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THE CAMBRIDGE DECLARATION
of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals
April 20, 1996Evangelical 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
AuthorityScripture 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 ScripturaWe 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
FaithAs 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 GospelUnwarranted 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 GratiaWe 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 WorshipWherever
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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