THE ONE LIVING & TRUE GOD

 

THE ONE LIVING & TRUE GOD

Westminster Shorter Catechism 5

Quest. Are there more Gods than one?

Ans. There is but One only, the living and true God.

One God Only

It may seem strange to claim that there is only one God. However, people have been making gods since Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden. The Greeks and the Romans had a Pantheon of gods. The Romans just gave new names to a lot of the old Greek gods. E.g., they renamed Neptune, their god of the sea, Poseidon. The Norse people, such as the Vikings, worshipped many gods.

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Some of the days of the week are named after some of the gods of the Teutons. Sunday is named after the sun, Monday, after the moon. Tuesday is named after Tiw, Wednesday after Woden, Thursday after Thor. Friday after Frigg or Fria, a Norse goddess of love. And Saturday was called Sater-daeg by the Anglo-Saxons, after the Roman god Saturn. And, we shouldn’t really wonder why the days of the week are named after Teutonic gods, since English is the most widely spoken of the Teutonic or Germanic languages.

Now, I mention all of this, to remind you that we, in Western society, are surrounded by reminders of the many, many gods of the pagans. It’s not just in the mystical Eastern religions such as Hinduism that many gods are found, but traces of many gods are right under our own noses.

But, regardless of the many, many gods of the pagans, the Bible reveals that there is but One God only. E.g., the Lord through His Prophet Isaiah says to His people in Isaiah 45:5, “I am the LORD, and there is no other; there is no God beside Me.” Then in verses 6 and 7 the LORD identifies Himself as the Creator, “I am the LORD, and there is no other; I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the LORD, do all these things.” In verse 12 He says, “I have made the earth, and created man on it. It was I – My hands that stretched out the heavens, and all their host I have commanded.” The end of verse 14 says, “…There is no other God.” Then He says in verse 18, “For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD, and there is no other.” And finally in verse 22 the LORD says, “Look at Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.”

So, even from this one chapter of Scripture, i.e., Isaiah 45, we see that there is only One God. And we see that this one God is no “local” or “localized deity.” This One God is stating that He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Therefore, what does this make your Neptunes and your Poseidons?  I mean, these pagan gods are supposed to rule the seas and such like! But this One God who reveals Himself in Scriptures claims to have made the seas. As His people said in Nehemiah. 6:6, “You alone are the LORD; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things on it, the seas and all that is in them, and You preserve them all. The host of heaven worships You.”

So, one can only wonder why some folks allege that the Christian’s God is just one God among many. Right from the very outset of the Bible, right from the very first verse God demonstrates His uniqueness. For, it says in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” So how can God possibly be only one god among many when He says Himself that there is no other god?

And how can He be one god among many when He alone is the Creator of all things. Therefore, even if there were such things as other gods, God would still be God. For these other gods would owe their very existence to the One living and true God. So, to claim that the God who has revealed Himself through the Scriptures is anything like the pagan deities is clearly blasphemous. It’s to break the first table of God’s Law, and the 1^st Commandment in particular.

God means it when He says to Mankind, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exod. 20:3). He’s not just saying this to Christians. He’s not just saying, “Christians, have no other gods but Me. But as for the rest of you, you can have as many other gods as you like!” No, there is only One God, the source of all life, and He is the only true object of worship.

It’s as the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, “…there is no other God but one. For even if there are so called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is only one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ…”

So, for Christians there is indeed only one living and true God. However, for the non-Christian, there are any number of ‘so-called gods’ as Paul calls them. These gods, so-called, do not exist, they are idols, i.e., false gods. They exist only in the mind of fallen man whose “…heart is a factory of idols”, says Calvin. However, we should note, just in passing, that Satan and his demons are behind many of these so-called gods. But just before we move on, we need to consider the oneness of God in and of Himself.

Now, I know I’m not alone here, but whenever I try to contemplate the Being and nature of God my head begins to hurt! But what else should you expect when you think about the Infinite, Eternal and Unchangeable One? But this shouldn't deter or stop us. We need to keep on striving to gain deeper knowledge of our God. For how else are we to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever if we don’t know much about Him?

Our forefathers referred to a piece of Scripture as the “Shema.” The Shema is the first word in a passage of Scripture found in Deuteronomy 6. “Shema” is the Hebrew word for “Hear!” The Shema begins in Deuteronomy 6:4: where the Lord says through His Prophet Moses, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!”

Literally it’s, “Hear Israel, Jehovah our Elohim, is one Jehovah.” “Elohim”, the Hebrew word translated “God” is a plural word, as you know. It’s not a singular word, nor is it a dual word as you find in the Hebrew language. Rather “Elohim” when it refers to God, is a plural word meaning at least three Persons who are that One God.

Yet, elohim is also the Hebrew word for “gods” plural. You’d see this if you were to look at, say, Psalm 136:2, e.g. There you’d read these words: “Oh, give thanks to the God of gods.” The God of gods is literally the Elohim of elohim. So, we need to hang on to what God is telling us. He is telling us, as we’ve seen, that He alone is God, i.e., Elohim. Yet God is, as we know from Scripture, a plurality of persons, triune, i.e., the Trinity. So, with all of this in mind, the Shema teaches us that, Jehovah, while being a plurality of persons, is at the same time only One Jehovah. (Jehovah or Yahweh are simply English pronunciations of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton YHWH). The Hebrew word ‘one’ in the Shema, ‘ehad’ speaks of the unity or oneness, or singleness, or uniqueness of God.

So we see in the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4, then, clear indication of the oneness and the manyness of God, or the unity and the diversity of God. Therefore, God is not one god among many. Rather He is the One and the Many, the Triune God. For God the LORD is the united One.

But the main emphasis of the Shema is the declaration that there is only one God. And we’re considering Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 5, which deals with the Oneness or Uniqueness of God. However, Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 6 deals with the doctrine of the Trinity. Therefore, we'll hold off till the next Q&A before we really study the Triuneness of God. But for now, we’ve seen then that there is One God only, and that this God is One.

One Giver of Life

Our Catechism says that He is the Living God. By Living God is meant that He alone is the one and only God who is alive. Our God is the one and only God there is in existence. All other gods are mere inventions of the fallen and fertile imaginations of men.

God, then is the one and only God living. And because He is the only God living, He is the only God able to give life and sustain and maintain it. That’s why Isaiah says, “O God of Israel, the Saviour” (Isa. 45:15b). That’s why God says in Isaiah 45:22, “Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.”

The Living God gives life – He saves life from death. He alone is the Creator. And He alone is the Sustainer of His creation. He alone is its Saviour. Therefore, He is unique in that all things depend upon Him for their being and existence. It’s as the Apostle Paul said to the Athenians, “…In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28b). So, all creatures, including you and me, owe our existence to God. Therefore, He alone is God and worthy of our worship. For He alone is the life giver.

Some people claim that there would be no life on earth, were it not for the sun in the sky. If by this they mean that without the sun the plants wouldn’t grow and without this source of food we’d starve, then fair enough. We all heard about photosynthesis and chlorophyll and all of that at school. We heard how God has designed plants to convert carbon dioxide, etc, to carbohydrates, by use of sunlight.

Perhaps your school neglected its moral obligation to teach you about the Creator's sovereign control of it all? If this is the case, then you would have been left with the impression that the sun is god. For god is that to which all living things owe their existence. Therefore, if the sun fits the bill, then the sun must be god!

Sunday got its name from the pagan Romans. It was a holiday to them, it was called dies solis, meaning ‘sun’s day.’ The ancient Egyptians would worship the sun, or the sun-god Ra or Re. Ra was usually represented as the creator and controller of the universe. And what’s the difference between this and what the modern-day Naturalist teaches? Don’t both the ancient Egyptian and today’s Evolutionist teach that the sun is the source of all life? However, they both see the need to add water to their pantheon of gods. The Modern Naturalist doesn’t believe that life can exist without water. And the Ancient Egyptian placed much of his hope on the god of the River Nile. Mind you, the One Living and True God demonstrated to the Ancient Egyptians that all their gods were false gods. Jehovah Elohim proved to them that He is the God of gods – Elohim of elohim – by sending them the Ten Plagues, didn't He?

If you look into it, each of those plagues paralleled ten Ancient Egyptian gods. E.g., when God turned the Nile to blood, He demonstrated that their god of the Nile had no control over the River Nile. And in the final plague, the death of the firstborn, God demonstrated that Pharaoh himself is no god in that he couldn’t even preserve the life of his own son!

Yet the Ancient Egyptians worshipped their Pharaohs as gods! So, the Ancient Egyptians kept on ignoring the revelation of the only living and true God, given to them by God through Moses and Aaron, and they paid the price of their unbelief. And alas, it’s the same for the modern-day Darwinists, Naturalists, and Evolutionists. They insist on ignoring or attacking the revelation God has given them through the Scriptures. And they and their children and all those whom they teach continue to perish in their sins, as did their fellow unrepentant Ancient Egyptians.

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When you think about it, God also trumped Poseidon and Neptune when He drowned the whole Egyptian army in the Red Sea! But there remains hope in the One Living and True God for all those who will turn to Him for life. For He alone is the giver of life – He alone is Saviour.

Neither the sun, the moon, the stars, nor the water are the givers of life. Neither is the earth, the wind, or the fire the givers of life. And yet people in all times have looked upon these things as if they were gods. As Paul the Apostle says, “…[they] exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen” (Rom. 1:25; cf. Josh 34:2, 14-16).

Yes, we are to love and respect God’s creation. But we are not to worship it or any part or parts of it. We are to worship the One Living and True God alone.

One Object of Worship

Now, much of the “Greenie Movement” we see today is guilty of creature worship, which is to say that many of them are making gods out of the flora and fauna of the planet Earth. Indeed, many of them refer to Earth itself as ‘Gaia’.

Now, to be sure, not everything about the Greenie Movement is bad news. Christians should have a lot of time for people who care about and for God’s creation. However, we do part company when it comes to the question of ownership. Whose Earth is it? And who is the Creator and Sustainer of life on this planet? Well, it’s not Gaia, is it? To the Ancient Greeks and to many Greenies today, Gaia was and is the personification of what people refer to as “Mother Earth” and “Mother Nature”. Perhaps you think of these appellations are merely poetic? However, neither Earth nor Nature are our “Mother”. The Triune God alone is Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:32).

Now then, modern Naturalism was the natural development of Deism. The Deistic view of God is that after He created the universe and set it everything in motion, He left His creation to evolve or develop on its own without His interaction or interference. The Deistic view of the earth is one that is detached from God. Hence the Deist started talking about nature apart from God. He would describe the mechanics of the earth, the seasons, the sun, rain, wind, the life and death of earthly creatures as “Mother Nature” caring for and nurturing her charge. “Mother Nature,” and “Mother Earth,” are personifications of the creation, especially the earth and the seen and usneen forces acting upon it.

The Modern Naturalist went the next step or even a few steps further than his father the Deist. Like the Deist the Naturalist doesn’t believe that God interacts with His creation. But more than that, He doesn't even acknowledge that God ever was the Creator! The Modern Naturalist believes only in blind chance, and blind forces, “the forces of nature”. Perhaps he is even loath to speak in terms of Mother Earth or Mother Nature lest he betray even a hint of the One Living and True God in his vocabulary.

The consistent Naturalist speaks only of Nature. To him Nature is cold and heartless. To him the universe is an environment of blind physical forces and genetic replication, without any rhyme or reason. There’s no such thing as absolute justice in the Naturalist’s universe. For he believes it has no design, no purpose, no evil and no other good. He sees Creation – no he wouldn’t be caught dead calling it Creation – he believes that the universe is just a place of blind, pitiless indifference. The god of the Naturalist then, is simply Time and Chance. For he attributes being and existence to these, (hough he wouldn’t necessarily refer to “time and chance” as god).

The Naturalist and those like him are spoken of in Psalm 14, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good. The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one” (Psa. 14:1-3).

So, what do the Deists who believe in a god who is indifferent and uncaring toward his Creation, and their offspring, the Naturalists have in common? Well, they both believe that the universe and this earth is devoid of God.

And what do they have in common with those Greenies? Well, they all deny the existence of the One Living and True God. Therefore, they deny Him the worship He is due from them as creatures toward Him who is their Creator. And hasn’t God already demonstrated to those who worship Mother Earth that they are wrong? And hasn’t He demonstrated to those who deny that He acts upon, or interacts, or has ever interacted with His creation, that they are wrong? For didn’t God send a flood in Noah’s day upon every creature on earth with the breath of life in it – apart from those in the ark?

The One Living and True God drowned Mother Nature or Gaia, just as He did to the ancient Egyptian army under Pharaoh in the Red Sea. You bet that God interacts with His creation! And, as the Apostle says in Acts 17, “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31).

Yes, it’s a good thing to love the earth and the flora and fauna on it. The Deists do; the Naturalists do; the Greenies do; and so do all consistent Christians. And doesn’t Scripture say, “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. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:16-17).

So, God then, loves His creation and He loves the creatures He has made. Otherwise, He wouldn’t have sent His Son to die in order to redeem it. But when it comes to every non-Christian, the words Jesus spoke to the woman at the well stand true, “You worship what you do not know … but the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him” (John 4:22-23).

Conclusion

We ought to thank God that He, by His grace, sought us to worship Him. For, were it not for His grace we too would be worshiping the non-gods of the non-Christians. We too would be worshiping the creation and not the Creator (Rom. 1:25).

So, pray for their conversion, pray that God would be merciful to them and grant them repentance. He was merciful to us! For, there is indeed coming a great Day of Judgment.

Listen to the words of His Prophet Jeremiah, “The LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth will tremble, and the nations will not abide His indignation. Thus you shall say to them: ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens” (Jer. 10:10-11).

Pray therefore, that the people do not perish along with their gods. But rather that they repent and believe in the Gospel, and thus worship the One Living and True God.

WHAT IS GOD?

 

WHAT IS GOD?

Westminster Shorter Catechism 4

Quest. What is God?

Ans. God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

Introduction

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When my sister’s boy was only three, he was asking her what God looks like. She had been dropping him off at a local Church of Scotland Sunday School. I was pleased that my nephew wasn’t asking her if there was a god. He’d heard something about the living and true God and now he wanted to know what God looks like.

Well, what would you have told my wee three-and-a-half-year-old nephew? I quoted to my sister from the “Catechism for Young Children.” It asks the question my nephew was asking like this, Who is God? And answers, “God is a Spirit, and has not a body like men.” In the following we’re looking at the same question.

Westminster Shorter Catechism 4 begins the division of the Catechism that deals with What We Are To Believe concerning God. This runs all the way to Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 38, whereas WSC Q&As 39 to the end, i.e., 107, deal with What We Are To Do. So, here, we begin looking at what we are to believe concerning God, but in particular What God Is.

We see then that we’re dealing with something a wee bit deeper than the answer given in the Catechism for Young Children. However, Westminster Shorter Catechism 4 is not saying anything contrary to the Catechism for Young Children.

God is Spirit

              When that Catechism states: “God is a Spirit” it’s declaring that God has not a body like men. This is a direct quote from John 4:24. However, when you look at the original Koine Greek it doesn’t have the article. It simply says, “God is Spirit,” not “God is ‘A’ Spirit” as it says in the KJV. The NKJV has rectified this by leaving out the article in line with the original.

The reason I raise this is obvious. If you say that God is ‘A’ Spirit, are you not then opening the suggestion that He is just one of many spirits? To be sure, as we’ll see, there are many spirits. However, the Bible doesn’t teach that God is just one of a myriad of spirits. No, God is Spirit, is what the Bible teaches, which is to say that, though spirit-beings share a commonality with God on account of their “spiritness”, they are not God; for only God IS God.

God, then, is Spirit, but He is different to all other spirits in that He alone is God. The writer to the Hebrews describes God as “…the Father of spirits…” In other words, all other spirits have their beginning in Him. God is their Creator. Therefore, they are His creatures. Let's not lose sight of this Creator/creature important distinction.

Now then, sometimes when people talk about spirits they think of images like Casper the Friendly Ghost. They think of white bedsheets floating around saying, “boo!” But a spirit does not consist of any material substance, at least not as we understand it. In other words, a spirit doesn’t have a material body like yours and mine. Spirit is immaterial and is therefore also invisible to us. However, we would have to say that an ordinary spirit is somehow restricted by space and time.

We’re informed in the Book of Job that Satan was wandering to and fro on the earth, walking back and forth on it (Job 1:7). As you know, Satan is a spirit being, the head angel of all the fallen angels. Therefore, as a spirit he need not literally walk on the earth. But the point I make is that he is restricted to being in one place at one time, which is another way of saying that, unlike God who is infinite and omnipresent, the Devil, like the rest of us, is finite and therefore cannot be everywhere or even in two places at once.

God Is Infinite

Infinite means having no boundaries or limits; extending without end. This is most descriptive of God alone. Think about it, God, as Creator must be greater than His creation. As Creator He is distinct from His creation. Solomon, in his great prayer after he had built the Temple asked, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27).

So, there’s the wisest man (apart from Jesus) who ever lived saying under inspiration of the Holy Spirit that God transcends His finite creation. Therefore, space, outer space must have an edge, a limit. Why? Because space is a creature, i.e. a creation of God. Though, to us, it may seem infinite, space is finite because God alone is infinite.

The Psalmist puts it like this in Psalm 139, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me” (Psalm 139:7-10).

So, not only is God Spirit, but He is also infinite. Therefore, Creator God, unlike created spirits, is not restricted by space and time, which is to say that He is not limited to one place at a time. God is present everywhere all at once, all of Him. This is called Omnipresence.

God is Omnipresent

Omnipresence is one of what the theologians call, the Incommunicable Attributes of God. When we say that God is infinite in being we’re not saying that He cannot be in one place at one time. Otherwise, what are you going to say about Jesus who is God in the flesh? Paul in Colossians 2:9 says, “For in Him [Jesus] dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”

So, the strange thing about God is that all of Him can be everywhere at once while at the same time all of Him can be fully in one and the same place! What makes me say this? Well, Jesus Christ is a Man – body, soul and spirit. And as to His humanity, He is finite. Yet He went to heaven bodily. Therefore, Christ is wherever His body is because He is a man, and as a man He is bound by the limitations of His material body.

As a Man He is finite. However, as God, He is not restricted by His human body and is therefore infinite. As God He is in all places at once, yet as Man He is in one place only – yet He is fully God. Thus, and therefore, to talk of the ubiquity of Christ’s humanity is to talk nonsense. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

We’re looking at the nature of God at the moment, not Jesus Christ, the Godman. And we’ve seen that God is Spirit, and as Spirit He is infinite. But God also is eternal.

God Is Eternal

My nephew was also asking my sister Who made God? It’s true that since the fall, contrary to the 2^nd Commandment, Man has been forming or making God in his own image and likeness. But this is only because he is in rebellion to the God who created Man in His own image and likeness in the beginning.

The Scriptures reveal that God is eternal, which is to say that He has no beginning and no end. For example, Moses calls Him “The eternal God…” in Deuteronomy 33:27. And Isaiah calls Him “…the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity…” in Isaiah 57:15. And Moses wrote these words as recorded in Psalm 90, “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God” (Psalm 90:1-2).

So, the eternal God inhabits eternity from everlasting to everlasting! That’s what the Bible says about God. Therefore, if God doesn’t have a beginning, no one made Him. And it goes without saying that He didn’t create Himself – He just is. He is the eternal IS – the “I AM that I AM.”

Now, it is an obvious thing, wouldn’t you think, to ask Who made God? Mind you, it’s perhaps not the type of question one would expect from a three-year-old! However, when you look around at creation it’s not hard to see that things have beginnings. The day begins, the week begins, the month, the year, the decade, the century, the millennium all have a beginning. Animals, birds and fish hatch and are born, people are born. The TV program begins, the holiday begins, and the journey begins.

Oh, we could go on and on giving everyday examples of things beginning. But again, only God has no beginning, because only God is eternal. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). There was no beginning before “In the beginning.” There was only God – the eternal One.

Now, it’s perhaps true that there may be a shade of difference between “eternal” and “everlasting.” Something may be everlasting and not be eternal in the sense that something may have a beginning and then become everlasting, whereas that which is eternal does not have a beginning but is also everlasting. Again, think of the two natures of Christ, i.e., the human and the divine. “But when the fulness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman…” (Gal. 4:4), and “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” (John 1:14). The Son, a.k.a. the Word, is the eternal second Person in the Trinity, and is the Person who, in the fulness of the time became also a human being. Therefore, while His divine nature is eternal, His human nature is everlasting, in that it had a beginning. Thus, Jesus is one divine Person with two natures forever. Therefore, God alone is eternal. He is Spirit, infinite and eternal. But He is also unchangeable in His Being.

God is Unchangeable in His Being

Unchangeableness is one of those attributes of God for which we ought to be very thankful. Just think about it, what if God changed His mind about your election? What if He changed His mind about your redemption? What if He changed His mind about what is good and what is evil? What if He Himself changed from being good to being evil? Oh, we can be thankful that God is eternal. Why? because that means that He is eternally unchangeable!

Now, I know that this sounds like a redundant thing to say. But you need to see that God is not unchangeable for a time. No, He is unchangeable for eternity, from everlasting to everlasting!

So, if God is unchangeable this also must mean that God never had a beginning. Because, to have a beginning a thing must become something it wasn’t before it began. But let’s not go there! We’ve already established the eternality of God.

James in his Epistle says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:7).

Now, it’s true that the Bible in places uses language in which God appears to change His mind on certain things.  One might think of Genesis 6 where we’re told that the Lord saw the wickedness of man on the earth and was sorry. He was sorry He made man and so He sets out to destroy rebellious man in Noah’s flood.

Or what about Hezekiah? The Lord told Hezekiah that he was “history,” to use the vernacular. But Hezekiah pled his case before the Lord, so the Lord spared him instead of killing him. Then there are the Ninevites. They repented at Jonah’s preaching. So God, as it were, changed His mind about their threatened destruction for their wickedness.

Well, first off, God isn’t changing in His being when He rewards or punishes people’s behaviour. The Catechism is actually talking about the attributes of God, i.e., His very Being as being unchangeable. It’s not really dealing with the way God interacts with His creation and people.

However, it is a reasonable question to ask: Does God ever change His mind? And if He does, does this mean that He is not “unchangeable”? Well, let’s just say that because God is Spirit, and because He is infinite and eternal, He can never ever be taken by surprise., which is another way of saying that, not only is He Omnipresent, i.e., everywhere at once, He is also Omniscient, i.e., He knows all things. Therefore, nothing outside of Himself can influence Him to change His mind about anything.

God knows the end from the beginning. Therefore, He always knew He was going to send the global flood in Noah’s day. He always knew He was going to spare Hezekiah another fifteen years. He always knew the Ninevites were going to repent under Jonah’s preaching! So we see that God is also wisdom – He knows all things. Therefore, His wisdom is related to His infinitude.

God is Wisdom

“He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name. Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:4-5). Some people tend to view the starry skies as infinite. If that’s really the case, then God can count to infinity. My little Scottish nephew was asking his mum which was the very last number. Well, only God knows the answer to that one! But, as we noted earlier, the starry firmament, i.e., outer space is finite, because space and time are creatures made by God who alone is truly infinite. This is how come the Psalmist can say of God, “His understanding is infinite,” which is another way of saying that the character of God is “wisdom.”

He is not just wise, He IS “wisdom.” But not only is God all-knowing, and all-present. He is also Omnipotent, i.e., all-mighty in power.

God is All-Powerful

God is the all-powerful One. After all He did create the heavens and the earth in six days out of nothing!  How many blazing stars are out there? Only God knows because God is the One who made them. Think about it, split one tiny atom and you generate enough power to light up or wipe out a whole city. How powerful then must God be to have created every single atom in the universe?

As it’s written in Daniel 4:25, “…He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”

God's power is clearly seen in His acts of creation, providence, and redemption.

God is Holy, Just, Good, & True

And what about another character trait of God. What about holiness? His holiness is related to His power. For it says in Revelation 15:4, “Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, for Your judgments have been manifested.”

God is our Creator. He is our Redeemer. He alone is Omnipresent, Omniscient. He alone is Omnipotent, the Almighty. Therefore, as the Apostle asks, “Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name?”

To be holy is to be “set apart”. God, the Creator, is so “set apart” from all His creation. He alone is truly holy, i.e., set apart, transcendent. Therefore, holiness is also part of God’s character, as are justice, goodness and truth.

The LORD Himself passed before Moses and proclaimed these word recorded in Exodus 34:6-7, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation.”

WSC books are aplenty!

So, we see justice in God’s character in that He doesn’t avoid punishing the guilty. But we also see His goodness in that He only does so to the third and fourth generation. He doesn’t punish to the fiftieth or the hundredth or the thousandth generation. Louis Berkhof says, “The goodness of God is that perfection of God which prompts Him to deal bountifully and kindly with all His creatures.”

We also see His goodness in the fact that He forgives iniquity, transgression and sin.  And we can be thankful for His other character trait i.e., truth. The revelation that God has given of Himself in Scripture is perfectly reliable, for He would be a cruel God indeed if He lied to us about His merciful and gracious longsuffering towards us.

For what terror there would be in the breasts of puny creatures such as you or me to know that we were going to face the judgment of a God such as we’ve seen described?! But His mercy endures forever.

Conclusion

We’ve seen something of the fact that: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

REMAKING THE WORLD - How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West (Review)

Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West, is, as they say in Glasgow, “Pure dead brilliant!”

Intelligently written, educational, peppered with allusions to classic writings and pop-culture, inventions, ancient cultures and industrial practices, social mores, Overton window-pane replacements, explorers, composers, hymn-writers, playwrights, poets, philosophers, theologians, preachers, politicians et al.1776 seems to have been the year, that for once, all the ducks got in a row, (the chakras balanced?), and the stars aligned! Remarkable! Amazing grace!  Yes, the Declaration of Independence and many of its signatories are given detailed attention.

Wilson investigates and gives insightful commentary as to what was going on in the world to bring about 1776. Though drizzled with humour, the helpful diagrams, informative footnotes and copious endnotes betray that this is indeed a scholarly work.

Glasgow’s motto is: “Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of Thy Word and the praising of Thy name.” Back in the day when its churches were fuller, Glasgow had world-renown for her shipbuilding on her River Clyde. To worldwide applause, “Clyde built!” was her stamp of approval. Wilson’s “pure dead brilliant” book clearly demonstrates that the West is “Gospel built!”

A BRIGHT FUTURE?

 

A Bright Future?

^“And I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten…” (Joel 2:25).

“For who has despised the day of small things?” (Zech. 4:10a).

As I saw the news that the President of the USA’s election had been certified and that Canada’s Prime Minister had announced he was resigning, I thought, “What a great day!” Then I thought of that old song from back in 1986 put out by the one-hit wonder, Timbuk 3: “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades”! I admit that another old song did come into my head, the power ballad by The Scorpions from 1999, which is usually associated with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, “The Wind of Change.” Okay, January 6, 2025, is a “day of small things” not the end of the Soviet Empire! So, back to wearing shades…

The nations of USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are known as the “Five Eyes” nations. They look out for each other. However, it is mainly the military might of the USA that acts as a deterrent for our enemies, mainly Chinese intrusions, and Russia across the polar icecap, hence the DEW Line running through Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Iceland. 

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Each of the “Eyes”, to a greater or lesser extent, has been in the debilitating grip of Leftist Wokeism. The militaries of the Five Eyes nations were being hogtied by this Political Correctness movement inculcated by the Left of politics, e.g., open borders, mass migration, indoctrination at schools, colleges, and universities, false media, lawfare, stifled speech. Trudeau locked protestors out of their bank accounts and access to their credit cards etc.

The USA, shortly, will be releasing its military from its PC bonds (DEI etc.), and hopefully, if Pierre Poilievre replaces Justin Trudeau, the same will happen with Canada. But that leaves three of the “Five Eyes” still pending.

The Australian pro-Wokeism Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, looks as if he is on the road out after his spectacular failure with his, what the majority of Australians viewed as racist, “Voice” referendum. Sir Keir Starmer, the pro-Wokeism UK Prime Minister, seems to be dying a death by a thousand cuts, especially now with the migrant rapist gangs coverup being exposed. The rapist gangs are mainly foreign nationals from, or associated with, Islamic nations, preying mainly on young white females. Hence, the PC fear of the authorities to confront these maniacs. One only has to watch the British news to hear the Leftists hurl their ludicrous cries of “racist” at anyone who is brave enough to speak of this godless barbarism!

New Zealand? You better put on your Foster Grants for this one! NZ’s Prime Minister is Christopher Luxon, an evangelical who professes to be “centre-right” in his political leanings. He’s been PM since November 2023.

So, so far the future is looking brighter for New Zealand, and now with President Trump in the USA, and, God-willing, Canada in her next election. The UK PM, Starmer is obviously on the way out, but who will be their next PM? Hopefully, Elon Musk calling Nigel Farage names only strengthens Farage in the polls. The UK needs him or someone like him to stand up to all the PC bullies, yeah, the Left. (The terms Left and Right in politics comes from the mother of Communism, the French Revolution.)

Monday January 6 was a great day for the world, beginning with the “Five Eyes” nations. Yes, it is a day of small things, but hopefully now God will restore to us the years the locust has eaten as we remove the PC hobbles and begin to feel free enough to talk about the issues with each other openly and  intelligently, without being shouted down and called names by the Left, without the fear of being arrested by the “thought Police” for posting something on Social Media, or for praying outside of an abattoir for babies etc.

The future’s so bright, the “Five Eyes” gotta wear shades. Thank You Lord Jesus! We don’t deserve Your grace.   

(YouTube The Future's So Bright):  https://youtu.be/8qrriKcwvlY?si=AYhtGBldebCrigCk   

PURIFICATION & POLLUTION

 Purification & Pollution

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‘Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden’ (Gen. 2:10a). Imagine how pristine both the river out of Eden and Adam in the garden were until he disobeyed and thereby declared humankind’s war on the Creator; after which the LORD God said to him, ‘Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life’ (Gen. 3:17b). 

How many rivers and lakes have been polluted ‘in the sweat of your face’ (Gen. 3:19a) by industrial man, down through the ages? Whether a river or humanity, that which is polluted needs to be purified. For, ‘Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? … no spring yields both salt water and fresh’ (James 3:11-12), and ‘Man decays like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth eaten’ (Prov. 13:28). So the question is: ‘Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!’ (Prov. 14:4). Yes, no one but God!

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How does God purify that which has been polluted by mankind? He passes it through His ‘Filter’, i.e., His Son, Jesus Christ. The end result being that that which had been polluted is being and shall be purified. ‘Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb… And there shall be no more curse’ (Rev. 22:1, 3a). So, we see that God cursing the ground was part of His plan to thwart ‘the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men’ (Burns). ‘For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the One who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time’ (Rom. 8:20-22).

Perhaps you’ve never thought of Jesus as being God’s ‘Filter’ for purifying the polluted? ‘For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time’ (1 Tim. 2:5-6). A mediator, as you know, is a go-between. Jesus said, ‘No one come to the Father except through Me’ (John 14:6b). Therefore, if you or your religion, including your so-called non-religion, are not going through Jesus, you are swimming in polluted waters and will be drowned therein – unless Jesus is your ‘Filter’ of purification. ‘And we all have become like the unclean, and all our deeds of justice like a menstrual cloth’ (Isa. 64:6a, LEB). ‘But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin’ (1 John 1:7).

Humanity is descended from disobedient Adam. He was our representative before God, and it’s our collective sin and our personal sins that pollutes us and the creation in which we live. However, God has graciously revealed a new Representative, a new Adam, an eternally obedient replacement, the Man Christ Jesus. He lived the perfect life that Adam failed to live, and He died to save believers from hellfire. ‘For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom. 6:23). It is because of our pollution that we have so much trouble seeing our dire need for God’s gift of His Son. We tend to think that we are not as polluted as others. We may be heard to say, ‘No one is perfect’ or ‘To err is human’ or refer to ‘a white lie’ as opposed to a ‘black lie’ to help diminish how polluted we really are as we try to justify why we do not need Jesus. However, only Jesus is the purification for your pollution. Trust only in Him.     

ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE (Review)

I read this book on philosophy a couple of times years ago and I'm still getting great milage from it for explaining God to people.

In it Pirsig attempts to resolve the tension between what he describes as the two main worldviews in the West, Classical and Romantic, by using the term of Quality.

Pirsig does mention the Trinity, and gets close, very close, but misses the fact that the One and the Many, Diversity in Unity, the General and the Particular etc., yes, his Classical and Romantic views, are resolved only through understanding the Triune God, the Creator Whose whole creation points to Him everywhere we look. Being Triune, God, as described in the doctrine of the ontological Trinity, is the original One and Many et al.

Regardless, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is well worth taking the time to read.

THE DAY WE WENT TO ROTHESAY O

 (A wee excerpt from my Thistles & Gum Trees book)

THE DAY WE WENT TO ROTHESAY O

Stuart, my older brother, turned the ignition key of his French car and waited for it to rise like a hovercraft. With wind firmly caught in our sails, it was anchors away! In no time at all we were running late! Immediately I was introduced to a variety of interesting cul-de-sacs and back streets as our vessel tacked the wind while navigating and occasionally plumbing the depths of a series of great lakes on the way to Wemyss Bay from Glasgow. Our hearts became one with the windscreen wipers as they, with great rapidity, attempted to slap the descended mists of clime and time into submission: Late for a date.

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The original plan had been to scale that part of the West Highland Way that scrambles breathless over the “Conic” from somewhere near Drymen. Our party was to wet its feet and/or whet its whistle in the hotel in/at Loch Lomond at Balmaha.  The first plan had been washed away down the drain on account of Noachic deluge the dark night before. The contingency plan was for Stuart to take his exiled brother, (who had departed Scotland’s sultry shores some twenty-seven years previous) on a wee trip of nostalgia “Doon the Watter” (or a portion thereof).

The car ferry was to set sail by the clock at the Victorian Wemyss Bay Railway Station Pier and deposit its cargo (including the Citroen) at Rothesay Pier on the Isle of Bute. Lunch was then to be enjoyed ashore before the five or so mile drive to the short ferry trip at Rhubodach which was to deposit us on a scenic road back to Glasgow via The Rest and Be Thankful. But what did Robert Burns have to say about our day trip to Rothesay? The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley… A barb from the bard.

Reminiscent of marble tombstones, a solemn row of porcelain urinals met the tourist in his time of need at the old railway station lavatory before departing Wemyss Bay. Silence echoed like chanting monks interrupted as the tourist left his mark. A moment was ceded to indecision on account of the many washbasins. All offered to baptise the visitors’ hands. The station clock quietly applauded as it checked the flow of the spent-penny water going down the drain. Wise clock. The solitary blow-drier began to huff and puff in a huff because it was in the hands of another. With screwed-up dial our tourist tried to wipe away the worst of the wet on the thighs of his sterling five-pounds bargain jeans. Stoically he left his hands to match the wetness of the day.

The traveller strained to read the history of the Wemyss Bay Railway Station that hung like an ancient trophy on the wall. Closer scrutiny was afforded by fording a boggy moat of sorts. The obligatory station pigeons were soggy and the bay’s seagulls could have done with the downdraft of the “Mens” solitary hand drier.

Stuart would be great at poker. He betrayed no glint of emotion when charged 38 pounds sterling for our return fare to Rothesay, Bute. As a gunslinger goes for his gun he covered the event with plastic. A lightning flash in a thunderstorm! As they saddled up, our visitor resolved within himself to pay for the prophesied lunch.

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One of the four things too wonderful for Agur, in the Book of Proverbs, to understand was, “The way of a ship in the midst of the sea.” True to Scripture the “Juno” with cargo aboard launched herself sideways from the pier. The salty-sojourner mused, With a propeller fore and aft could each end of the ferry in theory go its separate way? A launch for lunch.

The thirty-five minute trip across the Clyde estuary was over in no time! Landmasses quickly floated by not wishing to be seen. The pair peered at these through ragged curtains of cloud flapping in the wind. Low-flying pairs of birds dressed in scuba gear patrolled the strangely calm waters for seafood lunch. The ferry soup-spooned its way through peaty channels. A taste of Scotland at sea: scotch broth garnished with sprigs of heather. Unable to get his bearings, Stuart struggled to name the points and promontories that also floated past under the weather. But rain-soaked buildings soon began clinging to Juno’s brow like tresses of distress on a cold and damp damsel. Rothesay had glimpsed us from a window and was curling herself into view.

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There was a couple, fellow ferry sailors; a man with a woman. Conversation struck. He hadn’t been back to Scotland for twenty years. She never said a word. They were living in Stratford-upon-Avon. Niceties about the English bard were exchanged as the unmistakeable sounds of Glasgow bubbled forth from his vocal chords. He reminisced about days in Rothesay lang syne: all pubs and “benders”. To this day she never said a thing on that ferry ride. And how is it possible to live so close to Scotland and not come back for twenty years? Prison? In deference to the Good Book the Tasmanian tourist took that thought captive. Not wanting it to interfere with a good pub-crawl the couple had left their vehicle at home. Car less and care less.

The ferry did its thing “too wonderful” and embraced the Rothesay pier like a long-lost brother. Lead on MacDuff! Like Columbus in the Americas, Stuart’s “hovercraft” gallantly splashed ashore in slow motion. Subsequently it deflated itself as it docked in a nearby “free” parking lot.

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First port of call was a visit to plumber’s heaven. The Victorian Gents at Rothesay is no “wally close”. The marble tombstones at Wemyss were rows of derelict tenements compared to this. Monastic! Standing on end, side by side, was an open white satin coffin after white satin coffin. Polished brass with shiny copper pipes and timbrels played water-music in this acoustic mausoleum. None of Jeremiah’s “broken cisterns that can hold no water” here. One expected to see goldfish in the lofty glass see-through tanks designed to water the white lilies of the valley below. Truly fit for a king!  Fifteen pence to spend a penny was money well spent! A flash flush.

The drive to the Mount of the same name as my brother had to be cancelled due to inclement weather. No need to waste time ascending a mountain to view scotch mist when a valley will do. Time was multiplied on the contingent journey to a hotel for lunch. This, of course, was due to the aforementioned inclement weather, not to mention the car of a slow-moving tourist blocking the road in front. The secondary lunch destination was eventually reached but exuded a damp and deserted look. So it was back to Rothesay post haste.

The back door entrance to the Black Bull in Rothesay kindly escorted us into a warm and dry place. The atmosphere was friendly and the menu tasty. With wet jackets removed, sausage, egg, and chips times two was the order of the day. The late lunch arrived promptly, over which the course of action was plotted. A wee walk around, a quick look at the castle, perhaps? Then it was off up the island to Rhubodach for the ferry over to Colintraive which would lead us back to Glasgow, apparently. With appetite assuaged we squeezed through the front door, ready to meet the elements, broadside if need be. Coming in the Inn through the out door we went out the Inn through the in door. Excited we exited.

A damp cloth was cast in the face of our joy while a tear of quiet contemplation got lost forever somewhere in Bute precipitation. Through moist eyes Rothesay was seen to be still mourning the sad passing of her most famous young daughter, Lena Zavaroni. Many shopfronts wore her name, like black armbands. The Pavilion lay shrouded in silence. The streets were empty, awash with the tears for a day bygone.

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Even Rothesay castle was unable to rouse itself. It looked every bit of picture-postcard ruin, even when viewed through rain-spattered glasses and steamed-up car windows. Does it always have a moat all the way round all the year round? No time for storming castles! Our Tasmanian tourist had a pressing appointment that very evening which was fast approaching. His wife and he were to visit old acquaintances long forgot at six. Time was of essence. To the ferry!

All that separates Rhubodach from Colintraive is a ferry. In fact they are so close that three or four such ferries laid end to end would just about join the two points! The wait for the ferry, therefore, wasn’t long. Like the merry-go-round when we were kids, we were hardly on before it was time to get off. The scenic route to Glasgow begins on the other shore.

A sort of jovial woman met and welcomed us to the other side. As Stuart handed her the ferry ticket through the rolled down window of the Frenchified automobile he asked if this was the road to Glasgow.

“No,” she said. “It’s not.”

“It’s not?” re-inquired Stuart turning to me with a questioned look. I looked, and sure enough the signpost pointed to the way to Glasgow. “This is not the road to Glasgow?”

“No,” she said again. By this time Stuart was out of the car. However, this time she did add a bit about the road being blocked and washed away in places ahead due to flooding.

“What should we do?” was my big brother’s next question.

“O, you need to go back and catch the Rothesay to Wemyss Bay ferry. Anyway,” she added, “This ticket you’ve given me is no good for this ferry. It’s only good for the Rothesay to Wemyss Bay one.”

Stuart apologised for his honest oversight.

“You need to get back on this ferry,” she directed.

“Thank you,” said Stuart. But as he tried to get back into his vehicle he was mugged from behind.

“That will be twelve-pound fifty,” said the jovial ticket lady. A sense of humour? No! She was serious!

This time Stuart had on his face one of yon bewildered looks as he turned his head toward me. It seemed Dick Turpin had ridden north of the border for the “summer!” And she did have us over an empty whisky barrel. When Stuart began to fumble in his pockets, the tourist, all the way from Tasmania, cracked under the pressure and said, “I’ve got it!” A tourist trap on a tourist trip.

The six-mile drive got us into Rothesay just in nick of time to see the back (or was it the front, it’s so hard to tell!) of the ferry as it once more did its thing “too wonderful”. Forty-five minutes is an awful long time to wait when you are really needing to be well on your way.

The day we went to Rothesay. O, what a day that was! Rain can be a pain.