A Testament of Faith

BONUM DEPOSITUM CUSTODI

In the same vein as Bl. Dr. Martin Luther who, as an appendix to his treatise That These Words of Christ, ‘This Is My Body,’ etc. Still Stand Firm (1528), undertook to write down a timeless confession of faith – even so I, Christ’s most unworthy minister, do undertake to give my theological last will and testament.

In the first place, the catholic and apostolic articles held by all members of the Church:

1. that there is one divinity (God), the sole creator of all that exists, He Himself being infinite and unchanging, immortal, good and just, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent;
2. that this God is Triune, subsisting in three divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so named by His self-revelation in Holy Scripture and so addressed in Christian worship;
3. that these three divine Persons are properly distinguished from one another by the attributes defined by the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381) striven for at great peril by the example of St. Athanasius of Alexandria: that the Father is unbegotten, the Son uncreated but begotten, the Holy Spirit neither created nor begotten but proceeding;
4. that the Father and the Holy Spirit have but a divine nature, without material body, while the Son has both divine and human natures;
5. furthermore, that Jesus the Messiah (Christ), entirely without sin, born miraculously of the virgin Mary and of the royal lineage of David, is the same Person as the Son of God, called Logos (John 1:1, 14), according to the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451): that Christ’s two natures are so united in a way that neither the divine nor human nature loses its properties but rather communicates its attributes to the other;
6. so that it may be plainly understood that Jesus the Messiah is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, while it may be said with equal clarity that the Son of God descended from David’s line (Psalm 110:1; Romans 1:3), gestated in the virgin Mary’s womb and was mothered by her, “grew in wisdom and in stature” (Luke 2:52), was anointed with the Holy Spirit, and endured both physical and psychological pains and privations culminating in His agonizing death by crucifixion and His burial by strangers in a borrowed tomb;
7. that Jesus was resurrected on the Sunday following that historic Passover feast, as witnessed by the women at the tomb and His disciples who confirmed that His same body, having had suffered scourge, piercing, and burial (John 20), is alive and no longer subject to death or suffering of any kind;
8. that Jesus, in order to “fill all things” (Ephesians 4:10), both descended into the abode of the departed, called Hades, and ascended into heaven where He intercedes before the Father as our great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14) and Mediator between God and human beings (I Timothy 2:5);
9. that Jesus will return bodily to judge the living and the dead, as professed by Christians in the Apostles’ Creed, to welcome believers into their eternal inheritance in the New Creation and to exile nonbelievers to torment in the eternal fires of Gehenna;
10. and finally, that, prior to this final consummation, Jesus speaks to His Church on earth through the Holy Scriptures as listed at Nicaea, cited as divinely inspired and inerrant (II Tim 3:16; John 10:35) by all orthodox Fathers of the Church.

In the second place, I repudiate those heresies never received by the faithful anywhere:

1. that there is no spiritual but only a material plane of existence (Strict Materialism); that there exists a plurality of divinities (Polytheism); that the material world consists of purely evil substances or some mixture of good and evil (Manicheanism);
2. that God may be addressed by any name or under any form which most pleases the worshipper (Pluralism; Mysticism; Pantheism); that human beings are capable of transcending their human nature, not merely by participation in Jesus’ divine Sonship, but by appropriating the divine nature itself (Gnosticism; Socinianism; Collectivism);
3. that within the Trinity the Son and Holy Spirit are not truly and fully God (Arianism; Pneumatomachianism), and/or are not distinct Persons (Paulianism; Modalism);
4. that the Father (Patripassianism) and/or the Holy Spirit suffered alongside the Son; that Christ had only one will as opposed to two: both human and divine (Monothelitism);
5. that Christ’s two natures communicate none of their attributes to one another (Nestorianism); that the human nature of Jesus the Messiah is absorbed by some admixture or distillation into the divine nature of the Son (Eutychianism); that apart from the suffering of Christ, human beings are able to appease God by exertion of their natural abilities (Pelagianism; Modernism); that Jesus lacked any divine attributes prior to His anointing with the Holy Spirit (Adoptionism); that Jesus the Messiah was not born of a virgin; that He had personal sin, whether actual or potential; that He redeemed humanity in such a way to render any and all human desires God-pleasing (Hedonism);
6. that Jesus’ bodily resurrection is not understood to have taken place historically (Modernism); that the anointing of the Holy Spirit departed from Jesus at His death (Mormonism); that Jesus’ physical suffering and death were an illusion (Docetism);
7. that after death there is no conscious human existence (Epicureanism); will be an end to the sufferings of those condemned to torment (Origenism; Annihilationism) and/or to the bliss of those saved in Christ; that the body is not resurrected (Sadducism); that the human spirit undergoes transmigration or reincarnation (Pythagoreanism); that before death a human being can reach a point beyond the availability of forgiveness (Novatianism);
8. and finally, that the Holy Scriptures properly read and understood are capable of error, either in their heavenly doctrine or in their worldly factual claims (Modernism). 

Finally, I repudiate those errors held by many among the faithful out of naïveté or felicitous inconsistency, which are nevertheless outside the apostolic faith and justly condemned by the visible catholic Church in her symbolic documents, namely, the Lutheran Confessions (reading them, borrowing the words of St. Francis, sine glossa): 

1. that human beings evolved as a species (Modernism); that the effects of sin, whether original or actual, resides exclusively in the human body and not spirit (Dualism); that Jesus the Messiah is present with His Church not bodily but only spiritually (Calvinism);
2. that the Holy Spirit converts and sanctifies the faithful apart from visible, external, earthly means such as the Sacraments, either internally and immediately (Enthusiasm), by virtue of an eternal decree (Calvinism), or in response to exertion of the natural abilities of human beings (Arminianism; Synergism; Revivalism); that the heavenly doctrine may be deduced by way of human reason alone (Thomism);
3. that Baptismal waters imbued with the Trinitarian formula (Matthew 28:19) lack power to regenerate and/or is not necessary for salvation (Calvinism; Anabaptism); that the bread and wine consecrated by the Words of Institution (“Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed,” etc.) are not simultaneously the substantial Body and Body of Jesus the Messiah (Sacramentarianism); that the Lord’s Supper is a propitiatory sacrifice on behalf of the living and the dead (Romanism); that the Lord’s Supper may be celebrated individually (Romanism), or may not be celebrated outside the auspices of an established congregation (Anticlericalism); that all believers possess the authority and/or functions exercised by clergy (Montanism; Waldensianism); that bishops (as distinct from priests) alone possess the authority to ordain (Episcopalianism); that a layperson may consecrate the Lord’s Supper; that women and unqualified men may be called as clergy (Gnosticism; Modernism); that ordination is an adiaphoron (Pietism); that clergy lack authority to absolve and bind sins, called the Keys (Calvinism; Enthusiasm; Pietism);
4. also that that private confession is safely omitted; that absolution from sin is secured by the faithful only after performing proper satisfaction; that temporal punishments or trials await the faithful following their departure (Origenism; Romanism); that the authority to absolve and bind sins resides exclusively in and derives from the Papal office (Romanism); that the Lord’s Supper is not a sacrifice of thanksgiving (Pietism);
5. that God predestines any human beings to eternal torment (Calvinism); that the faithful may not forfeit the Holy Spirit by way of apostasy or mortal sin (Calvinism; Anabaptism); that original sin does not remain after Baptism, or that the faithful may persist in mortal sin (Romanism); that prayers for the faithful departed are forbidden (Aerianism);
6. that, in the Apostles’ Creed, Hades does not refer to the abode of imprisoned spirits but merely Jesus’ tomb (Calvinism); that human beings forfeit their individual essences (Gnosticism; Origenism); that the human spirit lacks consciousness between death and the resurrection (Soul Sleep); that a being may not be properly called “human” while the spirit remains separated from the body (Thomism); that there is no material continuity of the human body before and after resurrection;
7. that, before Jesus the Messiah returns bodily to judge the living and the dead, He will inaugurate either one or several dispensations following this current era (Dispensationalism); that He will remove the Church on earth by way of rapture; that He will govern a visible, worldly kingdom over a literal thousand-year period (Chiliasm); that the sacrifices of the Old Testament will be reinstituted (Messianic Judaism); that following this current era, called the Church Age, some human beings may come to faith;
8. that the departed saints may be neither honoured nor commemorated; that they are to be invoked and ascribed mediatorial functions (Hagiolatry); that Mary is without personal sin, whether original or actual, and therefore did not suffer physical death (Romanism); that she is not to be called the Mother of God (Nestorianism; Pietism); that holy images are forbidden (Iconoclasm); that the consecrated bread and wine, altar, font, and other liturgical vessels are not to be honoured; that the Sign of the Cross may not be made;
9. that God has entirely removed the charisms of prophecy, miracles, and/or exorcism from the Church (Cessationism); that angelology/demonology, called the ministry of deliverance, need not be taught (Barthianism); that marriage is forbidden to clergy or that monastic vows may not be annulled (Romanism); that celibacy is of no value (Jovinianism; Hedonism); that lawful marriage undermines the virtue of chastity, or that ownership of property undermines the virtue of moderation, or holding of authority that humility, breaking a fast that of temperance, righteous anger that of meekness, social ambition that of generosity, lawful passivity that of diligence;
10. and finally, the rootstock of all sectarian belief, that the faithful may enjoy full certainty neither of the heavenly doctrine of the Holy Scriptures nor of their own personal salvation.

To this true heavenly doctrine received from Christ Jesus, my Saviour (Son of the undefiled, ever-virgin Mary, Mother of God, Handmaiden of the Lord, Rose of Sharon and Woman Crowned with the Twelve Stars), handed down by way of apostolic succession and judged by Holy Scripture alone – I, the Rev. Travis Kelly Heide, do pledge to hold fast and render an accounting for until the Day of Judgment.

To Him be all glory and dominion now and forever. Amen!