Tag Archives: wcf

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 26, Section 1

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This chapter of the confession looks at the communion of saints. The confession says that all saints, all who believe in Jesus, have union with Christ. In our union with Christ we share in his grace, suffering, death, resurrection and glory.

And because all saints are united with Christ, we are also connected with one another. In a deep spiritual sense, we are united to one another as one body and Christ is our head. Eph 4:15-16 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

And since we are joined together as one body, we have a responsibility as a body: to grow together as a mature body in which Christ is the head and this is in love.
What are some things we are called to do? The confession says we participate in one another’s gifts and graces for our mutual good, perform public and private duties.
Just as the early Christians in Acts shared all their money and time, those who are in Christ are to do the same. We rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Today’s confession is a reminder that the church is one body under Christ and as members of that one body we are intimately connected to one another.
Communion of Saints

1. All saints—who are united to Jesus Christ their head by his Spirit and by faith—have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory. And, being united to one another in love, they participate in each other’s gifts and graces and are obligated to perform those public and private duties which lead to their mutual good, both inwardly and outwardly.

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 17, Sections 1 and 2

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Chapter 17 discusses the Perseverance of the Saints.

Can Believers in Christ, Born again Christians, those adopted into God’s family fall away? Or is it true that once you’re saved, you’re always saved? We can learn three things from today’s confession:

1. True believers cannot fall from grace
2. They will persevere
3. This is only by the grace of God.

God has made a covenant with his people and it is God who will uphold and guarantee it. Those who have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, those who have been elected and adopted into God’s family will necessarily be kept by God.

Phil 1:6 being confident of this, he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

John 3:36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life.

So what about Christians who fall away or backslide? Jesus told a parable in Luke 15 about how God will seek after the lost. If you had 100 sheep and one went astray. You would leave the 99 to find the 1. And in a similar way God will not let true believers fall away, God himself guarantees the salvation of his people for eternity.
We are again reminded of the promises God has made to us. We can be assured of this because of the Father’s love, the effectiveness of Jesus work for our salvation, and the continued presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Chapter 17 – The Perseverance of the Saints
1. Those whom God has accepted in his Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by his Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere in it to the end and be eternally saved.

2. The perseverance of the saints does not depend upon their own free will, but on the unchangeableness of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; on the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ; on the continuing presence of the Spirit and the seed of God within them; and on the nature of the covenant of grace. These are grounds of the certainty and infallibility of their perseverance.
–Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 17, Sections 1-2

Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 3 Section 3

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That WCF 3.3 is concerned about God’s grace for both the elect and the reprobate. For the reprobate, God’s grace, mercy, patience is highlighted (and obviously God’s justice, but not just God’s justice). Eph. 2:3 “among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

If, from eternity, God had predestined the elect for grace and mercy (Eph 1:4-5), but in history the elect were for a time “children of [God's] wrath”, the converse could also be said: from eternity God had foreordained the reprobate to damnation, but in history the reprobate were for a time recipients of God’s common grace, mercy and patience.

To state it simply: after Adam’s fall, the human race was headed to hell. All of us deserve hell. However it was by God’s good pleasure that he decreed that some may be saved through Jesus Christ. All of us deserve hell, but for a short time, we all are recipients of God’s common grace, mercy and patience. Again this is for His glory.

By God’s decree, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined to everlasting life, and others are foreordained to everlasting death.

Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 3 Section 1

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Chapter 3: Of God’s eternal decree
God, from all eternity, did—by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will—freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass. Yet he ordered all things in such a way that he is not the author of sin, nor does he force his creatures to act against their wills; neither is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

— The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 3, Sect. 1 (Modern English Version)

This week we will begin studying Chapter 3 of the Westminster Confession of Faith. This chapter is entitled “Of God’s Eternal Decree”

Note first that the word “decree” in the title is singular. God has one all-encompassing decree, which originated from eternity and has remained unchanged. God did not have to make any new decrees or backup plans.

In today’s confession, God’s decree is described as being wise, free, and holy:

1. First, it is WISE because God’s decree is in harmony with God’s perfect wisdom.
2. God’s decree is FREE because it is not constrained or influenced by anything outside of God’s nature. God ordained whatsoever comes to pass according to the counsel of his will.
3. And God’s decree is HOLY in that it is in harmony with his perfect holiness and utterly free of sin.

So to summarize God’s decree, it is according to his own holy purposes, guided by his own perfect wisdom, without necessity or influence from outside forces, and all without the possibility of revision.

However, when we look at God’s eternal decree, we have to guard against two errors:

1) God’s decree does not make God the author of sin/responsible for sin (even though there is sin in the world, he is not author of sin) and
2) God’s foreordination does not remove man’s responsibility for his own sin.

The Bible clearly establishes both truths: God’s foreordination and man’s responsibility. We recognize that God is holy and sin is a violation of God’s holy will and his holy character. Fallen man alone is responsible for his sin. And people sin freely out of their own freewill according to their own nature, without any external influences or compulsion (or what the confession calls “second causes”). God’s decree does not violate free will but instead establishes it.

The Bible clearly establishes both truths: 1) God’s foreordination and 2) man’s responsibility for his own sin and actions. And we affirm this in our confession today.

Let me now leave you with some good news, because if man is left to his own responsibility, there would be no hope. As part of God’s eternal decree, He knew that his people would fall, so he chose his people in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless in Christ. As part of God’s eternal purpose, He sent Jesus Christ into this world at just the right time to save his people.