In our Ask FGBC Anything video series, listeners submit questions that we then answer in a video format.

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

confessions, creed, church, bible, scripture, gifts, faith, christianity, christian doctrine, christ, men, theology, distinctives, helpful, challenges, ascended, pope, argument, dogmatism, reactionary

SPEAKERS

Pastor Jim Butler, Pastor Mike Kirkpatrick, Wim Kerkhoff

Wim Kerkhoff  00:06

So next question is why is historical confessional Christianity important? So this is from Ethan and Joey: How should I communicate the importance of historical confessional Christianity to nondenominational friends or family? Who have a superficial, like a shallow understanding of the faith: no creed, but Christ?

Pastor Jim Butler  00:28

Well, I would say, to Ethan and Joey, I would say that the Bible tells us that the church is very important. So we read in Ephesians 4, that Jesus Christ ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and He gave gifts to men. So the gifts that he gives to men in that particular chapter are other men. And those men function as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, as well, in Matthew 28, Jesus says, Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations baptize in the name of the Father, the Son of the Holy Spirit, teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo, I’m with you always, even to the end of the age. So the ascended Christ of the right hand of the Father is present with his church, one of the things that he does is he furnishes his church with gifts. And those gifts are men. And those men are valuable contributors in terms of teaching and preaching. And so the argument is that we do theology in concert with or connected to the church. We don’t just take our Bibles out into the wilderness, we can do that. But we don’t go out into the wilderness to find something that nobody’s ever found before. It was like Charles Hodge, when the founding of Princeton University, which they didn’t keep to this, he says, We will not have original thoughts here. We’re not doing new things here. And I think that’s a good posture. Not to say that there aren’t new discoveries in biblical research. There’s not new discoveries. But this far in, if you’re discovering things the Turretin, Van Maastricht, Calvin, Owen, Augustine, Aquinas, Spurgeon if you’re finding things those guys didn’t, you should be very careful,  before writing your new book. So so with the Creed’s in the confessions, we see that the creedle response in the early part of Christianity was to the various challenges about God’s Trinity, about the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. So you’ve got the church taking seriously the challenges that we’re coming from without, and trying to correct and teach and instruct those challenges within. And so they fashion the Nicene Creed to deal with the the issue of the Triune God. Well, on the heels of that there were other challenges if the Son is God, then how do we understand the Son who is God as man? And so you’ve got Calcidon that comes along and provides a good definition and articulation of biblical truth. So we would be fools. I would suggest we are foolish men in the 21st century, if we don’t look back to what our forefathers contributed those gifts given by the risen Christ to the to the church, for their equipping, for their maturation, for their instruction for their growth, why would we not receive those gifts? And they’ve come to us in the forms of creeds and confessions. So for us, the second London confession, one of the things that we really appreciate is that it incorporates those earlier creedal statements. So in the 17th century, when the reform come to write their documents, they don’t say, Okay, we’re going to just obliterate the Patristics. That means the church fathers and the medieval theologians, we’re going to just start afresh, that’s not what they do. They go back to the patristics, they go to the medievals, and they take those best insights, and they incorporate them into those 17th century confessions. So what we have in those documents is the best, the best that the church has produced in terms of articulating Christian doctrine. For my part I got here 26 years ago, I held to the second London confession then. I hold it a lot more firmly now. I have tried and proven its usefulness. It describes or defines for us Christian doctrine. It as well helps us to distinguish who is and who isn’t member material in the life of the church. I mean, I’m not saying that if you don’t believe our distinctives you can’t be saved, not the argument. But if you don’t believe these distinctive, there’s 100 other churches where they speak to your distinctive, so this helps us with church membership. It helps us with church officers Mike and I have had the privilege of recently sitting on an ordination board for Ryan Maljaars. He’s our pastor of a church plant in Armstrong. And we had our Bibles and we had our confessions. So the confession of faith is very helpful to define and describe Christian doctrine. It helps and when I say the church may not want you with your distinctives, I’m not that goes both ways. If I’m an Armenian, charismatic, I want to know that the church I’m going to is not that so that I don’t go there. To me, a lack of a confession of faith is a very unfair way to do church. Right? A brief vague statement of faith produces brief, vague thinking about Christian doctrine. So the more doctrines, the better, the healthier the salt and more solid the church is. So I, I think the arguments for confessions and creeds within the context of the church, just to summarize, it keeps us connected to the church, it respects and appreciates the role of the Ascended Christ and having given those gifts to the church. And they did a good job. I don’t ever come out, you know, wake up in the morning, go out to my garage and say, you know, I should try to reinvent the wheel. Now I’ve got four of them on my car, they work beautifully. I don’t have to reinvent them. Why do I want to reinvent Christianity in the 21st century, when men that were much brighter than me much more skilled than I did these things already. And we have, I think we ought to have a posture of gratitude and thankfulness for the great work that the church has produced that is codified in the creeds and confessions.

Pastor Mike Kirkpatrick  06:50

I was listening to Dr. JB Fesko on I think it was the need for creed, just a lecture and he uses the example of a woodworker with an apprentice. And it’s like the apprentice trying to build a chair without asking the the master and without using instructions. And I think that is a good example, to describe someone who tries to read the Bible with help without help from anybody else. I think we need to be like the Ethiopian eunuch. So when he says, How can I understand unless someone explains it to me? so I think we have to have that humility. And we have to just just come to the realization that when we’re first converted, where we are children in Christian years , we are babies, and we need that milk we need that we need someone else to teach us and to help us. And I think that’s what church history does. And also the creeds and confessions help us with as well. And I think another helpful illustration of the importance of the creeds and confessions. There’s this picture I’ve seen online, where the Bible is open, and there’s these two lines that go kind of side by side with the Bible. So we recognize the Creed’s aren’t the Bible. We recognize the flow of Scripture, but we also have to deal with the theological claims of Scripture as well, which is what the creeds and confessions help us with. And so if we don’t have those, those bumpers if you go bowling and you can’t bowl very well, you have the bumpers there. And if you don’t have the bumpers, you’re gonna go in the gutter. And I think that aptly illustrates the importance of confessions, I think they keep us within the ballpark and within the bounds of orthodoxy. Otherwise, we are going to go into the gutter, and our theology is going to go down the gutter as well. And so we want to we want to make sure we’re in line with what other people have said and what Scripture says as well in the claims that are found in it. So the confessions help us and keep us orthodox.

Wim Kerkhoff  08:42

So is there a reason why people are pushing back or they don’t are scared to get into the creeds and confessions? Like? Is there like fears?

Pastor Jim Butler  08:52

I think it’s reactionary, you know, for instance, we might be I don’t think accused is probably the best word but I can’t think of another we’re accused of worshipping the creed or the, you know, the confession is on par with the Bible, no matter how many times we say that’s not the case. It nevertheless arises so so it might be somewhat reactionary you know, the Reformed faith are so you know, cerebral all they ever do is, you know, engage in orthodoxy and they’re just dry and dusty, and it’s because of those creeds or confessions. So there might be some of that. There might just be as well something that Samuel Miller had recognized when he discusses creeds and confessions. He says men seldom have a problem with creeds and confessions until the creeds and confessions I have a problem with them. So you know, if we want to retool, re, you know, invent wheels and the creed stands in our way, or the confession stands in our way. Well, I think there’s gonna be a prejudice toward a creedal or confessional sort of Christianity. So, you know, on the one hand, it might be reactionary, you guys put too much stock in it. On the other hand, it might be you know what, we don’t want that kind of stuff anymore. This is, you know what 21st century we don’t want to be sort of stifled by the 17th century approaches to Christianity. And then you know, all things being equal judgment of charity. You know, it sounds pious, it sounds good to say, Well, all we need is the Bible, you know, no creed, but the Bible. That’s been said, by the worst heretics that have ever walked the face of the earth. The Bible tells us of the utility of man that Christ has given to the church to function as teachers. So if we, with one wave of the hand, get rid of them, we as well get rid of our commitment to the Bible, that tells us that Christ gave gifts to the church. So you know, we don’t agree with everybody that was a patristic, or early church father we don’t agree with every thing, or in the medieval period, or at the time of the Reformation. But where they got wood on the ball, we thank God for that. And we praise God that we have these, this rich heritage of doctrinal truth codified for us and a handy space to help us with categories and, and ways to approach scripture. So the no creed, but the Bible, it sounds pious, it sounds noble. Today, it’s being heralded that biblicalism is the way to go. If the Bible demanded that, but the Bible doesn’t, the Bible says, you know, we have gifts, and you should listen to those gifts. And it reflects the purpose of Christ for the church.

Pastor Mike Kirkpatrick  11:54

And one thing I’ve heard from Dr. Renihan and from others as well, the irony is no creed, but the Bible is itself a creed. That’s what people use as they come to the Scriptures. It’s whether or not it’s a good creed, or a helpful thing to be believed as we come and consider the Scriptures. So I think that’s important to remember as well. And nondenominational church is just another denomination!

Pastor Jim Butler  12:14

And they’re all as creedal, no creed but the Bible is dogmatism. And you know, I’ve heard it too that, well, you guys that hold the these confessions are proud. Well, I grant, I’m proud, but it has nothing to do with my hold on the confessions. I, you know, I think that, you know, all of us struggle with pride. We’ve all got this issue or problem, but could it be that we actually think that this confession does articulate the truths of Scripture? Is that a possibility that we really believe that what is taught therein is the teaching of Holy Scripture and a helpful summary statement? You know, the judgment of charity works both ways if I need to be, you know, judging with charity, my brethren who oppose or disagree, I’d like a bit of that too. I don’t look at it as the authoritative you know, Word of God. I don’t look at it as infallible. But I look at it as a wonderful helpful summary statement concerning the truths most surely believed among us. And so you know, that sad why is that proud? Or, you know, you you guys have a paper pope. You know, we’re we subscribe to a paper pope. I’d rather have that paper pope than you know, the myriad of popes that serve in Protestantism today. Our problem isn’t just the Pope of Rome, but every church or many churches that aren’t tethered scripturally and tethered to the creeds and confessions of the church. They’re independent to a place where I don’t think it’s, it’s healthy. I mean, the guy that swinging his Bible yelling at everybody that has no creed, but the Bible, that’s the guy I’m most concerned about, versus the guy that says Christ gave us a bunch of gifts and we happen to have a mirror in the Nicene and Calcedonian creeds, and we have it here in the Second London confession. Let’s use these things to help us better understand Scripture. Give me that guy versus the you know, the one that’s declaiming against what the Bible says, in terms of his no creed, but the Bible dogmatism.

Pastor Mike Kirkpatrick  14:31

I think there is a biblical argument for Creed’s in the sense that several or many passages found the New Testament are creedal they seem to be implied in their credo. And one thing it’s important to highlight too is a scripture is being written between time of Christ’s death and when the books are written. There is a theology that is handed down and passed down there is a theology, sound doctrine that is maintained even when the people didn’t have the New Testament. Certainly, they had the Old Testament but they have that doctrine that guided them and kept them out the apostles to help guide and keep them and then thankfully the Lord in His providence we have the scriptures, as they have been in Scripture rated and written, but that’s founded upon theology.

Pastor Jim Butler  15:12

That Jude 3 emphasis contend earnestly for the faith, not your faith, your subjective appropriation of the benefits of Christ, but contend earnestly for the faith, the objective content of Christianity, you contend for that earnestly? Why? Because a bunch of guys have come into the context of the local church, and they’re wrong. They’ve departed from The Faith. So what’s the response? You take the faith, and you defend it, and you root these guys out. So yeah, it to me, it just seems it’s just so obvious, like why wouldn’t we use what men before us have done that is so profitable and helpful? Why put ourselves in a deficit position? Why put ourselves in the position where, you know, we got to write a brand new confession of faith? Are you kidding me? I mean, we can’t respond to the most basic things today, collectively, let alone hammer out the Triunity of God, and the Christology that upholds the hypostatic union. So we should be thankful that Christ gave us those gifts instead of you know, looking, looking with you know, sort of a derogatory approach at it.

Wim Kerkhoff  16:34

I think he gives a lot there for Ethan and Joy to talk with their neighbor about that. Yeah. Say I studied the confession and it’s corrected my understanding on different things on Scripture where I was wrong or had bad teaching in the past. It’s been helpful to me. Many men have worked on this. It’s not just a couple of dozen. It’s hundreds and hundreds of people have worked on this.

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Bowling Alley image by Steven Miller. CC 2.0 license.