A Brief Statement of Faith
In life and in death we belong to God.
Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, we trust in the one triune God, the Holy One of Israel, whom alone we worship and serve.
We trust in Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God. Jesus proclaimed the reign of God; preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives, teaching by word and deed and blessing the children, healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted, eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and calling all to repent and believe the gospel.
Unjustly condemned for blasphemy and sedition, Jesus was crucified, suffering the depths of human pain and giving his life for the sins of the world.
God raised this Jesus from the dead, vindicating his sinless life, breaking the power of sin and evil, delivering us from death to life eternal.
We trust in God, whom Jesus called Abba, Father. In sovereign love God created the world good and makes everyone equally in God's image, male and female, of every race and people, to live as one community.
But we rebel against God; we hide from our Creator.
Ignoring God's commandments, we violate the image of God in others and ourselves, accept lies as truth, exploit neighbor and nature, and threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care.
We deserve God's condemnation. Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation.
In everlasting love, the God of Abraham and Sarah chose a covenant people to bless all families of the earth. Hearing their cry, God delivered the children of Israel from the house of bondage.
Loving us still, God makes us heirs with Christ of the covenant. Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home, God is faithful still.
We trust in God the Holy Spirit, everywhere the giver and renewer of life, sets us free to accept ourselves and to love God and neighbor, and binds us together with all believers in the one body of Christ, the Church.
The same Spirit who inspired the prophets and apostles rules our faith and life in Christ through Scripture, engages us through the Word proclaimed, claims us in the waters of baptism, feeds us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation, and calls women and men to all ministries of the Church.
In a broken and fearful world the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.
In gratitude to God, empowered by the Spirit, we strive to serve Christ in our daily tasks and to live holy and joyful lives, even as we watch for God's new heaven and new earth, praying, "Come, Lord Jesus!"
With believers in every time and place, we rejoice that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.
From the Book of Confessions, PC(USA)
Written in 1983. Preface Information below:
PREFACE TO A BRIEF STATEMENT OF FAITH
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (U.S.A.)
In 1983 the two largest Presbyterian churches in the United States reunited. The
Plan for Reunion called for the preparation of a brief statement of the Reformed
faith for possible inclusion in the Book of Confessions. This statement is therefore
not intended to stand alone, apart from the other confessions of our church. It does
not pretend to be a complete list of all our beliefs, nor does it explain any of them in
detail. It is designed to be confessed by the whole congregation in the setting of
public worship, and it may also serve pastors and teachers as an aid to Christian
instruction. It celebrates our rediscovery that for all our undoubted diversity, we are
bound together by a common faith and a common task.
The faith we confess unites us with the one, universal church. The most important
beliefs of Presbyterians are those we share with other Christians, and especially
with other evangelical Christians who look to the Protestant Reformation as a
renewal of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Diversity remains. But we are thankful that in
our time the many churches are learning to accept, and even to affirm, diversity
without divisiveness, since the whole counsel of God is more than the wisdom of
any individual or any one tradition. The Spirit of Truth gives new light to the
churches when they are willing to become pupils together of the Word of God. This
statement therefore intends to confess the catholic faith.
We are convinced that to the Reformed churches a distinctive vision of the
catholic faith has been entrusted for the good of the whole church. Accordingly, “A
Brief Statement of Faith” includes the major themes of the Reformed tradition (such
as those mentioned in the Book of Order, The Foundations of Presbyterian Polity,
Chapter 2),2 without claiming them as our private possession, just as we ourselves
hope to learn and to share the wisdom and insight given to traditions other than our
own. And as a confession that seeks to be both catholic and Reformed, the statement
(following the apostle’s blessing in 2 Cor. 13:14) is a trinitarian confession in
which the grace of Jesus Christ has first place as the foundation of our knowledge
of God’s sovereign love and our life together in the Holy Spirit.
No confession of faith looks merely to the past; every confession seeks to
cast the light of a priceless heritage on the needs of the present moment, and so to
shape the future. Reformed confessions, in particular, when necessary even reform
the tradition itself in the light of the Word of God. From the first, the Reformed
churches have insisted that the renewal of the church must become visible
in the transformation of human lives and societies. Hence “A Brief Statement of
Faith” lifts up concerns that call most urgently for the church’s attention in our
time. The church is not a refuge from the world; an elect people is chosen for the
blessing of the nations. A sound confession, therefore, proves itself as it nurtures
commitment to the church’s mission, and as the confessing church itself becomes
the body by which Christ continues the blessing of his earthly ministry.
