Credimus: We Believe
The Oak Hill Academy Confession of Faith
Prologue: The Dogma is the Drama
We stand in the historic orthodox Christian faith, the central truths of which are expressed in the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, and in the Reformed tradition, the central truths of which are expressed in The New City Catechism. God speaks, graciously disclosing Himself in human words in Scripture, and supremely revealing Himself in the incarnate Word, His Son Jesus Christ. These truths are more than a dry and yeastless set of propositions, but a living and active expression of our faith and understanding of God and His unfolding story…
Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth!
I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old,
Things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation
The glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.
A maskil of Asaph, Psalm 78
∴
God is. We believe in one God, eternally existing in three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who know, love, and glorify one another, and in whose fellowship is no lack. Before there was anything, God was. And just as a fountain is prone to overflow…
God makes. …God made the heavens and the earth, all things visible and invisible, a temple for His glory, forming and filling the earth with life teeming in all its kinds. And it was good. God then crowned the cosmos with humanity, bearing His image, male and female, with bodies from the soil and life from His Spirit. He gave creation to them, to rule over it in benevolent dominion, reflecting His benevolent image. And it was very good.
Humanity falls, God promises. And yet our first parents fell and became alienated from God. The temple of creation fell into ruins, and Death was. In His goodness, God judged their disobedience and unfaithfulness. In His mercy, God promised that from Eve a Redeemer would come. And in Adam we all alike have fallen, forsaking God, exchanging the fountain of living waters for broken cups that cannot hold water. God called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from whom the Redeemer would come and the nations of the earth would again be blessed. God made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the people of Israel. Creation groans under the curse of sin, and we groan too, knowing our guilt and need of a Redeemer.
God comes. In the fullness of time, God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, taking on flesh, fully God and fully man, inseparably joining together in one Person the two distinct divine and human natures. His life was marked by humility, descending into the world by being born of a lowly virgin, in a humble stable, in the City of David. Wind and waves and disease and demons obeyed His voice, recognizing it from of old, and yet His own recognized Him not. He led a sinless life and fulfilled all righteousness by becoming obedient, even to the point of death on a cross, despised and forsaken, cursed by man and God. But three days later…
God saves. …Death died and the Light of Man arose. And for those who believe in Him, though they die, yet shall they live. He then appeared to His disciples and ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He reigns and intercedes on our behalf, until He will again descend in power and great glory. We believe that salvation is by grace alone and through faith alone in Christ alone, who lived the life we should have lived, and died the death we should have died. It is finished, and our once restless hearts now rest in God. Grace is a free and unmerited gift, and though free for us it was costly for God, costing the life of His only begotten Son. Therefore we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, as God works in us to will and to work for His good pleasure. In Christ we are new creatures and the hands and feet of God, being compassion to need and courage amidst adversity. Prayer is our breath, and the Word of God our food.
The Spirit moves. And while the Church waits for Jesus’ return, God has sent His Holy Spirit, the Helper and Comforter of His people, to indwell the true believer, enabling a life of holiness, compassion, and courage to bear witness unto Jesus. The Spirit brings light to our double darkness of sin and ignorance, bearing witness of Jesus’ glory and to the children of God that God is indeed their Father, that they are heirs of the coming Kingdom.
The Church goes. And as God saves, He builds His one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We believe in the unity of all believers, being members of the body to which Jesus is the head, who has tasked the body to proclaim the gospel and disciple the nations. And while we pray and work and await the end of our chapters on earth, we participate in the communion of one another’s gifts and graces, building up and spurring on one another to reveal the City of God amidst the City of Man.
God speaks. We know these things because God has graciously disclosed His divine power and nature in the created order, and supremely revealed Himself in the incarnate Word, His Son Jesus Christ. God has also graciously disclosed Himself and His unfolding plan of redemption in human words, preserved in the Scriptures, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, being the inspired Word of God and without error in the original writings. The Scriptures are authoritative over all matters to which they speak, and profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.
God reigns. We believe in the life of the world to come, that God has appointed a day when He will reveal the brilliance of His glory and judge the world in righteousness through Jesus Christ, whom God has highly exalted, bestowing on Him the name above every name, so that at His name every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, He will judge both the living and the dead, resurrecting them bodily to the eternal life they desired, either to eternal condemnation and alienation or to eternal fellowship with God and His people.
And this is where the Story begins again…
— Α Ω —
We teach, we guide, we love. Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.