Our Father, we are so very thankful to be able to gather this day, this Lord's Day, as your people. What a blessing and what a gift. We pray that you would remind all of us, even now, of our identity in Christ, the great hope we have in the Lord Jesus, what you have accomplished Through the person and work of Christ, Lord, we pray that that would so fill our hearts and minds, the joy of our salvation, that it would overflow into doxology, worship, and praise to the King of Kings. And Lord, we pray now for all the Sunday School teachers, from birth to the older adults, Father, that you would bless the teachers who have prepared to teach Father, we pray that they would, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, clearly and faithfully open up your word and equip the saints and equip the future generation, children being raised up in the admonition and instruction of the Lord. Lord, we pray your blessing upon this very day of worship. Lord, we are so thankful to be here. We are so thankful for all of your provision and blessings in our life. And we pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen. trying to get straight in every, because some guys don't use their first names as their first names, like Dennis Fowler over there. At any rate, it's good to be with you today. I've been asked to address the subject of the church being confessional today in this class. Now, that may seem a strange thing to some of you with regard to the Missions Emphasis Month that you're in right now, but let me say that The Nicene Creed, you may know, confesses four things about the Church as one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic. And that word apostolic actually combines in itself both the idea of the Church being confessional and being missional. and the two things are really one historically in the church. So here's where we're going today. I want to address the subject of why we must be confessional and subtitle that The Propriety and Necessity of the Church Holding a Confession of Faith. I've got a lot of material to cover, so that's why I have a PowerPoint to attack both your ears and your eyes, okay? Now, two issues, then, must be distinguished. Is it legitimate to hold to a confession? And are there good reasons to hold one? You see, those are two different questions. Your elders could have taken me out for sushi last night. I'm glad they didn't. It would be legitimate to have sushi for dinner, I guess. Some of you may like it. But I'm glad it's not a necessity. So propriety, that it's all right to do something, and necessity, that you have to do something, are two different things, aren't they? So, we're going to look at two things this morning, if we can, before that 10-15 mark shows up in the clock. The objections to confessions answered, and then the obligation of confessions established. So, the objections answered. Many Christians today, if you grow up in a background like mine, First Baptist Church of Stanton, Michigan, The many people in those kind of circles are suspicious of creeds, catechisms, and confessions. They sound very Roman Catholic to them. But the first thing. as a matter of historical fact, which our Baptist forefathers did in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England, when they gained their freedom through that Glorious Revolution, the first thing they did was get together and adopt a confession of faith. So it is a Baptist thing to have confessions, creeds, and catechisms. In fact, they had actually done this once before when there were only seven churches in the London area in 1644. The 1689 is the second London Baptist confession of faith. James Bannerman identifies two of the more serious objections to confessions. First, he says in his great book on ecclesiology, which is good even though it's Presbyterian, First, subordinate standards have been objected against as setting aside the sole and supreme authority of Scripture as the rule of faith and as militating against the absolute sufficiency and perfection of the sacred volume. You see what he's saying there. He's saying that people have objected to confessions because they seem to contradict the sufficiency of Scripture. And he says, second, subordinate standards, by that he means confessions, have been objected against as an assumption of an authority on the part of the church, not belonging to her, and the imposition of unlawful restrictions on the Christian liberty of her members. So this is the other argument he says against confessions. They restrict the legitimate liberty of Christians. And I think, from my own experience, that Bannerman is right with regard to what people's complaints are, usually about confessions of faith, or what they assume they may complain about. So we have to ask, do such objections have any legitimacy? Well, certainly, if If confessions did impugn the sole supremacy and sufficiency of scripture, and if they did infringe the Christian's liberty in Christ, if, if they did that, then certainly creeds and confessions would be bad. If. Certainly the Bible teaches the freedom of the Christian in Christ from the illegitimate infringements of human authority. First Peter 5.3 tells elders, nor yet is lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. First Corinthians 7.22 and 23 is familiar, isn't it? For he who was called in the Lord while a slave the Lord's freedmen. You were bought with a price. Do not become slaves of men." So Christian liberty is real and it must not be infringed, right? And the Bible teaches the sole supremacy and sufficiency of the scriptures. The great text here is 2 Timothy 3, 14 to 17, where Paul says to Timothy, from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God, God breathed, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate. Equipped for every good work. So the Bible teaches the sufficiency of scripture. It equips the man of God for every good work. So Why do we need confessions then? That's the question that a text like that suggests to some people Now I'm going to present my reply to these objections under four points quickly confessions of faith do not infringe the sole authority of the Bible or Christian Liberty and Confessions of faith don't rival or challenge the supreme authority of scripture. Concessions of faith do not undermine the sufficient authority of scripture, and rejecting all confessions is self-refuting. That's where we're going in the next few minutes. Confessions do not infringe the sole authority of the Bible or Christian liberty. The objector says, if the church adopts a confession of faith and imposes it upon its members, then the Bible is no longer the sole authority. But here a crucial distinction is necessary. What do we mean by calling scripture our sole authority? We mean that it is our soul. divine authority, don't we? We don't mean to say that there are no authorities besides scripture. We're only saying it's our only divine authority. The authority of the family, Ephesians six. The state, Romans 13. And the church, obey your elders and submit to them for they watch for your souls. Those authorities are all real, but they are human authorities, not divine. Now, why is that important to know? Because confessions are expressions of the authority God has given the church. Confessions of faith are a kind of human authority. They're not, and they don't pretend to be, divine authority. And this is where the objector gets it wrong. God has given the church the authority, officially, to teach the Word of God. It gives the church the authority, if someone doesn't submit to what that church believes to be the Word of God, to treat them as a Gentile and a tax collector, Matthew 18, 17. In 1st Timothy 3.15, the church is called the pillar in support of the truth. This is part of the church's job, to be the pillar in support of the truth, to stand for the truth of Jesus Christ. And this gives the church a kind of authority, not divine authority, but certainly a real authority to say to people, this is what the word of God says and you must believe it. So, Confessions are promulgated, that's a big word, isn't it? Promoted, adopted, by a legitimate human authority, the church. Only where divine authority is attributed to creeds and traditions of the church is the sole authority of scripture infringed. Do some people attribute that kind of authority to their creeds and to their traditions? Of course they do. Rome does this in attributing authority to its oral traditions and to its creeds. We do not. The distinction between divine and human authority, however, also shows why creeds do not infringe Christian liberty. Does the rule of the family the state or the church infringe Christian liberty? Are you infringing the Christian liberty of your three-year-old when you tell them, don't jump on the couch? No, you're not. You have a legitimate authority to rule your own home as a father and mother, and you're not infringing the liberty of your three-year-old when you use it. And neither is the state when it makes laws that are within its jurisdiction, nor does the church infringe Christian liberty when it acts on the basis of the authority God has given it. No, the point is, properly exercised, each of these authorities has its own rules and laws that in a sense go beyond scripture, but Christian liberty is not infringed by them. because these authorities are given their authority by God. Yes, we must always obey God rather than man, but there is still such a thing as legitimate human authority. Furthermore, subscription to a creed or a confession is and should be voluntary. It is in our country, there are countries where it wasn't, Joining a church and subscribing his confession should be voluntary You don't have to join a church and and adopt his confession You can go someplace else, but the church itself has a right to say this is what we think the Bible teaches We join that church. You've got to submit to that In our country then Creeds like this are voluntary. The complaint that creeds infringe our personal liberty is also for this reason completely groundless. Here's Dr. Bob Martin. Dear man of God, who wrote on this subject, and has now passed away, but he said, fears concerning liberty of conscience would be justified if subscription to a confession were required without the subscribers being able to examine the articles of faith, or if subscription was 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. But here's the second thing I want to say in response to those objections. Confessions of faith do not rival the supreme authority of Scripture. Since we do not place any human creed on a level with Scripture, as we've just made clear, it remains the sole divine authority of Christians. Its supremacy is therefore unchallenged. Granted, Rome teaches that its traditions and creeds are on a level with Scripture, And granted, some Protestants have acted as if that was true, but that is not how we hold our confessions. The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith itself asserts this principle. It says in chapter 1, paragraph 10, the Supreme Judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men and private spirits are to be examined and in whose sentence we are to rest can be no other But the Holy Scripture, delivered by the Spirit, into which Scripture so delivered, our faith is finally resolved. So the confession itself teaches the supremacy of Scripture. Oh, and by the way, it teaches the sufficiency of Scripture as well. But that's the next objection. Do not confessions impugn the sufficiency of Scripture. Are they not a denial of what is also called the perfection of scripture? If we have the Bible, why do we need confessions? Well, first of all, let's admit that we do believe in the sufficiency of scripture as stated in our confession itself. Here's 1 6a of the 1689. 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, onto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelation of the Spirit or traditions of men. Confessions are not adding to Scripture. They must not be understood that way. They are not more Scripture. What are they then? There's the text, we've read it already, that speaks of how the scripture is adequate to equip the man of God for every good work. Was this key passage on the sufficiency of scripture forbid pastors, here's the question, from putting the message of scripture into their own words? When your pastors get up on Sunday morning, Must they only read to you sermons that are already in the Bible? Must they only pray prayers verbatim that are already in the Bible? Of course not. The church recognizes always and everywhere that we may pray and that we may preach in ways that put scripture into our own words, right? We may pray and we may sing and we may preach with words that distill, there's a good word, distill the teaching of scripture. This is not adding to scripture. So we have to ask the question, is preaching or teaching or praying without using the exact words of scripture in consecutive order a denial of the sufficiency of scripture? No. then why are confessions, which are doing just exactly the same thing, why are they a denial of the sufficiency of Scripture? The answer is, they're not. So what are we doing when we preach and pray and teach and confess in our own words? We are distilling Scripture. Don't often have orange juice, but they had a nice orange juice for breakfast at my motel this morning, and I had orange juice. Properly done orange juice doesn't add to oranges. What does it do? It squeezes them and distills them, right, into orange juice. You're not adding, orange juice does not add to oranges. Confessions do not add to scripture. It's the same thing. And so we do not impugn the sufficiency of scripture when we preach, teach, or confess that scripture in our own words. In fact, the Bible tells us that we have to. We have to confess the word of God. The sufficiency of scripture is its sufficiency as a resource for the man of God to preach, teach, sing, pray, and confess. But I want to come to a fourth reason, answer to the objections, and that's rejecting all confessions is self-contradictory and self-refuting. When a man contradicts himself in what he says, we know he's wrong, right? Well, I've been playing defense at this point, but let's see how silly now anti-credalism is. It's self-contradictory and hypercritical. Why do I say that? Because those who reject creeds actually have creeds themselves. What? Yes, they do. Yes, they do. He who says no creed but scripture has just uttered a creed, hasn't he? Brief one, very unclear one, very confusing one, but he's got a creed when he says no creed but scripture. John Murray says, in the acceptance of scripture as the word of God and rule of faith and life, there is the incipient seed form and basic creedal confession. Some statement must be made to this effect and to the exclusion of all other norms of faith and conduct. But why should creedal confession be restricted to the doctrine of scripture? There are other doctrines just as essential as the doctrine of scripture. He goes on, furthermore in our situation today, it is not sufficient to affirm scripture to be the word of God, the infallible rule of faith, because such a confession in the esteem of many. Comports with a view of scripture that denies the doctrine of scripture the evangelical maintains and that is set forth in scripture itself Thus the basic confession must be elaborated To assert and defend the view of scripture implicit in the confession that it is the Word of God So we can say no script no creed, but scripture, but then we have to ask What exactly do you mean by the authority of scripture? I What books actually are included in the scripture? Are there four gospels or seven? You see, it's not that simple, is it? You can't just say no creed but scripture because that implies assumptions about a lot of other things. Take the person who says no creed but Christ. People do say that. Sounds nifty, doesn't it? But what is the first question we should ask such a person? Yeah, I wish I had time to open it up, you know, because you know where we're going with this now, right? What or whom do you mean by Christ? Do you mean a Christ who is God and man in two distinct natures and yet one person forever? Is that who you mean? A lot of people who say they believe in Christ don't mean that at all. But we think it's pretty crucial that you mean that by Christ, don't we? An anti-credalist might think, well, I can get out of this by saying I have no creed at all. You see the problem with that? His creed is that he has no creed at all. Yeah, right, okay, doesn't work, does it? So rejecting all confessions is self-contradictory and self-refuting. The refusal to have any creed is a creed. Birkhoff says every church has its dogmas. Even the churches constantly decrying dogmas have them in effect. When they say that they want a Christianity without dogma, they are by that very statement declaring a dogma. Dunlap says, while all confessions are overturned and contemned, this should nevertheless be established and enforced as an alterable article of faith and a constant creed that there should be no confessions or test of orthodoxy. Yeah, you see how hypocritical and self-contradictory this is. So, to conclude this first point, the anti-creed list is reduced to saying dogmatically that there must be no dogmas. Many who fear creeds, I know, I know, are simply uninstructed. They need to have a Sunday school class like this, maybe they would know better. But some anti-credalism is a cover for actual heresy, unfaithfulness to doctrinal commitments that people have made but they won't stand by, unmortified attachment to their own personal liberty, sheer dislike of authority, proud unwillingness to learn from Christ's gifts to the church and history. A lot of it is that and not simply being uninstructed. Oh, but we said there's a second question, and so we must come along to the obligation established. So, nothing wrong with creeds, you say, but why must we have them? Ah, I'm glad you asked that question. Confessions are not only legitimate, but necessary and thus obligatory for five reasons. There they are. I'm gonna keep moving here, but that's where we're going in the next few minutes. First of all, our fundamental identity demands that we have creeds or confessions. The Nicene Creed expresses its faith in one holy Catholic, small c, you see, means universal, and apostolic church. I believe that the Nicene Creed is correct. The church must be apostolic. But what does that mean? Matthew 16, I'm gonna turn to these passages. You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, Ephesians 2.20. The church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Revelation 21.14, where the grand and glorious vision of the New Jerusalem has 12 foundations, which are the 12 apostles of the Lamb. In these passages, the church is said to be built on the apostles. But what does it mean for the church to be apostolic? Well, one thing it means is that the church must be confessional. It begins with and is built on the apostle Peter's confession of Jesus. Who do you say that I am, Peter? You are the Christ, the son of the living God. That was the first and seed confession upon which the church was built. You must hold Peter's confession to be the church. So it begins with that. In his confession, Peter agrees with the father. That's what it means to confess something. It means to agree with something. The father called Jesus his son, Matthew 3.17. And Peter says, amen, you are. And there it is. You know the text. quoted it to you. This is what it means to confess. Therefore everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. We must confess Jesus before men. That means putting the word of God and stating the word of God out of our own mouths. Silence is not enough confession is required 1st John 4 2 & 3 by this, you know the Spirit of God every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God so confessing these passages means to Say the same thing as the free work Lexicon says Peter said the same thing as the father about Jesus Confessions are valuable because they are the church's united, official testimony to the truth. This means that Peter and the other apostles are the foundation of the church because they confess the truth about Jesus. The church built on the apostles also is obliged to confess the truth about Jesus. Its fundamental identity is that it is the pillar and support of the truth. The church must confess that Jesus does not support transgenderism. The church must confess that Jesus is not in support of the LGBTQ agenda. It must confess that. It's not enough to be silent about that. It must be the pillar in support of the truth. The church is a land stand. It must shine with the truth. not just in some archaic language that was necessary in the fourth century, but with specific support of the truth in the context of the 21st century. An apostolic church is a confessional church, and the church must be apostolic. The duty of the church is to bear witness to the truth against the particular errors of its culture, It's not enough to say I believe in Jesus when the LBTG agenda is in, is the error being talked about. It's not enough for God to say it. It's not enough for the Holy Spirit to inspire it. The Bible teaches that the church must confess it. Every church has a creed. It is more honest to admit it and state clearly what it is. Unwritten creeds, a lot of churches have them, are the most tyrannical creeds of all. Birkhoff again, they all have certain definite convictions in religious matters, and also ascribe to them a certain authority, though they do not always formulate them officially and acknowledge them candidly. History clearly proves that even the present-day opposition is not really an opposition to dogmas as such, but simply opposition to a certain kind of dogmas, or to certain specific dogmas, which do not find favor in the eyes of modern theologians. But there's a third reason why we must be confessional. Our exposing of error demands it. Aaron Heresius demanded the creedal formulations of the church. Why was there the Nicene Creed? Because the Arian heir was denying that Jesus was God. Why was there the Chalcedonian Creed? Because heirs in that day were denying that Jesus was both true God and true man and one person forever. Heresy is often claimed to believe in Christ in Scripture. Thus requiring belief in Christ in scripture has been insufficient to distinguish truth from error. The apostolic period of the church confirms this. Credal formulation begins in the New Testament itself. They didn't just keep saying verbatim, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. No, the New Testament prophesied that satanically inspired heresy, counterfeit Christianity, would arise. It requires that such heresy be plainly exposed. See the text? You know them in the pastoral epistles. And thus the New Testament records the beginning of creedal formulation in response to heresy. In a number of passages, earlier revelation is restated, reshaped, expanded, in a way calculated to rebuke heresy. Gnosticism, distinguished between the fleshly Jesus and the heavenly Christ in the Creed of the Church, is expanded by the Apostle John and 1 John to say that Gnosticism is not truly Christian. So the church now confesses that Jesus Christ has come into flesh. Was that assumed and implicit when Jesus asked Peter, who do you say that I am? You are the Christ, the son of the living God? Yes, it was implicit there. But now it's gotta be said explicitly that Jesus Christ has come into flesh. He isn't simply some heavenly spirit and the man Jesus somebody else. What about this, the Judaizing error that circumcision is necessary for salvation is also rebuked in language that expands on Peter's confession. The Jerusalem Council affirms with new clarity that Gentiles don't need to be circumcised. The church is not built on Christ and circumcision. It's built on Christ alone. So Peter says in Acts 15 11, but we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they also are this is what we believe this is our creed this is our confession as opposed to Judaizing And the New Testament contains germinal creeds one faith one Lord one faith one baptism is a germinal creed And then we have the faithful sayings and trustworthy statements of the pastoral epistles. But the heretical onslaught on the church did not cease with the close of the New Testament. And therefore, creedal formulation had to continue, had to be expanded. The Arian heresy led the church to clarify the deity of Christ in the Trinity in the Nicene Creed. Arians claimed to believe in their own way, and every Bible verse you quoted against them. And so the Nicene Creed uses non-biblical terms like trinitas and homoousias to refute and exclude the Arian heresy. And Apollinarian and other heresies forced the church to clarify the doctrine of the person of Christ in the Creed of Chalcedon, where they taught that he was the one sinless, eternal person of the Son of God with two distinct natures. This is the hypostatic union. It's not a biblical phrase, but it's a biblical idea. The Roman heresy. led to the Reformation creeds, which taught that the doctrines of scripture alone, grace alone, Christ alone, and faith alone were the foundational doctrines of the church. Here's my favorite quote on this subject. I love this quote, even though it's by a Presbyterian. What he's gonna say here is really knocks the socks off of me. A man may accept the same inspired books as yourself, Well, he rejects every important article of the faith you find in these books. If we are to know who believe as we do and who dissent, we must state our creed and language explicitly rejecting such interpretations of scripture as we deem to be false. And then I hear that old Presbyterian talking like this. Papists, Unitarians, Armenians, all profess to find their doctrines in scripture, but they don't find them in the Westminster Confession. Right? I just hear him saying it that way, that's why I have to say it that way. They don't find them in the Westminster Confession, and that's why we have confessions, right? Confession helps to maintain the purity of the church and its membership, which ought not to have fellowship with evil. Without a confession, there's no standard by which to call account Arab belief or teaching. Someone comes in, they say, I believe the Bible. What do we do about that? What they believe is in the Bible is very different from what I think, but nothing we can do about it. A church without confession will be hard pressed to exclude error or a crafty false teacher. Fourthly, our spiritual unity demands it. The unity of the church is of paramount importance in the New Testament. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, being diligent to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. The unity of the church requires a confession because doctrinal agreement is crucial to unity. Doctrine isn't the enemy of unity, it's the foundation of unity. First Corinthians 110 says it very clearly. Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree. Literally, what Paul says here is say the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. Well, it looks like saying the same thing is important to unity, doesn't it, from that text, huh? If anyone advocates a different doctrine, it does not agree with sound words. Those of our Lord Jesus Christ know the doctrine conforming to godliness. He's conceited, understands nothing, but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth. So deep spiritual unity in the church according to these passages requires that there be unity in the truth as it is in Jesus. In turn, this requires that the church agree on what that truth is. Such agreement requires churches to hold and adopt confessions of faith. Finally, our Christian fellowship demands it. Christian fellowship is built on knowledge. Now, I know, you're nicer than me, but you know, I think everybody has this problem. If you don't know somebody, the closer you get to them, and have to work with them and so forth, suspicion is really easy, right? It's easy to become really suspicious if you don't know anything about somebody. Fellowship is limited until we're truly convinced that a person or church is genuinely Christian remember how that the tribes that were going back across the Jordan River after the land had been conquered and They built this altar and the other ten tribes got together They're gonna wipe them out because they put a wrong construction on why they built that altar go read Genesis Joshua 22 and It was only after they sent Eleazar the high priest, I think it was Eleazar, and they had a conversation and they realized, oh, that's what you guys are doing, that suspicion was allayed and unity was renewed. They have to have knowledge to have unity and to destroy suspicion. This leaves no room for refusing to give proof that we are disciples to other Christians if they ask for it. Given the subtle and deceptive nature of heresy, the vindication of the ministry of the church requires a plain confession of faith. Now, okay, so this is Texas. I'm a Yankee, I'm sorry, I apologize. A Michigander, but I guess that's all right, because one of your pastors was from Michigan too, I think. Yeah, so. This is an illustration that comes from the Northern Baptist Convention. This is true history. This is what really happened. It's what led to the formation of the denomination I grew up in, the General Association of Rugger Baptists. The fundamentalist controversy in the Northern Baptist Convention in the USA provides a telling illustration of the usefulness of confessions. At the height of the controversy, conservatives moved to adopt the New Hampshire Confession, shortened form of the 1689, actually. Even the shorter confession would have been an effective barrier against modernism and liberalism. But Baptist anti-credalism, yes, I said Baptist anti-credalism, led to the defeat of this motion and the victory of modernism. Here's what happened. It's quoting Furness in the Fundamentalist Controversy. One of the most important test of strength, the adoption of a declaration of faith, the Fundamentalists suffered another defeat. When Riley moved that the convention pledge itself to the New Hampshire Confession, Wolfkin's substitute proposal that the New Testament is the all-sufficient ground of our faith and practice and we need no other statement was approved by a large majority. 1264 to 637 and that was the triumph of modernism in the northern Baptist confession convention This statement That sounds so pious that the New Testament is an all-sufficient ground of our faith and practice The confession would have stopped that nonsense But it was voted down by Baptist anti-credalism Thanks for your attention, let's pray. Father, we do come to you, we're thankful and we praise you for the commitment to truth of this church. We ask that you deepen its commitment to the truth and its understanding of it. We thank you for the privilege we have now of entering into the special presence of God and worshiping the living God. We ask that you draw near to us. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.