Last week, the Reformed Church in America, at our General Synod, approved adding the Belhar Confession as a fourth confessional standard (it still needs to be approved by two-thirds of our Classes). The passage of the Belhar prompted this reflection, which I posted yesterday at The Church Herald blog.
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So the Belhar Confession passed the General Synod and is on its way to the Classes. It will have a harder time getting approved in 31 Classes than getting a majority at Synod, but I think it probably will make it. If that is the case, though I have my reservations, I will be thankful for the themes of unity, justice, and reconciliation and pray that they are understood and applied correctly.
I also hope that our confession of the Belhar will precipitate a more robust confession of our current Standards. If I’m talking to someone in the RCA who loves the Belhar, but is also passionately committed to the truths of the Belgic, Heidelberg, and Canons, and loves these truths and preaches them joyfully and earnestly, I feel much better than when I’m talking to someone who begrudging accepts out three Standards or barely knows what they say or deep down doesn’t believe much of what they affirm. I’m all for talking about unity, justice, and reconciliation, so long as we still talk about faith, repentance, providence, heaven, hell, the wrath of God, a penal substitutionary atonement, and the cross of Christ. If the RCA confesses Belhar, I hope we will also reaffirm what we may have forgotten from the Belgic, Heidelberg, and Canons.
I hope every RCA church will accept the Scriptures as holy and divine (BC 3), and “believe without a doubt all things contained in them” (BC 5)–every miracle, every demonic possession, every “I am” statement, every prophecy of Isaiah no matter how remarkable they may seem. I hope we will affirm that the teaching of the Scriptures is “perfect and complete in all respects” and no human writing, custom, council, decree, or majority opinion stands equal to the divine writings (BC 7). I hope we will have the guts to say we believe the Scriptures to be without error, and “reject with all our hearts everything that does not agree with this infallible rule” (BC 7).
I hope we will not lose our passion for the message of the gospel, even as we try to better live out the implications of the gospel. I hope the message of Christ’s wrath-sustaining, curse-bearing death for sinners will resound from every RCA pulpit (BC 20, 21). I hope we will trumpet the good news of Jesus Christ and his righteousness imputed to us through faith (BC 22). I hope we will help the hurting and care for the needy and also tell them that “our blessedness lies in the forgiveness of our sins because of Jesus Christ” and that “God grants this righteousness apart from works” (BC 23).
I hope that as we talk about the unity of the church, we will equally affirm that the church is to be “a holy congregation” (BC 27) and for the church to be the church it must engage in the pure preaching of the gospel, the pure administration of the sacraments, and practice church discipline (BC 29). I hope we will continue to believe that “our children ought to be baptized and sealed with the sign of the covenant” (BC 34), and that we will practice what we profess to believe in this matter and in every other area of possible doctrinal slippage.
I hope that every ordained minister and professor of theology, and anyone who has taken a vow to uphold the Standards, will not only rejoice in the “gracious reward the Lord” will give the faithful and elect, a glory such as the heart of men could never imagine, but will also confess that the wicked and unbelieving “shall be made immortal–but only to be tormented in the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels”(BC 37).
I hope every RCA preacher will teach the absolute necessity of being born again (HC 8). I hope that the glorious logic of propitiation and penal substitution laid out in HC 12-19 will be understood, affirmed, gladly proclaimed, and sung at full voice in our churches and at General Synod. I hope we will find comfort in the truth that God does not merely allow hard things to come into our lives, but that all things–good and bad–come to us from his good, fatherly hand (HC 27). I hope we will declare, winsomely and boldly, to a dying world that only through faith in Christ and subsequent union with him can anyone be saved (HC 20). I hope all the pastors in the RCA will teach their congregations to believe in the virgin birth (HC 35), justification by faith along (HC 60, 61), and the reality of eternal life and eternal condemnation (HC 84). I hope we will affirm that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but we will confess that “Those who, though called Christians, profess unchristian teachings or live unchristian lives, and after repeated and loving counsel refuse to abandon their errors and wickedness, and after being reported to the church, that is, to its officers, fail to respond also to their admonition–such persons the officers exclude from the Christian fellowship by withholding the sacraments from them, and God himself excludes from the kingdom of Christ” (HC 85). I hope every elder board, Classis, and regional synod really believes this and will practice what we confess to believe. I hope we will remember that Christ has commanded us to call God “our Father” and not “our Mother” (HC 120).
I hope we will not be embarrassed by the Canon’s teaching on election and reprobation, but we will see, as Paul did, the glory of God revealed in his sovereign, free choice. I hope we will not be ashamed of limited atonement and total depravity. I hope we will encourage our people with the good news of the preservation of the saints and preach the gospel to all nations, believing that God’s irresistible grace will be effectual in the elect. This is but a small sampling of the doctrinal, devotional, scriptural riches in our Standards. I hope from the bottom of my heart that everyone who has vowed their assent to the Standards embraces these truths and gladly declares them to others.
Our confessional heritage is as good as any out there. Perhaps the practical outworkings of Belhar will make a great thing even better. I don’t know if Belhar will pass the Classes or how the RCA will be different if it does. Only time will tell. But I do know this: Belhar isn’t worth confessing if we don’t really confess the Standards we already have.
