Brief Look at the 1689 London Baptist Confession

hello everyone and welcome to the channel if you like the content here make sure that you click like And subscribe and hit that notification Bell for updates on future videos today we're looking at the 1689 Baptist confession of Faith we're just doing a quick brief overview today you know if you're new to reform theology like like I am I've always been exploring and reformed theology for the last two years when you hear about a confession of Faith you're like ooh what is this doctrines of men no no no no I follow the Bible I don't follow doctrines of men I'm not into this confession of Faith stuff it sounded weird to me you know if it sounds weird to you it sounded weird to me too but if you go to a local church it's more than likely that that church will have some kind of statement of faith or a list of what we believe on their website well that defines Orthodoxy for that local church likewise the confession here that I have today also defines Orthodoxy for reformed Baptists and that's what this is and this when you hear people talk about the confession or the 1689 I'm a 1689 guy here talk like that this is what they're talking about the 1689 Baptist confession of Faith sometimes called a second Lebanon Baptist confession or similar words now this one is from founders we see founders.org there but don't worry I'm going to have links in the description so when we open it up we find let's take a look right here at this table of contents we have lots of chapters here on the scriptures God in the Holy Trinity God's decree creation and so on effectual calling justification adoption sanctification hey those are really important you know maybe we should look at those the law of God civil government marriage the church and all the way down to the last judgment you know I'm really glad baptism isn't there because being a Baptist I'd like to know what do reformed Baptists think about baptism but I'm just going to take you through this briefly and just show you a couple of things that that I'm encouraged by so remember um this defines Orthodoxy but this is subject to scripture so this can only stand on scripture scripture comes first if this is wrong in any place scripture wins okay so we come over here to chapter one and it is on the holy scriptures now here's the thing that uh um really just blew my mind and that is about interpreting scripture right so here in chapter one paragraph nine we find that the infallible rule for interpreting scripture is the scripture itself therefore when there is a question about the True full meaning of any part of scripture and each passage has only one meaning not many it must be understood in light of other passages that speak more clearly okay there's the first line highlighted there so what that means is scripture interprets scripture the greatest commentary ever written on the Bible is the Bible itself and that's really what this is saying so it's saying that this rule is infallible um actually doesn't say the infallible yeah the available rule saying that this rule is infallible because the Holy Spirit inspired scripture therefore any time that scripture interprets itself that interpretation is infallible so let's look at an example of what that even means um for scripture to interpret scripture recently I've been reading a book by Richard barcelos whose name is on the back of this um called getting the garden right and he starts off with a really in-depth discussion of scripture interpreting scripture also known as analogy analogia fide which is analogy of faith but I mean scripture interpret scripture so if we get the Bible out and we go to Genesis chapter 3. verse 1 says now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made we generally understand the serpent here to be Satan but how do we know that well it's discussed in chapter 12 of Revelation it tells us exactly who that is it says and the Great Dragon was thrown down that ancient serpent who was called The Devil and Satan the deceiver of the whole world that ancient serpent he is the devil and Satan so Revelation speaks more clearly as to who this is in Genesis we have just allowed scripture to interpret scripture so that's what that's saying this has been revolutionary for me because it means you don't just do a word search and the Bible like hey I want to know what this particular word means in this verse you don't go to another verse that uses that same word but is about a completely different topic you would never do that because that would never work and that's what the confession is saying here it's giving you a guide for interpreting scripture which from a dispensational point of view that was revolutionary for me I've never heard that before because I I came from dispensational background now there's another section I like in here on God's law it just talks about the moral law the ceremonial laws the judicial laws and how the judicial laws that were for Israel have been um uh fabricated they no longer apply to us but the moral equivalence of them does so the general principles have moral value so like we're not required to put a parapet around our house the roof of our house but you're still responsible for the safety of your guests right you're trying to keep people from falling off your roof well at your house you know you don't want to uh be negligent for causing someone's injury so the moral value Still Remains for the general principles of the judicial law and I like that you know I again in the dispensational background these kinds of things aren't really talked about and I like the confession addresses these and then lastly real quick this section on civil government I like this chapter here which says that Christians May lawfully and accept and carry out the duties of public office when called to do so and in performing their office they must especially maintain Justice and peace according to the wholesome laws of each kingdom or other political entity to carry out these duties they are authorized now under the New Testament to wage war and just and necessary situations so it's just saying that Christians can be officers of civil government and that when you serve in such a role to do it Faithfully I think that's a good encouragement because there are some people that think you should never be in civil government and the confession is like no no it's perfectly perfectly okay so that's just a quick overview of the confession of faith again remember this is subject to scripture this defines Orthodoxy but only through scripture it's not that this is the doctrine of men no no this is a summarization of what men have found in the scriptures okay so everything has scriptural support you may not agree with those interpretations so we see we have scripture references for all sorts of different concepts here but you should be a Berean seek out that scripture and see whether or not the confession was right and I really enjoyed this I really enjoyed reading the confession hope that this sheds a little light on what that's about for you all right well thanks again remember to click like And subscribe and have a great day

Channel: Reformed Pilgrim

Views: 7,398

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Length: 8min 28sec (508 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 21 2022