The Necessity of Creeds and Confessions - Trueman, DeYoung & Beale

Another gem from the Taking God at His Word Conference...



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Creedal Imperative: Revisions to Creeds

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Creedal Imperative: "No Creed but the Bible"

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Why Do We Need the Creeds?

Really looking forward to this. Available on the 30th.

Need for Creed

Yes, we need creeds. They define us and what we believe and keep us in orthodoxy. Ken Gentry has listed some of the reasons why we should maintain the creeds:

1. Creeds serve as a basis for ecclesiastical fellowship and labor

2. Creeds serve as tools of Christian education

3. Creeds provide an objective, concrete standard of church discipline

4. Creeds help to preserve the orthodox Christian faith in the ongoing Church

5. Creeds offer a witness to the truth to those outside the Church

6. Creeds provide a standard by which to judge new teachings arising within the Church

Without a creed one doesn't really know what a church believes. It protects both the church and the individual from external heresy and internal perversions of truth. A creed is absolutely necessary. Gentry affirms this when he wrote, The Scriptures are careful to instruct the Church to preserve the faith. Hebrews 13:9 warns 'Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings.' Paul gives instruction to the early church leaders in this vein. To Timothy he wrote: 'Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Jesus Christ.' (2 Tim. 1:13). Titus was urged to be careful to see that an overseer 'hold fast the faithful word which is in accord with the teaching, that he may be able to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.' (Tit. 1:9). And, Although the special, direct revelation of God ceased and the corpus of Scripture was finalized in the first century, it was still necessary for the continuing Church to interpret and apply the completed revelation. The interpretation and application of Scripture is a process, not an act. It has required the involvement of many devout men working through many centuries to systematize, compile, and disseminate the fundamental truths of Scripture. The fact that the truth of Scripture is of no 'private interpretation' is a foundational principle of creedal theology. NO interpreter of Scripture works alone. All must build on the past labors of godly predecessors. It is not the interpreters or groups of exegetes who agree with the historic, orthodox interpretations of the past and who find themselves in the mainstream of Christian thought who are suspect. Rather it is those who present novel deviations from historic Christendom who deserve careful scrutiny. Creeds help to preserve the essential core of true Christian faith from generation to generation.

We must realize that no creed, confession or catechism is perfect and as times change, so should our statements of faith to reflect and address those changes. But that does not disqualify those statements already penned by those who've gone before us. They are useful and should be in place to assist us and monitor us in our individual and corporate walk before our Lord. The principle of Semper Reformanda should always be engaged.

Read Gentry's article in in entirety here.

The Need for Creeds and Confessions

Have you ever gone to a restaurant based on what the food critic in the local rag has printed about it? But when you got there you really didn’t have all the facts and you left unhappy. Well, you wasted a few bucks on a meal and you’ll never trust that critic again and you have a story to tell your friends.
I find it no different, only worse in severity, when a church does not adhere to and publish what it truly believes. Have you looked at the What We Believe page on many church websites? Try it sometime. I often can’t tell the difference between the Community Church, the Baptist church, the Fundy Baptist church, the non-denominational church that has Calvinist leanings and the non-denominational church that does NOT have Calvinist leanings. So, you really don’t know what they believe besides the generic What We Believe statements that many churches publish on their websites. There are a multitude of reasons for a congregation to adopt a creed and confession. Let’s read the good Dr. A.A. Hodge wrote concerning this:

Why are Creeds and Confessions necessary, and how have they been produced?

The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament having been given by inspiration of God, are for man in his present state the only and the all-sufficient rule of faith and practice. This divine word, therefore, is the only standard of doctrine which has any intrinsic authority binding the consciences of men. All other standards are of value or authority only as they teach what the Scriptures teach.But it is the inalienable duty and necessity of men to arrive at the meaning of the Scriptures in the use of their natural faculties, and by the ordinary instruments of interpretation. Since all truth is self-consistent in all its parts, and since the human reason always instinctively strives to reduce all the elements of knowledge with which it grapples to logical unity and consistency, it follows that men must more or less formally construct a system of faith out of the materials presented in the Scriptures. Every student of the Bible necessarily does this in the very process of understanding and digesting its teaching, and all such students make it manifest that they have found, in one way or another, a system of faith as complete as for him has been possible, by the very language he uses in prayer, praise, and ordinary religious discourse. If men refuse the assistance afforded by the statements of doctrine slowly elaborated and defined by the church, they must severally make out their own creed by their own unaided wisdom. The real question between the church and the impugners of human creeds, is not, as the latter often pretend, between the word of God and the creed of man, but between the tried and proved faith of the collective body of God's people, and the private judgment and the unassisted wisdom of the individual objector. As it would have been anticipated, it is a matter of fact that the church has advanced very gradually in this work of accurately interpreting Scripture, and defining the great doctrines which compose the system of truths it reveals. The attention of the church has been especially directed to the study of one doctrine in one age, and of another doctrine in a subsequent age. And as she has gradually advanced in the clear discrimination of gospel truth, she has at different periods set down an accurate statement of the results of her new attainments in a creed, or Confession of Faith, for the purpose of preservation and of popular instruction, of discriminating and defending the truth from the perversion of heretics and the attacks of infidels, and of affording a common bond of faith and rule of teaching and discipline.The ancient creeds of the universal Church were formed by the first four ecumenical or general councils, except the so-called Apostle's Creed, gradually formed from the baptismal confessions in use in the different churches of the West, and the so-called Athanasian Creed, which is of private and unknown authorship. The great authoritative Confession of the Papal Church was produced by the ecumenical council held at Trent, 1545. The mass of the principal Protestant Confessions were the production of single individuals or of small circles of individuals, e. g., the Augsburg Confession and Apology, the 2d Helvetic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Old Scotch Confession, the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England etc. Two, however, of the most valuable and generally received Protestant Confessions were produced by large and venerable Assemblies of learned divines, namely:the Canons of the international Synod of Dort, and the Confession and Catechisms of the national Assembly of Westminster.


Check this out:

http://www.apuritansmind.com/Creeds/CreedsAndConfessions.htm

There’s an excellent piece here by Dr. Samuel Miller.