Confessing our Faith: What We Say about God

The General Baptist Statement on God is in two parts. The wording expresses our spiritual heritage from ancient Israel and earliest Christianity. Our statement is nearly identical to Benoni Stinson’s original (1824) which he borrowed from a United Baptist statement.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” (Deuteronomy 6:4). The Hebrew text can be variously translated (cf. NIV), but the message is the same: There is only one God.

Monotheism (from Greek mono, one, only; and theos, god) was a culturally distinctive belief, setting Israel apart from their neighbors.

When Gentiles embraced Judaism and then later Christianity, it was understood they were leaving religions of dead, mute, multiple idols (Jeremiah 10:1-15; 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10).

Only one God eliminates multiple distractions and confused loyalties. A single devotion with all the heart is demanded.

True God means leaving illusion and falsehood. One’s faith opens the door to the real world.

Living God meant personally active and responsive. Israel’s God answers prayer, responds to human conduct, and loves in faithfulness.

The Eternal God outlasts the transitory things of life. His eternity promises safety in the storm and life everlasting.

Earliest Christians experienced Jesus in visions and in prayer. They called him Lord, worshiped him, and sought to please him. This experience of Jesus and the belief in monotheism forced Christians to develop an understanding of God that was more dynamic and more complex than what was found in Judaism then or now.

Jesus simply couldn’t be reduced to the role of a human prophet or teacher, even the best or final one. (This is what some might still try to do today.) Especially, the cross couldn’t be reduced to a martyr’s death.

Salvation belongs to God alone. God had saved them. God had not sent merely a human servant (a Moses or a David) nor an angelic one (a Michael) to do the work of atonement. Only God himself could accomplish redemption. No created thing however great was able.

Likewise, the Spirit who sanctifies us, empowers us, and makes the church one is God active in our lives. The Spirit is not some lesser power or feeling. The Cross and Pentecost are acts of God.

Trinity was the word created by later Christians to describe both the “unity” of monotheism and the tri-fold experience of God in Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Our General Baptist statement follows the custom of Baptist confessions in refraining from using later non-Biblical words. The term “Godhead,” from Colossians 2:9 KJV, is used.

Scripture points to God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in diverse ways. For example, Jesus’ baptism with the Spirit and the voice witnesses to the Trinity (Mark 1:9-11).

St. Paul explained the unity of spiritual gifts with such a tri-fold reference (same Spirit, same Lord, same God; 1 Corinthians 12:4-6). Paul blessed the church with a tri-fold benediction: May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14 NIV).

As General Baptists we pray the same for each other and for all the world. For we all were baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” And we are sent as believers in this God to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19 NIV).

Dr. Douglas Low, Professor of New Testament, Chapman Seminary and OCU