do with Jesus. But this is not how they were created nor how they should be used.

In the creeds of the early church, we find something of a hidden secret a treasure chest overlooked by many. We find a way to instruct ourselves and our children in the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Let’s look at each of these three points to see why every Christian needs to use the creeds in their personal and corporate worship.

1. Creeds are instructive because they are biblical.
When we think of the great Christian creeds (the Apostles Creed or Nicene Creed, for example), we often put them in opposition to the Bible. What we often do not realize is that the Bible itself leads us into making creeds and is filled with creedal statements.

In the Old Testament, we see Israel confessing its faith in God as it worshiped him in what is called the Shema: Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deut. 6:4-5). This daily statement of faith is intertwined with the command to love God. Who God is and what he has done to save his people is tied to our response in faith and love. Credo, from which creed is derived, after all simply means, I believe.

The early church inherited this tradition and confessed before the world what it believed. Many of these confessions and creeds found their way into the New Testament writings (cf. 1 Thess. 4:14, 2 Cor. 5:15, Rom. 4:25, Rev. 2:8). These statements were circulated in the early church to confess what they believed. Who God was, who Jesus was as the God-man, and what he came to do were essential to their worship and life as the church.

We rightly say that Scripture is our ultimate authority. When the church becomes aware of what it believes in opposition to false teaching concerning how we come to a saving faith in God, we must clarify our beliefs. We must write them down. The Apostle Paul did this and placed many of these statements into the New Testament (1 Cor. 15:3-5, 11:23-26; 2 Thess. 2:15). Jesus himself tells the church in the Book of Revelation to carry on this biblical tradition and believe what they have received and heard from the apostles the eyewitness testimonies of the risen Lord (Rev. 3:3).

The church looks at Scripture as its ultimate authority and cannot but respond in faith concerning what she believes. She believes, confesses, and declares to the world what God has done for her in Jesus Christ. To neglect this great treasure is to attempt to reinvent the wheel and miss what Christians for millennia have been doing as part of their faithful witness to Jesus. Study the creeds to know they are true.

2. Creeds are summaries of redemption and lead us to worship God.
While the creeds were formed in the heat of controversy, it was often the case that worshipping God in church, what was said, sung, prayed, and spoken, became the fountain from which people recognized truth from error. Worshipping God, and understanding what was necessary for our salvation, drove our church fathers to write down why salvation had to look and be a certain way. Without each person of the Godhead being fully God, the early church knew there could be no salvation. We could not worship God rightly. Without Jesus being fully God and fully man, we have no hope. Worshipping Jesus as Lord drove them to confess their faith against error.

The earliest creeds, therefore, became the very life-blood of Christian worship and the way to praise God for all his wondrous deeds.

He appeared in the flesh,

was vindicated by the Spirit,

was seen by angels,

was preached among the nations,

was believed on in the world,

was taken up in glory (1 Tim. 3:16).

This is still our pattern today. As we come to know more and more about God, our worship and love for him are purified by Gods Word and Spirit. This is specifically what Christ came to do. He brought us to worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). He is the one who forms and shapes us to speak all the words God has given us to say, declaring to the world the works of God (Ps. 71:15, 105:1, 145:6; Heb. 10:5-10). Creeds are meant for worship, to be sung, recited, and memorized so the word of Christ may dwell in us richly. Put them into your worship services to meditate on God.

3. Creeds are guardrails for our faith and doctrine.
When our beliefs are written down and we have them informed by those who have gone before us, we safeguard ourselves from our generations peculiarities and from the tyranny of leaders who would abuse their authority. Like roads on a highway, they keep us from driving onto terrain that will destroy our tires or, as Paul says, to prevent us from shipwrecking our faith (1. Tim. 1:19).

When we fail to write down what we believe and why, we open the door for peoples unspoken traditions to tyrannize us. When traditions are unspoken, they ironically take on supreme authority. Because no one can read them, no one can question them. When they are written down, they compel us to see if they are in fact biblical. When they are known by the smallest child to the oldest saint, they can lead us to worship the triune God as he has revealed himself.

In the creeds, we find a way to worship God with the saints of all ages, hearing the echoes of worship through the centuries. We find a people from all nations, tribes, and tongues worshipping the triune God for the redemption he has purchased in Jesus. We have a foretaste of the new creation he has ushered into this world and will one day bring to completion. In the creeds, we see time-tested paths to tread that keep us looking to Jesus every day as we seek to know him more and more. Use them to guide your love for the triune God.

“The Creedal Imperative” by Carl Truman – A Review

Article by Tom Hicks – original source here.

With Christianity on the wane in Western culture, some leaders have urged Christians to deemphasize secondary doctrines in order to stand united on gospel essentials. Our numbers are too small, they say, for Christians to continue nit picking at each other on long disputed matters of theology. Let me suggest, however, that doctrinal minimalism is the wrong approach, especially at this time. While all true Christians should stand united for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom and against the rising specter of secularism, this is not the time to sideline secondary doctrines of the faith. Now, more than ever, we need robust, thoroughly biblical expressions of Christianity. We need an encyclopedically confessional faith.

Consider briefly three reasons this is true. First, when Christianity was small and under pressure in Rome, the apostle Paul wrote the church of Rome a detailed theological letter that included carefully articulated secondary doctrines. Paul believed that rich theology is needed for healthy Christians and churches during troubled times. Second, because the culture continues to assault the gospel, we need the Bible’s whole theological support structure, if the gospel is to remain intact. Secondary doctrines provide the necessary intellectual and ecclesiastical supports of the gospel. Third, when the surrounding culture is most decidedly opposed to the faith, evangelism and disciple making must be theologically robust, if conversions are to be sound, since converts will be coming from worldviews that are radically different from that of Scripture. These converts will also need well-developed theologies to think and live Christianly in our post-Christian society.

It is with these thoughts in mind that I offer the following review of Carl Trueman’s book, the Creedal Imperative. Trueman’s work summons the churches, particularly the churches of the Protestant and Reformed tradition, to embrace thoroughgoing creedalism. This delightful volume is well-written, witty, historically precise, and deeply applicable to our contemporary situation. While Trueman’s book is full of cultural commentary, historical perspective and theological discussion, here are some of his arguments for creedalism that I found most helpful.

1. Creedalism confronts our culture’s suspicion about words. We live in a culture in which pictures, feelings, and sound bites are often believed to convey more meaning than carefully crafted words. Our postmodern age doubts whether words can carry objective meaning. But God chose to reveal Himself by the inscripturated words of the Bible. Like the Bible, confessions of faith convey God’s truth through words. Creeds insist that words are suitable vehicles for the communication of objective truth.

2. Creedalism confronts our culture’s anti-historical bent. Because Western culture is so deeply influenced by evolution, it’s reluctant to value the wisdom of ages past. Westerners believe that new ideas are better than old ones. But creedalism asserts that true wisdom is as old as God’s own mind and that the sages of the past have more to offer than the innovators of the present. Another reason for Western culture’s anti-historicism has to do with the fact that Westerners don’t view human nature as constant across time. What does someone in the 17th Century have in common with me? But Scripture teaches that human beings have the same fallen nature across time and that the same old gospel reconciles us to God.

3. Creedalism confronts our culture’s anti-institutionalism. Western society is basically anti-authoritarian and therefore distrusts all institutions, including the institution of the church. Our society tends to trust, not those who are actually skilled and knowledgable to speak to important issues, but those who are young and popular, like Lady Gaga. But the Bible clearly declares that the church is a “pillar and buttress of truth” (1 Tim 3:15), and that it supports the truth by way of confession: “great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness” (1 Tim 3:16). God calls pastors and churches to teach the whole counsel of God and enforce orthodoxy by way of their God given authority under Christ and His Word.

4. Creedalism is required by the Bible. In 2 Timothy 1:13-14, Paul says, “Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.” Commenting on these verses, Carl Trueman writes, “Conspicuously, Paul does not simply say to Timothy, ‘Memorize the Old Testament or the Gospels or my Letters’ any more than he ever defines preaching as the reading of the same. The form [pattern] of sound words is something more [that is: a pattern of words that explains the content of Scripture, as in creeds]. Anyone who claims to take the Bible seriously must take the words of Paul to Timothy on this matter seriously. To claim to have no creed but the Bible, then, is problematic: the Bible itself seems to demand that we have forms of sound words, and that’s what creeds are” (75-76).

5. Creedalism prevents innovative and inferior theological formulations. Some pastors and teachers, who call themselves “biblicists,” approach the Bible independently and innovatively without consulting the careful work of historical theology. They do this, even though teachers and pastors have been hard at work formulating doctrine, throughout the history of the church, so that the full meaning of Scripture is clear while errors are avoided and excluded. Trueman wisely warns the “biblicist” pastor, “Do not precipitately abandon creedal formulations which have been tried and tested over the centuries by churches all over the world in favor of your own ideas. On the whole, those who reinvent the wheel invest a lot of time either to come up with something that looks identical to the old design or something that is actually inferior to it. This is not to demand capitulation before church tradition or a rejection of the notion of Scripture alone. Rather, it is to suggest an attitude of humility toward the church’s past which simply looks both at the good that the ancient creeds have done and also the fact that they seem to make better sense of the testimony of Scripture than any of the alternatives” (107).

6. Creedalism alone allows for the most open critique of theology. Those who claim to have “no creed but the Bible” actually do have a creed. They have an opinion about what the Bible teaches on doctrines such as predestination, the will of man, assurance, baptism, the nature of the church, etc. The only difference between someone who claims “no creed but the Bible” and a “creedalist” is that the creedalist writes his creed down so that it can be examined and critiqued by Scripture. Trueman writes, “What he [the non-creedalist] really should have said was: I have a creed but I am not going to write it down, so you cannot critique it; and I am going to identify my creed so closely with the Bible that I am not going to be able to critique it either” (160).

7. Creedalism avoids authoritarianism. According to Trueman, non-creedalist “biblicists” are actually “more authoritarian than the papacy” (161). Since non-creedalist pastors and teachers will not write down what they believe so that their beliefs can be critiqued, they may teach their churches whatever they personally come to believe the Bible says even if that changes over time. For non-creedal teachers, primary authority is located in their own personal interpretation, rather than in the church’s written and agreed upon creedal interpretation, which is open to public scrutiny.

8. Creedalism is in the best position to guard the supreme authority of Scripture. Orthodox creeds assert the Scripture’s supreme authority, which protects the church from elevating a creed to the level of Scripture. Anyone who attempted to give the creed more authority than Scripture could be corrected both by the Scripture and by the creed itself. Moreover, “once the creed or confession is in the public domain, mechanisms can be put in place to allow for it to function in a subordinate role to Scripture” (161).

9. Creedalism is a biblical basis of congregational worship. Because creeds are concise and careful summaries of biblical teaching, they are foundational to worship. A church must be accurately instructed about the nature of God and His works in order to praise Him properly. Trueman writes, “The identity of God has priority over the content of Christian praise” (143). A congregation that knows an orthodox creed is well-equipped for praise. Creeds may also be recited and sung in corporate worship services.

Sola Scriptura

Early formal Reformed attestation to Sola Scriptura (original source here):

The Genevan Confession was credited to John Calvin in 1536 by Beza who said Calvin wrote it as a formula of Christian doctrine suited to the church at Geneva. More recent scholarship attributes it to William Farel but in all likelihood Calvin did have considerable influence on the document. Indeed the records of the Senate at Geneva indicate that the confession was presented by both Farel and Calvin to the magistrates who received it and set it aside for more detailed examination.

I. The Word of God

First we affirm that we desire to follow Scripture alone as rule of faith and religion, without mixing with it any other thing which might be devised by the opinion of men apart from the Word of God, and without wishing to accept for our spiritual government any other doctrine than what is conveyed to us by the same Word without addition or diminution, acccording to the command of our Lord.