A Faith to Confess: The Baptist Confession
of Faith of 1689
Rewritten in Modern English
©1975, Carey Publications, Ltd.,
75 Woodhill Road, Leeds, U.K., LS16 7BZ
THE distance between God and His creature man is so great
that, although men, endowed as they are with reason, owe
obedience to Him as their creator, yet they could never have
attained to life as their reward had not God, in an act of voluntary
condescension, made this possible by the making of a covenant.
Job 35:7,8; Luke 17:10.
Furthermore, since man, by reason of his fall into sin, had
brought himself under the curse of God's law, it pleased the Lord
to make a covenant of grace, in which He freely offers life and
salvation by Jesus Christ to sinners. On their part He requires
faith in Him that they may be saved, and promises to give His
Holy Spirit to all those who are elected unto eternal life, in order
that they may be made willing and able to believe.
Gen. 2:17; Ps. 110:3; Ezek. 36:26,27; Mark 16:15,16; John 3:16; 6:44,45;
Rom. 3:20,21; 8:3; Gal. 3:10.
God's covenant is revealed in the gospel; in the first place to
Adam in the promise of salvation by 'the seed of the woman', and
afterwards, step by step, until the full revelation of salvation was
completed in the New Testament. The salvation of the elect is
based upon a covenant of redemption that was transacted in
eternity between the Father and the Son; and it is solely through
the grace conveyed by this covenant that all the descendants of
fallen Adam who have been saved have obtained life and a
blessed immortality; for the terms of blessing which applied to
Adam in his state of innocency have no application to his posterity
to render them acceptable to God.
Gen. 3:15; John 8:56; Acts 4:12; Rom. 4:1-5; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2; Heb.1:1,2; 11:6,13.
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