Study of the Confessions

In an age of diminishing denominational loyalty, many who participate in the life of Presbyterian congregations come from a variety of church backgrounds or, sometimes, no background at all. The Book of Confessions, which together with the Book of Order form the denomination’s constitution, must be systematically taught to familiarize members as well as officers with the concept and content of “confession.”

The Book of Confessions consists of eleven documents, including creeds, catechisms, and confessions, which were written over a period of time that spanned from the Fourth Century to the present. Creeds are generally brief statements of faith in Jesus Christ, similar to a pledge of allegiance or a collection of theological soundbites. Catechisms, written in question and answer form, encapsulate the key teachings of Scripture regarding the gospel; while confessions are extensive documents which systematically explain and expound the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Why Study the Confessions?

Three reasons for studying the confessions are: first, identity—what we confess describe as well as define who we are; second, historicity—the beliefs we confess point to as well as guarantee unity and continuity with the apostolic teachings of the past; third, authenticity—the confessions attest to whether or not our faith is the real thing.

Identity—Who Are The Presbyterians?

In the creeds, catechisms and confessions, bound together into the Book of Confessions, the Presbyterian Church (USA) declares to its members and to the world who and what it is, what it believes, and what it resolves to do (Book of Order G-2.0100).

Through the confessions, the Presbyterian Church (USA) proclaims that it embraces the faith of the Reformed tradition. “Central to this tradition is the affirmation of the majesty, holiness and the providence of God who creates, sustains, rules, and redeems the world in the freedom of sovereign righteousness and love” (Book of Order G-2.0500). This is an intensely God-centered theology that focuses on the purpose, intent, will, power and glory of God who gives ultimate meaning to human life.

Related to this central theme of God as the sovereign Creator-Lord are several distinctives of Reformed theology:

• The election of the people of God, through his divine initiative for the sake of his sovereign purpose, to salvation as well as service;
• The centrality and finality of biblical authority, with emphasis upon the whole canon of Scripture;
• The historical continuity with the ancient catholic and apostolic church, namely the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Chalcedonian Definition1 of the person of Jesus Christ; Reformed theologians have built upon, not apart from, the work of the ancient church;
• The distinction between Creator and creature, between the self-existent and self-sufficient God and the dependent being of the creature;
• The active polemic against idolatry: the attempt to get control of God, to fantasize a God different from what he has revealed himself to be, or to fasten the infinite God to finite objects such as images, the bread and wine of the sacrament, or the ecclesiastical structures;2
• God himself is the sole and proper witness of himself, therefore Scripture as the word of God is the written revelation that defines and describes him.

Historicity—Are We Connected with the Past?

To study the Book of Confessions is to rediscover Christian identity and authenticity by reaching back to our roots and by digging through the thickets and bushes to unearth our foundation. The two Latin words ad fontes, meaning “back to the original sources,” aptly describe the need to rediscover our connections with the past.

Presbyterian theology traces its roots to the Swiss Protestant Reformation of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with John Calvin (1509 – 1564) as the representative theologian. Protestantism in general and the Reformed tradition in particular had many misgivings about numerous doctrinal developments of the medieval church. John Calvin’s goal of reformation was to restore faithfulness to Scripture as the standard for the church. For him and for the other Reformers, the Reformation was a reaching back to the original sources: the apostolic witness of the gospel given in Scriptures.

This advice to reach back into the past may immediately draw gunfire from all directions because the modern American culture believes Monday is better than Sunday and Tuesday is better than Monday—a kind of “newer-the-truer” or “latest-greatest” mentality. In this kind of contemporary conceit, labeled as “Mondayism” by G.K. Chesterton, commitment to the past is automatically suspect because of the appearance of closed-mindedness. However, commitment to a tradition is not the same as an encrusted dogmatism or rigid traditionalism, nor does it mean a denial of the freedom to think or of the importance of creativity. “To take our roots seriously is to allow the voices of the past to speak to us before turning, with a renewed and informed mind, to face the issues of the present.”3 Reaching back to the past is to look for direction in a classic: “A classic is a point of reference, a perennial resource, something whose meaning and relevance is not exhausted by and in its own day and age, but is available to others.”4 Accepting the confessions as standards for our faith, then, also means acknowledging the historical continuity of our beliefs with those of the saints who have gone before us, claiming solidarity with our forerunners, submitting to the timeless value of those standards and embracing their inexhaustible relevance for time past and present.

Authenticity—Is It the Real Thing?

Presbyterians accept the confessions as “authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do” (Book of Order G-14.0207c). As such, the confessions are the standard for measuring authenticity: whether or not a body of beliefs is in line with Scripture. The confessional standards, therefore, are authoritative interpretations of Scripture. Serious departures from the central teachings of the confessional standards then disqualify one from labeling one’s faith as “Reformed.”

When the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, he referred to some “false apostles” (2 Cor 11:1-6) and “false brothers” (2 Cor 11:26). He also challenged the Corinthian church members with this command: “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourself” (2 Cor 13:5).

In the early church the creeds were used as the litmus test for authenticity. The creeds were called “symbols,” a Greek word related to the verb “to put together.” In ancient times when a man sent a neighbor to a faraway friend, he would break an oyster shell in half. The traveling neighbor would carry half of the shell with him on his journey while the other half was sent ahead to the faraway friend. When the neighbor arrived at the home of the distant friend he would present his half of the oyster shell as sign of identification. If his half fitted the half of the shell that had been sent ahead, his true identity was proved.

The Greek word sumbolon (Latin symbolum or signum) therefore meant an object or part of an object that proved the authenticity or genuineness of identity. This is the proof that “It’s the real thing!” Later a “symbol” became a password used for identification among members of certain religious societies. “In ancient Christianity, however, the word ‘symbol’ came to mean a compendium of the fundamental facts or truths of faith that a candidate had to recite as an evidence of his faith before being baptized and accepted as a member of the church.”5

Confessions and the Meaning of Church Membership

When a person makes a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ and becomes a member of a local congregation, he or she also publicly declares his or her adherence to a body of doctrines related to the person of Jesus Christ. When the apostle Paul writes, “if you confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead” (Romans 10:9), he refers to the Jesus as revealed in Scripture.

In the early church, believers were not only required to profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but they were also to prove their identity as a true believer by “confessing” a compendium of the fundamental facts or truths of faith. In other words, their doctrinal affiliation was tested before they were baptized and accepted as church members. This provided for a kind of theological unity that has become uncommon today.

In the modern church, “one becomes an active member of the church through faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and acceptance of his Lordship in all of life. Baptism and a public profession of faith in Jesus as Lord are the visible signs of entrance into active membership of the church” (Book of Order G-5.0101). A public profession of faith includes simply answering, in the affirmative:

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior?

Do you intend to be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his word, and showing his love, to your life’s end?

In the early church, acceptance into church membership required a period of extensive instruction over two to three years, known as “catechizing;” it also required proof of authenticity in the form of the “symbol.” This kind of “gatekeeping” provided a greater degree of theological unity in the early church.

The standard required of officers in the modern Presbyterian Church (USA) is very similar to the standard required for church membership in the early church. When elders and deacons are ordained and/or installed, they are to respond to two, among many, constitutional questions that specifically point to the confessions as the “symbol” of faith (G-14.0207c):

Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?

Will you fulfill your office in obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, and be continually guided by our confessions?

In order for officers to respond intelligently and responsibly to these questions, there needs to be systematic instruction similar to the catechizing process of the early church. Diligent instruction will also be instrumental in restoring theological unity within the modern church.

Drawing the Circle

The confessions are statements of the Christian faith, specifically the Reformed Christian faith, that set the boundaries for the faith and life of believers.

When a circle is drawn, there is a center and a circumference. The center marks the locus from which the circle radiates while the circumference demarcates what is inside and what is outside of the circle.

If the person of Jesus Christ, as attested to by Scripture, is the center, then the circle is the body of essential tenets that define the Christian faith; more particularly for the Presbyterian, the circle is the body of fundamentals that define the “Reformed Christian faith.” Any belief that conflicts with the essential tenets or fundamentals within the circle automatically disqualifies it from being “Christian,” and more particularly disqualifies it from being “Reformed.” For instance, that Jesus Christ is fully divine and fully human is an essential tenet of the Christian faith and, more specifically, an essential tenet of the Reformed teachings about the Christian faith. If an individual believes otherwise about Jesus Christ, he or she would be disqualified from identifying himself or herself as “Christian” and more particularly disqualified from identifying himself or herself as a “Reformed Christian.”

The catch, then, is the word “essential” or “fundamental.” Who decides what is essential or fundamental? In a nutshell, the essentials or fundamentals of the Christian faith are not determined by you and me. They were determined long ago by the apostles who followed Jesus Christ while he was on this earth. The essentials or fundamentals of the Christian faith, therefore, comprise that body of apostolic teachings about Jesus Christ—his birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection—that have been passed on to us in the written revelation of Scripture.

Relating the Confessions to Scripture

The Book of Order states that the “confessional statements are subordinate standards in the church, subject to the authority of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, as the Scriptures bear witness to him” (G-2.0200). The confessions are authoritative only to the extent that they are reliable expositions of Scripture; therefore the authority of the confessions is a derivative authority.

There is a hierarchy of authority that governs the lives of Christians and directs their actions. In this hierarchy of authority, the person of Jesus Christ is at the apex. However, to the extent that no human being can know God except by means of his self-revelation, Scripture—the written revelation that shows us God—is the final authority. A “Christ” who is divorced from Scripture as objective authority becomes merely a subjective fantasy manufactured by human imagination. Indeed, Jesus Christ himself affirmed the authority of the whole counsel of the Word of God; he never set himself in competition with or in contradiction to the Hebrew Scriptures (John 5:45-47).

For this reason, pitting the authority of Jesus Christ against the authority of Scripture is ultimately the idolatry of the human mind that dares to imagine that human fantasies about God are more accurate and authoritative descriptions about God than his self-revelation. Indeed, “… the confession points away from itself and to the Word of God written as the authoritative and final rule of faith and life.”6

Essentials and Catholicity

The Presbyterian Church (USA) is one denomination within the larger Body of Christ. While the denomination has its own theological distinctives, there are some essential tenets of faith that define Presbyterian believers as “Christians” and bind them to the other saints as one Body of Christ.

The essentials of the Christian faith are what make possible ecumenicity (Catholicity) and transdenominational fellowship; the essentials are what make it possible for Presbyterians to identify with Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists and other Christians. This also explains why the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed are known as the ecumenical creeds. “In its confessions, the Presbyterian Church (USA) gives witness to the faith of the church catholic. The confessions express the faith of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church in the recognition of canonical Scriptures and the formulation and adoption of the ecumenical creeds, notably the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds with their definitions of the mystery of the triune God and of the incarnation of the eternal Word of God in Jesus Christ” (Book of Order G-2.0300).

Conclusion

To study the confessions is to rediscover who Jesus Christ is, according to the apostles, and who we are as a people who claim to put our trust in him. The confessional standards are not simply a compilation of public and private opinions, nor are they the inventions of the human mind. The confessions are expositions of Scriptures that document the self-revelation of God and the apostolic teachings about Jesus Christ. Accordingly, the Christian faith is not an invented faith but an inherited faith.

Questions

1. What are some of the ways in which the study of the confessions help us understand and grow in our faith in Jesus Christ?
2. What are the differences between churches that adopt and use confessional statements (known as “confessional church”) and those that do not?
3. The Book of Order emphasizes and re-emphasizes that the confessions (G-2.0200), though subordinate to Scripture, are nonetheless standards. Why are standards and boundaries crucial to the faith and life of Christians?
4. When studying the confessions, what are the benefits of connecting with the past?
5. In the First Century church, the catechetical process (2-3 years of instruction) which culminated in the reciting of the creed (“symbol”) was the mark of true faith in Jesus Christ. What do modern churches look for as evidence of authentic faith in Jesus Christ? In what ways can the modern church emulate the catechetical process of the early church?
6. During the Reformation in the 15th and 16th centuries, numerous confessional documents were written. How does this reflect the place of confessions in the Reformation movement?
7. There are divergent understandings of the saying “The church once reformed, always reforming” (“Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda”) within the Presbyterian Church. Some interpret it as “adopting new ideas.” The Book of Order defines it as “The church reformed, always reforming, according to the Word of God and the call of the Spirit” (G-2.0200). Compare and contrast these two views.

News from Around the World

This study first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 3, No. 6 (Nov/Dec 1997).