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.
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Written by Kevin W. McFadden |
Thursday, November 16, 2023
We can be grateful that Paul was forced to counter this false teaching in Colossae, for it gave him an opportunity to clarify the preeminence of and sufficiency of the ascended Christ for the believer. This Christ dwells in us below, and we are hidden with him above. This should give the believer hope for the future in the midst of the struggles of daily life, for “when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4).

The theology of Colossians is distinct because it arises from Paul’s response to a false teaching that was threatening the church in Colossae. It is difficult to know the exact nature of this false teaching, but the most important evidence comes in the polemical section of Colossians 2:16–23. Here Paul warns the Colossians, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath” (Col. 2:16). And he further warns, “Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind and not holding fast to the Head [i.e., to Christ] . . . ” (Col. 2:18–19). Putting these two warnings together, perhaps the false teaching taught that the true Christians should follow the food and calendar requirements of the Mosaic law as ascetic disciplines that would open up the door to spiritual visions of angels. People in the ancient world would sometimes call on angels for help with the daily struggles of life.
Does that sound worlds away to you? In one sense it is, since modern people do not tend to think about angels in their day-to-day life. Modern people, however, do still face the struggles of daily life and often look for spiritual experiences to help them cope. We live in a pluralistic society with many different views and religions, not unlike the Colossians. And we may sometimes wonder if we need something more than, or in addition to, what we currently have in Christ. Paul writes this letter to teach Christians that we need not and should not look for anything more, for Christ is preeminent over everyone and everything and sufficient for everything in our lives. The main point of the letter is summarized well in Colossians 2:6: “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him . . . ”
A Focus on Christ
Paul’s response to the false teaching has led to a noticeable focus on Christ in this letter. It may sound odd to hear that the theology of Colossians is distinct because of its focus on Jesus Christ. Doesn’t the whole New Testament focus on Jesus Christ (not to mention the whole Bible)? Yes, but most interpreters still recognize something distinctive and transcendent about the Christology of Colossians.
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An anemic view of angels, demons, Satan, and hell puts us at a disadvantage when we fight sin, when we seek to worship God aright, and when we pursue the purity of heart by which we come to know and love God more. The loss of Satan means a change in the context of the Christian life, a transfiguration of the spiritual battlefield into a place of peacetime comfort and fulfillment.

Not long ago, I was preaching a portion of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, and because in the passage Jesus talked about eternal judgment, I did too. I didn’t patronize the congregation by tiptoeing around the uncomfortable truths that came from the lips of our Lord. If he thought it mattered to warn his listeners away from the broad path that leads to destruction, to insist we can’t serve both God and money, and to remind us that anger and lust lead to hellfire, then how could I as a follower of Jesus and a preacher of his Word do anything but pass on the message—no matter how terribly it falls on contemporary ears?
After the service, a woman visiting the church told me it was the first time in forever that she’d heard any pastor anywhere mention hell. She thanked me for saying it out loud. She almost whispered the word, as if it had lost its power due to overuse as a curse word but still remained something of a secret, a reality the faithful know is part of orthodox Christianity yet that remains a destination of which we must not speak.
All this made me wonder, How can anyone preach Jesus without mentioning judgment? How do you deal with his parables? With his constant and consistent warnings about perdition? With his either-ors and contrasts? Even if you fashion yourself a “red-letter Christian” who waves off Paul and the other apostles, you can’t miss the red letters that warn about destruction and losing your soul, images of a worm that won’t die and a fire that never goes out.
Goodbye, Satan
Closely related to the absence of hell is the disappearance of Satan. In many circles, it’s rare to hear a word about the Devil or demons or powers and principalities that wage war against God and his people. Satan has gone missing. Yes, he shows up in charismatic or Pentecostal churches, but in evangelical denominations whose ranks are increasingly affluent and educated, we squirm when we encounter what Jesus and the apostles say about the Accuser.
I know there are pastors who want to avoid the exaggerations prevalent in other faith traditions, where demons peek out behind every problem, where Satan’s influence gets overstated in ways that warp the biblical witness. Better to go the way of understatement, right? The only obstacle to this approach is the Bible. Well, not just the Bible, but also church history. And, well, our brothers and sisters in the global South.
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