Summary Statement of AAPC's Position on the Covenant, Baptism, and Salvation
1. Salvation is by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and not of works. It is founded upon the obedience, death, and resurrection of the faithful Second Adam, Jesus Christ. Justification is by faith alone. This faith is always accompanied by all other saving graces and virtues (WCF 11.2). Justifying faith, therefore, is never vain but one that works by love (Gal. 5:6).
2. From before the foundation of the world, God has sovereignly chosen a multitude no man can number for salvation. The basis of His election was solely His grace and mercy and nothing in the creature. The number of the elect can neither increase nor diminish. All who were chosen by God from the beginning will be surely saved eternally. Not one will be lost.
3. The covenant is the means by which God administers His salvation in space and time, the historical outworking of His eternal plan. Salvation, therefore, may be viewed from two basic perspectives, the decretal/eternal and the covenantal/historical. The Bible ordinarily (though not always) views election through the lens of the covenant. This is why covenant members are addressed consistently as God's elect, even though some of those covenant members may apostatize, proving themselves to be non-elect in the decretal/eternal sense. We cannot separate covenant and election, but, to do full justice to the Biblical teaching, we must distinguish them. Following the Biblical model, it seems that we must view fellow church members as elect and regenerate and, at the same time, hold before them the dangers of falling away. This does not contradict the decretal/eternal perspective,
because our knowledge of God's decree is only creaturely. We can never, in this life, know with absolute certainty who are elect unto final salvation. For this reason, we have to make judgments and declarations in terms of what has been revealed, namely, the covenant (Dt. 29:29). The covenant is the visible, historical context in which the eternal decree of election comes to eventual fruition.
4. This covenant is made with believers and their children. It is publicly manifested in the Church, the body of Christ which we formally enter by means of baptism. The Church is not merely a human community, and the Church's enactments of the means of grace are not merely human works. They are God's works through His ordained ministers. The Church herself is God's new
creation, the city He promised to build for Abraham. The Church is not merely a means to salvation, a stepping-stone to a more ultimate goal. Rather, the Church herself is God's salvation (WCF 25.1,2), the partially-realized goal in history that will be brought to final fulfillment at the last day. When someone is united to the Church by baptism, he is incorporated into Christ and into His body; he becomes bone of Christ's bone and flesh of His flesh (Eph. 5:30). Until and unless that person breaks covenant, he is reckoned among God's elect and regenerate saints.
5. Those who are members of the Church by virtue of their baptism (WCF 28.1) are bound to live faithfully, keeping the terms of the covenant: repenting of their sins, believing in Christ, obeying His Word, and persevering in this faithfulness to the end of their days. This perseverance is a gift of God and not a result of the "willing" or the "running" of the people of God.
6. God uses means by which His Spirit works salvation in the hearts of His elect: the preaching of the Word, the faithful administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the communion of the saints (WSC #85,88,91). These means have been entrusted to the Church (WCF 25.3). By these, through the blessing of the Spirit, the Church becomes the "mother of all believers" (Gal. 4:26). Apart from the Church and its ministry of these means of grace, there is ordinarily no salvation (WCF 25.2).
7. By baptism one is joined to Christ's body, united to Him covenantally, and given all the blessings and benefits of His work (Gal. 3:27; Rom. 6:1ff; WSC #94). This does not, however, grant to the baptised final salvation; rather, it obligates him to fulfill the terms of the covenant (embracing these blessings by faith, repenting of sins, and persevering in faithful obedience to God). One can only fulfill the terms of the covenant by faith, not by works. And even this faith is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast.
8. God has decreed from the foundation of the world all that comes to pass, including who would be saved and lost for all eternity. Included in His decree, however, is that some persons, not destined for final salvation, will be drawn to Christ and His people only for a time. These, for a season, enjoy real blessings, purchased for them by Christ's cross and applied to them by the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament.
9. Salvation depends upon being united to Christ. Clearly, those who are eternally saved are those who continue to abide in Him by the grace of God. here are those, however, who are joined to Him as branches in the vine, but who because of unbelief are barren and fruitless and consequently are cut off from the vine and from salvation. Jesus says these "believe for a while" but do not bear fruit unto salvation. Why God would do this is a mystery, but the teaching of Scripture is clear: some whom He adopts into covenant
relation, He later hardens (Rom. 9:4, 18, 11:1ff). In such instances God has not changed His decree regarding such people; to the contrary, He carries out His sovereign purposes in and through their unbelief and rebellion. Those elect unto eternal salvation are always distinguished by their perseverance in faith and obedience by the grace of God.
10. Once baptized, an individual may be truly called a "Christian" because he is a member of the household of faith and the body of Christ (I Cor. 12). However, not all who are "Christians" in this sense will persevere to the end. Some will fall from grace and be lost. The Bible does not explain the distinction between the nature of the work of the Spirit in the reprobate and the nature of His work in the elect, and even uses the same language for both. For example, the same language that describes the Spirit coming upon
Saul (1 Sam. 10:6) is used when the Spirit comes upon David (1 Sam. 16:13), Gideon (Jdg. 6:34), Jephthah (Jdg. 11:29), and Samson (Jdg. 14:6, 9; 15:14). Yet in four of these five cases (David, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson), the man in question was clearly given persevering faith and brought to final salvation by the Spirit's work (cf. Heb. 11:32). The Biblical narrative, however, appears to draw no distinction between Saul's initial experience of the Spirit and the experience of those who obtained final salvation. While God, no doubt, predestined Saul's apostasy (since He foreordains all that comes to pass), God was not the author of Saul's apostasy (cf. WCF 3.1). Saul received the same initial covenantal grace that David, Gideon, and other men who persevered in faith received, but he did not receive the gift of perseverance. At the same time, his failure to persevere was due to his own rebellion. Herein lies the great mystery of God's sovereignty and human responsibility (cf. WCF 3.1, 8). [1]
11. None of those elect unto final salvation can lose that salvation, however much he may backslide (John 10; WCF 17). God preserves all His elect in covenant faithfulness. The Biblical language regarding salvation, however, is more complicated. In one sense, all those in the covenant are "saved." They have been delivered out of the world and brought into the glorious new creation of Christ, but not all will persevere in that "salvation." [2] Jesus spoke of those in the new covenant who would be united to Him, but then cut off because they did not persevere in fruit-bearing (John 15). If Jesus Himself is salvation, are we not forced to conclude that being cut off from Him means being cut off from the source of salvation and from salvation itself?
12. It appears that the Bible speaks of salvation, more often than not, in relational and covenantal categories, rather than in metaphysical ones. "Salvation" is not a thing we possess that can be lost and found, like car keys. It is a matter of being rightly related to God through Christ. But relationships are not static, unchanging entities. They are fluid and dynamic. Our salvation covenant with the Lord is like a marriage. If we persevere in loyalty to Christ, we will live with Him happily ever after. If we break the marriage covenant, He will divorce us. It may not be wise to call this "losing one's salvation," but it seems contrary to Scripture to
say that nothing at all is lost. To draw such a conclusion appears to deny the reality of the covenant and the blessedness that is said to belong even to those who ultimately prove themselves reprobate (Heb. 10:26ff).
13. With this understanding, the "five points of Calvinism" are still preserved, but they have been enriched by a nuanced covenant theology following the tradition and teaching of Augustine and Calvin. By framing the issues as we have, we are able to preserve God's sovereignty in salvation and hold covenant breakers accountable for their apostasy. Additionally, this view seems to do full justice to the Scripture's teaching on the nature of the Church and efficacy of the sacraments, as well as the genuineness of
the covenantal promises and threats. In our formulation of how we understand the application of God's sovereign and covenantal grace, we lose nothing and yet, gain much in our understanding of how the sovereign God applies His salvation in history.
_____________________
Endnotes
1. It would appear that we must be willing to speak of the undifferentiated grace of God (or the generic, unspecified grace of God). In their reading of Heb. 6:4-5, some theologians try to draw subtle distinctions to make highly refined psychological differences between blessings that do not secure eternal salvation and true regeneration, which does. For at least two reasons, it is highly unlikely the writer had such distinctions in mind. First, it is by no means certain that those who have received the blessings
listed in 6:4-5 will fall away. The writer merely holds it out as a possibility, a danger of which they must beware. In fact, he expects these people to persevere (6:9). If, however, the blessings catalogued imply something less than regeneration, and these people might persevere after all, we are put in the awkward position of saying that non-regenerate persons persevered to the end (cf. 2 Cor. 6:1)! Second, the illustration immediately following the warning in 6:7-8 indicates these people have received some kind of new life. Otherwise, the plant metaphor makes no sense. The question raised does not concern the nature of the grace received in the past (i.e., real regeneration vs. merely common operations of the Spirit), but whether or not the one who has received this grace will
persevere. Thus, the solution to Heb. 6 is not developing two psychologies of conversion, one for the "truly regenerate" and one for the future apostate, and then introspecting to see which kind of grace one has received. This is a task beyond our competence. The solution is to turn from ourselves and to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:1ff).
2. Jude (5) speaks of the Israelites as having been "saved" and then destroyed, because they did not persevere. The preface to the Ten Commandments addresses Israel as God's redeemed people. However, many of those who were "redeemed"did not continue trusting their Deliverer and perished. 2 Peter 2 speaks of a similar class of people. Redeemed by Christ, they then deny Him and are destroyed. It is not sufficient to say, "Those are cases drawn from Old Testament types. Those were pictures of salvation,
not the real thing. Salvation in the new covenant cannot be lost." The problem with such an objection is that it draws a contrast precisely where the New Testament writers draw a parallel. Paul, Peter, Jude, and the writer to the Hebrews all use these Old Testament stories to warn new covenant believers, lest they too fall from grace. Paul specifically says the record of the Israelites who failed to persevere and were destroyed was "written for our admonition" in the new covenant era (I Cor. 10:11).
Summary: God, in eternity past, elected in Christ a great multitude to salvation. This election was wholly gracious and unconditional, having its source only in the free mercy and good pleasure of God. Those the Father elected to eternal salvation, He sent his Son to die for. His atoning work is fully sufficient for their salvation and completely accomplished their redemption. The Holy Spirit works in these same chosen ones to apply Christ's saving work to them and to keep them faithful to Christ their whole lives.
Because of the hardness of their hearts in sin, this work of grace must be, ultimately, irresistible. No elect person can be lost, and no non-elect person can attain eternal salvation.
God's eternal decree to gather His elect into a people for His name is worked out in history. One's election becomes manifest in the administration of Word and Sacrament as one responds to the preached gospel and enters the Church in baptism. Christ is present in His Church by His Spirit, to see to it that all His elect ones are brought to faith in Him.
However, God mysteriously has chosen to draw many into the covenant community who are not elect in the ultimate sense and who are not destined to receive final salvation. These non-elect covenant members are truly brought to Christ, united to Him in the Church by baptism and receive various gracious operations of the Holy Spirit. Corporately, they are part of the chosen, redeemed, Spirit-indwelt people. Sooner or later, however, in the wise counsel of God, these fail to bear fruit and fall away. In some sense, they were really joined to the elect people, really sanctified by Christ's blood, really recipients of new life given by the Holy Spirit. God,
however, withholds from them the gift of perseverance, and all is lost. They break the gracious new covenant they entered into at baptism.
Thus, the covenant is a true revelation of God's salvation, for, in the covenant community, all God's people, even those who are only temporarily counted among their number find gracious blessings. The covenant really is gospel-good news-through and through. Yet only those who continue to persevere in loyalty to the covenant and the Lord of the covenant inherit final salvation. Those who fall away lose the temporary covenantal blessings they had enjoyed. Ultimately, this is because God decreed that these covenant breakers would not share in the eschatological salvation of Christ. Of course, these apostates cannot blame God for their falling away. It is their own fault, since God's overtures of love towards them in the context of the covenant were sincere. Conversely, those who do persevere to the end cannot claim any credit or make any boast. All they have done has been because of God's grace at work in them to keep them faithful.
All covenant members are invited to attain to a full and robust confidence that they are God's eternally elect ones. Starting with their baptisms, they have every reason to believe God loves them and desires their eternal salvation. Baptism marks them out as God's elect people, a status they maintain so long as they persevere in faithfulness. By looking to Christ alone, the preeminently elect One, the One who kept covenant to the end and is the Author and Finisher of the faith of God's people, they may find assurance. Those who take their eyes off Christ, who desert the Church where His presence is found, will make shipwreck of their faith and prove to have received the grace of God in vain.
Approved by the Session of Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church on September
26, 2002.
_________________________________ __________________________________
Moderator Clerk of Session
1. Salvation is by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and not of works. It is founded upon the obedience, death, and resurrection of the faithful Second Adam, Jesus Christ. Justification is by faith alone. This faith is always accompanied by all other saving graces and virtues (WCF 11.2). Justifying faith, therefore, is never vain but one that works by love (Gal. 5:6).
2. From before the foundation of the world, God has sovereignly chosen a multitude no man can number for salvation. The basis of His election was solely His grace and mercy and nothing in the creature. The number of the elect can neither increase nor diminish. All who were chosen by God from the beginning will be surely saved eternally. Not one will be lost.
3. The covenant is the means by which God administers His salvation in space and time, the historical outworking of His eternal plan. Salvation, therefore, may be viewed from two basic perspectives, the decretal/eternal and the covenantal/historical. The Bible ordinarily (though not always) views election through the lens of the covenant. This is why covenant members are addressed consistently as God's elect, even though some of those covenant members may apostatize, proving themselves to be non-elect in the decretal/eternal sense. We cannot separate covenant and election, but, to do full justice to the Biblical teaching, we must distinguish them. Following the Biblical model, it seems that we must view fellow church members as elect and regenerate and, at the same time, hold before them the dangers of falling away. This does not contradict the decretal/eternal perspective,
because our knowledge of God's decree is only creaturely. We can never, in this life, know with absolute certainty who are elect unto final salvation. For this reason, we have to make judgments and declarations in terms of what has been revealed, namely, the covenant (Dt. 29:29). The covenant is the visible, historical context in which the eternal decree of election comes to eventual fruition.
4. This covenant is made with believers and their children. It is publicly manifested in the Church, the body of Christ which we formally enter by means of baptism. The Church is not merely a human community, and the Church's enactments of the means of grace are not merely human works. They are God's works through His ordained ministers. The Church herself is God's new
creation, the city He promised to build for Abraham. The Church is not merely a means to salvation, a stepping-stone to a more ultimate goal. Rather, the Church herself is God's salvation (WCF 25.1,2), the partially-realized goal in history that will be brought to final fulfillment at the last day. When someone is united to the Church by baptism, he is incorporated into Christ and into His body; he becomes bone of Christ's bone and flesh of His flesh (Eph. 5:30). Until and unless that person breaks covenant, he is reckoned among God's elect and regenerate saints.
5. Those who are members of the Church by virtue of their baptism (WCF 28.1) are bound to live faithfully, keeping the terms of the covenant: repenting of their sins, believing in Christ, obeying His Word, and persevering in this faithfulness to the end of their days. This perseverance is a gift of God and not a result of the "willing" or the "running" of the people of God.
6. God uses means by which His Spirit works salvation in the hearts of His elect: the preaching of the Word, the faithful administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the communion of the saints (WSC #85,88,91). These means have been entrusted to the Church (WCF 25.3). By these, through the blessing of the Spirit, the Church becomes the "mother of all believers" (Gal. 4:26). Apart from the Church and its ministry of these means of grace, there is ordinarily no salvation (WCF 25.2).
7. By baptism one is joined to Christ's body, united to Him covenantally, and given all the blessings and benefits of His work (Gal. 3:27; Rom. 6:1ff; WSC #94). This does not, however, grant to the baptised final salvation; rather, it obligates him to fulfill the terms of the covenant (embracing these blessings by faith, repenting of sins, and persevering in faithful obedience to God). One can only fulfill the terms of the covenant by faith, not by works. And even this faith is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast.
8. God has decreed from the foundation of the world all that comes to pass, including who would be saved and lost for all eternity. Included in His decree, however, is that some persons, not destined for final salvation, will be drawn to Christ and His people only for a time. These, for a season, enjoy real blessings, purchased for them by Christ's cross and applied to them by the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament.
9. Salvation depends upon being united to Christ. Clearly, those who are eternally saved are those who continue to abide in Him by the grace of God. here are those, however, who are joined to Him as branches in the vine, but who because of unbelief are barren and fruitless and consequently are cut off from the vine and from salvation. Jesus says these "believe for a while" but do not bear fruit unto salvation. Why God would do this is a mystery, but the teaching of Scripture is clear: some whom He adopts into covenant
relation, He later hardens (Rom. 9:4, 18, 11:1ff). In such instances God has not changed His decree regarding such people; to the contrary, He carries out His sovereign purposes in and through their unbelief and rebellion. Those elect unto eternal salvation are always distinguished by their perseverance in faith and obedience by the grace of God.
10. Once baptized, an individual may be truly called a "Christian" because he is a member of the household of faith and the body of Christ (I Cor. 12). However, not all who are "Christians" in this sense will persevere to the end. Some will fall from grace and be lost. The Bible does not explain the distinction between the nature of the work of the Spirit in the reprobate and the nature of His work in the elect, and even uses the same language for both. For example, the same language that describes the Spirit coming upon
Saul (1 Sam. 10:6) is used when the Spirit comes upon David (1 Sam. 16:13), Gideon (Jdg. 6:34), Jephthah (Jdg. 11:29), and Samson (Jdg. 14:6, 9; 15:14). Yet in four of these five cases (David, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson), the man in question was clearly given persevering faith and brought to final salvation by the Spirit's work (cf. Heb. 11:32). The Biblical narrative, however, appears to draw no distinction between Saul's initial experience of the Spirit and the experience of those who obtained final salvation. While God, no doubt, predestined Saul's apostasy (since He foreordains all that comes to pass), God was not the author of Saul's apostasy (cf. WCF 3.1). Saul received the same initial covenantal grace that David, Gideon, and other men who persevered in faith received, but he did not receive the gift of perseverance. At the same time, his failure to persevere was due to his own rebellion. Herein lies the great mystery of God's sovereignty and human responsibility (cf. WCF 3.1, 8). [1]
11. None of those elect unto final salvation can lose that salvation, however much he may backslide (John 10; WCF 17). God preserves all His elect in covenant faithfulness. The Biblical language regarding salvation, however, is more complicated. In one sense, all those in the covenant are "saved." They have been delivered out of the world and brought into the glorious new creation of Christ, but not all will persevere in that "salvation." [2] Jesus spoke of those in the new covenant who would be united to Him, but then cut off because they did not persevere in fruit-bearing (John 15). If Jesus Himself is salvation, are we not forced to conclude that being cut off from Him means being cut off from the source of salvation and from salvation itself?
12. It appears that the Bible speaks of salvation, more often than not, in relational and covenantal categories, rather than in metaphysical ones. "Salvation" is not a thing we possess that can be lost and found, like car keys. It is a matter of being rightly related to God through Christ. But relationships are not static, unchanging entities. They are fluid and dynamic. Our salvation covenant with the Lord is like a marriage. If we persevere in loyalty to Christ, we will live with Him happily ever after. If we break the marriage covenant, He will divorce us. It may not be wise to call this "losing one's salvation," but it seems contrary to Scripture to
say that nothing at all is lost. To draw such a conclusion appears to deny the reality of the covenant and the blessedness that is said to belong even to those who ultimately prove themselves reprobate (Heb. 10:26ff).
13. With this understanding, the "five points of Calvinism" are still preserved, but they have been enriched by a nuanced covenant theology following the tradition and teaching of Augustine and Calvin. By framing the issues as we have, we are able to preserve God's sovereignty in salvation and hold covenant breakers accountable for their apostasy. Additionally, this view seems to do full justice to the Scripture's teaching on the nature of the Church and efficacy of the sacraments, as well as the genuineness of
the covenantal promises and threats. In our formulation of how we understand the application of God's sovereign and covenantal grace, we lose nothing and yet, gain much in our understanding of how the sovereign God applies His salvation in history.
_____________________
Endnotes
1. It would appear that we must be willing to speak of the undifferentiated grace of God (or the generic, unspecified grace of God). In their reading of Heb. 6:4-5, some theologians try to draw subtle distinctions to make highly refined psychological differences between blessings that do not secure eternal salvation and true regeneration, which does. For at least two reasons, it is highly unlikely the writer had such distinctions in mind. First, it is by no means certain that those who have received the blessings
listed in 6:4-5 will fall away. The writer merely holds it out as a possibility, a danger of which they must beware. In fact, he expects these people to persevere (6:9). If, however, the blessings catalogued imply something less than regeneration, and these people might persevere after all, we are put in the awkward position of saying that non-regenerate persons persevered to the end (cf. 2 Cor. 6:1)! Second, the illustration immediately following the warning in 6:7-8 indicates these people have received some kind of new life. Otherwise, the plant metaphor makes no sense. The question raised does not concern the nature of the grace received in the past (i.e., real regeneration vs. merely common operations of the Spirit), but whether or not the one who has received this grace will
persevere. Thus, the solution to Heb. 6 is not developing two psychologies of conversion, one for the "truly regenerate" and one for the future apostate, and then introspecting to see which kind of grace one has received. This is a task beyond our competence. The solution is to turn from ourselves and to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:1ff).
2. Jude (5) speaks of the Israelites as having been "saved" and then destroyed, because they did not persevere. The preface to the Ten Commandments addresses Israel as God's redeemed people. However, many of those who were "redeemed"did not continue trusting their Deliverer and perished. 2 Peter 2 speaks of a similar class of people. Redeemed by Christ, they then deny Him and are destroyed. It is not sufficient to say, "Those are cases drawn from Old Testament types. Those were pictures of salvation,
not the real thing. Salvation in the new covenant cannot be lost." The problem with such an objection is that it draws a contrast precisely where the New Testament writers draw a parallel. Paul, Peter, Jude, and the writer to the Hebrews all use these Old Testament stories to warn new covenant believers, lest they too fall from grace. Paul specifically says the record of the Israelites who failed to persevere and were destroyed was "written for our admonition" in the new covenant era (I Cor. 10:11).
Summary: God, in eternity past, elected in Christ a great multitude to salvation. This election was wholly gracious and unconditional, having its source only in the free mercy and good pleasure of God. Those the Father elected to eternal salvation, He sent his Son to die for. His atoning work is fully sufficient for their salvation and completely accomplished their redemption. The Holy Spirit works in these same chosen ones to apply Christ's saving work to them and to keep them faithful to Christ their whole lives.
Because of the hardness of their hearts in sin, this work of grace must be, ultimately, irresistible. No elect person can be lost, and no non-elect person can attain eternal salvation.
God's eternal decree to gather His elect into a people for His name is worked out in history. One's election becomes manifest in the administration of Word and Sacrament as one responds to the preached gospel and enters the Church in baptism. Christ is present in His Church by His Spirit, to see to it that all His elect ones are brought to faith in Him.
However, God mysteriously has chosen to draw many into the covenant community who are not elect in the ultimate sense and who are not destined to receive final salvation. These non-elect covenant members are truly brought to Christ, united to Him in the Church by baptism and receive various gracious operations of the Holy Spirit. Corporately, they are part of the chosen, redeemed, Spirit-indwelt people. Sooner or later, however, in the wise counsel of God, these fail to bear fruit and fall away. In some sense, they were really joined to the elect people, really sanctified by Christ's blood, really recipients of new life given by the Holy Spirit. God,
however, withholds from them the gift of perseverance, and all is lost. They break the gracious new covenant they entered into at baptism.
Thus, the covenant is a true revelation of God's salvation, for, in the covenant community, all God's people, even those who are only temporarily counted among their number find gracious blessings. The covenant really is gospel-good news-through and through. Yet only those who continue to persevere in loyalty to the covenant and the Lord of the covenant inherit final salvation. Those who fall away lose the temporary covenantal blessings they had enjoyed. Ultimately, this is because God decreed that these covenant breakers would not share in the eschatological salvation of Christ. Of course, these apostates cannot blame God for their falling away. It is their own fault, since God's overtures of love towards them in the context of the covenant were sincere. Conversely, those who do persevere to the end cannot claim any credit or make any boast. All they have done has been because of God's grace at work in them to keep them faithful.
All covenant members are invited to attain to a full and robust confidence that they are God's eternally elect ones. Starting with their baptisms, they have every reason to believe God loves them and desires their eternal salvation. Baptism marks them out as God's elect people, a status they maintain so long as they persevere in faithfulness. By looking to Christ alone, the preeminently elect One, the One who kept covenant to the end and is the Author and Finisher of the faith of God's people, they may find assurance. Those who take their eyes off Christ, who desert the Church where His presence is found, will make shipwreck of their faith and prove to have received the grace of God in vain.
Approved by the Session of Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church on September
26, 2002.
_________________________________ __________________________________
Moderator Clerk of Session
posted by Rick at
3:44 PM
