So yesterday I started going through item after item on an old framed ‘Declaration of Faith’ I saw still hanging on the walls of our school. I’m supposed to do a recap now, but instead of jumping directly where I left off, I thought I’d start again, take a look at the responses I made, add Scripture to bolster my own position, and put my thoughts together in simple sentences… My own Declaration of Faith, updated with my current worldview. I should probably keep going back to it every year, and discuss it with my circle each time.
We believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. – I already quoted 2 Timothy 3:16-17 here: All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Now, do I have anything to change, in terms of verbiage and word arrangement? Maybe I’d say this: We believe that the Bible is the Word of God. Then the supporting text would be 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
We believe in one God eternally existing in the three persons; namely, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. – I don’t think I’ll change anything here, but it is necessary for us to know the Scripture where we derive this item from. There is explicit mention of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit as separate entities in Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians. In his greeting to the church he says, ‘May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.’ (2 Corinthians 13:14). Matthew also mentions Christ’s words in what we call the Great Commission, explicitly stating how we baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. (28:19)
Colossians 2:9 mentions how Jesus Christ is ‘the fullness of the Deity in bodily form’; This is further supported in the Gospel of John, where he mentions Christ who is ‘the Word made flesh’; and if you continue through John 1:14 you read how He is the Son who came from the Father. We read in the Gospel of Matthew, how Christ was named Emmanuel, meaning ‘God with us’; and in his account of His time with John the Baptist, there we see the Father calling Christ the Son, and the Spirit descending upon Him.
Forgive me, because I don’t think I even jumped into the Scripture when I responded to this yesterday. And now that I did, I’m glad I did. So far what I have going on for me is that I believe in the triune God, because Scripture supports it, sure, but as I exclaimed yesterday, it is a demonstration of His omnipotence by way of His omnipresence – He is in eternity and He is with us, proof of His power which transcends time and space. If this was challenged from another ‘angle’, I wouldn’t know how to respond more than to bring it back to what really matters – Christ and His finished work.
“Do I believe in One God or Three? I believe in both, but I think our focus should be on appreciating His nature based on Christ and all He has done.”; Least now I’d have an idea of what do say, in case I’m confronted with that.
I don’t think I’d change anything in the original Statement of Faith… or maybe call Him the Holy Spirit instead of the Holy Ghost. We believe God is Father, Son, and our Holy Spirit. That’s what I have in mind right now.
We believe that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father, conceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary. (We believe) That Jesus was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead. (We believe) That He ascended to heaven and is today at the right hand of the Father as the Intercessor.
The famous verse mentions that God gave Christ, ‘His only begotten Son’. We also read in Luke 1:26-38 that Gabriel told Mary of what we call the Immaculate Conception; the verses also mention that Mary did say she was a virgin. The Gospels have their own accounts of Christ crucified, buried, and raised from the dead. Acts 1:1-3 tells of Christ ascending to the heavens after 40 days. In the same Acts of the Apostles, we read that Stephen saw Jesus seated at the right hand of God. In His epistles to the Romans, the Ephesians, and the Colossians, Paul also professed the same… And – I didn’t know this – apparently in Romans 8:34 (Which is ironically one of my favorite chapters of any book in the Bible), Paul says that not only is Christ at the right hand of God, but He also ‘makes intercession for us’. Hebrews 7:24-25 also says that Christ lives to make intercession for us.
So that part about Christ being our intercessor is true. But, I don’t know, would it be enough to say He is seated at the right hand of the Father? Do we explicitly specify that He is our intercessor? Perhaps I would have us profess and focus and appreciate how He is seated at the right hand of the Father before anything else.
So, keeping it simple: We believe that Jesus Christ is the only Son of God. We believe in His birth, death, resurrection and ascension.
Gosh, I knew I said I’d just speed through the first 7 items; but apparently, there’s still a lot to talk about. Anyway.
We believe that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and that repentance is commanded of God for all and necessary for forgiveness of sins.
I know I said a whole deal about this but let me just go through it line per line. All HAVE sinned and have come short of the glory of God. That’s directly from the Scripture, in Romans 3:23. But I would like to add that it’s also mentioned, albeit in a different chapter, that by one man’s disobedience (Adam) many were made sinners. This is to say that we didn’t sin to be sinners – It’s through Adam’s disobedience that we were made sinners. And that’s why we sin.
We can try to get all the forgiveness we need to cover our sins… but the truth is that sinning, and sin is our actual identity, so we do as we are. No, it took Christ, whom we already discussed was born as one of us; In the same baptism which projected how God was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, John the Baptist proclaimed that Christ, the Son, was the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world. He did not merely cover our sin with forgiveness, but He TOOK our sin; but even MORE than that! See, 2 Corinthians 5:21 (one of my favorite verses, really) says that Christ not only TOOK our sin, but He BECAME sin (ALL of it, and not just ‘our’ sin), taking all the death we deserved, that we consequently would BECOME His righteousness; and Romans 5:21 says Christ’s righteousness is what brings us to eternal life!
So I can go ahead and agree, and keep the first part of the statement, but I will say this as a whole: We believe that all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God, but Christ paid the price for the forgiveness of our sins, a demonstration of God’s goodness that leads us to repentance. By the way that last part comes from Romans 2:4. Sure, mine is longer (groan), but that’s what I have so far.
We believe that justification, regeneration, and the new birth are wrought by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ.
We believe in sanctification subsequent to the new birth, through faith in the blood of Christ; through the Word, and by the Holy Ghost.
I put these two together because I think that justification and sanctification are both part of the same coin we call salvation.
It’s all there, in what I mentioned was one of my favorite verses (2 Corinthians 5:21). Justification is our separation from sin, and Christ justified us, again, not by taking our sin, but more than this, He became our sin. And since the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), He took all the death that all sin deserved, at the cross. Sanctification is our being made holy (set apart from sin) and righteous (in right standing with God). Christ became our sin so that, again, we would not only take His righteousness – no, He did what He did so we would become His righteousness.
Therefore (1) sanctification is NOT something that happens ‘subsequent to the new birth’, and (2) Christ did not only give His blood, but He lay down His entire life for this to be possible. And the moment that we understand this, the more we appreciate and therefore seek the Word and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, not out of religious motives, but out of awe, wonder and gratitude.
We believe that the salvation we have is guaranteed now and forever, through Christ and His finished work. We believe that the salvation we have in Christ is our justification, sanctification and our regeneration.
We believe holiness to be God’s standard of living for His people.
Consider what was already mentioned about holiness – It’s our being set apart, and being set apart from sin. And, really, while we’re talking about being set apart, let’s understand that it was sin that set us apart from God, so in that regard, holiness is us set apart from sin, and therefore us reconciled to God – just as Christ guaranteed. And speaking of guarantees, the salvation we have in Christ has guaranteed so much – justification and sanctification, and sanctification involving us being made holy and righteous. From another point of view, we have died to sin, and we have been made alive to righteousness!
Holiness, righteousness, and our being justified and sanctified are therefore no longer things we work for to be; No, Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice for us to be reconciled to God, that as He is holy, righteous, justified and sanctified, so we are holy, righteous, justified and sanctified!
Trying to be what we couldn’t be on our own is NOT living at all – But because we know that Christ has made us holy, as HE is our Holiness, our Righteousness, the Propitiation of our sins (1 John 2:2) who is our Justification and our Sanctification… we live!
See, I don’t want to find verses to ‘support’ this by way of what I’m saying being mentioned in the Bible. I’d like to leave this open for challenge, because I do want to keep learning, relearning, and unlearning.
With that said, I’d like to spend a little more time here as I think this is a core value and motivation for my daily grind. I believe in a complete turnaround which came as a result of Christ and His finished work.
Once, we tried in vain to be holy, to be righteous, to justify ourselves, and to sanctify ourselves. We tried to work, to live. We were told by the flesh and by all who have been influenced by the flesh (the ‘flesh’ as derived by the Greek ‘sarx’, as pointed out by Andrew Farley, denoting ‘mere human nature… apart from divine influence… and opposed to God’) that we could do it on our own – going as far as lowering / watering down the divine standards of a thrice holy God for us to ‘reach’. We were conditioned to obey, much so that if anyone tried to think for themselves they would immediately be branded as heretics or enemies… and in the process, we were so used to just working, no longer thinking.
I’ll let the Amplified Version of 2 Corinthians 5:17 kick things off for me from here:
Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life].
First of all, what was mentioned in the earlier statements was incomplete. Our faith is not merely in the blood of Christ – it’s an infinitely different thing, however, when we are joined to Him (!) by faith in Him as Savior! This gives us more insight, more reason to appreciate who our Savior is – He is not only the Author and Finisher of our faith, but He is also joined with us, and we are joined to Him!
Second, we see another perspective to our holiness and righteousness; The holiness we have in Christ is not only our being set apart FROM sin and TO Christ, but it denotes that we have died to the old self, or our previous moral/spiritual condition. Furthermore, the righteousness we have in Christ is not only our being in right standing with God, much so that nothing can ever separate us from His love (Romans 8:39)… but our being righteous also means that we have been spiritually awakened, and therefore brought to a new life…
Once, we worked to live… and now, we live in celebration of Christ’s finished work! So, it’s not to say that living is the standard of God’s holiness for His people – Honestly I thought that sounded pretty witty but I think if I pushed it I’d have to explain it… no, instead, I’ll say this:
We believe our life in this reality is in celebration of Christ, who met God’s standard of holiness.
Y’know, looking at it now, I could already just simplify all of the new statements to say ‘We believe in Christ and His finished work’… but let’s see what else pops up as we intentionally explore and re-explore.
I could add to items 5 & 6, to say the following:
- We believe we are eternally secure. We believe that the salvation we have is guaranteed now and forever, through Christ and His finished work.
- We believe that the salvation we have in Christ is our justification, sanctification and our regeneration. We no longer work to do what Christ has already done, but we live in awe, wonder, and gratitude as we discover the infinite implications of this salvation.
And see, that second sentence in #6 can be mixed with #7… but soon as we fix it a little bit, so
- We believe that the salvation we have in Christ is our new birth with Him – He is our justification, sanctification, holiness and righteousness.
- We believe that we no longer work to do what Christ has already done, but in its place we live in awe, wonder, and gratitude as we discover the infinite implications of our salvation.
But wait. I only added to item 5 to sort of ‘match’ it with item 6, so I need to do some rearranging/rephrasing:
- We believe we are eternally secure. We believe that the salvation we have is guaranteed now and forever, through Christ and His finished work.
- We believe that we are infinitely blessed. The salvation we have in Christ is our complete justification, absolute sanctification, and our regeneration.
- We believe our we are living celebrations and testimonies Christ’s finished work, and we are in awe, wonder, and gratitude as we discover the never-ending implications of this salvation.
So, after revisiting not just one, but all of the 7 previously handled statements, here’s what we have as a Declaration of Faith. v2.0:
- We believe that the Bible is the Word of God.
- We believe God is Father, Son, and our Holy Spirit.
- We believe that Jesus Christ is the only Son of God. We believe in His birth, death, resurrection and ascension.
- We believe that all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God, but Christ paid the price for the forgiveness of our sins, a demonstration of God’s goodness that leads us to repentance.
- We believe we are eternally secure. We believe that the salvation we have is guaranteed now and forever, through Christ and His finished work.
- We believe that we are infinitely blessed. The salvation we have in Christ is our complete justification, absolute sanctification, and our regeneration.
- We believe our we are living celebrations and testimonies Christ’s finished work, and we are in awe, wonder, and gratitude as we discover the never-ending implications of this salvation.
I apologize for the mess here. But at the same time I’m thankful that you’re with me in this unexpected journey. I’m discovering a lot, and I’m excited that I’m finally doing some real clarification as to what I have in my own mind, and I believe that in the process we will be able to take bigger steps and more significant progress in our own individual walks.
So I held off again on hitting the rest of the items on the old list… But I believe we’re bound to make some serious progress from here on out, considering that we’ve refined our approach on the first half. And okay, although I say I’m thankful for you joining me so far, would you be so kind as to give me your own critiques and comments? No, it’s not as the Youtubers say, not for the algorithm or whatever – I would welcome any input at this time, because I value your ideas as much as I would value those from my team, to whom I’m going to be presenting this very soon.
Until the next post, again, God bless and keep you. Be safe, be strong in the Lord and be of good courage.
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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