Rogers on Christology

August 24, 2001

The moderator's commentaries on VoiceLine

by Jack Rogers

Note from the Editor of Presbyterian News Service: Jack Rogers, moderator of the 213th General Assembly, will be recording weekly commentaries on VoiceLine, the recorded information service of the Office of Communication. To hear these commentaries, call VoiceLine at 1-800-872-3283. The texts of Rogers' commentaries are available on the PC(USA) website at www.pcusa.org/pcnews -- Jerry L. Van Marter

Christology

Recorded Aug. 23, 2001

The 213th General Assembly was a Confessing Assembly. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is a Confessing Church. I came to the General Assembly committed to having it confess our common faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Sovereign if I was elected Moderator. I remembered the sad situation in 1979 when the Assembly wanted to confess its faith in Christ and was told it could not. That year there was much ado about the Kaseman case, a judicial proceeding against a minister in National Capital Union Presbytery who allegedly did not believe in Christ as Savior and Lord. The Stated Clerk, William P. Thompson, told the Assembly that it could not act without interfering with the judicial process. While that judgment was no doubt legally correct I always felt that it was pastorally wrong. During the following two years, the United Presbyterian Church lost 92 congregations, most of them re-gathering in what was called the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. There were no doubt multiple reasons for the discontent of those congregations, but they used the Assembly's lack of action as a rationale for their separation. I did not want that to happen again.

The Commissioners to the 213th General Assembly had all taken ordination vows that included a commitment to Christ as Savior and Lord. We reaffirmed those vows at the beginning of the Assembly. I then announced that I wished to be remembered as the Confessing Moderator. During each plenary session that I moderated the Commissioners and Advisory delegates stood and confessed their faith in the words of one of the doctrinal statements in Part I of our Constitution: The Book of Confessions. We began with the Apostles and Nicene Creeds and concluded with A Brief Statement of Faith, adopted in 1991.

The Assembly had before it an item of business in which two Presbyteries were asking the Assembly to confess Jesus Christ and Savior and Lord. The request itself evidenced deep distrust, on the part of some, in the leadership of the church. It asked the Assembly to send to the presbyteries an overture that proposed calling Jesus the "singular" Savior and Lord. Further, it proposed that this particular wording be made a new standard both for ordination and the hiring of all church employees.

I was not present in the Assembly Committee that dealt with this matter. I am told that some people testifying suggested that there were perhaps other saviors as well as Jesus. Here we must make a critical distinction. It is one of the glories of Presbyterianism that in a discussion people can say anything they want to. That protects the right of each of us to state our convictions. There is, however, a significant difference between what some individuals may think or say, and what an Assembly, by majority vote, does. It is also the case that there is more than one form of words that can express a biblical insight into Christ's saving person and work.

The Assembly did two things. First, it adopted the recommendation of the Assembly Committee to ask the Office of Theology and Worship to prepare materials for study and worship that would help congregations use the theological richness of our Book of Confessions in affirming our faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. People have asked me for the statements about Christ in the Book of Confessions that the Assembly confessed. The action of the Assembly will make those statements and others available to congregations.

Second, the Assembly adopted a statement, giving its own witness to Christ. The statement said, in part: "We confess the unique authority of Jesus Christ as Lord. Every other authority is finally subject to Christ. Jesus Christ is also uniquely Savior. It is `his life, death, resurrection, ascension and final return that restores creation, providing salvation for all those whom God has chosen to redeem.' Although we do not know the limits of God's grace and pray for the salvation of those who may never come to know Christ, for us the assurance of salvation is found only in confessing Christ and trusting Him alone." The statement was proposed by a former missionary to Indonesia and gladly adopted by the Assembly. For many, it expressed the pious hope that God may have some way, that we do not know, to bring people who have not heard under the saving power of Christ's death and resurrection. For example, the Westminster Confession says that "all dying in infancy are included in the election of grace, and regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who works when and where and how he pleases" (6.193).

Why, then, with all of this affirmation of Christ as Savior and Lord, are some people saying that the Assembly refused to confess its faith in Christ as Savior and Sovereign? As I have traveled around the country and listened carefully to what concerned Presbyterians are saying, I have been forced to conclude that many people are being misled by those who choose to distrust any statement of the denomination that they themselves did not create. Attention has been focused on the word 'singular" which was used in the Minority Report (not adopted) to describe Christ's role. Some objected to the use of the word, "unique," in the majority statement of the Assembly, claiming that it could mean that there were other saviors besides Christ. That misunderstands the English language, and misrepresents the intent of the Assembly. In the Oxford English Dictionary the word "singular" is defined by the word "unique." They are synonyms. They mean the same thing. "Unique" is hardly a "weasel word" as some have wrongly portrayed it.

The 213th General Assembly seems to be having the same difficulty that Jesus himself experienced. In Matthew 11:16-17, Jesus is recorded as saying: "But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, `We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn."' Some people seemingly refuse to acknowledge a witness to Christ unless they can chose the language, unless they can call the tune.

That is the other reason for the reluctance of the Assembly to adopt the particular words proposed by some. We already have Confessions that represent the rich heritage of the Christian, Protestant, and Reformed tradition. And we already have democratically arrived at procedures for determining who is ordained and who may be hired and terminated as church employees.

The most widely used Reformed Confession of Faith during the 16`h century Reformation was the Second Helvetic Confession. Heinrich Bullinger, pastor in Zurich, and the senior pastor of the Reformed movement, lost his wife and two daughters in a plague. He believed that he also would die. He wrote the Second Helvetic Confession as his last will and testament, and his gift to the city of Zurich. Bullinger's confession says: "JESUS CHRIST IS THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WORLD, AND THE TRUE AWAITED MESSIAH. For we teach and believe that this Jesus Christ our Lord is the unique and eternal Savior of the human race, and thus of the whole world .... Jesus Christ is the sole redeemer and Savior of the world ... so that we are not now to look for any other" (5.077). No one has ever accused the Second Helvetic Confession of being unorthodox. Neither is there legitimate reason to claim a lack of orthodoxy on the part of the 213th General Assembly.

As Moderator, I feel obligated to tell the truth about the actions of the 213th General Assembly. It does not support the peace, unity, or purity of the Church for blatant misrepresentations of the Assembly's action to be continually repeated. Our faith in Christ as Savior and Sovereign is central to our life as a Christian community. So also is speaking the truth in love.

Jack Rogers, Moderator

213th General Assembly