CONFESSION OF FAITH CLASS

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God…
on this rock I will build my church,

and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

(Matthew 16:16, 18, ESV)

While maintaining the supreme authority of Scripture, Noeun Sola Reformed Baptist Church receives and adopts the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) as the confessional and doctrinal standard of our church. This does not mean that every member must understand every part of the Confession to the same degree as a qualification for church membership, nor could such a requirement reasonably be imposed. That level of understanding is expected of the pastors. Nevertheless, our adoption of this Confession assumes that the members of the church are willing to learn it, grow in their understanding of it, and seek to follow its teaching.

“This ancient document, the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, is a most excellent summary of the things most surely believed among us. It is not set forth as an authoritative rule or code of faith by which you are to be bound, but as a means of edification in righteousness. Though this Confession is not inspired, it is an excellent expression of the teaching of Holy Scripture, by which all confessions must be measured.

We hold firmly to the humbling truth of God’s sovereign grace in the salvation of lost sinners. Salvation is through Christ alone and by faith alone.”

— Charles H. Spurgeon (1834–1892)

The purpose of this Confession is clearly stated in its original preface. Its authors sought “to manifest our consent with both [the Westminster Assembly and the Congregational churches] in all the fundamental articles of the Christian religion,” and thus to make clear the continuity of their faith and doctrine with the confessions previously published by the Westminster Assembly and the Congregational churches. At the same time, the Confession carefully preserves and explains several distinctives of Baptist ecclesiology, including the two offices of pastor (elder) and deacon, the completeness and authority of the local congregation as a constituted church, associations of churches, and believers’ baptism by immersion. More importantly, these distinctives are not presented as merely superficial differences, but as convictions arising from a particular understanding of the biblical covenants. Yet with respect to the essential doctrines and substance of the Christian faith, the Confession stands in substantial agreement with the broader Reformed tradition. The faith expressed in this Confession may therefore be described as one that firmly maintains a Baptist understanding of the church while, together with other Reformed brethren, embracing the historic, orthodox, and confessional faith of the Reformation and clearly rejecting various heretical teachings. For these reasons, the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith is widely recognized, alongside the confessional standards of the Presbyterian tradition, as a treasured part of the historic and theological heritage of the Reformed churches.