What is a Reformed Baptist..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. So welcome once again to our Wednesday night Bible study. As you're all aware, we sort of give this intro every time we come together, just so in the back of our mind, we're always aware of what we're doing and what our purpose is for these studies.

And it is ultimately that we as a body of believers, we as a church, will be able to identify why we are a Reformed Baptist church and what that comprises of. That's what the goal is for us. So we've spoken before about the foundation. We want to liken it like a pyramid where the base was we spoke, what is an evangelical church? And we spoke about that would be the five solas.

And we went through those one week per sola. Actually, can anyone remember the solas? In English we do. Can anyone remember them? Sam?

Sola scriptura. Yeah. Sola fidei. Yes. Sola gratia.

Yeah. Very good. Thank you, Sam. Very good work. So we looked at, and that's what we said, is the minimum that a church needs to believe and teach in order to be an evangelical church.

And then we built that up a little bit further up the pyramid, and we spoke about the doctrines of grace, otherwise known as Calvinism. And the acronym was TULIP. And I'm not going to ask you to be able to rehearse what they stand for, what every letter stands for. But then we looked at that and we spent one week in every one of the doctrines of grace. And now we're in the third level, the third from four levels.

And at the moment, we're in the level of what is a reformed church. What is a reformed church? Our brother, last two weeks, has taken us through that a reformed church ought to be a church that holds to the regulative principle. And last week, our brother spoke to us about what does reformed preaching look like. So what does reformed preaching look like?

This week, we're going to look at a reformed church we believe should be also a confessional church. In other words, a reformed church should officially hold to a confession of faith. So most of what we'll go through this evening, I hope we know already. And a lot of it is history. For the history buffs, you might enjoy tonight more than others.

But what we want to share tonight is we want to be reminded that the Christian faith that we enjoy has a rich heritage. The Christian faith that we enjoy has been enjoyed by our brothers and sisters throughout the generations. Christ has always been faithful. He's bright, He's growing, He's building His church. And we look back and we see how He's done that step by step.

And then we see the creeds and we see the confessions and we see the faithfulness of Christ despite man's sinfulness. and we ought to come towards him and say we thank you Lord we want to give you the praise and the honor and this should result in encouragement for us all as we look back you know we are people of the 21st century but we ought to always look back and be reminded of the faithfulness of Christ to the church of yesteryear so this evening I want to do a few things we want to address and answer some questions and these are the ones is about four or five first we'll look at at what creeds and confessions are. So what are creeds and confessions? We'll answer the question, are they biblical? Are they biblical?

We'll also consider why some object to creeds and confessions. We'll look at some of the objections and we'll see how we can answer those biblically. And we'll also look at the benefits of a church who officially holds to a confession of faith or the creeds or historical creeds. And hopefully this will give us the answer as to why Reformed churches historically have always been confessional churches. So first let's start with a basic definition of what a confessional church is.

And this is a very basic definition. A confessional church is simply a church that officially embraces, genuinely believes, and actively teaches according to the doctrines of a historical statement of faith as well as many historical creeds. Now to better understand that statement we probably need to define what a creed is and what a confession of faith is. So let's start with creeds. The word creed is Latin for I believe and as the title suggests a creed is simply the core belief of a church.

Creeds are historical and therefore handed down throughout the generations from churches to churches. Now, they're usually short and concise statements which express profound biblical truths. So unlike the opponents to creeds, they're not impositions placed upon the church, but rather they're rich and thorough biblical declarations of the church regarding her beliefs. The professor Holcomb from Reform Theological Seminary says it well. He says, creeds, he says, aren't dogmas that are imposed on Scripture, but rather are themselves drawn from the Bible and provide the touchstone to the faith for Christians of all times and places.

I believe that statement holds true. Historical confessions of faith similarly have the same purpose. In essence, they too are chiefly biblical declarations, officially held by a church, expressing her beliefs. But in many ways, confessions differ to creeds. You see, unlike a creed which is relatively short and focused on addressing one or two main points, confessions of faith can be quite lengthy They're even divided systematically with title chapters and they have several points in every chapter.

So a confession of faith is far more methodical and seeks to be broader in her scope or in its scope, instructing on major doctrines of the Christian faith according to scripture and they have many biblical proof texts and references to the Bible. They are saturated with Bible. Now I know that sometimes, as 21st century Christians, we may fall in the rut of thinking, you know, history is history, and it renders maybe little or no value for us. Some may think it's interesting to explore and research, but we might have a disattachment from the past as though it is inapplicable to us here and now. Brothers and sisters, I know that I might be speaking to the choir, so to speak, and it might not apply to you, but it's worth saying we should always and ever be thankful to God for his incredible faithfulness to his people in history.

And when we look back, that should encourage us. Because we belong to a long heritage of saints, redeemed and justified by the beloved, who has started a good work and he will bring it to completion. Being reminded of this gives us great assurance because we see his promises being fulfilled throughout history. But on the other hand, we also read in history of much disunity among the churches. We hear about fractures amongst the Christian brethren.

Now, although sometimes these fractures are exaggerated, they are because of human sin, and they are unfortunately real. But Christ still remains faithful, never leaving his bride, not even for a moment. So despite the tendency for sinful man to separate or break away, Christ has imparted a tremendous unity amongst his people, especially, hear this, especially when central Christian doctrines of faith were being assaulted. The Church united on several occasions to convene what's called Ecumenical Council. Ecumenical simply means all-inclusive or the whole world.

And oftentimes churches were represented literally from all over the world. Actually, the first one of these councils we have recorded for us in the New Testament. Can anyone remember what council I'm talking to and where it's recorded? The first Ecumenical Council. We call it the Council of in the Bible, New Testament.

The Acts, yes, it's the Council of Jerusalem and it's found in Acts chapter 15. Now this is when the Apostles and the Elders considered the inclusion of the Gentiles into the Church of Jesus Christ. Because some were preaching that they needed to become Jews first. The Gentiles needed to become Jews first. And they were imposing burdens on their shoulders.

Things like they had to observe the Law of Moses and be circumcised in order to be saved. Now this was a serious offense. if left unchecked Paul's whole ministry and his ministry if you remember was to the Gentiles would be in all sorts of jeopardy but the council discussed the matter and based on the teaching of Christ and the revelation of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles they issued the letter or they issued letters to the churches regarding the Gentiles being added into the church problem solved but since then things have changed After the death of the apostle John in the latter part of the first century, there were no apostles. That's it. So the Christ-given apostolic authority ceased, and therefore councils don't have the apostles to settle the matter.

But having said that, it pleased God to have preserved the apostolic teachings, which according to John 14 are the very words of Jesus Christ himself in Scripture. So any further councils that we see or read of in history would be resting upon the authority of scripture, which is the authority of Christ himself. This is how the church would resolve any future doctrinal disagreements among the true body of Christ. And this ought to remind us of the final words of Jesus Christ in the gospel according to Matthew. If you remember, he said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

And then later on, in the end of that passage, he ends with, and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. The authority belongs to Christ. So rejoice, because He will never abandon His bride. Ever. And so His hand was empowering and guiding His people with wisdom through His Word and through the power of His Spirit throughout the church age.

And this is so evident in particular in the first five centuries AD. You see, heresy after heresy assaulted the true teaching of His Word and threatened the church in its day. If left unbridled, his heresies would have caused unimaginable damage to the Church of Jesus Christ. So, let me give you an example of one of these. In the earliest part of the 4th century, an error had crept into the Church regarding the deity or the Godness of Jesus Christ.

A priest and a false teacher from Alexandria, Egypt, a man by the name of Arius, you may have heard him, was teaching a denial of the Trinity and he deceived many into believing this error. He espoused that Jesus Christ did not eternally exist with the Father but was created at a point in time. Beloved, this is a big deal and it directly assaults the gospel. It's central to the Christian faith. To give you an idea, if the Trinity were not true, and Jesus not the eternal God, then no one could ever be saved from his or her sins.

We would still be in enmity with God, and so this error hits at the very heart of the Gospel. It's a serious deviation from the truth. But the Lord emboldened his church to recognize the error and stand up against it. So in 325 AD, delegates from the churches throughout the whole Roman Empire convened in an ecumenical council held in Nicaea, and that's modern-day Turkey. Their purpose, among other things, was to defend the deity of Christ.

The church clearly saw in scripture God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are co-eternal with the Father. And not just that, but the Son and the Holy Spirit are also of the same substance with the Father. And they came up with that big word, co-substantial. The council didn't come up with these views on their own. It wasn't a product of their own imaginations.

These truths are found in Scripture and they're taught in Scripture. So the church was doing nothing more than defending what was clearly articulated in God's Word, which is the authority above every Christian. So after about two months of deliberation, the council announced Arius a heretic and the views that he advocated, heresy. Unfortunately, the Aryan heresy did not die. It wasn't stamped then and there.

It was readdressed and he was condemned or the teaching was condemned again 56 years later in the Council of Constantinople. So what was the result of the Nicene Council? Well, a beautiful drafted confession called the Nicene Creed. It so eloquently teaches the doctrine of the Trinity. And when the delegates returned back to their countries, they brought back with them this creed and dispersed it through the known world, through to all the churches.

If ever Aryan heresy was to come knocking at the church door again, they have the truth of scripture articulated in this wonderful creed, which enabled them to refuse this erroneous teaching. Beloved, this creed became an invaluable teaching tool for the early church throughout all the ages, and even for us today. Just like the best way to know counterfeit money is to study the real thing, so too the best way we, as Christians, can protect ourselves from false doctrine is to study the real thing. It's to study the Word of God. And it pleased God to give us confessions and creeds that are faithful to His Word.

The historical creeds help us with this. Now we never take away the essential testimony of the Holy Spirit who reveals all truth. That's paramount. But we must thank God for those sublime truths that have been articulated in scripture and have been summarized faithfully for us in the creeds and the confessions for the benefits of all Christians throughout the age. If that were not so, the church has the full right to discard them in an instant if they don't truly represent what's written in the pages of scripture.

Because unless they're consistent with the only infallible, sufficient rule of faith and practice, we won't hold them. But beloved, they do. They are faithful to Scripture, and we know they've stood the test of time. The creeds were an incredible grace to the early church, especially, think about this, especially think about the lay people who did not have any access to Scripture. and they were much more susceptible to falling into heresy.

But by memorizing some of these creeds, and they weren't that long, they were able to keep themselves from all these dangerous errors that kept creeping up throughout church history. But this is just one example of the multiple occasions where the convening of councils resulted in the production of a beautiful written statement called the Creed. And this statement has served the Church or the Church of Christ throughout the ages until even now. It would be foolish for us right now to discard our historical roots. Don't you agree?

And the clear teachings found in these creeds and confessions. If we did that, it would be like us saying that, no, we're smarter now. We don't need them. That arrogance is not to be found in the church. We stand on the shoulders of those that the Lord has raised before us, as we hope those after us will stand on our shoulders as well.

But if anything were true, we live in a time, and I'm saddened to say this, of such poor biblical literacy among professing Christians, because of the watered down, weak Jesus is your buddy Christianity, that these teaching tools of history are essential for the church today. The creeds and confessions, in my opinion, are needed more today, in this day and age, than ever before. Even though we have the internet, and we have all that information under our fingertips, What we find in modern-day professing Christianity is poor, it's as though we've become spiritually inept. And this is a really sad thing. Now as for historical confessions of faith, they're similar to creeds, but are more detailed, as I said before.

And one way to distinguish between the two, I think it's a good way to think of it like this, and I'll quote Holcomb again, Professor Holcomb. The creeds are the boundaries of the faith that separate orthodoxy from heresy. Think about the Nicene Creed. It separates orthodoxy, which is true and should be believed, from heresy. While the confessions are more detailed, providing color in the picture, tying theology to everyday life in all sorts of ways.

So maybe said another way, creeds are what you must believe But the more comprehensive and practical historic confessions of faith are what you should believe. Not only useful in bringing much-needed light and clarity for the church in times past, but also immensely beneficial for our generation and future generations in contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Now there is where we see the specific benefit for the church. Officially and embracing a historical confession of faith comes with tremendous benefits for the church. You see, many churches in different denominations will happily hold to the same creeds, but not necessarily to the same confessions of faith.

You remember we said a priest for the most part separates orthodoxy from heresy. So agreement in these core theological doctrines among evangelical churches is abundant. But when it comes to confessions of faith, it's a different story. Confessions are longer and they're more structured. They purposefully aim to offer teaching on more spiritual and practical topics and are more specific in their instruction.

And this naturally means that the confession speaks to doctrines where disagreement occurs among Christian circles. Doctrines such as baptism, the sacraments, law, church government, and covenants. I'm sure you're all aware that unfortunately much disagreement is found on these topics within Christian circles. So the variety of confessions will differ. in these points.

That's why you'll find confessions of faith that have been passed down throughout church history, have been passed down through the denominations, the like-minded churches who have the same or at least very similar interpretations of the Bible. For example, we know that Calvinists naturally embrace the doctrines of grace. So what took the church years in planning and seven months worth of discussions between 1618 and 1619 AD to refute the error of Arminianism? It resulted in the drafting of a wonderful confession called the Canons or the Rules of Dort and they've been passed down to us. We know the contents best as the five points of Calvinism.

You remember, T-U-L-I-P, from the canons of thought. We should thank God that these resources are available to us, and they came on the back of heavy lifting from our brethren in the past. But they were lifted by Christ himself. You know, the young Anglicans or the Church of England, They have passed down through the generations what's called the 39 Articles from 1563 through 71. And in 1446 saw the establishment of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the official confession for our Presbyterian brothers and sisters.

And of course, what I consider the best historical confession of faith, and that's a biased opinion, is the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith in 1677, but was officialized in 1689, the official confession for the Reformed Baptist Church. This was a revision of the original confession, which was drafted in 1644. And these are just to name a few. Now that's a very basic introduction to creeds and confessions of faith. So at this point, you may be thinking, or you may have a question on your mind.

And it might be this, are these Or is a church commanded in the Bible to hold a confession of faith? That's a good question. And the simple answer is no. No, there's no command in the Bible. But confessionalism is a biblical principle.

throughout Biblical history, we're told that the people of God have always confessed their beliefs. Starting way back in the people of Israel, where in the wilderness, and you remember the Shema, here O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one, Deuteronomy 6.4. That's a confession. And this confession was rehearsed by the people of Israel, or the Jews, every morning and every evening in their prayers.

Even today amongst the Jews, this is central to their worship. Paul even alludes to this confession in 1 Corinthians 8. It's a valid confession for us on the 21st century Christians. We too confess that God is one, don't we? Of course he's one.

And in the New Testament we have many passages that confirm that Christians ought to be a confessional people. In Christ's own words, everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will deny before my Father who is in heaven. Matthew 10, 32 through 33. And 1 John 4.

15, whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. Our faith was never meant to be private. We confess Christ in how we live and with the confession of our mouth. This is our mandate. and what we confess must be true despite the world's rejection of truth.

We see this example by Peter in Matthew 16. And Peter was surrounded by false confessors that said Christ was Elijah or the Baptist or Jeremiah or another prophet. False confessions. But what does Peter say? He says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.

And we know as an apostle he remained true to that confession even unto his death. Paul also in Romans 10 exhorts the Christians in Rome. So let's open our Bibles now to Romans chapter 10 and we'll be reading from verses 9 through 10. Romans chapter 10. Let's start at verse 8.

But what does it say? The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart that is the word of faith that we proclaim because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead You will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Amen. We shouldn't see this confession that we just read as merely words to be spoken.

That's not Paul's intention. It's much, much deeper than that. The Roman congregation Paul writes to would have to oppose the Roman Empire's creed. And that creed was, Caesar is Lord. In order to confess that Jesus is Lord, they would have to go against the Roman Empire.

You can't have both. Confessing Jesus is central to the Christian faith and would come at a tremendous cost to many, even their own lives. But then in verse 9b, the Apostle mentions the compulsory belief in the resurrection of Christ for a reason. You see, in order to confess Christ's resurrection, you must have to confess the truths that come before it. Truths that the resurrection is built upon.

Truths such as Yahweh, the Lord, needed to become flesh in order, and this is to confess Him as Messiah who met all the legal requirements of obedience to God, and then willingly gave up His life on that cross to bear the sins on behalf of His people. These facts must be confessed and believed in the heart in order to acknowledge that God raised him up from the dead. You see, for God to raise Jesus up from the dead, God is showing approval. He's demonstrating his acceptance of the payment of the shed blood of Christ. A raised saviour means a saviour that accomplished perfectly the will of the Father and now sits at the right hand of the Father until all his enemies are made his footstools.

You see, this simple confession that Paul points us to in Romans chapter 10 is a confession of faith that reaches much further than just a few words. It goes beyond acknowledging no creed but Christ. Specifics of the historical faith are implied in this confession, and those who truly believe cannot remain quiet. They cannot but profess their faith in a public way, even if it's met with strong opposition, as was the case with the original hearers of the Book of Romans. Beloved Christians are to be a people who confess their faith then the church ought to do the same.

You remember a couple of weeks ago how a brother was saying to us that the purpose of the church is the same of the Christian, or the Christian's purpose is the same of that of the church. Ultimately, it is to glorify God in all we do and all we say. So I believe, as was the practice of the Reformed churches throughout all history, All modern churches should also have a historical, detailed confession of faith as a public declaration to what they believe. Yes, we are a people of the word, but to say we believe in the Bible only won't do justice to the church. What do I mean by that?

Well, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and other Christian cults also say they believe in the Bible. Is that enough? Is it enough just to say we believe in the Bible or we confess Jesus and just stop at that? We have to be more specific. As a church we must give a comprehensive confession of who we are and what we believe for both our people and for the outsiders.

This is why Reformed churches throughout history have composed confessions of faith And this is why the Reformed churches have always been confessional churches. Now let me humble express this also to you. A church that embraces a historic confession of faith will not only provide her members with a statement of what the church believes, beloved, but it'll also protect the saints from their teachers or their elders teaching. Beloved, this is a very, very important point. Embracing a true historical confession of faith and the true historical creeds is to hold to the teaching not of a single person, but the church historic.

And those confessions are predicated and built upon the truths of scripture. This means by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the historical church has collectively wrestled with the text of scripture to produce an official statement of expression of truth of how she understands the Bible. Your elders never, ever should take you on a journey when no one else has been, theologically speaking. In their teaching, if their teaching, you hear something brand new that's never been taught in history It may sound exciting, but most likely it's heresy. Officially holding to a historic confession of faith will provide the protection for the saints from rogue teachers and preachers who choose to interpret the Bible as they please and lead the saints down the path of error.

A confession will provide a model of Orthodox Bible teaching to compare with. which the true church has held for centuries. So now you might ask, what about churches that don't? What about churches that don't have confessions of faith or don't hold to creeds? How about those churches out there that we probably all know that not only don't hold to confessions, but are actively anti-confessional?

How about those churches? Well, we all possibly no churches like this. And for the most part, many have creeds or sayings, and their sayings are things like, no, no, no, we only need the Bible and nothing else. Or another confession or a statement they may use is, no creed but Christ. You might have heard that one, no creed but Christ.

At surface level, I agree. The Bible is the only sufficient infallible rule of faith for those of us who are Christians, and I agree to that, and I believe that Christ is all in all. I believe that. But we have to understand what is meant by that, what the implications of those words are. And look, I'm sympathetic to them, and I understand where they're coming from.

Most of these churches are afraid to take the emphasis away from the Word of God, and they're uncomfortable to officially hold to a historical statement for that reason. I understand that. But beloved, we have to understand that A good confession will not repel a person away from the Bible. A good confession will actually attract them to it. So the opposite happens.

That's what they're meant to do. A good confession promotes biblical truths and encourages the reader to search the scriptures to see that what's written in the confession is subordinate to scripture and in line with the truths found in scripture. That's why, for example, the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith has literally hundreds of biblical references. Its concern is to faithfully represent the Word of God, not to assert the Word of God, not in any way. In any case, to say no creed but Christ is, in fact, a creed.

It's an expression of belief, and there's no escaping the fact that all churches and all Christians have beliefs or certain beliefs on issues of faith. We all do without any exceptions. Beloved, I'm not having a go at these Christians, not in any way, but I'm saying that we must all examine what we say and the implications of what we say. All Christians have beliefs they confess and specific answers to many of their spiritual questions. These are their confessions of faith.

And if you ask them what they believe in regards to baptism, they'll tell you. If you ask them what they believe in regards to marriage, they'll tell you. If you ask them what they believe in regards to church polity or government, they'll tell you what they believe. So if you ask them to put their answers in writing and they agree, do you know what you have? You have a confession of faith.

Reformed churches throughout history have recognized this. and thought it wise for the church to develop an official confession of faith. Because there's nothing to hide. Christians who may be joining or considering joining a particular church are given the opportunity to examine the church's core beliefs and to see whether they're happy with the teaching of that church in order for them to unite to that church in fellowship. Truth should always be transparent.

So the modern day reformed churches, rather than reinventing the wheel, have acknowledged that the historical statements of faith, to be so rich in theology and convey so well the eternal truths in scripture, that in all honesty, there is no reason for them to go and rewrite them. Plus, beloved, and this is a big point as well, it's a privilege to be joined in the heritage of the true church historic. To know that our roots go deep, that is a special thing. Now, it's true that there are matters of disagreement, as we said before in the details of the Christian faith, when we go from one denomination to another. And this is a fact.

And that's why we have a variety of historical confessions of faith that are true to particular denominations. That's why we at Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church hold to the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith and not the Westminster for example. Now, that's not to say that we think the Westminster Confession is espousing heresy. No, definitely not. And that's not what we're saying.

We disagree on some details and we don't deny their importance. But these disagreements do not in any way distract us or detract us from considering the Presbyterians our brothers and sisters in Christ. And we love them dearly. And because, as Christians, our conscience is held captive by God and is informed by our understanding of His Word, it's good to have a separate church where like-minded people are able to fellowship with one another and these people believe the same things. In fact, if I was to show how similar the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith is with, for example, the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Savoy Declaration, which is the Congregationalist Confession of Faith, you would see that there is far more that unites us, theologically speaking, than that that separates us.

In fact, the main differences are only found in about 14 of the 160 paragraphs in the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, only 14. They're important differences, and we ought to examine them, but they're not enough for us to say they're not our brothers in Christ, or even to call the differences heresy, because it's not. So brothers and sisters, cultish behavior within the church is never acceptable. We belong to the worldwide body of Christ, and we need to treat it as such. He died for that body, and we ought to love his body.

We as a church recognize that Christ and Christ's bride, his people, are beyond the Reformed Baptists. But we are Reformed Baptists by conviction. And the difference that we have with our brothers and sisters in other camps do matter. but they're transparent and clearly articulated in our historical confessions of faith. We recognize them as brothers in Christ and we love them dearly.

So all that, all that to say that the historical churches or reformed churches have always valued embracing the official statement of faith for the reasons we discussed this evening and more. And we believe that this tradition is worth keeping in all generations because the principle is biblical and our beliefs are the same as those of the saints of yesteryear or of history. We do believe that a church officially holding to a biblical, faithful, historic confession of faith will result in purer beliefs for its members, more protection from error and transparency to the world and other Christians because we have nothing to hide. Our triune God, I believe, would be glorified because His word ultimately is exalted and His word is treasured in the hearts of His people. Amen.