Catechism Buzz: Gasp

We Reformed, confessional types get that Jesus, God's Son, is fully God. The Church is absolutely dogmatic, staunch, and unyielding on this glorious truth. We see clearly what is at stake in this truth. If the Son of God is not God, then we cannot worship him lest we become idolaters. This would eviscerate our identity; it would destroy our worship; it would shipwreck the faith. We know that there is no salvation outside of God, for God alone can save. Therefore, Jesus can be no mere man; he must also be God. He is adored eternally by the Father, has the worship of the angels, and is the everlasting Hero of the church. We easily rejoice in the deity of the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

But the Holy Spirit? We confess that he is also equal with God, but we are a bit uneasy with Him. Just look at the affirmation of the Nicene Council regarding the Holy Spirit in comparison with what it says about Jesus as the Son of God! I understand that this happens because we see the revelation of God most clearly in Jesus Christ, and I know that we have to spend so much time cleaning up after brethren who claim every impulse and behavior is of the Holy Spirit that we rarely reflect on what the Holy Spirit actually is doing. This post is written to encourage you to be unashamedly thankful for God the Holy Spirit, so that you might dare to worship him.

I wonder if you realize that the ministry of the Holy Spirit is as important to you as the cross of Jesus Christ? Does that cause you to gasp? Do you fear that I blaspheme? Think about this: without the Holy Spirit, there is no man named Jesus. However God was joined in the womb with man in Jesus, that was the work of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18). There is no planet earth. There is no Bible. There is no Israel, and there is no Church. The fact that you and I read about Jesus at all is because the Holy Spirit wrote of Him. But let me back up a bit, I'm going to need a little more space to get at the glory that belongs to the Spirit.

No one loves Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit does, save the Father alone. From the time that the Holy Spirit hovered over the dark waters of a freshly created world, he was hovering there in anticipation of the revelation of the Son of God. The Holy Spirit is co-creator of all worlds. He inspired the creation account, and every other book of the Bible, in order to point us to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. How is it that we have a Bible? It is because God the Holy Spirit has preserved for us a witness by preserving his witnesses. He preserved the Bible, Israel, and now the Church, and if you are in Christ, he is preserving you as well. In his wisdom, he has loosed the mouths of donkeys and of men to accomplish his purposes. All this hardly even begins to speak of his glory and goodness toward us, and yet it should already be enough to move us to worship him.

Have you ever known the sting of sin and the terror of the judgment to come? Have you ever seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ? The Holy Spirit gave you those revelations (John 16:13-14). He applied the atonement to your wicked heart. He flew, more gracefully than a seraph, from the bosom of God with the gospel of Jesus. He cried to your dead soul, "Arise! And see the glory of the Son of God!" And you awoke and saw Jesus (2 Cor. 4:6). Even now, he guards you from sin, despair, and death. Even now, he whispers to you that you have God for a Father and Christ for a Savior (Gal. 4:6). If he were to abandon us, even for a moment, we would fail for despair, we would return to the mire from which we were washed, we would fall from grace. We absolutely need him every moment, and he knows this. He is so gracious that he has sealed us, not with a magical stamp or some holy wax, but with his own person (Eph. 1:13).

How much we owe to God the Holy Spirit! Ought we not pause to thank him for the salvation he has shown us in Christ? Ought we not praise him for his manifold ministries of grace toward us? Yes, we ought and we must. Thank you, God the Holy Spirit, for making our world, for giving us life, and most of all for revealing to us your glory, the glory of God that you share in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Catechism Buzz: Beyond Mere Orthodoxy

That Jesus is God is not merely doctrine—a belief that serves as a test of orthodoxy; it gives us encouragement to know that it is no mere human being who intercedes on our behalf with God. We have no need of a human priest, because we have the great high priest, who is God Himself (Thx, Hebrews).

In the same way, we understand that God lives in tents not made with hands, but He tabernacles with us by living in us. The Holy Spirit is able to dwell inside of all believers because, as God, He is omnipresent. It is for this same reason that David can testify that there is nowhere he can go to escape God's Spirit—not because the Spirit is like a bloodhound, able to sniff out a man wherever he might go—but because wherever he might go, God the Holy Spirit is already there (Psalm 139).

So it is that the teaching about the three persons of the Trinity being co-equal is not dry orthodoxy, but rather practical and encouraging to believers, as God in three persons works out His plan of salvation in the lives and hearts of His people.

Tech Specs: Knows like Vos

In order to know God as He is, we must know and accept Him as He presents Himself in His self-revelation to us. The Catechism leads us gently but firmly down the path to this point, by first telling us that we need to know about God--that is our purpose (Q.1), and how God is revealed to us--through His Spirit and His Word--(Q.2). It then proceeds to tell us about God's Word: what it is (Q.3), how we can know the Scriptures are God's Word (Q.4), and the summary statement about what the Scriptures teach (Q.5). And so it is that we are brought to the section where what God is and who He is explained.

God makes a big deal about presenting Himself as one. Dueteronomy 6:4, for example, tells us directly that God is one. But other passages, such as Matthew 28:19 and 2 Corinthians 13:14, present to us three separate, distinct persons all identified as "God." And so it is that we begin to see a the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This lays the foundation for later discussion of the differing roles in the various stages of salvation, identified as justification, sanctification, and glorification.

The importance of this doctrine of the Trinity cannot be overstated. In his commentary on the Larger Catechism, Johannes Geerhardus Vos puts it this way.

What is the practical importance of the doctrine of the Trinity?

This is far from being mere technical theory or abstract doctrine. Christianity stands or falls with the doctrine of the Trinity. The Bible represents the plan of salvation as a compact or covenant among the persons of the Trinity. Where the doctrine of the Trinity is abandoned, the whole Bible teaching about the plan of salvation must go with it.

The relationship within the Godhead also enables us to understand concepts like equality of persons but distinction of roles; it allows us to submit to one another, as we see that even amongst equal persons there is the submission of the Son to the Father. It helps us understand our need for relationships, and reinforces the priority of those relationships, with God and with each other. It even helps us to know that God geniunely desires relationship with us, but doesn't need it, since God alone would not be lonely. Seeing the Godhead operate in relationship enables us to put a premium on our relationship with God and with His church.

So that we can properly glorify God and enjoy Him forever.