Doctrinal Amplification of the
Articles of Faith
Doctrinal Amplification, written by Bishop Joseph A. Synan (1961), includes a more detailed and specific explanation of the Articles of Faith, including Scripture references. Use the Index listing at the right to view each explanation. The materials provided in this section are taken from the IPHC Manual, 1977-2001.
Introduction—Historical
The first four paragraphs in our “Articles of Faith” together with number 6 as it now appears in the present arrangement were incorporated into our Discipline (Manual) in 1929 under the above title. The remaining para-graphs of our present Articles of Faith were then carried under the title “Basis of Union,” and constituted our state-ment of faith in 1911, upon the mutual acceptance of which the Fire-Baptized and Pentecostal Holiness Churches con-solidated in that year.
In the 1941 General Conference, steps were initiated calling for a vote of the local churches authorizing the grouping of the Articles of Faith and Basis of Union under one heading as “Articles of Faith,” with a renumbering of the section accordingly and the removal of any item not specifically an article of faith. The vote was duly taken as provid-ed in “Changes in Articles of Faith,” and at the 1945 General Conference, the said changes were incorporated into the Discipline. The first four of these Articles are the same in substance as the first four “Articles of Religion” (of which there are twenty-five) of the Methodist Church, which are substantially the same as those adopted, with slight variations, by John Wesley from the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England.
Hence, it will be seen that, in the great, basic fundamentals of our faith, we stand upon common ground with a vast element of the Christian Church. In fact, our teachings about God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, sin and the atonement, the birth, death and resurrection, ascension and coming again of Christ, are in line with the great stream of doctrine and theology as stated in the various creeds and articles of faith of the evangelical Christian Church through the ages, embodying the great doctrinal statements that issued from the Protestant Reformation and the Wesleyan revival. In fact, some of our Articles are similar in thought, and in some instances identical in word, with certain sections of the his-toric Augsburg Confession. This is particularly true of the first and second Articles.
Moreover, they expand and elucidate the doctrinal tenets as set forth in the Apostles' Creed. This statement is particularly applicable to the first four of our Articles. It is in the next nine that our doctrinal distinctives appear more defi-nitely.
We shall comment upon our Articles of Faith by para-graph as they are numbered in the Manual. Please read carefully all Scripture references in the order given.
Bishop Joseph A. Synan (1961)
