SECOND LONDON BAPTIST CONFESSION OF FAITH 2.1 (Part 4)
Truth for Life • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 2 viewsNotes
Transcript
-Our culture likes to blur the lines between light and dark, good and evil. In a world where there is no absolute truth, it doesn’t want to label anything or anyone as right or wrong—rather, it likes to sit in a morally grey area.
-Thinking of my love of Star Wars, we know in those series there are the Jedi who represent the light side and the Sith who represent the dark side. But within that lore there is something called the grey Jedi who hover somewhere in the middle of Jedi and Sith, light and dark.
-Our world likes to think that this is a reflection of reality, including the reality of God. The world does not want a God of light who is morally righteous. It would rather have a grey god that sits on fences and does not take a firm stand on righteousness or lawlessness. But that is not the God that truly exists—the God of Scripture.
-Scripture tells us some wonderful things about God, and these truths are summarized for us in creeds and confessions. These creeds and confessions are useful tools for compacting truth for us in ways that we are able to understand. We have been looking at what the Second London Baptist Confession (which agrees in many ways with the Westminster Confession) says about God, and we want to continue that...
Confessing the Faith: The 1689 Baptist Confession for the 21st Century (II. God and the Holy Trinity)
The Lord our God is one, the only living and true God. He is self-existent and infinite in being and perfection. His essence cannot be understood by anyone but Him. He is a perfectly pure spirit. He is invisible and has no body, parts, or changeable emotions. He alone has immortality, dwelling in light that no one can approach. He is unchangeable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, in every way infinite, absolutely holy, perfectly wise, wholly free, completely absolute. He works all things according to the counsel of His own unchangeable and completely righteous will for His own glory. He is most loving, gracious, merciful, and patient. He overflows with goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. He rewards those who seek Him diligently. At the same time, He is perfectly just and terrifying in His judgments. He hates all sin and will certainly not clear the guilty.
-There is so much in just that one paragraph, and we have been plugging along at a seeming snails pace, but God is obviously an immense subject. I want to pick up where it says that God is absolutely holy. In a most literal sense it means that God is OTHER—meaning that God has a unique existence which is shared with no one else. There is nothing that is comparable with God. No spiritual being and no physical being even comes close to being like God.
11 Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, fearful in praises, working wonders?
- The question is asked WHO IS LIKE GOD and the answer given is nothing and nobody. God is just so other. But there is another sense to the term holy, and it more often refers to being set apart or separate. Most specifically, God is set apart and separate from sin. Holiness refers to God’s moral perfection. There is no grey area with God. There is right and there is wrong, there is good and there is evil, there is light and there is dark, and God alone exists in pure right, pure good, pure light. God cannot in any way be intermixed with that which goes against His moral standard because He is the standard.
-These two explanations of holiness are declared throughout Scripture, but we think especially of the few peeks of heaven we get:
3 They called out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies! His majestic splendor fills the entire earth!”
8 Each one of the four living creatures had six wings and was full of eyes all around and inside. They never rest day or night, saying: “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God, the All-Powerful, Who was and who is, and who is still to come!”
-The word Holy is used to represent God’s perfection, and it is repeated three times for eternal emphasis and for the Holiness of each member of the Trinity. But God is not only holy, the confession also states that He is perfectly wise. This is spoken of more later in the confession, but it goes beyond just meaning that God knows everything. It also means that God will always use knowledge to bring about the best end. A.W. Tozer wrote:
“Wisdom, among other things, is the ability to devise perfect ends and to achieve those ends by the most perfect means. It sees the end from the beginning, so there can be no need to guess or conjecture. Wisdom sees everything in focus, each in proper relation to all, and is thus able to work toward predestined goals with flawless precision.”
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how unfathomable his ways!
-God is holy and His being and ways are separate from sin. God is wise and is able to devise the perfect ends and bring about those perfect ends. The confession goes on to say that God is wholly free. This means that there is nothing that exists that can hinder His actions. God is free to choose and do whatever He so wills. Now, we say this with the caveat that God never does anything that goes against His nature or character. We also note that God sometimes allows things to happen that we might not like, but according to His wisdom it will bring about the greatest outcome later down the road. But within His holiness, God can choose to do whatever He so desires and there is no one who is able to stop Him from doing it.
3 Our God is in heaven. He does whatever he pleases.
-This is not like us. We may have our plans and purposes and desires, but there are so many things in the world that frustrate us from achieving those goals, and so we are not free to do everything we want. It might be a physical limitation. It might be a limitation in resources. Sometimes other people are a source of frustration. We are not free to do whatever because we are limited beings with limited resources. But God has no limitations, and there is nothing more powerful than Him. God is free to do whatever He pleases.
-Connected with this characteristic is the following sentence where it says HE WORKS ALL THINGS ACCORDING TO THE COUNSEL OF HIS OWN UNCHANGEABLE AND COMPLETELY RIGHTEOUS WILL FOR HIS OWN GLORY. That in itself is a lot to unpack. First, it tells us that God is at work. God is not a sleeping grandpa letting the kids run wild in the house. Or another metaphor might be that God is not letting the lunatics run the asylum (although with the news the way it is it might seem like it). God is not inactive, but He is always working out His will. This includes all things. This does not mean necessarily that God causes all things to happen, but that He is able to work with all things to bring about His purposes. There is nothing that is outside of God’s control or outside of His power. God is able to work all things, no matter what they are, toward the goal of His purposes.
28 And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose,
-God is working with all things, and He has the power to so move them to fulfill His will. We might consider this sovereignty of God. According to Wayne Grudem, this is God’s sovereignty:
Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Bible Doctrine Explanation and Scriptural Basis > Chapter 16: God’s Providence: If God Controls All Things, How Can Our Actions Have Real Meaning? What Are the Decrees of God?
God is continually involved with all created things in such a way that he (1) keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them; (2) cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do; and (3) directs them to fulfill his purposes.
10 who announces the end from the beginning and reveals beforehand what has not yet occurred; who says, ‘My plan will be realized, I will accomplish what I desire;’
-God is able to use free creatures to bring about His will. It says that His will is His own. God does not seek to fulfill anybody else’s will but His own. No one is able to impose their own will on God (although, we know they sure try). It says that God’s will is unchangeable. We have mentioned before that in His nature and character God is unchangeable—God does not change. However, this is extended to His will. God has a plan and purpose, and God is not going to deviate from it one bit. Every day I have an idea in my head what I want to accomplish in that day, but due to some circumstances within my control and other circumstances that are beyond my control, my plans for the day usually deviate in some way. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. But not God’s plans. God’s plans always stay on target—they do not change, they never deviate from the course.
-It says that God’s will and plans are completely righteous. Because God Himself is righteous, whatever He wills follows suit. In fact, His will is based on all His perfections, and it is done for the purpose of His glory.
4 The Lord has worked everything for his own ends— even the wicked for the day of disaster.
-This might be a hard pill to swallow, but even the destruction of the wicked will bring God glory because His full justice and righteousness and holiness are on display. On the one hand, we are told that God does not delight in the death of the wicked. We are also told that God does not want people to perish but that they should come to repentance. Yet, on the other hand, those who will not repent and believe are still in their sins, and because of His holiness God cannot endure sin in His full presence, so the wicked with their sin receive His just wrath, and that is according to His will and it brings Him glory. Even though God gave them a chance to repent and believe, they would not.
13 Woe to them! For they have fled from me! Destruction to them! For they have rebelled against me! I want to deliver them, but they have lied to me.
-But I want to make you think of one last consideration of that sentence: HE WORKS ALL THINGS ACCORDING TO THE COUNSEL OF HIS OWN UNCHANGEABLE AND COMPLETELY RIGHTEOUS WILL FOR HIS OWN GLORY. Knowing God’s character, we know that everything is going to work out for the ultimate, eternal good. God is working things toward a goal, and if we are one of His children, we are part of that goal and we are a tool by which He uses to bring that goal about. If we were perfect, we would desire nothing but whatever God has planned and would align everything in our lives with that goal. But we are not perfect and we still have these desires within us that sometimes run counter to God’s goal, and sometimes they do not.
-I want you to consider that when your life is frustrating and not going in the direction you want it to—your plans might be butting up against God’s plans. Instead of trying to force your plans and goals, it might be time to talk with God and, if necessary, adjust your plans and goals to align with His. Life will be a whole lot less frustrating when you join God in working according to the counsel of His unchangeable and completely righteous will.