The Only God

The Only God Exodus 3:1-13; Romans 11:33-36 Belgic Confession Article I Cascades Fellowship CRC, JX MI August 15, 2004 Saint Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, was wandering the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea one morning, wrestling with his thoughts of God. He was trying to fully plumb the knowledge of the Holy – that is the nature of God as he has revealed himself to us. Into his meditations interloped the figure of a boy scurrying back and forth from the tide with a bucket. He would run to the water, scoop up a bucket-full and then run to a place in the sand and dump it. Augustine, intrigued, drew nearer to see what the boy was up to. To his amusement, he watched as the boy poured bucket after bucket into a small hole he had scratched into the sand. Each pail-full poured into the hole stood only a second and then was greedily pulled into the sun-baked sand. Finally, the bishop asked the boy what he was doing. With an irritated air – presumably from having his task interrupted – the boy replied, “I’m trying to put the ocean inside this hole.” Thunderstruck, the bishop realized that he had been engaged in the same sort of task all morning long. He was trying cram fathomless oceans of truth concerning God’s nature into his porous hole of a brain. He had no more hope of wrapping his head around the fullness of God than that silly little boy had of draining the ocean into his hole in the sand.i There are many days when I feel like that boy, trying to put the ocean in his little hole in the sand. Each week I struggle to take the incomparable thoughts of God and cast

them in a much more mundane manner in hopes that the knowledge of God will be more accessible. As one theologian put it, I try – not always effectively – to unscrew the inscrutable. Fortunately for the congregation, I am not the only one ever to attempt this. Those with much clearer sight and deeper insight have left us their thoughts in the form of creeds and confessions to serve as beacons on the journey of faith. Let me take a moment to say something about the creeds and confessions and how they pertain to faith. As part of the Reformed family of churches we are by nature a confessional church. That is to say, we accept a particular body or number of the historic confessions of the church to be standards for doctrine and teaching. This does not raise the creeds and confessions to the level of Scripture – even as the creeds do, we proclaim that Scripture alone is the rule for faith and life. But it does mean that we recognize a particular number of creeds and confessions as faithful interpretations of the Scriptures and therefore useful in helping us discern the life of faith the Scriptures call us to. In the case of the Christian Reformed Church, we accept what is known as the three Forms of Unity – the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dordt. Each of these documents arose in response to specific circumstances and yet, proclaim faithfully the truth found in the Scriptures. Now, one of the people I referred to earlier as having clearer sight and deeper insight was Guido de Bres, the writer of the The Belgic Confession. De Bres, who was martyred in 1567 for his adherence to the teachings of the protestant church, prepared this confession in 1561 as a defense for the protestant faith against the charges of heresy and the persecution committed by the Roman Catholic Church on those living in what is now

known as Belgium. De Bres’ intention was to show King Phillip II, the Holy Roman Emperor at the time, that the faith the protestants proclaimed was faithful to the Scriptures and to assure the authorities that they would be loyal subjects in all lawful things, but would offer “their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags, and their whole bodies to fire,” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.ii So this confession did not come to us out of an ivory tower or as some sort of academic exercise. It is not simply the musings of some egg-headed theologian about God. For those who would scoff at all creeds and confessions as a valley of dry bones, bloodless and spiritless – devoid of life and irrelevant to faith – the Belgic Confession provides a hardy dose of reality. It was written in stripes upon the bodies of those whom de Bres represented. It is a dynamic, potent document because in it is distilled, for all to see, the non-negotiables of the faith – what must be believed, according to the Scriptures. This document is a testimony of faith – proclaimed loudly and confirmed in the blood of martyrs. And what is the testimony of the Belgic Confession? It begins: We all believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that there is a single and simple spiritual being, whom we call God – eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, unchangeable, infinite, almighty; Completely wise, just and good and the overflowing source of all good. When I first started putting this series together I had in mind to spend time dealing with each of the attributes listed in this article of the Confession. But the more I studied, the more I realized that expounding on the attributes was like eating the peanuts off a

sundae and leaving everything else behind – it missed the purpose confession. Remember, the Belgic Confession arose out of the need to profess the true faith. So let’s begin by looking at the first lines of the article 1: We believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths…. Who is the “we” in this article? If Guido de Bres wrote this as a solitary effort, who are “we”? The answer to this is simple – although penned by de Bres, the Belgic Confession is a communal confession. It is the confession of all protestant believers living under the persecution of the Roman Catholic Church in the Lowlands during the time of its writing. But it is also more than that. Note the language – believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths – does it sound familiar at all? It should – it is Paul’s words from Romans 10:8-10, “If you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and confess with your mouth God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” In other words, de Bres is saying, “This faith we confess – that we must confess – is the same faith Paul preached and spoke of in Romans 10 as saving faith. And it begins here – with the confession that there is only one God. A single, simple, spiritual being that we refer to as God. Let’s not pass over this too quickly. It would be easy now to start in on what de Bres means by “simple” and a dozen other questions. But it is noteworthy that de Bres begins with the necessity to confess our faith. He understood what so many in the church today do not – Christianity is a public faith, meant to be shared. By accessing the text of Romans 10:8-10, de Bres points out that for faith to be redemptive – that is saving faith – their must be an element of confession. That real faith is loud – it somehow expresses

itself. He reminds the church that when Jesus commanded us to go, we were to go with the message of the Gospel, bearing witness to the grace of God in Jesus Christ before everyone we come in contact with. Okay, let me ask you a question. If you were going to describe God, what words would you use? Awesome? Although, that word has been somewhat cheapened in recent times – everything from cell phone service to pizza has been called “awesome” – it is nonetheless a good start. How about eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, infinite, good … all good. In fact, they make it into the Belgic Confession as attributes describing the… spiritual being whom we call God. But would you describe God as simple? So what does the Belgic Confession mean when it refers to God as “simple?” Is God uncomplicated, easily understood? Or is “simple” used here in the sense of silly, uncomprehending? No, if that were the case, I would not have had to spend thousands of dollars and countless hours – most of which were dedicated to Greek and Hebrew – studying theology to just begin probing the depths of the knowledge of the Holy. No, de Bres has something other in mind when he refers to God as “simple”. In Exodus 3, God calls to Moses from the burning bush. We’re all familiar with the story – God tells Moses to go back to Egypt and lead the children of Israel out of slavery and into the land he promised to their forefathers. Moses, however, is not a naïve man – he knows that the people have by and large lost sight of the God of the Hebrews. So he asks a question, “Who should I say has sent me? They’re going to want to know.” God’s startling reply comes in Exodus 3:14 “God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” What

an enigmatic answer – an answer that has given rise to countless theories over the years as to what it means. I remember the first time I read this passage, I was puzzled. So, what was God up to here? Was he just trying to be evasive? Was God just being a snob? As harsh as that sounds, I was really concerned. But I found out over the years that the answer is much more innocent than questions. Now, I am not going to give you the exhaustive answer here this morning. Instead, I am going to concentrate on two things – the basic meaning and the implications of the basic meaning. The basic meaning of God’s answer to Moses when boiled down to brass tax is that God is saying, “I am the only, true, self-existent, self-sufficient, eternal God and there is no other.” What he literally says to Moses is “I was, I am, I will always be!” In other words, before anything else – before the beginning of the world, before fallen man created gods in his image, before the first star exploded to life in the heavens – God exists. A.W. Pink, a theologian from the first half of the 20th Century states it this way, There was a time, if “time” it could be called, when God, in the unity of his nature…dwelt all alone…. There was nothing, no one but God; and that, not for a day, a year, or an age, but “from everlasting.” During past eternity, God was alone: self-contained, self-sufficient, selfsatisfied; in need of nothing. Had a universe, had angels, had human beings been necessary to him in any way, they also had been called into existence from all eternity. The creating of them when he did, added nothing to God essentially. He changes not, therefore his essential glory can neither be augmented nor diminished.iii The implication for Moses and for us is simply this – you can no more know the expanse of God by a name than you can drain the ocean into a whole in the sand. There is only one way to know God – to recall what he has done. To look across our lives and

the lives of all who have lived and see how God has revealed his character in the faithful keeping of his covenant. God tells Moses as much in Exodus 3:15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation. Note qualifiers to “The Lord”. The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob…. History. Moses, when the people ask you who sent you, you tell them I AM sent you – the ONE who does not change and WHO faithfully guided your fathers and promised them a land. I can be trusted because I have already shown myself trustworthy. This is who I AM and this is how I AM known. Now, how does all this answer what de Bres means when he refers to God as simple? What de Bres is pointing us toward is that God alone is self-existent – that he alone is contingent on nothing. That he is complete in himself – nothing can be added to him or taken away from him. That he is not a multiplicity of gods. He is not part of his creation, nor is his creation a part of him. Rather, he alone is God, distinct and discrete. In the words of Deuteronomy 6:1 “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” This may seem like a no-brainer, but always remember the first commandment that God spoke to the Israelites upon Mt. Sinai. “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 You shall have no other gods before me.” What was God’s concern here? Was he in some sort of celestial competition for worshippers and so was trying to cajole the Israelites into recognizing only him? Were there literal “other gods” to be concerned about?

The answer is no, but man in fallen state invents them. Paul, in Romans 1:20-23, describes how even though God revealed himself in everything he made, man refused to acknowledge him as the Creator. Rather, they worshipped the creation making gods for themselves in the image of the birds, animals and natural phenomena surrounding them. The concern that God had for the Israelites was that they would once again abandon the truth and accept the lie, believing in gods made in their own twisted image, gods they could exercise some measure of control over. But lest you think this was a problem only for the primitive Israelite – surely we have moved beyond such superstitious nonsense in the 21st Century – let me read for you from the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 34. In response to the question of what the Lord requires in the 1st commandment, “That I sincerely acknowledge the only true God, trust him alone, look to him for every good thing, humbly and patiently, love him, fear him, and honor him with all my heart. In short, that I give up anything rather than go against his will in any way.” You see, the problem goes way beyond the fanciful beliefs of the pagan nations surrounding Israel. It goes to the heart – the heart of all mankind, of you and of me. We may not be convinced of the need for fertility rights or child sacrifice or libations poured upon the ground, but we can easily be persuaded to trust something other than God. We can begin to trust in our own wit and wisdom, we can believe in another’s apparent connection to God, we can begin to trust more to gadgets and technology than in the Creator who gave us the capacity to make the gadgets. And we show our beliefs by what we confess – that is, what our words and actions reveal that we believe in our hearts.

You see, de Bres’ concern was not to give us an exact and exhaustive description of the God he confessed – he could no more do that than one could drain the see by pouring it one bucket-full at a time into hole scratched into the sand. No, he begins his confession this way to show he professes the One, True God – the God of the Scriptures and no others. That’s why I said early to concentrate on the attributes would be like eating the peanuts off a sundae and leaving everything else. The Belgic Confession was written under circumstances that always reveal what is really in the heart – persecution. I say again, this confession was no academic exercise. It is a record of true belief of the true God. Over the next few weeks we are going to be looking at the Belgic Confession. I hope that by looking through the eyes of this man saw more clearly and with deeper insight, our own vision of God will be clarified. We may not be able to “unscrew the inscrutable” but may God grant us a greater understanding of him whom we serve.

i

Rev. Adrian Dieleman Sermon on the Belgic Confession Article 1i “God is Incomprehensible” November 23, 1997. Psalter Hymnal “The Belgic Confession” p.817; CRC Publishing, Grand Rapids 1987. iii A.W. Pink The Attributes of God “The Solitariness of God” p.9; Baker Book House, Grand Rapids 1975. ii