Written by R. Scott Clark |
Monday, November 29, 2021
To be confessional is to ask what the Standards say and intend? What are the implications of the Standards for one’s theology, piety, and practice? What did the framers, in their context, intend for the churches to say and do? Ask yourself this: if your favorite, dearest practice was found to be contrary to the Standards would you give it up and reform your practice to conform to the language and intent of the Standards? A confessional Presbyterian is willing to be corrected by the Standards. What does it mean to do something in good faith? It means to act with “honesty or sincerity of intention.”

Becoming Self-Consciously Confessional
When I was introduced to Reformed theology, piety, and practice I do not think that very many people were talking about being “confessional.” Indeed, the idea of creeds (e.g., the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed etc) confessions (e.g., the Westminster Confession or the Belgic Confession), and catechisms was unknown to me until I began attending St John’s Reformed Church in 1980–81. [Speaking of St. John’s please pray for pastor Lee Johnson, who needs your help. Read more». St John’s is a faithful congregation but not wealthy]. Of course, in the early months and years of my Reformed journey everything was new. There was a great lot to sort. As I began read more and even in seminary, where we discussed the confessions and where I took two courses covering both the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms of Unity (i.e., the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort) I do not recall hearing a lot of discussion about being “confessional.” Typically we distinguished between “conservative” and “liberal.” We were taught to think of ourselves first as evangelicals and secondly as Reformed.
In this period I was, shall we say, schizophrenic. In some ways my practice of ministry was pragmatist (largely under the influence of the church-growth literature). I believed and loved the Heidelberg Catechism but there were ways in which my theology, piety, and practice was out of sync with it. The authors, and framers of the catechism assumed, taught, and interpreted Scripture in light of the Luther’s distinction between law and gospel. I did not. The authors and framers of the catechism correlated the covenant of works with law and the covenant of grace with gospel. I did not, at least not consistently. I was a legal preacher. I consistently put the congregation back under the covenant of works while simultaneously trying to push them toward contemporary worship, so that we could grow and be “successful.”  Under my leadership we gave up the evening service in favor of Bible studies. In the providence of God, it was a study of Galatians that helped to open my eyes to some of the mistakes I had been making but still I was mostly assuming that whatever I was thinking of doing was at least not contrary to the catechism. It was not yet shaping my thinking. Had you asked me whether I agreed with Heidelberg 65 and the Reformed doctrine of the due use of the means of grace I would have said yes but my actions were contradictory. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
During my post-graduate research, for which I spent much time reading and translating primary sources from the sixteenth century Reformed theologians and a good deal of secondary literature (i.e., books and articles about the primary sources, authors, and settings) I began to see some dissonance between the way I learned Reformed theology and the way it had been understood during the classical (i.e., formative) period. My sense of that dissonance grew as I began teaching Reformed theology first at the undergraduate level and then in a seminary context. Teaching courses on the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms gave me an opportunity to learn the documents, and their background, and intent more deeply. I continued to become more aware of the tension between the way the framers of our confessions looked at Reformed theology, piety, and practice and the way we tend to look at them.
Somewhere between the time I began my post-grad research in 1993—was it reading D. G. Hart’s PhD diss. on Machen? It is still the best-written PhD diss. I have ever read—and c. 2006 I came into contact with the language of “being confessional.” It was in this period that I began to see that there was a difference between assuming that whatever I thought must be what the catechisms and confessions intended to say and being confessional. There is a difference between nominally affirming the catechisms and confessions and actually allowing them to shape my theology, piety, and practice. In this period I began to hear and read the word confessionalist. It was against this background that I wrote Recovering the Reformed Confession, in which I tried to share what I had learned and to invite the reader to join me in the recovery process.
In Statu Confessionis
I am confident that I am not the only pastor who was guilty of assuming more than knowing that my theology, piety, and practice were deeply informed by the church’s confession of God’s Word. The denomination that I served from 1987 to 1998, for most of my time,  used only the Heidelberg Catechism. I had read and studied the Belgic and the Canons but they did not live in my bones, as it were. As I began to teach them, however, they began to affect me and my theology, piety, and practice. I began to see that my assumptions were not theirs. My concerns were not theirs. E.g., the classical Reformed theologians tended to move from their doctrine of God to worship. The rule of worship was not the product of a censorious spirit (as I had assumed) but their understanding of the holiness of God. Somehow I had come to assume that, in the late twentieth century, Reformed theology had matured beyond the Reformed theology of the classical period but my assumption of superiority was ill-founded. I found that they were the teachers and I was the student. My posture changed rather dramatically.
Read More

Whatever the Lord had in mind, we now hear him speaking both sternly and lovingly to all: to the faithful, the backslidden, and the nominal. And since most of the Christians in Laodicea fell into the latter two categories, we find him outside of the church, standing at the door, knocking, seeking entry, and warmly inviting all without exception to a fellowship meal with the High King. To the nominal he offers spiritual birth, and to the backslidden he offers spiritual renewal: all on the simple condition of turning around, opening the door, and letting him in. This invitation, while sweet, could nevertheless result in judgment. If the nominal spurn his offer, he will indeed spew them out of his mouth, in the sense of finally severing their external connection with the life-giving ordinances of the Church, and so also from spiritual contact with the Head of the Church (John 15:1-7, Col. 2:18-19). 

I know your works, that you are neither hot nor cold. If only you were hot or cold!So then: Because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am poised to spew you out of my mouth.
Revelation 3:15-16
In what was surely the sternest reproof addressed to any of the seven churches in Asia, the High King of Heaven directed these words to the Christians at Laodicea. How shall we understand them? Were they spoken to born-again believers? And if so, how shall we reconcile them with so many others in the NT, affirming or clearly implying the eternal security of true believers in Christ? Is it really possible that such persons could become so backslidden—so lukewarm—that their Lord, in a dreadful moment of divine disgust, would spew them out of his mouth once and for all?
Since many sincere Christians fear this very thing, we do well to think deeply about these questions. Three closely related points may be made.
First, we cannot understand our passage unless we realize that both Christ and his apostles interacted with disciples not only on the basis of the reality of their faith, but also on the basis of their simple profession of faith.
Some biblical examples will illustrate this fundamental point.
The Lord certainly counted Judas among his disciples, seeing that over and again he instructed him and sent him out to do the work of a disciple (Matt. 10:16-23). However, Jesus knew full well that in his heart Judas was no disciple at all; that he did not believe as the eleven did (John 6:66-73), and that he was not clean as the eleven were (John 13:10).
Again, in his Parable of the Talents the Lord speaks of three different men. He calls all three his servants, and all three call him  their Master. But only the first two were true servants and therefore judged to be good servants; whereas the third was no servant at all, and was therefore judged to be evil and lazy (Matt. 7:15-19; 25:14-30). Much the same is true of the wise and foolish virgins: Both were styled as virgins, and both called the Bridegroom “Lord”. However, the Bridegroom himself only knew the wise (Matt. 25:1-13).
Or again, the apostle Peter predicts the arrival of false teachers who will secretly introduce destructive heresies into the Church, even to the extent of denying the Master who bought them (2 Pet. 2:1). Will Christ truly have bought these teachers? Surely not, for then they would truly belong to him, and would truly love the truth rather than embrace and promote heresy (John 14:16-18). Nevertheless, they will profess that they belong to him. And Peter, in order to highlight the gravity of their apostasy, here takes them at their word, charging that they will deny the Master who (they say) bought him.
In OT times God called all the Israelites his people, for all the Israelites, by natural birth, were descendants of Abraham, the physical father of the OT family and nation of God. However, as the apostle wrote, not all who were descended from Israel were Israel, for not all who were physically descended from Jacob were circumcised in their hearts, as Jacob and other members of spiritual Israel were (Rom. 2:28-29; 9:6; Phil. 3:13-14). In NT times the situation is similar. The Lord calls all professing Christians his people, and relates to them as such, even though he knows that some of them are his people only by verbal profession, whereas others are his people by verbal profession due to spiritual possession. They are his people by spiritual rebirth into the family of God, by possessing the indwelling Spirit of God (John 2:23-25; 3:1-8; 6:60-65; 14:17; 1 Cor. 12:13).
This brings us to our second point, namely, that when the Lord addressed the church at Laodicea, he was doing this very thing. He was speaking to the church as a whole, to all who named the name of Christ. No doubt this included a few fervent born-again believers, but also many backslidden, and many more nominal: mere professors of the faith who in time might be born again, but who also in time might be revealed as hypocrites and/or apostates. In light of this very great mixture, Christ judged that this church, on the whole, was dangerously lukewarm. Therefore it stood in need not only of a sharp rebuke, but also of a strong expression of mercy, grace, and love, plus a sincere invitation to new life in him.
How did the Laodicean church arrive at this dire condition? Let us consider a likely scenario. Early on, at the founding of the church, its members were no doubt much like the fruitful saints in Ephesus (Rev. 2:1-7). Having just been born from above, the majority were on fire for the King and his Kingdom. Now, however, a generation or two later, the affluence, materialism, and arrogant self-sufficiency of Laodicea have taken a dreadful spiritual toll on the church, with the result that the life and fervency of Christ have all but drained away.
Read More
Related Posts:

God’s people must take care in how they worship God, for he has said, “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified” (Lev 10:3). May we be found faithful.

Communicators, especially those within the evangelical community, love to use alliteration. It can be a helpful literary tool for impressing the points of a sermon or other spoken or written work upon the minds of an audience. Then there are those times when forcing alliteration leads to some sticky messaging. Such is the case with the phrase “worship and the Word,” often used by church leaders to cleverly describe a gathering that contains music and preaching—“Join us this Sunday for worship and the Word!”
At least two things are problematic with this description. First, it creates a false dichotomy by equating worship with music, as if preaching is not worship. Second, such distinctions either elevate these items over all other elements of worship, or worse, limit worship to music and preaching, to the neglect of other biblically-ordained worship activities.
An appropriate understanding of these terms, however, does not create a dichotomy, but rather, unites worship with the Word. This union recognizes that the Word of God should regulate, provide, and inform the elements, shape, and substance of corporate worship.
The Word Regulates the Elements of Worship
The first step in exploring the marriage between worship and the Word is to determine exactly what elements should be included in corporate worship, which raises the question of whether God cares what we include or not. All can agree that what God forbids should be excluded, but much debate exists between including only that which God has commanded (the regulative principle of worship)1 or allowing anything that God has not forbidden (the normative principle of worship). Several arguments can be made for why the regulative principle is the most biblical conclusion. One such argument is found in the outcome of Nadab’s and Abihu’s attempts at worship in Leviticus 10:1–2:
Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
Previously, God had both initiated worship and commanded the instructions for worship, to which God’s people were obedient (Lev 8:1–4); yet here we see Nadab and Abihu initiating worship apart from God’s command. The error was not simply that they were worshiping in a way that God had forbidden, but that they had offered “unauthorized” worship, “which he had not commanded them.” In our worship, then, we should submit to only that which God has commanded or shown in his Word.
Because Christ’s sacrificial death fulfills old covenant worship practices, we specifically look to the New Testament for instruction in corporate worship. Here we find seven elements of worship:

Reading of Scripture (1 Tim 4:13)
Preaching (2 Tim 4:2)
Singing (Col 3:16; Eph 5:19)
Prayer (Matt 21:13; 1 Tim 2:1)
Giving (1 Cor 16:2)
Baptism (Matt 28:19)
The Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:26)

While we may have noble reasons for including other elements in worship, the best way we can be faithful to worshiping God as he desires is to limit our worship to that which he has revealed to us in his Word.
The Word Provides the Shape of Worship
Once we have determined what should be included in worship, we are then left with the task of putting the service in a particular order. Unlike the elements above, we do not have a biblically prescribed liturgy. However, we are instructed that our worship be orderly (1 Cor 14:26–40), and Scripture does reveal to us a common pattern, seen at a macro level (the whole of Scripture) and at micro levels (specific passages throughout Scripture). Consider Israel’s first service of worship:
Read More