Cooper-Carter Addendum
STATEMENT REGARDING CLAUSES 5 AND 12 OF THE BIRMINGHAM AMENDED
STATEMENT OF FAITH REFERRED TO IN THE MESSAGE TO THE 1956 CONFERENCE FROM
BRETHREN C. COOPER AND J. CARTER.
We believe that Adam was made of the earth and declared to be
very good; because of disobedience to God’s law he was sentenced to return
to the dust. He fell from his very good state and suffered the consequences of
sin—shame, a defiled conscience and mortality. As his descendants, we
partake of that mortality that came by sin and inherit a nature prone to sin. By
our own actions we become sinners and stand in need of forgiveness of sins
before we can be acceptable to God. Forgiveness and reconciliation God has
provided by the offering of His son; though Son of God he partook of the same
nature—the same flesh and blood—as all of us, but did no sin. In his
death he voluntarily declared God’s righteousness; God was honoured and
the flesh shown to be by divine appointment rightly related to death. To share
in God’s forgiveness we must be united with Christ by baptism into his
death, rising from baptism dead to the past to walk in newness of life. The form
of baptism is a token of burial and of resurrection and in submitting to it we
identify ourselves with the principles established in the death of Jesus
“who died unto sin,” recognising that God is righteous in decreeing
that the wages of sin is death; and that as members of the race we are rightly
related to a dispensation of death.
In all His appointments God wills to be honoured, sanctified
and hallowed by all who approach unto Him. By His promises God sets before man a
hope of life and a prospect of resuming those relationships that are lost by
sin. With the setting forth of this hope there comes a new basis of
responsibility. Times of ignorance God overlooks but with knowledge a man
becomes an accountable and responsible creature with the obligation to believe
and obey God.
