The Cambridge Declaration
Cambridge,
Massachusetts
April 20, 1996
Evangelical churches today are increasingly dominated by
the spirit of this age rather than by the Spirit of Christ. As evangelicals,
we call ourselves to repent of this sin and to recover the historic Christian
faith.
In the course of history
words change. In our day this has happened to the word
"evangelical." In the past it served as a bond of unity between
Christians from a wide diversity of church traditions. Historic evangelicalism
was confessional. It embraced the essential truths of Christianity as those
were defined by the great ecumenical councils of the church. In addition,
evangelicals also shared a common heritage in the "solas" of the
sixteenth century Protestant Reformation.
Today the light of the Reformation has been significantly dimmed. The
consequence is that the word "evangelical" has become so inclusive
as to have lost its meaning. We face the peril of losing the unity it has
taken centuries to achieve. Because of this crisis and because of our love of
Christ, his gospel and his church, we endeavor to assert anew our commitment
to the central truths of the Reformation and of historic evangelicalism. These
truths we affirm not because of their role in our traditions, but because we
believe that they are central to the Bible.
Sola Scriptura:
The Erosion
of Authority
Scripture alone is the inerrant rule of the church's life, but the evangelical
church today has separated Scripture from its authoritative function. In
practice, the church is guided, far too often, by the culture. Therapeutic
technique, marketing strategies, and the beat of the entertainment world often
have far more to say about what the church wants, how it functions and what it
offers, than does the Word of God. Pastors have neglected their rightful
oversight of worship, including the doctrinal content of the music. As
biblical authority has been abandoned in practice, as its truths have faded
from Christian consciousness, and as its doctrines have lost their saliency,
the church has been increasingly emptied of its integrity, moral authority and
direction.
Rather than adapting Christian faith to satisfy the felt needs of
consumers, we must proclaim the law as the only measure of true righteousness
and the gospel as the only announcement of saving truth. Biblical truth is
indispensable to the church's understanding, nurture and discipline.
Scripture must take us beyond our perceived needs to our real needs and
liberate us from seeing ourselves through the seductive images, cliches,
promises and priorities of mass culture. It is only in the light of God's
truth that we understand ourselves aright and see God's provision for our
need. The Bible, therefore, must be taught and preached in the church. Sermons
must be expositions of the Bible and its teachings, not expressions of the
preacher's opinions or the ideas of the age. We must settle for nothing less
than what God has given.
The work of the Holy Spirit in personal experience cannot be disengaged
from Scripture. The Spirit does not speak in ways that are independent of
Scripture. Apart from Scripture we would never have known of God's grace in
Christ. The biblical Word, rather than spiritual experience, is the test of
truth.
|
THESIS ONE: SOLA
SCRIPTURA
We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written
divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible
alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and
is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured.
We deny that any creed, council or individual may bind a Christian's
conscience, that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary
to what is set forth in the Bible, or that personal spiritual
experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation. |
Solus Christus: The Erosion
of Christ-Centered Faith
As evangelical faith becomes secularized, its interests have been blurred with
those of the culture. The result is a loss of absolute values, permissive
individualism, and a substitution of wholeness for holiness, recovery for
repentance, intuition for truth, feeling for belief, chance for providence,
and immediate gratification for enduring hope. Christ and his cross have moved
from the center of our vision.
|
THESIS TWO: SOLUS
CHRISTUS
We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial
work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and
substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification
and reconciliation to the Father.
We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ's substitutionary work
is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited. |
Sola Gratia:
The Erosion of
The Gospel
Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human nature.
This false confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the self-esteem
gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the
gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy,
to others who treat Christian faith as being true simply because it works.
This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of the official
commitments of our churches.
God's grace in Christ is not merely necessary but is the sole efficient
cause of salvation. We confess that human beings are born spiritually dead and
are incapable even of cooperating with regenerating grace.
|
THESIS THREE: SOLA
GRATIA
We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God's wrath by his
grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that
brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and
raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.
We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods,
techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this
transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human
nature. |
Sola Fide:
The Erosion of
The Chief Article
Justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone.
This is the article by which the church stands or falls. Today this article is
often ignored, distorted or sometimes even denied by leaders, scholars and
pastors who claim to be evangelical. Although fallen human nature has always
recoiled from recognizing its need for Christ's imputed righteousness,
modernity greatly fuels the fires of this discontent with the biblical Gospel.
We have allowed this discontent to dictate the nature of our ministry and what
it is we are preaching.
Many in the church growth movement believe that sociological understanding
of those in the pew is as important to the success of the gospel as is the
biblical truth which is proclaimed. As a result, theological convictions are
frequently divorced from the work of the ministry. The marketing orientation
in many churches takes this even further, erasing the distinction between the
biblical Word and the world, robbing Christ's cross of its offense, and
reducing Christian faith to the principles and methods which bring success to
secular corporations.
While the theology of the cross may be believed, these movements are
actually emptying it of its meaning. There is no gospel except that of
Christ's substitution in our place whereby God imputed to him our sin and
imputed to us his righteousness. Because he bore our judgment, we now walk in
his grace as those who are forever pardoned, accepted and adopted as God's
children. There is no basis for our acceptance before God except in Christ's
saving work, not in our patriotism, churchly devotion or moral decency. The
gospel declares what God has done for us in Christ. It is not about what we
can do to reach him.
|
THESIS FOUR: SOLA
FIDE
We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone
because of Christ alone. In justification Christ's righteousness is
imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God's perfect
justice.
We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or
upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ's righteousness in us, or
that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns
sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate church. |
Soli Deo Gloria:
The
Erosion of God-Centered Worship
Wherever in the church biblical authority has been lost, Christ has been
displaced, the gospel has been distorted, or faith has been perverted, it has
always been for one reason: our interests have displaced God's and we are
doing his work in our way. The loss of God's centrality in the life of today's
church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that allows us to transform
worship into entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing, believing into
technique, being good into feeling good about ourselves, and faithfulness into
being successful. As a result, God, Christ and the Bible have come to mean too
little to us and rest too inconsequentially upon us.
God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions, cravings, the appetite for
consumption, or our own private spiritual interests. We must focus on God in
our worship, rather than the satisfaction of our personal needs. God is
sovereign in worship; we are not. Our concern must be for God's kingdom, not
our own empires, popularity or success.
|
THESIS FIVE: SOLI DEO
GLORIA
We reaffirm that because salvation is of God and has been
accomplished by God, it is for God's glory and that we must glorify
him always. We must live our entire lives before the face of God,
under the authority of God and for his glory alone.
We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is confused
with entertainment, if we neglect either Law or Gospel in our
preaching, or if self-improvement, self-esteem or self-fulfillment
are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel. |
A Call To Repentance & Reformation
The faithfulness of the evangelical church in the past contrasts sharply with
its unfaithfulness in the present. Earlier in this century, evangelical
churches sustained a remarkable missionary endeavor, and built many religious
institutions to serve the cause of biblical truth and Christ's kingdom. That
was a time when Christian behavior and expectations were markedly different
from those in the culture. Today they often are not. The evangelical world
today is losing its biblical fidelity, moral compass and missionary zeal.
We repent of our worldliness. We have been influenced by the
"gospels" of our secular culture, which are no gospels. We have
weakened the church by our own lack of serious repentance, our blindness to
the sins in ourselves which we see so clearly in others, and our inexcusable
failure to adequately tell others about God's saving work in Jesus Christ.
We also earnestly call back erring professing evangelicals who have
deviated from God's Word in the matters discussed in this Declaration. This
includes those who declare that there is hope of eternal life apart from
explicit faith in Jesus Christ, who claim that those who reject Christ in this
life will be annihilated rather than endure the just judgment of God through
eternal suffering, or who claim that evangelicals and Roman Catholics are one
in Jesus Christ even where the biblical doctrine of justification is not
believed.
The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals asks all Christians to give
consideration to implementing this Declaration in the church's worship,
ministry, policies, life and evangelism.
For Christ's sake. Amen.
Source of this declaration:
Alliance
of Confessing Evangelicals
|
