Coram Deo ~

Looking at contemporary culture from a Christian worldview

Truths We Confess BOOK CLUB

Truths We Confess: A Systematic Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith by R.C. Sproul

From the Ligonier description:

“The Westminster Confession of Faith is one of the most precise and comprehensive statements of biblical Christianity, and it is treasured by believers around the world. R.C. Sproul has called it one of the most important confessions of faith ever penned, and it has helped generations of Christians understand and defend what they believe.

In Truths We Confess, Dr. Sproul introduces readers to this remarkable confession, explaining its insights and applying them to modern life. In his signature easy-to-understand style and with his conviction that everyone’s a theologian, he provides valuable commentary that will serve churches and individual Christians as they strive to better understand the eternal truths of Scripture. As he walks through the confession line by line, Dr. Sproul shows how the doctrines of the Bible—from creation to covenant, sin to salvation—fit together to the glory of God. This accessible volume is designed to help you deepen your knowledge of God’s Word and answer the question, What do you believe?”

Foreword from Sinclair Ferguson:

  • In these pages you will find a treasure trove of rich biblical instruction written in a style that is as accessible as it is pastoral.
  • The Westminster Confession was the anatomy of everything he (Sproul) preached and taught.
  • Few things will do you more good or set you on a safer path than to sit now at R.C.’s feet and read through his exposition of the great doctrines of the Christian faith.
  • Truths We Confess is not an academic, technical discussion of an ancient document. This is a book for every Christian home and family and one that will be especially valuable for younger Christians setting out on the way.

WCF 1: Of the Holy Scripture

  • The Westminster Confession of Faith is one of the most important Protestant confessions, for it gave substantial definition to Reformed theology in the seventeenth century.
  • The Westminster Confession affirms the central importance and sufficiency of Scripture—a Reformational concept.
  • We not only can but do know that the creation requires a Creator and that the Creator must be sovereign over His creation, both in terms of His authority and His power.
  • General revelation is not sufficient to give us the knowledge necessary for salvation; special revelation is sufficient for that purpose.
  • The doctrine of inspiration, as mysterious as it is, declares that while humans were writing, God the Holy Spirit ensured that what they wrote was without error and was actually verbum Dei, the Word of God itself.
  • The confession asserts that the Bible’s authority is so strong, so supreme, that it imposes on us a moral obligation to believe it. If we do not believe it, we have sinned. It is not so much an intellectual as a moral issue.
  • If the Lord God Almighty opens His mouth, there is no room for debate and no excuse for unbelief. It is the Word of God, and everyone is duty-bound to submit to its authority.
  • The church no more gave the Bible its authority than the individual gives Christ His authority by embracing Him as Lord. He is Lord—we are simply called to recognize it.
  • Scripture should be received, not so that it can become the Word of God, but because it already is the Word of God.
  • A person will not be fully persuaded or assured that the Bible is the Word of God unless and until God the Holy Spirit does a work in his heart, which is called the internal testimony of the Spirit.
  • The Spirit works with and through the Word, never apart from or against it.
  • As we read and study Scripture, the Spirit opens our eyes, not to add anything to what is already there, but to clarify what is there and to apply it to our lives.
  • Always interpret the implicit in light of the explicit, the obscure in light of the clear. These underlying principles in the Reformed doctrine of hermeneutics presuppose that the Bible is the Word of God.
  • What the Holy Spirit inspired in one passage helps us understand what He inspired in another. We must interpret Scripture by Scripture.

WCF 2: Of God, and of the Holy Trinity

  • The most distinctive characteristic of Reformed theology is its doctrine of God.
  • We should never consider the character of God to be too deep to think about. The more we reflect on His greatness, the more our souls are moved to adore Him and worship Him for His magnificence.
  • When we say that God is all-powerful, almighty, omnipotent, we mean that His power surpasses everything in the universe. Nothing can resist His power or overpower Him.
  • The Reformed faith teaches that human freedom is real but limited by God’s sovereignty. We cannot overrule the sovereign decisions of God with our freedom, because God’s freedom is greater than ours.
  • The purpose of prayer is not to change God’s mind but to change ours, to bring us into communion with Him, to come to our heavenly Father and tell Him what is on our hearts.
  • God uses our prayers as a means to accomplish His plan. So when we are praying to God, we are part of His plan.
  • We should always pray with the assumption that God knows best.
  • God is so loving that He gives mercy far beyond anything we could ever hope or imagine.
  • We have worth because God says so, because He assigns value and importance to human beings, and because He has made us in His image.
  • We must understand that everything exists for God, for His glory and majesty. From this comes the purpose of our being.
  • Not a single molecule runs loose in the universe outside the scope of God’s control. He rules over all things in nature.

WCF 3: Of God’s Eternal Decree

  • The Reformed doctrine of predestination, by contrast, is called unconditional election. It teaches that election is based not on people’s meeting conditions but on the eternal decree of God Himself.
  • Some people respond to the gospel and some do not because God has chosen to bring some to Himself.
  • The reason for any salvation, for any election, is to manifest the glory of God.
  • God is glorified by the judgment of the wicked in hell just as much as He is glorified by the rescue of the saints in heaven. On the one hand, God’s mercy is made manifest. On the other, His justice is made manifest.
  • God makes it clear that He has the sovereign prerogative to give mercy and bestow grace on whomever He wants to. He can give an executive order of unmerited clemency to those whom He pleases. That is why it is mercy. That is why it is grace.
  • The Reformed view is called double predestination because it includes both election (the positive side) and reprobation (the negative side).
  • In the biblical view, people who are elected by divine grace to believe and be saved will believe and be saved. God’s redemptive work accomplishes what His sovereign decree of election determined to accomplish, namely, the salvation of the elect, whom He has chosen for His own good pleasure.
  • The preaching of the gospel has been at the forefront of every revival in church history that has had an impact on the world.
  • In the case of the elect, God extends mercy. In the case of the reprobate, He withholds it.
  • Our assurance rests not in our self-examination but in our confidence in God’s promise to bring His people safely through to the final state of our salvation. A chief benefit of understanding the biblical doctrine of election is a greater sense of assurance of our standing before God.

WCF 4: Of Creation

  • We stand in awe that our Creator formed the entire vast universe out of nothing by the sheer command of His voice.

WCF 5: Of Providence

  • When big things assail us or smaller things annoy us, do we rest in the knowledge and assurance that they have come to us through the providence of a God who is supremely wise and holy?
  • We question His wisdom as well as His goodness when we murmur and complain about our lot in this world.
  • If we have been justified by faith alone, the ground for our eternal salvation is secure—not because of our obedience or disobedience, not because of our righteousness or lack of it, but because of the perfect righteousness of Jesus, which God counts as ours when we receive Christ by faith.
  • God gives people over to Satan to be exposed to His manifold temptations. God does not just allow these things but positively ordains them.
  • People are in one of two states: saved or unsaved. An individual goes either to heaven or to hell.
  • God owes grace to no one, and the common grace He gives to everyone becomes an exercise of His judgment, because the wicked resist even that.

WCF 6 Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment

  • Doing what you want to do rather than what God requires you to do is sin.
  • Today, the Bible’s authority as the written Word of God has come under such severe attack that the church is tempted not to submit to it.
  • The Bible calls us sinners, not merely because we commit sins, but because we are by nature sinful—inclined or disposed toward sin.
  • In our fallen nature, we have a desire for sin. At the moment of sinning, we want to sin more than we want to please Christ and obey God. Otherwise, we would not do it.
  • God looks at the heart. He delights in obedience from a heart that genuinely loves Him.
  • Reformed theology teaches that the fall is so serious and profound that, if left to ourselves, to our own inclinations and natural dispositions, we would never come to Christ.
  • Only the Holy Spirit can change our natural disposition and inclination and create in our souls a genuine love for God. Unless He moves to change us, the only good we will ever do is on the horizontal plane, and that will not satisfy the law of God.
  • If God says He will forgive us in certain circumstances and on certain conditions, then we can rely on the objective truthfulness of that declaration and know that we are forgiven.
  • God saves us, in Christ, from His own judgment and wrath.
  • The truth is that if we do not believe in God’s wrath, we cannot be considered Christians. It is that simple. Divine wrath is integral to the classic biblical concept of faith.

WCF 7 Of God’s Covenant with Man

  • Any covenant into which God enters with us is an act of condescension.
  • The concept of covenant, which provides the structure or framework of redemptive history and of the whole scope of theology, is vitally important. It provides the context within which God reveals Himself to us, ministers to us, and acts to redeem us.
  • Church membership is part of our covenant relationship with Christ and with God.
  • God is a covenant-keeper and we are covenant-breakers.
  • The covenant of works has its roots in God’s grace. Any relationship we have with Him that involves a promise is gracious.
  • In the covenant of grace, it pleased the Lord to provide a substitute, a champion to obey His law perfectly and personally for us.
  • Salvation is of the Lord from beginning to end; it is completely by His grace.
  • The covenant of grace does not annul the covenant of works. The covenant of grace is what God does to ensure that, under the covenant of works, we do not perish, but are redeemed by Jesus Christ’s fulfillment of this covenant.
  • In the final judgment, we will be judged by the law of God, and we will stand there on the grounds of either our works or Christ’s works.
  • We are saved the same way Adam was saved. The only difference is that people then trusted divine promises that had yet to be fulfilled.

WCF 8: Of Christ the Mediator

  • Perhaps the most magnificent glorification of Jesus during His period of humiliation came at His transfiguration.
  • The only way anyone is saved is by works. But it is Christ’s good works, not ours.
  • The most vivid demonstration of the wrath and justice of God that we find in Scripture is found in the New Testament, at the cross. The Lord Jesus sacrificed Himself and satisfied the justice of His Father on the cross for His own glory, and for the benefit of the elect.
  • Everything that Christ accomplished for New Testament believers was accomplished for Old Testament believers as well.
  • Christ objectively purchases redemption for the elect. He certainly and effectually applies and communicates that redemption to them. And He makes intercession for them.
  • Christ not only has died for our sins and purchased our redemption on the cross, but He is making intercession for us every day in heaven.
  • The whole point of election is that we are dependent from beginning to end on the mercy and grace of God and on the work of Jesus to rescue us.
  • From all eternity, God has planned to save certain people, the elect. They will all certainly be saved because His decree of election cannot fail.
  • The point of limited atonement is that salvation is entirely of the Lord.
  • What we affirm is that Christ’s death was intended to cover only the sins of the elect. He did not intend to die for the nonelect. Though His sacrifice was enough for the nonelect as well, our triune God did not have the nonelect in view when He planned and executed the atonement.
  • What took place on the cross was not just an abstract act of total atonement for all human sin. Rather, Jesus died specifically for His own, His elect.
  • The elect receive the mercy of God; the nonelect receive the justice of God. No one is treated unfairly or unjustly.

WCF 9: Of Free Will

  • The prevailing view of free will in the secular culture is that human beings are able to make choices without being encumbered by sin. This view of human freedom is on a collision course with the biblical doctrine of the fall, which speaks of the radical corruption of our human condition.
  • Whenever our desire for obedience is greater than our desire for sin, we will obey Christ. However, whenever our desire for sin exceeds our desire to please God, we will sin.
  • We make choices according to what seems best or most pleasing to us at the moment of decision.
  • Before conversion, we are free to sin; after conversion, we are free to sin or to obey God. In heaven, when we are in glory, we will be free only to obey.

WCF 10 Of Effectual Calling

  • Whom does God effectually call? The elect—and only the elect.
  • The proclamation of the gospel is an outward call and can by itself have no effect. But the call of God, when He works inwardly by the Holy Spirit in the soul and in the heart of an unregenerate person, is effective every time.
  • We will never love Christ perfectly or love Him as much as we ought to. But if we have love for Him at all, we can be assured of our salvation.
  • The confession states clearly that the operation of the Holy Spirit in effectual calling or regeneration is the work of God alone. This is the divine initiative by which we are brought to faith.
  • Regeneration precedes faith. You don’t have to have faith in order to be born again. Rather, you have to be born again before you can ever have faith.
  • God sovereignly determines to give the grace of effectual calling only to the elect. When that grace is given to the elect, it works.
  • We can be confident that the children of believers who die in infancy are elect.

WCF 11 Of Justification

  • We do not rest on anything else in our lives except Christ and His righteousness for our salvation.
  • True faith is the instrument by which we are justified, and works flow out of it. Those works contribute nothing to justification, because the only ground of our justification is the merit of Christ. It is His work by which we are justified.
  • A Reformed person would call a totally carnal Christian a non-Christian, an unregenerate person.
  • The Bible teaches that justification is by the possession of faith and not by the mere profession of faith.
  • It is virtually impossible to have genuine faith and never profess it. However, it is possible to profess faith and not possess it.
  • We are justified by faith alone, apart from any consideration of our works, but not by faith that is without works.
  • Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.
  • On the cross, our demerit was transferred or imputed to Christ. He bore all our demerit or sin by Himself.
  • Christ took on Himself all our guilt and pollution and became a curse for us.
  • Our sins were transferred to Christ, and His righteousness or merit was transferred to us.
  • The moment we put our trust in Christ, all that Christ is and all that He has becomes ours, and all that we are becomes His.

WCF 12: Of Adoption

  • We who are adopted become heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, and ours is the most valuable and rich inheritance that anybody can have.
  • Only those who are in Christ Jesus are adopted into the family of God.
  • We tend to think that the only purpose of our adoption is to confer a benefit to us, but the confession says that our adoption is really for Christ’s benefit.
  • Our adoption is a gift of God’s grace. It is not something that we earn or are entitled to.

WCF 13: Of Sanctification

  • The idea that a person can be justified and fail to show any fruits of sanctification is completely contrary to the teaching of Scripture. It is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
  • We have to remember that justification is by faith, not by the profession of faith. A mere profession of faith justifies no one.
  • Sanctification follows justification necessarily, inevitably, and immediately.
  • The more holy someone becomes, the more unholy he realizes he is.
  • The order (of salvation), from a Reformed perspective, is: effectual calling, regeneration, faith, justification, sanctification, and glorification.
  • Effectual calling is the Holy Spirit’s work of bringing about a change in someone. The change that is brought about in and through the effectual call is regeneration.
  • Our assurance of salvation rests not on our achievements but on the God whose plan of salvation it is.
  • Reformed theology teaches that salvation is monergistic at first and then synergistic after effectual calling and regeneration.
  • The most important task that any Christian has in his life is the quest for the kingdom of God.
  • The goal of the Christian life is to be righteous.
  • A person who is seeking to be sanctified must have a passionate desire to obey both the letter and the spirit of the law of God.
  • Antinomianism is a repudiation of the authority of the law of God over one’s life. Dispensational theology is a nineteenth-century aberration away from historic, orthodox, biblical Christianity.
  • If the Old Testament moral law reveals to us what is pleasing to God, and the new covenant commands us to live in a way that pleases God, that tells us that we must give serious attention to the Old Testament law.

WCF 14: Of Saving Faith

  • Grace is the instrumental power or the means by which we are saved through faith.
  • God in His grace supplies the necessary condition that He requires for salvation. That condition is faith. He requires us to exercise faith in order to be saved, but we are unable to do so unless He first gives faith to us.
  • The gift of faith is given to all of God’s elect and to no one else, because from all eternity God has had a plan of salvation that includes a certain number of people whose names He knows. He has moved heaven and earth to secure the salvation of the elect.
  • God enables us to believe because, by ourselves, we are morally unable to do so.
  • The Holy Spirit changes the disposition of the heart, to be sure, but the ordinary way by which the Spirit does that is the ministry of the Word. He gives the gift of faith through the power of the Word.
  • Our growth in sanctification is directly related to our growth in faith, because our growth in faith is closely related to our faithfulness. The more faithful we are, the more sanctified we become. We must work hard to strengthen our faith.
  • A Christian can fall radically and seriously but not fully and finally.
  • Faith is a gift of God. It is worked in the soul by the Holy Spirit. It is the gift of Jesus, who is its author. We are not the authors of our own faith. Christ is, and He who has begun a good work in us will perform it to the end. That is the promise: that the same One who authored faith in our soul will finish what He began.
  • Reformed theology relies on the grace of God from beginning to end.

WCF 15: Of Repentance unto Life

  • If repentance is not preached, the message is a false gospel.
  • When we repent of our sin, we come before God, not whole, but broken.
  • If repentance is not preached, the message is a false gospel.
  • We are justified only by the free grace of God, based solely on the righteousness of Christ, not on anything we do. We have nothing to contribute to our salvation.
  • Calvin said that all sin is mortal in the sense that it deserves death. But no sin is mortal in the sense that it actually destroys the saving grace that Christ has given to His people.
  • We conclude, as do many biblical scholars, that the unforgivable sin is blasphemy against Christ when we know better— when we already know who He is.
  • Christians can fall radically and seriously, but not fully and finally.
  • Christians do not need to worry about committing blasphemy against the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit Himself restrains us from doing so if we are ever tempted to do so. It is by God’s grace that we do not do it.

WCF 16: Of Good Works

  • Good works involve conformity to, and the obeying of, the law of God.
  • In any study of good works, this should be the major premise: Only God is good.
  • Outwardly good works without proper motivation are evil in God’s sight.
  • Our good works do not contribute anything to our justification, but if we are truly people of faith, the goal of our lives should be to please God and to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.
  • Good works are the fruit of faith and provide evidence of a true and living faith.
  • We show our love for Christ by obeying His commandments.
  • If we have any true faith at all, it will manifest itself in works of obedience and in a spirit of repentance.
  • We are to look to God and to the Holy Spirit for help in our spiritual growth as we strive to advance in our sanctification.
  • No work that we do proceeds from a heart that is absolutely pure; no work that we ever do in this world is completely untainted.
  • Most people are resting on their performance, on what they perceive to be a net balance of goodness in their life, to get them past the judgment seat of a holy and righteous God. But they are sadly mistaken.
  • The only way our righteousness is acceptable to God is if it is done in and through Christ.
  • The confession reminds us that the unregenerate person can go through all the motions, do all the outward things that the law of God requires, but still will not survive the judgment of God.
  • We need to examine ourselves against God’s standards of what is good and what is not, and not by the cultural standards or by the customs or even by the laws of the nation in which we live.
  • When we stand before God on the judgment day, we will rest either on our works or on Christ’s works.

WCF 17: Of the Perseverance of the Saints

  • All who are elect come to faith and are preserved in that state of faith until the end of their lives. The goal and purpose of election is completely realized in them.
  • We persevere only because God, in His grace and power, preserves us.
  • The only merit by which anyone can ever be saved or justified in the sight of God is the merit of Christ.
  • Our perseverance does not rest on our ability to persevere, but rather on the preserving activity of God. The Holy Spirit abides with us to this end.
  • The work of perseverance, or the preservation of the saints, is a Trinitarian operation; our future is guaranteed by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
  • Our faith and our salvation rest on trust in the promise of God. Without the promise of God, we have nothing.
  • Our perseverance rests on the covenant of grace. God, in His grace, initiates our salvation and accomplishes it.
  • A Christian is capable of a serious and radical fall, but not a full or final fall.
  • God promises to preserve only those who are His. He promises to preserve only true believers who have been justified in Christ.

WCF 18: Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation

  • There is no time when we receive greater assurance of our salvation than when we are in the Word of God.
  • The confession speaks about the assurance of salvation as being important, but not as being essential to salvation.
  • Even in the midst of the travails and pains that come with age, many Christians find that the older they get, the more joy they have. It comes from an increasing understanding of who God is and what a wonderful assurance it is to belong to Him. That gives joy.
  • The more certain we are of our salvation, the greater is our love and thanksgiving to God.
  • Our obedience is not motivated by a desire to earn salvation, nor by a grim duty that is imposed upon us by the divine will; rather, it is rendered to God as a sacrifice of love.
  • Probably the most prevalent doctrine of justification in modern culture is the doctrine of justification by works. Most Americans, including those who call themselves evangelicals, believe that people will get into heaven if they live a good life.
  • The first and basic reason why people arrive at a false sense of assurance is that they have a false understanding of salvation.
  • The Christian life is about believing God, not just believing that there is a God.
  • The assurance of faith is infallible because it is founded upon the promises of salvation made by our infallible God.
  • The confession goes on to say that our assurance is also based on the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit.

WCF 19: Of the Law of God

  • All law finds its origin in God. Law finds its validity in terms of its conformity to the character of God.
  • The study of ethics is the study of what we ought to do; the study of morality is the study of what we actually do – which may or may not conform to what we ought to do.
  • God’s law is based not on the practices of fallen human beings but on His own character, which is not fallen.
  • From a Christian viewpoint, there should always be a significant difference between ethics and morality. Christians are to look to the imperative, to what we ought to be doing, not to the indicative, what we are doing.
  • We will not be judged in the last judgment by what our culture approves or disapproves, or by what our government allows or does not allow. We will be judged by the law of God. That is why it is important to understand the law of God.
  • The moment we are reborn of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, but the conviction doesn’t purify us from sin. The process of sanctification requires further conviction of sin, and that comes by seeing ourselves in the mirror of the law.
  • We don’t usually like laws. We think of the law as a bad thing, but the Christian loves God, loves His Word and His law, and sees that grace and law are not incompatible.
  • Grace complies with the law, and the law complies with grace, and it does so in a manner that is sweet. Therefore, the more we grow in grace, the more we love God’s law.

WCF 20: Of Christian Liberty, and Liberty of Conscience

  • There is a distinction between eternal guilt and temporal guilt. The eternal guilt was taken for us by Christ on the cross, but we are still left with temporal guilt.
  • People who do not know the law and how it condemns them to the wrath of God cannot get excited about a gospel that frees them from that wrath.
  • A God without wrath is not God. The biblical God promises to pour out His wrath with a vengeance against an impenitent, rebellious world. That day has been fixed, and we will all be there.
  • Either we will face the wrath of God on our own or we will be dressed in the robes of Christ, who has received that wrath for us.
  • It is hard to see how anyone can read the Bible and not see that God is indeed a God who will punish wickedness.
  • The consequence of the condemning wrath of God for those who are still in their sins is everlasting damnation or hell. But death, the grave, and hell have no claim on those who have been set free by Christ.
  • People were saved the same way in the Old Testament as they are saved in the New Testament. They were justified by faith.
  • The ground of Abraham’s salvation was Christ. Abraham believed in the One who was promised to come, and he was justified by faith in Him and on the basis of what He would do. The only difference between Abraham and us is that Abraham looked ahead to Christ, and we look back. But we both trust in the same Savior.
  • We are free to use and enjoy things as long as they do not rule our lives.
  • Where God has left us free, we must be careful not to usurp His authority and take away from people the freedom that He has given.
  • Any church that is a true church has the responsibility to exercise discipline over its members. That comes as a shock to many people in the United States.

WCF 21: Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day

  • The Old Testament record of creation shows that God’s work of creation extended through six days, and that He rested on the seventh day and hallowed it. Because of that account in Genesis, the majority report throughout church history has been that God did sanctify the Sabbath day in creation.
  • By “hallowing” the Sabbath, God consecrated it, setting it apart as special and holy.
  • But from the resurrection of Christ, the Sabbath was changed into the first day of the week, which, in Scripture, is called the Lord’s day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath.
  • The confession calls on people not only to keep the Sabbath day holy but to prepare for the Sabbath day—an idea that has been all but completely eclipsed in our culture today. That preparation includes a spiritual preparation and preparation in other ways.
  • The church, through the ages, has followed Jesus’ teaching by permitting works of mercy and works of necessity on the Sabbath.
  • Both the Continental and the Puritan views on the Sabbath are tolerated within the Reformed community.
  • The primary focus of the Sabbath day originally was to provide rest for people. So, it is not best to say that our whole time has to be taken up with worship and doing works of necessity and mercy. There is also time to enjoy fellowship and to rest.

WCF 22: Of Lawful Oaths and Vows

  • The reason we have oaths and vows is that all people are liars. Romans 3:4 says so.
  • It matters whether we keep our vows, because to keep a vow is to honor the truth.
  • To make true statements in our testimony is not only to honor our fellow neighbor, but also to honor God, who is the fountain and source of all truth.

WCF 23: Of the Civil Magistrate

  • The person who holds the highest political office in the universe is the Lord Jesus Christ. To Him we are to give our supreme allegiance and devotion.
  • God is the supreme Lord and King of all the world. It is He who has ordained civil magistrates.
  • The main reason that we are called to be obedient to civil magistrates is to glorify God and honor Christ.
  • The idea of vocation is that God calls people to their life’s work in many different spheres.
  • As Christians, we should think of our careers as vocations.
  • The concept of vocation does not mean that every job is something that a Christian can, in good conscience, do.
  • We have to be careful not to assume that any job we want is sanctioned by God.
  • We have seen some incidents in recent years where the civil authorities have encroached on the church’s right to discipline by excommunication.
  • Church government and church discipline were not invented by mean-spirited people but by Christ Himself for His church.
  • Church leaders are not to interfere in civil matters, just as civil magistrates are not to interfere in the free exercise of religion.
  • The principle is this: whenever any authority (civil magistrate, employer, father in the home, husband in the marriage) commands us to do what God clearly forbids or forbids us to do what God clearly commands, we not only may disobey but must disobey.

WCF 24: Of Marriage and Divorce. Here are a few helpful quotes from the chapter:

  • Any sexual relationship between two men or between two women is clearly prohibited by the Word of God.
  • The most basic, foundational unit of society is the family, and it is that very unit that is under such fierce attack in our culture today.
  • There is a mandate from the Apostolic word that Christians are not allowed to marry unbelievers.
  • Those churches that seek to be confessional and biblical in the matter of divorce generally reduce the legitimate grounds for divorce to two: adultery and desertion.

WCF 25 Of the Church.  Here are a few helpful quotes from the chapter:

  • The invisible church exists substantially within the visible church but cannot be identified with it. It refers to the elect, to those who make genuine professions of faith.
  • When we behave in a just manner in our place of work, we bear witness to Christ.
  • According to the Bible, the only people who seek after God are believers. We do not and cannot begin to seek after God until He has found us and brought us to Himself.
  • Unbelievers seek the benefits that only God can give them but they aren’t seeking God.
  • Our worship is for Christians and should be designed to enhance the growth and the development of the believer.
  • Our election is always in Christ, and it is effective and effected through Christ.
  • The church can become impure if it crosses the line into apostasy. Then the believer not only may leave but must leave. We are not to be visibly identified with an apostate body.
  • Some theologians today refuse to say that justification by faith alone is essential to the gospel. Luther said it was the article upon which the church stands or falls.
  • Without the gospel, there is no church. There can be a religious institution, but without the gospel, it is no church.

WCF 26: Of the Communion of Saints. Here are a few helpful quotes from the chapter:

  • When we suffer for the gospel’s sake, we fill up the full measure of the sufferings of Christ by virtue of our communion with Him.
  • Anyone who is united with Christ is at the same time united with all others who are united with Christ.
  • We must rid ourselves of the cavalier, casual attitude that we who bear the name of Christ can fail to participate in worship or in the fellowship of the body of Christ.

WCF 27: Of the Sacraments

  • There are controversies about the number of the sacraments, their meaning, origin, mode, and efficacy, as well as who may dispense and who may receive them.
  • The Lord’s Supper communicates the significance of the Lord’s death nonverbally.
  • Sacraments are given in the context of covenant. The sign of the old covenant was circumcision, and the sign of the new covenant is baptism.
  • In the Old Testament, the sign of participation in the covenant of grace was circumcision.
  • People ask: “Does baptism automatically, supernaturally regenerate a person? Does baptism save us?” The Reformation answer is no.
  • The integrity of that sign does not rest with the person who gives it, or the person who receives it, or the parents who were there. The integrity of the sign rests with the One whose promise it is.
  • Both baptism and the Lord’s Supper are outward signs and outward seals of the truth of God’s promises.
  • The Lord’s Supper ought never to be celebrated without preaching, because the signs are never to be given without the Word. The Word and the sacrament may be distinguished but not separated.
  • The sacrament is not just an empty ritual. It has spiritual significance and reality because God assigns that to it.
  • The grace that is exhibited by the sacraments is not conferred by any power in them.
  • The efficacy of a sacrament depends not on the piety or intention of the minister but on the actual working of the Spirit and on the One who instituted the sacraments.
  • The sacraments are Trinitarian. The Father gives authority to His Son, the Son institutes them, and the Holy Spirit applies or empowers them.
  • The vast majority of Protestant bodies have held that there are two sacraments. The Roman Catholic Church, however, has seven sacraments.
  • The traditional Protestant view is that when a person has saving faith, he is indwelt by the Holy Spirit and receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
  • Protestantism historically teaches that a sacrament has to be directly and immediately instituted by Jesus in the New Testament.
  • The confession, following the church practice through the ages, says that the sacraments are to be administered by those who are in positions of ordained authority, the lawfully ordained ministers of the Word.
  • The substance and essence of what was foreshadowed in the Passover carries over into the New Testament celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
  • There is obviously a physical difference between the rite of circumcision and the rite of baptism, but there is also continuity. Both of them signify God’s promise to separate people for eternal salvation, and the promise is given to the elect who are justified by faith.

WCF 28: Of Baptism

  • Baptism is the outward sign of the new covenant, just as circumcision was the external sign of the old covenant.
  • Membership in the visible church does not guarantee membership in the invisible church, the true body of Christ.
  • Baptism is not a sign of the child’s faith; it is a sign of what the child will receive by faith. It is a sign of God’s promise, which is received by faith.
  • Baptism is the external sign of the internal work of regeneration.
  • It is good to remember that throughout church history the vast majority of Christian bodies have understood baptism to apply to the children of believers as well as to adult believers.

WCF 29: Of the Lord’s Supper

  • The meaning of the Lord’s Supper continues to be one of the most controversial issues in Christianity.
  • The first affirmation that is made is that the Lord’s Supper was indeed instituted by Christ. That is part of the definition of a sacrament.
  • The Word and the sacrament are used together, so that the Word calls our attention to what was accomplished by Christ.
  • In the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, we remember the sacrifice that our High Priest made of Himself.
  • We come to the Lord’s Supper to have communion with Him and with each other.
  • Calvin and other Reformers rejected both transubstantiation and consubstantiation on Christological grounds.
  • Calvin taught the real presence of Christ, but not His physical presence.
  • We must protect a true union of two natures, one that is truly divine and one that is truly human. Jesus has a true human nature and a true divine nature that exist in perfect unity.
  • He is truly present in His divine nature, so that we really feed on the risen Christ.
  • Christ’s human nature is at the right hand of God in heaven; His divine nature is at the Lord’s Table, where we meet Him.
  • We meet the whole person of Jesus at the Lord’s Table, not because His human nature can be physically present here and all over the world, but because He comes to us according to His divine nature, which is perfectly united to His human nature. When He comes, He does so with the whole person.

WCF 30: Of Church Censures

  • One essential characteristic of the true church, according to the Westminster divines, is the presence of a duly established government. This government is designed to promote the purity and peace of the church and to enforce discipline when necessary.
  • The church has the power to grant the assurance of pardon to those who repent and to impose censures and discipline on those who remain impenitent.
  • The goal of church discipline is to bring sinful people to repentance, so that they may be restored to full, active participation in the church.
  • Church discipline is also seen as a deterrent. When discipline is absent from the church, there may be rapid degeneration into worldly vices.
  • Another purpose for church censures is to vindicate the honor of Christ.
  • When scandalous sin is left unchecked, unbridled, and undisciplined in the visible church, it brings serious dishonor to Christ.
  • Another purpose for church discipline is to prevent the wrath of God, which would justly fall upon the church if sins were left unchecked.
  • It should be noted, however, that in one sense, there is only one sin that leads to excommunication: contumacy, which is the willful refusal to repent.

WCF 31: Of Synods and Councils

  • The Westminster Confession favors a presbyterian form of government.
  • The Westminster Confession affirms that when decisions are made at the local church level with respect to doctrine, behavior, or matters of discipline, there is a court of appeal.

WCF 32: Of the State of Men after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead

  • As we enter into glory, we enter into the state of sinlessness. There will be no sin there.
  • The beatific vision is the ultimate joy and delight for which we were created in the first place.
  • Some define hell as the absence of God. But the Bible teaches that the most tormenting thing for the sinner in hell is not the absence of God but His presence.
  • All people will have their bodies raised in the last judgment. The redeemed will have their bodies raised so that they may enjoy the glorious, honorable resurrection for all eternity. The bodies of the unjust will also be raised by Christ, but to dishonor.
  • Jesus warns that there will be a last judgment and that every human being will appear before the throne of God and be held accountable for his life. God will judge each one of us according to the standard of His own righteousness.

WCF 33: Of the Last Judgment

  • In God’s calendar, there is already a fixed date for the day of judgment. Each one of us will be brought before God to be judged by Christ on that date.
  • Those who are Christ’s will have Him not only as their judge but also as their defense attorney. We will be garbed in His righteousness, which alone can meet the requirements of God.
  • Those who are not in Christ will also appear before Him, standing there on their own, as their every idle word is judged.
  • Both heaven and hell have the same ultimate purpose: to glorify God.
  • Scripture is clear that both in heaven and in hell there are degrees. There are degrees of blessedness in heaven, for each person will be rewarded according to his works.
  • It is not just unbelievers who will face the judgment of God, but also believers.
  • It is true that we will not face condemnation, but we will still undergo an evaluation. Christ will examine our lives and determine our degree of obedience and sanctification.