Despite claims that the creeds and confessions are unbiblical, that they are merely Roman Catholic traditions, or that they stifle the Spirit of God in the life of God’s people, to state it succinctly, they are, in fact, biblical and beneficial.

The story goes that a Dutch Reformed Christian once asked one of his nondenominational Christian friends the following question: “So, what is your church’s confession of faith?” The evangelical replied simply, “The Bible.” The Dutchman was a bit puzzled, so he said, “But the Bible is so big.”

This apocryphal story amusingly illustrates that while every Christian professes to believe the Bible, the real question is this: What does an individual Christian or a Christian church profess to believe the Bible teaches? After all, Christians of all sorts will readily swear allegiance to the Bible as the Word of God, but they may have vastly different understandings of such matters as how God created us, how God saves us, how the Holy Spirit brings gifts to the church, and how and when the Lord Jesus Christ will come again.

Reformed churches like Oceanside United Reformed Church teach and confess the ancient Christian creeds and Reformed confessions because their tenets come straight from the Bible and Christians have believed them over the centuries. To be a Reformed church, then, is to be a biblical church—but also a confessional church. This means that what Reformed churches believe to be the foundational truths of God’s Holy Word are stated in public documents called creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian, as well as the Definition of Chalcedon), catechisms (Heidelberg), confessions (Belgic), and canons (Canons of Dort).

We believe the creeds and confessions are faithful expressions of what the Bible teaches and are used to guide their beliefs and practices.

“No Creed But Christ”

That Reformed churches are confessional is extremely important, because many churches and groups in our day say they are Christian and Protestant churches rooted in the Reformation. But while it may be true that a “family tree” could be traced from these churches back to the Reformation, they are not reformational churches because they are not confessional churches. In fact, these churches say something like, “We believe no creed but Christ,” or they believe that having creeds and confessions is nothing but a Roman Catholic practice. Yet even these “just the Bible” churches have “statements of faith.”

Despite claims that the creeds and confessions are unbiblical, that they are merely Roman Catholic traditions, or that they stifle the Spirit of God in the life of God’s people, to state it succinctly, they are, in fact, biblical and beneficial.

Biblical

First, creeds and confessions are biblical.

This is illustrated by the fact that the Old Testament people of God confessed their faith every morning and evening with the words of Deuteronomy 6:4, the basic confession of the Old Testament: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God: the Lord is one.” We also learn that the Israelites confessed their faith in this one God when they publicly worshiped Him at the tabernacle and temple in response to His blessings of salvation (Deut. 26:1–11).

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