T H E
C H R I S T I A N F A I T H
B E I N G
A S U M M A R Y O F B I B L E D O CT R I N E
I N T H E F O R M O F Q U E S T I O N S & A N S W E R S.
INTRODUCTION:
** Please note that although presented in the format of Questions and Answers this Doctrinal Statement is NOT a catechism, and no one is expected to memorise the answers directly. Readers from existing evangelical or Reformed churches will certainly find things in the statement that do not agree with their previous assumptions or teachings (perhaps most notably concerning Baptism, Sung Worship, and Scriptural Church government, as well as other less prominent issues.) Given the trends of post-Reformation church history in the Western nations this is inevitable. We request that in such cases the reader defers judgment, and refers to the expanded Doctrinal Statement with Bible Proofs, and then prayerfully considers whether or not the Bible supports the position stated, even though it may be new or strange to him or her: ‘Do not cling to your preconceived opinions when the Bible is against them’ (James W. Alexander, c.1835). **
What is the purpose of your life?
To know God, and to worship and enjoy him forever.
What must I know about myself, in order to know God?
Three things: how great my sins are, how I may be delivered from my sins, and how I may express my gratitude to God acceptably.
Who is God?
God is an almighty, spiritual being, eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, unchangeable, unlimited, all pure, all good, all knowing, perfectly wise, perfectly just, all merciful, whose very essence is love, the creator and upholder of all things, sovereign over all events, the Holy One, the only God.
Are there more Gods than one?
There is only one God, the true and living God.
How many Persons are there in the Godhead?
There are three Persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three are one God, the same in substance and equal in power and glory.
How are we to understand the names and titles Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, when referring to one undivided God?
Although the Trinity in unity is a deep mystery to human understanding, God existed eternally as both Three and One, in a covenanted relationship of mutual love and satisfaction. The tree Persons have each a distinct (but interconnected) role in the salvation of the elect. The Father sends the Son (who proceeds from the Father) and the Father and Son send the Holy Spirit (who proceeds from the Father and the Son) to work this salvation for his people.
How does the Bible prove that the three Persons of the Trinity are also one God?
By applying the same names and titles of the absolute God both to the Godhead and to each divine Person individually, and by attributing the same qualities and activities to each of the divine Persons.
Was it necessary for one Person of the Godhead to become man, in order to work salvation for his people?Yes. It was necessary that the nature that sinned, humanity, should pay the redemption price and bear the punishment due to human sin. This required a perfect, unfallen, un-sinning true human.
Which Person of the Godhead undertook this task, and how was it achieved?
Called to this role by God the Father, God the Son undertook the task, by being conceived by God the Holy Spirit in a virgin’s womb, and born as a true man, yet without sin. In this way he could, in due time, offer a perfect sin-offering to the Tri-Une Godhead, in full atonement for all of the sins of his people.
Was God the Son, when incarnate as Jesus the Messiah, truly both fully God and fully man at the same time, and how may this be proved?
Yes. Jesus Christ was (and is) truly both God and man, simultaneously, and yet without confusion of natures. This is proven by the record of Christ’s limited knowledge and ability according to his human nature, alongside his unlimited knowledge and power according to his divine nature, and his ability to switch between these natures at will.
What is meant by God’s work of creation?
The work of creation is God the Trinity’s work in making all things out of nothing by the word of his holy power, in the space of six literal days, and all in perfection.
What is meant by in the beginning?
That time as we know it began with God’s creation of the universe.
Were the days of Genesis Chapter One literal twenty-four hour days?
Yes. By limiting them each between an evening and a morning the Bible is explicit that the creation days were normal, twenty-four hour days.
Does God continue to uphold and control his creation?
Yes. He constantly upholds and controls creation by his providence.
What is God’s providence?
God’s providence is the almighty power by which he, as sovereign, sustains and governs his creation and all that it contains, eternally, and according to his own good pleasure.
How did God create the first man, Adam?
On the sixth day God formed Adam from the soil of the earth, breathed life into him, and Adam became a living soul.
Although Adam was perfect and set above all creatures, did he lack anything?
Yes, he lacked a companion who was his equal.
What suitable companion did God provide?
The first woman, Eve.
How did God create Eve?
God made Adam sleep, and took one of his ribs and formed the woman, so that they were made two from one flesh.
What did this symbolise?
That it was God’s design that by marriage one man and one woman would join together, for mutual love and companionship, and to bring forth children to populate the earth. More specifically it shows forth the production of an elected covenant seed to love and serve God through all eternity.
What was the moral nature of Adam and Eve following their creation by God?
They were perfectly pure and holy in every way, dressed in God-given robes of creation righteousness, because created innocent in God’s image.
Did Adam and Eve then possess a free will?
Only God has a truly free will, for only God is sovereign. Adam and Eve’s wills were voluntarily subject to God, and thus not sovereignly free.
What are angels?
Angels are spiritual beings created to serve God, superior to man in intelligence, invisible to those on earth.
Who is Satan?
Satan or the Devil is a leading angel, who became evil and led a rebellion against God. He is the fount and cause of all evil and wickedness.
Can this rebellion succeed in any way?
Absolutely not. The Devil and his fallen angels are controlled by God’s sovereignty, have been condemned for their sin, and are reserved to be chained in darkness forever.
What pleasant work did God assign to Adam and Eve?
They were to exercise control over the creation, and especially to look after a beautiful garden called Eden. Adam was also required to keep or guard it.
What special command was added to these duties?
They were forbidden to eat of the fruit of one specific tree in the middle of the garden.
Did Adam and Eve obey God in this?
No. Adam failed to guard against possible temptation, and Satan tempted Eve to eat the fruit, and she in turn tempted Adam, and they sinned in eating it.
What is sin?
Sin is anything that does not agree with, or breaks, the law of God.
What did Adam and Eve lose, on becoming sinners?
They lost their created immortality and their created righteousness innocence and its shining robes, and so they became unclean and unholy and had to make artificial coverings for themselves. From then on they could only produce sinful children, in their fallen image.
Can God overlook sin?
No. God is holy and just and cannot overlook sin, which is wicked rebellion against his holiness.
What does all sin deserve?
All sin deserves punishment.
What immediate punishment did God place on Adam and Eve?
By sin they became mortal, and would have to die. Adam would have to labour hard to provide for himself and his family. Eve would bring forth children in pain and sorrow.
What eternal danger did sin place Adam and Eve in?
Sin against an Almighty God has an infinite aspect, demanding eternal punishment.
What has this first sin of Adam and Eve to do with me?
It defines your nature. All humans are descended from Adam and Eve, and therefore the genetic material that we spring from was present in them when they fell. Therefore we all sinned in them when they sinned, and fell when they fell.
Did Adam and Eve achieve free will by their fall, as Satan claimed they would?
No. Satan is a liar. The fall affected every part of man, including his will. Mankind’s will is not free but is in bondage to sin. This is called total depravity.
Does total depravity mean that humans are now totally and completely wicked?
No. Unsaved humans are by nature capable of many good things, but this is only on a physical level. Total depravity means that there is no part of the human being or nature that has not been corrupted by sin to some degree.
What are now the limits of human reason and understanding?
Human intelligence and reason is capable of great understanding of the physical and visible things of creation, but of nothing beyond that. Moreover, fallen man interprets these things so as to deny or exclude their witness to God. Insight into the why, rather than just how, things are is an added element, that come only by faith.
Was God’s plan for mankind disrupted by the fall into sin?
Certainly not. The almighty and all-knowing God knew all about the fall before it happened. He permitted the fall, but only in a way that was under his sovereign control. He would bring greater good out of evil by it.
How did God in this way provide for the fall and its consequences, from eternity past?
God provided for the fall and its consequences from eternity past by way of a divine covenant.
What is this divine covenant?
The divine covenant is a mutual agreement by which the three Persons of the Trinity agreed in love to rescue a special number of people from the punishment due to their sins and bring them to share in that covenanted love eternally.
What is this covenant called?
It is called the Covenant of redemption, or the Covenant of grace.
What is the purpose of this divine covenant?
As sin is against an infinite God, and all humans were made sinners in Adam, and all sin in their own persons, all humans are liable to eternal punishment. Only an infinite being, that is one of the Persons of the Godhead, could so substitute for sinners as to satisfy God’s infinite justice.
What mutual obligations and duties did the Persons within the Godhead covenant in love to undertake?
God the Father covenanted to grant an immense number of people to God the Son. God the Son covenanted to take human form and suffer, in their place, the punishment due to them, God the Holy Spirit covenanted to apply this salvation to them, individually, in time.
Was God obliged to make this covenant, and so arrange to save these people?
Not at all. God would have been as holy and as just had he allowed the deserved eternal punishment to fall on all humanity. Salvation is entirely by God’s grace.
Does the church have any role in this covenant?
No. The covenant is between the Persons of the Godhead alone. The church, that is the elect in both Old and New Testament times, enter into the blessings of the covenant through God’s grace, as heirs and beneficiaries, not as partners. The church’s role is to thank, praise, and magnify God for his covenant provision for them.
Was the covenant renewed at different times?
From God’s point of view, no. It was established once and for all time in eternity past. God’s people on earth are prone to forget the covenant, and so it has pleased God to remind them of its privileges periodically and restore his people to them, advancing its administration and even clarifying its terms, as to Adam, Noah, Abraham, and the Apostolic church.
As recipients of the covenant of grace or redemption do any people now have a special covenantal role?
Yes. Within the overarching provision of covenant salvation God has established earthly covenant heads- husbands and fathers to their families, and church elders to the membership.
What are the Decrees of God?
God’s sovereign control and administration of all things, as creator, upholder, and as redeemer, as manifested in the covenant, is sometimes described in terms of his decrees. A decree is God’s sovereign decision to bring something he foreordained from eternity into being in time. More specifically the term refers to God’s decree of election to redeem a people from sin by virtue of the atoning sacrifice made by God the Son at Calvary.
Was God’s decree to save the elect made before or after man’s fall?
Neither- and both. The decree is the work of God and not of man, and God exists outside of time and space as finite creatures know it. God emphatically was not limited to a time sequence as humans are. Thus his decree existed from eternity, existed at the fall, existed since the fall, and will exist through all eternity to come. His timeless decree underpins election and the assured salvation of the elect.
What is grace?
Unmerited favour, flowing from God’s essential attributes of beauty and goodness, administered in pure love.
Can God’s grace ever be common or general to mankind?
No. In order to be grace it must be specific. Grace is an attribute of God, dispensed to the elect by virtue of Christ’s atoning work for them, and which is applied to them by the Holy Spirit, and so is applicable solely to the elect.
What term is used for those humans that God covenanted to save?
They are called the elect.
What term is used for those who God chose to leave to deserved punishment for their sins?
They are called the reprobate.
What attribute of God is glorified in the elect?
God’s loving mercy is glorified in the elect.
What attribute of God is glorified in the reprobate?
God’s holy justice is glorified in the reprobate.
Did God simply choose the elect from a foreseen mass of humanity?
No. God the Son is the true elect, because he elected to bear the punishment due to his people. All the saved ones are elected in him, and are saved by him. They are elect because their Saviour is elect.
What is preterition?
Preterition is God’s sovereign passing by those he chose not to elect. They in turn become reprobate through their inherited sin and their own sins, and so are finally justly punished.
Does God give good things in this life to the reprobate as well as to the elect?
Yes. Worldly things such as health, warmth, prosperity, food, leisure time and family affection are given by God’s upholding providence, and are received by all people.
In what manner do the reprobate receive these good things?
They receive them sinfully, because they do not acknowledge God’s provision of them, or give him thanks at all. They receive them by way of ever increasing debt.
In what manner do the elect receive these good things?
They receive them thankfully, seeing their heavenly Father’s good hand in giving them, and they duly thank and praise him for them. They receive them by way of grace.
How is it possible for the elect to be saved?
God the Son covenanted to take on a human body and to bear the punishment due to their sins in his own body and spirit, when he suffered and died in their place at Calvary.
Is Christ Jesus then both truly human and truly God?
Yes. From his conception and birth God the Son has been both really human as well as truly God.
Why was it necessary for God the Son to take on human form?
It was required that the nature that sinned be recovered. Only a perfect and sinless human could do that. As all of Adam’s race are sinful, God the Son covenanted to assume human nature, yet completely without sin, and in that nature to keep God’s law perfectly, and to pay the atoning price for his people’s sins.
How did Jesus Christ display both his human and divine natures, whilst on earth?
As a man Christ voluntarily humbled himself to become subject to the common infirmities, limits, and pains of humanity, yet as God he could cure diseases and even reverse death. His human knowledge was limited, yet at the same time his divine knowledge was unlimited. He could employ the attributes of each nature at will.
What is atonement?
God cannot simply overlook sin: all sin is against the Holy God and must be punished. God the Son, Jesus Christ, undertook to bear the exact equivalent punishment due to his people’s sins, when he suffered and died in their place on Calvary’s cross. Thus Christ atoned for the sins of his people, making God and the elect at one together again. This completed, he arose from the dead, conquering death for his people.
What motive did God have in providing this atonement for his elect?
Pure, unmerited, sovereign love.
How is this atonement and salvation received by the elect?
God the Holy Spirit works in their lives to bring them to see their sin and the punishment due to it, to repent of it, and to come to Christ by exercising saving faith. This is the great gift of God.
Is salvation possible without repentance?
No. Without repentance for sin there is no inward work of the Holy Spirit, and thus no salvation.
Can we in any way contribute to our own salvation?
Not at all. Before salvation we were all dead in trespasses and sins, and can contribute nothing. Salvation is entirely of grace, unmerited in any way by the elect, worked in and for them by the Holy Spirit applying Christ’s God-satisfying atonement.
How does Christ save his people?
By his incarnation or coming to earth as a human being, by his keeping the law perfectly on behalf of his people (his active obedience in life), by his paying the exact penalty due to their sins when he suffered in their place on the cross at Calvary (his active obedience in death), and by his continued intercession for them in heaven.
Why does the Bible emphasise the shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross, during his atoning sacrifice for his elect?
Because without shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins. In the blood there is redemption, forgiveness, justification, cleansing, sanctification, access to God, peace, victory, and glory to come.
In what way do the elect partake of Christ’s sufferings?
United to him by faith they died (spiritually) when he died, and rose with him in his resurrection. The merits of his atoning sacrifice become theirs, not by a mere or theoretical imputation but by impartation, because they are as truly united with Christ in his salvation as they once were with Adam in his fall.
In what way do the elect have Christ’s righteousness imparted to them?
To be accepted by God it is necessary to keep the law perfectly. Christ kept the law fully and perfectly throughout his life on earth. This is his active obedience in life. Christ then paid the penalty due to the sins of his elect, on Calvary’s cross. Christ was active on the cross as he deliberately remained there until he has borne the full punishment due to the sins on his people, and then he actively dismissed his spirit, when that atonement was fully accomplished. As their Priest Christ presented this combined righteousness to the Godhead on behalf of his people. United to him by saving faith, this righteousness is actually also theirs on the day of judgement. These are two inseperable facets of salvation.
If Christ kept the law perfectly for his people, are they not then free from the law?
No. Law keeping was never a way to salvation. The law serves to show us what God requires, and how far we fall short of it. It is a rule for life: a constant measure of the believer’s advance in holiness and sanctification.
How do the elect partake of this atonement and receive salvation?
By repenting of their sins, and calling on and accepting Christ in faith. This is receiving forgiveness. It is also called the new birth.
Is saving faith then a work that we can do?
No. Faith is the sovereign gift of God, earned for us by Christ, by which we come to trust in him to save us.
Where then does saving faith originate?
In Christ’s suffering the punishment due to the sins of his people on Calvary’s cross there was more than a mere ‘legal’ or technical substitution, for this was undertaken in specific love to the elect. Even in suffering Christ knew that they could not partake of the salvation he was purchasing for them without faith, and that no one can exercise faith by themselves. Therefore in his atoning suffering Christ purchased the gift of faith for the elect, to be granted and applied to them by the Holy Spirit, each in due time.
What does this sovereign gift include?
God the Holy Spirit convicting of sin, working repentance, leading to Christ, gifting saving faith, assuring of forgiveness and acceptance by God. It is God the Holy Spirit who applies to God’s people the atonement earned for them by God the Son, and who will preserve them unto eternity (otherwise called the perseverance or preservation of the saints), to the glory of the Triune Godhead.
Does Christ the Saviour still work for his people?
Yes. Christ upholds and intercedes for them in heaven. Christ, with the Father, sends the Holy Spirit to apply his salvation, and lead his people through life to the perfection of heaven.
How does Christ now intercede for his people?
Otherwise called the work of Christ as an advocate Christ constantly applies the merits of his atoning death before the Godhead to cover the on-going daily sins of his elect people on earth, whilst the Holy Spirit works repentance for them in those people.
Will this intercession of Christ be eternal?
No. Only the church militant, the elect here in earth, still struggle with sin, and (although eternally saved) need constant intercession. When Christ returns the number of the elect will be completed, the ‘bride of Christ’ perfected, and sin destroyed forever, Then there will no longer be any need for intercession, as the whole church will be gloriously free from sin and danger.
What is God the Holy Spirit’s role in our salvation?
God the Holy Spirit works for the elect: effectual calling, conviction of sin, justification, adoption, reconciliation, assurance, and glorification.
Has the Holy Spirit then replaced Christ in the church since Christ’s ascension?
No. Rather the Holy Spirit provides the dynamic link between the believer on earth and Christ in heaven.
What then are the Holy Spirit’s ongoing activities concerning the believer?
God the Holy Spirit: applies Christ’s salvation by regenerating and renewing, he sanctifies, indwells, comforts, enlightens, aids in prayer, gives knowledge, guides in the truth, seals, and leads, but can be grieved.
What is effectual calling?
Out of the mass of humanity some people are awakened to their separation from God and are brought to a concern for their eternal future. Those effectually called cannot rest until they have received Christ’s salvation.
What is conviction of sin?
No one wishes to be saved unless and until they see clearly what they need to be saved from. God the Holy Spirit shows the true evil of every sin, and convicts the person of the punishment due to their own sins.
What is repentance?
Being convicted by the Holy Spirit of sin and of its eternal just deserts the elect one rejects, turns from, and is truly sorry for his or her sins, constantly praying for forgiveness through Christ’s atonement, and constantly endeavouring new obedience to God’s law.
What is justification?
Justification is the sentence of life given to those whose sins are atoned for by Christ. Although arranged for and certain from eternity, there is a moment in time when, on receiving the benefits of faith, the Holy Spirit declares our justification in heaven.
What is reconciliation?
Although God knew and loved his elect from all eternity, the fact of sin separated them from him. In eternal and unchanging love God provided for Christ’s atoning death so as to remove that enmity, reconciling the Godhead to the elect, and the elect to God.
What is adoption?
As the elect are united to Christ by faith they become truly the sons and daughters of God and so are adopted into God’s ‘family’. Thus they partake of the covenant love that exists between the Persons of the Godhead. God, as Father, will provide for all of their needs, now and forever.
What is conversion?
Not to be mistaken for the new birth or regeneration, conversion is the evidence of received salvation shown in a changed or converted life. Conversion is the basis of sanctification.
What is sanctification?
Although justification is instantly completed, Godward in eternity, yet we live as humans in time, in sinful bodies amidst a fallen and sinful world. We must constantly strive to be more pleasing to God, knowing that we shall not achieve sinless perfection in this life. Our current measure of godliness is our sanctification. This is thus the measure of the believer’s holiness: incomplete on earth, perfected in heaven.
Is our sanctification constant?
No. By coldness, doubting, falls into sin, or backsliding we can diminish our level of sanctification. Repentance of these things and revival and increase in faith and love advances our sanctification. It is a struggle through sin and weakness towards ultimate sinless perfection in glory.
What are the signs or proofs of progressive sanctification in ourselves or others?
Evidence of growth in sanctification included increasing morality, increasing humility, increasing spiritual courage, increasing love of the Bible, increasing hatred of sin, increasing love of prayer, increasing submission of God’s sovereign will, and a desire for an ever closer walk with God.
What completes our sanctification, and when its it completed?
When the believer arrives at glory the active obedience of Christ as perfect law-keeper is perfected in them, completing their sanctification and presenting them absolutely holy and sinlessly complete before God.
If sin placed the human will under bondage, does salvation mean that the saved one has a restored free will?
No. The human will is never sovereignly free, for that belongs to God alone. Human will is either gladly subject to God’s will (in the case of the elect) or continues in bondage to sin and Satan (in the case of the reprobate.)
What is assurance?
Assurance is the gift of the Holy Spirit by which we know that we have passed from death to life by the gracious atonement of Christ, are justified from our sins, and are certain of full sanctification and a place in heaven.
Is assurance perfect in this life?
No. As we struggle with in-dwelling remaining sin we can never achieve absolute assurance without some lingering doubts. Assurance is allied to sanctification. When we sin or fall back and lose some of our sanctification it is natural to feel some loss of assurance. Conversely when we progress in faith and love and advance in sanctification we feel our assurance equally strengthening. It all depends on how closely we are walking with God. Nevertheless all believers have some level of assurance at all times, for it is a facet of God’s love to us in the gift of saving faith, and is not in any way from ourselves.
Does lack of assurance mean that a believer could possibly fall from grace and fail to be saved?
Certainly not. Those granted to God the Son by God the Father in eternity past, who have redemption applied by God the Holy Spirit, are totally secure under God’s sovereign saving power. Despite falls and backslidings in life they are eternally safe. They persevere in grace. They do so because they are preserved in grace by God.
What is God’s blessing?
God’s blessing is the receiving, by the elect, of the benefits of God’s grace towards them.
What is glorification?
Glorification is the sure and certain promise that one day, either when we die or when Christ returns, we will leave all remnants of sin behind, be perfectly holy (sanctified) and assurance will be fulfilled in sight and experience. Then the believer will be with Christ in unimaginable happiness for all eternity to come.
What are the Christian’s good works?
Doing good works has no merit towards salvation, but such works are an evidence of salvation. The good we do is never our own for God gives us good works to walk in, as his servants fulfilling his will. Being employed by God in this way encourages the believer in their assurance of salvation, and being more Christ-like in our walk greatly aids our sanctification. Good deeds are first and foremost to be done to the needy in the household of faith, and secondarily to outsiders who are genuinely helpless and in need.
Has God provided a summary of his law?
God’s law revealed in the Old Testament contained both a) ritual or ceremonial aspects, and, b) moral aspects. The ritual elements were all teaching devices (types) pointing to Christ, and so were fulfilled and have passed away with his ministry on earth. The moral elements are for all people and all time, and are summed up in the so-called Ten Commandments given in Exodus 20:1-17.
If the moral law is for all people at all time, what is its function for the unsaved?
The law exposes their sin, and leaves them without excuse.
Is the moral law then in force for the believer as a rule for life?
No, not directly. The believer is not under law as law, because he or she is not under law but under grace, and so is free from the law, because Christ has kept the law perfectly on their behalf. This explains why the severe punishments for breaking the law in the Old Testament (for example stoning for Sabbath breaking, Numbers 15:32-36 ) are not in force in the New Testament: they were visible and typical teaching devices. The same sanctions do certainly apply now for breaking the law, but now they are spiritual, invisible, and have eternal consequences.
What then is the Christian’s rule for life?
The Christian’s rule for life and conduct is now the moral law fulfilled in Christ. It is the law deepened and spiritualised, and established on an altogether higher plane. Every one of the Ten Commandments is repeated and enforced within the New Testament, but now with sanctions that concern the heart and the will, rather than just forbidding external acts. True believers actually keep the moral law more strictly now than those under the Old Testament, because they do so out of love and gratitude. They have no fear of the law, but obey it in order to please their God and Saviour, and advance their own sanctification.
What is the relationship of the Holy Spirit with the elect?
The Holy Spirit dwells in them, witnessing with their spirits that they are the children of God. This has been the Sprit’s work in all generations of the Church, before as well as after Christ’s coming in human flesh.
What is the essential difference between the light of nature and of revelation?
The light of nature reveals what might (and should) be know of God, leaving unsaved people without excuse. Revelation shows what must be believed about God in order to come to a loving relationship with him.
What is prayer?
Prayer is the believer’s communication with God, spoken or silently, raising their requests and needs for themselves and others to God’s throne of grace and mercy. Prayer is made in Christ’s name, is assisted by God the Holy Spirit, and should include confession to God of our sins, and thanksgiving to God for his goodness and mercy. Prayer may be individual and private, or corporate and united with the prayers of others.
Has God provided a sample or model of acceptable prayer for our guidance?
Yes. In the so-called Lord’s Prayer given in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4.
What visible aids does God the Holy Spirit provide for God’s people?
The Bible and the Church.
What is the Bible?
The Bible is a library of sixty-six Books, collected into one volume, all given by the inspiration of God.
What is inspiration?
Literally God breathed inspiration is the giving of each Bible Book by God to men prepared by him to write his message down, without alteration or error.
Is the Bible inspired, or where the writers inspired?
Both. The Bible is permanently inspired, the writers were temporarily inspired when they received and recorded the words of the Bible.
As the Scriptures were penned by human writers whose various styles are seen in the Bible, is it then true to say that the Bible contains both human and divine elements?
No. The Godhead produced the Bible, creating, calling, equipping, and, by God the Holy Spirit, when required inspiring the penmen to write and record God’s words. The whole process was thus entirely from and by God. There is no human element in the contents of the Bible.
As the original was inspired, are later copies and translations also inspired?
Yes, so far as they are accurate copies and translations.
Do any errors in translation or transmission destroy the element of inspiration?
No. The error is not inspired, the rest remains so.
Why must translations of the Bible always be as fully accurate as possible?
To preserve and carry forward that vital factor of inspiration.
Does a Bible translation then have divine authority to settle disputes?
Yes, to the degree that it is accurate and faithful to the original, and thus partakes of the transmitted inspiration it is of equal authority as God’s word. Given such versions, only the deepest and most complex queries require reference to the Hebrew and Greek originals to be settled.
What is Bible infallibility?
Bible infallibility means that the Bible is without error. God gave it so originally, and true versions carry this factor forward. There are no mistakes in the Bible.
What is Bible inerrancy?
Originally an astronomical term, errancy describes movement, implying change. Inerrancy describes something that does not change, move, or wander. In Bible terms inerrancy means that the Bible’s contents and message have not suffered any change or adaptation over time. The word describes God’s overseeing preservation of his word.
Has every copy of the Bible been miraculously preserved, and inerrantly transmitted?
No. Such a huge miracle could not be expected. Humans have been involved in copying and translating the Bible, and mistakes occur in various copies, as well as deliberate alterations in some copies.
How then has God preserved the Bible?
A believing comparison of texts will detect scribal errors in individual copies, and such comparison with awareness of God’s truth and plan of salvation, will expose fraudulent alterations. The large corpus of surviving manuscripts, providentially preserved, allows sanctified scholarship to vindicate the true text. God calls men to serve him in this way, as part of his overall providence, rather than working a continual miracle.
How is the Bible arranged?
The Bible is arranged in two sections, the Old (or Older) Testament containing thirty-nine inspired Books, and the New (or Newer) Testament containing twenty-seven inspired Books, making sixty-six inspired Books in all.
How may the Old Testament be divided?
It may be divided into three sections: Histories, Devotional writings, and Prophecy.
What Books are in the history section?
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1. Samuel 2. Samuel, 1. Kings, 2. Kings, 1. Chronicles, 2. Chronicles, Esther, Nehemiah, Ezra, and Job.
What Books are in the devotional section?
Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.
What Books are in the prophetic section?
Jonah, Joel, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Habakkuk, Daniel, Ezekiel. Obadiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
What two elements are there throughout the history section?
Unfolding external or visible events, and an unfolding invisible or spiritual plan.
What are some of the main visible events recorded?
The creation of all things. Man’s fall into sin. The old world and its apostasy. The world-wide deluge. The re-peopling of the earth. The confusion of languages. The call of a special people in Abraham and his seed. The captivity in Egypt. The Exodus. The conquest of Canaan. The period of the Judges. The Hebrew kingdom, at first one and later divided into two, with repeated apostasies and renewals. The captivity in Babylon. The return of a faithful remnant. The rebuilding of the Temple, and the synagogue system.
What spiritual plan was unfolding over this history?
That God always has a special, call, and set-aside people. That he is constantly faithful to them. That he was preparing the way for the coming of his Son in flesh in order to pay the penalty for the sins of his people. How they should worship him, and look forward in saving faith to that coming.
What does God provide in the devotional Books?
God provides a complete and perfect manual of praise in the inspired Book of Psalms. He provides practical, sanctified, wisdom for everyday living in the Book of Proverbs. He provides a model of the constant love between the Saviour and his church in the Book of the Song of Solomon.
Why did God provide a Book of Praise in the Psalms?
Because the church’s praise is a sacrifice to God. All sacrifices must be perfect to be acceptable to the All-Holy God. Only what God himself provides is perfect. God has graciously and lovingly provided the sacrifice that the church can render to him in praise, because he cannot hear or accept in heaven any sacrifice that is flawed, human, or imperfect. Christ himself says that he (invisibly) worships in sung sacrifice of praise along with his people. It is impossible for God the Son to offer anything human and flawed to the Godhead.
What then must the church offer in sung praise?
The church is mandated to sing the Psalms, and the Psalms only, in worship. Only then may God receive a pure sacrifice of praise, and only then can Christ worship along with his church.
Who must offer this acceptable sacrifice of praise?
The entire covenant community, adults, children, and infants as soon as they can begin to sing.
What is prophecy?
Prophecy is a supernatural knowledge given to specially called men, whenever God desired to make something known to his people. This special knowledge could be of things near or far, present or future.
What was the major theme of prophecy?
The major theme of prophecy was the coming to earth in human form of God the Son, his ministry, and his atoning death to redeem his people from their sins.
What minor themes are frequent in prophecy?
Minor themes include chastisement for apostasy and sin, individual and national, judgments on foreign nations for their idolatry and persecution of God’s people, and promises of restoration and prosperity on repentance and renewed faithfulness.
What prophecy links the Old and New Testaments?
The last writing prophet, Malachi, describes the coming of John the Baptist, Christ’s fore-runner.
What is typology?
Typology is a God-arranged process by which a tangible or visible person, item, or event has its own importance, but also has a deeper, wider (and usually later in time) spiritual significance. The first is the type, the latter its antitye.
What is meant by fulfilment in typology?
That the type is completed and fulfilled in and by its antitype. The type is not at all abolished, but continues onward in a new and more complete spiritual form.
May a prophecy be fulfilled twice?
A prophecy that is fulfilled visibly may also be fulfilled later spiritually. This is not a double fulfilment but two levels or phases of the predicted event, the one being typological of the other.
What is a Theophany?
Sometimes less accurately called a Christophany, these were limited and short-term appearances of God in Old Testament times in the likeness of the body God the Son would have during his life and ministry on earth. It is important to remember that Christ never acted alone, but as the representative of the Tri-Une Godhead in all matters.
What was the purpose of the Theophanies?
From the promise of the coming of the seed of the woman made to Adam and Eve salvation has been through faith in the substitutionary atoning work of Christ. These occasional appearances renewed and strengthened that faith during the long centuries before Christ’s birth and ministry. They demonstrated the unity of the faith in both Testaments, and thus were an absolute promise of Christ’s coming. They also satisfied a God-given desire in God’s people to see God, in the only way that they could, as God in human form.
To whom were some important Theophanies granted?
There are indications of many short appearances of Christ in the Old Testament, but the most notable were to Abraham, to Hagar, to Jacob, to Moses, to Balaam, and to Joshua.
Why did Theophanies cease?
Theophanies were foreshadows of Christ’s coming incarnation, and thus were typological. Fulfilled in that coming, they were no longer needed. Following Christ’s ascension the invisible permanent presence of God the Holy Spirit more than supplies the occasional Old Testament appearances of God in the Person of the Son.
How many the New Testament be divided?
The New Testament may also be divided into three sections: Histories, Doctrinal writings, and Prophecy.
What Books are there in the history section?
The Gospels, of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Gospel of John.
What are the main events recorded in the history section?
Christ’s pre-existence from eternity as God the Son. His coming to earth as a man by being born to a virgin. His sinless life in which he fulfilled God’s law perfectly on behalf of his people. His miracles, that proved his divinity. His teaching and his compassion. The Jews willingness to consider him a human Messiah, but being bitterly opposed to his divine-human nature. His betrayal, trial, and condemnation by the Jews. His mocking and crucifixion by the Romans. His death and glorious resurrection. His perfect resurrection body, and his ascension into heaven. The sending of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s place and the bestowal of temporary apostolical gifts for the establishing of the church. The missionary outreach establishing churches. The call of the gentiles revealing the elect as being the spiritual Israel in all nations.
What Books are there in the doctrinal section?
Paul’s first and seconds letters to the Thessalonians, Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Paul’s first and second letters to the Corinthians, Paul’s letter to the Romans, Paul’s letter to the Colossians, Paul’s letter to Philemon, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Paul’s first and second letters to Timothy, Paul’s letter to Titus, Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, the letter of James, the letter of Jude, the first and second letters of Peter, and the first, second, and third letters of John.
What is the major significance of the doctrinal Books?
Many of the events throughout the Old Testament, and even during Christ’s time on earth, had been typological- figures and examples of great spiritual truths. These greater and deeper meanings are revealed and explained by the Holy Spirit in the doctrinal Books, events retaining their significance but now revealed to have had higher meaning by being fulfilled in Christ’s ministry and atoning death.
What examples may be given of this factor of type to antitype fulfilment continuation?
Physical Jerusalem is fulfilled in the spiritual Jerusalem from above. The true Israel, that is the elect amongst the Jews, is fulfilled in the spiritual elect Israel called out from all nations. The bloody sacrifice of Passover is fulfilled in the bloodless Lord’s Supper. The bloody rite of circumcision is fulfilled in bloodless baptism. The physical Temple is fulfilled in the ‘living temple’ of the elect.
When was this fulfilment change made?
Spiritually when Christ shed his blood (which had been typologically prefigured in sacrifice and in circumcision) and died, and visibly to mankind on the destruction of the Jewish State and Temple by the Romans in 70 A.D.
What Book is there in the prophecy section?
The Revelation given to John.
What does the Book of Revelation principally teach?
It was necessary that the final Book of the Bible summarised the pattern of type and antitype, predication and completion, visible event and spiritual fulfilment that had run through the entire Bible. Revelation has a visible and historical, typological, level, which describes and predicts the important events surrounding the judgment on and downfall of the Jewish polity and the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., and it has a spiritual and antitypical level, which prophecies the events of the end of the age and the final judgment to come, these being, in God’s sight, phases of the same event.
May we say that the Old Testament speaks of Law, and the New Testament of Grace?
No. In the Old Testament law is foremost, but behind it and along with it there is always the grace of the gospel. In the New Testament the grace of the gospel is foremost, but behind it and along with it there is always the regulation of God’s law.
What other visible aid has God the Holy Spirit provided for God’s people?
The church.
What is the church?
The church is a special and called-out people, comprising all those who were gifted to God the Son by the Tri-Une God in eternity past, in order that he would suffer and die for them in time, and that God the Holy Spirit would individually call, convict, and convert them during their lives. The true church of God is thus identical to the elect.
Into what two sections may the church be divided?
Into the church militant, which includes all true Christians who are alive at any given time, and the church triumphant, which comprises all Christians who have lived and now are with God in glory.
Into what two sections may the church militant be divided?
Into the visible church, which includes all who call themselves Christian, elect and non-elect, and the church invisible, which comprises all within it who are truly elect and are, or will be, saved. The true church is thus a called-out body of people, adults, children, and infants, special to God.
What loving title does Scripture give to the true elect church?
The true elect church is called the bride of Christ.
What is another important title given to the church in Scripture?
The Israel of God. In all ages the elect who are brought to saving faith have been God’s Israel: in the Old Testament more confined to the Jews, in the New Testament made up of elect Jews and gentiles.
Is the church then just a great number of true believers, or must it be visibly organised?
In the very early days the church was distributed among the families of the patriarchs, who served as pastors within their family groups. With the multiplication of mankind and the sharp distinction between the godly and the ungodly this division was marked by the visible organisation of worshipping communities, from the time of Abraham onward.
Who is, and always has been, the sole head of the church?
Christ Jesus, God the Son, is, and always has been, the sole head of the church.
What offices does Christ fulfil, as invisible head of the church in all ages?
Christ fulfils the offices of Prophet, Priest, and King.
What is the nature of Christ’s present kingdom, and will it be permanent?
Christ’s now-existing kingdom is his mediatorial kingdom. It will last until the final one of God’s elect is saved, the church is completed, and Christ returns as judge. At that date Christ will deliver up his kingdom to the Father, to merge into the eternal kingdom of the Tri-Une Godhead in unity.
May the church be said to be holy?
Yes, but federally holy, because united by the Holy Spirit to Christ, who is holy.
It is necessary for salvation to join a true church?
Whenever possible, yes. The church is God’s provision for his people, where they specifically meet with him, and where he provides teaching, pastoral oversight, sacramental grace, and fellowship. Where no sound church exists believers should endeavour to form one.
What two elements defined the church in the Old Testament?
The church under the Old Testament had an external and ritual element centred on the Jerusalem Temple (earlier the Tabernacle) with a specific priesthood, and also a more widespread and spiritual element, centred on the synagogues and local pastoral eldership.
Do we still have the first of these elements under the New Testament?
No. The Temple, sacrifices, festivals and priesthood were all typical and prophetical. Visible teaching devices that have been fulfilled in the coming and ministry of Jesus Christ, who is both our priest and our sacrifice. An inner and spiritual worship element was centred on the synagogues and so continues in the church, along with the spiritual priesthood of all believers, flowing from their spiritual union with Christ.
Where the scattered Jewish synagogues independent worship centres?
No. As the Jewish people were seen as a great family (within which God had his elect, the true or spiritual Israel) so the synagogues were regarded as parts of an interconnected whole, subject to the final authority of the Sandehrin, when convened in Jerusalem.
Should this pattern continue in the church?
Yes. As there is no indication in the Bible of any new arrangement, and as the church was founded and established amongst the Jews the same pattern must continue in the church.
What officers did the Old Testament church have?
Elders and readers, and those tasked to provide for the poor.
How do these continue in the New Testament church?
As Teaching Elders, Ruling Elders, and Deacons.
Which Old Testament elements have been fulfilled in Christ, and do any continue in the New Testament church?
Everything that the ritual law, sacrifices, and festivals pointed to and taught about has been completed and fulfilled in Christ Jesus. The Old Testament church had also two appointed means of communion with God, the sacraments of circumcision and the Passover meal. As God gives grace to his people in the sacraments they continue, but with their typological element removed by fulfilment.
What typological element has passed away from these, by fulfilment in Christ?
Both circumcision and Passover involved the shedding of blood. As all God ordained rituals involving the shedding of blood pointed forward to the blood shed on Calvary’s cross, that element could not continue once the true blood had been shed.
In what bloodless form do circumcision and Passover now exist?
Circumcision is fulfilled and continues bloodlessly now as baptism. The Passover is fulfilled and continued bloodlessly now as the Lord’s Supper. The church in all ages has only ever had two sacraments, and it has two today.
Who may preach the word and preside at these sacraments?
Teaching Elders, otherwise called pastors or ministers.
How are Teaching Elders recognised and appointed?
They are called by God, trained by the church, receive a call by the majority votes of the membership of a local church, and then, after due examination, are appointed or set aside to their work by ordination, which involves the laying on of the hands of the local Presbytery. Giving themselves to the ministry of the word and pastoral oversight, they are supported financially by the church.
Do all Teaching Elders pastor churches?
No. A small number may be called and set aside to train men for the ministry. These may be thought of a Teaching (only) rather than Teaching-Preaching Elders. They are part of the local or district Presbytery, representing their students as other Teaching Elders represent their congregations. They may preach or administer the sacraments in a local church when called upon to do so.
What is the role of the Ruling Elder?
Ruling Elders have an equal role in the discipline and government of the church, along with the Teaching Elder. Together they form the local church Presbytery.
How are Ruling Elders recognised and appointed?
They are called by God, recognised by the local church, and appointed and set aside to their work by ordination, which involves the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery.
What is the Presbytery?
This is simply a Greek term meaning eldership, indicating that the church is pastored and governed by Elders.
How is the whole church organised?
The church visible is the body and bride of Christ on earth, and so is one body, not many scattered units. This organic union must be demonstrated in the church. No one part of the body is superior to another. This balance of equality of parts within one body is preserved in the Biblical Presbyterian system.
How may this Biblical system be described, so far as individual Christians are concerned?
It is a representative system. Individual Christians are represented, and their views understood, by their Elders, who represent them, by delegation, at each level. Discipline cases, for example, may be referred by appeal to wider courts, up to the annual national Presbytery.
Where there other officers and roles in the Apostolic church?
Yes, Apostles, Evangelists, and Deacons.
Do any of these continue in the modern church, along with the Eldership?
Apostles, no. These were special men, who had to have seen Christ in the flesh and conversed with him. They were granted temporary extraordinary powers for the initial establishing of the church. They can have no successors. Evangelist is not a description of a title or an officer, but of a role. Those who go among the unconverted at home or on the foreign mission field, in order to call and gather new churches, perform the role of an evangelist. Such men are Teaching Elders on special service. If they gather churches and remain to oversee and pastor them the role of evangelist ceases, being merged into the pastoral one. Deacons have a permanent role in the churches.
If all of God’s elect ones will assuredly come to salvation, what is the need of the Evangelist, or for the Pastor to preach salvation to sinners?
God knows his elect, for they were known and granted to God the Son by God the Father before time ever was, but men do not know who these elect are. God has therefore ordained the preaching of salvation by Christ as the means by which these elect are called. Evangelists and preachers must therefore make an unlimited proclamation of a limited atonement. They should earnestly desire that all who hear them might be elect and be saved, yet knowing that God disposes all things perfectly, according to his will. This proclamation is a two-edged sword. It calls in the elect, and it hardens sinners in their sin.
What is the function of preaching to the saved?
God’s flock, whilst in this world, face many dangers and temptations. They are fed and nurtured on the preached word. The word should include teaching, warnings, encouragement, and when necessary rebuke, and aim at leading the people ever closer spiritually to love God in Christ their Redeemer.
What is the role of the Deacon?
The Deacon is a set-aside man, not ordained but called, whose main function is to manage and oversee, in connection with the church session or congregational presbytery, the financial affairs of the church. He is the treasurer and accountant of the church, receiving and recording and disbursing finances. In connection with the Elders the deacon aids church members and others who are in genuine need. Also as the wider church courts, when they are convened in session, require financial arrangements, Deacons perform that role for those gatherings, being the financial officers of the church at every level.
Are the two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, where the believer publicly witnesses to and demonstrates his or her faith?
No. They do not signify the believer’s faith, but are channels by which God applies his faithfulness to his people. In them he meets his elect in a special way at special times, and makes gracious provision for their needs. God, not man, is active in them, by virtue of the spiritual union with his elect people.
Is it correct to say that the sacraments are signs and seals of redemption?
Not entirely. The sacraments are far more than that. Signs and seals point to something, or promise something, but are not that thing. The sacraments are real and efficacious, for they are ordained channels of grace to the elect, through their spiritual union with Christ and his gracious nature of goodness and beauty.
Is this grace received by all who are baptised or partake of the Lord’s Supper?
No. Grace, to be grace, is always specific, and never general or common. Only the elect are spiritually alive to receive this grace, for it is the merit earned by Christ that unites them to his gracious nature, and which is administered by the Holy Spirit. It is thus available only to the elect. In the sacraments God shows his adoption, and subsequent feeding and nurture of his own flock, rendering them progressively more Christ-like.
What is baptism?
Baptism is an outward purification by the sprinkling or pouring of water, signifying a real inner purification by spiritual union with Christ who was baptised with water at the Jordan to vicariously purify his elect, and baptised in blood at Calvary to cleanse their sin. Christ’s sprinkling with water and with blood is the foundation and dynamic for all true baptism since.
Who may be baptised?
Those who are within the folds of God’s covenant, that is believers and their children.
Which adults may be baptised?
Those converted to the church from outside, on a credible profession of faith, made before the Eldership.
If baptism fulfils circumcision, why are the female babies of the church, and women converted from the world, baptised, when only males born within the covenant community, and male proselytes from outside, circumcised in the Old Testament?
Because in the Old Testament, founded on the patriarchal system, females were included under the headship of the males. The New Testament is always wider, because it is the fulfilment of the narrower, and more restricted, Old Testament. In Christ Jesus, the Messiah, there is now (spiritually) neither male nor female.
Which infants may be baptised?
The infant offspring of members of the church in good standing.
On what is the requirement to baptise the offspring of believers grounded?
It is grounded on the eternal and unchangeable covenantal promise of God to be the God of his elect and their seed, Christ Jesus being the mediator of the covenant. It is also God’s requirement for admission into the covenant community. In terms of that covenant, and in answer to prayer, the offspring of believing parents must, in faith, be assumed to be elect and regenerate (unless they prove to be covenant breakers later in life.)
Does this presumed election mean that believers’ children do not need to be taught to repent and exercise faith towards God?
On the contrary, the children of believers must be taught that they are sinners needing constant confession and repentance, so as to advance in sanctification. There should be evidence of infant faith and infant repentance, of child faith and child repentance, and so on progressively until adult faith is arrived at. It is the duty and responsibility of parents and of the church to nurture and oversee this process.
May any others, who are not from believing families, be baptised?
In exceptional circumstances, yes. If is possible that children from outside of the church family may be providentially associated with the church, for example by faithful attendance at the church Sabbath school. If they show genuine attachment to the church and its teaching they might (with the consent of their parents or guardians) be formally joined to the church by baptism, under the Scriptural rules for ‘the stranger within your gates’. Being thus joined to the church he or she may, on reaching mature years and on a credible confession of faith, advance to the Lord’s Table and adult church membership.
What happens externally and internally at baptism?
Externally the sign of cleansing, symbolic of the descending shed blood of Christ, signifies acceptance into the covenant community of God, the church visible, these accessions being partly by adult conversions from outside, but mainly by birth to believing parents within the covenantal community. Internally God, by virtue of the covenanted union with Christ, supplies grace to nurture his redeemed one, and aid them in their walk before him though life.
How can grace be received by the elect at their baptism?
Baptism is a cleansing, by which the baptised one is made ritually clean to take his or her part in the visible covenant community, the church. Christ, who was perfect and needed no such cleansing, was ritually baptised by John on behalf of his people. The elect’s spiritual union with Christ brings about their cleansing in and with Christ’s vicarious baptism-cleansing for them, when they are baptised. This spiritual union is the channel of grace granted, in order for the convert or covenant child to progress in sanctification within the covenant community.
Who, beyond the candidate, have a role in baptism?
The entire membership of the local church covenant to recognise and accept the baptised one as a member of their spiritual family, and to aid, encourage, and nurture him or her to the best of their ability. This applies to adult additions from outside and infant and child additions from within the church community alike.
Does anyone else have a special interest in the covenant baptism of babies?
Yes. The mother does. Scripture regards the mother as the inadvertent conveyer of original sin to her offspring, thus multiplying the sinners in the world. All babies are thus technically unclean and unsuitable to take a place in the covenant community, but those of believers are ritually cleansed in baptism, enabling them to take their place within that community. In the Old Testament the mother’s ritual cleansing was tied to the circumcision of her (male) infants, and hence, by continuity, with infant baptism in the New Testament. The mother is cleansed as her child is cleansed. It thus follows that a mother should not partake of the Lord’s Supper until her baby has been baptised.
What is the Biblical mode of Baptism?
Sprinkling or pouring. The water must descend, as it (or blood) did in all ritual cleansings in the Old Testament, and to symbolise what those cleansings looked forward to, the descending sprinkled shed blood of Christ on Calvary’s cross. The mode is vital to maintain union with Christ, in whose ritual cleansing we are cleansed, and in it the candidate must be passive not active, as we can take no active part in our own salvation.
What is the Lord’s Supper?
The Lord’s Supper is a ritual meal, ordained by Christ, in which believers partake, in his name, of a small quantity of bread and of wine in communion with him. The Lord’s Supper fulfils, and thus continues, bloodlessly, the Old Testament Passover.
Who may partake of the Lord’s Supper?
All baptised adult members in good standing in the Church.
Why is baptism a precondition to approaching the Lord’s Table?
Because baptism fulfils and spiritually continues circumcision, and the Lord’s Table fulfils and spiritually continues the Passover. The uncircumcised were strictly forbidden to approach the Passover meal. As no new or different instruction is given in the New Testament this rule must still apply. Thus believers who have children must not only have been baptised themselves, but also must have had their children baptised, as a precondition of partaking of the Lord’s Supper.
Is there any other precondition to approaching the Lord’s Table?
Yes. A credible confession of faith. Adult converts make this confession before being admitted to baptism, those baptised as covenant children make their confession on reaching adult years, before progressing to the Lord’s Table.
What happens externally and internally at the Lord’s Supper?
Externally the people demonstrate their union as a church family by communal eating and drinking, and their spiritual union with Christ, whose broken body is represented by the bread, and whose shed blood is represented by the wine. Internally the believer is really and actually spiritually fed, by God’s grace, to strengthen and support his or her inner life in their ongoing walk and warfare against sin, Satan, and the world.
How is grace received by the believer when taking the Lord’s Supper?
By the believer’s spiritual union with Christ they share in what he has done vicariously for them: keeping the whole law, paying the penalty for their sins, dying and rising again for them. This living spiritual union Christ calls feeding on him. As we are really connected to Adam in his fall, so we are really connected to Christ by partaking of the Supper, and the Holy Spirit unites us ever closer with the Saviour. In this way grace is imparted in receiving the elements, to really feed, nourish, and strengthen the inner spiritual person, just as food does the outer physical person.
How should a believer come to the Lord’s Supper?
There must be preparation by self-examination beforehand: only the saved, the spiritually alive in Christ, can receive any benefit. Weak faith, however, is not a barrier. It needs the grace communicated most. On taking there must be due awareness of the reality of the transaction. It is a genuine communion, never just a ritual.
What is meant by discerning the Lord’s body in the Supper, that has such serious consequences for failing to discern?
As the Lord’s Supper is not a mere ritual or mere memorial, but a real communion with the invisible Christ by which the believer receives the grace that is imparted, to deny or ignore the Lord’s active part in this is to fail (or refuse) to discern or acknowledge the Lord’s body, that the believer is spiritually united with.
What level of discernment is thus required for worthy communion in the Lord’s Supper?
It is important that believers are not deterred by this solemn warning. As the Lord’s Supper continues and fulfils the Passover the requirement is not a new one. When Jewish covenant children reached an age in which they could enquire and be taught the meaning of the Passover and appreciate its spiritual import they discerned the inner meaning and could prepare to take part worthily. The same rule continues with the Lord’s Supper: those who are spiritually mature enough to discern the spiritual reality may come without question.
Do covenant children join the church when they take their first communion?
By no means. God joined them to the invisible church from infancy, and they were joined to the visible church by baptism. They are junior members of the covenant community. They are simply non-communicating members until they make an adult confession of faith and are invited to the table.
Is the Lord’s Supper a spiritual provision for the believer and the church in this life only?
No. In preparing for, and partaking of, the Lord’s Supper worthily we acknowledge that the Lord’s Supper is itself also a preparation, a preparation for the Lord’s promised and certain return (or our going to be with him before that event). Spiritual preparation for the Supper is preparation to join in the ordained preparation for that Coming. This must be kept in mind as we receive the grace that aids us in pressing forward towards it.
How long will these sacraments continue in the church?
Until the Lord returns. He has made this gracious provision for his people and will continue to do so whilst we are in this fallen world. Both sacraments reflect this gracious provision: not what we do to await Christ’s return, but what he does for us to prepare us for that return. Thus they show forth his death in the past, and demonstrate the certainty of his return in the future.
What specific provision bid Christ make for his people in the period between his ascension to heaven and his future return?
The giving of the Holy Spirit.
What is meant by the giving of the Holy Spirit?
That the third Person of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit, has been more closely present in and with the people of the church, invisibly continuing the once visible ministry of God the Son.
How may the gifts or activities of the Holy Spirit be divided?
They may be divided into temporary, and permanent, gifts.
Who received the temporary gifts, and over what time period was that?
Temporary gifts were given to the apostles (who had actually seen Christ in person, during his ministry or after his resurrection), who alone could transfer some spiritual gifts to other disciples, (who not being apostles, could not transfer them onward to others.)
What was God’s main purpose in bestowing these special (miraculous) gifts?
To prove beyond doubt the superhuman nature of Christianity in the church’s formative period.
What were the main special gifts of the Spirit?
Prophecy. That was special aid in proclaiming the word, with occasional extraordinary insight into current or future events. Inspiration. This included the selection of material andmiraculous recall of the very words spoken, so that the written Scriptural record was without error. Tongues or languages. This was the miraculous ability to preach in foreign languages without prior learning, necessary for the rapid growth of the church.
Could the apostles and those endowed with miraculous gifts employ them at will?
No. God employed these men and their gifts as and when he saw fit in working out his plan for the church. In all other cases they were just like other Christians.
As these special gifts were temporary, when did they cease, and why?
The apostles could confer some special gifts on others, during the crucial period of calling and forming the church. Those who received them could exercise them as and when God required it, but they could not pass them on to others. Thus the transmission of spiritual gifts necessarily ceased with the death of the last apostle, and the gifts themselves ceased with the death of the last person to receive them from an apostle. By that date the Bible was completed, and no new miracles or revelations were required.
What are the main permanent gifts of the Spirit?
God the Holy Spirit bestows himself on his people as enlightener, comforter, prayer leader, praise leader, and channel of grace in the sacraments.
What role does God the Holy Spirit take in the sacraments?
The grace that is received by the elect in the sacraments flows from God’s election and Christ’s atonement, and is channelled to them by the Holy Spirit, who takes the things of God and applies them to the church.
In summary, then, what are the occasions when additional special grace is given to the believer, to aid their Christian life and sanctification?
1) At their baptism (once only- grace applied to the elect one to guide and help them at the commencement of their Christian life). 2) In the Lord’s Supper (repeatedly- as the believer feeds spiritually on Christ, and is inwardly nourished and strengthened for our constant warfare in this world. 3) With the believing, prayerful, reading or hearing of God’s word the Bible.
How are these additional donations of grace made possible?
The channel of these loving donations of extra grace is opened by spiritual union with Christ, and are applied and administered by God the Holy Spirit, who takes and applies the merits of Christ to the believer, by virtue of his union with the Tri-Une God.
How should a typical church service be structured?
A typical church service should include: The word. Prayer and Praise, Giving. Church discipline. Sabbath keeping. The benediction. To these are added the Lord’s Supper periodically, and baptism as required.
What is included under the word?
The word read. The word proclaimed. The word explained. The word heard. The word believed. The word obeyed. The word sung.
What is God’s immanence, is relation to the church service?
God is present everywhere, but is with his people in a special way when they gather to worship him. Christ specifically promised to be invisibly present when even two or three meet in his name. This wonderful reality must be understood and taken very seriously. The church cannot choose what to do in worship, but must acknowledge God’s active presence, listen to his word, obey his instructions, and submit joyfully to his will exactly as if Christ Jesus was visibly present to lead them, and treat God’s presence with due humble reverence and loving fear, in dress and deportment.
In what ways do prayer meetings differ from worship services?
Worship services take place on God’s appointed day, the Lord’s Day or Christian Sabbath Day (Sunday). Prayer meetings typically take place on a weekday evening. Both are led by the Pastor (teaching Elder). Both include an element of sung worship (Psalm singing). At the worship service the preached word (the sermon) is central, at the prayer meeting (although there may be a short exposition of the word) prayer is central. During the worship service women are required to be silent (apart from sung praise and adding their ‘Amen’ to the prayers) but in the prayer meeting women may pray audibly and lead the prayers of the people audibly.
What is marriage?
Instituted by God before the fall, marriage is the loving union of one man and one woman, for mutual support and for the multiplication of the race. A remedy for temptation and sin, marriage is not obligatory for all. When contracted marriage must not be within the genetic limits forbidden in the Bible.
What is Christian marriage?
Specifically reflecting the love of Christ for his church, the marriage of Christians has the responsibility of bringing forth a covenanted seed to be nurtured to love and serve God within the believing home and the church community.
Why is Christian marriage vital to the church?
Because the church is carried forward and grows through the birth of covenant children. More members are added to the church by childbirth in covenant families than by evangelism and conversions from without. Evangelism is important and the evangelist’s role is blessed in bringing in the scattered elect, but the role of the covenant mother is more blessed still, as the main source of bringing the membership of the on-going spiritual Israel, the church, into the world. Believing parents are the prime means, under God, of leading their children in the ways of the Lord.
Is marriage an unbreakable bond?
Ideally a lifelong bond, mankind’s present sinful state has impacted marriage, so that it is possible for a sinning partner to break the marriage bond by adultery or wilful desertion. In such cases, (especially when repeated and not repented of), the innocent party is free to divorce the sinning partner, and, if God will, marry another exactly as if their first partner had died. Like excommunication from the church divorce is a last resort break and cleansing from a sinful situation. In such cases it is not God’s will that the innocent party suffer further by being denied the possibility of a new and godly marriage and covenant child bearing, because of the sin of their guilty previous partner.
What spiritual duties are performed in the family?
Parents should set an example of God-centred lives and Christian conduct. There should be thanksgiving at mealtimes, and regular family worship and prayers.
What are the elements of family worship?
The head of the family should lead, and there should be Scripture reading, the singing of a Psalm, and open prayer by all capable of doing so. Family worship is usually most conveniently carried out in the evening.
What are the duties of juvenile church members?
To obey their parents and spiritual leaders in the church, to learn more about God, to praise him, and to be pleasing to him, as they move on towards adult membership.
What aids do the little ones have to help them in this?
The special grace afforded the elect child at his or her baptism. The indwelling Holy Spirit. Scriptural teaching and nurture, suitable to their age and ability. Participation in the prayers and praise of the covenant community.
What are the duties of adult church members in the world?
To have a lawful and honest calling in life, and through it to support their families and the church. If married to nurture and encourage their wife or husband, as being heirs together of grace and eternal life, and if granted children to bring them up as befits junior covenant members, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. To strive to represent Christ before others in all situations, and to witness fearlessly for him when called to do so.
What are the duties of adult members in the church?
To submit to the Eldership in all ordinary cases. To be teachable. To aid the church in its worship, prayer life, discipline, outreach, and works. To support the church financially, according to their ability. To meditate on their covenantal standing and privileges through baptism, and to strive to receive the maximum spiritual benefit when they partake of the Lord’s Supper. To strive to be attuned to God’s invisible, but real and close, presence when believers meet in his name, and to seek to hear and obey him, according to the Scriptures. To aid in seeking out and calling in God’s elect. To seek the increased sanctification of all the members.
How long will the church state continue?
Until Christ’s promised future return, when it will be merged in eternal glory.
In the meantime how should we pray (with the Spirit’s aid) in order to the acceptable to God?
We should pray from the heart, in union with the Spirit of truth, in humility and without ostentation, and all in the name of Christ.
What is the Christian’s relation to the secular state and government?
It is the duty of the Christian to be a loyal citizen of the state, and to obey its government in all ways that are not sinful or contrary to God’s word. It is also the believer’s responsibility to pray for the nation’s rulers, and so far as they are able to seek reformation in the state and the implementation of Bible-based laws.
What is the current relationship of the Jews to the church?
Jews by race, religion, or culture are as all other humans are: sinners under God’s wrath. They must be evangelised in order to call out God’s elect among them, who then become an integral part of the church. Only those with true faith were ever Jews or Israel in God’s sight.
As the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New, do modern Jews have a special relationship to God?
Not by race or religion. Physical Jewry was completed and fulfilled, and continues spiritually as the church, which knows no racial distinctives.
Is there then now no advantage in being Jewish by birth?
Yes, there is much advantage. On conversion an elect Jew has the great benefit of being familiar with the Old Testament (Tanakh), and so can advance smoothly into understanding the Old Testament typology and its fulfilment in Christ the Messiah. Converts from atheism or agnosticism or false religions or cults lack that background, and have it all to learn.
Are Jews important to the well-being of the church?
Certainly. The true church has Jewish roots and requires Jewish sap to remain sound and correct slippage into the man-centred gentilism and individualism of the West. History shows that the church has withered and deviated whenever it has ignored its Old Testament background and roots, and failed (or refused) to see itself as the spiritual on-going Israel of God.
Does the Bible teach a mass conversion of the Jews?
It is important to understand that God’s Israel has only ever been the elect within ethnic Jewry, never the entire people. Throughout the Old Testament the elect were largely confined to ethnic Jews, but after Christ’s ministry on earth and the Jewish rejection of Christ election was largely removed from the Jews, and has been almost exclusively amongst the gentiles. However, the Bible indicates that when gentile churches become largely apostate (as they now are) increased election will be made amongst the Jews and many of them will be added to the church. This is the re-grafting in of the Jews to their root, and will bring reviving and purifying to the churches, demonstrating the one true spiritual Israel of God called out from all races beginning (and in a sense ending) with the Jews, before Christ returns.
Is Jewish evangelism a priority for the church?
Yes. The purpose of evangelism, as distinct from covenant growth within the church family, is to awaken and call the scattered elect into the church fold. If there is a day when God multiplies the number of the elect among the Jews, then that is where the emphasis of evangelism should lie. True evangelism is spiritually directed to where the elect are providentially placed.
What strengths can Jewish Christians bring to the church?
Those steeped in the Old Testament have little difficulty in adapting to the newer, more spiritual state of the church. They understand and appreciate covenant theology, the corporate (covenantal) nature of the church community, infant church membership in covenant, circumcision fulfilled in baptism, Passover fulfilled in the Lord’s Supper, God’s holy jealously over his service and worship, and the need to employ only God sanctioned inspired songs in praise. They are free from many of the cultural and other stumbling blocks that have plagued the modern Western church. These much-needed insights are calculated to restore God’s blessing to the church.
What is the Sabbath?
From creation God set aside one day of the week as a special day for spiritual, rather than secular, activities. It is a day for God’s people to meet him in a special way, render their love and praise in a collective manner, and interact with God in the preached and taught word, and in the sacraments. It is a foretaste of heavenly activity and bliss to come.
Which day is the Sabbath day?
Also called the Lord’s Day’the Sabbath is Sunday, the first day of the week. From the call of Abraham until Christ’s resurrection the Sabbath was the last day of the week, or Saturday. This, like most things in the Old Testament polity, was preparatory and typological. If this did not change the typology would not have been fulfilled. Christ repeatedly appeared to his people after his resurrection on the first day of the week, demonstrating that the preparatory Jewish Sabbath was from then on to continue as the fulfilled Christian Sabbath, the first day.
Why must Christians observe the whole Sabbath (Lord’s Day) reverently?
Because not only is Sabbath keeping one of God’s core ten commandments, the breaking of which is equivalent to breaking all of them, but this is, along with marriage, also one of the two great creation ordinances given to mankind even before the fall. These are the two great foundations upon which godly society is to be built, within which the church can flourish. Reverential Sabbath keeping is evidence of a state of salvation, and of unity with the church in all ages. Laxity in reverential Sabbath keeping is fatal to the church, just as laxity in marriage is fatal to society.
What are often called the four last things?
Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.
What is death?
The separation of the soul, that is the thinking personality, from the present physical body, when that body becomes no longer capable of sustaining earthly life. This results from the penalty imposed by God for man’s sin in the garden. God is sovereign over this process, setting the term of each life, according to his perfect plan. The death of the elect, before the Lord’s return, is a blessing to them.
What is judgment?
The declaring of the person to be righteous because united to Christ in his righteousness, or to be unholy, because of unrepented of and unforgiven sin. Thus they are judged to be eternally innocent, or everlastingly guilty, before God.
What is heaven?
Heaven is a general term for the blessed and perfected eternal state and home of the saved believer, where they will be with their Saviour and exist with him and all the church in perpetual joy and bliss, for all coming eternity. Heaven will include the restored and re-perfected earth, as it was at creation, for nothing that God creates is ever destroyed. Heaven is a spiritual realm suited to the refined and perfected spiritual resurrection bodies of the elect.
What is hell?
Hell is the common name for the Biblical Sheol (Old Testament) or Hades (New Testament), which describes the unending eternal state of the unregenerate as a total irremediable separation from God. It is thus the second death.
What is the resurrection?
At death a person’s soul leaves the physical earthly body. That body is of the earth, earthy, and has been corrupted by sin. God did not intend humans to exist as disembodied spirits, for he created man as a unity of body and soul. God thus provides a post-death body, which is essentially the same body and is derived from it, but with all the gross earthly matter removed, making it a spiritual rather than the old physical body. Gloriously beautiful the believer’s resurrection body will be mutually recognisable, and perfectly suited to the eternal bliss of heaven. It will be clothed in the shining robes of the saints that are the external sign of the inner imparted righteousness of Christ, restoring the robes of innocence righteousness forfeited at the fall. Sadly the reprobate must perish eternally, as they lack the spiritual element received in the second birth.
What guarantees the resurrection?
The believer’s resurrection is guaranteed by their spiritual union with Christ in his death and resurrection, and by his specific promise of this for his people.
When will the day of judgment, and this resurrection, occur?
From a human standpoint these great events lie in the future, but God himself is timeless and exists beyond time as we know it. Those who die may thus step out of time and arrive at the general judgment, and receive their resurrection bodies with no conscious delay or lingering in any disembodied state. However, it is certain that those who are alive at the Lord’s return will arrive at the judgment, and, equally with those who had died previously, receive their resurrection bodies and begin their eternal lives of bliss, or receive their resurrection bodies and begin their eternal lives, or face eternal condemnation. The day of Christ’s final return and the consummation of all things will occur when the last of the elect have been called, converted, and added to the church, thus completing the bride of Christ.
Should the believer be afraid of the ‘ast days events and of the return of Christ and the day of judgment?Certainly not! All is under God’s sovereign and loving control, in his own perfect timescale. The believer, along with all creation, longs for full redemption and restoration, and the elimination of all sin and all evil. Trusting entirely in God we look forward with joyous hope and anticipation to our Saviour’s return, when he will put away sin and all its effects forever. Our only judge is the loving Lord Jesus who himself died to redeem and save us. Even so come soon, Lord Jesus!
What will happen to the devil and his fallen angels, and sin itself, when Christ returns?
Satan, the Devil, along with the fallen angels, has been judged and condemned from eternity past, cast out of heaven, and fearfully anticipate the completion of their punishment. With the removal of these enemies all sin, that they brought into the creation and propagated, with all of the evils and sorrows that sin has deluged the world in, will be gloriously abolished and removed for ever.
What will be the main delight of heaven?
The believer’s main delight in heaven will be the direct experience of the love of God for them. God’s love created them, called them, convicted them, and converted them. God’s love protected them, recovered them from their falls, preserved them, and finally brought them home clothed in perfect resurrection bodies, so that they can know and worship him to a level unknown before, and return his love in a greatly increased way. That is bliss indeed.
Will heaven include a renewed and perfected earth?
Yes. The Bible promises a new earth, in which all is righteousness. As God originally created the earth and saw it as very good, and is only in its present chaotic state as a result of man’s sin, God will not destroy it in the process of man’s fall and recovery. The fires ordained for the day of judgement are thus to be seen as purifying agents, purging out the effects of sin on the earth. The Bible says that the whole creation (and thus the earth, its plants and animals) groans and travails awaiting its restoration, purchased for it by Christ. A renewed earth, as perfect and beautiful as it was before the fall, is thus part of the eternal heaven that is the home of God’s redeemed ones.
What will be the believer’s main occupation in heaven?
In eternal love and thankfulness, exactly as is our purpose already, but in a hugely enhanced way: to know God, and to worship and enjoy him forever.
What is the value of a doctrinal summary?
Understanding and accepting every Bible doctrine in its purity does not, in itself, save anyone. Only repentance from sin and acceptance of Christ as one’s personal Saviour does that. It cannot be stated too strongly that doctrine alone cannot save, and that any summary of doctrine or confession of faith must be imperfect- only God’s word itself, the Bible, is perfect in that way. Thus nothing is of greater importance than personal closing with Christ for salvation. Once saved, however (through spiritual growth from covenantal infant faith to mature adult faith, or more adult through conversion from the world) a life of discipleship begins. To serve God acceptably we must labour to know his will, and to obey it in life and practice. Only understanding and applying correct Bible truth- doctrine- will do that. Hence our doctrinal summary, or confession of faith. To be of any value it must not be accepted merely intellectually, but received and accepted in and by faith. Faithful, trusting, accurate belief is the Christian’s glory and safety, and should be the Christian’s delight. It is well-pleasing to God.
AMEN.
Blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it (Luke 11:28)
Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34).
© Covenant Christian Vision (U.K.) 2026.