No Foundation
When I was a kid, my family had a large white barn on our property. The wood frame and siding of the barn was in great condition, and we expected the barn to be around for generations. But one night a storm rolled in with intense winds. When we woke the next morning, we found the barn flattened – even though many other, older barns in the area had remained standing.
We later realized the issue. The wind had pushed the barn off its foundation. The barn had every appearance of being sturdy and secure. But when the storms came against the barn, the barn gave way to the pressure. Without a firm base to rest on, the barn was unstable and unrooted. And the outcome was devastating.
The Historical Foundation of the Christian Faith
The life lesson from this story has implications for the Christian Church. As we read the Bible in the midst of our own cultural windstorms, we must be careful that we don’t abandon our moorings. If our Faith looks more like the unchurched world than the spiritual life of our forefathers, it could be that we’ve compromised on the truth. We won’t be helped by a fickle, human-centered religion that bounces back and forth among the trendy issues of the day.
We need to humbly hold firm to the truth that God has revealed in Scripture, even if people detest us and accuse us of being bigots. Human hearts will insist that religion must change in order to be true. True religion insists that human hearts must change in order to be saved.
You can be certain that any religion you invent for yourself will not be valid. Having a vague spirituality may be pleasing to you, but there is no reason to expect that it will be pleasing to God. Mere human opinions about morality and religious experience aren’t helpful. What we desperately need is God himself to come down to our level and reveal himself to us. And this is precisely what God did through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Christianity rests upon solid ground because it rests upon divine self-revelation – not human innovation.
Practical Helps to Guard Our Faith
So we need to ask – how can we make sure that we ourselves are holding to the true Christian Faith?
First, we want to guard our minds from deadly errors. We want to know the Historical Faith that Christ’s Church has confessed throughout the centuries. Documents such as the Westminster Confession of Faith helpfully summarize biblical Christianity and are useful for making sure that we stand in continuity with our forefathers. We can also read books written by faithful Christians in previous generations, such as Saint Augustine, John Calvin, or William Perkins. We do ourselves serious disservice if we follow a couple celebrity pastors from our own age and ignore everything else, because the Church of Christ is not only a 21st century phenomenon. Knowing the stances of Historical Christianity will enable us to stand as Modern Christians.
Second, we want to guard our hearts from dead formality. Though we affirm that we have a Historical Faith, this doesn’t mean that Christianity is a stale artifact from a bygone era. The Word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4:12-13), and our God continues to act in history to guide His people to the reliable old paths – back again and again to the life-transforming Gospel of Christ.
The Historical Faith of Christianity doesn’t merely lead us into ancient traditions or into sacred propositions. This Faith teaches us to grieve over the deadly affects of our corrupt hearts. It leads us to the cross of Jesus Christ, and insists to us that Jesus died in our place. This Faith brings us to the empty tomb, and assures us that we, too, will rise to new life. This is what our Historical Faith has done throughout the ages. And this is precisely what the living God will keep on doing for as long as His good news is proclaimed.