Seminary Sunday - 1689 LBCF - Redeemer Borger

Lesson 1 - Introduction and the Holy Scriptures

 Introduction to the Confession

Westminster Confession of Faith      We start with the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1647. During this time, the civil war was raging on, and the Anglican church decided to reform its church government. They essentially took 120 clergymen, known as the “divines,” and 30 laymen, 10 from the House of Lords and 20 from the House of Commons, and formed what is now known as the Westminster Assembly of Divines. They established their beliefs and wrote them for all to see in what is known as the Westminster Confession of Faith. The emphasis in their confession of faith was on the covenant relationships between God and mankind. But they also focused on matters of church polity. For example, the matter of church government holds to the Presbyterian view of local presbyteries governing local bodies. In the matter of baptism, they held to the belief in infant baptism. So, obviously, not everyone is going to agree with this confession.

The Savoy Declaration Then, we have the Savoy Declaration of 1658. Some groups, such as the Baptists and the Congregationalists, while mostly agreeing with the Westminster Confession, did not agree with those two aspects of church government or baptism. In an effort to reconcile the differences, some of the congregationalist leaders got together in the Savoy Palace in London and made their own confession of faith. Based mostly on the Westminster Confession, they added a section allowing them to carry out their own form of church government. It wasn’t so much a new confession of faith as much as it was a sort of addendum to what already existed.

1677 LBCF        Now, we get to the LBCF, but it’s not the one we see used today. Rather, this one is the first draft of that, written in 1677, with a few other drafts following this one. The Congregationalists didn’t like the church government section in the Westminster Confession, so they added a “declaration” to support their own church government. The Baptists did not agree with the church government or the infant baptism of the Westminster Confession and set out to form their own confession of faith. Instead of infant baptism, they wanted to teach what we call “believers baptism.” So, to do this, some Baptist leaders formed this confession of faith, again largely based on the Westminster Confession but with their own corrections and beliefs. Now, this version of the LBCF was not signed by anyone, but it was a circular letter that was formed and sent out to all the Baptist churches in England at the time.

1689 LBCF      Fast forward to 1689, William and Mary assumed the throne of England, and the Act of Toleration was put into place. This toleration act provided freedom for the protestant churches from the Catholic church. After this, the Baptist leaders in London formed a group and made some necessary corrections to the 1677 version of the LBCF, which was adopted as an official statement of beliefs for the London Baptist churches and is still widely used today. So, this 1689 version is not the original but an updated and official version.

                                                                                            A question for reflection  What were the two areas the Baptists disagreed with in the Westminster Confession? Church government and baptism. All the other things, such as the doctrines of God, salvation, and sanctification, were all pretty much agreed on with maybe slight changes.

        Chapter 1 – The Holy Scriptures     

In this first chapter, we have ten paragraphs, each explaining key points in the doctrine of the Word. These help us better understand this doctrine without having to pull out the systematic theology books. This is part of the reason we want to go through the 1689 together: It actually gives us a very simple and practical way of looking at the most important doctrines and gives us something to build upon, all of which is grounded in Scripture. So let’s start walking through these paragraphs.

Paragraphs 1 & 2 The Scriptures are SUFFECIENT for all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. John Reuter says, “Sufficient means adequate for the purpose. In order to be sufficient, it must be sure or certain, unquestionable, and therefore satisfying for the purpose envisioned.” In other words, the Scriptures are certain about all things needed for the issues of salvation, faith, and obedience. They tell us all we need to know about these things. One way we do a disservice to people in talking about the sufficiency of Scripture is by making Scripture the ONLY knowledge available for everything pertaining to life. In God’s common grace, he has given us knowledge for the matters of life via other sources and rationality; he gave us brains and the ability to think. But, for the matters of salvation, faith, and obedience to God, we look nowhere else other than the perfect Word of God because we believe they are sufficient.

                                                                                                 The Scriptures are also INFALLIBLE for all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. Again John Reuter says, “This means that it is exempt from the liability of error.” This word encapsulated much more in this time period, and today, it has been split into two words: infallible and inerrant. Infallible means that Scripture will never lead us astray because it can’t be wrong, and inerrant means that Scripture is without error on the matters for which it speaks. Overall, this means that Scripture is completely trustworthy as Divine revelation for everything that it speaks