About Me – On Confessions

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If you don’t know, this is a post that helps you the reader to become more acquainted with where I – the author of this site – stand on various topics and theological points. Keep reading to see where I stand on today’s topic.

In our present age, there is this common thought that one’s religion should be kept unshackled from the doctrines, dogmas, and creeds (or confessions) of the past. They think this makes them better and freer than those of the past. As such, they tend to be anti-creedal.

However, it is impossible to truly be anti-confessional. To state you have no confession or that there should be no confession is to inherently make a declarative statement that takes on the role of your confession. By merely taking a stand of any kind, you’ve confessed your position and thereby put forth your creed or confession. Therefore, it is more honest to be forward and state what you have as your confession.

Heretics historically proclaimed that they held to the Scriptures so simply stating “our creed is the Bible” isn’t enough. In fact, confessions were often written in response to historical heresies in order to have a succinct message upon where the church stood that could be referenced against such heresies. These also serve as useful teaching tools for the congregation at large.

I personally enjoy both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed and my current church subscribes to the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith (also called the 2nd London Baptist Confession).

I also think quite highly of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

There are many other creeds and confessions out there and many that are useful for teaching and historical study that I have not mentioned here.

My greatest point is that confessions are important and that a church that claims it doesn’t have one or refuses to state one has thereby made its stance (confession) clear, and such a church is therefore a potentially dangerous place as it will have difficulty identifying and calling out false doctrine. Such a place is not the sort of place one should look to for growth in Christ.

Note: I do these posts not because I think I’m somehow superior in my views or anything absurd like that but out of a desire to be up-front and honest with my readers as to where I stand. Otherwise, you’d be left to figure things out by reading between the lines and/or guessing.

Quote #25 – Scripture (parallel)

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Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Philippians 3:8 (ESV)

More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,

Philippians 3:8 (NASB, Updated 1995)

Quote #24 – Machen

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While speaking on the subject of doctrine . . .

If the Church were led to wipe out of existence all products of the thinking of nineteen Christian centuries and start fresh, the loss, even if the Bible were retained, would be immense. When it is once admitted that a body of facts lies at the basis of the Christian religion, the efforts which past generations have made toward the classification of the facts will have to be treated with respect. In no branch of science would there be any real advance if every generation started fresh with no dependence upon what past generations have achieved. Yet in theology, vituperation of the past seems to be thought essential to progress. And upon what base slanders the vituperation is based! After listening to modern tirades against the great creeds of the Church, one receives rather a shock when one turns to the Westminster Confession, for example, or to that tenderest and most theological of books, the “Pilgrim’s Progress” of John Bunyan, and discovers that in doing so one has turned from shallow modern phrases to a “dead orthodoxy” that is pulsating with life in every word. In such orthodoxy there is life enough to set the whole world aglow with Christian love.

J. Grescham Machen in Christianity & Liberalism

Note: if you’re not familiar with the term “vituperation”, think of it as: the act of being invective; you are attempting to censure or put away with abusive language.

Quote #23 – Scripture

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Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

Jeremiah 9:23-24 (ESV)

About Me – On Baptism

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If you don’t know, this is a post that helps you the reader to become more acquainted with where I – the author of this site – stand on various topics and theological points. Keep reading to see where I stand on today’s topic.

In short, I am credo-baptist.

This means I see value and biblical support for the baptism of a professing believer in Christ. This does not include the baptism of infants.

I have long since viewed baptism this way and came to it naturally by simply reading the Scriptures. I’ve read and listened to many an argument for infant baptism (paedobaptism) and do not find the arguments convincing. Even my current studies continue to reaffirm what Scripture clearly teaches – credo.

I know there are some dedicated paedobaptists out there who are likely triggered by that last comment but this post isn’t about debating. This is about where I, the author of this site, am at.

I do want to make a distinction though. There’s another practice often associated with infant baptism that is extra-biblical but there’s also nothing truly wrong with it either. That would be baby dedications and these often involve the parents pledging, before the church, to raise their child right before the Lord. This isn’t a necessary practice or even a required one by Scripture but I also see nothing wrong with it.

I bring these dedications up as they are often confused with infant baptism since they are not uncommonly done alongside it.

Infant baptism isn’t the biblical pattern. In addition, the earliest Christians didn’t do this practice and once they did start doing so, they did it based on very different reasoning than what people do today.

FYI: once infant baptism did become a things, not everyone practiced it and they based it upon the thinking of trying to secure the child through the grace imparted through the act. The reasoning simply wasn’t what you typically see today.

Note: I do these posts not because I think I’m somehow superior in my views or anything absurd like that but out of a desire to be up-front and honest with my readers as to where I stand. Otherwise, you’d be left to figure things out by reading between the lines and/or guessing.

Quote #22 – Robert Paul Martin

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A church without a confession of faith may as well advertise that it is prepared to be a harbor for every kind of damning heresy and to be the soil for any who are given to growing the crop of novelty.

From the Introduction by Robert Paul Martin in Dr. Waldron’s A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith

Quote 21 – Augustine

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by the preaching of predestination, the preaching of persevering and progressive faith is not to be hindered; and thus they may hear what is necessary to whom it is given that they should obey. For how shall they hear without a preacher? Neither, again, is the preaching of a progressive faith which continues even to the end to hinder the preaching of predestination, so that he who is living faithfully and obediently may not be lifted up by that very obedience, as if by a benefit of his own, not received; but that he that glorieth may glory in the Lord. For “we must boast in nothing, since nothing is our own.”

Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance, Chapter 36

Quote #18 – Scripture

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Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

Revelation 2:10 (ESV)