Last year we used the Children’s Catechism and Westminster Shorter Catechism as a means of affirming and confessing our faith. We have also used the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. And this year we are using the Heidelberg Catechism. This practice raises a number of questions. This week we will tackle the questions, “What are the documents?” and “Why are we not using the Bible?” Next week we will tackle “why” we use them.

First, as far as confessions go, everyone has a confession.

The short answer to the first question is that these are an historic expression of the Christian faith handed down to us by the church, which codify for us what Christians believe and why we believe it. Christians believe certain things about what the Bible teaches. If we reject those things we may be well meaning and nice folks, but we are not Christians. We are not at liberty to define our faith, for it has been defined for us by God in His Word. The second question really is the one that those who truly love and trust in God’s word chafe at. It seems a bit odd that we would on the one hand confess Sola Scriptura (The Bible Alone as the sole authority for the church) while at the same time confessing historic creeds that are non-Biblical. I confess (no pun intended) I have been there. But we need to remember two things.

First, as far as confessions go, everyone has a confession. The famous line from the Jehovah’s Witnesses is also the mantra of many evangelicals, “No Creed but Christ.” The problem is obvious. Which Christ? The one created or the one who is the God-Man? Therefore, the question is not if we will have a confession but which one we will confess. This is what we need to understand. All Christians have a confession of faith. When we go about constructing a theology of God or of salvation or of the Trinity or the “end times”, or anything for that matter, we are confessing something we believe the Bible to teach. The nature of confessionalism, then, is inescapable. As Christians we believe something and we must know what we believe and why we believe it. The options are two: we may either create our own private confession of faith or we may embrace the one that the church has agreed upon for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Secondly, we need to remember that when we confess the historic creeds and confession we are confessing the Bible. That is, we are confessing or affirming what the Bible teaches. Indeed we are confessing something that is non-Biblical. But we are not confessing something that is un-Biblical. The difference is mammoth. Just because something is not found, word-for-word, in the Bible, does not mean that it is de facto un-Biblical. We may think of many things that are non-Biblical, that is, not found in the Bible. For example, one is hard pressed to find a verse clearly affirming the Trinity. Yet we believe the Bible teaches unequivocally the doctrine of the Trinity.

When we confess our faith together, with one heart and voice and mind, we are affirming our belief in the teaching of Scripture, our trust in Jesus Christ for our salvation and our need to be shaped by the God who is there. For further reading, I recommend Recovering the Reformed Confession by R. Scott Clark and it can be found in our church library.