The Catechism, Chapter 1: God the Father & Creation

Johnathan Arnold teaches through Chapter 1 of The Whole Counsel of God catechism.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to the Holy Joys podcast, a discussion of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

All right, welcome to the first lesson of our six-week catechism class. We're going to jump right in with chapter one, question one, if you want to turn to page 36 in the Whole Council of God, a Protestant Catechism and Discipleship Handbook. I do want to encourage you in your own time to go back and read the introduction to catechesis that begins on page 19. And I think that will really help you. It explains, for example, that the word catechesis just comes from a word in the Bible in the Greek New Testament, and it's often translated as simply teaching or instruction. But the church kind of coined that word, that transliterated word, to refer to a special kind of teaching, which is just teaching the basics of the Christian faith, what we believe, how we live, and how we pray. And how we pray, Jesus gave us a summary in the Lord's Prayer, how we live, of course, the Ten Commandments. And then the Bible doesn't give us at one place kind of a comprehensive summary of doctrine, but the early church, pastors in the first few centuries of the church, developed a summary of the apostles' doctrine, which is known as the Apostles' Creed. And creed just comes from another biblical word that means to believe or I believe, credo. And so apostles' creed just means what the apostles believed and what we believe as well, uh, the faith that's been passed down to us. And so, in this first lesson, if you actually back up a few pages, you'll see the uh introduction page to the chapter. There's a stained glass window design with the tree of life and the river from the Garden of Eden. Uh, but in this first chapter on God the Father and Creation, we're gonna be focusing on the content that is covered in the first article of the Apostles' Creed, which is I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. So we're gonna talk about God the Father and creation. So beginning on page 36 with question one, uh, we're gonna have a brief word of prayer and then we'll say this responsively and reflect on it a bit together. Uh Heavenly Father, we love you and we thank you for creating us, creating us in your image to know, love, and enjoy you. Send your Holy Spirit into our minds and hearts to understand uh your truth that we might love you better in Christ's name. Amen. All right, question one. I will read the questions throughout this uh lesson, and then after I read the question, join me in saying the answer all together. Why did God make you? I was made to be happy in God, and I will be restless until I find my rest in him. So, right here at the beginning, we are uh asking a few really just basic foundational questions that are going to kind of orient us to some of the major themes in this book. And we begin with this very basic question of why did God make me? Why am I here at all? Why was I created? And we uh, you know, we sometimes look around at this fallen world in which we live, where there's sin and sickness and misery and death, and we we try to answer this question uh based on our experience in a fallen world. But if we really want to know why God made us, God didn't make us for sin. He didn't make us for anything that has resulted from sin. Uh, we need to look back to the Garden of Eden and then ultimately we need to look to the new heavens and the new earth and see what did God make us for? What's the ultimate goal for which God made us? And the ultimate goal is that we would know him, love him, and enjoy him. And later in the catechism, uh, when we ask about humanity, how God made human beings, uh, we'll we'll see those three words to know, love, and enjoy him. But Christians have used this short little formula to be happy in God to kind of summarize all of that. Uh, if we're going to be happy in God, we've got to know who God is, we've got to love him supremely, and then when we do that, we enjoy him. And God is seen to be glorious by our enjoyment of God. And the problem with us is we live in this fallen world where we're so easily deceived into thinking that other things can make us happy. So people chase happiness, right? Everybody wants to be happy. It's ingrained in us. We're all looking for that deep peace and satisfaction. And so we search for it in money and possessions and relationships and status and power and fame and you know, all kinds of things. And at the end of the day, those things leave us more restless and miserable than before. We will be restless until we find our rest in him. And it's only when we come to know our creator that we find that true peace, rest, and happiness for which we were made. Now, being happy in God in this life doesn't mean we're always gonna feel happy, giddy. Uh, it doesn't mean we're always uh gonna have a good day and everything's gonna go great and we're never gonna be sad. Um, it does mean, though, that we can begin to experience a peace that passes understanding, a deep joy in our heart and our soul that is only gonna be ultimately experienced when we behold God in heaven. And so we might say that ultimately we were made for heaven. Um, John Wesley warns a lot of people think about being happy in God in heaven and never think about being happy in God on earth. And so we do believe that even as a believer in this life, we can experience more true happiness, peace, and satisfaction than an unbeliever. Uh, David talks about in the Psalms, you know, you've given me more joy than when the wine and grain of the wicked abounded, and he made clear he was living for pleasures at God's right hand forevermore. And so we need to keep it clear in our mind that we were made to be happy in God, and nothing else is going to make us happy forever. In fact, if we seek our happiness in other things, it's going to make us restless and miserable. All right, question two What prevents your happiness in God? Sin prevents my happiness in God and always leads to misery, both now and in the life to come. All right, so I mentioned that you know God has made us, He created us for Himself, that we would know, love, and enjoy Him, that we would be happy in Him, but we seek that happiness in other things because we're foolish, fallen creatures. And sin is one of those things that promises us pleasure, but its pleasures are fleeting. And it's like a poison apple. It tastes good for a moment, but then on the other side of it, it brings uh misery, death, and ultimately it leads to hell, to eternal separation from God if we persist in sin. And so we're warned, you know, don't be deceived. God isn't mocked. Whatever you sow, you're gonna reap. And so what we see here right at the beginning of the catechism is that there's two paths that we can take. The Bible sets before us two paths. There is the path of knowing, loving, and enjoying our Creator, which leads to eternal life, and then there's this path of selfishness and sin, and uh just feasting on the temporary pleasures of this world, which is gonna lead to misery, death, and destruction. And sadly, this is the way that seems right to man, this way of sin, but it leads to uh misery. And so Adam Clark, who was uh a Methodist commentator, he said, sin not, do not run into ruin, live not so as to promote your own misery. Be happy, for it is the will of God that you should be so. Therefore, he wills that you should be holy. Holiness and happiness are inseparable, sin and misery are equally so. And so throughout this catechism, we're going to come back to these themes again and again and again. God made us to be happy, but sin makes us miserable, and so God sent his son Jesus to set us free, to deliver us from sin, so that we could be forgiven and then be restored to a relationship with our Creator and enjoy him forever in heaven. All right, question number three What has God given to direct us how to be saved from sin? The holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which are the Word of God, contain all things necessary to salvation. So we need to know, as creatures in a fallen world, um, how can we be saved from the sin that makes us miserable, that threatens our eternal soul, and uh and then come home to our Creator? How can we be saved? And that's why God has given us the Bible. Uh, John Wesley uh celebrates this in the preface to his uh sermons where he says, I am a creature of the day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I'm a spirit come from God and returning to God, just hovering over the great gulf till a few moments hence I am no more seen. In other words, I'm just here for a very short time in this life, and before I know it, I'm going to drop into an unchangeable eternity. My destiny is going to be sealed. I want to know one thing: the way to heaven, how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to teach the way. In his love and his mercy and his compassion, God has met us where we are. And for this very end, he came from heaven. He has written it down in a book. Oh, give me that book at any price. Give me the book of God. I have it. Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be Homo unius libri, a man of one book. So, in other words, Wesley's saying the greatest treasure in all the world is the Bible, uh, because it teaches us how to be safe from sin and how to know God and make it to heaven. Um, when Wesley says a man of one book, Wesley read hundreds, thousands of books in his lifetime, and he wrote many books, and he wrote catechism, actually wrote a catechism. Um, but uh what he's saying here is in comparison to the Bible, all other books are uh are just nothing compared to the Bible. That's that's our greatest treasure. And other books are good insofar uh as they take us deeper into the truth of scripture. Uh and so the holy scriptures, uh, they're holy, they're sacred, they're special, there's they're set apart from all other books. Scriptures means sacred writings, the whole Bible, Old and New Testaments. It's all the word of God to us. It's not just human words, it's not just man's best guess. And in that book, we find everything we need to know to be saved. Um, there's nothing outside of the Bible that is absolutely necessary for our salvation. The scriptures are sufficient for us to be delivered from sin and to come home to our Creator and find our happiness in Him. All right, question number four. Question number four. Where is the good news of God's word summarized? The good news of God's word is summarized in the three articles of our universal and undisputed Christian faith. God the Father and our creation, the Son of God and our redemption, the Holy Spirit and our new life in the church. All right, so what this question is basically saying is look, the whole Bible is God's word. We need to read it and study all of it, but it's a big book. Uh reading about three chapters a day, it takes a whole year to get through. And so, uh, how can we summarize this? At some point, we need to say what's kind of the core teaching. And throughout church history, uh the Bible has been summarized in three articles. First of all, God the Father and our creation. That's what we're focusing on in this chapter, the Son of God and our redemption, how God sent his son to redeem us, to save us, when the creation became corrupted by sin. Uh, so we're going to look at that in the next two chapters. Uh, first, the sin that came into the world through the fall, and then how God sent his son to redeem us, and then third, the Holy Spirit and our new life in the church. Uh, how God then poured out the Holy Spirit to unite us to Jesus so that we could experience new life in him and bring us into our new family in the church. And so we'll look at that in the fourth and fifth chapters before we finish up in the final chapter with the Lord's Prayer. And then you'll see there in that little talicized answer, it mentions the Apostles' Creed as one of three creeds throughout Christian history that have been thoroughly received and believed because they can be proven with certainty from the Bible. And so everything in the Apostles' Creed is taken directly from Scripture. It's simply a summary of what the Bible teaches. All right, so in the rest of this chapter, we're gonna focus on that first article: God the Father, and our creation. Question number five How many gods are there? There is only one true and living God, everlasting, without body or parts of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. Now, when we talk about God, wow, we could spend uh we could spend, well, we spend our whole lifetime, right, thinking about uh God and his attributes. Uh, how do we begin to even summarize uh what the Bible teaches about God? Well, there's there's numerous summaries. Uh people have attempted to kind of summarize the attributes of God. But this is one of the most concise, uh time-tested summaries of what the Bible teaches. And each word is is very intentional. And if you think there's something essential that's missing, sometimes it's kind of implied there if you think through the logic of it. So this is something that I'd really encourage you to actually memorize. Um, but I'm just gonna work through each word and phrase, and hopefully this will give us just a sense of the greatness and glory of the one true and living God that we confess as Christians. First of all, there is only one, only one true God. All other gods that people worship are not really gods at all. They are ultimately figments of the imagination. There's only one true God that actually exists. And the fact of God's existence is seen in the extraordinary order and design and beauty and intelligibility of the universe around us. It points us to an infinite mind or intelligence who brought everything into existence and has a purpose for the existence of this world. The Bible says every house is built by someone. Well, what about the house of the universe? Well, the builder of all things is God. The heavens declare the glory of God. So uh we believe that there is one and only one true God, and that God is living. And I love that word living. We see that all throughout the Bible. God is the most fully alive being. He is a living being an infinite fullness of life and the source or fountain of all other living things. He he lives and loves and creates and sustains and speaks and listens and teaches and guides and comforts and he responds to his creatures. God then is everlasting, or uh, sometimes today we might say eternal. This means that God has uh always existed, he has no beginning, and he will exist forever, he has no end. God is everlasting, he's not like us creatures that come into existence. Uh, he is eternal, everlasting. God is without body. This is really crucial. Uh, sometimes we see paintings where people will depict God as this old man up in the sky. Well, God is not a human being. Uh Jesus said God is spirit. 1 Timothy 1.17 says God is invisible. 1 Timothy 6.16 says that no one has ever seen or can see God. So God will sometimes um assume some kind of form or manifest something visible as a sign that he's there, of his presence in that place. But God himself and his essential being isn't like us, flesh and blood. There's nothing naturally essentially visible about God. God does not have a body. And then God does not have parts. This is sometimes called the doctrine of divine simplicity, um, but it means that God is one and cannot be divided. This is going to be really key when we get to the next question. When we talk about God being three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the three persons of the Trinity are not parts of God, as if each person was one third God. And then God's attributes, like his power, wisdom, and goodness, are not separate or incomplete parts of God. It's not like you add up love plus goodness plus holiness plus eternality equals God. No. Um, these are just statements that are true about the one perfectly simple being and nature of God. And that's really good news. You know, it means that God doesn't sometimes act in a way that's good, and then he's like, okay, I'm gonna stop uh acting according to my goodness part, and now I'm gonna act according to my justice part, and I'm gonna, you know, punish sinners. No, God's justice is good, and his goodness is just. All of the attributes can be used to describe one another because God is without parts. Um, and then finally, God is of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. So infinite, infinite means not finite, not limited. Um, God is not limited by time, he's everlasting, as we've said. He's not limited in power, he is almighty or omnipotent. He's not limited in knowledge, he's all-knowing or omniscient, he's not limited in wisdom, he's perfectly wise. Um, he's not limited by space, he's present everywhere, omnipresent. And this one is really wonderful. He's not limited in goodness. You can't find an end to the goodness of God. He is goodness itself, the summum bonum, as the church fathers like to say. Goodness itself. Um, now to say that God is infinite, does that mean there's nothing that God can't do? Well, God can't do anything that is imperfect, that is contrary to his nature. So the Bible says God cannot deny himself. He cannot die, he cannot be tempted with evil, he cannot create a rock so big that he can't move it, right? That's that's uh silliness. That wouldn't be a good thing, that would be imperfection in God. Uh, and so God is a perfect being, infinite in power, wisdom, and goodness. And these are kind of three summary attributes. Um, and you might think, what if God was really powerful, but he wasn't good? Well, he might just move us around like pawns without any concern for our well-being or salvation. Um, what if God was really wise but not powerful? Well, then he'd know what to do, but he couldn't do it. Uh, but because God is powerful, wise, and good and infinite in those things, um, God always knows what to do. He's able to carry it out, and he always does it for our good and his glory. And so what an incredible um God that we serve. There's a hymn there next page immortal, invisible, God only wise that just celebrates uh so many of God's attributes there, that he's living and most. Blessed and most glorious and unchanging. What a great God we serve. All right, over to question number six. Question number six. This is one of my favorite questions in the entire catechism, one of my favorite topics to talk about. It's really the heart of our Christian faith. We're just going to scratch the surface today and we'll get a little deeper into this as we go on in future chapters and talk about specifically the Son and the Spirit. But question six, how many persons are there in God? There are three persons in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are of one substance, power, and eternity. You know, one of the things that people want to know about God is is God personal? Is God personal? And uh a lot of the founding fathers of our country were deists, and they believed that there was a God, but that he was very impersonal. He was like a clockmaker that created the world, wound it up, and then walked away and didn't really care what happened to it. And uh sometimes people feel that way about God. Like, look at all the suffering around us, right? Is God even personal? Does he even care about me? Does he even want to know me and have a relationship with me? And when we talk about the doctrine of the Trinity, uh, we're giving this really incredible answer to that question: Is God personal? We're saying, not only is God personal, not only is God someone, not only is God a who, God is personal in a way that no other being in existence is personal. God is supremely personal. God is tripersonal. In the one being of God, there are actually three distinct persons. Now we believe that because the Bible teaches that there is one and only one God, but then it also teaches us the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father, and the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, and they are of one being, but yet they're not the same person. They're distinct because you know they they communicate with one another, and the Father sends the Son. And the Trinity is this recognition that what the Bible teaches is that the one God isn't like us, he isn't just a being that is one and only one person, but he is a being that is tripersonal. And that means that base reality, just like the deepest truth about existence, is that God himself, who existed even before this world was made, is three persons perfectly united in an eternal communion and fellowship of love. I mean, think about it. If if we say God is love, well, what would that even mean if God was one and only one person? You know, if if you had a man who lived out in the desert for 20 years and then he came back and he's like, hey, I'm I'm really loving. Well, you probably wouldn't believe him because you're like, well, you've been living in isolation and a loving person lives in relationships with others. Well, what would it mean if if God was one person and before he even created the world, um, what would it mean to say he's love? But because God is tripersonal, we know that before the world began, God was and always is the Father loving the Son, the Son loving the Father, the Father loving the Spirit, the Spirit loving the Father. And so there are truly three persons in God. And they're all equal. They're of one substance or being. The Father isn't a greater kind of being than the Son or the Spirit. They're all one being, one substance. They're all equally powerful. The Son isn't more powerful than the Spirit. Uh, they have one power because they have one divine nature, and they are equal in eternity, which means uh the Father didn't exist before the Son. No, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all everlasting of infinite power and wisdom of goodness, because they are each fully and truly God. And so, this question, again, we're gonna get into this more as we go on, but it's really gonna shape everything that we study because that's who God is. So, question five really answered the question, you know, what is God or what is God like? Question six now really answers the question, who is God? Well, that one being is three eternal persons in perfect communion with one another. You see there on the next page, there's what's sometimes called the Trinity Shield, a simple summary. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Son, the Father is not the Holy Spirit, the Son is not the Holy Spirit. Again, we see this at Jesus' baptism, for example. Uh, the Son of God incarnate is baptized in the water. The Father speaks from heaven. Um, you know, this is my beloved Son. The Holy Spirit descends like a dove. And so here we have three distinct persons and interacting with one another. And Jesus said, even before the world began, the Father loved me. And then there's this summary from Augustine here that you can read. But let's go on to question number seven. Uh, this first lesson is focused on God the Father and creation. And so question seven asks, How did God make all things? God made all things out of nothing through his Son and Spirit and all very good to praise and manifest his glory. All right, so God is the creator of everything, um, and he created everything out of nothing. Before uh the beginning, in the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth, there was nothing but God. God didn't create the world out of pre-existent eternal matter that he just formed and shaped like Plato. No, God spoke the world into existence, which is just an incredible and breathtaking thing to even think about. Uh, God made everything that is, all things, things visible, uh, things invisible, like the human soul and angels, uh, and God made everything through his son and spirit. So here already we see that our belief that God is uh three persons even shapes how we think about creation. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and he spoke his word, and the spirit was hovering over the face of the waters. And then John 1:1 tells us, in the beginning was the word, and that word was Jesus Christ. And so John is saying, hey, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was there in the beginning with the Father and the Spirit, and all things were made through the Son, and without him was not anything made that was made. There's not a single thing that exists that the Father made without the Son or the Spirit. Uh, because God is one being, everything that God does, he does as Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are involved in all of God's external actions. Uh, we sometimes call this the doctrine of inseparable operations. The operations of the persons of the Trinity can't be separated. So God made all things out of nothing through his Son and Spirit, and then all very good. Genesis really emphasizes this. You know, each day God looks and sees, it's good, it's good. And then at the end, it's very good. Uh, there's there's an incredible, beautiful goodness to creation in its wholeness and its unity. And as we're gonna see, all the things that are bad and corrupt in this world are the result of people moving away from God, uh, towards sin. And God Himself is not the author of anything evil. God is purely good, and everything he made was very good. That means you are very good. That means the ground is very good, the trees are very good, birds and and and dogs and cats. It's all very good. God loves everything that he made. He knows how many hairs are on our head, he designed them, and he knows when a sparrow falls and he actually cares about it. Everything is very good. That's that's that's an amazing thing to confess. And then what's the purpose of it all? It's to praise and manifest his glory. There's some quotes here in the notes, and I encourage you to go back and read all the notes on your own time, look up all the key scriptures, but I I just love some of the quotes here. Um here we have one from Calvin. The final goal of the blessed life rests in the knowledge of God. Lest anyone then be excluded from access to happiness, he not only sowed in men's minds that seed of religion, but revealed himself and daily discloses himself in the whole workmanship of the universe. Calvin is saying that when you look around at the beauty of the world, when you take a walk on a beautiful fall day, or you know, the gentle snow is falling, or the waves are crashing against the ocean, this is like God whispering to you, I created you and I want you to seek me and find your happiness in me. This is amazing. Uh, the Belgic Confession says the universe is set before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God. Uh Calvin in another passage says, creation is the dazzling theater of God's glory, the dazzling theater of God's glory. And then finally, Basel says, the world is a work of art displayed for the beholding of all people. And so, you know, coming back to our opening question, right? Uh, creation is pointing us to the Creator, that we might find our happiness in him and then enjoy the world that he has made in its proper relationship to God. Uh, you turn over a page there, page number 52. Uh, there's one of my favorite paintings of Adam and Eve in the garden, because there's so many animals. And I think the artist there is just trying to depict just the fullness of life in God's original creation. Just such peace and harmony, and the lions are, you know, right next to the turkey and the uh, you know, and the camel, and they're just everybody living in harmony and the fullness of life in God's original creation. Uh, so, so very good. And it kind of gives us a picture of what the restored earth might be like. Um, all right, question eight. Question eight. How did God create human beings? God created human beings, male and female, with body and soul, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, to know, love, and enjoy him. All right, a lot packed in there. So let's break that down. Um, human beings uh, of course, created on the sixth day of creation and are sometimes called the crown of God's creation. Everything else was made for human beings, even angels were made to be ministers of human beings and to point the rest of creation to God's glory. And so God created us, uh, and he created us male and female. Of course, Genesis talks about how Adam was made and then Eve was made, and uh, they were made to complement one another. And from the very beginning, the Bible emphasizes that male and female is very good. Part of God's design for human beings is that we have a gender. We are gendered. And if God made you a man, uh, as Fred Rogers said, you stay a man. If you're made a boy, you stay a boy, and that's a good thing. And if God made you a girl, you stay a girl, and that's a good thing. And obviously, we're living in a culture where there's a lot of people who, you know, are confused about this. And I think a lot of it goes back to, you know, some of his expectations of what it means to be a good man or a good woman, and people just don't feel uh secure in themselves. And so um, obviously, there's a lot of corruption that goes on in in that regard, but uh also feel a lot of pity for somebody who would who would struggle with such a basic matter of identity. And so we need to affirm, you know, to our children and grandchildren, you're a boy or you're a girl, and that's wonderful. And and you know, your men and women are equal, and God created you special, right? It's part of God's very good design. Uh, and then God created us with body and soul. We're not just physical beings. Um, we have an invisible soul, we are a body-soul compound. The body is the visible and physical part of us, but we also have this invisible and spiritual part, and both are important. And I think most people tend to downplay one or the other. Some people do actually downplay the body. I remember one time being at a funeral and somebody said, and they meant well, but they said actually to a family member of mine, oh, well, you know, your husband who's passed away there, you know, he's in he's in the casket. And that body, that's just a shell. That's just a shell. The real Him is up in heaven with God. Now, that person is right that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord and soul. But in saying that, they downplayed the body like, well, I just left it behind. It's just a shell, it's no big deal. And I'll never forget uh what my family members said in response. They said, well, it may just be a shell, but it's the shell that I knew and loved all these years. And God made our bodies very special. We can hug one another and kiss one another. And uh, you know, my little boy uh loved to pick him up in my arms, you know, my little baby girl. Our bodies are special. And yes, when we die, our body and soul separate for a time, but that's not permanent, and that's not how God designed us. And so uh St. Augustine said the body is not an extraneous ornament or aid, but a part of man's very nature. And then other people will undermine the importance of the soul and try to reduce human beings to just a physical body, but we know that there is an invisible spiritual part of us that is like God and that is essential to us being made in the image of God and to being in communion with God, who is pure and perfect spirit. Uh, and God created us body and soul after his own image. Now, the image of God doesn't mean we look like God, because God is, as we've said, an invisible spirit without body or parts. But here we're talking primarily about a moral and intellectual image or likeness to God. And so the idea is that we are like God in certain ways. And especially highlighted in Ephesians and Colossians are knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. We're rational beings. We're capable of thinking and reasoning. We are righteous and holy by creation. Of course, that's been corrupted and needs to be renewed, but we are capable of making moral decisions. We can be more or less pure and holy and and share in the attributes of God. And so God created us to be like him and to reflect his glory on the earth, to bear his likeness in the created order, and then to be able to be in fellowship with him. And then finally, we're back to our telos or our ultimate purpose, which is to know, love, and enjoy God. So, why did God create us in his image with knowledge, with a rational mind? We need a rational mind to be able to know and understand something about God and his glory, uh, right? We need to be able to be holy so that we can be in fellowship with a God who is holy. Um, and so the goal of everything, again, is to be happy in God. Uh, Anselm said, it ought not be disputed that rational nature was made holy by God in order to be happy in enjoying him. See, see that we're back to happy in God. It's Anselm writing in the uh in the 12th century or 11th century saying this should be very clear. This shouldn't be a matter of debate that God made us rational, and then he made us holy in order that we might be happy in comprehending something of who he is, what he's like, and then enjoying him in a love relationship. All right, question nine. So God created us, God created human beings. Does God abandon his creation to chance or fortune? God sustains and governs all his creatures and all their actions by his most holy, wise, and powerful providence, so that nothing happens in this world without his orderly arrangement. You often hear said God is the creator and sustainer of all things. God sustains and governs the world. We call this God's providence. So we've talked about the work of creation, now the work of providence. Uh, to go back to that illustration of the deists viewing God like a clockmaker who just makes the clock and let it lets it tick and is kind of hands off. Um, God is not like that. The Bible teaches us that God through his son and his spirit sustains us in our existence, right? Hebrews 1 3 says, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, the Son of God, God upholds the universe by the word of his power. And in Christ all things hold together. So if God stopped upholding the creation that he made, even for a single moment, we would drop out of existence. And then God isn't just keeping us around, God is also intimately involved in the details of creation. Jesus says, not even a sparrow dies apart from the Father. So God's ways are higher than our ways, they're beyond our full comprehension. It's hard for us to even comprehend what all this means and might entail. Uh, but the Bible over and over gives us this assurance: God is much closer than we think. God is much more involved than we realize. And, you know, God allows evil, God permits it for a time, but God cares about the suffering of the world, and he is, in his wisdom, directing all things towards healing, peace, restoration, and the ultimate purpose for which he made the world. So God is sustaining and governing all his creatures, everything, uh, down to the birds of the sky. Uh, it doesn't mean that God has strictly determined everything that happens so that you know we don't make real choices, uh, but it does mean that God is involved even in our actions. He's lending us the power to do what we do. And when he permits sin and evil, he already has a plan to bring about ultimate good. Um, God sustains and governs the world by his most holy, wise, and powerful providence, which is uh basically a reminder that the God who governs us governs us according to his good attributes. What he does is is holy, it's wise, and it's according to his power. We may not see the wisdom in it always. Job struggled, of course, to understand some of God's ways, and we know God's ways are higher than our ways, but we trust, based on uh what we do know about God, that what he's doing is wise and good, and that everything that happens in this world is not just random chance or fortune, but that God is arranging human history and ordering it towards ultimate restoration and good. I think the cross of Jesus is the supreme example of this. Um, I like to ask, you know, what is the worst thing that's ever happened in human history? And there's, of course, you know, many horrific things that have happened. But you really can't get worse than crucifying the incarnate Son of God. That's just the most horrible thing that's ever happened. And then at the same time, what is the best thing that's ever happened in human history? Well, the crucifixion of the Son of God, because it means our redemption. So God is able to take the worst thing and turn it into the best thing, which means that God is able to take all the awful circumstances of this fallen world and in time, in his plan, in his ways, bring about ultimate good. And so we have confidence that although God doesn't author the evil things that happen and doesn't violate human freedom, he is intimately involved. And so Providence is a great comfort to us. The next page there, there's a hymn. This is my father's world. Though the wrong seems off so strong, God is the ruler yet. Alright, question ten. If our good God made and governs all things, why is the world full of evil? Our first parents, Adam and Eve, freely chose to sin against God and fell from the holiness and happiness in which they were created, plunging the human race into sin, death, and misery. So you might think, well, if God created this world very good and he's so involved in it, why are things so bad? Well, the answer is that the creatures that God made, he didn't make as robots. He didn't make us, program us, and just control us because we wouldn't have been able to enjoy a real authentic love relationship with God or one another if we were just, you know, automated beings. God created us with capacity to choose. And the capacity to choose God naturally necessarily implies the capacity to not choose God. And Adam and Eve, by not choosing to obey God and choosing to disobey God, separated themselves from the source of light, life, and love. And when you separate yourself from the source of life, there's nowhere to go but into death. And when you separate yourself from the source of light, there's nowhere to go but into darkness. And when you separate yourself from the source of love, the God who is love, you have nowhere to go but into hatred and strife and Cain and Abel, murder and violence. And so by making that first choice to reject God, to disobey him, they plunge the human race into a pattern of sin, death, and misery. They were corrupted and uh led to uh all the misery that we face today. And so we call this the great fall of humanity. And you might think, why did God allow this? Well, God in his wisdom, obviously, knows that it was better to create a world with free creatures in which they could fall, knowing that they would, and then save and redeem us and bring about our restoration. It was better to do that, to allow sin and misery for a time, than to not create us at all or to create us as robots. And so God allowed this in his wisdom to happen, not because he doesn't love us, but because he has an ultimate plan to bring about our restoration. Uh Adam's sin affected the whole human race after him. You can think about this like the head of a river. If you pollute the head of a river, what happens? Well, it poisons the whole body of water. John Wesley said, Man found out to himself many inventions of happiness independent of God. And by his apostasy from God, he threw not only himself, but likewise the whole creation, which was intimately connected with him, into disorder, misery, and death. As Romans says, the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it. Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. And then just one more quote here from the notes Anselm says, Man lost the blessedness for which he was made, and he found the misery for which he was not made. So again, coming right back to those opening questions, God set human beings on the path of life, the path to eternal happiness with him, walking with them in the cool of the day, gave them everything they needed. But human beings chose freely to step onto that path of sin that leads to misery and death. Final question, question number eleven. What is God's predestined purpose for the world? Predestination is God's eternal, unchangeable purpose decreed before the foundation of the world, to send his Son Jesus Christ to be the Savior of humanity and to elect in him all who believe through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Now, when you see that word predestination, you might think of Calvinism. I've heard people say, well, Calvinists believe in predestination and Arminians believe in free will. Um, well, that's really problematic because, of course, the Bible talks about predestination. It uses the word predestination. And so we need to step back and actually think about this. What does the Bible mean by that? Well, the word predestine just means to determine certain things beforehand. And the Bible speaks of things which are determined by God before they happen, even from eternity. And so, in this sense, all Christians believe in predestination. It's just a matter of what exactly do we believe about this doctrine of predestination. Okay. And so the main thing that the Bible teaches about predestination is that God predestined to send his son to be our Savior. The Bible says that Jesus was predestined to be crucified. Acts 4 28. Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. And so Jacob Arminius said properly understood, predestination is the foundation of Christianity, because predestination teaches us that this good God, who created the world, who created us in his image, who governs and sustains everything, but allowed the fall, already had a plan in place to send his son so that we could be delivered from sin and misery, and that we could be restored to happiness in him forever. And so God decreed before the foundation of the world, foreknowing that free creatures would sin, to send his son to be our Savior, and then to elect in him all who believe through the grace of the Holy Spirit. And this is where Calvinists and Arminians part ways. Calvinists believe that God has a certain number of human beings that he has chosen to be saved by his son Jesus and to be set free from sin and be with him forever, and that God sent Jesus to die for them and to receive them and to pass over everyone else, leave them in their sin, um, or to actively predestine them to be lost. Um, Arminians believe that uh no, being elect or chosen is about being connected with or in the chosen one, Jesus Christ. And so God gives the grace uh of the Holy Spirit to everyone, and those who resist will be lost, but those who yield and let him have his way will be united to the chosen one and become elect in him. But the focus here, the thing that I want uh us to understand here at the close of chapter one is that God is a good, loving God, an eternal communion of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who made everything, who made us, and yes, allowed us to fall into sin and still allows and permits evil in the world today. But that he had a plan before the foundation of the world to save us, to send the Son and the Spirit. That's we're gonna look at in subsequent chapters. That Jesus, of course, has already come, died for our sins, rose again, and we have hope of eternal life with him and of being happy in him forever. And so I just urge you to make a clean break from that path, that way of death that seems right to man. Sin not, don't run into misery, but pursue God, pursue holiness, to be like God, to know God, so that you can find the peace, joy, and satisfaction for which you were made. Let's close in prayer and uh next week we'll pick up with chapter two sin and the law, the consequences of the fall, and how God gave the Ten Commandments to expose uh human sinfulness and point us to our need for a savior. Heavenly Father, we thank you for creating us by your Son and Spirit in your image. Help us to know and believe that we are precious to you. We were made very good, and that you love us, and that you sustain us and you don't abandon us. And though the wrong seems off so strong, you are the ruler yet. You're in charge and you're working all things together for good for those who love you. As we continue in this catechism class, help us to have just a clearer picture of what it is that we believe as Christians and to go deeper together into the faith once for all delivered to the saints, and like those Christians at Pentecost to be devoted to the Apostles' Doctrine, which is summarized for us in the Apostles' Creed and in this catechism book, according to most holy scripture. We ask for your grace and your help in Jesus' name.

unknown 54:59

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

Thank you for listening to the Holy Joys Podcast. Visit us at holyjoys.org to find over a thousand resources for catechesis, discipleship, corporate worship, and daily prayer. Our labors for a holy, happy church are supported by generous listeners like you. Please pray about partnering with us at holyjoys.org forward slash donate.