Simplicity
If simplicity is ‘the quality or condition of being easy to
understand or do’, then the following sentence fails miserably: ‘Never use a
big word where a diminutive one will suffice.’ Like lawyers and auto mechanics,
when theologians use their own specialist language, we can be left bewildered.
Simplicity is needed if we are to understand.
Preaching is the science of homiletics. It involves
exegetical skills. However, the finished product, i.e., the sermon, is where simplicity
comes in. To be effective, the message must be communicated to the audience in
language it understands. Jesus was the Master communicator: ‘You are the salt
of the earth…’, ‘Do not hide your light under a bushel’, ‘No one can serve two
masters…’ ‘Consider the lilies of the field…’, ‘Judge not that you be not
judged’ etc. Jesus had a way with words because He was/is the Word that became
flesh. He simplified the profound.
Theologians speak of the Simplicity of God or Divine
Simplicity, whereby, ‘there is but one only, living and true God, who is
infinite in being and perfection, [is] a most pure spirit, invisible, without
body, parts, or passions' (Westminster Confession of Faith). Notice that God is
a most pure spirit without a body or parts. Thus, the Father, the Word, and the
Spirit are not three parts of God. Rather, they are the three Persons who are
one God. ‘In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons of one substance,
power, and eternity’ (WCF). Thus, God is not the sum total of His attributes.
He does not have Omniscience,
Omnipresence, and Omnipotence. Rather, He is
these attributes, (i.e., all-knowing, everywhere present, and almighty). In
other words, we do not tally-up a list of items that we think makes God God.
Rather, He is the Omniscient,
Omnipresent, and Omnipotent Being. There is no other! The Simplicity of God is
that His Being is identical to His attributes. His attributes are not part of
who He is. Rather, they are who He
is. Simplicity? Think about it: To talk about God’s attributes is the same as
talking about God. Unlike God, you and I have bodies and we have parts. If we
talk about bodies and parts we are not talking about God. In the same way, if
we talk about Omniscience, Omnipresence, and Omnipotence, we are not talking
about human or angelic beings. We are talking about the Being who is God.
The less parts a thing has, the less complicated it is. Well, God has no parts.
Simplicity!
True, it is difficult to understand a Being who knows
everything, is everywhere, and is all powerful. But, the Word became flesh. I can
relate to a human being who was like us in every way apart from sin. Jesus
said, ‘He who has seen Me has seen the Father’ John 14:9. Therefore, if God
were a human being (which He is not), He would look like Jesus. But isn’t Jesus
God? Yes, but we must not confuse His human nature with His divine nature! With
Jesus, ‘two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood,
were inseparably joined together in one Person, without conversion, composition,
or confusion. Which person is very God, and very Man, yet one Christ, the only
Mediator between God and man’ (WCF).
Then there is the simplicity of the Gospel: ‘For God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life.’ John 3:16.
