1. What are “Standards” or “Confessions”?
Standards or Confessions (creeds, rules of faith) are comprehensive summaries formulated under the authority of the church, officially adopted and approved to express what a church or group of churches believes to be the truth of the Word of God. They are called Standards or Symbols because they are criteria of what is taught and confessed in the churches uniting around them and because they declare publicly the faith of those churches. They are called creeds or confessions from the viewpoint that their contents are the object of the faith of the churches.
2. Should a Church have Confessions? What is their value and purpose?
A church should have confessions or standards chiefly because it is the calling of the church as well as the individual Christian to confess the name of Christ and the Truth as it is in Jesus, and to preserve the Truth in generations even over against every attack of false doctrine.
Their value and purpose: (a) As summaries of the truth revealed in Scripture they are an aid to the understanding of the Word of God. (b) They preserve the labor of the church of the past in expounding the Scripture under the guidance of the Spirit. (c) They are a basis of the unity among believers and churches who subscribe to them. (d) To instruct children. (e) To protect the church from error.
3. Do Confessions have the same authority as Scripture?
They certainly do not! Scripture has original authority; the Confessions have derived authority, that is, they have authority only because, and so far as they are based upon Scripture. Scripture has unlimited authority; that is, authority over the whole church. The authority of the Confessions is limited, that is, they are valid only for those that subscribe to the Confessions. Scripture has absolute authority, that is, it has the last word, the last court of appeal. Confessions have relative authority, that is, they are admittedly subject to change.
4. Do they not bind the conscience of the Christian?
That the Confessions as such bind the conscience is an objection voiced against creeds by all their opponents, especially by the following: Unitarians, Socinians, Quakers, Rationalists, Undenominationalists, etc. They claim that creeds interfere with the free interpretation of the Bible, and bind the conscience of the believer by the doctrines and institutions of men. This would be true if the creed were placed above Scripture instead of being subordinated to it and if subscription to creeds were not the free choice and act of every believer. Now, however, it is different. Any Christian is at any time at full liberty, should his conscience so dictate, in the light of the Word of God, to break with a creed. This, however, also implies that he breaks with the church professing that creed.
5. Can confessions be altered? In what way?
Confessions certainly may be and are altered, either because the church develops and grows in the knowledge of the truth, or because the faith of the church must be defended against new errors that arise. With respect to the way, the following must be remarked: (a)The alteration must be based upon Scripture. (b) It may be suggested or requested in the regular ecclesiastical way, that is, beginning at the consistory by any individual member or group of members. (c) The alteration must be officially approved and adopted by the largest representative gathering of the church. (d) The alteration must be submitted for approval to the church at large.
6. Which are the Standards of the Reformed Churches?
(a) The Confession of Faith called the Belgic Confession. (b) The Heidelberg Catechism. (c) The Canons of Dordrecht, or the Five Articles against the Arminians.
7. What is the difference between the Christian Reformed and the Protestant Reformed Churches as to their Confessions?
The difference is that the former acknowledge the three points. The former, since 1924, are bound to read the Confessions in the light of the Three Points adopted by the Synod of Kalamazoo. They call these three points interpretations and even so they have changed the Confessions. They are, however, additions and essentially corruptions of the Reformed Symbols.
8. What is the meaning of the word “Canon”?
It means “rule” (creeds). It may be applied to faith or life. When applied to a Confession, it is the “rule of faith”. This is the meaning in the title: “Canons of Dordt”.
9. What was the occasion of the formulation of these Canons of Dordt?
The occasion was the teaching of Jacobus Harmson (James Arminius) and his followers in the last part of the sixteenth and the first part of the seventeenth centuries. A teaching which implied a denial of the teaching of Predestination and related doctrines.
10. What are Pelagians? Arminians? Remonstrants? Contra-remonstrants?
(a) Pelagians: from the fifth century. They taught that man had a free will, denying original sin and total depravity. (b) Arminians: sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They taught that God’s election and reprobation depended upon foreseen faith and unbelief and also maintained related errors. (c) Remonstrants: Arminians of the sixteenth century. Are called thus because a representative group of them in 1610 drew up a document which they called a Remonstrance in which they briefly set forth their belief in five formulas of doctrine. (d) Contra-remonstrants: a name applied to the Reformed Fathers of the sixteenth century because they formally answered and opposed the Remonstrants.
11. How many chapters do the Canons contain? What is the subject of each?
Five chapters: (a) Election; (b) Redemption through Christ; (c and d) the depravity of man and his conversion to God; (e) the Perseverance or Preservation of the saints.