Presbyterian Beliefs
Introduction: When you’re on your own
You may have noticed this already… it is conceivable that I may be telling you nothing new here… but human relationships are complex and it is difficult to keep them peaceful and harmonious, productive and enjoyable.
A Christian church (rightly functioning) is about as diverse community of people that you would find anywhere. Male and female, young and old, rich and poor, from a rich diversity of ethnic and family backgrounds… all meeting together because of… what? A common belief in God? No. It’s more than that.
A belief that God exists, is holy, is trinity, sent his only Son to die on the cross for our sins so that all who believe in him may be forgiven and receive eternal life? Well… yes.
In other words, not just a generic belief in God, but beliefs in a certain God who has done things and spoken and revealed things to us in the Scriptures.
Several years ago a man came to a dinner held just before the GANSW and shared with us why he had joined the Presbyterian church. He studied 4 years or more in a theological college and then joined a vibrant non-denominational church as a junior pastor. And he loved it.
But as the months wore on he discovered that he and the senior pastor disagreed on quite a number of issues… important issues.
He raised them with the pastor but reaching agreement was hard.
He needed help, some guidance. Both men believed the Bible, both had been theologically trained… yet they held very different views about important matters.
He looked to find someone in his corner… someone to whom they were both accountable; not there. A statement of beliefs for their church; it was so general almost anyone in many churches would agree with it.
He slowly realised in a theological battle with the senior pastor he couldn’t win.
He left and eventually joined the Presbyterian church. Now he has a group of men to who he is accountable and a clear statement of beliefs that the church leadership agrees is how they interpret the Scriptures in these most important matters.
The time has come for the NRPC to appoint some new elders. So over these next three weeks we are going to consider some important aspects about eldership in the PCNSW.
We are going to start with what we believe as Presbyterians.
Firstly our very name has not so much to do with our beliefs as our church government.
Presbyterian comes from the Greek of the word for elder presbyteros.
In other words we are a church that is ruled by elders.
Well, yes… but…
We believe the Lord Jesus is head of his church, which is the body.
He is the husband of his church, which is the bride.
He is the true vine and his church are the branches.
Presbyterians are people who believe that as king he appoints elders to lead his church under him.
Acts 20:28 NIV84
28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.
Secondly God has always lead his people by elders.
In the OT God lead his people via prophets, priests and later kings… but always under them were the elders.
We first come across them when God speaks to Moses from the burning bush. God told Moses to “Go, assemble the elders of Israel...” Ex 3:16, 18.
Then scattered right through the OT are 131 references to the elders.
The Lord Jesus came on the scene and took on himself the offices of prophet, priest and king.
During the ministry of Jesus the elders of Israel are usually seen in a negative light.
They join with the chief priests and the teachers of the law to oppose Jesus.
But after Jesus’ death and resurrection in the book of Acts they start appearing as leaders of the churches in a much more positive light.
Ac 11 an offering is taken up for the church in Jerusalem and sent back to the elders.
Then in Ac 15 there is a dispute about the Gentiles becoming Christians through the ministry of Paul and whether they must be circumcised according to the law of Moses or they “cannot be saved”.
So there is a sharp dispute about doctrine.
Nobody said, Just believe in Jesus!
Paul and Barnabas and other believers were appointed to go to Jerusalem and put their dispute before the apostles and the elders.
Ac 15:4-6 “4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them. 5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.” 6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question.”
It’s a pivotal moment in church history. Will there be a Jewish Christian church and a Gentile Christian church… must the Gentile be circumcised or they cannot be saved?
They sorted it out and sent out the decision and Ac 16:4-5 “4 As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. 5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.”
From then on throughout the NT the churches have elders appointed to rule the church.
Ac 14:23 “23 Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.”
It’s interesting that in Jn 17 Jesus prayed for himself, his disciples and all believers. In this prayer Jesus predicted the growth of the church, that the gospel would be proclaimed and people would believe in him… but then he prayed for unity for the believers. Jn 17:20-23
John 17:20–23 NIV84
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Now let there be no doubt, an unhealthy or divided group of elders cannot lead a community of God’s people to be a healthy, united church!
Repeat!
Often churches put their “statement of beliefs” somewhere on their webpage, but it is usually very generic.
We believe in the Bible, God as Trinity, Jesus as our atoning sacrifice, the resurrection of the dead and Jesus return in glory… or something like that.
Sometimes there might be a comment about the evidence of the Spirit’s presence by believers speaking in tongues.
The Supreme Standard: Scripture
1 Tim 3:16-17.
A great strength of the Presbyterian church is that they take Scripture seriously.
Every year at the GANSW on opening night there are leaders present from other denominations and one or two of them are invited to say a few words. Almost without fail they comment on how they love how serious their Presbyterian brothers and sisters are about the Bible.
I remember Bruce Meller for a while was doing consultancies in other denominations mainly in Sydney and he said in Presbyterian churches he could say to a group from the church, “for God so loved the world… or It is by grace you have been saved, through… “ and someone will finish the verse for you. Not so much in other churches.
But you don’t have to talk to other Christians from other denominations for long to find out that there are very real differences of understanding many important Scriptures.
Should infants be baptised… or only adult believers?
I know this is a nonsense question but… how sovereign is God?
Does he control the weather;
If God is totally sovereign do human beings have real choices;
can people choose to become Christians without God’s help;
can we become perfect in this life;
can I be sure of eternal life… and if so how?
Remember our reading from 2 Peter!
The Bible is a long, complex document from the mind of God but written by the hand of over 40 authors over a period of 1500 years and finished nearly 2000 years ago.
Peter says Paul writes things that are hard to understand.
… which ignorant and unstable people… (no let’s leave that out because no one considers themselves ignorant or unstable!).
Paul writes things that are hard to understand and people sometimes distort and it’s fatal!
It’s probably not surprising that people disagree and even distort what it says.
The Subordinate Standard - WCF
The way the PCA have chosen for staying true to orthodox interpretation of the Scriptures is found in a document that ironically came from a group of scholars in the church of England in the mid 17th C. They were tasked with revising the documents that the Church of England had as their understanding of the Bible.
Pretty soon they invited some Scottish scholars to join them and in a series of meetings that lasted 3 years these approximately 120 scholars came up with a document that has 33 chapters but just 12,000 words.
After they finished the Confession they wrote the larger catechism for teaching the confession to adults and the shorter catechism for teaching the confession to children.
The first question in the SC is What is the chief aim of man?
The answer is…
The second question is What rule has God given to direct us how to glorify and enjoy him?
The Word of God, which consists of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how to glorify and enjoy Him.
Third question What do the Scriptures principally teach?
The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man.
Fourth question, What is God?
God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
Can you imagine what it would be like to get 100 scholars to answer the question what is God?
These people weren’t shrinking violets! Imagine handing out pieces of paper here today and asking people to write down the answer to what is God?
I’m told that when they were trying to answer that question they argued back and forth for ages and finally someone said, (maybe again), lets pray about it.
They bowed their heads and one man began his prayer. “O God, you are a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in your being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.... Somebody jumped up and said, “Stop! That’s it. Quick right that down!”
The Church of England didn’t take up the new confession and catechisms but the Scottish church did.
It’s worth bearing in mind that likely one of two things happen in churches that have very brief, summary statements of belief.
Either the minister is very strong and his way rules…
or people just keep shrinking the pool of Bible doctrine that they agree on.
In that case fellowship and peace is maintained by moving constantly towards the lowest common denominator.
Sometimes people will say something like, “I have no creed but Jesus Christ”.
Well sure. There’s no contradiction to subscribing to a confession and trusting in Jesus Christ.
But what do you believe about Jesus Christ?
Go and write down what you believe about Jesus… and put it out in the public domain and let people see what you believe about Jesus.
That’s what the confession of faith is: People wrote down what they believed the Bible taught about the major doctrines and put it in the public domain for everyone to see and scrutinise and comment on.
And it has survived for 400 years.
Some people comment that it’s a bone dry document full terrible teaching about predestination and total depravity and so on.
The first question to ask is have they read it… and the catechisms that go with it.
Some people have not even read it.
Other may misunderstand the type of document that it is. It was written in a different day and age, where there were different problems to address.
It does focus as a foil against Roman Catholicism… and it doesn’t say anything about stem cell research, cloning or the modern trends in sexuality.
But it does say a lot about the most foundational, fundamental, timeless truths of Scripture...Trinity, incarnation, deity of Christ; penal substitutionary atonement, justification by grace through faith, final judgement and the resurrection of the body… etc.
The question that needs to be asked is: Does the Westminster Confession of Faith make sense of what Scripture teaches?
The answer is, I believe: Yes it does!
If we start rewriting it every 10 years in the light of the latest fads and issues… we can be sure that it won’t be revised to strengthen it… but rather to weaken it.
The Declaratory Statement
The six Presbyterian churches in Australia decided at the end of the 19th C that they shared the same doctrine, government, discipline and form of worship that they should unite to form the PCA… the Presbyterian Church of Australia.
There was some discussion about whether or not to ditch the formal allegiance to the WCF altogether but thankfully that didn’t eventuate.
Instead they did decide to write a Declaratory Statement updating the Confession for the modern world.
The result is that they did loosen it a bit in a few areas.
Most controversially they did write in the DS, point II.5 “That liberty of opinion is allowed on matters in the subordinate standard not essential to the doctrine therein taught, the Church guarding against the abuse of this liberty to the injury of its unity and peace.”
Just last year a minister of the PCA confronted me about the resurrection of the dead. When I said that what I was teaching was what I understood was in the WCF, he replied, yes well I have a problem with that too.”
I replied that he was under oath as an elder in the PCA he had vowed to accept the Subordinate Standard of this Church and to firmly and constantly adhere to the same, and to the utmost of your power shall assert, maintain and defend the doctrine, worship and government of this church.
You know what he replied, right? We have liberty of opinion.
I said, on matters not essential to the doctrine contained in the WCF… of which there is a chapter on the resurrection of the dead.
Conclusion:
No guarantee of unity.
People can have strong opinions on other issues… BUT WE DON’T TRY AND FORCE EVERYONE ELSE INTO OUR MOLD.
Doctrinal conflict happens when people take subordinate and peripheral issues and make them central and essential!