PAPER NO. 100
HISTORICAL FOUNDATION
The Work of the Holy Spirit Leading the Church into All Truth
Historic Christianity is the work of the Holy Spirit leading the Church into all truth, through the centuries, through the work of pastor-teachers. Pastor-teachers are given to the Church by Christ to bring believers to the unity of the faith, to the full measure of the stature of Christ (Ephesians 4).
Challenges occur in every age, to which the Church must respond, in order to attain to the fullness of Christ, and to accomplish its task to disciple all nations. Without the teachings of Historic Christianity firmly established in the lives of believers, there is no ordinary basis for hope for attaining maturity in the fullness of Christ.
In every age, as the Church expands, new believers bring into the Church ideas and practices from their culture which challenge the truth of the Gospel. After much discussion, the pastor-teachers come to agreement on the teaching of Scripture in response to these challenges.
The first Church council was held in Jerusalem in response to the challenge of Judaic legalism (Acts 15). The early gentile converts were influenced by Greek dualism, and raised the challenge of Gnosticism, which was answered by the Apostles’ Creed (ca. A.D. 180), recited in churches through the centuries. The Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) addressed challenges to the doctrine of the Trinity. The Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) identified all the books and only the books that constitute the Scripture of the New Testament. The Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) clarified the doctrine of the incarnation (that Christ is fully God and fully man), and the Council of Orange (A.D. 529) affirmed the doctrine of sin (man is fallen in Adam) and salvation (man is saved by grace) in response to Pelagian and semi-Pelagian error.
The Westminster Confession of Faith (A.D. 1648) is the high-water mark of Historic Christianity at the beginning of the modern era. Building on the work of the pastor-teachers in the early Church councils, it responded to the challenges of systemic distortions in the Church at the time of the Reformation.
It affirmed the authority of Scripture over against all other sources of special revelation. It affirmed the sovereignty of God over all, and its application in salvation through one covenant of grace over against all admixtures of grace with human effort.
It affirmed the work of the pastor-teachers meeting in synods/councils over against hierarchical and independent ecclesiastical authority. And it affirmed the regulative principle of worship, that the worship of God which God has commanded in Scripture must be kept pure and entire.
In the modern age the Church has been challenged in terms of its claim to knowledge (reason and science vs. faith and scripture), and in its view of human purpose (life on earth vs. eternal life in heaven, the secular vs. the sacred).
The Church has not yet come to the unity of faith in meeting these challenges and has steadily been losing ground where it once led the culture in Western Civilization. Current globalization has intensified contact with non-western cultures and worldviews in Asia, Africa, and South America.
The more supernatural forms of Christianity growing in these areas are yet to face the acid tests of skepticism and secularism. By building on Historic Christianity as summed up in the Westminster Confession of Faith, these challenges can be met.
The challenge of reason and science vs. faith and scripture can be met by the Biblical teaching on the clarity of general revelation and the inexcusability of unbelief (Romans 1:18-20; 2:14).
The Westminster Confession opens with the affirmation of this teaching: The light of nature (reason) and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable . . . . Believers today are being challenged by skepticism to show the clarity of general revelation and to take thoughts captive which are raised up against the knowledge of God.
Believers today are being challenged by secularism—life in this world vs. eternal life in heaven. This can be met by the Biblical teaching that eternal life is the knowledge of God (John 17:3) and that man’s purpose on earth is to fill the earth with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9).
The Westminster Confession of Faith affirms that God’s purpose in creation and providence is the revelation of his glory (4.1; 5.1); that the first command requires us to know and acknowledge God (Shorter Catechism Q. 46); that the first petition in prayer is that God would enable us and others to glorify him in all that by which he makes himself known (Shorter Catechism Q. 101); that man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever (Shorter Catechism Q. 1).
