Confession
Through creeds and confessions the Church has sought to preserve her sacred heritage and holy continuity with the people of God in all ages and places. The MIQRA Institute takes its place in that faithful community of those who recognize themselves to be addressed by the Holy Scriptures as Old and New Testaments, who confess that they have heard and received the voice that speaks therein, and who regard these writings and their reading as that which calls them into being as the people of God in Christ and sustains them in that calling.
The Institute affirms that scriptural theology has a supremely doxological focus and function, that theology is the response and declaration of faith that promotes the glory of God in the Church by preserving it as a community of responsible and responsive biblical readers and listeners, united in worship and witness.
While creeds and confessions safeguard Scripture’s proper hearing, they neither claim nor acquire the status of Scripture itself. In this way the Church avoids fusing and confusing her doctrines with her scriptures, neither domesticating nor institutionalizing nor hardening biblical texts into formulations of dogma that refuse humbly to expose their vulnerable, tentative, and incomplete state in the face of God’s Word.
In this way also the Church maintains her common identity as the diverse people of the one God, whose own interest in creating, reconciling, inhabiting, and preserving such a people dominates the scriptural narrative from Genesis to Revelation.
Under and alongside and within the Church which receives and responds to the Holy Word in this conviction, The MIQRA Institute affirms what the Church has always confessed, humbly submitting ourselves and our personal viewpoints to embrace the common proclamation which our faithful ancestors wisely articulated in the fourth century at Nicaea.
WE BELIEVE in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
AND in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
AND in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.
AND in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. [1]
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. [2]
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
Respecting the Bible itself, The MIQRA Institute affirms that the received canon of Holy Scripture as Old and New Testaments is the inspired revelation of the Triune God, in which writings the divine voice speaks a discernible message which those with the requisite competencies and virtues are able to receive with understanding. Further, the Institute affirms that:
- These scriptures are intrinsically worthy of reading, hearing, and obeying, which activities define the worshiping community as the people of God;
- These scriptures are inherently relevant, breathing the living voice of the living God into the lives of those who humbly listen;
- These scriptures are inexhaustibly resourceful for salvation and service, defining what it means to know God and fitting those who do for every good work;
- These scriptures are intentionally proclamational – authored meaning as divine message, intended to be propagated.
Adopted July 2005
Footnotes:
- The term “catholic” in the lower case, as used here, refers to the “universal” or “comprehensive” people of God, visible through time.
- We understand “baptism” to refer to the signifying act of identifying with the one Savior, Jesus Christ, and with the confessing community marked by that identification.