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Welcome to a REFORMED CHURCH Welcome to a REFORMED CHURCH A GUIDE FOR PILGRIMS DANIEL R. HYDE A DIVISION OF LIGONIER MINISTRIES • ORLANDO, FLORIDA Welcome to a Reformed Church: A Guide for Pilgrims © 2010 by Daniel R. Hyde Published by Reformation Trust Publishing a division of Ligonier Ministries 400 Technology Park, Lake Mary, FL 32746 www.ligonier.org www.reformationtrust.com Printed in city, state Printing company name Month and year First printing All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher, Reformation Trust. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. Cover design: Cover illustration: Interior design and typeset: Katherine Lloyd, Colorado Springs, Colo. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NASB are from The New American Standard Bible.® Copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1995. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNA TIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are from The Holy Bible, King James Version. Scripture quotations marked ASV are from The Holy Bible, American Standard Version. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations of the Christian creeds and Reformed confessions are from The Creeds of Christendom, ed. Philip Schaff, rev. David S. Schaff, 3 vols. (repr.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hyde, Daniel R. Welcome to a Reformed Church : a guide for pilgrims / Daniel R. Hyde. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes. ISBN 978-1-56769-203-7 1. Reformed Church--Doctrines. I. Title. BX9422.3.H93 2010 230’.42--dc22 2009049652 To Joel Beeke A father in the faith, a friend in the Lord, and a living example of what it means to be sober-minded, dignified, and self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness (Titus 2:2) CONTENTS Abbreviations ......................................... xii Foreword by Dr. Guy Prentiss Waters ....................... xiii Acknowledgments ......................................xxi Introduction: Welcome to a New World ..................... xxiii 1 ROOTS: Our History ...................................1 2 CONFESSIONS: Doctrinal Foundations ................... 27 3 SCRIPTURE: The Final Authority ....................... 35 4 COVENANT: God’s Story .............................. 51 5 JUSTIFICATION: Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Christ Alone ..... 71 6 SANCTIFICATION: The Christian Life .................... 87 7 CHURCH: Distinguishing Marks ....................... 103 8 WORSHIP: Of God, by God, for God ..................... 113 9 PREACHING AND SACRAMENTS: Means of Grace ......... 131 Conclusion ........................................... 143 Appendix I: Questions and Answers ....................... 145 Appendix II: A Basic Bibliography ......................... 155 Index I: Scripture References ............................. 163 Index II: Confessions References .......................... 169 Index III: Subject and Names ............................. 173 ABBREVIATIONS BC—Belgic Confession Calvin, Institutes—John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, The Library of Christian Classics, Vols. XX–XXI (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960). CD—Canons of Dort HC—Heidelberg Catechism WCF—Westminster Confession of Faith WLC—Westminster Larger Catechism WSC—Westminster Shorter Catechism xii One ROOTS: OUR HISTORY Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.1 —George Santayana (1863–1952) To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.2 —Cicero (106–43 BC) want to begin with a little history lesson. I know, I know, we en- I lightened moderns are not much into history; for most of us, it’s a dry subject we hated in school. We care about the here and now, and are busy planning our futures. We think our time is the most impor- tant time in human history. Because of this, we are guilty of what Oxford University Professor C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) described as “chronological snobbery.”3 This “snobbery” presents us with very real dangers. Since we live in a time when history is easily forgotten at best or dismissed as irrele- vant at worst, we need to heed the words of the Spanish-American 1 WELCOME TO A REFORMED CHURCH philosopher George Santayana and the Roman philosopher Cicero, as quoted above. It is important for us to take these words to heart, for if we do not know our past, we will suffer its tragic mistakes again and again, remaining like little children forever. Scripture speaks in this way, as well. After Jeremiah prophesied the coming destruction of Jerusalem because of the rebelliousness of the people of God, he spoke of a way of escape: “Thus says the Lord: ‘Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls’” (Jer. 6:16). The faithful were to look backward to the “ancient paths,” to the history of what God had done and said to His people in the past. Likewise, the Psalms abound in calls for God to work in the pres- ent because of what He did in the past. For instance, “O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us, what deeds you performed in their days, in the days of old” (Ps. 44:1; cf. Pss. 78, 105, 106, 107). History, then, is to guide the church in the present. My purpose in this chapter is to help you appreciate that Re- formed churches did not come out of nowhere. As I noted in the intro- duction, Reformed churches are Christian, Protestant, and Reformed. They are Christian because they trace their roots to the early church of the centuries after the apostles died (100–500). The Reformed churches—also known as “Calvinist” churches, after the theologian and pastor of Geneva, Switzerland, John Calvin (1509–1564)—are Protestant churches because, like the “Lutheran” churches—after the theologian and pastor in Wittenberg, Germany, Martin Luther (1483–1546)—they trace their roots to the sixteenth-century “Protes- tant Reformation” of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe.4 They are Reformed churches because they emphasize certain doctrines that have a strong historical basis but are often neglected today. 2 ROOTS: OUR HISTORY CHRISTIAN CHURCHES Reformed churches are Christian churches because they trace their roots to the early Christian church.5 Like the early church, Reformed churches receive the Bible as the Word of God and believe it as such. Because of this, Reformed churches do not teach novel doc- trines. What Athanasius (296–373) said of the books of the Bible is what we say about them: “These are fountains of salvation, that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain. In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add to these, neither let him take ought from these.”6 A part of joining with the Christian church and standing on the Word of God is confessing what are known as the ecumenical creeds of the ancient church—the Apostles’, Nicene, and Atha- nasian creeds, as well as the Definition of Chalcedon. The Belgic Confession (1561) speaks of these, saying, “we do willingly receive the three creeds, namely, that of the Apostles, of Nice, and of Atha- nasius; likewise that which, conformable thereunto, is agreed upon by the ancient fathers” (Art. 9). Those things that are “conformable thereunto” are expressed in the Definition of Chalcedon (451). The Second Helvetic Confession, written by the Zurich pastor Hein- rich Bullinger (1504–75) in 1561 and published in 1566, also lists the ancient creeds the Reformed churches receive: “. we freely profess, whatsoever things are defined out of the Holy Scriptures, and comprehended in the creeds, and in the decrees of those four first and most excellent councils—held at Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon—together with blessed Athanasius’s creed and all other creeds like to these, touching the mystery of the incar- nation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Art. 11). 3 WELCOME TO A REFORMED CHURCH These creeds are called “ecumenical.” The term ecumenical comes from the Greek word oikoumene, which was used in the ancient world to describe the vastness of the Roman Empire. It is a way of describing the known world.7 These creeds are ecumeni- cal, or universal, because they have been received and believed by Christian churches in all times and in all places. Because you may be unfamiliar with them, it will be helpful to review briefly their history and content. The Apostles’ Creed I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit; I believe a holy catholic Church, the communion of saints;
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