Credo

The following article was written by me in 1996, for the first edition of The Monthly Record which I edited. It contains a summary of my position as a Reformed, evangelical, paedobaptist, covenant minister, a position which I hope my preaching constantly reflects.

The seventeenth century poet Abraham Cowley declared that

"The world's a scene of changes, and to be
Constant, in Nature were inconstancy".

There are many changes on its scene that are obvious to the world at large. A new editor for The Monthly Record is probably not one of these. But the readership of The Monthly Record will have observed that not even the church's official organ can escape passing through another variation, and the editor of The Instructor through another incarnation.

The first duty of the new editor must be to thank Rev. R.C. Christie for his years of sterling service to the church in his capacity as editor, first, of The Instructor (from 1984-1990), and, since then, of The Monthly Record. As reported in the last edition, the Assembly ratified the decision of the Foreign Missions' Board to invite Mr. Christie to go to assist in the Dumisani Bible School. He takes with him a great deal of experience, in the areas of mission, pastoral work, administration and writing. We wish him every success in the Lord in his new field of labour and service.

The editorship of the Church's magazine is no small task, and it is with a sense of dependence on the grace of the Lord and the prayers of His people that the new editor takes up his post. These are difficult and critical times for the Church, and there is need for direction, unity and humility. Unfortunately, none of the three are in evident over-supply.

It would not be amiss, therefore, in these times of confusion and uncertainty, to remind ourselves of where we have come from, in order that we might see more clearly where it is that we are going. To this end, I have taken the opportunity of a first editorial to make a personal apologia, a statement of what is "most surely believed among us".

Referring to 'Rabbi' Duncan, William Knight says that he was 'the constant companion of his waking hours' during the summers of 1859 and 1860. Following this contact, Knight edited a collection of John Duncan's choicest saying in the Colloquia Peripatetica. In them, Knight states that his aim was to perpetuate "the remembrance of what he [Duncan] was", with his 'omnivorous intellectual appetite', his 'miscellaneousness' and his 'mental wanderings in diverse lands of thought'. That the sayings of so great an intellectual genius have been preserved for us is no small testimony to Knight's own love for the truth.

One of the most personal insights is in the following statement from the lips of the great Scottish Rabbi: "I'm first a Christian, next a Catholic, then a Calvinist, fourth a Paedobaptist, and fifth a Presbyterian. I cannot reverse this order". To the suggestion that these are like concentric circles gradually narrowing, Rabbi Duncan replies: "I like better to think of them as towers rising above the other, though narrowing as they rise. The first is the broadest, and is the foundation laid by Christ; but we are to build on that foundation, and, as we ascend, our outlook widens". This, surely, is a creed worth having.

First a Christian...

Luke tells us that "the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch"; a tribe, according to Josephus, so named from Christ, and not extinct in Josephus's own day. To be sure, the disciples have been called many things since then; but clearly the denomination given them in Antioch reflected the whole bias of their discipleship. These pupils were completely taken up in their fascination with and their following of Christ. Their discipleship was nothing if it was not Christocentric. And in many other Antiochs, at different points in the history of the church, the same tribe has appeared, showing, despite its many distinctives, a common and indivisible loyalty to Jesus.

The Free Church of Scotland remains distinctive, with a distinctive form of worship, theology and discipleship. But whatever the church of Christ in the world is, she must be distinctively Christian. That means, first, that she has a Christocentric ethos. Her pulpits are obligated to the proclamation of His theology. Her churches are bound to the exaltation of His name. Her courts and administration must serve to further His interests. She proclaims "What do you think of Christ?" because she lives under the principle "What does Christ think of you?"

The church must also have a Christocentric message. The Sovereign Lord of all has chosen "the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise...and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are" (1 Cor. 1:26-7). There is no Christian church that does not mourn the poverty of her preaching and her preachers. Nor ought there to be a Christian church that does not strive more and more to make Christ the focus of her proclamation. Saints need to hear of Him, and sinners need to hear of Him. To proclaim a message other than this is to prostitute the opportunity given us by God to speak publicly in His name. At last, the distinguishable hallmark of a Spirit-filled preacher, with Spirit-filled preaching, is that both he and it are drowned in the distinctive message of Christ.

The church must also have a Christocentric worship: the worship that is in spirit and in truth. The two requirements of such worship are that it arise from the heart, and that it conform to the truth. Christ is to be honoured by a worship focused on Him, simple in style, bound to the Word and unified in its aim.

...next, a Catholic...

In its most recent and most comprehensive edition of its Catechism, the Roman Catholic church assiduously and noticeably dropped the word 'Roman' from the title, calling it simply The Catechism of the Catholic Church. The move, undoubtedly, was designed to identify the Roman Catholic church with the truly catholic church.

William Cunningham's explanation of the term catholic is worth noting: "...as the idea of catholicity or universality is most obviously and most properly applicable to the invisible church, as comprehending all the individuals of the human race, in every age and country, who have been chosen of God to salvation through Jesus Christ; so the same general idea may, without impropriety, be applied to the visible church...the catholic or universal visible church thus consisting, as our Confession of Faith says, 'of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children'" (Historical Theology, I. pp15-16).

The catholicity of the church is everywhere demonstrated in Scripture. The Old Testament prophecies anticipated Christ's glorious name being called blessed throughout all nations (Psalm 72:17), and in the New Testament we find the apostolic benediction pronouncing grace on "all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity" (Eph. 6:24). The implication of all this is clear - the moment our vision of the church becomes confined to the narrowness of our space and the restrictions of our circles, we have lost our vision. The church is all over the world. We may have many of them; Christ has only one.

Do we have a vision for the church spread all over the world? For the church across the street and the church across the continent? Do we pray with fervour in an informed manner for our brethren and sisters in other places? Why is our professed interest in the cause of Christ not reflected in our attendances at our missionary meetings and conferences? Do we know about the church in Latin America, in Spain, in China, among the Jews? Do we care? Are we catholic?

...then a Calvinist...

One of the starting-points for much modern ecumenical dialogue is that the Reformation was a mistake; something that ought never to have happened at all. But those who, in Zephaniah's words, "love the truth and peace" (8:19), and who do so in that order, know that through the spiritual movement known as the Protestant Reformation, God preserved His truth and gave it anew to His people. "You that know the value of a true Christian minister", wrote Bishop Ryle, "and the immense superiority of the pulpit to the confessional, never forget that for clear light on this point you are indebted to the Reformation".

Our debt to John Calvin is second only to our debt to Christ and the apostles. Calvin's theology is, of course, open to debate in a way that Paul's is not. Current opinion is reflected, however, in Allan Massie's comment in The Scotsman (22 May 1996): "The times have changed, and Scotland with them, Calvinism is out of fashion, little understood, and the qualities it inculcated little valued". Massie is not bewailing but rejoicing in the view that Calvinism is an anachronism. While his assessment of Calvinism is all wrong, his statement of current opinion is accurate. The Arminian tenets of universal love on the part of God, freedom of propensity on the part of man, and the possibility of losing salvation remain dominant in many 'Reformed' pulpits, and have been popularised in such theology as has emerged from the Charismatic movement.

For ourselves, the Christocentrism of Calvinism is as everywhere apparent as the Calvinism of Christ. The doctrines of divine sovereignty, which are everywhere apparent in John Calvin, are everywhere apparent in Scripture, and ought everywhere to be apparent in our own theology also. This is 'Lordship salvation' - the salvation that is by the Spirit and says "Jesus is Lord".

He is Lord, first, of His own scheme of redemption. The planning, execution and application of redemption are all His. Were it otherwise, it could be not at all. "I have found a ransom" is the testimony of God in Scripture. And at last, this is what makes the work of the Gospel dependent neither upon the power of the preacher nor upon the method he employs, not of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh, but by the will of God.

There is in Calvinism, to return to Rabbi Duncan in the Colloquia, "an intensive exhibition of divine grace". Each act of regeneration demonstrates not the accidental effect of general grace, but the designed effect of particular grace. God makes the salvation of each one of His chosen and blood-bought people certain; not merely possible. And He does it by beginning a good work in them, as a consequence of having done a good work for them. Effectual calling, justification, adoption, sanctification and glorification - these are the benefits secured for us by the death of Christ, and they deal with sin in all its forms and effects. This Lord is eminently suited to be the soul's Saviour and salvation. We are called, not to save ourselves, but to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, because He works in us.

To be sure, there is more, much more, in Calvinism, than a doctrine of divine sovereignty. But Calvin, more than any other Reformation theologian, recovered for the church the great biblical emphasis upon the kingly work of God in the redemption of His people. Cunningham's definition of Calvinism is precisely correct: "Calvinism is just a full exposition and development of the sum and substance of what is represented in Scripture as done for the salvation of sinners by the three persons of the Godhead". He continues: "...when Calvinistic principles are rejected...an opportunity is left for carrying on this process of transferring to man what belongs to God...until the scriptural method of salvation is wholly set aside or overturned" (The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation, pp. 338-9).

There is a slur on Calvinism in much modern thinking. But the simple fact remains that anything that ascribes salvation to the effort or interest of man detracts from the glory of God. He has no equal, nor is dependent, in the matter of the new birth.

...fourth a Paedobaptist...

It is often glibly asserted that we baptise children, while Baptist churches baptise adults. The distinction is, of course, not accurate. One of the last baptism services I conducted in Skye was of an adult by profession of faith, along with the child of two members in our congregation. The distinction is that the Free Church of Scotland baptises adults who have not been baptised before, on profession of their faith, and also the children of those who seek to bring up their offspring in the fear of the Lord.

This practice, of course, follows the analogy of the New Testament, and is not, as some assert, a fourth century immigrant into the church. In the New Testament , repentance precedes baptism in the case of unbaptised adults. But there are exceptions; the household baptisms of the New Testament, for example, make it clear that, in some instances at least, children were baptised because of a commitment undertaken by others, in a manner analogous to the circumcision rite of the Old Testament. There, Abraham's standing and his domestic authority under God were sufficient to administer the sign of the covenant to all who were under the influence of the Gospel in his home, extending even to the children of his slaves.

Baptism is a great privilege, a non-converting sign ordinance, that looks to the future and to the laying in the home of a Gospel foundation which, by the blessing of God, may issue in the conversion of our covenant children. This is the sum of the ordinance; and we do well to remember, as someone has put it, that we are called to apply the water to the person, and not the person to the water.

As George Gillespie said, in connection with many of his beliefs, "no express Scripture will prove it"; this means that deduction from Scripture is as important as the express statements of the Bible themselves. For us, we are content to believe that Scripture is broad enough to allow the baptism of all those children who will be brought up under the influence of Gospel truth, and to whom privileges will be afforded which others do not have. Perhaps the time is ripe for public debate in the church on this issue.

One thing is certain. The baptism of our children highlights the importance of the family unit in the eyes of God. As the Moderator reminded this year's General Assembly, the recovery of the family is one of the pressing challenges currently facing the Christian church.

...fifth a Presbyterian

Not all Christians are catholic in their outlook. Not all catholic Christians are Calvinists; not all Calvinists (strangely enough) are paedobaptists, and not all paedobaptists are Presbyterian. This editor, at least, espouses all five points of Duncanism.

Presbyterianism is clearly envisaged in the New Testament, if only by the repeated use of the word presbyter to denote the officers of the church. Back of the concept is the realisation that the catholic church, the universal and worldwide body of Christ, does need to be administered locally in any given place. The New Testament envisages the gathering-together of such officers of the church, following the analogy of the Jerusalem council in Acts 15, and in terms of the explicit reference in 1 Timothy 4:14.

And it makes common sense too that churches should give themselves mutual support and encouragement by meeting together to represent the congregations in any given district. The extension of the principle to include regional Synods and a national Assembly also seems to be a legitimate deduction from Scriptural principles.

Two areas need to be safeguarded. The first is the liberty of every fellowship of Christians. Each congregation, biblically ordered and working in the interests of the Gospel in its locality, must be a homogeneous and self-contained unit, free to elect its own elders, free to examine the exigencies and needs of its own particular surroundings, free to minister the word in its own locality without any outside interference. The second is the liberty of every Presbytery. Only in the most extreme of cases ought one Presbytery to interfere in the work of another.

Biblical Presbyterianism does provide a network of fellowship and support among Christian gatherings and congregations, which independents and congregationalists lose out on. Even independents like Owen see the value of this: "Synods," writes Owen, "are the meetings of divers churches by their messengers or delegates, to consult and determine of such things as are of common concernment unto them by virtue of this communion which is exercised in them" (XVI.195). And, as the Rabbi says, again in the Colloquia, "It is strange that all Christendom becomes Presbyterian on an ordination day"!

Here I Stand

What distinguishes us from other believers is not necessarily sufficient to divide us from them. Denominational distinctives are nowhere assumed in the Word of God, are in the category of negotiables, and serve only as a medium for the Gospel and not an end in themselves. But the current climate of Christian opinion is such that the Gospel testimony for which the Free Church stands requires to be published abroad with clarity and vigour.

Perhaps today, more than at any other time, Scotland needs to hear the authentic voice of the Reformation theology from our pulpits. That requires a complete re-evaluation of where we are, and of where we are going. We cannot rest on our achievments. We have nothing to be proud of but the Lord we have served. Constantly, there is need for grace, for repentance, for resurrection, for new beginnings.

Perhaps then, with a new commitment to our creed and our fundamental principles, to the things that matter, we can begin to blow the trumpet clearly once again.

© Iain D. Campbell 2001