WHAT WE BELIEVE
Sola Scriptura: The erosion of authority
Only Scripture is the inerrant rule of the church, but the evangelical church today has separated from the exercise of its function. In practice, too often, the church is guided by culture. More than the Word of God are the therapeutic techniques, strategies of marketing and entertainment of the world what the church wants, how it works and what it offers. Pastors have neglected their rightful role of leadership in worship, including in relation to the doctrinal content of the songs. Since the authority of Scripture has been virtually abandoned, since the doctrinal truth is losing its importance waned, the church has gradually deprived herself of integrity, moral authority and leadership. Rather than adapting Christian faith to the needs perceived by the “consumers”, we must proclaim the law of God as the only measure of true justice and the Gospel as the only saving truth. The biblical truth is essential for discernment, for edification and discipline of the church. Scripture must lead us to go beyond what we consider our needs for us to contemplate our true needs, freeing us from a vision of ourselves influenced by seductive images, from cliché, from the promises and the priorities of the world culture. Only in the light of God’s truth that we understand ourselves properly and what the Lord has done to meet our needs. Therefore, the Bible must be preached and taught in the church. The sermon should present the Scripture and its teachings, not the preacher’s opinions or ideas in vogue. We should not accept anything outside of what God has given. In the personal spiritual experience the Holy Spirit cannot be separated from the Scripture, because the Spirit never speaks independently of it. Without the Scriptures we could never know the grace of God in Christ. Then, the test of truth is not the spiritual experience, but the teaching of the Bible.
First thesis: Sola Scriptura
We reaffirm that Scripture is inerrant and is the only source of the only written revelation of God to be able to bind the conscience. Only the Bible teaches man what is necessary to be saved from sin and the only rule to determinate the Christian conduct. We deny that any belief, council or individual may bind the conscience of a Christian, we deny that the Holy Spirit speaks independently of the Bible or in order to contradict its teaching. We also deny that the personal spiritual experience can be a vehicle of divine revelation.
Solus Christus:
The erosion of faith centered in Christ
Since the faith of the Gospel was secularized its interests are mixed with those
of the dominant culture. The consequences were the loss of absolute values, the
arrival of a permissive individualism, replacing the welfare of the person for
holiness, renewal for repentance, intuition for truth, emotions for faith, the
case for providence and instant gratification for hope. Christ and the cross
were removed from the center of our vision.
Second thesis: Solus Christus
We reaffirm that the human salvation
is accomplished only by the work of mediation of the historical Christ. Only
his life without sin and his expiation are sufficient for the sinner
justification and for his/her reconciliation with the Father. We deny that the
Gospel is truly preached if the substitutive sacrifice of Christ is not
proclaimed and if sinners are not exhorted to have faith in him and in his
work.
Sola Gratia:
The erosion of the Gospel
One of the fruits of the fallen
human nature is the blind faith in the ability of the man. This false
confidence has now permeated the entire evangelical world, from the “gospel”
that promotes self-esteem so-called “gospel” of prosperity, to those who made
the true Gospel a product to sell and sinners consumers ready to buy, to others
who consider the true Christian faith because “it works”. All this cancel the
doctrine of justification despites this doctrine is officially confessed in our
churches. The grace of God in Christ is not only necessary for salvation, but
its only efficient cause. We confess that all men are born spiritually dead and
are incapable even of cooperating with the grace of God that regenerates the
sinner.
Third thesis: Sola Gratia
We reaffirm that through the salvation we are free from the wrath of God only for His grace. Only the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit leads us to Christ, freeing us from the slavery of sin and making us raise from spiritual death to life. We deny that in any sense salvation is a work of man. Human methods, techniques or strategies cannot accomplish by themselves this transformation. Faith is not a fruit of the non regenerated human nature.
Erosion
of the main article of faith
The sinners justification is by grace alone trough faith alone and only through Christ. This I the article of faith by which the church exists or fall. Today this article is often ignored, distorted or sometimes even denied by conductors, scholars and pastor who, however, profess to be evangelical. Although the fallen human nature has always refused to recognize the need of imputation of the righteousness of Christ, the modern age has thrown much wood on the fire of this discontent with the biblical Gospel. And we have allowed this discontent determinate the nature of our ministry and the content of our preaching. Inside the Church Growth Movement many people believe that the success of the Gospel, the sociological understanding of the audience is as important as the biblical truth that must be proclaimed. The result of these opinions is that the theological beliefs are often split off from the ministry. In many churches the typical marketing orientation leads to the extreme consequences this splitting off, canceling the distinction between the biblical Word and the world, eliminating the offense which bears the cross of Christ and reducing the Christian faith to the same set of principles and methods that have created successful business in the world. Although these movements profess to believe in the theology of the cross, actually they emptied it of its true meaning. There is no other Gospel than that of the substitution of Christ who took our place whereby God imputed to him our sin and imputed to us his righteousness. Because Christ took our judgment, we now live in grace as those who are forgiven for the eternity, who is accepted and adopted as children of God. There is no basis for which we accept God unless for the saving work of Christ, not for our patriotism, not for our devotion to a certain church, or for our morality. The Gospel declares what God has done for us in Christ, it doesn’t regard what we can do to reach Him.
Fourth thesis: Sola Fide
We reaffirm that the justification of sinners is by grace alone, through faith alone and only through Christ. In our justification Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us as the only one that can meet the perfect righteousness of God. We deny that our justification rests on any merit that may be in us, or on the basis of an infusion of Christ’s righteousness in us and institution that claims to be a church that denies or condemns Sola Fide can be recognized as a true church.
Soli Deo Gloria:
The erosion of worship centered on God
Every time that the Scripture’s authority is not considered, when Christ loses the central role in the lives of believers, when the Gospel is distorted and faith is perverted, the cause is always the same: our interests have replaced those of God and we accomplish his work in our way. The fact that God is no longer the center of church’s life is a common and sad reality. Due to this loss that worship has become entertainment, preaching the Gospel has become methodology of business, faith has become the performance of a technique, being holy in feeling good and being faithful in having success. The result was that God, Christ and the Bible have now a very superficial sense, therefore their influences in our lives has become irrelevant and marginal. God does not exist to satisfy the ambitions and whims, men appetites, not their private spiritual interests. In the adoration our focus must be on God and not on what we need. God, not the man, is the king we adore. Our hearts must seek the kingdom of God, not our success, our popularity or our dominance.
Fifth Thesis: Soli Deo Gloria
We reaffirm that since salvation is
by God and God accomplished it, it glorifies him, and we must glorify him
always. We live our lives before God, under his authority and only for His
glory. We deny that we can glorify God if our worship is mixed with some form
of entertainment, if we neglect the Law or the Gospel in our preaching. Also if
self-esteem, self-development or welfare assume the nature of alternatives to
the Gospel.
A call to repentance and to reform
The fidelity of the Evangelical
Church in the past is in deep contradiction with his present infidelities.
Years ago, in the twentieth century, evangelical churches sustained a
remarkable missionary endeavor, and built many institutions in the service of
the truth and of Christ’s kingdom. At that time the Christians’ conduct and
expectations were markedly different from hose of the dominant culture. Often,
today, it is not so. The evangelical churches are losing their fidelity to the Bible,
their moral vision and their missionary zeal. We repent of our worldliness. We
confess to have been influenced by the left “gospels” proposed by the secular
culture that in reality are not the Gospel. We have weakened the testimony of
the church because we have not repented seriously because we were blind to sins
that were in us although we could distinguish them well in the others and for not communicating
adequately the message of God’s salvation in Christ. We exhort those who affirm
that there is eternal life’s hope without an explicit faith in Jesus Christ,
those who have the opinion that people who reject Christ in this life will be cancelled
and won’t have to face God’s right judgment through the eternal torment and who
declares that Evangelicals and roman Catholics are one in Christ, also when it
is rejected the biblical doctrine of justification only by faith. The Alliance
of Confessing Evangelicals, for the sake of Christ’s name, urges all Christians
to carefully consider this statement by applying the life of the church in
worship, ministry, in the aims and work of evangelization. Amen.