Daily Archives: January 3, 2010

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 29

Article 29: The Marks of the True Church

We believe that we ought to discern diligently and very carefully, by the Word of God, what is the true church– for all sects in the world today claim for themselves the name of “the church.”

We are not speaking here of the company of hypocrites who are mixed among the good in the church and who nonetheless are not part of it, even though they are physically there. But we are speaking of distinguishing the body and fellowship of the true church from all sects that call themselves “the church.”

The true church can be recognized if it has the following marks: The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it and holding Jesus Christ as the only Head. By these marks one can be assured of recognizing the true church– and no one ought to be separated from it.

As for those who can belong to the church– we can recognize them by the distinguishing marks of Christians: namely by faith, and by their fleeing from sin and pursuing righteousness, once they have received the one and only Savior, Jesus Christ. They love the true God and their neighbors, without turning to the right or left, and they crucify the flesh and its works.

Though great weakness remains in them, they fight against it by the Spirit all the days of their lives, appealing constantly to the blood, suffering, death, and obedience of the Lord Jesus, in whom they have forgiveness of their sins, through faith in him.

As for the false church, it assigns more authority to itself and its ordinances than to the Word of God; it does not want to subject itself to the yoke of Christ; it does not administer the sacraments as Christ commanded in his Word; it rather adds to them or subtracts from them as it pleases; it bases itself on humans, more than on Jesus Christ; it persecutes those who live holy lives according to the Word of God and who rebuke it for its faults, greed, and idolatry.

These two churches are easy to recognize and thus to distinguish from each other.

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 28

Article 28: The Obligations of Church Members

We believe that, since this holy assembly and congregation is the gathering of those who are saved and there is no salvation apart from it, believers ought not to withdraw from it, content to be by themselves, regardless of their status or condition.

But all people are obliged to join and unite with it, keeping the unity of the church by submitting to its instruction and discipline, by bending their necks under the yoke of Jesus Christ, and by serving to build up one another, according to the gifts God has given them as members of each other in the same body.

And to preserve this unity more effectively, it is the duty of all believers, according to God’s Word, to distinguish themselves from those who do not belong to the church, in order to join this assembly wherever God has established it, even if civil authorities and royal decrees forbid and death and physical punishment result.

And so, all who withdraw from the church or do not join it act contrary to God’s ordinance.

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 27

Article 27: The Holy Catholic Church

We believe and confess one single catholic or universal church– a holy congregation and gathering of true Christian believers, awaiting their entire salvation in Jesus Christ being washed by his blood, and sanctified and sealed by the Holy Spirit.

This church has existed from the beginning of the world and will last until the end, as appears from the fact that Christ is eternal King who cannot be without subjects.

And this holy church is preserved by God against the rage of the whole world, even though for a time it may appear very small in the eyes of humans– as though it were snuffed out.

For example, during the very dangerous time of Ahab the Lord preserved seven thousand men who did not bend their knees to Baal.

And so this holy church is not confined, bound, or limited to a certain place or to certain people. But it is spread and dispersed throughout the entire world, though still joined and united in heart and will, in one and the same Spirit, by the power of faith.

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 26

Article 26: The Intercession of Christ

We believe that we have no access to God except through the one and only Mediator and Intercessor: Jesus Christ, “the righteous.”

Christ, therefore, was made a human being, uniting together the divine and human natures, so that we human beings might have access to the divine Majesty. Otherwise we would have no access.

But this Mediator, whom the Father has appointed between God and us, ought not terrify us by his greatness, so that we have to look for another one, according to our fancy. For neither in heaven nor among the creatures on earth is there anyone who loves us more than Jesus Christ does. Although “in the form of God,” Christ nevertheless “emptied himself,” taking “human form” and “the form of a slave” for us; and he made himself “like his brothers and sisters in every respect.”

Suppose we had to find another intercessor. Who would love us more than he who gave his life for us, even though “we were his enemies”? And suppose we had to find one who has prestige and power. Who has as much of these as he who is seated at the right hand of the Father, and who has “all authority in heaven and on earth”? And who will be heard more readily than God’s own dearly beloved Son?

So the faithless practice of honoring the saints as intercessors, in fact dishonors them. That was something the saints never did nor asked for, but which in keeping with their duty, as appears from their writings, they consistently refused.

We should not plead here that we are unworthy– for it is not a question of offering our prayers on the basis of our own dignity but only on the basis of the excellence and dignity of Jesus Christ, whose righteousness is ours by faith.

Since the apostle for good reason wants us to get rid of this foolish fear– or rather, this unbelief– he says to us that Jesus Christ was “made like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest” to purify the sins of the people. For since he suffered, being tested, “he is able to help those who are tested.”

And further, to encourage us more to approach him he says: “Since, then, we have a great high priest, who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace, to help in time of need.”

The same apostle says that “we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus. Let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith….”

Likewise, Christ “holds his priesthood permanently. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

What more do we need? For Christ himself declares: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Why should we seek another intercessor?

Since it has pleased God to give us the Son as our Intercessor, let us not leave him for another– or rather seek, without ever finding. For, when giving Christ to us, God knew well that we were sinners.

Therefore, in following the command of Christ we call on the heavenly Father through Christ, our only Mediator, as we are taught by the Lord’s Prayer, being assured that we shall obtain all we ask of the Father in his name.

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 25

Article 25: The Fulfillment of the Law

We believe that the ceremonies and symbols of the law have ended with the coming of Christ, and that all foreshadowings have come to an end, so that the use of them ought to be abolished among Christians. Yet the truth and substance of these things remain for us in Jesus Christ, in whom they have been fulfilled.

Nevertheless, we continue to use the witnesses drawn from the law and prophets to confirm us in the gospel and to regulate our lives with full integrity for the glory of God, according to the will of God.

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 24

Article 24: The Sanctification of Sinners

We believe that this true faith, produced in us by the hearing of God’s Word and by the work of the Holy Spirit, regenerates us and makes us new creatures, causing us to live a new life and freeing us from the slavery of sin.

Therefore, far from making people cold toward living in a pious and holy way, this justifying faith, quite to the contrary, so works within them that apart from it they will never do a thing out of love for God but only out of love for themselves and fear of being condemned.

So then, it is impossible for this holy faith to be unfruitful in a human being, seeing that we do not speak of an empty faith but of what Scripture calls “faith working through love,” which leads people do by themselves the works that God has commanded in the Word.

These works, proceeding from the good root of faith, are good and acceptable to God, since they are all sanctified by God’s grace. Yet they do not count toward our justification– for by faith in Christ we are justified, even before we do good works. Otherwise they could not be good, any more than the fruit of a tree could be good if the tree is not good in the first place.

So then, we do good works, but nor for merit– for what would we merit? Rather, we are indebted to God for the good works we do, and we are not creditors of God, “who is at work in us, enabling us both to will and do for God’s good pleasure” — thus keeping in mind what is written: “When you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done.’ “

Yet we do not wish to deny that God rewards good works– but it is through grace that God’s own gifts are crowned.

Moreover, although we do good works we do not base our salvation on them; for we cannot do any work that is not defiled by our flesh and also worthy of punishment. And even if we could point to one, memory of a single sin is enough for God to reject that work.

So we would always be in doubt, tossed back and forth without any certainty, and our poor consciences would be tormented constantly if they did not rest on the merit of the suffering and death of our Savior.

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 23

Article 23: The Justification of Sinners

We believe that our blessedness lies in the forgiveness of our sins because of Jesus Christ, and that in it our righteousness before God is contained, as David and Saint Paul teach us when they declare that man blessed to whom God grants righteousness apart from works.

And the same apostle says that we are” justified by God’s grace as a gift, through redemption that is in Jesus Christ.” And therefore we cling to this foundation, which is firm forever, giving all glory to God, humbling ourselves, and recognizing ourselves as we are; not claiming a thing for ourselves or our merits and leaning and resting on the sole obedience of Christ crucified, which is ours when we believe in him.

That is enough to cover all our sins and to make us confident, freeing the conscience from the fear, dread, and terror of God’s approach, without doing what our first parents did, who trembled as they tried to cover themselves with fig leaves.

In fact, if we had to appear before God relying– no matter how little– on ourselves or some other creature, then we would be swallowed up.

Therefore everyone must say with David: “Lord, do not enter into judgment with your servants, for no one living is righteous before you.”

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 22

Article 22: The Righteousness of Faith

We believe that for us to acquire the true knowledge of this great mystery the Holy Spirit kindles in our hearts a true faith that embraces Jesus Christ, with all his merits, and makes him its own, and no longer looks for anything apart from him.

For it must necessarily follow that either all that is required for our salvation is not in Christ or, if all is in him, then those who have Christ by faith have his salvation entirely.

Therefore, to say that Christ is not enough but that something else is needed as well is a most enormous blasphemy against God– for it then would follow that Jesus Christ is only half a Savior. And therefore we justly say with Saint Paul that we are justified “by faith alone” or “by faith apart from works.”

However, we do not mean, properly speaking, that it is faith itself that justifies us– for faith is only the instrument by which we embrace Christ, our righteousness.

But Jesus Christ is our righteousness in making available to us all his merits and all the holy works he has done for us and in our place. And faith is the instrument that keeps us in communion with him and with all his benefits.

When those benefits are made ours they are more than enough to absolve us of our sins.

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 21

Article 21: The Atonement

We believe that Jesus Christ is a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek– made such by an oath– and that he presented himself in our name before his Father, to appease the Father’s wrath with full satisfaction by offering himself on the tree of the cross and pouring out his precious blood for the cleansing of our sins, as the prophets had predicted.

For it is written that “the punishment that made us whole”" was placed on the Son of God and that “by his bruises we are healed.” He was “like a lamb that is led to slaughter”; he was “numbered with the transgressors,” and condemned as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, though Pilate had declared that he was innocent.

So he paid back what he had not stolen, and he suffered– the “righteous for the unrighteous,” in both his body and his soul– in such a way that when he sensed the horrible punishment required by our sins “his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.” He cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

And he endured all this for the forgiveness of our sins.

Therefore we rightly say with SaintPaul that we “know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified”; we “regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.” We find all comforts in his wounds and have no need to seek or invent any other means to reconcile ourselves with God than this one and only sacrifice, once made, which renders believers perfect forever.

This is also why the angel of God called him Jesus– that is, “Savior”– because he would save his people from their sins.

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 20

Article 20: The Justice and Mercy of God in Christ

We believe that God—who is perfectly merciful and also very just—sent the Son to assume the nature in which the disobedience had been committed, in order to bear in it the punishment of sin by his most bitter passion and death.

So God made known justice toward the Son, who was charged with our sin, and he poured out his goodness and mercy on us, who are guilty and worthy of damnation, giving to us the Son to die, by a most perfect love, and raising him to life for our justification, in order that by him we might have immortality and eternal life.

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 19

Article 19: The Two Natures of Christ

We believe that by being thus conceived the person of the Son has been inseparably united and joined together with human nature, in such a way that there are not two Sons of God, nor two persons, but two natures united in a single person, with each nature retaining its own distinct properties.

Thus his divine nature has always remained uncreated, without beginning of days or end of life,

filling heaven and earth. Christ’s human nature has not lost its properties but continues to have those of a creature—it has a beginning of days; it is of a finite nature and retains all that belongs to a real body. And even though he, by his resurrection, gave it immortality, that nonetheless did not change the reality of his human nature; for our salvation and resurrection depend also on the reality of his body.

But these two natures are so united together in one person that they are not even separated by his death.

So then, what he committed to his Father when he died was a real human spirit which left his body. But meanwhile his divine nature remained united with his human nature even when he was lying in the grave; and his deity never ceased to be in him, just as it was in him when he was a little child, though for a while it did not show itself.

These are the reasons why we confess him to be true God and truly human—true God in order to conquer death by his power, and truly human that he might die for us in the weakness of his flesh.

 

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 18

Article 18: The Incarnation

So then we confess that God fulfilled the promise made to the early fathers and mothers by the mouth of the holy prophets when sending the only and eternal Son of God into the world at the time appointed.

The Son took the “form of a slave” and was made “in human form,” human nature, with all its weaknesses, except for sin; being conceived in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, without male participation.

And Christ not only assumed human nature as far as the body is concerned but also a real human soul, in order to be a real human being. For since the soul had been lost as well as the body Christ had to assume them both to save them both together.

Therefore we confess, (against the heresy of the Anabaptists who denied that Christ assumed human flesh from his mother) that Christ shared the very flesh and blood of children,“according to the flesh,” “descended from David according tothe flesh”;  the “fruit of the womb” of the virgin Mary, “born of a woman”; the “seed of David”; the “root of Jesse”; “descended from Judah,” having descended from the Jews according to the flesh; descended from Abraham, having assumed descent from Abraham and Sara, and made “like his brothers and sisters,” yet without sin.

 

In this way Christ is truly our Immanuel—that is: “God with us.”

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 17

Article 17: The Recovery of Fallen Humanity

We believe that our good God, by marvelous divine wisdom and goodness, seeing that humans had plunged themselves in this manner into both physical and spiritual death and made themselves completely miserable, set out to find them, though humans, trembling all over, were fleeing from the divine presence.

And God comforted them, promising to give them the Son, “born of a woman,” head of the serpent, to crush the and to make them blessed.

 

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 16

Article 16: The Doctrine of Election

We believe that— all human beings having thus fallen into perdition and ruin by the sin of the first pair—God exhibited divine character in mercy and justice.

God is merciful in withdrawing and saving from this perdition those who, in the eternal and unchangeable divine counsel, have been elected and chosen in Jesus Christ our Lord by his pure goodness, without any consideration of their works.

God is just in leaving the others in their ruin and fall into which they plunged themselves.

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 15

Article 15: The Doctrine of Original Sin

We believe that by the disobedience of Adam and Eve original sin has been spread through the whole human race.

It is a corruption of all human nature—an inherited depravity which even infects small infants in their mother’s womb, and the root which produces in humanity every sort of sin. It is therefore so vile and enormous in God’s sight that it is enough to condemn the human race, and it is not abolished or wholly uprooted even by baptism, seeing that sin constantly boils forth as though from a contaminated spring.

Nevertheless, it is not imputed to God’s children for their condemnation but is forgiven by his grace and mercy—not to put them to sleep but so that the awareness of this corruption might often make believers groan as they long to be set free from the “body of this death.”

Therefore we reject the error of the Pelagians who say that this sin is nothing else than a matter of imitation.

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THE BELGIC CONFESSION – Article 14

Article 14: The Creation and Fall of Humanity

We believe that God created human beings from the dust of the earth and made and formed them in the divine image and likeness—good, just, and holy; able by the divine will to conform in all things to the will of God.

But when they were in honor they did not understand it

and did not recognize their excellence. But they subjected themselves willingly to sin and consequently to death and the curse, lending their ear to the word of the devil.

For they transgressed the commandment of life, which they had received, and by their sin they separated themselves from God, who was their true life, having corrupted their entire nature.

So they made themselves guilty and subject to physical and spiritual death, having become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all their ways. They lost all their excellent gifts which they had received from God, and retained none of them except for small traces which are enough to make them inexcusable.

Moreover, all the light in us is turned to darkness, as the Scripture teaches us: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Here Saint John calls the human race “darkness.”

Therefore we reject everything taught to the contrary concerning human free will, since humans are nothing but the slaves of sin and cannot do a thing unless it is given them from heaven.

For who can boast of being able to do anything good by oneself, since Christ says, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me”?

For who can boast of being able to do anything good by oneself, since Christ says, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me”?

Who can glory in one’s own will when they understand that “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God”? Who can speak of one’s own knowledge in view of the fact that “those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit”?

In short, who can produce a single thought, since we know that we are “not able to think a thing” about ourselves, by ourselves, but that “our competence is from God”?

And therefore, what the apostle says ought rightly to stand fixed and firm: “For it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.”

For there is no understanding nor will conforming to God’s understanding and will apart from Christ’s involvement, as he teaches us when he says, “Apart from me you can do nothing.”