We share a
common commission.
We are sent into the world to proclaim the gospel. We are messengers of good news.
Our eyes are
fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our
faith. We are to cast off anything that
burdens us.
We are
challenged to live as Paul did. We are
to run the good race and fight the good fight and keep
the faith.
Our
commission does not expire. We have no
excuse for not staying the course. No
issue or person or cause or calamity must get us off course. We have a race to run. Other Christians shouldn’t be asking us, “ Who
cut you off?”
If we stop
running our race, there is usually a common culprit—judging. We should not be distracted by the speck in the eye of others when we have plenty of
woodwork to do on our own. We should not be judging another man’s servant.
And so it
seems that we are to love God mostly by loving each other, and that includes our enemies; and from this perspective, having a
grasp on theology doesn’t seem that important.
We will read our Bible and love one another. That should cover it. Right?
But then we
sing, Holy, Holy, Holy and end up with God in three
persons, blessed trinity. OK, where did
we get this trinity stuff? Neither
Isaiah nor Paul wrote a chapter on that subject, but we believe in a Holy
Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Each of these godly entities is encountered many times in our biblical
reading. We say we believe that in the Apostle’s Creed, but Jesus didn’t write this
creed. How did we come up with it?
Even when we
piece together 3 members of the God-head, we ask, “How can they really be 3 in
1?” A Greek theologian named John of
Damascus came up with a widely held understanding of the trinity called perichoresis. This is essentially the
community of God—a community of love for each other. It is a community of Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit dancing in harmony.
But not
everyone buys into this explanation. The
trinity is just plain hard to explain. There
are many metaphors, all of which have one thing in common, they are
incomplete. The Confession of faith just says there is a Holy
Trinity. It doesn’t attempt to explain
it.
We like to
put up nativity scenes at Christmas.
They have Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus and they are normally surrounded
by animals, wise men, and sometimes angels.
Usually they are in a manger, barnyard, or some other rustic setting.
But the magi
probably did not arrive for the birth.
They may have arrived weeks or months, or as is the common thinking now,
a couple years later. Mary and Joseph
were in a house by then. And while there
were 3 gifts, the whole idea of 3 wise men or kings once again is attributed to
the Christmas or Epiphanal hymn, We Three Kings of Orient Are.
Not knowing
the exact number of wise and royal emissaries from the east doesn’t make or
break a theology. In fact, this
discussion is not even a part of the confession. But what about some of the other things that
we say we believe that we can’t find in verbatim form in our Bibles. What about once saved, always saved?
The Confession of Faith doesn't used these words but does talk about the
preservation of believers.
How can
those in the reformed tradition differ so much for other Christians that
believe you can fall in and out of salvation?
Was our salvation all from God or did we earn enough of it that we
can lose it as well? If God did it all,
then can we undo what he did?
These are
tough questions and Christians will give you different answers.
Those in the reformed tradition will focus
more on our response to God’s grace, to God’s favor, to God’s unmerited
forgiveness. Others prefer to focus on
maintaining the “saved” status.
And since we
are discussing salvation, how about the fact that only John’s gospel mentions
being saved by believing in the Son of God?
What happened to those people who heard Matthew’s gospel and repented
from their sin, loved the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength,
and even loved their neighbor as they loved themselves? What about them? Did they not hear the gospel because they
didn’t hear John 3:16 or Romans 10:9-10?
What about
all of those things that people like to say God can’t do. God can’t do anything bad; therefore, God is
not responsible for hurricanes and tornadoes.
God will not cause anyone to harm another. Yet we read that God hardened the Pharaoh’s heart.
He sent Joshua into the Promised Land with some very violent marching orders.
He used the Babylonians to lay waste to Jerusalem and deport
the Hebrew people.
We really
end up on a slippery slope when we start defining what God can and can’t
do. We face questions that we can’t
answer well. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways. If God is subject to his own law, is he still
a sovereign God? If he is above his own
law, is he a just God. If he punished an
innocent man—even his own Son—is he still a holy God?
It is no
wonder that sometimes we either throw up our hands and give up on understanding
theology or cherry pick some of the parts of the Bible that we like and ignore
the rest. Most people just want to know
the truth without having to decipher it themselves. They want to know that there are people to trust
who will make sense of it all.
And so we
come to the Confession of Faith for Cumberland Presbyterians. But why should we accept this theology? Do we need to understand Calvin’s TULIP and where we as a denomination are on it?
How did
people fare long ago that had the gospel read aloud to them? What’s wrong with hearing God’s word and listening
to preaching and teaching by the clergy?
Do I really need to read the Confession of Faith? Shouldn't I be able to reach my own
conclusions about things so important? Shouldn't I be able to just read the Bible to get my answers?
The answer
is yes, but will you give it the time and study required to understand God’s
message in time to put it to use in this lifetime?
How will you
segregate God’s truth from the flavor of the month wisdom in your own
mind? The mind likes to use patterns to
organize its thoughts and knowledge. How
does it not put the fear of the Lord is
the beginning of wisdom right next to
I do not like green eggs and ham. I do
not like them Sam I Am?
Maybe we
should take notes in life. Many of you
write notes in the margins of your Bible and you end up with notes all over your
Bible, but how do you find the notes on what you believe about a certain
topic. Concordances help, but sometimes
our notes don’t match up with the original text and so the concordance is only
partially helpful.
Wouldn't it
be great if we had something that would incorporate much of what the Bible
reveals to us, but would do it topically?
The
Confession of Faith is such a document.
It addresses what we believe topically yet maintains great fidelity to
telling the story of the Bible in the way that the Bible tells it.
The
Confession of Faith relies upon the scriptures and previous confessions, but it
is presented in the context of the church universal so as not to be presented
in a narrow or sectarian manner. The
Confession of Faith does not attempt to claim a proprietary faith or discount
other traditions and beliefs of those who call Jesus Lord and Savior.
The
Confession of Faith does not replace the Bible.
It helps us to understand the Bible.
It helps us to understand and affirm our faith more effectively. It helps us to bear witness to God’s saving
activity in such a way that those who have not be saved, redeemed, or
reconciled might believe in Jesus Christ and experience salvation.
The
Confession of Faith is an affirmation of ancient truth in contemporary
language.
The
Confession of Faith is an affirmation of ancient truth in contemporary
language.
But somebody
had to stop running their race and write it down.
Somebody had
to put into words what they had put into practice.
Someone had
to comprehend the entirety of God’s message to us and put it into words that we
could understand subject by subject.
Actually, there were many that fall under the category of somebody.
Imagine if
you went to school and just had school.
Your day began at 8:00 a.m. but you didn’t go to any particular
classroom. You just went to school. There were no divisions in the day to study
English or Spanish. There were no set
times to study algebra or geometry.
There was no art class. There was
no science class. There was no lab set
aside to dissect frogs. If you needed to
dissect a frog, you could do it while studying math or science, during
basketball practice—which by the way would be a come whenever you want sort of
affair, or during lunch which would also be at whatever time the cooks decided
to prepare it and you decided to come eat.
We might
enjoy this sort of school for a while, but eventually we might prefer a
classroom with a teacher that was a subject matter expert. We might want a class schedule so everyone in
a classroom at one time would be studying the same subject. We might call these math class, and English
class, and science class. Now every once
in a while, we might want to go back to just studying whatever, whenever we
wanted to, but mostly we like the class and classroom system.
So too we
gain advantage by studying God’s word topically. What does that translate to? Let’s try these topics.
1.00 God Speaks to the Human
Family
2.00 The Human Family Breaks
Relationship with God
3.00 God Acts Through Jesus
Christ to Reconcile the World
4.00 God Acts Through the
Holy Spirit
5.00 God Creates the Church
for Mission
6.00 Christians Live and
Witness in the World
7.00 God Consummates All
Life and History
Those are
the topic headings for the Confession of Faith.
Have you
ever studied a topic or theme or promise or other thread from the Bible. I mean have you really studied one of these?
If you have
then you know that for a time everything else in the world is tuned out. Your entire lifetime of experience is brought
into the study but the day to day issues are sometimes left unattended. If you are blessed with a supportive family
and good neighbors, someone may cut your grass, feed the dog, and occasionally
bring you a meal while you are immersed in study.
And at the
end of a month, or year, or decade, you might just have a handle on salvation
or justification or atonement and be confident that you have read and
internalized and synthesized and evaluated and assembled a coherent
understanding of a single topic or theme or thread contained in God’s word.
But to do
this, you had to stop along the way. You
had to stop running your race and focus on this piece of theology.
When we run
the race of faith, our theology might be a bit blurry.
Imagine
interviewing Usain Bolt, arguably the fastest man in world,
and asking him, “Did you notice the people waving at you as your ran your
race? Did you see how nicely the crowd
was dressed as you were sprinting to yet another victory? Wasn’t it a great day to grill some burgers
and dogs?”
But the sprinter
sees none of that. The runner sees the
point in the distance that is his goal.
The man or woman in the race doesn’t know too much about what is going
on in the world. If you need to trade
stocks while you are running, you better do it the treadmill. If you need to update that report while you
workout, get a Stairmaster. The runner
is fixed on the goal.
And we for
the most part are runners. We trust that
we know what we need to know about our faith and we put it into practice. We become doers of the word. We become God’s love in action.
And we might
not be great theologians. We might not
be able to keep up in a conversation with Calvin or Luther or Zwingli. But we can run our race.
And we can
run it knowing that from time to time in the history of God’s relationship with
humankind; our Creator has put some of theological leanings into a person or
persons, at a place and during a time to manifest their unique understanding
with the rest of us.
And from
time to time, those thoughts have been compiled in what we as Cumberland
Presbyterians call a Confession of Faith.
Can we be
saved without having such a document?
Can we love
God without such topical organization?
Can we love
our neighbor without such a written prescription?
Yes. Absolutely, yes!
But there
comes a time in the life of a Christian when they want to know more than you
are saved, now love God and love each other.
There comes a time when people just want to know, well how does that
work? Do we grow in grace? Is there a judgment? Is there a hell? What are sacraments and why do we have them?
Some of
these inquisitive men and women will be called to stop along the way and
ascertain these things for themselves. Some
will walk away saying, “That’s too much of an investment for me to make.” Most will be thankful that the Confession of
Faith provides exceptional insight into what God has revealed to us and it is
packaged for our understanding. And some
will be called to write and refine these doctrinal beliefs.
For while
God is constant; the word of God is living and active.
God’s word lives. God’s message
is timeless but ever timely. It speaks
to us of ancient truth in contemporary language.
Most of us
are called to run the race of faith. We
are running with our eyes fixed on Jesus and are seldom wrapped up in
theology. We have learned to just trust God, resist the urge to figure out every
detail of every matter, obey God, and know that he will put us on the path that
we need to be on.
My guidance
to those that have entered the world of biblical teaching—mostly our Sunday school
leaders—is to teach from the center. God is love, God loves us and will keep on
loving us, God loved us so much that he became flesh and dwelt among us, and in
so becoming man he took the sin of humankind upon himself. God desires an eternal relationship with
us. We are to love God and love
others. Jesus is Lord. There’s a decade’s worth of curriculum in
just teaching and learning from the center without too much focus on disputable matters.
Let’s put it
another way. When we played football, we
were usually content just to memorize and run the plays. Every once in a while we might dream up a
special play, but mostly we just wanted knock somebody on their back side, score
the touchdown, or kick that 43 yard field goal.
Most of the time, we didn’t have the desire to write the playbook, then
refine it for the next season, then work in a whole new system for the offense
a few years down the road. We just
wanted to be in the game playing our position as best we could.
And so too
with our faith, most of the time we just want to live a life of love. We want to love God and love one
another. For most of us are not called
to an extended stop in our race to refine what we have discerned for the
benefit of others.
But some
have been. And we should be thankful for
ready access to this theology enables us to understand our holy, righteous,
merciful, and loving God even more. It
helps us to understand who God made us to be.
When Jesus
sent his disciples into the world, he said go, make disciples, baptize, and
teach. He didn't add, and don’t forget
your Confession of Faith. But as the
church came to life in the world, people had questions. Much of the New Testament is filled with
Paul, Peter, and James trying to answer questions and explain this new faith.
And the
church would prevail for a millennia and a half without what today we would
call a confession of faith.
When people
come to profess their faith, we ask them simple questions.
1. Do you repent of your sin and believe Jesus Christ
to be your Savior and the Lord of your life?
2. Do you believe the scriptures of the Old and New
Testaments to be the inspired word of God, the source of authority for faith
and practice, and will you read and study them for guidance in living the
Christian life?
3. Do you promise to be a faithful member of this
church by participating in worship, sharing in its ministry of witness and
service, supporting the government of the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church/Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America, and loving your brothers and
sisters in Christ?
4. Will you strive to overcome temptation and
weakness, grow in knowledge and grace, and practice love in all relationships,
being strengthened in your personal discipleship by your life in the community
of faith?
5. Do you promise to be a good steward of the life, talents,
time, and money which God has entrusted to you, giving of these gifts to the
church?
And when
people answer in the affirmative to all of these we welcome them to the Body of
Christ. We welcome them to the family of
faith. We welcome them to the Covenant
Community.
But some of
these who profess their faith will be hungry for more. Prayer and biblical study sometimes satisfy
that hunger, but some will hunger for even more.
The
Cumberland Presbyterian Confession of Faith describes John 3:16 as the gospel in miniature.
For some,
this gospel in miniature is enough. For
some, the Confession of Faith is enough.
Some,
however, will be called to stop along the way as they run the race of
faith. They will be called to bring
ancient truth into modern language once again.
They will be called to take the living and active word of God and present
it in such a way as to bring life to the church in today’s world.
For the words
that we confess and profess speak directly to our witness as a people in
covenant with God and with each other.
May God
bless these words that we have confessed to him and to each other that we may
be a blessing to the world.
INTRODUCTION
TO THE 1984 CONFESSION
"For God so
loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should
not perish but have eternal life" (John 3: 16). This is "the gospel
in miniature." It is true testimony to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of
the world. It has been the testimony of Cumberland Presbyterians from the
outset of their origin. It is the statement of the purpose of this confession
of faith and its organizing principle.
The purpose of a
confession of faith is two-fold: (1) to provide a means whereby those who have
been saved, redeemed, and reconciled by God through Jesus Christ in the power
of the Holy Spirit understand and affirm their faith; and (2) to bear witness
to God's saving activity in such a way that those who have not been saved, redeemed,
and reconciled might believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and experience
salvation. To this end a confession of faith is an affirmation of ancient truth
in contemporary language. Hence, it should begin with that which is ancient and
proceed to speak in language which is natural for those who seek to make
witness to God's mighty acts of judgment and redemption in their own time.
The ancient truth
which guides this confession of faith is of two sources: (1) the scriptures;
and (2) the previous confessions of both Cumberland Presbyterian churches and
the previous confessions of the church in its universal
expression. All testimony to Jesus Christ must be tested by the scriptures
which are the only unfailing and authoritative word for Christian faith,
growth, and practice. All testimony to Jesus Christ is made within the context
of the church universal and therefore must not be made in a narrow, sectarian
manner or spirit.
A confession of faith
which is evangelical in purpose and spirit seeks to testify to what God has
done and is doing in the world to accomplish the redemption of his children.
The scriptures themselves are the best example of how to do this in an
organized way. Therefore, the organizing principle of this confession of faith
is to tell the story the Bible tells in the way the Bible tells it. We are
greatly indebted to the Confession
of Faith of 1883, the Confession of Faith of 1814, and the Westminster Confession of Faith out of which the
other two arose. We revere these confessions and have drawn from them in
writing this confession. The outline of this confession, however, is drawn from
the scriptures and is roughly that of the biblical outline found in John 3:16,
the topics being as follows: (1) God Speaks to the Human Family; (2) The Human Family Breaks
Relationship with God;
(3) God Acts Through Jesus Christ to
Reconcile the World;
(4) God Acts Through The Holy Spirit; (5) God Creates the Church for
Mission;
(6) Christians Live and Witness in
the World,
and (7) God Consummates All Life and History.
There is a direct
relationship between the church's confession of faith and her life and witness
as a people in covenant with God and with each other. The faith of the church
orders and shapes the life of the people of God--their mission, their government,
their worship, and the orderly conduct of the church's affairs. Believing this,
the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in
America adopt the following as their testimony to Jesus Christ and as their
system of internal government, consisting of: (1) the Confession of Faith; (2) the Constitution; (3) Rules of Discipline; (4) the Directory for Worship, and (5) the Rules of Order.
For God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should
not perish, but have eternal life.
The Confession of Faith is a statement of what Cumberland
Presbyterians believe. Most people that
attend Cumberland Presbyterian worship have probably not read the Confession of
Faith—at least not start to finish.
Classes on the COF seldom draw a crowd.
What to do?
How about a homiletic rendering of the Confession of
Faith?
Without a line for line review of the COF, this sermon
series hits the essence of each topical section of the basic theology of
Cumberland Presbyterians. Each article
offers a chance for comments and discussion.
FIRST THINGS FIRST! The first thing that you will want to do is
bookmark this page so you may come back to whenever you want to.
1.00 GOD SPEAKS TO THE HUMAN FAMILY
2.00 THE HUMAN FAMILY BREAKS RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
3.00 GOD ACTS THROUGH
JESUS CHRIST TO RECONCILE THE WORLD
4.00 GOD ACTS THROUGH
THE HOLY SPIRIT
5.00 GOD CREATES THE
CHURCH FOR MISSION
6.00 CHRISTIANS LIVE AND WITNESS IN THE WORLD
7.00 GOD CONSUMMATES
ALL LIFE AND HISTORY
A stop along the way
COF FAQs
What is the purpose
of the Confession of Faith?
It has a stated two-fold purpose. First, it is to provide a means whereby those
who have been saved, redeemed, and reconciled by God through Jesus Christ in
the power of the Holy Spirit understand and affirm their faith.
Next, it is to bear witness to God’s saving activity in such
a way that those who have not been saved, redeemed, and reconciled might
believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and experience salvation.
That’s mighty fancy language. Can
you put it another way?
The Confession of Faith is an affirmation of ancient truth
in contemporary language.
Does the COF have an
organizing principle?
Yes. It is to testify
to what God has done and is doing in the world to accomplish the redemption of
his children by telling the story that the Bible tells the way the Bible tells
it.
Does the COF have any
impact on God’s people or the church?
There is a direct relationship between the church’s
confession of faith and her life and witness as a people in covenant with God
and each other. The faith of the church
orders and shapes the life of the people of God—their mission, their
government, their worship, and the orderly conduct of the church’s affairs.
Do Cumberland
Presbyterians worship the COF?
No. We worship God.
Does the COF replace
the Bible?
No. The COF should
clarify many biblical accounts and make the reader hungry to read and
understand more of God’s word.
Do all denominations
have a Confession of Faith?
No. Different
denominations observe different traditions in professing what they believe.
