today in my Advanced Biblical Exegesis, we were discussing the importance of theological heritage and why that heritage is relevant to us today, even though we may feel far removed from it. in our discussion, we focused mainly on the importance of creeds and confessions and their use not only in corporate worship, but also in our personal devotions. our professor even went so far as to say that besides the Bible, creeds and confessions are the second most important deposit and treasury of truth that the church possesses. creeds and confessions are not infallible, nor should they be used in place of Scripture (thus the “second most” caveat), but they are vitally necessary for us today because they express the heritage of the church throughout the centuries.

being Reformed, and attending a Reformed seminary, the Westminster Standards are indeed a standard tool that i have had to grow accustomed to. everytime i read a part of the confession, or a part of the Larger or Shorter Catechism, i am just struck with the biblical depth of the statements, as well as they way they are presented and worded. you just don’t find that kind of writing or expression in this day and age. but today, as my professor was teaching, something else hit me about these creeds and confessions.

saints from all centuries and heritages have stood together and verbally proclaimed the words contained in these creeds and confessions.

after thinking about that for a minute or two, it started to seem strange to me to think this. after all, haven’t saints throughout the centuries read the same Bible? what makes these creeds and confessions more “special”, so-to-speak, than that? the answer i came up with is that there are a million different interpretations of the Bible. two people can read the same verse and have vastly different interpretations of that verse. 100 people can read a verse and have 100 different interpretations, and so on. but the creeds and confessions are different. they are simple, solid, unwavering, undeniable statements about what Christians believe to be true about God and His work in the world. statements such as Jesus being “very God of very God” as the Nicene Fathers put it. God being “Father” as the Apostle’s Creed states. that “the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal” as the Athanasian Creed puts it. even up to the time of the Reformation where there was a huge burst of new creeds and confessions during the “back to the Bible” movement that resulted from the doctrine of Sola Scriptura in response to the Roman doctrine it opposed. these newer creeds and confessions produced such statements as “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” just amazing statements about what we believe to be true according to the special revelation of God in the Holy Scriptures.

the class continued and our professor read us a story from B.B. Warfield’s Selected Shorter Writings that stressed the importance of these creeds and confessions, the impact they have on us, and the cross-cultural connection they give us to saints from all times on all parts of the earth, including our current time. if i hadn’t been struck by the importance of such writings by this point in the class, i no doubt would have been after our professor had finished the story. this is because he was moved to tears in relaying the story. there could be endless conjecture on why he was so moved, but it is enough for me to say that the story, at least to me, speaks for itself. and so i’ll leave this post with the portion that was read to us:

We have the following bit of personal experience from a general officer of the United States Army. He was in a great western city at a time of intense excitement and violent rioting. The streets were over-run daily by a dangerous crowd. One day he observed approaching him a man of singularly combined calmness and firmness of mien, whose very demeanor inspired confidence. So impressed was he with his bearing amid the surrounding uproar that when he had passed he turned to look back at him, only to find that the stranger had done the same. On observing his turning the stranger at once came back to him, and touching his chest with his forefinger, demanded without preface:

“What is the chief end of man?”

On receiving the countersign, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”

“Ah!” said he, “I knew you were a Shorter Catechism boy by your looks!”

“Why, that was just what i was thinking of you,” was the rejoinder.

It is worth while to be a Shorter Catechism boy. They grow to be men. And better than that, they are exceedingly apt to grow to be men of God. So apt, that we cannot afford to have them miss the chance of it.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).