The Reformed Faith

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The Reformation and the Reformed churches

  1. The story of the ReformationThe Reformation of the sixteenth century was a movement to renew the church by bringing it back to Scripture. Luther rediscovered the righteousness of God that justifies through faith, and through Zwingli, Calvin, Bullinger and Knox the Reformed churches took root across Europe.
  2. The Reformed confessionsA confession is a church's statement, together, of the faith it has learned from Scripture. The Reformed churches receive the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dort and the Westminster Standards as standards under Scripture, and use them to teach the faith, guard it and stay united in it.
  3. Presbyterians in KoreaThe Presbyterian churches of Korea grew from the Korean Bible, the labour of missionaries, and Korean believers who read the word and spread it themselves. Their story holds the joy of revival and the first presbytery, and the grief of the shrine-worship resolution and of division, and it calls today's church to gratitude, repentance and unity.

The five solas

  1. Scripture aloneSola scriptura confesses that Scripture is the only infallible rule of faith and life. The Reformed churches treasure the creeds, the Fathers and the church's teaching, but place them under Scripture, and confess the Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture as the supreme judge of every controversy.
  2. Grace alone, faith aloneSalvation is God's free gift from first to last, and we receive it by faith alone. The Reformed confessions teach that God justifies sinners not for anything in them but by counting Christ's righteousness as theirs, and that the faith which receives it is never alone but works by love.
  3. Christ alone, glory to God aloneChrist is the one mediator between God and humanity, and by his single sacrifice our salvation is complete. So the Reformed confessions teach that the whole of salvation, and the whole of life, is for the glory of God alone.

God's sovereignty in salvation

  1. God's decree and predestinationThe Reformed confessions teach that God from eternity wisely and freely ordained all that comes to pass, and within that purpose chose a people in Christ for eternal life, out of free grace alone. They teach this high mystery not to feed speculation or fear, but to humble us, assure us and move us to praise.
  2. The five heads of DortMeeting in 1618–19, the Synod of Dort answered the five articles of the Remonstrants with five heads of doctrine: unconditional election, a death of Christ sufficient for all and effective for the elect, human corruption and God's effectual grace, and the perseverance of the saints. The Canons were written in controversy, but they are also a work of pastoral comfort.
  3. Effectual calling and perseveranceThe gospel calls everyone, but through that same word the Holy Spirit calls God's people inwardly and effectually, giving them new birth and bringing them to faith in Christ. Those he calls he keeps to the end, and when their assurance is shaken he renews it.

Covenant

  1. The covenant of works and the covenant of graceThe Reformed confessions teach that God stoops to deal with us by covenant. The covenant of works made with Adam was broken by his disobedience, but God made a covenant of grace in Christ, the second Adam, whose obedience and death bring life freely to sinners.
  2. One covenant of grace in many agesThe Reformed confessions teach that the Old and New Testaments are not two ways of salvation but two administrations of one covenant of grace. The promises, sacrifices and circumcision of the law and the word and sacraments of the gospel all give the same Christ, and Israel and the church are one people of God in him.
  3. The sign of the covenant: baptism and infant baptismThe Reformed confessions teach that the sacraments are signs and seals of the covenant of grace. Baptism signifies and seals our ingrafting into Christ, cleansing from sin and new birth, and because the children of believers belong to the covenant, as Israel's children did, they too receive its sign.

Church and worship

  1. Presbyterian church governmentThe Reformed confessions teach that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only head of the church, that he has given it pastors, elders and deacons, and that elders govern it together in assemblies. Session, presbytery and general assembly exist to serve the Word and the flock, not to rule over them.
  2. Worship centred on the WordThe Reformed churches confess the regulative principle, that God is to be worshipped only as he has appointed, and so they gather on the Lord's Day for simple, reverent worship in the reading and preaching of the Word, prayer, singing, the sacraments and offerings. Preaching is a means of grace: when the Word is faithfully preached, God himself speaks.
  3. The Supper: Christ's spiritual presenceThe Reformed confessions teach that in the Lord's Supper believers truly receive and feed on Christ crucified and all the benefits of his death, not bodily but spiritually, by faith, through the Holy Spirit. Christ's body is in heaven, yet the Spirit unites us to him, so the Supper is neither a change of the bread into his body nor a bare act of memory, but real communion with Christ.

The Christian life

  1. Man's chief endThe Westminster Shorter Catechism begins by asking what human life is for, and answers that our chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever. The Reformed churches confess these as one purpose, and the word of God in Scripture as the only rule that shows us how to live it.
  2. Guilt, grace and gratitudeThe Heidelberg Catechism confesses that our only comfort in life and death is that we belong to our faithful Saviour Jesus Christ, and teaches that to live in that comfort we must know three things — how great our sin and misery are, how we are delivered, and how we are to thank God for that deliverance. Good works, the commandments and prayer are not a ladder to earn salvation but the gratitude of the saved.
  3. Vocation: every sphere of lifeThe Reformation recovered the conviction that every honest work, not only the monastery or the pulpit, can be a calling from God. The Reformed churches confess Christ as Lord of every sphere of life, and Christians serve their neighbours at home, at work and in society, rest in God's care, and give glory to God alone in ordinary days.