We are experiencing a time when, worldwide and also in the Netherlands, much is happening. Many radical questions arise in society, questions which also do not pass by the church. Usually, we then think first about questions in the realm of how we should live, such as tinkering with genes, the warming of the earth, sexuality and gender. But also Islam presents us with the necessary challenges, and mainstream science’s view of the age of the earth and the origin of the universe keeps people’s minds occupied. Should the church not be speaking in a confessing manner here?

Confessing Christ⤒🔗

Let us first look at what confessing is according to the Bible. It is, not by chance, a word that will take us to the New Testament. Confessing is totally interwoven with the person, the way, and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. At a time when Jesus is with his disciples in the uttermost northern part of Israel, in the neighbourhood of Caesarea Philippi, he asks them who they think that he is. The name of the city is not insignificant here. That name is in honour of the Roman Caesar to whom godly status was attributed. It is shocking that in Israeli territory, there are cities with this name. Israel was supposed to keep itself separate from idolizing people. Added to that is the fact that, in the immediate vicinity of Caesarea Philippi, one of the sources of the waters of the Jordan is found. Paganism also thrives there, in the worship of the god of nature, Pan. When, precisely at that location, Jesus asks his disciples what is their opinion of him, he does this in an atmosphere which makes them feel the magnetism of paganism firsthand. Someone who has been raised according to the Scriptures can only respond negatively to that place.

Precisely in that place, Peter confesses, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” No, he has not completely understood and fathomed this. Jesus himself says that “flesh and blood” have not revealed that to him, but his Father who is in heaven. With this he says that confessing him is not a humanly derived thought, but is given to us by God. And in the same manner that it is with knowing Christ, namely that it is written by God in human hearts, so it is also with the coming of Christ himself: the eternal Son of God becomes man through the virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit.

Confessing Christ’s Work of Salvation←⤒🔗

In 1 Corinthians 15:3b-4a, we encounter the earliest confession of the Christian Church: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” There Paul cites a form, such as he himself has learned to know it, in the congregation of Jerusalem. The fact that these are not Paul’s own words is apparent, in the first place, in that he says that he “delivered” these words to the congregation of Corinth. In the second place, it appears in the context that Paul also clearly indicates that this confession has authority and forms the basis on which all apostles stand in their proclamation. They speak in a very different language, John and Paul, but everyone may hold both of them to this confession. They would not yet have had a form to be signed, but they, from their hearts, share the basis of the proclamation, and precisely on the foundation of this confession, they can freely speak and preach. The Holy Spirit does not make people into parrots, but he allows them, one by one, to find the true freedom and the material for the gospel’s proclamation in this salvation that lies outside of ourselves, that holds within it immeasurable forgiveness and a new existence.

Personally←⤒🔗

Confessing belongs to the church, common to Christians, but it is also very personal. We can not believe for someone else, and thus can not confess for someone else either. The disciple who received, from Christ, the mandate to shepherd and feed the church, Peter, was himself someone who knew from bitter experience what the opposite of confessing was: denying Jesus. Confessing is “saying the same thing,” acknowledging Jesus as Lord through the Holy Spirit; denying is openly saying that you “have nothing in him.”

Peter has experienced what it means to deny Christ. He had never thought of himself that he would ever be able to do such a thing. But he was warned, by Christ himself. If there has ever been anyone who learned, in his own life, that we only, always, can and may expect everything from Christ, that would have been Peter. Only one who understands something of that can himself be a shepherd, in the service of the great Shepherd, Jesus Christ.

But as it suddenly came before Peter, to confess Jesus Christ, so, for us, totally unexpectedly, the moment can come where we must confess. In a society which, as in our society until recently, the majority was Christian, we can think that we can keep a low profile. But even there, in your friendships and marriage, in your employee circle and business, in your interaction with people, it comes down to it that you, without much fuss and multiple words, but nevertheless clearly, acknowledge and show that you do not belong to yourself, but to Jesus Christ.

As church, we must not bypass the burning questions and the hot issues, but it must not be the case that the church takes in and expresses all kinds of positions.

Under the Pressure of the Time←⤒🔗

But now the question, whether we, as church, must currently confess. Now, we should not be too hasty about that. For you as a single Christian or a family group, in a specific neighbourhood, to come out for the gospel of Jesus Christ is your responsibility in the situation in which God has placed you. The people around us know very well where we are evading an issue or seeking a comfort zone, or whether it is the love of Christ that occupies us completely.

But that is still something different from letting yourself be heard as church, in order to create clarity and establish boundaries in a specific problem area. The church must then assuredly be careful that she truly confesses: not that she is proclaiming truths, but that she confesses him who is the way, the truth and the life.

A textbook example of a confession that was given to the church in the hour of trial is the six positions released by the Confession Synod of Barmen-Wuppertal in May 1934. They did not say all kinds of things about National Socialism, but limited themselves to what was important: that Jesus Christ alone is the Word of God and that we, in life and death, in 1934, are to be obedient, and that therefore no other lords may lay a claim on our hearts and lives with an equal authority. If you read the New Testament, nothing can be brought forward against this. But if you agree with this, then you can no longer expect salvation from the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, and can no longer follow and obey him without gainsaying. With that confession, a light, as it were, was kindled in the darkness, and many people who were living in confusion joyfully greeted this sound and knew what mattered. It was not prescribed or prechewed for them, what they needed to do; no, precisely these words appeared to them to be a confession that turned them to Christ and gave him room to point out to them by his Spirit where it was that they needed to set their feet.

Worldview←⤒🔗

But, does not confessing include more than just the confessing of Christ? Certainly! That first foundational confession of the congregation in Jerusalem that we find in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, has been expanded in the course of the years. The Holy Spirit leads the church in the truth, and has shown her what more, coming forth from Christ, can and must be said.

If we lay the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed beside 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, we immediately see that the confession of God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth, has been placed in front of it. After that, the church also came to the confession of the Holy Spirit as God, together with the Father and the Son, to be worshipped in eternity. Of him, it is confessed that he is Lord and gives life.

All confession has Christ as foundational content.

Through the further filling in of the confession, the church came to the terrain of “worldview.” But her confession does not become a form of viewing the world! The Heidelberg Catechism beautifully illustrates the difference. When it is about the question of the meaning of our confessing God as Creator, the Catechism says: “That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and all that is in them, and who still upholds and governs them by his eternal counsel and providence, is, for the sake of Christ his Son, my God and my Father” (Lord’s Day 9: q/a 26).

The confession that God created the world is stated in a dependent clause. It appears as if it is said incidentally, between nose and lips. Naturally, it is not intended that way, but it is very important that the “actual point” of the confession of God as Creator is his being Father, for the sake of Christ. And we must also not ignore the other added clause which says that God created the world out of “nothing.” The early church had already put emphasis on that, because of what Paul writes in Romans 4:17: “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” This is precisely what God does when he justifies the wicked in Christ.

Walk of Life←⤒🔗

The confessions of the early church do not say anything about how we are to give gestalt or stature to life. Is that not remarkable? When we look at world religions, what you accept as truth is often given second place, but what you must do and must not do is given first place. Given that it is different in the confessions, does that imply that what you do and do not do is of less significance? No, certainly not. Christ himself did not abolish the law, but fulfilled it: loving God above everything and your neighbour as yourself. Whoever reads the New Testament, repeatedly encounters the fact that all kinds of wrong behaviors and life practices are put to the test and are rejected.

Why is it then that there is nothing of this stated in the confessions of the early church? That is, because the danger is great that we, with the well-known image of Luther, would think that the works make the person: in other words, that our good works (in addition) would be a basis for our justification. It is the other way around: whoever is justified in Christ, before God, knows that our best works are still defiled by sin, and therefore can not form any basis for our salvation. But the new life does belong to it! In Ephesians 4:20-24, the apostle explains that coming to know Christ and being taught by him includes this, that we lay aside our former walk of life, the old man that is corrupt through all deceitful desires, and that we are renewed in the spirit of our minds, to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Christ himself works this, and it is, thanks be to God, impossible that where the true faith of Christ is planted, it would not bring forth fruits of thankfulness (Heidelberg Catechism: Lord’s Day 24, q/a 64).

Today←⤒🔗

When I now try to answer the question whether the church is called today, in real life, to confess, I can not discuss all kinds of concrete situations that I mentioned in my opening. Let it suffice for me to say that it is not good if we, as church, avoid all the burning questions and hot issues, but it must also not be the case that the church takes in and conveys all kinds of points of view. She is not called to that, and she is also not equipped for that. All confession has Christ as fundamental content, as we saw. That implies that general truths and norms can never be debated, but that it is always, in the first place, about myself in relation to Christ. Then it does not come down to general judgments, definitely not condemnation, but then we present an inviting witness of the grace of Christ and the way he points out to us.