What Is the Westminster Confession of Faith?

May 14, 2025/Campbell Markham/Faith

Photo Credit: A meeting of the Westminster Assembly on 21 February 1644; from Wikimedia Commons. Click on this link for annotations of those present at the meeting (Please note: the painting depicts many individuals who were not members of the Assembly, because when issues of particular interest were debated, non-members would attend as spectators).

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Every church has a statement of faith, a summary of the church’s basic beliefs about the Bible, God, Jesus Christ, humanity, and salvation.

The Apostles’ Creed, which our church aims to recite together at least monthly, is a brief statement of faith that Christians have been saying since the second-century AD. (Creed comes from the Latin verb credo which means “I believe.”)

“We believe the Bible, that’s all,” can have a lot of different meanings.

Some say that we don’t need statements of faith: “We believe the Bible, that’s all.” The problem is that many anti-Christian cults—such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormons—also “believe in the Bible.” But though they use the same Bible words that are familiar and precious to Christians—God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, atonement, redemption, resurrection, heaven—the meaning that they attach to these words is very different to what the Bible means by these words, and to what right-thinking Christians have believed from the first.

Other churches have claimed that they have “No creed but Christ.” But of course this four-word statement is a creed. And it provokes a vital question: “What do you mean by Christ?” Who is he? What is his nature? or natures? What exactly did he do?

To avoid such confusions and omissions, each church must state exactly what it believes.

Brevity in statements of belief allows much more scope for vague or even erroneous beliefs.

Many churches and Christian organizations opt for a ten-or-so-point statement of belief which aims to cover the main terms of Christian thought, with brief definitions that exclude serious misconstrual of these terms. The nine point “Doctrinal Basis” of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES) is a good example of this.

Though brief creeds like these are inclusive—Christians from virtually any denominational background may agree to them—that same brevity allows much more scope for vague or even erroneous beliefs. You could, as contract lawyers like to say, “drive a truck through it.”

The second “fundamental truth” of the AFES statement, for example, asserts “The unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Godhead.” Though true, this says nothing about the coexistence and coeternality of the three persons of the Trinity. It fails then to exclude the anti-Christian heresy of modalism: that there is only one person in the godhead who appears at different times and places as either the Father, Son, or Spirit.

This is where our Christian forebears have provided a tremendous blessing to us.

The Protestant Reformers labored to carefully define and explain true and orthodox Christian belief via confessions of faith, catechisms, and theological instruction books.

From the early sixteenth century, pastor-theologians like Martin Luther in Wittenberg, Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich, and the Frenchman John Calvin in Geneva protested against the terrible corruption and false and superstitious beliefs of medieval Roman Catholicism and labored to reform the church back to the beliefs and practices of the Bible.

These Protestant Reformers labored to carefully define and explain true and orthodox Christian belief in comprehensive statements of faith, in question-and-answer teaching tools called catechisms, and in books of theological instruction.

Thus, Luther wrote a Small Catechism in 1529 in order to teach children the basics about the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the sacraments. And in 1536 Calvin published his world-changing textbook, the Institutes of the Christian Religion.

A magnificent statement of doctrine, the Westminster Confession of Faith, takes a little under an hour to read.

Fast forward a century, in 1643 the British Parliament appointed a synod of 121 eminent pastor-theologians to thoroughly revise the doctrine and practice of the Church of England. Meeting at first in Westminster Abbey, it became known as the Westminster Assembly.

Over a period of five years the Assembly wrote a number of learned, careful, useful, and resilient documents, including a Directory for the Public Worship of God (1644) to regulate the practice of the church, and a magnificent statement of doctrine, the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646).

It also produced two doctrinal teaching tools. The exquisite Westminster Shorter Catechism (1648) contains 107 short questions and answers designed to teach “those of weaker capacity” —children and novices—the basics of Christian thought. Question and Answer 1 is, outside of the Bible, one of the most exhilarating statements of Christian belief ever written:

What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.

The Westminster Larger Catechism (1648) contains 196 rather long questions and answers. It aimed to be “a rich treasure for increasing knowledge among the people of God.” Anyone who takes the time and effort to read and study it will not be disillusioned.

The Confession of Faith itself contains 186 paragraphs and at least 205 distinct statements of doctrine. It is divided into thirty-three chapters and takes a little under an hour to read.

Drawing on the rich heritage of the Reformation, the Confession is a fiercely accurate and lucid summation of Calvinist theology—indeed of Christianity itself.

If at all possible, every Christian should read and become familiar with the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms.

In the Presbyterian Church of Australia pastors and elders are asked this important question at their ordination, which I have abbreviated in order to make a point:

Do you own and accept the Westminster Confession of Faith…as an exhibition of the sense in which you understand the Holy Scriptures and as a confession of your faith, and do you engage firmly and constantly to adhere thereto, and to the utmost of your power to assert, maintain and defend the same?

The point? The elders of your church—and a pastor is a teaching elder—solemnly declare not to veer off onto trails of their own whims and ideas, but to stay upon the straight and level doctrinal railway tracks of the Confession. And given that we solemnly affirm the Confession “as an exhibition of the sense in which we understand the Holy Scriptures,” this means, ultimately, that we vow to teach the Bible in accordance with the truth of the Bible itself.

Your pastors and elders vow to teach nothing more or less than biblical Christianity. Given the prevalence and danger of false teaching, I strongly urge everyone in our church to read and become familiar with our Confession and Catechisms. You will be blessed! And unceasingly pray, and ardently demand, that your pastors and elders continue to teach only “what accords with sound doctrine” (Tit. 2:1).

This article is adapted from “This Is What Presbyterians Believe, the Westminster Confession of Faith” at campbellmarkham.substack.com.