Gordon Clark: Personal Experience (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

1957. Personal Experience. The Southern Presbyterian Journal. XVI (32), 2. Dec 4

Personal Experience

In some Sabbath School material one of the writers says, "We should remember that the Christian Church did not start with a written creed or a written code of ethics. It started with an experience of Jesus Christ."

In a trivial and superficial way this is true. The early church, e.g. in Jerusalem, did not have a written creed. Of course it had the written Old Testament, and Christ had said, "The Scripture cannot be broken." But of course also it did not have the Apostles or Nicene Creed, written or unwritten.

What then is the import of the original quotation? Does it mean that we today should have no written creed? Are we to follow precisely the example of the earliest Christians, as if they could neither improve nor make mistakes? The apostolic accounts of the early churches do not give us reason to adopt such a view.

It is more likely that the Sabbath School writer meant to contrast creeds with personal experiences. The experience comes first, he says, and the creed comes later. The experience is the important thing, while the creed is at best a luxury, at worst a hindrance to spiritual life.

To consider the value of this suggestion, one must ask whether there can be a personal experience of Jesus Christ without a creed. Could the disciples have known this person in their midst, if he had not spoken and told them some things to believe? Is not the antithesis between creed and personal confrontation a false one?

Surely Christ taught the disciples that he was the Messiah, and they were supposed to believe it. He taught them that the Messiah had to die and would rise again from the dead. The disciples and the unbelieving Pharisees both had a personal experience of Jesus Christ, but the difference was precisely that the disciples believed what he said and the Pharisees did not. And if Christ had said nothing, if he had not required any belief, what would have been the use of such a dumb personal confrontation?

But the Church did not begin in the days of our Lord's humiliation. The gospel was preached before to Abraham, and we who have like faith are the children of Abraham. This old patriarch had a personal experience too. It was not a wordless experience. God told him to leave Ur of the Chaldees, and God promised to give him a land, posterity, and to make him a blessing to many nations. And Abraham believed God, and he counted it to him for righteousness. Abraham's personal experience therefore was creedal. God gave him something to believe. It is therefore a false antithesis to contrast personal experience with creeds.

And it is particularly unfortunate that the Sabbath School literature of a confessional denomination should contain disparagements of creeds. The official literature should rather emphasize the creed, explain it, defend it, and call the people to a loyal acceptance of it.

— G.H.C.