Full Text for Confessions 1- Volume 4 - Personal Testimony vs. Confession of Faith (Video)

ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CONFESSIONS 1 CON1-Q004 JANUARY 2005 CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY: CAPTION FIRST, INC. P.O. BOX 1924 LOMBARD, IL 60148 * * * * * This text is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communications Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. * * * * >> JOSHUA: In American Christianity, much emphasis is placed on the importance of a personal testimony. How is it different from a confession of faith? >> DR. CHARLES P. ARAND: You know, you're right about one thing. In American Christianity they are important. In fact, I think in many respects they are unique to American Christianity. This takes us back to the very first question and the discussion there we had about sort of our American mindset and how our immigrant ancestors saw themselves as leaving the Old World for the New World for a fresh start and a fresh beginning, where the old class distinctions and social distinctions no longer apply, and we talked about that in connection with the passage about being born anew or being born again. Well, you have a similar phenomenon happening also, I think, with the case of personal testimonies. They grow out of what you might call the revivalistic tradition of American Christianity. Going back perhaps as far to the first great awakening at the end of the 18th-century with which *Jonathan Everetts was associated, and then you have the second great awakening in the early 19th century with *Charles Cranston Fannie. You have the urban revivalists in the mid-late 19th century with *Dwight L. Woody. And that gets carried forward into the revivalists with *Billy Sunday and then, perhaps, the most famous of all in my generation, the revivals or crusades associated with Billy Graham. Well, their origin probably lies back on the frontier, namely, as Americans pushed westward beyond the Appalachian Mountains, they found themselves scattered widely on the frontier or within the wilderness, and the church had a dilemma with regard how to evangelize. Well, one option that was developed was to bring people together from as far away as 100 miles, bring them together for a camp meeting, a period where you might gather for a week or two weeks, and there you�ve got the people for two weeks. You have to convert them in that amount of time. As a result, the tendency was, given such a short period of time, was to go through the intellect with a 16-week course of Christian doctrine or to go directly through the emotions. Now, you can probably guess which route was adopted. It was to appeal to the emotional side of people in order to bring about conversion. Now, this is also going to tie in with the traditions that arise out of the radical wing of the Reformation as it developed among Puritans, Baptists, and Methodists and the like. But that's another story for another day. My point being is that one of the ways in which people were encouraged give their life for Christ, or make a decision for Christ, was through personal testimonies. Personal testimony it strikes me as fairly characteristic and very amenable to the American mindset that we cited earlier. Because very often, a personal testimony is a story about that person and how that person has changed as a result of knowing Christ. In fact, I think they very often follow a standard format sort of like those before and after pictures or advertisements regarding a particular diet program. You know, here's the before picture. Here's the after picture. Very often, a personal testimony might proceed along these lines. Before I knew Christ, my life was a disaster. I didn't treat my children well. I drank. I couldn't hold down a job. I abused my spouse. Things were going downhill. But now that I know Christ, my life has turned around. I have a fresh start, a new beginning. And now things are getting back on track. I've got a job. I'm holding it down. I'm trying to put the family life back together and the like. You see the appeal then is, if it happened for me, it could happen for you. Now, you may even note a connection here that this is very similar to what often happens in our advertisements or commercials. Very rarely do you ever have a commercial or advertisement for a product proclaiming, here are its ingredients and because of these ingredients, it's a great product. No. Instead, we appeal to the person's emotions based on what the product can do for us. It can give us a cleaner, whiter, sparkling smile, thereby improving my social relationships with all of us. You know the story. But I think one of the major differences, then, between a personal testimony and a creed is that a personal testimony tends to focus on my story. Now, to be sure, it is what the Holy Spirit and Christ has done, but it�s what they�ve done in my life and tends to be about me and my story than about Christ's story, namely, the story of his historical revelation or the story of his -- the salvation he accomplished during his earthly life. I find it very interesting that when you go to the New Testament writings themselves, we know remarkably little about the 12 disciples or the apostles. Rarely, if ever, do they talk about themselves. Instead, they're always talking about Christ. The one exception you might have is the apostle Paul in Galatians where he does talk about his former life and does talk about his conversion. But note he's doing that, not in the context of trying to convert people. He's doing it in the context of defending his apostolic authority. With that one exception, though, one is hard-pressed to find anyone in the New Testament talking about themselves or what happened to them. Well, in an analogous fashion, I think the same thing applies with our creed and confessions. Yes, we open the creed by saying, "I believe.� This is what I hold. This is what I treasure. This is what I cling to for life itself. But immediately the creed moves into a confession of the Father is creator of all things so Christ who is incarnate by the Holy Spirit suffered, died, buried, raised from the dead for our justification, about the Holy spirit's work in proclaiming the gospel of Christ. So you have two very different kinds of speaking, if you will. One count of speaking is very focused on the change that has occurred in my life with the purpose of maybe an emotional appeal that this could happen to you. The other is focused more on repeating what scriptures themselves say. Another difference that we can think about with regard to personal testimonies and confessions is this: and it's related to what we've been talking about. The personal confession is an expression of one's individual experience and encounter with Christ, very often focused on my current state of being or my current life. A creed or confession, on the other hand, is more of a repeating back what God has said. For example, the Greek word for confession is *Hom. It literally means, I say the same thing. In other words, when God speaks to us, a confession is a way of saying "Ditto." What you say, that�s what I say. It's a way of saying, �Amen.� You see, this is why very often our creeds follow the reading of the lessons in the worship service or follow the creed because it�s a way of having heard the word of God, we now repeat back to God what it is that we have heard. We can illustrate this very nicely from 1 John. There, John, in writing to his readers indicates that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sin, God is faithful and just and will forgive us. You see what�s interesting is, there he says, if you say you have no sin, now, note he uses the word �say.� He doesn't say, if you confess you have no sin. If you say you have no sin. On the other hand, you confessed. Why? Because when one -- confession is only confession when it agrees with the word of God. If it does not agree with the word of God, it is not a confession. It is a speaking, or it is a denying. It is not a confession. The word *Om is only used for that kind of speaking that repeats what God himself has said. Now, using that example from 1 John, I think back to when I was high school, and we used the Lutheran Hymnal, and in there the confession of sins we spoke, I, a poor miserable sinner confess unto you all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended you. Now, as a teenager, saying the words, I, a poor, miserable sinner. I have to admit, I didn't always feel that poor and miserable. I had a decent job at UPS earning probably $8 an hour or more. Very often I had a good breakfast and good night of sleep. I didn't feel that miserable. So why would I say, I, a poor, miserable sinner? It's because God says, I�m a poor, miserable sinner. Is not a result of going out on a mountaintop for several months and engaging in a series of profound self-introspections and examining myself, and I come up with a conclusion that I am poor and miserable. God says I am poor and miserable in his law. That is, as a sinner, I have nothing to offer him. Ergo, I am poor. As a sinner, apart from Christ, I stand under his wrath. Therefore, I am invisible creature. So even the confession of sins is simply repeating back to God what God has said to us. In this case, in his law. Similarly then, when we come to the gospel or the creeds and confessions proper, we may open with the words, �I believe.� This is a way of saying, I hold this dearly. I treasure this. I cling to this for life itself. But immediately, the focus shifts from me to God's actions within history, whether it be the activity of creation or the activity of redemption or the activity of sanctification. And there I repeat back what the words of scriptures themselves say about God's own activity within history and within my life. So I think there's some very fundamental differences between personal testimonies and creeds and confessions. I must admit, I'm not a particular fan of personal testimonies, but having said that, there may be an appropriate role for them, particularly within situations of evangelism. But at the same time, I don't think too prominent a role should be given to them because the focus, ultimately, has to be not on me or what can I get, particularly by way of a changed life. The focus in the end has to be on what God himself has done and accomplished for us.