Covenant Chinese Reformed Church

The practice of composing and proclaiming creeds (the word “creed” derives from the Latin "credo," meaning “I believe”) dates back to the very beginnings of the Church. Consequently, we find summaries of the faith of God’s covenant people in both the Old Testament (Deut. 6:4) and the New Testament (Matt. 16:16; 1 Cor. 15:3–4; Eph. 4:4–6; 1 Tim. 3:16).

At Covenant Church, we believe and profess that the ancient Christian creeds—namely, the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasius Creed, and the Three Forms of Unity, namely, the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort. These documents contain our doctrinal standards and the content of our faith. The ancient creeds connect us to the early Christian church, while the Three Forms of Unity connect us to the broad Reformed tradition of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

As a Christian church, our foundational document is the Bible, the inerrant Word of God. The fundamental beliefs of the Bible—namely, that there is one and only one God, who exists eternally as the Trinity, and that Jesus Christ, our Savior, is both true God and true man—are expressed in these three creeds by the early Christian church. The Belgic Confession states, “We wholeheartedly accept the three creeds” (Article 9), because they are ecumenical and have been accepted by the majority of Christian churches.

As a Reformed church, we belong to the churches that follow the Reformation and acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Head of His church. He rules and governs His church through His holy Word and the Holy Spirit, not through human dictatorship. Therefore, although all our clergy sign these confessions and creeds, acknowledging their full conformity with God’s Word, the authority of these documents is always subordinate to the Bible, God’s inerrant and inspired Word. It was precisely in this context that our spiritual forefathers composedthe Three Forms of Unity:the Belgic Confession,the Heidelberg Catechism,the Canons of Dort. All pastors, elders, deacons must signthe Form of Subscription上签字，承诺他们必定竭尽全力维护并传扬这些教义准则中所包含的信仰。我们所用的这份the Form of Subscription是从宗教改革时期流传下来，只有细微的修订。