Exposition by Max A Forsythe
Question 4:
Q: What is God?
A: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
Only the fool in his heart says that there is no God! I sometimes wonder if those hopeless fools are to be more pitied than that portion of the population who freely admits there is a God, but then go on to live as if He didn't exist. Last week we considered the required beliefs and duties of those people who know God. Certainly, our God is a God of grace, but is there really any use in saying He exists, when any and all duties are ignored? This is an important point which we shall examine in due time. But first today we must consider what we can know of the only God in all of creation who tells us that there is none other besides Himself!
This week our local paper printed a story about a science teacher in Toledo whose job is on the line because he expects too much of his students. Good grief the paper pointed out that he expected the students to take notes, average fifteen minutes of homework each night and actually study before the tests so that he would know if they had learned something! So that the whole literate world might know the tragedy being acted out by the Toledo school board, the case has been presented to the watching world for its evaluation. What little does the average reader really know about the situation? Not much I suppose, actually the article was kind of neutral and even fair handed. The students who thrived in his classes simply said that they were passing because they did the home work, went to class, took notes and studied them! Actually, he was quite a cool teacher once they got to know him and learned how to please him. Many parents however were scandalized and thought that their precious children had been traumatized and their self concept trashed from the low grades that had been given to the vast majority.
Now, take the public reaction to this news item and multiply it a hundred fold as a comparison of how people might react to our totally awesome God in heaven if they knew Him half as well as the students and parents in our news story knew the hard nosed teacher in Toledo! Who is God and what does the general public really need to know about Him? If they knew more about Him and His expectations, would they take their life more seriously and seek to know Him better? They should, because unlike students in public schools, not everyone is guaranteed a passing grade in salvation! In fact being graciously given a D- in salvation should be considered cause for eternal joy and celebration!
95% of the population believe in God, but you had better not ask them too much about the grand "old man" that most believe in because they do not even know the half of it. We know much more of course, but what would you have to say to a person who might ask you for an introduction? Let us spend the rest of our time putting together the essential lessons of Who and What He is so that we can be better prepared to give answer for the hope that has been put within us by God's Holy Spirit.
Let us begin with the first phrase of our confession before us today: "God is a Spirit". Let us be careful but definite in our definition here. Very many people today would like to think that this means that god is the spirit of the universe much as our soul inhabits our body. This is not the case. A.A. Hodge carefully tells us that God "is a personal spirit, distinct from - though intimately associated with - the subjects he governs." God is separate from all that He has created and the Church has long maintained with Thomas Watson that "God is an immaterial substance, of a pure, subtile, unmixed essence, not compounded of body and soul, without all extension of [any] parts. To that A.A. Hodge would add "without bodily parts or passions". This word passion we could translate as emotions.
This is an important point which Paul and the Westminster Assembly emphasize from the solid report in Acts 14:15 "We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from those worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them." The King James phrases it a little better: "we also are men of like passions with you". These passions are different from the "active principles" described by R.L. Danby "which must not be conceived of as emotions, in the sense of ebbing and flowing accesses of feeling". These "active principles" which the Scriptures describe with emotional terms "lack that agitation and rush, that change from cold to hot, and hot to cold, which constitute the characteristics of passion in us." These principles Danby continues, are "in God an ineffable, fixed, peaceful, unchangeable calm." For this reason, Paul and Barnabas are correct in assuring the citizens of Lystra that as humans just like them, they are not worthy of worship. No indeed, worship must be kept for God alone.
Having set aside God's possession of passionate emotions, and any pantheistic notions of God being part of creation, we can now focus on His spiritual nature which we are enjoined by the Apostle John to worship in spirit and in truth. This all-perfect spiritual nature may be known by the attributes which God in His kindness have revealed to us through His word. This brings us to the rest of the Catechism definition: God as a Spirit is "infinite, eternal, and unchangeable". The infinity of His being means that He exists apart from all the limitations the material universe within which we exist. That He is eternal removes Him from the time limitations that we know as well. Finally, He is unchangeable in His principles. As the author of Hebrews well notes, He is the same yesterday, today and for ever!
These three adjectives are only a small part of a complex sentence. In the last half of our confessional answer there are seven concepts which the three adjectives all apply to in equal fashion. Thomas Watson goes on for more than sixty pages savoring each adjective and concept in such minute detail that our contemporary society would rebel much as those students in Toledo rejected their teaching. Let us look briefly at the seven characteristics which the Westminster Assembly cataloged: There is "being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth."
The small commentary that John Gerstner edited notes that in this list there is not only greatness but goodness as well. When ever we sing the hymn "How great Thou Art", we ought also to remember "How good Thou Art" as well! To focus only on His greatness is to miss half the story and vice versa. How many churches there are that emphasize the goodness of God revealed fully in the New Testament but then fail to understand the absolutely awesome greatness pictured for us in the Old Testament which necessitates the goodness revealed in Christ Jesus. "Power, holiness and justice" are not just idle concepts. After all we are dealing with a God who is absolute in His power, holiness and justice! How many people would cringe and whine before a merciless dictator begging for their very life. Yet, here is one who not only can kill the body, but separate the body and soul and dispose of them as He well pleases for all eternity. Believe me there is too little fear of our awesome God in our day and time. On the great and last day, will those who know Him not bring a petition demanding freedom from His eternal justice? Only a fool, let me clarify that, only a "darned" fool would consider such a folly if it were even possible.
Of course we have to remember that we live in a society where a commentator of the stature of Andy Rooney can almost see his career ruined for mentioning the fact that it would be foolish to expose oneself to AIDs! We had an assembly once where one of my students complained that the principle couldn't use the words Jesus and sin in public. He wanted out and felt he was entitled to a lawyer! Another time, parents objected to our school teaching Edgar Allen Poe's story The Pit & the Pendulum in an English class. I had to write a letter to the editor explaining that the story was written by an alcoholic who used the pendulum of time and the yawning pit to warn people that life is short and there were many deep dark dangerous holes to be fallen into. At the end of the story there is a messianic deliverance of the character at the last minute. I concluded my letter by noting that it had been a long time since we had been allowed to tell people about the Messiah who could save, and asked if we were no longer supposed to tell our charges that someday you're going to die and there are bad places you can fall into? That pretty much ended the public forum on that topic. Even so, people do not want to hear the bad news because if there is no bad knew, they don't need the good news!
Like the counselor to Job in our passage from the earliest book in the Old Testament, how can people know the mysteries of God. It is by God's good pleasure. In Job 12: 13 Job affirms that "to God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his." This the worldly always try to forget and in doing so they miss the "goodness and truth" from being known by God and end up being cursed instead as Moses well notes in our passage from Exodus. This is the great tragedy for so many over the course of history. They may believe in a god who is not the God of heaven. They may even believe in the God of heaven but have no portion of His Spirit in them.
May we all here assembled be eternally grateful that God's Spirit has convicted us of sin. In our realized fear of the awesome Holy One who cannot tolerate any and all sin, may we better appreciate the divine goodness of God's plan to save us through His only Son Jesus Christ so that we may today and all days worship the only Triune God in spirit and in truth.
Resources Used:
Gerstner, John H. A Guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith.
Green, James B. A Harmony of the Westminster Presbyterian Standards.
Hodge, A.A. The Confession of Faith.
(PCA) The Confession of Faith: The Shorter Catechism.
Watson, Thomas. A Body of Divinity, 10 Commandments & Lord's Prayer
Places Preached:
Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian Church in America)
Box 132049 -- Columbus, OH 43213-8049
WSC004 05 May 96
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