|
Doctrinal
Summary
As a “Reformed” church we are committed to the
so-called “Solas” of the 16th century Protestant Reformation:
- Sola Scriptura - Scripture Alone
We believe that the Holy Scriptures are given by inspiration
of God and are, therefore, the only perfect rule for faith and
life.
More...
Scripture alone is the
inerrant rule of the church's life, but the evangelical church
today has separated Scripture from its authoritative function. In
practice, the church is guided, far too often, by the culture.
Therapeutic technique, marketing strategies, and the beat of the
entertainment world often have far more to say about what the
church wants, how it functions and what it offers, than does the
Word of God. Pastors have neglected their rightful oversight of
worship, including the doctrinal content of the music. As biblical
authority has been abandoned in practice, as its truths have faded
from Christian consciousness, and as its doctrines have lost their
saliency, the church has been increasingly emptied of its
integrity, moral authority and direction.
Rather than
adapting Christian faith to satisfy the felt needs of consumers,
we must proclaim the law as the only measure of true righteousness
and the gospel as the only announcement of saving truth. Biblical
truth is indispensable to the church's understanding, nurture and
discipline.
Scripture must take us beyond our perceived
needs to our real needs and liberate us from seeing ourselves
through the seductive images, clichés, promises and priorities of
mass culture. It is only in the light of God's truth that we
understand ourselves aright and see God's provision for our need.
The Bible, therefore, must be taught and preached in the church.
Sermons must be expositions of the Bible and its teachings, not
expressions of the preachers opinions or the ideas of the age. We
must settle for nothing less than what God has given.
The
work of the Holy Spirit in personal experience cannot be
disengaged from Scripture. The Spirit does not speak in ways that
are independent of Scripture. Apart from Scripture we would never
have known of God's grace in Christ. The biblical Word, rather
than spiritual experience, is the test of truth.
We
reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written
divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible
alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and
is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be
measured.
We deny that any creed, council or individual may
bind a Christian's conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks
independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible, or
that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of
revelation.
(Alliance of Confessing
Evangelicals, Cambridge Declaration, April 20 1996).
- Solo Christo - Christ Alone
We believe that our salvation is solely
accomplished by the sinless life and substitutionary death of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
More...
As evangelical faith becomes
secularized, its interests have been blurred with those of the
culture. The result is a loss of absolute values, permissive
individualism, and a substitution of wholeness for holiness,
recovery for repentance, intuition for truth, feeling for belief,
chance for providence, and immediate gratification for enduring
hope. Christ and his cross have moved from the center of our
vision.
We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by
the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless
life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our
justification and reconciliation to the Father.
We deny
that the gospel is preached if Christ's substitutionary work is
not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.
(Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals,
Cambridge Declaration, April 20 1996).
- Sola Gratia - Grace Alone
We believe that our salvation is based purely upon God’s free
grace and that no human merit is involved.
More...
Unwarranted confidence in
human ability is a product of fallen human nature. This false
confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the self-esteem
gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have
transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into
consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as
being true simply because it works. This silences the doctrine of
justification regardless of the official commitments of our
churches.
God's grace in Christ is not merely necessary but
is the sole efficient cause of salvation. We confess that human
beings are born spiritually dead and are incapable even of
cooperating with regenerating grace.
We reaffirm that in
salvation we are rescued from God's wrath by his grace alone. It
is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to
Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from
spiritual death to spiritual life.
We deny that salvation
is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or
strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation.
Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.
(Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals,
Cambridge Declaration, April 20 1996).
- Sola Fide - Faith Alone
We
believe that faith is the alone instrument of our justification
before God.
More...
Justification is by grace
alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. This is the
article by which the church stands or falls. Today this article is
often ignored, distorted or sometimes even denied by leaders,
scholars and pastors who claim to be evangelical.
Although
fallen human nature has always recoiled from recognizing its need
for Christ's imputed righteousness, modernity greatly fuels the
fires of this discontent with the biblical Gospel. We have allowed
this discontent to dictate the nature of our ministry and what it
is we are preaching.
Many in the church growth movement
believe that sociological understanding of those in the pew is as
important to the success of the gospel as is the biblical truth
which is proclaimed. As a result, theological convictions are
frequently divorced from the work of the ministry. The marketing
orientation in many churches takes this even further, erasing the
distinction between the biblical Word and the world, robbing
Christ's cross of its offense, and reducing Christian faith to the
principles and methods which bring success to secular
corporations.
While the theology of the cross may be
believed, these movements are actually emptying it of its meaning.
There is no gospel except that of Christ's substitution in our
place whereby God imputed to him our sin and imputed to us his
righteousness. Because he bore our judgment, we now walk in his
grace as those who are forever pardoned, accepted and adopted as
God's children. There is no basis for our acceptance before God
except in Christ's saving work, not in our patriotism, churchly
devotion or moral decency. The gospel declares what God has done
for us in Christ. It is not about what we can do to reach him.
We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through
faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification Christ's
righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction
of God's perfect justice.
We deny that justification rests
on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion
of Christ's righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming
to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized
as a legitimate church.
(Alliance of
Confessing Evangelicals, Cambridge Declaration, April 20
1996).
- Soli Deo Gloria - To God Alone be the
Glory
We believe that all things exist to serve and
enhance God’s glory. Therefore, we seek to order our lives,
families, and church to that chief end.
More...
Wherever in the church
biblical authority has been lost, Christ has been displaced, the
gospel has been distorted, or faith has been perverted, it has
always been for one reason: our interests have displaced God's and
we are doing his work in our way. The loss of God's centrality in
the life of today's church is common and lamentable. It is this
loss that allows us to transform worship into entertainment,
gospel preaching into marketing, believing into technique, being
good into feeling good about ourselves, and faithfulness into
being successful. As a result, God, Christ and the Bible have come
to mean too little to us and rest too inconsequentially upon
us.
God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions,
cravings, the appetite for consumption, or our own private
spiritual interests. We must focus on God in our worship, rather
than the satisfaction of our personal needs. God is sovereign in
worship; we are not. Our concern must be for God's kingdom, not
our own empires, popularity or success.
We reaffirm that
because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it
is for God's glory and that we must glorify him always. We must
live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority
of God and for his glory alone.
We deny that we can
properly glorify God if our worship is confused with
entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel in our
preaching, or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self-
fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel.
(Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals,
Cambridge Declaration, April 20 1996).
|
