Seminary Sunday - 1689 LBCF - Redeemer Borger (2)

Lesson 2 - On God and the Holy Trinity

Introduction - Keep it short there is a lot to cover in these three paragraphs.

Paragraph 1 - Attributes of God

In this first paragraph there are essentially 8 main attributes of God that are brought to light and we are going to look at each one along with a definition to hopefully come away from this with a better idea of what each of these mean. These 8 attributes are: Singularity, aseity, incomprehensibility, simplicity, infinity, sovereignty, love, and justice. So let’s begin with the first and work our through these. SINGULARITY means that the Lord our God is but one only living and true God. 1 Corinthians 8:4 “Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.”” So, when we think about idols of the heart, those little “g” gods, there are many but when it comes to the living God of the Bible there is only one. Another passage in the OT which is more common for this foundational truth, is also known as the Shema, is found in Deuteronomy 6:4 ““Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” This is part of the larger passage of verses 4-9 which is memorized by Jews and recited three times daily in the temples. The point here is to see the singularity of God; that there is but only ONE God. This is important to remember when we begin looking at the Trinity here shortly, because some believe that the Trinity makes God into three Gods, but if that is true than Scripture is wrong. The next attribute we are going to look at is ASEITY which means that God is “a se.” I know that doesn’t mean much for anyone, so I will translate. “A se” is Latin for “from Himself” so aseity means that God is literally from Himself. We can say things like God is self-existent, absolute, self-sufficient, self-contained, but not self-caused. Exodus 3:14 “God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”” This name of Yahweh “I am who I am” lays the foundation for the unchanging faithfulness of God. God is saying “I take counsel within myself and have the power within myself to do as I please.” St Augustine and St Aquinas both looked at God as the first cause or mover of all things that came to be caused yet he was un-caused himself. The argument goes, that if God was caused to be, then there is something greater then He. Hopefully my silly little rhyme there will help you remember this. You will notice also, that each of these attributes fit together, if you remove one, the rest fall apart. Take away aseity at this point, and singularity is no more. The next attribute is INCOMPREHENSIBILITY, which means that while have a true, accurate, and comforting knowledge of God we cannot know God exhaustively or completely. There are things about who God is and what God is doing or has already done, that we will just never fully understand, and that is ok. The name of God, the nature of God, works of God, judgement, redemption, the holiness of God, all things that we will never fully comprehend. I encourage you to look at each of the passages included as references for these and the ways in which Scripture speaks about God in this way but let’s look at Romans 11:33 “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” This example is Paul speaking specifically about the act of redemption but also broadly about the works of God. In Psalm 139:6 “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.” The Psalmist speaks of not being able to attain to this knowledge because it is too high for him. The next attribute is the SIMPLICITY of God which can trip people up a little bit. Divine simplicity simply means that God is not composed of parts; or to say it another way God is simple. Sam Waldron put it’s this way,

A New Exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 Simplicity

It asserts that God is not the product of composition. God is not composed of pre-existing things, nor the product of the combination of these entities. He is self-existent.

Divine simplicity is an implication of divine aseity, like I mentioned earlier, if you take one away the others begin to crumble behind it. To say that God is made up of pre-existing parts or matter, is to say that there is something greater than God out there. We also see in passages like John 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”” Or 1 John 1:5 “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” And 1 John 4:8 “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” God is spirit, God is light, God is love; these are all ways of describing the essence of God not parts of God. Everything about God is spirit, everything about God is light, and everything about God is love, holy, pure, just, righteous, just, sovereign, etc. Divine simplicity is important because it keeps the Creator creature distinction in place but it also helps hold the other core attributes in place. The other attributes I mentioned infinity, sovereignty, love, and justice are all wrapped up in this because God is those things; they describe and tell us who God is. So we are going to move onto paragraph 2.

Paragraph 2 - The Relation of God (To His Creatures)