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The
legitimacy and use of confessions by
Dr. Robert Paul Martin The
year 1989 marks the 300th anniversary of the publication of the Second
London Confession (also known as the Assembly Confession or The Baptist
Confession of Faith of 1689).Although it was written and published
anonymously in 1677, after the ascension of William and Mary to the
throne of England and the Act of Toleration, the Particular Baptists of
England met in open assembly, signed their names to the Confession and
republished it for the consideration of the Christian public. The
Westminster Confession of 1647 was used as the basic framework of the
Second London Confession, albeit with modifications. Some of these
modifications were the work of those who drew up the confession; others
were adopted from the Savoy Declaration published by the Independents in
1658 and from the First London Baptist Confession of 1644. The purpose
for this method was to show, wherever possible, the continuity of faith
which existed between the Particular Baptists and their other reformed
brethren in Great Britain. Today reformed Baptists hold the Second
London Confession in high esteem and many of the churches continue to
regard it as their official statement of faith. The
enthusiasm, however, which many have for the great reformed confessions
is not shared by everyone. Sadly we live in a non-credal, even an
anti-credal, age marked by existential relativism, anti-authoritarianism
and historical isolationism. Many professing Christians regard
creeds and confessions of faith as man made traditions, the precepts
of men, mere religious opinions. Speaking of his day, Horatius Bonar
said, 'Every new utterance of skepticism, especially on religious
subjects, and by so-called "religious" men, is cheered as
another howl of that storm that is to send all creeds to the bottom of
the sea; the flowing or receding tide is watched, not for the appearance
of truth above the waters, but for the submergence of dogma. To any book
or doctrine or creed that leaves men at liberty to worship what god they
please, there is no objection; but to anything that would fix their
relationship to God, that would infer their responsibility for their
faith, that would imply that God has made an authoritative announcement
as to what they are to believe, they object, with protestations in the
name of injured liberty.'1 One
wonders what Bonar would say today. Those who conscientiously defend the
great reformed confessions are regarded as anachronisms, if not as
enemies of the faith and of the church. In some circles we are censured
and avoided; and if we attempt to convince others of the benefits of
confessional Christianity and of the dangers of doctrinal
latitudinarianism, we are stigmatized as infected with
'creeping credalism', the theological and ecclesiastical
equivalent of leprosy. In such a climate, it is important that those who
love the reformed confessions have clear views of the legitimacy of
confessions and of their many beneficial uses. A. The legitimacy
of confessions
The
Bible says that the church is 'the pillar and ground of the truth' (1
Tim. 3:15). The term stulos (pillar) refers to a column which supports a
building; and hedraioma (ground) refers to the base or foundation of a
structure. The 'truth' to which the text refers is the revelation which
God made to men, i.e., that special revelation which began in Eden and
which ended with the establishment of the New Covenant, that revelation
which has as its central focus 'the mystery of godliness', the gospel of
Jesus Christ (1 Tim. 3.16). By calling the church 'the pillar and ground
of the truth', the Bible teaches us that the revelation which God has
given for the salvation of men has been entrusted to the church, i.e.,
to an institution which was designed and purposed by God to preserve the
truth pure, to defend it against error and against the attacks of its
enemies, and to commit it undiluted and unadulterated to future
generations. The church was created as a divinely ordered human society
for the support and promotion of revealed truth in the world
This, of course, makes the church indispensable,
just as indispensable as the pillar or foundation of a house. In
carrying out its duty (both to those within the church and to those
without) as 'the pillar and ground of the truth', among other things the
church has published confessions
of faith, an activity which historically it has regarded
as a lawful means for the fulfillment of its duty. But whenever
the church has published such confessional standards, voices have been
raised to challenge the legitimacy of its having done so. Two basic
objections have been raised. l.
Some argue against the legitimacy of confessions on the premise that
confessions of faith undermine the sole authority of the Bible in
matters of faith and practice. The
cry is often heard: 'No creed but the Bible.' In some cases this
affirmation is worthy of respect, for some appear genuinely to be
motivated by the recognition that the Bible has a unique place in the
regulation of the church's faith and life. Nevertheless, it is naive to
believe that the church wholly discharges its duty as the pillar and
ground of the truth by proclaiming that it believes the Bible. Most
heretics will be willing to say the same thing. One writer proclaims,
'To arrive at the truth we must dismiss religious prejudices ... We must
let God speak for himself ...Our appeal is to the Bible for truth.' The
problem with this statement, of course, is that it is drawn from Let God
be True, published by the Jehovah's Witnesses.2 In
the same vein, consider Samuel Miller's observations on the Council of
Nicea: 'When the Council entered on the examination of the subject [of
Arius's view of the divinity of Christ], it was found extremely
difficult to obtain from Arius any satisfactory explanation of his
views. He was not only as ready as the most orthodox divine present to
profess that he believed the Bible; but he also declared himself willing
to adopt, as his own, all the language of the Scriptures, in detail,
concerning the person and character of the blessed Redeemer. But when
the members of the Council wished to ascertain in what sense he
understood this language, he discovered a disposition to evade and
equivocate, and actually, for a considerable time, baffled the attempts
of the most ingenious of the orthodox to specify his errors, and to
bring them to light. He
declared that he was perfectly willing to employ the
popular language on the subject in controversy; and wished to
have it believed that he differed very little from the body of the
church. Accordingly the orthodox went over the various titles of Christ
plainly expressive of divinity, such as "God" –"the
true God", the "express image of God", etc. –to every
one of which Arius and his followers most readily subscribed –claiming
a right, however, to put their own construction on the scriptural titles
in question. After employing much time and ingenuity in vain, in
endeavoring to drag this artful thief from his lurking places, and to
obtain from him an explanation of his views, the Council found it would
be impossible to accomplish their object as long as they permitted him
to entrench himself behind a mere general profession of belief in the
Bible. They, therefore, did what common sense, as well as the Word of
God, had taught the church to do in all preceding times, and what alone
can enable her to detect the artful advocate of error. They expressed,
in their own language, what they supposed to be the doctrine of
Scripture concerning the divinity of the Saviour; in other words, they
drew up a Confession of Faith on this subject, which they called upon
Arius and his disciples to subscribe. This the heretics refused: and
were thus virtually brought
to the acknowledgement that they did not understand the
Scriptures as the rest of the Council understood them, and, of course,
that the charge against them was correct.'3 A
confession of our loyalty to the Bible is not enough. The most radical
denials of biblical truth frequently coexist with a professed regard for
the authority and the testimony of the Bible. When men use the very
words of the Bible to promote heresy, when the Word of truth is
perverted to serve error, nothing less than a confession of faith will
serve publicly to draw the lines between truth and error. If
we were to accord to our confessions a place equal with the Bible in
authority, we would undermine the sole authority of the Bible as the
regulator of the church's faith
and practice. This, however, was not the intent of those who drew up the
reformed standards. They acknowledged
the unique place of the
Bible, recognized that they were fallible men, and reflected these
perspectives in the confessions themselves. Note the statements of the
Baptist Confession of 1689: 'The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient,
certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and
obedience' (1.1). 'The whole counsel of God concerning all things
necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either
expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture:
unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new
revelation of the Spirit, or
traditions of men' (1.6). The
great reformed confessions do not claim to make anything truth that was
not truth before; nor do they propose to bind men to believe anything
which they are not already obligated to believe on the authority
of Scripture. A
creed or confession is simply a statement of faith (credo means 'I
believe'); and as such no more diminishes
the Bible's authority than saying,
'I believe in God,' or 'I believe in Christ,'
or 'I believe in the Bible.' Those who say that they affirm 'no
creed but the Bible' in reality have
a creed, albeit an unwritten one.
Professor Murray argued: 'In the acceptance of Scripture as the Word of
God and the rule of faith and life, there is the incipient and basic
credal confession ... [for it excludes]
all other norms of faith and conduct.
But why should credal confession be restricted to the doctrine of
Scripture?'4 If
adherents to heretical or
cultic doctrines
and practices
are barred from membership in a local church, if officers and
members must hold certain
doctrines as
truth, then
ipso facto
there is
a commonly acknowledged creed.
In such churches the creed
is as real as if each member
possessed a printed copy. Yet, under noncredal principles, all
should be welcome without discrimination, as long as they can say, 'I
believe the Bible.' The
truth is that the most vigorous opposers of confessions of faith use
their unpublished creeds in their ecclesiastical proceedings and are
just as 'credal' as the credalists they harangue. Thomas and Alexander
Campbell thought that
they could remove the evils
of what they called 'sectarianism' by gathering
a Christian communion without any creed of human construction,
with no bond except faith in Jesus as Saviour and a professed
determination to obey his Word. They
argued that the problem with the visible church was that it was divided
and that creeds and confessions were the cause. The fruits of their
efforts, the so-called 'Churches
of Christ', are among the most sectarian and 'credal' congregations to
be found anywhere. To
those who are concerned that confessions of faith undermine the
authority of the Bible, we affirm without
reservation that the
ultimate ground of the Christian's faith and practice is the Bible, not
our confessions of faith. But this does not mean that it is illegitimate
for those who agree in their judgments
as to the doctrines of the Bible to express that agreement in
written form and to regard themselves as bound to walk by the same rule
of faith. As A. A. Hodge observed, 'The
real question is not,
as often pretended, between the Word of God and the creed of man, but
between the tried and proved faith of the collective body of God's
people, and the private judgment and the unassisted wisdom of the
repudiator of creeds.' 5 2.
Others argue against the legitimacy of confessions on the premise that
confessions of faith are inconsistent with liberty of conscience before
God. Two kinds of men argue in this fashion. Firstly,
some who say this regard all authority, whether scriptural or
confessional, as injurious to the liberty of their consciences. Having
rebelled against the higher standard of the Bible, it is no mystery that
they chafe under the lesser authority of a confession; having spit out
the camel, it is no marvel that they dispose of the gnat so easily. Such
men regard 'free-thinking' and 'free enquiry' as their birthright, yet
instead of desiring to be free so that their consciences may follow
Scripture (which is what they affirm as their motivation), they really
want to be free from the constraint of the Bible on the formation and
propagation of their religious opinions. Shedd
called such men 'latitudinarian bigots', who in reality hate precision,
not love liberty, and who desire to impose their latitudinarian bigotry
on everyone.6 Miller observed, 'Whenever a group of men began
to slide, with respect to orthodoxy, they generally attempted to break,
if not to conceal, their
fall, by declaiming against creeds and confessions.' 7 At the
beginning of their protests, such men generally claim allegiance to the
doctrines of the confession but not to the principle of confessions.
Time generally exposes their hypocrisy. 'Men are seldom opposed to
creeds, until creeds have become opposed to them.' 8
Concerning such men we can only say that as long as their consciences
are not bound by the Word of God, a confession of faith will do them no
injury, except to expose them as hypocrites or heretics! Secondly,
for others the objection based on an appeal to liberty of conscience is
merely a corollary to the previous objection, i.e., the concern for the
authority of Scripture. These folk seem genuinely to be seeking to
defend the premise that the conscience is to be bound only by the
authority of the Word of God. To such we say that the confession
acknowledges that God alone is the Lord of the conscience: 'God alone is
Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and
commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to his Word, or not
contained in it. So that to believe such doctrines, or obey such
commands out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience; and
the requiring of an implicit faith, an absolute and blind obedience, is
to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also' (21.2). Fears
concerning liberty of
conscience would be
justified if subscription to
a confession were required without the subscriber being able to examine
the articles of
faith, or if subscription is
enforced by civil penalty. But if one is persuaded that the content of
the confession is biblical
and if subscription is voluntary, then a confession of faith does no
injury to one's conscience. A man is at liberty at any time to renounce
the church's confession if he can no longer with a clear conscience
subscribe to it. And he is at liberty to join himself to a congregation
where he can fellowship with a clear conscience. Miller
rightly argues that to deny to a group of Christians
the right to frame a confession and the right to subscribe to it
would be to deny to them true liberty of conscience:
'It will not, surely, be denied by anyone, that a
body of Christians have a right, in every free country, to
associate and walk together upon such principles as they may choose to
agree upon, not inconsistent with public order. They have a right to
agree and declare how they understand
the Scriptures; what articles found in Scripture they concur in
considering as fundamental; and
in what manner they will have their public preaching and polity
conducted, for the edification of them selves and their children. They
have no right, indeed, to decide or to judge for others, nor can they
compel any man to join them. But it is surely their privilege to judge
for themselves; to agree upon the plan of their own association;
to determine upon what principles they will receive other members
into their brotherhood; and to form a set of rules which will exclude
from their body those with whom they cannot
walk in harmony. The question is, not whether they make in all
cases a wise and scriptural use of this right to follow the dictates of
conscience, but whether they
possess the right at all? They are, indeed, accountable for the use
which they make of it, and solemnly accountable, to their Master in
heaven; but to man they surely cannot, and ought not, to be compelled to
give any account It
is their own concern. Their fellow-men have nothing to do with it, as
long as they commit no offence against the public peace. To decide
otherwise would indeed be an outrage on the right of private judgment.' 9 In
principle, any doctrinal or moral aberration can come into the church
under the pretense of liberty of conscience. Andrew Fuller asserted:
'There is a great diversity
of sentiment in the world concerning morality, as well as doctrine: and,
if it be an unscriptural imposition to agree to any articles whatsoever,
it must [also] be to exclude any one for immorality, or even to admonish
him on that account; for it might be alleged that he only thinks for
himself, and acts accordingly. Nor would it stop here: almost every
species of immorality has been defended and may be disguised, and thus,
under the pretense of a right of private judgment, the church of God
would become like the mother of harlots-"the habitation of devils,
and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and
hateful bird.'" 10 Similarly,
B. H. Carroll argued: 'A church with a little creed is a church with a
little life. The more divine doctrines a church can agree on, the
greater its power, and the wider its usefulness. The fewer its articles
of faith, the fewer its
bonds of union and compactness. 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. Definitive truth does not create heresy-it only exposes and
corrects. Shut off the creed and the Christian world would fill up with
heresy unsuspected and uncorrected, but none the less deadly.'11 Simply
put, the objections to the legitimacy of creeds discussed in the
preceding pages are groundless. Confessions are a lawful means of the
church discharging its task as 'the pillar and ground of the truth'. B. The uses of
confessions
1.
A confession is a useful means for the public affirmation and
defense of truth The
church is to 'hold fast the form of sound words' (2 Tim. 1:13), to
'contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints'
(Jude 3), and to 'stand fast with one spirit, with one soul striving for
the faith of the gospel' (Phil. 1:27).In the fulfillment of this task, a
confession is a useful tool for discriminating truth from error and for
presenting in a small compass the central doctrines of the Bible in
their integrity and due proportions. First,
credal formulation is part of the public teaching task of the church. A
confession of faith is a public definition to those outside of our
congregations of the central issues of our faith, a testimony to the
world of the faith which we hold in distinction from others. Second,
a confession of faith is a helpful instrument in the public instruction
of the congregation. A confession is a body of divinity in small compass
which can be used to give our people a broad exposure to truth, as well
as a hedge against error. It greatly facilitates the promotion of
Christian knowledge and a discriminating faith12 among the
people of God and among others who attend upon the public ministry of
our churches, as well as being a useful aid to the people of God in the
instruction of their children. Moreover, a confession of faith serves as
a framework within which our people can knowledgeably receive the
preaching of the Word, as well as one which alerts them to novelty and
error, wherever they encounter it. 2.
A confession serves as a public standard of fellowship and
discipline The
Bible envisages the local church not as a union of those who have agreed
to differ, but as a body marked by peace and by unity. The church is to
'keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace' (Eph. 4:3). Its
members are to be 'of one accord', i.e., one in heart, soul, spirit,
mind and voice (Rom. 15:5-6; 1 Cor. 1:10; Phil. 1:27; 2:2). A confession
aids in the protection of a church's unity and in the preservation of
its peace. It serves as a basis of ecclesiastical fellowship among those
so nearly agreed as to be able to walk and labor together in harmony. It
draws together those who hold a common faith and binds them together in
one communion. Jesus
said, 'Every...house divided against itself cannot stand' (Matt. 12:25).
Can Calvinists, Arminians, Pelagians and Unitarians pray, labor,
fellowship and worship together peacefully and profitably, while each
maintains and promotes his own notions of truth? Who will lead in
worship or preach? Can those who believe Jesus to be God pray with those
who regard such worship to be idolatry? Can those who profess to be
justified by faith in Christ alone commune with those who believe
otherwise? Can they sit together at the same sacramental table? Can
those who believe in verbal and plenary inspiration share the pulpit
with those who deny that doctrine? The only way that those who differ on
essential matters can live together in harmony is to call a moratorium
on truth; otherwise, they will indeed 'make the house of God a miserable
Babel'.13 As
noted earlier, all churches have a creed, either written or understood
by its members. And every wise man, before joining, will desire to know
what that creed is. He has a right to know what the church believes and
the church has a right to know what he believes. Now, to have an
unpublished creed as a test of fellowship is disorderly, if not
dishonest. Each man is left to discover the creed of the church for
himself. And the church itself has no easy way to discern if those who
apply for membership are in harmony with the common faith of its
members, since the essentials of their common faith are nowhere
particularized. A published confession greatly facilitates the
evaluation of the doctrinal position of the church by a prospective
member, and vice versa. A
published confession of faith also provides a concise doctrinal standard
for use in church discipline. We are to 'mark them who are causing the
divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which you
learned, and turn away from
them' (Rom. 16:17). We are to cutoff those who trouble the peace of the
church by false doctrine: 'A man that is an heretic after the first and
second admonition reject' (Titus 3:10). In order to fulfill its role in
guarding the purity of its membership, the church must have a doctrinal
standard, and that standard must be published openly, for men have a
right to know by what particulars they will be judged. To require the
church to exercise discipline against doctrinal error without a
published confession of faith is to require it to make bricks without
straw. Nothing
short of a confession of faith will satisfy the legitimate claims of a
church and its members on one another. As James Bannerman observed, 'It
is the duty of the church... by some formal and public declaration of
its own faith, to give assurance to its members of the soundness of its
profession, and to receive assurance of theirs.' 14 A church
without a confession of faith may as well advertise that it is prepared
to be a harbor for
every kind of damning heresy and to be the soil for any who are given to
the crop of novelty. A church without a confession of faith has the
theological and ecclesiastical equivalent of AIDS, with no immunity
against the infectious winds of false doctrine. And
what is true of life within the local church is also true of fellowship
between local churches. What church, which values the preservation of
its own doctrinal purity, as well as its own peace and unity, could
safely have fellowship with another body, knowing nothing of its stand
on matters of truth and error? With no defined faith or polity, such a
non-confessional church might be a source of pollution instead
of edification. Under
such circumstances,
we could not open our pulpits or encourage fellowship among the
congregations with a clear conscience.15 Before
we leave the subject of creeds as standards of fellowship and
discipline, a word needs to be said lest some readers conclude that this
means that every member must have advanced views of Bible doctrine in
order to gain and to maintain membership in a confessional church. Note
the observation of Andrew Fuller: 'If a religious community agrees to
specify some leading principles which they consider as derived from the
Word of God, and judge the belief of them to be necessary
in order
to any
person's becoming
or continuing
a member with them, it does not follow that those principles
should be equally understood, or that all their brethren must have the
same degree of knowledge, nor yet that they should understand and
believe nothing else. The powers and capacities of different persons are
various; one may comprehend more of the same truth than another, and
have his views more enlarged by an exceedingly great variety of kindred
ideas; and yet the substance of their belief may still be the same. The
object of articles [of faith] is to keep at a distance, not those who
are weak in the faith, but such as are its avowed enemies.' 16 3.
A creed serves as a concise standard by which to evaluate
ministers of the Word The
minister of the Word is to be a 'faithful
man' (2 Tim. 2:2), 'holding to the faithful word which is
according to the teaching ... able to exhort in the sound doctrine'
(Titus 1:9). We are to be on guard against false prophets and
apostles. We are to 'try the spirits, whether they are of God'
(1 John 4:1). We are not to receive an unfaithful man into our
homes or to extend to him a
brotherly greeting, lest we become partakers in his evil works (2 John
10). We
cannot obey these admonitions simply by receiving the confession that a
man believes the Bible. We must know what he believes the Bible teaches
on the great issues. A confession of faith makes it relatively simple
for the church to enquire about a man's doctrinal soundness over the
broad field of biblical truth. Without a confession of faith the
church's evaluation of its ministers is haphazard and shallow at best;
and the church will be in great danger of laying hands on novices and
heretics, all because it does not measure candidates for the ministry by
a broad and deep standard. And
what is true in the church's recognition of its ministers is doubly true
when recognizing professors set aside to train men for the ministry. One
cannot overestimate the damage done to the churches by carelessness in
placing men in theological chairs and in giving them the opportunity to
shape the malleable minds and souls of young ministerial candidates. 4.
Confessions contribute to a sense of historical continuity How
do we know that we and our
people are not a historical anomaly, that we are not the only ones in
history who have believed this way? Our confessions tie us to a precious
heritage of faith received from the past and are a legacy by which we
may pass on to our children the faith of their fathers. This, of course,
is no minor issue. A sense of historical continuity greatly contributes
to the stability of a church and to the personal spiritual well-being of
its members. C. Concluding
observations
1.
Modern Christianity is awash in a flood of doctrinal relativity.
Satan and his forces love the imprecision and ambiguity which are
rampant in our day. Spurgeon observed, 'The arch-enemy of truth has
invited us to level our walls and take away our fenced cities.' 17
One wonders what Spurgeon would say, were he alive today and could see
how far the downgrade has gone. Those
of us who love these old standards have the duty of earnestly contending
for the faith once delivered to the saints. We should not surrender our
confessions without a fight. As Spurgeon said, speaking of the
importance of confessions, 'Weapons which are offensive to our enemies
should never be allowed to rust.' 18The great
reformed confessions were hammered out on the anvil
of conflict for the faith and they have flown as banners wherever
the battle for truth has raged. Where men have abandoned
these statements of biblical religion, where latitudinarian
opinions have reigned, the
cause of God and truth has suffered
greatly. An
unwillingness to
define with
precision the faith
that it professes
to believe is a symptom that
something is desperately
wrong with a church and its leadership. It is impossible for such a
church to function
as 'the pillar and ground of the truth',
for it is unwilling to define or defend the truth which it
professes to hold. The reality of
the current situation
is that it is not so much
the confessions as
the churches that are on trial in our day. 2.
Periodically it may be necessary to revise the great confessions
of faith. We should not, however, revise them at every whim or with
every change of theological fashion. These documents were not the
productions of haste and they should not be revised in haste.
Nevertheless, our
confessions are
not inherently
sacrosanct or beyond
revision and improvement; and, of course, church history did not stop in
the seventeenth century. We
are faced with errors today which those who drew up the great
confessions were not faced with and which they did not explicitly
address in the confessions. Thus revision may be judged to be necessary,
but it is a task to be undertaken
with extreme caution. If
in our day we engage in the revision of our confessions,
we must be determined to
go against the spirit
of much of modem
confessional construction.
Modem doctrinal
statements are
constructed for a different purpose than the old confessions. Machen
observed in his day: 'The historic creeds were exclusive of error; they
were intended to exclude error; they were intended to set
forth the
biblical teaching
in sharp contrast
with what
was opposed to the biblical teaching, in order that the purity of
the church might be preserved. These modern statements, on the contrary,
are inclusive of error. They are designed to make room in the church for
just as
many people
and for
just as
many types
of thought
as possible.' 19 3.
Alongside of our appreciation for the
great reformed confessions,
we must remember that each generation
must ground its faith in the Bible. People's faith must not be
rooted only in an allegiance to the confession. In our churches we must
seek to make followers of Christ, not just Baptists, or Presbyterians,
or reformed. The confession must not
become simply
a tradition held
without personal conviction rooted in
the Word
of God.
As Professor Murray observed, 'When any generation is content to
rely upon its theological heritage and
refuses to explore for
itself the riches of divine
revelation, then declension
is already under
way and heterodoxy will be the lot of the succeeding generation.'20 4.
The question of honesty comes into view when we address the issue
of confessions of faith. Both for churches and for individuals,
subscription to a confession is to be an act marked by moral integrity
and truthfulness. Who
would dispute
the premise that
a church should be faithful to
its published standards or that a man should be what he says that he is?
Yet sadly many churches have departed from their confession while still
claiming adherence to the old standards. And many
ministers claim
allegiance to their church's confession, when in truth
they object to (or
have serious mental
reservations about) particular
articles of faith. When
a church departs from
the old paths, if it will not return, And
what is true of corporate life is also true of personal honesty. Samuel
Miller argued
that subscribing to a creed is a solemn transaction 'which ought
to be entered upon with much deep deliberation and humble
prayer, and in which, if a man be bound to be sincere in
anything, he is bound to be honest to his God, honest to himself, and
honest to the Church which
he joins.' 21 Miller goes on to say, 'For myself, I know of
no transaction, in which insincerity is more justly chargeable with the
dreadful sin of "lying to
the Holy Ghost", than in this.' 22 In
closing I must appeal to
pastors. Most of us affirmed adherence to a confession before hands were
laid on us. Brethren, we are under solemn
obligation before God to walk in the unity of faith in the
congregations in which we labor. If we cannot do this honestly, if our
views change, we should withdraw and find a group to we can join
ourselves without duplicity. If we are unwilling to do this, we are not
blameless and without reproach; and, therefore, we are disqualified for
the ministry. Robert
Paul Martin Dr.
Robert Paul Martin is Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, Montville, New
Jersey, USA and Professor of Biblical Theology in Trinity Ministerial
Academy. *From the introduction of the book, "1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, A Modern Exposition," by Samuel E. Waldron. |