One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church

SERIES INTRODUCTION

Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light to my path.

Psalm 119:105

The unfolding of your words gives light;

it imparts understanding to the simple.

Psalm 119:130

AN INVITATION TO CONFESSIONAL THEOLOGY

We Believe is a series of eight studies of the primary doctrines of the Christian faith as confessed in the Nicene Creed and received in the Reformed tradition. The series marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) by re-affirming and advancing the Church's confession.1 The title of our series is drawn from the first words of the Creed-the single Greek verb Pisteuomen-which introduces what has become the classic confession of the Christian faith. Since the Church's confession neither began at Nicaea, nor ended with its creed, We Believe examines the biblical foundations of the Church's faith, traces its development (especially in the Reformed tradition), and applies its truths to the worship, life, and mission of the Church today. Since true theology begins in prayer and worship of the God who has revealed himself, each volume opens with a theme prayer, shaped by Scripture and the Church's confession. Further, since even the deepest truths of the faith need to be simply expounded so they can be clearly grasped and faithfully lived, each volume closes with a series of theses, which summarize the doctrine covered in the book. We Believe provides a comprehensive and integrated biblical, theological, and missional treatment of the major doctrines of the Christian faith.

BIBLICAL REVELATION

The Church's confession is rooted in and ruled by God's revelation in Scripture. The Scriptures are "the Word of God written" and "the rule of faith and life" (Westminster Confession of Faith 11.2). The first part of each study, therefore, is devoted to a fresh examination of biblical revelation.

Fundamentally, our studies are tethered to the text of Scripture, and each volume in the series includes expositions of the primary biblical texts which form the doctrine under consideration.2 Moreover, since Scripture is the only "infallible rule" for its own interpretation (Westminster Confession of Faith 1:9), our studies seek to interpret Scripture by Scripture, initially by embracing the discipline of Biblical Theology.3 We begin-where God's people have always begun-with the recognition that Scripture is God's inspired and authoritative word. We proceed by tracing God's progressive revelation of himself and his purposes in the organically unfolding canon of Scripture, taking full account of its varied forms, while especially recognizing its fundamental, Christ-centered unity. This procedure is one we learn from Scripture itself. The Bible regularly claims that its revelation forms a single coherent narrative climaxing in the gospel of Christ, even as it also indicates that this narrative has many dimensions and is revealed in a diversity of literary forms.4 Faithful Christian readings of Scripture-from Irenaeus and Augustine to Calvin and Kuyper-have, therefore, always recognized a fundamental unity within the rich diversity of Scripture-a unity which is conceptual (in that the Scriptures speak of the same God relating in consistent ways to the same created world), and narratival (in that the Scriptures narrate a single redemptive-history).5

In the first part of each study, then, we look for the organic unfolding of God's revelation from its seed form in the garden of Eden (Gen 1-2) to its full flowering in the garden-city of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21-22). As Augustine said, "In the Old Testament the New is concealed, in the New the Old is revealed."6 So we read Genesis in the light of the Gospels, Exodus in the light of the Epistles, and Ruth in the light of Revelation. We follow the rich network of citations and allusions-the "inner biblical exegesis"-by which Scripture interprets Scripture.7 We outline the primary biblical themes relevant to each doctrine-God's kingdom and covenant, God's creation and blessing, God's Son and people, God's Spirit and temple-together with their many related sub-themes, as they inform and shape the Church's confession. We use Scripture's own words and categories to trace the drama of redemption from creation to new creation centered on Christ.

Following this approach, we recognize that the Bible fundamentally structures its own unfolding narrative, and organizes all its major themes, around God's two primary covenants with Adam and Christ (Rom 5:12-21; 1 Cor 15:22). Reformed theology came to characterize these as the "covenant of works" and the "covenant of grace," confessing that, from start to finish, God has related to his people and his world by way of covenant (Westminster Confession of Faith 7:1-6).8 Scripture thus presents each of the major post-fall biblical covenants-God's covenants with Abraham, Israel, David, and the new covenant-as successive administrations of the single covenant of grace: the covenant which was first promised in the garden (Gen 3:15), climactically sealed by the blood of Christ (Matt 26:28 and Mark 14:24 with Exod 24:8), and which ultimately will be fulfilled in the new creation when the Triune God comes to dwell with his people at last (Rev 21:3).9

Above all-and consistent with the covenant theology we have just sketched-we take Jesus's own word as our guide, and look for him, the Lord Jesus Christ, "in all the Scriptures" (Luke 24:27). Following Jesus and his apostles, we recognize that God "promised . the gospel . beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures" (Rom 1:3-4; cf. Luke 24:44-49; Gal 3:8; 1 Cor 15:3-5; 1 Pet 1:12). Christ himself-his person, his work, and his kingdom-is the climax and goal of the Triune God's gracious plan to redeem his people and his world. Indeed, Christ is the very "substance" of biblical revelation (Col 2:17; cf. John 5:39; Rom 10:4; 1 Cor 10:4; 2 Cor 1:20; 2 Tim 3:15; 1 Pet 1:10-12). The grace of God in Christ was not merely foreshadowed and prophesied in the Old Testament; it was mediated in advance to the saints of old, by the Spirit, through the "promises, prophecies, sacrifices . and other types" given to God's people in that period (Westminster Confession of Faith 7:5-6). We therefore affirm that the Old Testament is both Christo-telic (in that it points forward to Christ as its goal), and Christo-centric (in that its types and promises really mediated God's grace in Christ, through the Spirit).10 Thus, with John Calvin, we are right to "seek in the whole of Scripture . truly to know Jesus Christ, and the infinite riches that are comprised in him and are offered to us by him from God the Father."11

In thus seeking Christ in all the Scriptures, we find that later revelation in Scripture interprets earlier revelation in ways that are consistent with its original meaning; the later revelation shows the "true and full sense" (sensus plenior) in light of the fulfillment in Christ (Westminster Confession of Faith 1:9). The New Testament offers no radical reinterpretation, much less correction, of the Old, but unfolds the full meaning of God's inspired word. As B. B. Warfield put it, the Old Testament is like a room "richly furnished but dimly lighted," such that "the introduction of light [from the New Testament] brings into it nothing which was not in it before," but "brings out into clearer view much of what is in it but was only dimly or even not at all perceived before."12 As we read the Scriptures as the unfolding narrative of God's redemptive purpose, we learn to see, again and again, that Christ is the center and substance of the Scriptures, and so the center and substance of the Church's faith.

DOGMATIC DEVELOPMENT

The Church confesses not only what is "expressly set down in Scripture" but what "by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture" (Westminster Confession of Faith 1:6). The second part of each study in the We Believe series, therefore, is devoted to an account of the dogmatic development of the doctrine under consideration. Far from being opposed to each other, Biblical Theology and Systematic and Confessional Dogmatics actually need each other; there is a necessarily reciprocal relationship between the two.13 While both disciplines deal with God's special revelation in Scripture, they analyze it according to different principles. The primary organizing principle for Biblical Theology is history-the organic unfolding of God's work of redemption and his interpretation of the same in his inspired word. The primary organizing principle of Dogmatics is logic-the rational organization of God's revealed truth. As Geerhardus Vos observes, while Biblical Theology constructs a historical "line," Christian Dogmatics constructs a logical "circle."14 Thus, while Christian Dogmatics, including the Church's creeds and confessions, generally follow the redemptive-historical shape of biblical revelation, it self-consciously sets that redemptive history within the reality of the Triune God and his relations to his world as these are revealed in all of Scripture.15 In the...