|
|
 |
THE Evangelical
churches today
are increasingly dominated by the spirit of this age rather than by the
Spirit
of Christ. As evangelicals, we call ourselves to repent of this sin and
to
recover the historic Christian faith. In the course of
history
words change. In our day this has happened to the word "evangelical."
In the past it served as a bond of unity between Christians from a wide
diversity of church traditions. Historic evangelicalism was
confessional. It
embraced the essential truths of Christianity as those were defined by
the
great ecumenical councils of the church. In addition, evangelicals also
shared
a common heritage in the "solas" of the sixteenth century Protestant
Reformation. Today the light
of the
Reformation has been significantly dimmed. The consequence is that the
word
"evangelical" has become so inclusive as to have lost its meaning. We
face the peril of losing the unity it has taken centuries to achieve.
Because
of this crisis and because of our love of Christ, his gospel and his
church, we
endeavor to assert anew our commitment to the central truths of the
Reformation
and of historic evangelicalism. These truths we affirm not because of
their
role in our traditions, but because we believe that they are central to
the
Bible. Sola Scriptura:
The Erosion
Of Authority Scripture alone
is the inerrant
rule of the church's life, but the evangelical church today has
separated
Scripture from its authoritative function. In practice, the church is
guided,
far too often, by the culture. Therapeutic technique, marketing
strategies, and
the beat of the entertainment world often have far more to say about
what the
church wants, how it functions and what it offers, than does the Word
of God.
Pastors have neglected their rightful oversight of worship, including
the
doctrinal content of the music. As biblical authority has been
abandoned in
practice, as its truths have faded from Christian consciousness, and as
its
doctrines have lost their saliency, the church has been increasingly
emptied of
its integrity, moral authority and direction. Rather than
adapting Christian
faith to satisfy the felt needs of consumers, we must proclaim the law
as the
only measure of true righteousness and the gospel as the only
announcement of
saving truth. Biblical truth is indispensable to the church's
understanding,
nurture and discipline. Scripture must
take us beyond
our perceived needs to our real needs and liberate us from seeing
ourselves
through the seductive images, cliche's, promises. and priorities of
mass
culture. It is only in the light of God's truth that we understand
ourselves
aright and see God's provision for our need. The Bible, therefore, must
be
taught and preached in the church. Sermons must be expositions of the
Bible and
its teachings, not expressions of the preachers opinions or the ideas
of the
age. We must settle for nothing less than what God has given.
The work of the
Holy Spirit
in personal experience cannot be disengaged from Scripture. The Spirit
does not
speak in ways that are independent of Scripture. Apart from Scripture
we would
never have known of God's grace in Christ. The biblical Word, rather
than
spiritual experience, is the test of truth. Thesis One: Sola
Scriptura We reaffirm the
inerrant
Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation, which
alone can
bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for
our
salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior
must be
measured. We deny that any creed, council or individual may bind a
Christian's
conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary to
what is
set forth in the Bible, or that personal spiritual experience can ever
be a
vehicle of revelation. Solus Christus:
The Erosion
Of Christ-Centered Faith As evangelical
faith becomes
secularized, its interests have been blurred with those of the culture.
The
result is a loss of absolute values, permissive individualism, and a
substitution of wholeness for holiness, recovery for repentance,
intuition for
truth, feeling for belief, chance for providence, and immediate
gratification
for enduring hope. Christ and his cross have moved from the center of
our
vision. Thesis Two:
Solus
Christus We reaffirm that
our salvation
is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone.
His
sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our
justification and reconciliation to the Father. We deny that the
gospel is
preached if Christ's substitutionary work is not declared and faith in
Christ
and his work is not solicited. Sola Gratia: The
Erosion Of
The Gospel Unwarranted
confidence in
human ability is a product of fallen human nature. This false
confidence now
fills the evangelical world; from the self-esteem gospel, to the health
and
wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the gospel into a
product to be
sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy, to others who treat
Christian
faith as being true simply because it works. This silences the doctrine
of
justification regardless of the official commitments of our
churches. God's grace in
Christ is not
merely necessary but is the sole efficient cause of salvation. We
confess that
human beings are born spiritually dead and are incapable even of
cooperating
with regenerating grace. Thesis Three:
Sola
Gratia We reaffirm that
in salvation
we are rescued from God's wrath by his grace alone. It is the
supernatural work
of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our
bondage to
sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.
We deny that
salvation is in
any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by
themselves
cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our
unregenerated human nature. Sola Fide: The
Erosion Of The
Chief Article Justification is
by grace
alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. This is the article
by which
the church stands or falls. Today this article is often ignored,
distorted or
sometimes even denied by leaders, scholars and pastors who claim to be
evangelical. Although fallen human nature has always recoiled from
recognizing
its need for Christ's imputed righteousness, modernity greatly fuels
the fires
of this discontent with the biblical Gospel. We have allowed this
discontent to
dictate the nature of our ministry and what it is we are
preaching. Many in the
church growth
movement believe that sociological understanding of those in the pew is
as
important to the success of the gospel as is the biblical truth which
is
proclaimed. As a result, theological convictions are frequently
divorced from
the work of the ministry. The marketing orientation in many churches
takes this
even further, erasing the distinction between the biblical Word and the
world,
robbing Christ's cross of its offense, and reducing Christian faith to
the
principles and methods which bring success to secular
corporations. While the
theology of the
cross may be believed, these movements are actually emptying it of its
meaning.
There is no gospel except that of Christ's substitution in our place
whereby
God imputed to him our sin and imputed to us his righteousness. Because
he bore
our judgment, we now walk in his grace as those who are forever
pardoned, accepted
and adopted as God's children. There is no basis for our acceptance
before God
except in Christ's saving work, not in our patriotism, churchly
devotion or
moral decency. The gospel declares what God has done for us in Christ.
It is
not about what we can do to reach him. Thesis Four:
Sola Fide We reaffirm that
justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ
alone. In
justification Christ's righteousness is imputed to us as the only
possible
satisfaction of God's perfect justice. We deny that
justification
rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an
infusion of
Christ's righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a
church
that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate
church. Soli Deo Gloria:
The Erosion
Of God-Centered Worship Wherever in the
church
biblical authority has been lost, Christ has been displaced, the gospel
has
been distorted, or faith has been perverted, it has always been for one
reason:
our interests have displaced God's and we are doing his work in our
way. The
loss of God's centrality in the life of today's church is common and
lamentable. It is this loss that allows us to transform worship into
entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing, believing into
technique, being
good into feeling good about ourselves, and faithfulness into being
successful.
As a result, God, Christ and the Bible have come to mean too little to
us and
rest too inconsequentially upon us. God does not
exist to satisfy
human ambitions, cravings, the appetite for consumption, or our own
private
spiritual interests. We must focus on God in our worship, rather than
the
satisfaction of our personal needs. God is sovereign in worship; we are
not.
Our concern must be for God's kingdom, not our own empires, popularity
or
success. Thesis Five:
Soli Deo
Gloria We reaffirm that
because
salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God's
glory and
that we must glorify him always. We must live our entire lives before
the face
of God, under the authority of God and for his glory alone. We deny
that we can
properly glorify God if our worship is confused with entertainment, if
we
neglect either Law or Gospel in our preaching, or if self-improvement,
self-esteem or self- fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to
the
gospel. Call To
Repentance And
Reformation The faithfulness
of the
evangelical church in the past contrasts sharply with its
unfaithfulness in the
present. Earlier in this century, evangelical churches sustained a
remarkable
missionary endeavor, and built many religious institutions to serve the
cause
of biblical truth and Christ's kingdom. That was a time when Christian
behavior
and expectations were markedly different from those in the culture.
Today they
often are not. The evangelical world today is losing its biblical
fidelity,
moral compass and missionary zeal. We repent of our
worldliness.
We have been influenced by the "gospels" of our secular culture,
which are no gospels. We have weakened the church by our own lack of
serious
repentance, our blindness to the sins in ourselves which we see so
clearly in
others, and our inexcusable failure adequately to tell others about
God's
saving work in Jesus Christ. We also
earnestly call back
erring professing evangelicals who have deviated from God's Word in the
matters
discussed in this Declaration. This includes those who declare that
there is
hope of eternal life apart from explicit faith in Jesus Christ, who
claim that
those who reject Christ in this life will be annihilated rather than
endure the
just judgment of God through eternal suffering, or who claim that
evangelicals
and Roman Catholics are one in Jesus Christ even where the biblical
doctrine of
justification is not believed. The ACE Council
Members: Dr. John
Armstrong, Rev.
Alistair Begg, Dr. James M. Boice, Dr. W. Robert Godfrey, Dr. John D.
Hannah,
Dr. Michael S. Horton, Mrs. Rosemary Jensen, Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr.,
Dr.
Robert M. Norris, Dr. R. C. Sproul, Dr. G. Edward Veith, Dr. David
Wells, Dr.
Luder Whitlock, and Dr. J. A. O. Preus, III. |
|
|
|
|
|
|