Jayson & Carrie Whelpley

This first point of the actual statement of faith concerns the question of “Who is God?

1. “There is one true God, eternally existing in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – each of whom possesses equally all the attributes of Deity and the characteristics of personality.

Three Persons

In this first point it’s important to notice a couple of things. We are Trinitarian we believe in God as one deity in three persons. I’ve heard it said that God is one What and three Whos. Each member of the Trinity is fully God; the Holy Spirit, when looked at separately, is fully God, the Father, when looked at separately, is fully God, and the Son, when looked at separately, is fully God. The word “equally” is also important; the Son is not inferior to the Father and the Father is not inherently superior to the Son and the Spirit. Each member of the Godhead has the same ontological value, that is they have the same power and glory and majesty as each other member. The relationship, though, is one of voluntary subordination – the Son, from eternity past has chosen to submit to the Father not because Jesus is lesser than the Father or that the Father is, in some sense really God where the Son is not, but because He chooses to defer to Him and give the Father glory.

The first point separates us from the non-orthodox “Christian” religions such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Latter-Day Saints, and from heretical Christian sects such as the non-trinitarian United Pentecostal Church or the Jesus Only Churches.

The Trinity

This also clarifies the orthodox position in relation to misconceptions of the Trinity. It does not allow for modalism (where each member of the Trinity is actually just one God wearing different masks depending on the situation), Tritheism (three gods) or Arianism (where Jesus is a lesser god to God the Father and the Spirit is either a lesser god as well or the Father’s active force).

Why?

Who God is is extremely important and the basis for all other points of our faith. When you get off track here the rest of your faith will be off all the more. It’s similar to firing a gun and aiming just 1 degree off; when you are aiming 10 feet away you’ll only be about an inch off, but when you’re aiming a mile away you’ll be nearly 50 feet off. Since our faith aims at eternity it’s incredibly important to get our beliefs about who God is very precise and faithful to the breadth of scripture.

Next time we’ll look at who the Son is and His life on earth.

I forgot one relatively major thing in the last post that is vital to understanding pretty much any Statement of Faith, and important to understanding the things that Campus Crusade for Christ has included in ours.

In a healthy representation of a person or groups faith there are three relatively distinct levels of belief or strength at which they hold a belief. Not everything is the same as far as importance, not everything is something that we should hold close to our heart.

Convictions

These are central beliefs which are crucial to salvation. These beliefs are the ones over which we break fellowship (if there is no repentance) and if it was a spiritual leader who held errant views we would be willing to publicly denounce. Also, these are the beliefs that it would be most necessary to choose death over denying them.

Examples of Conviction-Level beliefs: the Trinity, Jesus’ divinity and humanity, Christ’s death and the resurrection, salvation by grace through faith.

Persuasions

These are beliefs about which we are personally certain, but can still fellowship with other Christians who disagree since they are not matters central to the Gospel and/or the historic Christian faith. These may be issues over which local churches might amicably divide while still recognizing the other body as friends, co-workers and brothers & sisters in the faith.

Examples of Persuasion-Level beliefs: speaking in tongues, Calvinism/Arminianism, mode or method of Baptism, how the Trinity interacts within itself, model of Church government.

Opinions

These are beliefs, desires or even wishes which may not be clearly taught in Scripture or which may legitimately differ for various believers. These are beliefs that we should be able to discuss with an air of complete trust and light-heartedness.

Examples of Opinion-Level beliefs: the best Bible translation, musical worship style, age of the Earth or the method of creation, home schooling.

Why is this Important?

Holding beliefs too lightly can lead to a slippery slope where we don’t believe anything strongly. Our faith becomes a matter of convenience and something that we’re willing to give up at the first sign of resistance; it becomes a faith that is, at its core, false and dead.

Just as destructively, we can hold beliefs too tightly. This is the defining element of what would be called fundamentalists; the irony is that they are not actually focused on the fundamentals! When you are as a group or a person more focused on verbally excommunicating people because they believe that God created everything via a different method than you think or espousing your pet Bible translation above or more often than glorifying Christ those good things (the Bible and pondering the creation) become idols that draw us away from the God who created them.

It’s important to remember that these categories are not about how strongly you feel about them; they are categories of how central they are to our faith.

The Statement of Faith

You’ll notice as you look at the CCC Statement of Faith that it only covers conviction and persuasion level issues. The number of contentious issues that it does not address is pretty large: Church government, women’s ordination, modes of Baptism, the Lord’s supper, miraculous gifts, Christians & war, the creation model, age of the universe, end times prophecy, how will Christ return, Bible translations, etc. This is because staff, students and volunteers have the freedom to hold views that are not in the Statement of Faith as long as they are based on Scripture and not a distraction to our mission. This also allows us to accomplish the mission of bringing the Gospel to the heart of every student on every campus by partnering widely with anyone and everyone who agrees with the statement of faith – even if we disagree on other things which are not on it.

It’s all about bringing the Gospel to people. We lead them to join a church that also agrees with us on these 17 points, but we know that these churches will teach beyond this as well and we welcome that because we’re just a piece of the puzzle; Christ is the whole picture.