At the risk of appearing lazy, I'm going to blog something I've already written. I haven't been blogging much recently because most of my writing time over the last six months has been spent on two projects: First, preparing my dissertation for publication (it releases this week); and second, working on my study of the 1644 London Confession of Faith which corresponds to my current Adult Sunday School study, in hopes of publishing it later this year. So I'm going to share below from said study, particularly Article 23 (XXIII) of 52. A few points are worth noting first:
1. The 1644 London Baptist Confession of Faith was the first explicitly17th century reformed confession. It was written by Baptists who were trying to show their solidarity with Nicene orthodoxy and Calvinistic doctrine, so as to distinguish themselves from anabaptists who had been involved in some pretty crazy things.
2. As such the Confession predates the publication of the Westminster Confession of Faith. To be clear, it is not a competition. But it is significant (at least to me) that these Baptist pastors did not seem to need prompting from other reformed evangelicals to write such a work.
3. The confession was written by representatives from only seven baptist churches in England. As such there are relatively few names attached to it, when compared to similar Confessions of the 17th century. I imagine that they wore themselves out writing this confession.
4. Finally, the confession is not to be mistaken with the later Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, written in 1677, and ratified and published in 1689 when there was a new freedom for evangelicals to do so. Part of my aforementioned writing project aims to correct what I see as misperceptions about supposed similarities between the First Confession and the Second: I don't think they're as similar as some reformed baptists do, and I think that there are good reasons to think as much.*
All of that said, Article 23 of the Confession is a relatively lengthy treatise on the security that believers in Christ have because of their faith. Since this particular article is lengthy, my study of it is relatively shorter than other studies. But my hope is that my readers will be encouraged to consider the security that they have in Jesus: They are safe in his hand as their faith--the hand that reaches out to eternity where Christ is--clings to him. What follows will be a) the Confession article as written in 1644 with original prooftexts, b) my pastoral reflection, and c) a sort of "takeaway" question that I anticipate being asked by readers, with answer.
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XXIII. Faith Secures Us
All those that have this precious faith wrought in them by the Spirit, can never finally nor totally fall away; seeing the gifts of God are without repentance; so that He still begets and nourishes in them faith, repentance, love, joy, hope, and all the graces of the Spirit unto immortality; and though many storms and floods arise, and beat against them, yet they shall never be able to take them off that foundation and rock, which by faith they are fastened upon; not withstanding, through unbelief, and the temptation of Satan, the sensible sight of this light and love, be clouded and overwhelmed for a time; yet God is still the same, and they shall surely be kept by the power of God unto salvation, where they shall enjoy their purchased possession, they being engraved upon the palms of His hands, and their names having been written in the book of life from all eternity.
Matt. 7:24-25; John 13:10; 10:28,29; 1 Pet. 1:4-6; Is. 49:13-16
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Here faith begins to find definition. The first thing to note is that faith is precious. It is not cheap, and neither is it common to all men. “Not all have faith” (2 Thes. 3:2). But as faith is given by God (as the next article will show), it has its effect in orienting the believer Godward for all of eternity. Faith comes by hearing the gospel (Rom.10:10), which is the power of God for salvation (Rom.1:16). And this salvation includes the initial act of justification, the continuing work of sanctification, and the final work of glorification. “You were sanctified, you were justified…by the Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:11).
Thus the writers emphasize the eternal nature of the salvation that faith gives: Believers will never “totally fall away,” as Christ continues to “beget and nourish them in the faith, repentance, love, joy, hope…” etc. This precious faith is the means through which God guards the believer for the day of Christ’s return when faith will be sight: “By faith you are guarded for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5). Note both sides of the coin, according to the apostle: Believers are guarded, meaning God protects them; but they are guarded by faith, meaning that this guardianship is not exclusive of their effort to keep and maintain faith. “I’ve kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7). We might well remember the disciples asking the Lord, “Increase our faith!” (Lk.17:8); such a prayer is every believer’s responsibility to pray.
This faith is itself the sight of God’s glory in the face of Jesus. He gives sight (cf. Jn.9). By faith we grasp the eternal realm, apprehending those things that can’t be seen (cf. Heb.11:1-3).** We reach our hand out to eternity, and lay hold of it. Geerhardus Vos once defined faith in terms of “that organ for apprehension of unseen and future realities, giving access to and contact with another world. (Faith is) the hand stretched out through the vast distances of time and space, whereby the Christian draws to himself things far beyond, so that they may become actual to him.”*^ Being divinely-given and other-worldly-nurtured, believers overcome every attempt by the devil, the world, and the flesh to thwart their fellowship with God. “By this we overcome the world: our faith” (1 Jn. 5:4). While the enemy attacks repeatedly (cf. Eph.6), and there might be times that believers will fall under hard providences, they nevertheless stand strong and overcome (Rev.2-3).
Making it to the end proves, as the confession concludes, that believers’ names are written in the palms of the Lord’s hands, and in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Is.49:13-16, Rev.13:8, 17:8). True believers endure to the end because they are clothed in Christ, whom they put on, making no provision for the flesh (Rom.13:14). But this is why when the Lamb marries his bride (the church), she is clothed in the righteous deeds of the saints (Rev.19:11). Godliness, growth in grace, good works, etc. are all the Lord’s works in men and women; but men and women do, indeed, participate. As is often the scriptural case, one need not choose between the propositions as though they were exclusive options. Rather the truth is seen more fully in holding both aspects side by side: We bear fruit abiding in him as he abides in us (Jn.15:1-6); we do good works he has prepared beforehand (Eph.2:10). And nothing could be a greater honor than to participate in this way in the very life of God, him working through us.*^^
Question—What part does the believer have in their faith?
-They are to “build themselves up in their most holy faith,” (Jude 20), doing everything in their power to build up and grow in their faith. Hence, as the above reflection showed, Peter says that it is by faith that God’s power guards us; both sides are present in the safeguarding: God’s act (giving faith) and man’s act (exercising faith). In short, God gives the faith that sustains the person’s fellowship with God, and the person works out their salvation by faith. The next article will explain this a little more fully.
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*This is a summary of content taken from the introduction to the current project I'm working on, To Give to Christ What Is His: A Pastoral Study of the First London Confession of Faith (forthcoming.)
**Dallas Willard has a really good little study on the greek used in Hebrews 11:1, where faith in Christ is defined less in subjective terms and more objectively. That is, that faith is the evidence of Christ and the glory to which he's taking us more than it is a personally (subjective) hope in Christ the glory, etc. Put otherwise, one has faith because they have Christ. No one would believe the gospel unless Christ brought them along to believe it (for faith is by grace, Ac.18:27). If a person believes, Christ has, indeed brought them. See Willard, Renovation of the Heart, 132.
*^ See Geerhardus Vos, "Heavenly Mindedness" in his book of sermons, Grace and Glory, 122.
*^^ See Hans Boersma, Sacramental Preaching, 139-146, for an excellent sermon that engages the participatory nature of our works in Christ's works, based especially on Rev.19:8.
