The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Hello -- In need of help concerning Proof Texts

Hello there. I'm new to the forums, but seeing the subject of this forum, I thought this would be a good place to come to help. I'm going to be setting up my own forums of a Christian theme. They are not going to be specifically reformed, but I want to maintain the core truths of Christianity in them, and so as part of the rules I've been developing, I've made a list of doctrines which I consider to be absolutely necessary to the Christian faith. But, I wanted to provide proof texts for these doctrines, and it's taking me a lot time to gather verses for each one. The following is my list of doctrines which I plan to include in the rules. Would you be able to help me? By the way, I've already tried using the catechism and confession of WM, but it's still proven very difficult, especially when I wrote these myself.

God is unique in that He is the only true God, is sovereign over all of His creation, and there are no other gods.

God is a Trinity: the Father, the Son (Who is Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit; three equal persons but one God.

God is infinite (and as such omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent), eternal in existence, entirely self-sufficient, invisible (as He is a Spirit and is not a physical being, nor was any member of the Godhead until the incarnation of Christ), perfect, unchanging in His perfection, completely good, wise, and infinitely superior to any created being.

Christ is God the Son incarnate, fully God with God’s divine nature, and fully flesh with the flesh’s creaturely (yet sinless) nature; He was truly physical and was not a phantom or apparition. Furthermore He was born of a virgin and not conceived by man, but rather miraculously by the work of the Holy Spirit.

Christ’s death on the cross was a true physical death, and was not a coma, suspended animation, or an alien life-preserving beam. Through Christ’s death He became the perfect sacrifice and substitutionary atonement for the sins of all believers.

Christ’s resurrection was a full physical resurrection of the body through the power of God. The resurrection was neither figurative nor faked, and was a manifestation of the fulfillment of the promises of eternal life we have through faith in Christ.

Regeneration is an action performed on us by God alone according to His judgment, in which He imparts to us Christ’s righteousness and an indwelling of the Holy Spirit who compels us to believe and trust on Him for salvation. This is also known as God’s “calling.” We are also given in regeneration a new nature which seeks Him and is contrary to the sinful nature.

Regeneration is irrevocable and permanent, and as such our salvation is secured by God Himself, and His will to keep us in the fold, and is not secured by any action that we perform. If a person is truly regenerated by God, he cannot lose his salvation, and if he becomes delinquent in his life, God will shepherd him back to a state of submission to Himself.

The saving work of Christ on the cross was completely sufficient for the salvation of believers. As believers are the product of regeneration and regeneration is done by God, our salvation is thus completely dependent on the mercy of God and not in any way dependent on our works, and no action we take can add to or detract from our salvation.

Believing on Christ for salvation from sin and its punishment is the only means one can be saved. This inherently excludes anything that teaches any other means of salvation.

No sacrament, rite, or action can save us, convey saving grace, or add anything to our salvation; likewise the lack of any sacrament, rite, or action cannot detract from our salvation if we are indeed regenerated. God’s act of regeneration is totally independent of any action that we take, and as already specified, any work of salvation by God is completely sufficient and irrevocable.

No sacrament, rite, or action cleanses us from sin. The cleansing and covering of our sin took place at the moment of salvation, and from that point onward God’s grace covers all of our sin and our sin nature which remains with us until death.

Through God’s independent work of salvation we receive all of the promises of God and blessings therein which are given to those who are joint heirs of God the Father with Christ, adopted children. These promises include the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (which regenerates us in the first place), the resultant faith, the covering of our sins by Christ’s righteousness, the new God-seeking nature, the fruit of the Spirit (which we act out in obedience), and others which can be found in Scripture.

God is the only divine being. We are not part of God’s divinity, though we are adopted. We do not become any kind of demi-gods or little deities, as that is a quality exclusive to the Trinity.

Sin entered the world at the beginning of Creation through the disobedience of Adam, and through Adam, all others born on earth are born corrupted with an innate sin nature of selfishness and detachment from God which condemns them from conception. The only exception to this was Christ.
Sin is anything which deviates from obedience and submission to God, either in failure to obey His commands or committing that which He has forbidden. This lack of obedience and submission starts in the very nature of the heart, which is the sinful love of self and predisposal towards sin that opposes the love of and obedience to God (what we call “Sin Nature” or “Fallen Nature”).

Heaven and Hell are real places, not metaphors, the first being a place of eternal glory and blessing under God’s grace for those who believe on Christ, and the second being a place of eternal punishment under God’s wrath for the angelic beings that opposed God and those who reject the true message of Christ by following a false message, or rejecting it altogether.

Christ is coming again for the final judgment of this world, after which this old corrupted world will be destroyed, and a new Heaven and new Earth will be put in place as part of the Heaven that is promised us in eternal life.

The Bible is God's word, divinely inspired and as such infallible, protected by God's guidance and all-encompassing sovereign action, and surviving the corruption of men.

Welcome to the forum <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/hello.gif" alt="" />

First, I would look at Refcon 3.0 and make a link to it on your new forum. These have references to Confessions, etc, with the Scripture references.

Second, IMO there need to be “some” correction and/or clarifications to some of your statements.

Lastly, IMO it would just be easier to use the Confessions and Catechisms.

Here are a few illustrations (this is not meant to be a complete analysis):

I would like to note that while certain doctrines are absolutely necessary to the Christian faith, it is not absolutely necessary that a Christian believe everyone of them in order to be a Christian. i.e. once a person becomes a Christian over a period of time they may and should be able to better articulate what they believe, however I have NEVER met a “new” Christian that has been able to articulate EVERY doctrine without error – especially the doctrine of the Trinity!

See: HC, 1-2.

Uhmm, there is no other true God (“G”) Isaiah 45:21-22, but there are other false gods (“g”) (the Bible itself lists many and we may all study: Ishtar, who has been identified with the Phoenician Astarte, the Semitic Ashtoreth, the Egyptian Isis, the Greek Aphrodite, and the Roman Venus. Ishtar's male fertility counterpart was Tamuz who was closely associated with the Canaanite fertility god, Baal. Baal's mistress or lover was Anat. Anat is sometimes identified with the queen of heaven in mentioned in Jeremiah. Molech was the national deity of the Ammonites whose worship was accompanied by the burning of children offered up in sacrifice by their own parents. Chemosh was the national god of the Moabites who was also worshiped with child sacrifices. Ashtoreth was the ancient goddess of the moon, sexuality, sensual love, and fertility and is often associated with the worship of Baal Zeus was the supreme god of the Greeks. All this and then we need not forget also about the “unknown god," Acts 17:22-23, who’s not known but can be mentioned, which means he had to be known in some way, anyway <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/igiveup.gif" alt="" />)?

See: WCF, 2; BC, 1.


See: WCF, 2; LC, 9-11; BC, 8-11.

See WCF, 2; LC, 7-8; SC, 4-6.

See: WCF, 8; LC, 36-45; SC, 21-28; BC, 18.

See: WCF 8, LC, 46-50, SC, 21-28.

See: LC, 51-54; BC 21.

Uhmm, I have some problems here? Regeneration I would say is more according to God’s “grace” which He ordained by His eternal judgment. Personally, IMO the term “judgment” may be misinterpreted the way you are using it. Moreover “regeneration” and “calling” are not the same, etc. Look at your ordo salutis.

See: WCF, 10-11; LC, 57-59; SC, 29-32; BC, 22; CD, 2nd Head of Doctrine.

See: WCF, 17; LC, 79-81; CD, 5th Head of Doctrine.

See: WCF, 9-16; LC, 57-78; SC, 29-38; BC, 16; CD, 1st Head of Doctrine.

Uhmm, just to clarify in Reformed circles we say that our baptism may be improved upon — that meaning that we CAN GROW in grace and truth (sanctification). Think of salvation as the car (complete) and these other things as divine luggage, added as one is on his pilgrimage upon this earth.

See: WCF, 27-29; LC, 161-177; SC, 91-97; BC, 33-35; 39 Articles, 25-28.

See: above.

See: WCF, 4; LC, 21-23; CD, 3rd and 4th Heads of Doctrine.

See: WCF, 32-33; LC, 87-90; BC, 37.

Uhmm, since your whole intention of this post is to “proof text” your doctrine wouldn’t this better being item #1 in your list – as it is in the WCF?

See: WCF, 1; LC, 3-6; SC, 1-3; BC, 3; Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy.

I would say, aside from the corrections and clarifications that need to be made that the use of the confessions and catechisms would be a “better” example of “the core truths of Christianity.” This is not meant to be a poor commentary on what you have written, but we should be as complete as possible and thus… <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/shrug.gif" alt="" />

I have to agree with J_Edwards that despite your best attempts to list what you consider to be "core doctrines", you might consider using direct quotes from the historic Reformed Confessions and/or Catechisms. Those documents were not written over night nor extemporaneously by one man musing in his living room. But rather, they are the result of years of study and the collaboration of godly and scholarly men. It's hard to do much better than what they have done.

There isn't much one could add to the thorough reply given you by J_Edwards, but there is one section in particular that caught my attention and which needs serious revision:

Regeneration is an action performed on us by God alone according to His judgment, in which He imparts to us Christ’s righteousness and an indwelling of the Holy Spirit who compels us to believe and trust on Him for salvation. This is also known as God’s “calling.” We are also given in regeneration a new nature which seeks Him and is contrary to the sinful nature.

1. Regeneration is a divine and sovereign act of the Holy Spirit. . .
2. According to the eternal counsel (aka:foreordination and predestination) of God. . .
3. Whereby the Spirit recreates a sinner's dead spiritual nature so that he then possesses an inclination antithetical to that which he possessed by nature, so that after regeneration, a predisposition to love God, desire to do that which is good and to hate all sin. From this new nature, the sinner is then drawn to Christ.
4. This drawing is accomplished through the hearing of the divinely inspired Word of God; the outward calling and the influence of the Spirit; inward calling and consequently the sinner repents and believes upon the Lord Christ.
5. The believing upon Christ results in a person's justification, i.e., a declaration of one being "not guilty" of the charges against him having been clothed with an "alien righteousness", i.e., Christ's righteousness being imputed to him.

What I'm hoping you will grasp here is that you have confused/intermixed several things together under the one term, "regeneration"; regeneration, calling, conversion, and justification. Most importantly, one is not justified (saved) because of regeneration although one cannot be saved without first being regenerated. Regeneration makes it possible, albeit infallibly so, and leads one to justification. It is critically important that these individual doctrines be articulated precisely and cogently due to the heresies currently infiltrating the churches today, e.g. NPP, FV, etc.

In His grace,

Yes, I actually have that already. It's an excellent resource for many things, and actually I've been using it some already. Though this is a good idea for a reformed forum, that isn't quite what I intend for it. I myself am very reformed (though as a few of your comments have shown, I'm not always good at expressing it), but the group I intend to serve the forum for is not necessarily all going to be reformed; it's a place where doctrines can be discussed by people on both sides of the issues (i.e. predestination, election, dunking vs. sprinkling <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bash.gif" alt="" />, etc.). At the same time, I want to avoid things like salvation by works, universal salvation, and such the like.


I'm guessing you mean as quotes? Yes, I'm thinking about doing that. The reason I wrote my own was due to the fact that I've recently had to deal with discussions where the persons involved twisted meanings and came out to a salvation by works result, namely, being saved by communion and baptism. Communion and baptism are both outward signs, but they do not make us more saved, nor does not partaking of them make us less saved, even though we should. That actually is a problem I have with one of your later statements. I understand the role that baptism and communion have in terms of our Christian walk, that isn't the issue. The reason I made the rule about it, was so that it could not be said that sacraments are "God's" action and not ours, and thus can be a means of transferring regeneration and saving grace. I guess I should have clarified that in the first place, though. I didn't give any context for my making that statement.


Point taken, and accepted. Nevertheless my aim was still to maintain those doctrines core to the Christian faith on the forums at least, and I wasn't intending to use them to judge a person's salvation. We can't, only God can, however if a learned "Christian" has studied those doctrines and rejected them in favor of a heresy, it isn't as likely that we can consider them as saved.


I'm well aware of the fact that there are many false gods. Perhaps I just didn't state it clearly. My point in the doctrinal statement was that God is the only God there is, and that there are no other Gods than Him. Any false gods are of course not Gods, and are not real. I guess that just seemed rather obvious to me.


Again, point taken. My use of the term "judgment" was in the manner of "determination" or "choice," rather than punishment. In no way was the statement meant to imply that God does not preordain salvation, however predestination is not one of the doctrines that I'm specifically supporting in the forums. Also, I never once denied that regeneration was the result of God's grace -- in fact that is a point I am very avidly in defense of myself. Again, I suppose I took that for granted.


Again, never once did I deny that we can grow in grace and truth. I'll just reiterate here that the thing I am going against is becoming more or less saved by the addition or subtraction of these things. Our salvation is completely dependent on God alone, and if we are saved, we are entirely saved, and if we are unsaved, we are entirely unsaved. Neither baptism nor communion make us any more saved than we already are, though we should be baptized and partake of communion if it is possible.


I only copy and pasted the rules. Their order isn't direct to the order in which I necessarily plan to use them.


I really do appreciate the time you took to read through the list, and the references that you provided. I admit I'm not the most eloquent speaker, and sometimes not quite as precise as I should be, but I have to again note that these were tailored to the purpose of the forum.

You stated that you are very Reformed, but not always good at expressing it. I believe that is a good reason for using confessions. That doesn’t mean that you can’t try to clarify what they mean. CH Spurgeon once said here


The fact that you were misunderstood by both Pilgrim and J Edwards I believe shows this. In case you haven’t noticed, not everyone who participates on the Highway forums are Reformed. Though all who participate must agree to respect the rules of the Highway.