A Confession for Our Time

Claims #3

It was the next hoop I had to jump through to become an ordained Presbyterian pastor. The committee had rejected my first attempt to craft a statement on what I believed about my journey with Jesus. They rightly said I was too focused on jumping through the hoop instead of using this as an opportunity to write out what I truly and deeply believed about my faith. I started over with a blank sheet of paper, considering what I had experienced in my spiritual journey thus far and connecting it to the Scriptures and statements of faith made by Christians in the past. By the time I finished, I had a statement that allowed me to take the next step in becoming a pastor. Though I would make some minor changes here and there, this statement continues, decades later, to be a touchstone in my faith and life. I am excited to share it with you.

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I believe in the kingdom of God; breaking in through the work of Christ according to the will of the Father, working through the church by the power of the Holy Spirit, coming through the return of Christ to the glory of the Godhead.

Christ came preaching the good news that the kingdom of God was near.¹ He lived as a citizen of this realm by doing the will of God, even unto death.² His death and resurrection broke the power of individual and structural sin which characterizes fallen creation³ and enabled the coming of the Holy Spirit which empowers us to live as he lived.⁴ His victory was complete.⁵ The kingdom is now present as a ferment in the world.⁶

Christ also proclaimed the need for repentance and trust in the good news.⁷ God created the world according to sovereign love and created us in His image. His world calls us to enjoy each other and the earth. Thus what God created was good.⁸ But humanity chose to follow its own way. We recreated our world according to our futile striving⁹ and recreated ourselves without God.  Our world calls us to trust in ourselves and our technology and live our days believing that life consists in progress and the accumulation of wealth. Thus we have committed idolatry and set ourselves in direct opposition to God.¹⁰

We must turn from these ways and trust in the hope of the kingdom, doing the will of God in all aspects of our lives¹¹ including the social and cultural, the economic and the political, the scientific and the technological, the individual and the corporate.¹² We must confront those who worship freedom without responsibility, tolerance without truth, and individual human rights without affirming family and community. We must challenge those who worship the remembered past and lose the vision of a more just future, social stability to the exclusion of creative and courageous change, and their material security while ignoring attainable solutions for those who cannot fulfill their most basic human needs. In the midst of these divisive and short-sighted agendas, God calls us to a new vision in which freedom leads to responsibility,¹³ unity is found in diversity,¹⁴ and where individual human rights are secured within local communities.¹⁵ God’s agenda calls for a past that informs but does not rule our future,¹⁶ a social stability that comes from social righteousness,¹⁷ and prosperity that comes as the result of lives spent in the service of others.¹⁸

I believe in the church’s active participation in the movement of the kingdom. Through self-sacrificial service to others, the teaching of the Word of God graciously used by the Spirit, the shared sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and the truth spoken in love,¹⁹ God the Holy Spirit molds and empowers the body of Christ to be a witness in word and deed according to the needs of the time.²⁰ It is by the Holy Spirit’s power that our lives are renewed and we are strengthened to challenge the world, to unmask its idolatries,²¹ and to live in the hope of the kingdom coming.

Finally, I actively await the kingdom's coming in the return and judgment of Jesus Christ.²²   Our partial achievements do not themselves lead directly to the kingdom.²³ The direction of history is not under our control. Rather, our actions are enacted prayers for the coming of the kingdom. As such, they are signs of its reality which allow others to act in hope. When Christ returns we will witness the full realization of the kingdom’s victory over darkness to the glory of the Triune God.²⁴

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I encourage you to take the time to develop your own statement of faith, supported by Scripture and the statements of other Christians who have influenced your journey. The effort will bring you encouragement on the way.

1. Mark 1:15/ Brief Statement of Faith 11:2 (p. 311) lines 7-9

2. Matthew 26:39

3. Genesis 3:14-19

4. John 16:7, John 16:13

5. Colossians 2:15/ Westminster 6.047, p. 158

6. Confession of 1967 9.54, p. 296-297.

7. Mark 1:15

8. Genesis 1:27-31

9. Confession of 1967 9.12, p. 288-289.

10. Luke 12:15, Matthew 6:24/ Heidelberg 4.095, p. 62

11. Westminster 6.075, p. 164./ Barmen 8.15, p. 283

12. Confession of 1967 9.53, p. 296.

13. Galatians 5:13/ Confession of 1967 9.17, p. 289.

14. Helvetic 5.141, p. 114. Helvetic 5.126, p. 109/ Confession of 1967 9.34, p. 289.

15. I Corinthians 12:7, I Corinthians 12:12-26/  Helvetic 5.165, p. 121

16. Deuteronomy 8:1-20

17. Jeremiah 23:5-6

18. Isaiah 58:6-12

19. Scots Confession 3.18, p. 19-20

20. Confession of 1967 9.02, p. 287, Confession of 1967 9.55, p. 297.

21. Brief Statement 11.4, p. p. 312 line 69

22. Romans 8:19-21

23. Confession of 1967 9.55, p. 297.

24. Heidelberg 4.123, p 71.