Introducing the Belgic Confession
Rev. Angus Stewart
The Belgic Confession is a great Reformed creed that amply repays the time and effort spent in reading and studying it. In this essay, I will introduce the Belgic Confession by making six key points about it which will constitute good reasons for considering its rich teaching in subsequent articles.
1. This year is the Belgic Confession's 450th anniversary. A milestone like this is a good occasion to look at it more closely. The Belgic Confession of 1561 marks its 450th anniversary in 2011 and the King James (or Authorized) Version of 1611 celebrates its 400th anniversary this year, making the Belgic Confession fifty years older.
There were literally dozens of creeds and confessions written between the beginning of the Protestant Reformation (1517) and the Westminster Assembly (1640s), but not all of them are going strong to this day. The Belgic Confession is one of about ten to twenty of them that still are influential, living confessions in the churches. One year after it was written in French, the Belgic Confession was translated into Dutch. Soon thereafter, it was translated into German and Latin (the Confessio Belgica), and later into other languages.1 Today, the Belgic Confession is used on all continents of the world.
2. The Belgic Confession (1561) is the least well-known of our Three Forms of Unity; the others being the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) and the Canons of Dordt (1618-1619). Many are very familiar with the Heidelberg Catechism because it is preached through each year in churches of the continental Reformed tradition. The Canons of Dordt are rightly studied and honoured as the original five points of Calvinism. But the Belgic Confession is less known even in the Reformed church world.
There are at least two particular characteristics of the Belgic Confession which ought to be noted here. First, it is very personal. Its articles typically begin, "We believe ..." or "We confess ..." or, as with its first article, "We all believe with the heart and and confess with the mouth ..." Second, it is also systematic. It begins with the truth about God and Scripture (articles 1-11); then it moves to creation, providence, man and the fall (12-15); next comes Jesus Christ as the manifestation of God's grace and mercy (16-21), several key elements in our salvation (22-26) and a superb treatment of the church, including its marks, government, offices, discipline and sacraments (27-35), before concluding with articles on the magistrates (36) and the last judgement (37). In other words, the Belgic Confession is arranged, more or less, in the order of a systematic theology: God (theology), man (anthropology), Christ (Christology), salvation (soteriology), church (ecclesiology) and last times (eschatology).
3. The Belgic Confession was written, as its title indicates, in what we now call Belgium. Belgium is known for its brussel sprouts, waffles and chocolate. Two famous cartoons come from Belgium: the Smurfs and Tin Tin. Belgium has more castles per square mile than any country in the world. Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo (1815), which is in Belgium.
But what about Belgium religiously? What do we know about the church of Jesus Christ in Belgium? If I were to speak of Switzerland, you would think of Zwingli, Calvin and the church at Geneva. Germany might suggest to you Martin Luther and his great courage at the Diet of Worms. You would come up with various Christian leaders and events in connection with the various parts of the British Isles or with the United States, but what about Belgium?
Within the modern period, Belgium has been a very Roman Catholic country but today, with the promotion of humanism, it is a very secular country. Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union, is in Belgium. Euthanasia was legalized in 2002 in Belgium; homosexual marriage was legalized in 2003 in Belgium.
However, Belgium has a significant place in Reformed history. The first two Reformation martyrs were from Belgium: Henry Voes, who was just 24-years old, and John Esch. They were executed in Brussels (the capital city of Belgium, as we now know it) on 1 July, 1523. Voes and Esch were monks in an Augustinian monastery in which the writings of Martin Luther became popular. These two men went out and preached the gospel of righteousness by faith alone and were martyred for the Word of God. Luther wrote a little song about these first two Reformation martyrs. The third Reformation martyr, Lambert Thorn, was also probably from Brussels in Belgium.
A famous English Reformer was also executed in Belgium. William Tyndale was martyred there in 1536 and Tyndale's Bible translation was very influential in our Authorized Version of 1611. Tyndale was burned at the stake in Vilvoorde near the castle where he had been imprisoned, a few miles to the north of Brussels.
Belgium was once filled with Protestant cities. Brussels itself was once a Protestant city. The civil magistrates of Antwerp, Bruges and Ghent also declared for the Reformation. Dunkirk, now in France and famous for the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force in World War II, was Protestant. Ypres, an important battle site in World War I, was Reformed as was Tournai, also known as Doornik.2
However, the Holy Roman Emperors, Charles V and Philip II, persecuted and slaughtered tens of thousands of Protestants in Belgium. Some of those who survived fled west into England or east to Germany; others moved north into (what eventually became) the Netherlands. Some of the Roman Catholics in the Netherlands moved south, so the Netherlands ended up mostly Protestant and Belgium became mostly Roman Catholic, for the Protestants who remained were either killed or forced to embrace Romanism.
At the Reformation, there were more Protestants slain in the Lowlands or Low Countries (roughly equivalent to today's Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) than any other part of Europe. In fact, some have reckoned that there were more Protestants killed in the Lowlands than there were Christians martyred in the early church by the Roman Empire.
Things have changed a great deal in historically-Christian Europe. Now the Roman Catholic countries of Europe are becoming increasingly secular and the Protestant countries are becoming more secular and Roman Catholic. Brussels, which once was a Protestant city and has been Roman Catholic for centuries, is now the headquarters of the secular European Union. It is said that these days there are more Muslim babies born in the maternity wards in Brussels than children born to indigenous Belgians.
4. The Belgic Confession is a martyr's creed. Its author, Guido de Brès, was tried before the Spanish Inquisition, received the death penalty and was martyred by hanging in Valenciennes (1522-31 May, 1567). Thus he sealed this confession, which he wrote a few years before, with his own blood. Many of those people for whom the Belgic Confession was written, who read and believed it, were martyred too.
The spirit of martyrdom even marks the Confessio Belgica itself. Article 37 on "The Last Judgement" contains these lines:
But on the contrary, the faithful and elect shall be crowned with glory and honour; and the Son of God will confess their names before God His Father and His elect angels; all tears shall be wiped from their eyes; and their cause, which is now condemned by many judges and magistrates as heretical and impious, will then be known to be the cause of the Son of God. And for a gracious reward, the Lord will cause them to possess such a glory as never entered into the heart of man to conceive. Therefore we expect that great day with a most ardent desire, to the end that we may fully enjoy the promises of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus.
This was the "cause" which the Holy Roman Emperors, Charles V and Philip II, the bloody Duke of Alva and Margaret of Parma (Philip II’s sister) sought to stamp out and overthrow. But this cause, "which is now condemned by many judges and magistrates as heretical and impious" and for which de Brès and many Reformed believers in the Low Countries died, will on the last day "be known to be the cause of the Son of God" who will graciously reward His "faithful and elect [who] shall be crowned with glory and honour."3 It is our cause too!
5. Our Belgic Confession was explicitly approved by John Calvin, Theodore Beza (Calvin's successor in Geneva) and the church at Geneva.
Guido de Brès spent five years in England where Martin Micronius, Martin Bucer, and John a Lasco were his fellow Reformed workers. He also spent some time learning the Reformed faith in Switzerland. He was trained in Lausanne under Beza and then he went for a year to Geneva, where he attended the lectures of John Calvin. We also have a record of a letter from Calvin to de Brès.
As well as studying under Calvin for a year and corresponding with Calvin, we know that de Brès owned at least some of Calvin's books, for works by Calvin were in de Brès' library which the civil authorities in Tournai discovered in a garden shed and burned. Thus the ties between Guido de Brès and Calvin are very strong.
Also the Belgic Confession (1561) leans heavily for order, content and wording on the French Confession, which was written in 1559, being drafted by John Calvin for the French Reformed churches. When de Brès penned his confession, he used the French Confession, took some things out, put other things in, reworked material, changed things, developed things, etc. So not only was our Belgic Confession written by a man who studied at Geneva for a year, corresponded with Calvin and read Calvin's books but also it was based on a confession which Calvin drafted! No wonder one can sense the flavour of Calvin in the Confessio Belgica!
In a letter to someone either in or from the Lowlands, John Calvin actually wrote about the Belgic Confession, which evidently he had read: "In your confessional statement [i.e., the Belgic Confession] we have not noticed anything which does not agree with the holy oracles of God and the orthodox faith. Therefore, we willingly approve the summary of doctrine contained it."4
What a high endorsement from the Genevan Reformer! He "willingly approves" the Belgic Confession, not finding in it "anything which does not agree with the holy oracles of God and the orthodox faith." Of course, for de Brès was a student of Calvin's and he was leaning heavily on the French Confession which Calvin drafted!
Notice too that Calvin's letter does not use the first person singular, "I," but the first person plural, "we." As Nicolaas Gootjes observes, "Calvin wrote this letter in the name of the brothers of Geneva and throughout used the 'we' form." Gootjes continues, "As Calvin wrote his advice on behalf of the ministers of Geneva, his letter means an official stamp of approval from the entire minister's council of Geneva on the Belgic Confession."5
Later, it was decided to send the Belgic Confession to Geneva to be printed on a larger scale. There were many Reformed publishers in Geneva in those days, especially because of the demand for Calvin's transcribed sermons and his other theological works. These and other books were then disseminated throughout Europe. But the Reformed Christians in the Lowlands not only appreciated the quality printers in Geneva; they wanted the Belgic Confession printed in the capital of Reformed Christendom with the theological imprimatur of Theodore Beza, Calvin's successor, and the Genevan consistory! Sure enough, in 1566, two years after Calvin's death, the Belgic Confession was printed in Geneva with the approval of Beza and the venerable company of Genevan pastors.
6. The Belgic Confession is the most antithetical Reformed creed against the Anabaptists out of all the dozens of confessions and catechisms written in the Reformation era. All the Protestant creeds, of course, directly and indirectly opposes Romanism and other false systems of doctrine, but the Belgic Confession is the one which most polemicizes against the Anabaptists. It refers to the Anabaptists by name some three times, while many other times it refutes their tenets without naming them.
Why is it that the Belgic Confession is the Reformed creed most opposed to the Anabaptists? The first thing we should note is that there were a lot of Anabaptists in the Lowlands, far more, for instance, than in France which was much larger. Also, one of the leading Anabaptists, Menno Simon (1496-1561), after whom the Mennonites are named, was from the Low Countries.
Second, the Roman Catholics accused the Reformed party of being Anabaptists. Still fresh in public memory were two major Anabaptist revolts which resulted in wholesale slaughter: the Peasants' War mostly in the southern, western and central areas of what is now Germany (1524-1525) and the Münster Rebellion in north-western Germany (1534-1535). The Anabaptist radicals took over the city of Münster, led by the two Johns, John of Haarlem and John of Leiden. They burned all books except the Bible and called Münster the "New Jerusalem." Soon over 1,000 adults were rebaptized. On Easter Sunday in April 1534, John of Haarlem, who had prophesied that God's judgement would come on the wicked that day, made a sally with only thirty followers, believing that he was a second Gideon, but he was killed with his entire band. John of Leiden was subsequently installed as an absolute ruler and the successor of King David! He legalized polygamy and took sixteen wives, justifying his actions with visions from heaven. The Münster Anabaptists also practised community of goods, which meant, of course, that John of Leiden became very rich. Anyone who would not submit to the new regime was put to death by the sword. But soon John of Leiden also was dead. Huge forces of Roman Catholics surrounded the city and eventually took it back. So to be accused as an Anabaptist was to be viewed as a revolutionary and a nut case, and the Reformed saints in the Lowlands, understandably, did not want to be lumped with them. Thus Guido de Brès in the Confessio Belgica is saying, in effect, "No, we disagree with Anabaptist views; we are not Anabaptists at all; we oppose the Anabaptists as much as Rome does and even more so." In other words, the Belgic Confession repeatedly and explicitly opposes the Anabaptists in order to put clear blue water between the Reformed and the Anabaptists, and not only in matters political and social but also, and even primarily, doctrinally.
Of course, not all Anabaptists were as crazy as those of Münster. There were various bodies of Anabaptists in Switzerland, Germany, the Lowlands, etc. There were different groups at different places at different times and they differed in their theological views to some degree and so a certain amount of care is needed in representing their teaching.
Some of the Anabaptists believed in a very radical form of world flight. Today, one thinks especially of the Amish and the Hutterites. Traditional Anabaptist belief is that it is sinful to take an oath or make a vow (or, as they would put it, oaths are not part of the perfection that is in Christ). This creates problems over church membership vows or wedding vows or oaths in a court of law—issues involving church, family and state. Earlier I mentioned two Anabaptist rebellions in which they revolted and were slaughtered, for "they who take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matt. 26:52). However, the vast majority of Anabaptists (especially after these two horrendous rebellions) were pacifists and they believed that it was wrong to be in an army or to fight for the state. Yet when John the Baptist was asked by soldiers what bearing "fruits worthy of repentance" would mean for them, he replied, "Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages" (Luke 3:14). The Lord's forerunner did not say, "Oh, you can't be a believer and a soldier. You must quit the military." Being a soldier is a lawful calling for a Christian, but the Anabaptists denied this and forbade their members the office of civil magistrate.
The world flight idea has led some Anabaptists to the notion that modern technology is evil. The Amish, for example, drive around in buggies (horses and carts), not cars. Electricity, computers and the internet are of the "world." This idea of keeping oneself physically separate from various material things (which are morally neutral in themselves) runs contrary to I Timothy 4:4-5: "For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer."
This suspicion of material/physical things led some Anabaptists around the time of the Belgic Confession to a heretical view of the Lord Jesus Christ's human nature and especially its origin. That belongs, however, to a study of Belgic Confession 18.
What are some of the other traits of the Anabaptists? They had a wrong ecclesiology, with erroneous ideas on church offices, church government and church discipline. Thus, for example, the Anabaptist view of the "ban" differs from the Reformed teaching on excommunication and serves their divisive idea of a "pure church."
Of course, the Anabaptists were baptistic. This is the origin and meaning of their name: they were rebaptizers. Those who were baptized as infants had to be baptized again. The mode of baptism came to be seen by the Anabaptists as only immersion, by which they meant total immersion in water and total emersion out of water.
Earlier I said that John of Haarlem and John of Leiden of the Münster Rebellion claimed direct revelation from God. Many other Anabaptists did too. In today's terminology, they were pentecostals or charismatics and not cessationists.
Some Anabaptists taught soul sleep. Moving from individual eschatology to general eschatology, the Münster rebellion arose out of millennial notions of a literal kingdom on earth. This false eschatology is a pointer to the Anabaptist hermeneutic of literalism, especially a literalistic interpretation of Old Testament prophecy and the book of Revelation. This stands in opposition to the Reformed hermeneutic of Scripture explaining Scripture, with its corollary of the New Testament interpreting the Old Testament. Moreover, Bible interpretation is to be within the (orthodox) tradition of the church and in keeping with the ecumenical and Reformed creeds. The Anabaptists, however, sought church "restoration" (not reformation), believing that it had gone badly astray upon the death of the apostles and especially through gaining approval from the Roman Empire in the days of Constantine the Great. The Anabaptists had little truck with the creeds and did not hold the Reformed teaching on the development of doctrine.
In all my research, I have not found a single Anabaptist who held to the doctrines of sovereign grace; they were all to a man Arminian. They all clung to the heresy of free will, that fallen man is not totally depraved but retains a certain ability to choose God and the good, and so they all opposed sovereign predestination and irresistible grace.6 Flowing from this, it is easy to see why the Anabaptists did not glory in the gospel of justification by faith alone, unlike the Protestants. The truth is that man is justified by faith alone, not by the right exercise of free will! This failure to appreciate the significance of gracious justification is related to their legalist and world flight notions.7
Why is it important for us to study the Belgic Confession today given its anti-Anabaptist polemic? Think about it! The Anabaptists were immersionist baptists and Arminian free-willers believing that God loves everybody and wants to save everybody. They were non-creedal and held to a literalistic hermeneutic and an erroneous ecclesiology, including lay preaching. Most, if not all, Anabaptists were charismatic (i.e., non-cessationist) and millennialist. Does this not sound familiar in today's church world?
Currently, most professing Christians and churches that are not Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or liberal Protestant are not really Protestant (though they might go under this name) but are Anabaptist (though they may not even have heard of them)! Are not most contemporary evangelicals non-creedal, with very little interest in sound doctrine? Do not most of them hold all or most of the following views: Arminian free-willism and free-offerism, charismaticism, baptist immersionism, literalistic dispensationalism? These doctrines are not in the line of the Reformation but in the line of Anabaptism!
At the Reformation, broadly speaking, there were three groups: the Romanists, the Protestants and the Anabaptists. The Reformers said, "Rome on the right is wrong and the Anabaptists on the left are wrong." Some of the Reformers, like Zwingli, even said that the Anabaptists with their charismatic and Arminian views, their disregard for the history of the church and its government, their world flight, etc., were worse than the Romanists! In the twenty-first century, most of non-liberal Protestantism and most who would call themselves evangelicals are actually Anabaptist!
No wonder, evangelicals are "rediscovering" Anabaptism and showing great sympathy towards it! We, on the other hand, need to grow in the Reformed faith over against the prevalent Anabaptist ideas of both the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries. Our Belgic Confession is particularly relevant today!