LAWSON: Well, for me the greatest book that I've ever read, it was dependent upon where I was in
my life at that point. It doesn't mean it's the greatest book ever been written. But it was the
perfect book for me at the pivotal moment in my life was "A Body of Divinity" by Thomas Watson.
And that was the great change in theology for me. And he was simply preaching through the
Westminster Catechism...or Confession. And there is enormous value in studying the confessions
because they are such profound, concise statements of truth, systematic theology, sound doctrine,
and in a somewhat comprehensive way, from bibliology and theology proper to Christology
to pneumatology to angelology to anthropology to hamartiology to soteriology to ecclesiology to
eschatology, the ten major areas of systematic theology. And it gives you a full counsel of God.
And I think that everyone should be confessional and that everyone should know what they believe,
and that has been time-tested. And that a plurality of scholars have joined their
hearts and minds together and struggled and prayed and wrestled with how to articulate this
in as few words, yet as many as are necessary, to state the truth. And we did something like
that with the Christology statement, even with Ligonier. So, those are invaluable.
And I can't remember exactly the thrust of the question, but that's what flashes to the
forefront of my mind. And that for me was, I went from being Arminian to Reformed. That was
the game-changer, that was the tipping point of being brought through that. So, praise the Lord.
THOMAS: The creeds, The Nicene Creed of 325, or the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381, or the
Chalcedonian Creed of 451, I mean,
those are universal statements of truth regarding the church's understanding of
the Trinity and the church's understanding of the relationship between the two natures of Christ.
And although both of those creeds, or all three of those creeds, have been challenged multiple times
in almost every century including our own, they still stand up to be the best comprehensive
statement of what Scripture teaches about the Trinity and the person of Christ.
So, to try and live without those two creeds would be to be like a sailing boat but
there are no sails, or you get into a car but there is no engine, right? So,
they provide stability, they tell you what is orthodox and what is not orthodox. If you don't
agree with the Nicene Creed or the Chalcedonian Creed, you're not a Christian. I mean, whatever
else you are, you are outside the orthodox bounds of fundamental Christianity.
Now, confessions are a little more tricky because they are not universal creeds, they are statements
of an understanding of Scripture that a certain group within the church. But
you know, without the Westminster Confession, and I have been reading and studying and teaching the
Westminster Confession for, I don't know, forty years, it would be like reinventing the wheel.
You know, what are the fundamental doctrines? What does Scripture teach?
And if you have to go back to "No creed but the Bible," you would constantly be reinventing the
wheel without the benefit of what learned exegetes and theologians have said over
centuries to help you understand what is orthodox and what is not.
GODFREY: And we should also remember that as confessions, a number of churches
also have catechisms, and the catechisms were specifically written to teach the faith. And
so, whereas confessions were sometimes written to summarize the faith,
catechisms were written specifically to teach the faith. And the great catechisms that have
survived over the centuries, then, are huge treasures for the church,
the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the Westminster Larger Catechism.
Sometimes people are intimidated by the Larger Catechism because the answers to
the questions are long. But if you break those answers down, sort of comma to comma,
it's really very clear. It's not complicated, it's not difficult,
it's just long. So if you chop them up a little bit, it's very manageable.
And I think it's something of a tragedy that the Larger Catechism has been neglected
because there are important themes on the church, on the sacraments, for example,
developed in the Larger Catechism that are not so developed in the Shorter. And then,
there's also the Heidelberg Catechism, the queen of catechisms.
THOMAS: There's that wonderful story that Warfield tells of
during the Civil War period and meeting someone, a stranger, in a strange town, new town, and
they were just passing by each other. And as he passes, he asks, "What is the chief end of man?"
And the soldier replies, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." And he says,
"I knew you were a Shorter Catechism man," just by the manner in which he walked.