Conference yukon::christian_v7

                         THE CAMBRIDGE DECLARATION

                 of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

                              April 20, 1996

     Evangelical churches today are increasingly dominated by the spirit of
this age rather than by the Spirit of Christ. As evangelicals, we call
ourselves to repent of this sin and to recover the historic Christian
faith.

     In the course of history words change. In our day this has happened to
the word "evangelical." In the past it served as a bond of unity between
Christians from a wide diversity of church traditions. Historic
evangelicalism was confessional. It embraced the essential truths of
Christianity as those were defined by the great ecumenical councils of the
church. In addition, evangelicals also shared a common heritage in the
"solas" of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation.

     Today the light of the Reformation has been significantly dimmed. The
consequence is that the word "evangelical" has become so inclusive as to
have lost its meaning. We face the peril of losing the unity it has taken
centuries to achieve. Because of this crisis and because of our love of
Christ, his gospel and his church, we endeavor to assert anew our
commitment to the central truths of the Reformation and of historic
evangelicalism. These truths we affirm not because of their role in our
traditions, but because we believe that they are central to the Bible.

Sola Scriptura: The Erosion Of Authority

     Scripture alone is the inerrant rule of the church's life, but the
evangelical church today has separated Scripture from its authoritative
function. In practice, the church is guided, far too often, by the culture.
Therapeutic technique, marketing strategies, and the beat of the
entertainment world often have far more to say about what the church wants,
how it functions and what it offers, than does the Word of God. Pastors
have neglected their rightful oversight of worship, including the doctrinal
content of the music. As biblical authority has been abandoned in practice,
as its truths have faded from Christian consciousness, and as its doctrines
have lost their saliency, the church has been increasingly emptied of its
integrity, moral authority and direction.

     Rather than adapting Christian faith to satisfy the felt needs of
consumers, we must proclaim the law as the only measure of true
righteousness and the gospel as the only announcement of saving truth.
Biblical truth is indispensable to the church's understanding, nurture and
discipline.

     Scripture must take us beyond our perceived needs to our real needs
and liberate us from seeing ourselves through the seductive images,
cliche's, promises. and priorities of mass culture. It is only in the light
of God's truth that we understand ourselves aright and see God's provision
for our need. The Bible, therefore, must be taught and preached in the
church. Sermons must be expositions of the Bible and its teachings, not
expressions of the preachers opinions or the ideas of the age. We must
settle for nothing less than what God has given.

     The work of the Holy Spirit in personal experience cannot be
disengaged from Scripture. The Spirit does not speak in ways that are
independent of Scripture. Apart from Scripture we would never have known of
God's grace in Christ. The biblical Word, rather than spiritual experience,
is the test of truth.

Thesis One: Sola Scriptura

     We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written
divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone
teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the
standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured. We deny that any
creed, council or individual may bind a Christian's conscience, that the
Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the
Bible, or that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of
revelation.

Solus Christus: The Erosion Of Christ-Centered Faith

     As evangelical faith becomes secularized, its interests have been
blurred with those of the culture. The result is a loss of absolute values,
permissive individualism, and a substitution of wholeness for holiness,
recovery for repentance, intuition for truth, feeling for belief, chance
for providence, and immediate gratification for enduring hope. Christ and
his cross have moved from the center of our vision.

Thesis Two: Solus Christus

     We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work
of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary
atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to
the Father.

     We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ's substitutionary work
is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.

Sola Gratia: The Erosion Of The Gospel

     Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human
nature. This false confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the
self-esteem gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have
transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers
who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as being true simply
because it works. This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of
the official commitments of our churches.

     God's grace in Christ is not merely necessary but is the sole
efficient cause of salvation. We confess that human beings are born
spiritually dead and are incapable even of cooperating with regenerating
grace.

Thesis Three: Sola Gratia

     We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God's wrath by his
grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us
to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from
spiritual death to spiritual life.

     We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods,
techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this
transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.

Sola Fide: The Erosion Of The Chief Article

     Justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ
alone. This is the article by which the church stands or falls. Today this
article is often ignored, distorted or sometimes even denied by leaders,
scholars and pastors who claim to be evangelical. Although fallen human
nature has always recoiled from recognizing its need for Christ's imputed
righteousness, modernity greatly fuels the fires of this discontent with
the biblical Gospel. We have allowed this discontent to dictate the nature
of our ministry and what it is we are preaching.

     Many in the church growth movement believe that sociological
understanding of those in the pew is as important to the success of the
gospel as is the biblical truth which is proclaimed. As a result,
theological convictions are frequently divorced from the work of the
ministry. The marketing orientation in many churches takes this even
further, erasing the distinction between the biblical Word and the world,
robbing Christ's cross of its offense, and reducing Christian faith to the
principles and methods which bring success to secular corporations.

     While the theology of the cross may be believed, these movements are
actually emptying it of its meaning. There is no gospel except that of
Christ's substitution in our place whereby God imputed to him our sin and
imputed to us his righteousness. Because he bore our judgment, we now walk
in his grace as those who are forever pardoned, accepted and adopted as
God's children. There is no basis for our acceptance before God except in
Christ's saving work, not in our patriotism, churchly devotion or moral
decency. The gospel declares what God has done for us in Christ. It is not
about what we can do to reach him.

Thesis Four: Sola Fide

     We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone
because of Christ alone. In justification Christ's righteousness is imputed
to us as the only possible satisfaction of God's perfect justice.

     We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or
upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ's righteousness in us, or that an
institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can
be recognized as a legitimate church.

Soli Deo Gloria: The Erosion Of God-Centered Worship

     Wherever in the church biblical authority has been lost, Christ has
been displaced, the gospel has been distorted, or faith has been perverted,
it has always been for one reason: our interests have displaced God's and
we are doing his work in our way. The loss of God's centrality in the life
of today's church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that allows us
to transform worship into entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing,
believing into technique, being good into feeling good about ourselves, and
faithfulness into being successful. As a result, God, Christ and the Bible
have come to mean too little to us and rest too inconsequentially upon us.

     God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions, cravings, the appetite
for consumption, or our own private spiritual interests. We must focus on
God in our worship, rather than the satisfaction of our personal needs. God
is sovereign in worship; we are not. Our concern must be for God's kingdom,
not our own empires, popularity or success.

Thesis Five: Soli Deo Gloria

     We reaffirm that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished
by God, it is for God's glory and that we must glorify him always. We must
live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of God
and for his glory alone. We deny that we can properly glorify God if our
worship is confused with entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel
in our preaching, or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self- fulfillment
are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel.

Call To Repentance And Reformation

     The faithfulness of the evangelical church in the past contrasts
sharply with its unfaithfulness in the present. Earlier in this century,
evangelical churches sustained a remarkable missionary endeavor, and built
many religious institutions to serve the cause of biblical truth and
Christ's kingdom. That was a time when Christian behavior and expectations
were markedly different from those in the culture. Today they often are
not. The evangelical world today is losing its biblical fidelity, moral
compass and missionary zeal.

     We repent of our worldliness. We have been influenced by the "gospels"
of our secular culture, which are no gospels. We have weakened the church
by our own lack of serious repentance, our blindness to the sins in
ourselves which we see so clearly in others, and our inexcusable failure
adequately to tell others about God's saving work in Jesus Christ.

     We also earnestly call back erring professing evangelicals who have
deviated from God's Word in the matters discussed in this Declaration. This
includes those who declare that there is hope of eternal life apart from
explicit faith in Jesus Christ, who claim that those who reject Christ in
this life will be annihilated rather than endure the just judgment of God
through eternal suffering, or who claim that evangelicals and Roman
Catholics are one in Jesus Christ even where the biblical doctrine of
justification is not believed.

     The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals asks all Christians to give
consideration to implementing this Declaration in the church's worship,
ministry, policies, life and evangelism. For Christ's sake. Amen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

ACE Council Members:
Dr. John Armstrong
Rev. Alistair Begg
Dr. James M. Boice
Dr. W. Robert Godfrey
Dr. John D. Hannah
Dr. Michael S. Horton
Mrs. Rosemary Jensen
Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr.
Dr. Robert M. Norris
Dr. R. C. Sproul
Dr. G. Edward Veith
Dr. David Wells
Dr. Luder Whitlock
Dr. J. A. O. Preus, III
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	Amen!

	How ironic it took place in Cambridge, MA, one of the bulwarks of
	humanist socialism.

	TonyC
	

re.1

The problems the Declaration cited are true. A wake up
call is needed. However, the call to return to the Law is 
misguided.

Ace

    
    .3 Ace,
    
    What return to the Law are you referring to and what is "misguided"
    about it?
    
    jeff

re-1

Jeff,

>We deny that we can properly glorify God if our
>worship is confused with entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel
>in our preaching,...

What is the value of preaching the Law?

Ace

    .5
    
    The purpose of the law is to demonstrate our inability to be holy.
    
    Nancy
    
    

      Abraham was accounted righteous when he first had faith because 
      he became fully convinced that what God promised, He was also
      able to perform.  
    
      That is: righteousness was imputed to Abraham when he first had 
      faith because God could cultivate that faith all the way to a 
      perfected faith.
    
      Why?  Because a perfected faith allows the word of God to perform
      exactly what it says, "Abraham, walk before Me and be thou blameless
      [perfect]."
    
      Or to put another way, the basis for anyone's right standing when
      one first has faith is that the righteousness God imputes, HE CAN
      IMPART.
    
      So says Romans 4, the only text I know of that explicitly gives the
      basis for right standing when one first has faith.
    
      I disagreed with other parts (such as eternal torment), but also
      agreed with some parts.
    
      I BIGTIME disagreed with the part that spoke of right standing for
      a reason that has nothing to do with Christ's imparted righteousness.
    
      Thats not what the Bible says!
    
    						Tony

    Re: .1
    
    that was an understatement!  to paraphrase the Gospels: "Can anything
    good come out of the People's Republic of Cambridge?"

Hi Ace,
    
>>We deny that we can properly glorify God if our
>>worship is confused with entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel
>>in our preaching,...

>What is the value of preaching the Law?

>Ace
    
    You have asked a question, Ace, that perfectly demonstrates and
    reflects the state and result of evangelicalism today, especially among
    dispensationalists.  I will enter a Biblical view of the law and its
    importance to non-Christians and Christians in a subsequent
    note...soon.
    
    jeff 

Chapter XIX

Of the Law of God

I. God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which He bound him
and all his posterity, to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience,
promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of
it, and endued him with power and ability to keep it.[1]

II. This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of
righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten
commandments, and written in two tables:[2] the first four commandments
containing our duty towards God; and the other six, our duty to man.[3]

III. Besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to
the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing
several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His
graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits;[4] and partly, holding forth
divers instructions of moral duties.[5] All which ceremonial laws are now
abrogated, under the New Testament.[6]

IV. To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which
expired together with the State of that people; not obliging under any now,
further than the general equity thereof may require.[7]

V. The moral law does forever bind all, as well justified persons as
others, to the obedience thereof;[8] and that, not only in regard of the
matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the
Creator, who gave it.[9] Neither does Christ, in the Gospel, any way
dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.[10]

VI. Although true believers be not under the law, as a covenant of works,
to be thereby justified, or condemned;[11] yet is it of great use to them,
as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life informing them of the will
of God, and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly;[12]
discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts and
lives;[13] so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further
conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin,[14] together with a
clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of His
obedience.[15] It is likewise of use to the regenerate, to restrain their
corruptions, in that it forbids sin:[16] and the threatenings of it serve
to show what even their sins deserve; and what afflictions, in this life,
they may expect for them, although freed from the curse thereof threatened
in the law.[17] The promises of it, in like manner, show them God's
approbation of obedience,and what blessings they may expect upon the
performance thereof:[18] although not as due to them by the law as a
covenant of works.[19] So as, a man's doing good, and refraining from evil,
because the law encourages to the one and deters from the other, is no
evidence of his being under the law: and not under grace.[20]

VII. Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of
the Gospel, but do sweetly comply with it;[21] the Spirit of Christ
subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely, and cheerfully,
which the will of God, revealed in the law, requires to be done.[22]

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re.10

Thanks Jeff,

I can't agree with the prominent place this declaration gives the law.
Only at the end is the Spirit of Christ mentioned as if the only
purpose of the Spirit is to guide us into living the law.

We are not lawless for we have the law of the Spirit of life, the highest
standard indwelling us (Romans 8:1).

All believers should stop trying to live the law and start living Christ.
The christian life is a Person. The christian life is not keeping an outward 
law or behaving well or being good. There are many well behaved, good, 
religious people who will spend eternity in the lake of fire because they 
never accepted Christ. Our christian living must issue from our walking in
Spirit.   

Only this way can you live a life that satisfies God's heart and only then 
will you truly be a peace with God, with others, and with yourself. 

Regards,
Ace 

    .11
    
    Amen Ace!

    .13
    
    This note has been set hidden and the author will be notified.
    
    Nancy co-mod

This declaration is refreshing in its adherence to the principles
of God's Word, which are so frequently watered down by American
society.  Reminds me of the OT minor prophets calling for repentance
and a return to the God of Abraham.

I only recognize two names among the authors:
	Dr. James Boice is Pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church in
		Philadelphia
	Dr. R. C. Sproul is with Ligonier Ministries in Orlando
(Neither of these is from Cambridge MA!).  Do others know some of the
other authors?

Ram

    Alistair Begg is a Scotsman preaching near Cleveland, OH - big church,
    like Grace Chapel
    
    David Wells is Prof of Theology (or is it New Testament) at Gordon
    Conwell Seminary.
    
    The list is impressive and I believe can be trusted for its scholarship.
    
    

	Reasons why God's Law should be taught and heeded:

1) It is contained within Holy Scripture.
2) It is fulfilled, but *not* abolished, in Christ.
3) It is a teacher that brings (and originally brought) us to repentance.
4) Those who heed it and teach it to others are greatest in the Kingdom.
5) It is the foundation of any valid human system of law and justice.

	I don't reply to much of what is written here - because I don't 
	have the time to maintain a dialogue.

	However, I'll quickly respond to the Cambridge Declaration.

	I havn't read it all thouroughly by any means, and this is really from
	the first couple of paragraphs.
	
	Two points picked up so far;

	"Apart from Scripture we would never have known God's grace
	 in Christ"

	How can they make such an affirmation - do they know better than 
	Christ ? My assumption here is that they mean NT Scipture, and 
	that without this we as of now would never have known the Good News ? 
	I think they underestimate the power of the Word. I'm sure they 
	understand the history of the Church and what's written in Scripture. 	
	The Good News was TAUGHT and it was PREACHED, that is how the faith
	spread throughout the world. Even as the Ethiopian said "how can I
	understand it unless someone explains it to me", of course he was
	talking about the OT, but the same applies to all Scripture. The
	Church was set up to Teach the faith, the Good News of Christ. Even
	if the New Testament had not been compiled into the body of
	Scripture the Word of God would still have spread to the ends of
	the earth. Christ commanded it.


	The other points I wanted to question are in Thesis One;
	"We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written
	 divine revelation,..."                                      -------

	Do they mean to imply that there is other revelation not written ?

	"We deny,...,that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary 
	 to what is set forth in the Bible,...."

	Where does that leave us then.....somebody is wrong ? Or do we all
	really agree the content of Scripture but the Holy Spirit has not
	revealed it all to us, and our differences are thus man-made ?

        I would appreciate your insights into these points.

	Peace,
	
		Tom             
		
 

	Hi Tom,
	
>	Two points picked up so far;

>	"Apart from Scripture we would never have known God's grace
	 in Christ"

>	How can they make such an affirmation - do they know better than 
>	Christ ? 

	They make an affirmation based upon the Scriptures' self-attesting 
        role of Scripture in revealing God's grace.

>	My assumption here is that they mean NT Scipture, and 
>	that without this we as of now would never have known the Good News ? 

	They actually mean all of Scripture, the canon.

>	I think they underestimate the power of the Word. 
	
	I don't think so.  I suspect you view "the Word" as something beyond
	the canon.

>	I'm sure they 
>	understand the history of the Church and what's written in Scripture.
>	The Good News was TAUGHT and it was PREACHED, that is how the faith
>	spread throughout the world. Even as the Ethiopian said "how can I
>	understand it unless someone explains it to me", of course he was
>	talking about the OT, but the same applies to all Scripture. The
>	Church was set up to Teach the faith, the Good News of Christ. Even
>	if the New Testament had not been compiled into the body of
>	Scripture the Word of God would still have spread to the ends of
>	the earth. Christ commanded it.

	It is irrelevant that God could have gotten His message out another 
        way since He did indeed provide the canon for us. 

>	The other points I wanted to question are in Thesis One;
>	"We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written
>	 divine revelation,..."                                      -------

>	Do they mean to imply that there is other revelation not written ?

	No. The statement is primarily directed toward those who revere any
        other written books as inspired.

>	"We deny,...,that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary 
>	 to what is set forth in the Bible,...."

>	Where does that leave us then.....somebody is wrong ? Or do we all
>	really agree the content of Scripture but the Holy Spirit has not
>	revealed it all to us, and our differences are thus man-made ?

	Yes.  Somebody is wrong, particularly charismatics and so many other
        evanglelical groups today who deviate from their affirmation.

	jeff

        

 

      Hi Jeff,
    
        Scripture clearly tells us that creation is a revelation of
        the Word of Jesus Christ.
    
        Any revelation of the Word of Jesus Christ is a subset of grace
        thus scripture is not the entirety of revealed grace.
    
    						Tony

    
    
    	Hi Jeff,
    
    	"Apart from Scripture we would never have known God's grace
         in Christ"
    	
    	- is this affirmed by Scripture ? Otherwise how can they possibly
    	  make such a statement. 
    
    		You raise a point about which I must admit I'm not
    	completely familiar with re "Self-attesting".  If I'm correct, the
    	Scriptures - attest to themselves, that is, Scripture indicates
    	that Scripture is the vehicle used to reveal God's grace. Ot to put
    	it another way, Scripture gives itself the authority of being the 
    	only method of revealing God's grace (I'll take this to indicate 
    	the Good News)  
    	Is this interpretation correct ? 
    	If so, as I mentioned above, where does it say this in Scripture.
    	Our Lord did not come or teach in His own authority, but he was
    	attested to by His Father. Similarly, Scripture was given it's
    	authority by the Church (Old and New T.).
    
    	Peace,
    
    		Tom
    
    
    

    
    Hi Tom,
    
    You're generally correct in understanding that the Scriptures
    themselves attest to their role in revealing God's will, both directly
    and by implication.  You may discover this everywhere in reading the
    Scriptures.
    
    The Scriptures attest to their own power and efficacy, without regard
    to the sanction or agreement of any church.
    
    jeff

    
    Hi jeff,
    
    	my responses will be slow in coming these days.
    
    You said; 
    
    "The Scriptures attest to their own power and efficacy, without regard
     to the sanction or agreement of any church."
    
    I have some trouble understanding this percpective just from a
    reasoning and logic point of view. But I'm going to ask a related
    question to draw out the discussion.
    
    If Scripture attests to it's own power, then it would indicate in
    Scripture which book belong to Scripture. That is, somewhere in the
    Bible there would be a passage that says - here are the books of
    Scripture and lists them, that is, if it attests to itself.
    One other question that springs to my mind, how do you regard the
    Apocrypha (Deeuterocanonical) books ?
    
    Peace,
    	
    	 tom