Quote:
Originally Posted by Contra_Mundum  Geoff,
There's a sense in which as a layman, you are (quite properly) only giving provisional consent to the confession of your church, so far as it accords with Scripture, to which you give FULL, implicit as well as explicit consent.
I think you can see that for office-bearers in a particular church, they are "signing on" to the confession in a more defined sense. They are agreeing 1) that they have already studied and become convinced to believe these expressions to be BIBLICAL, and 2) they are agreeing not to TEACH contrary to what is already the "common" set of beliefs of that particular church, as codified.
By doing this, that church--its people and its government--are attempting to ensure that this church STAYS "Confessional", and doesn't go off into a different (perhaps unwritten and ungoverning) confession. Written Confessions protect the flock.
The Confessions we use on this board to screen prospective membership have been in continuous use by Bible-believing churches since the Reformation era. They are old and respectable (i.e venerable) and time has tested them--churches holding them truly, not in name only, have adhered to the Faith and used them in matters of judgment (i.e they have proven their worth). |
EDIT: I should have read through all the posts before posting. Please don't feel the need to reply if you already answer what I asked below.
Thanks for the further clarification. This may not be the appropriate place, but I notice that many in the Reformed churches, mine own included, do not necessarily subscribe to the part about the papacy being the Man of Sin. I am not bringing this up to debate whether it is or not. But this is an example where there seems to be, on the part of the elders and/or deacons, a departure from the confession.
Does this mean there is some liberty of conscience allowed in confessional churches? Even among the "clergy" (my baptist nature shudders at the word, hahaha).