Good Morning!
As we continue to walk through the Catechism this cool Thursday morning we turn to the creative works of God and His purpose in making man. One of the great things about the way the Westminster Divines organized the questions and answers is how each one builds upon the one before. They act as stairs leading us into more and more knowledge of our salvation and life in Christ. The ones we will look at today fit well with where we have been, and are going, in our Sabbath morning sermon series through Genesis. Chapter 2 especially will be helpfully buttressed by this part of the catechism. It shows how the Standards of the ARP church can work hand in hand to help us better understand the Lord and His glory.
After learning about who God is and how He works we now get to see how He puts that wisdom and power into practice. Here are today’s Q/A:
Q. 9. What is the work of creation?
A. The work of creation is God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.
Q. 10. How did God create man?
A. God created man male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.
One of the most important aspects of the eternality of God is that He alone can make things. In other words there is nothing in this world that does not owe its existence to Him. Romans 9 illustrates it about as clear as can be:
But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
So to say that God “made all things of nothing” is to say that not only does every atom and subatomic particle give glory to the one who made it, but each of these elements is made to serve Him for all of history. We see in Question 10 that the relationship between the Lord and His creation is not a mechanical one. Human beings, horses, tress, etc… are not game characters with no free will just moving to and fro as the great game player in the sky moves his controller. It is very important that we understand something that is mentioned in Chapter 5 of the Confession of Faith. The establishment by God of reality means that all the rules are God’s rules. Gravity works because the Lord made it. The reason why Einsteinian physics operates the way it does is not because the laws of science are arbitrary or “just have always been there”, but in that they in their essence reflect the very character of Jehovah. A thermo-nuclear reaction gives praise to the God who made it. If any discipline should show us the amazing complexity of how the Lord operates it should be science. Yet there is something about the human mind that refuses to give credit to the one who formed the cup out of the clay.
We obviously call this sin. Rebellion against the Lord. Nature shouts the very existence of God, yet so many refuse to hear it. An interesting thing that I have seen so many times in my life is when young men and women go off to college and discover that they no longer have need of the knowledge gained while growing up in a Christian home. There may be many reasons for it, but at the end of the day what it all comes back to is a lack of grounding in the truth of the power of God over all Creation. If you lose the awe of the majesty of the Lord of Hosts it doesn’t take much to move the flesh towards hedonism. For if there is no divine presence then we best get about making merry lest we die. Carpe Diem. If all God is to you is a rule maker, a deistic school teacher then it shouldn’t surprise us when men and women walk away from the faith, because what exactly are they going away from? A pharisaical faith. A faith built not upon the glory of God, but on “doing the right things”. As we see in Q. 10 right living is born not out of posting the 10 Commandments on the wall and saying, “do this”. It is the natural outgrowth of our love of the Lord for His wondrous works. Our obedience to Him must always be grounded in remembering who God is, what He has done for us, and in the purpose for why He has done it. We love God because He has loved us first, in creating us out of the dust of the Earth and in sending His Son to lay down His life for our eternal peace.
We obey the law of God out of thanksgiving and grace, not out of duty and works.
A way we can recapture the joy of seeing the grandeur of God can be found in thinking a little bit more about what Question 9 is saying. It can sound somewhat rote and simplistic, but if you take a moment and meditate on the claims it is making it can be the most powerful of all the items in the catechism:
1) God made all things.
2) By the word of His power.
3) And all very good.
Let that marinate in your soul for a second. It is necessary for us to take stock of what is being said there. A purpose behind daily devotion for the believer is that we need to remember who we are both in light of Christ’s work as Redeemer and as King. There is a reason why we call this quiet time and why Jesus Himself went off somewhere to be alone as He communed with His Heavenly Father. All the distractions of this life can make us think that this life is all that matters. We become so overwhelmed with the demands of the flesh that the spirit is neglected. However, contemplating the magnificence and the majesty of God shows us how trifling all of it really is.
All that really matters is the Lord. Give praise to Him for He has made you to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.
Here is today’s reading to help us see the bigness of God.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-greatness-and-closeness-of-god/
Blessings on Your Day!
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church