Historic Christianity

          The Covenant Church is formed on the foundation of Historic Christianity.  Untold volumes have been written on the details Christian history, but the main point to consider is the Christian faith is centered on the reality that God has revealed himself to humanity.

God has first revealed Himself through His creation.  Everything he has made points to his glory (Psalm 19:1), and all creation reveals God’s eternal power and divinity (Romans 1:20).  When we speak of our roots in historic Christianity, we are first of all recognizing that God’s handiwork can be seen in all of creation and in all of History.

God has also revealed himself and his intensions directly to people throughout the ages.  As Donald Frisk writes “ . . . in the Old Testament, God makes himself known through dreams, theophanies (appearances of the divine to human consciousness), angels, visions, voices, natural events, extraordinary happenings, the words of inspired prophets, and other ways as well.” (Covenant Affirmations, P. 17)  These special revelations have always been to call a people into a personal relationship with God.

The Christian church believes that God has revealed Himself for our time and for all people through His inspired Word:  the Bible.  The constitution of the Evangelical Covenant Church states:  “the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New Testament, is the Word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct.”  Scripture has been central to the lives and faith of all those who have truly professed faith in Christ, from the days of the first church found in the pages of the book of Acts, to those in the Christian church throughout the world today.

Finally, to all those who have, by grace, through faith, accepted his Salvation by Jesus Christ, God as revealed Himself through the gift of his Holy Spirit.  2 Peter 1:21 makes it clear that all of Scripture came from the moving of the Holy Spirit upon men.  Romans 8 shows us that it is God’s Spirit that makes believers effective for God and transforms them, both here on earth and in eternity.

When we say that Selah Covenant Church is founded on the roots of historic Christianity, we are recognizing that God has worked in the lives of people and events throughout human history to reveal Himself and to keep and preserve His Word.  Though the church is made up of people who make wrong choices and has a history full of good and bad, our church stands on the shoulders of those who have gone before us and lived out the call God has placed on their lives.  



Written and compiled by: Robert S. Nass