The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are God’s uniquely revealed and written Word, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and are the church’s first and final authority in all areas of faith and life including, but not limited to, theological doctrine, mission, church order, character, and ethical behavior.

The Bible speaks to us with the authority of God himself. We seek to understand, love, follow, obey, surrender, and submit to God’s Word—both Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, and the Scriptures, the written Word of God, which bear true and faithful witness to Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is Lord of the church, and he rules the church through the written word of scripture, illumined by the Holy Spirit.

We worship the one only living and true God who is revealed in the Bible and who is the source of all life, glory, goodness, and blessedness.

Trinity. With the holy catholic church in all ages, we confess the mystery of the holy Trinity—that there is one God alone, infinite and eternal, Creator of all things, the greatest good, who is one in essence or nature, yet who exists in a plurality of three distinct persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Creation/Providence/Sovereignty. God in the beginning created the universe and everything in it for the manifestation of God’s glory, eternal power, wisdom, and goodness. He is the sovereign ruler of creation, working all things according to the counsel of his omnipotent and righteous will. In gracious providence God continually upholds, directs, oversees, and governs creation—all creatures, actions, and things.

In sovereignty God has seen fit to accommodate free will among moral creatures, resulting in great cultural and cosmic good and terrible evil, disorder, and disobedience. Nevertheless, God is in no way the author of evil or sin, but continues to govern creation in such a way as to cause all things to work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. God opposes all evil and will certainly triumph over it and bring creation to a glorious consummation.

Grace. God is a God of love. In grace God chooses to show love and mercy. When we were dead in trespasses and sin, God made us alive with Christ, saving us by grace through faith, as a sheer gift of sovereign love.

Worship. God—and God alone—is worthy of worship. We respond to God by consciously and intentionally seeking to declare, explore, celebrate, and submit to God’s righteous and gracious kingship over all of creation and over every aspect of our individual and corporate life, and thereby “to glorify him and enjoy him forever.” (Westminster, 7.01) This is true worship.

Human beings were created by God in God’s own image—in true righteousness and holiness—to know, love, and obey God and be righteous stewards of the creation. Our earliest forebears, instead of acknowledging, worshiping, and obeying God, became disobedient sinners and brought sin and death upon themselves and all creation.

There is now a radical brokenness and corruption in human nature that is the result of and results in sin. Sin is rebellion against God. No human effort can fully resolve or redeem this defect. Sin is destructive, contagious, parasitical, polluting, disabling. Human beings are sinners by nature, by influence, by choice, by action. While there is an inalienable glory and nobility to human beings because they are God’s image bearers, this image is now broken and distorted, and even our best and noblest actions are contaminated by sin. Every part of our human being—our personality, intellect, emotions, will, motives, virtues, and actions—is corrupted by sin. The human will, originally free and righteous, is now crippled and defective. 

As a result, human beings are in bondage to sin and subject to God’s holy judgment. Without God’s intervening grace and salvation, they are lost and condemned.

Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal Son of God uniquely entered human history and became a real human being. He is truly the Word of God (John 1:1-3)—that is, the perfect and culminating expression of God’s mind and heart, of God’s will and character—present in the intimate fellowship of the Holy Trinity from eternity and fully engaged with the Father in the work of creation and redemption.

Becoming human, Jesus was “all of God in a human body” (Colossians 1:19) and “God with us” (Matthew 1:23)—a living tabernacle of God’s holy presence, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14-18). His divine-human identity is corroborated by the true witness of scripture—in his divine conception and virgin birth, in God’s own testimony concerning Jesus, in Jesus’ supernatural works of healing and deliverance, in his obedience to the point of sacrificial death, and in his bodily resurrection from the dead, ascension, and exaltation. He is now Lord over everything in creation.

The early church in the creeds of Nicea and Chalcedon accurately interpreted and expressed the apostolic testimony concerning Jesus—fully God and fully human. The significance of this is: in Christ we are dealing with God himself; in Christ we have a human being who truly represents us.

Jesus Christ is God’s only Mediator between God and humankind and God’s unique agent for the salvation of the world. He is also the perfect expression of what humanity was designed to be. In his complete obedience, he became the representative Human Being, a second Adam, modeling for us human life and offering to God on our behalf human life that is rightly in God’s image—reflecting God’s glory in a wholly submitted life of steadfast love and righteousness.

This same Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, as attested in scripture, is to be the center of the Christian Church’s proclamation, worship, discipleship, and mission. As we eagerly and prayerfully anticipate that “he will come again to judge the living and the dead” and to establish God’s righteous kingdom in fullness and perfection, we say, “Come Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20)

Jesus’ death on the Cross was the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. In this act of obedience to God’s will and love for humankind, Jesus acted as the divine agent for the salvation of the world. In his death he perfectly fulfilled the office of High Priest and was also the perfect sacrifice for sins—“the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (Jn 1:29) The Cross became an altar on which his life was sacrificed as a substitute for ours, and satisfaction and expiation for sins were completely accomplished. On the sole basis of the finished work of Christ on the Cross, sinners may now be reconciled to a holy God and set free from their bondage to sin and death to live for God in holiness and joy.

Exalted to the place of honor beside God the Father, Jesus Christ the eternal Son, now Lord of heaven and earth, continues his saving work, advocating and interceding on behalf of the church and functioning as our eternal prophet (God’s living and revealed Word), priest (ever making intercession and mediation for us), and king (ruling his church by Word and Spirit and with sovereign love and power).

Salvation is God’s gracious work through Jesus Christ to reclaim humankind and all creation from sin and its consequences. Salvation is a gift of God’s grace received by faith. Christ’s righteousness and atonement are the sole basis for human salvation. Faith in Christ is the only instrument by which this righteousness is received by individual believers, resulting in their justification.

Justification is the righteousness of Christ imputed to a sinful woman or man through faith alone in Christ. Their faith appropriates Christ’s atonement, resulting in their sins atoned for and forgiven and God reckoning them to be righteous. Scripture also describes salvation as a ransom or redemption from slavery (Mark 10:45); a sacrificial substitution (Christ’s death for our death); reconciliation of sinners with a holy God; our sins being sacrificially expiated, satisfied, covered over, forgiven, and removed. All of these ways describe how God has given us “the forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness and salvation out of sheer grace solely for the sake of Christ’s saving work.” (Heidelberg, 4.021)

Faith is (1) accepting the message of salvation as true and (2) trusting God to apply this salvation to us. Faith is “certain knowledge” and “wholehearted trust,” that is created in us by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. In faith we accept, receive, and rest “upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.” (Westminster, 6.080) 

November 19, 2018

To The Stated Clerk of the General Assembly

Re: “Kindom Building for the 21st Century” and Renewing the PCUSA Vision

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who came into this world to give His life for our salvation, who rose again for our assurance, and who now sits enthroned as King at the right hand of the Father.

We give thanks to God for the energy and boldness with which you promote the family bond of fellow believers. As the church unites around Christ, we look left and right to see people of all nations worshipping together. As we sing, we hear our voice as one in a multitude, singing God’s glory in a choir of saints and angels. However, we acknowledge and lament that not all those in the church seek unity in Christ and harmony with others, and we recognize your diligence in exposing this dissonance. We also acknowledge your desire to reach those who may be repulsed by traditions in the church that may not honor God.

It is around this matter that we write you, that while you identify disharmony in the church, you have adopted a new gospel of “kindom” that abandons the only Good News capable of unifying God’s children. This new gospel replaces the King with “kin,” as if the security of one another is what gives hope and unity to a broken church. To “draw the welcome circle wider,” this kindom gospel discards the very hierarchy that God has put in place, the hierarchy where our Lord reigns. In its place it is a theology that sees God’s own kingdom as an oppressive hierarchy. While this theology stems from liberation theology, it actually undermines it by dethroning the very One who is here to set us free!

Instead of attracting broken people to the True Light, this theology seeks to widen the circle of welcome by a play on words, as if to make Christ more palatable. However, we must preach truth. The King has real authority, and citizen-ship involves real obedience. Matthew 7:21 says, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the king-dom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.” Denying, discounting, or deflat-ing the kingdom as such will cripple the message and calling of the church, and one cannot simply change the words of Christ to accommodate sensitive ears.

Unfortunately, supporting this kindom gospel has brought pastors to a place of changing Scripture, having people “strive first for the kindom of God” and teaching people to pray for God’s “kindom to come.” Instead of inviting the world into God’s salvation and a restored relationship with Him as King, the kindom gospel reads into Scripture a false hope in humanity, our kin. Matthew 25:34 gives real hope of a real kingdom, one that Jesus Himself says is not of this world and one in which Jesus is King (John 18:36). While the numerous, explicit, and central explanations of the kingdom in Scripture is ample reason from a sola scriptura stance, the kingdom per se is foundational to the DNA of the church throughout its history.

The kingdom of God is a core tenet of the church’s creeds, confessions, calendar, and constitution.

The writers of the Nicene Creed saw fit in the year 381 to include the words “whose kingdom shall have no end.”

The Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 31 speaks of Jesus as “our eternal king who governs us by his Word and Spirit, and who guards us and keeps us in the freedom he has won for us.”

This letter was written in the week leading into “Christ the King Sunday.”

The Westminster Shorter Catechism explains, “In the second petition, (which is, Thy kingdom come, [Matt. 6:10]) we pray, That Satan’s kingdom may be destroyed; (Ps. 68:1,18) and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, (Rev. 12:10–11) ourselves and others brought into it, and kept in it; (2 Thess. 3:1, Rom. 10:1, John 17:9,20) and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened (Rev. 22:20).” In question 107, it further states that we should “take our encouragement in prayer from God alone,” which precludes any notion of kindom replacing the kingdom.

The PCUSA’s own Book of Order (F-1.01) begins by describing the foundation of Presbyterian polity as looking to God’s mission. It says, “The Gospel of Jesus Christ announces the nearness of God’s kingdom, bringing good news to all who are impoverished, sight to all who are blind, freedom to all who are oppressed, and proclaiming the Lord’s favor upon all creation.”

While we could provide many, many more samples, these suffice to prove the fact that the church only exists in the context of God’s kingdom, that any effort to replace “king” from “kingdom” guts the church of its God-given identity.

Therefore, we call on the PCUSA to repent, to refute this kindom gospel, and instead to celebrate the kingdom of God. We encourage the PCUSA to build unity and solidarity with all whose identities were purchased by the Cross. We call on the PCUSA to assert that Christ’s gospel is exactly the message we are commanded to present to the world, because it is exactly the message humanity needs to hear. This repentance would be reflected by the following:

Cease the promotion and endorsement of any “kindom” materials, programs, or curricula that would replace the use of “kingdom.” While kinship is important in a kingdom, it remains a kingdom nevertheless.

Cease and oppose the practice of alternate readings of Scripture (e.g., “seek ye first the kindom…”). 

Assert publicly that the kingdom of God is a comfort rather than an oppression, that the kingdom of God, while hierarchal, is good because our God is trustworthy and good. This includes magnifying the distinction between hierarchies on Earth that have been corrupted by sin and God’s good and complete sovereignty.

Re-read the Book of Order F-1.01 in the next General Assembly, re-committing to the tenets that bind us as a church organization.

Maintain all explicit kingdom assertions as stated in Scripture, interpreted by our creeds and confessions, and included in the Book of Order.

Our unity, the unity of the Church, is secure precisely because we are in the Dominion of the King. We must not confuse God’s Kingdom with the corrupt kingdoms of this world; Jesus said His kingdom is not of this world. We must not think that a kingdom that Jesus rules is oppressive to its citizens, but instead we must shine a light on it as what a kingdom is supposed to be, full of justice, mercy, and righteousness. We must have discernment to see that the accusation of God’s kingdom as an oppressive hierarchy comes not from its citizens, who, rather, sing of God’s mercy and goodness. This accusation comes from the very Serpent whose head was crushed at Calvary.

We urge you to practice discernment, to see the lie that the “kindom” agenda brings. May the Spirit of God create in you repentance, changing your mind to realize once again the true gospel message that God’s kingdom comes. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2). The poor in spirit and the persecuted receive no comfort thinking about a “kindom,” as if their hope comes from humanity. They need to know that theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This is the message that the world needs to hear; this is the light on the hill that we are called to show; this is the salt the church is meant to be.

May God’s grace be with you,

The Session of First Presbyterian Church, Moncks Corner