The Westminster Confession of Faith Today

Confessions
are doctrinal summaries of the Bible’s teaching. They are written by
the Church for the Church and the world. They are written for the world
because churches with creeds and confessions are trying to be honest
about themselves. These doctrinal statements announce that this is a
church that has beliefs and is willing to list the most important ones
for all to see. This is the very thing that cults and sects refuse to
do. When they arrive at your door on Saturday mornings they discuss all
things peripheral; their pamphlets hide what they believe and so do
their websites.

Things are different in orthodox churches and have been so from the
beginning. Not only were the Christians of the early church forced to
explain themselves to governors unhappy with the exclusive claims of
Christians. They also needed to explain their faith simply to new
converts wanting summaries of the Bible’s teaching. Creeds and
confessions serve this purpose well. They summarize what God’s word has
to say about God and they state succinctly the horror of the fall and
then the wonder of the gospel.

Although confessions and creeds have sometimes started as signposts
to a church’s honesty or catalogues of its core beliefs, the best of
them have also served as ecumenical charters of some sort. They were
meant to be shared, perhaps by many churches for many centuries. That
has meant that those who use a confession might not be able to shape
each sentence and paragraph just as they would like. But the value of a
shared confession is almost incalculable for the church that uses it,
for it helps it to express the unity of the body of Christ. Shared
confessions such as the Apostles’ Creed or the Westminster Confession
of Faith unite the church to others which have confessed the same
doctrines before. These texts remind us that Christianity was not
invented last Tuesday and they affirm that we are united to all those
that love and preach what we have confessed in written form. And so a
good confession is not only public, but it also strikes the right
balance between the pure doctrine of the church and the unity of the
church. A confession should state each doctrine carefully, but also
humbly. It should plainly confess what is plain in Scripture and, if it
is necessary to state it at all, it should cautiously express that
which is less obvious.

The Westminster Assembly (1643-1652)

Of course it is easier to announce a maxim than it is to live it out
and this was certainly true for the theologians of the Westminster
Assembly, for they had to decide how to reform the Church of England
and its doctrinal standards. Two years before the famous assembly
gathered in Westminster Abbey, a prominent minister named Edmund Calamy
urged the House of Commons to reform the English Church. This was no
nostalgic look back to the Edenic days of England’s boy-king, the
evangelical and Reformed Edward VI. On the contrary, Calamy urged
Parliament to “reform the Reformation itself.” It was not until 1643
that Calamy’s modern reformation took shape in the calling of what
proved to be the last of the great post-Reformation synods, the
Westminster Assembly (1643-1652).

The Westminster Assembly was instrumental in purging the church of
many appalling preachers and filling it with many less appalling ones.
It tried to revise, and eventually re-wrote texts for the Churches of
England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland. It drafted directions for
Church Government, published a guide for public worship, issued
statements on doctrine, corresponded with foreign churches, authored
two catechisms and wrote a new Confession of Faith.

Really, Edmund Calamy and his colleagues should have been very
pleased, but he was not. The task of revising or writing documents like
a Confession looked easier that it really was. Then (as now) there were
too many architects wanting reform and not enough builders who could
actually effect it. While individual ministers could individually state
their own understanding of the Bible, it was much harder to do this as
a group. The experience was frustrating, leaving Calamy to mourn that
“noe man knows what this reformation is. This is a sin & misery.”

The Westminster Confession of Faith today

In 1644 Edmund Calamy was in despair but by 1646 the Assembly had
managed to finish its great Confession. The end product was worth
celebrating and still is today. Indeed it is a truly remarkable text in
the history of Christianity and all who peruse its pages will find a
sure-footed summary of Christian truth for the Christian life.

Its opening pages rejoice in the wonder of God’s revelation of
himself in the world and in the Word. Whole paragraphs linger over the
fullness and clarity of the Scriptures, and show marked deference to
the authority and finality of the Bible’s sixty-six books. With
devotion and delight, the Confession goes on to consider the God who
reveals himself in all his perfections. With reverence and awe the
Westminster divines strive to say what can be said of the God who is
one and the God who is three. The glories of the eternal God occupy
some lines; the “most loving, gracious” and “merciful” character of God
occupies others.

Further chapters remind us that our God has ordained or ordered
“whatsoever comes to pass.” This plan of the eternal God was settled
from “all eternity.” And from the beginning God’s plan or counsel for
the ordering of all things is “most wise and holy.” What else could it
be? This plan is worked out in the creation of the world and in the
care of the world. Three breathless sentences open up the wonder of
creation; the remainder of the Confession shows how “God the great
Creator” providentially “upholds” “all things”, or, as the letter to
the Hebrews says, “he sustains all things by his powerful word” (Heb
1:3). As we would expect from a God who has decreed and created all
things, God’s upholding is no bare upholding. Not at all. He “directs,
disposes and governs” his creation – all of his creatures, all their
actions, and all of those parts of creation that cannot act. This comes
as no surprise for those who are familiar with almost any part of the
Bible but, as usual, the footnotes in the Confession point to selected
portions of Scripture to make the point. Is not this all-encompassing
providence portrayed so vividly in the dreams sent to King
Nebuchadnezzar and explained by the prophet Daniel? Is not God’s
providence the wonder for which the Psalmist praises the Lord, the Lord
who “does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the
seas and all their depths” (Ps 135:6)? Reflection on the lines of the
Confession often lead to the study of the words of Scripture. Few other
exercises can provide such rich returns on one’s investment in time.

And so it is that chapter by chapter, the Westminster Confession of
Faith traces with bold strokes the great history of our redemption. The
sad realities of the fall, God’s gracious covenants with man, the
stunning announcement of salvation, and our sure hope of eternal life –
all these are sketched out here in bold, but considered strokes. Who
can read this text and not be warned that those who ignore the Holy
Scripture are doomed to stumble through the world in darkness? And who
can read this Confession and not see that those who embrace the true
God, believe what he promises, and walk by his precepts, will never be
without a guide or a light for this life? It is because of the clarity
of this gospel message in all of its parts that the Westminster
Confession of Faith finds itself in the first rank of great Christian
creeds. Perhaps it is the wisest of creeds in its teaching and the
finest in its doctrinal expression. Certainly it is a reliable guide to
the Scriptures, which are the only guide to God. It is my hope that all
who follow its directions will find their way to the Father’s home,
through the grace and mercy of the Son and by the power of his Holy
Spirit.