| Preamble
The
Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord.
God has called the church into being in order to
carry out God's mission to the world. We believe
that the Presbyterian Church (USA) must respond
to that commission by reaffirming its Christ-centeredness,
reclaiming its biblical faith, and remobilizing
its missionary service.
Toward
these ends, this Declaration and Strategy Paper
calls us to prayer and self-examination, so that
the church may seek to fulfill God's mission, embracing
Christ's transformation by the power of the Holy
Spirit.
“Union
in Christ: A Declaration for the Church”
“He
is before all things and in him all things hold
together”
(Colossians 1:17)
With
the witness of Scripture and the Church through
the ages we declare:
I.
Jesus Christ is the gracious mission of God |
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to
the world
and for the world. |
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is Emmanuel and Savior,
One with the Father,
God incarnate as Mary’s son,
Lord of all,
The truly human one.
His coming transforms everything.
His Lordship casts down every idolatrous claim to
authority.
His incarnation discloses the only path to God.
His life shows what it means to be human.
His atoning death reveals the depth of God’s
love for sinners.
His bodily resurrection shatters the powers of sin
and death.
II.
The Holy Spirit joins us to Jesus Christ by grace
alone, uniting our life with his through the ministry
of the Church. |
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In the proclamation of the Word, the Spirit
calls us to repentance, builds up and renews our life
in Christ, strengthens our faith, empowers our service,
gladdens our hearts, and transforms our lives more
fully into the image of Christ. |
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We turn away from forms of church life that
ignore the need for repentance, that discount the
transforming power of the Gospel, or that fail to
pray, hope and strive for a life that is pleasing
to God. |
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In Baptism and conversion the Spirit engrafts us into
Christ, establishing the Church's unity and binding
us to one another in him. |
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We turn away from forms of church life that seek unity
in theological pluralism, relativism or syncretism. |
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In the Lord's Supper the Spirit nurtures and nourishes
our participation in Christ and our communion with
one another in him. |
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We turn away from forms of church life that
allow human divisions of race, gender, nationality,
or economic class to mar the Eucharistic fellowship,
as though in Christ there were still walls of separation
dividing the human family. |
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III.
Engrafted into Jesus Christ we participate through
faith in his relationship with the Father. |
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By our union with Christ we participate in his righteousness
before God, even as he becomes the bearer of our sin. |
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We turn away from any claim to stand before
God apart from Christ's own righteous obedience, manifest
in his life and sacrifice for our sake on the cross. |
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By our union with Christ we participate in his knowledge
of the Father, given to us as the gift of faith through
the unique and authoritative witness of the Old and
New Testaments. |
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We turn away from forms of church life that
discount the authority of Scripture or claim knowledge
of God that is contrary to the full testimony of Scripture
as interpreted by the Holy Spirit working in and through
the community of faith across time. |
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By our union with Christ we participate in his love
of the Father, manifest in his obedience "even
unto death on the cross." |
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We turn away from any supposed love of God that is
manifest apart from a continual longing for and striving
after that loving obedience which Christ offers to
God on our behalf. |
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IV.
Though obscured by our sin, our union with Christ
causes his life to shine forth in our lives. This
transformation of our lives into the image of Christ
is a work of the Holy Spirit begun in this life as
a sign and promise of its completion in the life to
come. |
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By our union with Christ our lives participate in
the holiness of the One who fulfilled the Law of God
on our behalf. |
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We turn away from forms of church life that ignore
Christ's call to a life of holiness, or that seek
to pit Law and Gospel against one another as if both
were not expressions of the one Word of God. |
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By our union with Christ we participate in his obedience.
In these times of moral and sexual confusion we affirm
the consistent teaching of Scripture that calls us
to chastity outside of marriage and faithfulness within
the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman. |
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We turn away from forms of church life that fail to
pray for and strive after a rightly ordered sexuality
as the gracious gift of a loving God, offered to us
in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. We also
turn away from forms of church life that fail to forgive
and restore those who repent of sexual and other sins. |
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V.
As the body of Christ the Church has her life in Christ. |
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By our union with Christ the Church binds together
believers in every time and place. |
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We turn away from forms of church life that identify
the true Church only with particular styles of worship,
polity, or institutional structure. We also turn away
from forms of church life that ignore the witness
of those who have gone before us. |
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By our union with Christ the Church is called
out into particular communities of worship and mission. |
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We turn away from forms of church life that see the
work of the local congregation as sufficient unto
itself, as if it were not a local representation of
the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church called
together by the power of the Spirit in every age and
time until our Lord returns. |
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By our union with Christ our lives participate in
God's mission to the world: |
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to
uphold the value of every human life,
to make disciples of all peoples,
to establish Christ's justice and peace in all creation,
and to secure that visible oneness in Christ that
is the promised inheritance of every believer |
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We turn away from forms of church life that
fail to bear witness in word and deed to Christ's
compassion and peace, and the Gospel of salvation.
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By our union with Christ the Church participates in
Christ's resurrected life and awaits in hope the future
that God has prepared for her. Even so come quickly,
Lord Jesus! |
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit. |
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