[dropcap2]S[/dropcap2]oliDeoGloria.com exists to glorify God through edifying articles and discussion of the Christian faith in a Confessionally Reformed context. By this I mean that we are Christians dedicated to the sole authority and sufficiency of Scripture for faith and life and, arising out of that conviction, the Church confesses what is true regarding the Scriptures. The Scriptures give formation to and light unto the Church in every age. The world changes, nations rise and fall, Churches are more or less pure, but God’s Word stands and the Spirit of Christ is faithful to purify His Church in every age by the unchanging Word.
By Reformed we believe this means more than a minimal set of convictions regarding the Sovereignty of God. Reformed Churches are often criticized for their confessions because of the perception that Reformed Churches default to their Confessions in lieu of the Word. Yet, it is the conviction that the Scriptures are plain, readable, and understandable because they are given by Revelation from God that men may know and understand Him.
When the Reformers of the 16th and 17th century went back to the Scriptures, it was the Roman Catholic Church who first condemned the notion that men could come to a true knowledge of God by reading the Scriptures. They believed that men, with Scripture in hand, would distort the Word of Truth and could not understand the Scriptures of themselves.
It has been the conviction of the Churches in the Reformed tradition that unstable men do indeed pervert the Scriptures to their own destruction but that the Holy Spirit illumines the Word and that the Word may be understood through ordinary means. Consequently, Reformed Churches have treated the Reformed Confessions as “standard expositions” of the Word of God. That is to say that, because we may come to a knowledge of God’s Revelation through the Word, the Church may come to the unity of the faith (Ephesians 4) and confess, together, what the Scriptures teach.
The Roman Catholic Church, for all its assurance that it knows what the Word teaches, does not provide any definitive interpretation of the Scriptures but leaves the Scriptures un-interpreted as it would have long ago prevented the invention of new dogmas that must be believed and held by the faithful. In contrast, the Reformed believe that the Word, alone, is the standard for authority and truth and the Church in every generation must reform and confess again what the Scriptures teach.
In other words, a Confession is something we ought to expect the Church to produce if she believes that the Scriptures are plain. It is as if the Church puts a sign outside the door of the Church and says: “Here is what we basically believe the Scriptures teach regarding these important doctrines.” The Church that refuses to do so is not without a Confession but that Confession comes out one sermon at a time. Indeed, every Church has a Confession and the question is always whether or not it is faithful to the Word and whether or not the Church has the integrity to let its people know what it believes.
Thus, with this lengthy explanation, this site promotes Christian theology in a Reformed context. No bait and switch. It promotes the theology of the historic Reformed confessions because I believe these faithfully summarize the Word of God and, by faithfully explaining the Word of God, men and women, boys and girls are brought into contact with the Christ of the Scriptures Who, alone, brings everlasting life. The great Puritan, William Perkins called theology the “science of living blessedly forever.” That’s our aim here: to live blessedly forever.
Your Humble Servant,
Rich
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