Shorter Catechism on God Q.6 (5) – Equal in Power and Glory

Read: John 14:8-17

 

The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin, other than the Bible, is the most influential book in Christian history. Perhaps the most famous words of the Institutes are those Calvin begins with, “Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” If we do not know ourselves, how much less we know the infinite, eternal and unchangeable God of the Universe! And yet, over the last few months, we have been surveying what our Westminster Shorter Catechism has to say about our God – from Q.4 dealing with His attributes and characteristics, through Q.5 dealing with His Oneness, through Q.6 revealing God as glorious Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In an effort to expand our wisdom, I want to conclude our studies into the Shorter Catechism’s definitions of the character and nature of God by looking at the last clause of Q.6 – “equal in power and glory” – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are equal in power and equal in glory. I want to look at this under two headings this evening: first, what does this mean; and secondly, what difference does it make?

 

Shorter Catechism on God Q.6 (4) – God is Spirit

Read: John 14:15-31

 

Life is hard for one poor Japanese businessman. Given the low interest rates the financial institutions were offering at the time, this businessman decided to bury his savings in his back garden. Whenever he needed some money, he would go and dig up his stash, take what he needed, and then rebury it. However, on October 10^th, he noticed that his back garden has been dug up. When he looked for his money, it had gone. The seriousness of the incident only appeared when it was revealed how much the man had lost – he told police that the equivalent of 2.8million pounds had been stolen from his back garden. It’s an awful lot of money to lose in one go!

 

The Church of Jesus Christ is often guilty of losing the most precious and valuable things through its own neglect and ignorance. One such precious thing (or I should more properly say precious person) the Church has neglected is the Holy Spirit. Never mind 2.8 million pounds, if we lose the Holy Spirit, we’ve lost God and we’ve lost everything. By contrast, with Him there is nothing we cannot do. The person of the Holy Spirit forms the fourth of our studies into Q. & A. 6 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism – “How many persons are there in the Godhead? There are three persons in the Godhead, – the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.” By way of rediscovering the glory of the doctrine and person of the Holy Spirit, I want to explore three avenues tonight – hoping that they will be useful starters for your own studies into His precious person: first, the divinity of the Holy Spirit; secondly, the Personality of the Holy Spirit and lastly, the Role of the Holy Spirit.

 

Why am I a Christian (7) – The Future

Read: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

 

Last week, I saw a billboard poster for a prominent British insurance firm recently with the message, “There is only one predictable thing in life – the future is unpredictable.” Now there’s a sense in which I understand what the insurer is saying, but there’s another sense in which that’s just plain not true – that’s just a gimmick to get you to buy their insurance products – that should be prosecuted under trading standards legislation, because you see the problem is that ultimately, the future is 100% predictable. We know the future for 100% of us here today, like as not, will be death and the grave. Every one of us will die – from the oldest to the youngest, from the fittest to the laziest, from the poorest to the richest – we all know the future – and it ain’t orange – the future is dead. We don’t know is when, where or how it will happen, but we know it will. How dark the future is!

 

Shorter Catechism on God: Q.6 (3) – God the Son

Read: Hebrews 1:1-12

 

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing” – so said a wise man to me not that long ago. If there is one thing among many which we may call the ‘main thing’ of Christianity, without which one cannot call oneself a Christian no matter what else one believes, what would it be? Without any real hesitation, the answer is the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. To be a Christian is to believe that Jesus Christ is nothing and no-one less than God Himself. Now you may think that this is not as important as we are making it out to be – that it is just another bit of theological jargon and an another opportunity for theologians to argue; but without the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ everything in Christianity falls flat on its face – there can be no true knowledge of God, there can be no salvation, there is no Christianity.

 

Shorter Catechism on God: Q.6(2) – God the Father

Read: John 6:35-51

 

25 year old Paul Burns, from Glasgow, is probably the most versatile and multi-talented clinical physiologist in Scotland. He combines his busy job at Gartnavel General with a professional career in Welterweight boxing. You probably couldn’t think of two things which are more different! You would never know from looking at him in his hospital scrubs that Paul Burns has aspirations to win the British welterweight boxing title by beating the living daylights out of his opponents.

 

Just like sometimes people can surprise you by who they are and what they do, God never stops surprising you. In particular, as we enter into a brief study of God the Father, we are caused not just to be surprised, but, along with the words of Professor John Murray, “stagger with amazement.” Who He is and what He does exceeds all we give Him credit for!

 

Shorter Catechism on God (Q.6):1 – There are Three Persons in the Godhead

Read: Matthew 28:19

 

Jigsaws make popular Christmas presents. I got one last year. One jigsaw I’ve never tried is called, “the hardest jigsaw in the world”. You can find it on the internet – it’s basically a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle with no picture – just pieces. So you have no idea of where the pieces fit together. It’s really hard. The Christian Doctrine of the Trinity is a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle where you don’t have the full picture to make up your puzzle from. You just have to fit the pieces together and then see what the jigsaw looks like. You have hints, but no final picture. And the doctrine of the Trinity – that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God – is the hardest puzzle in Christianity.

Shorter Catechism on God (Q.5):2 – The One True and Living God

Jeremiah 10:10

 

Imagine the shock the poor motorists traveling on the A96 near Nairn a few Saturdays ago must have felt. Traffic was being held up because two men were having a fight in the middle of the road. The surprising thing, however, was that one of them was dressed up as a cow, complete with a brown hat; and the other one was dressed up as a horse, complete with a straw hat. If I was a passing motorist, I’m not sure if I would have laughed or cried, but I know I would have been surprised.

 

I want to begin tonight by shocking and surprising you by saying something you will never have heard from a Free Church Pulpit before. I am an atheist – a convinced, card-carrying atheist. I’m not just an unsure agnostic, I am positively atheist. But before you pack up and walk out, let me explain myself – regarding the supposed existence of any other God other than the One True and Living God of the Bible, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I am an atheist. I am utterly convinced that no other God, other than the God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, exists. I believe that our God is the True and Living God.

 

Why I Am a Christian (6) – The Meaning of Life

Christ the Meaning of Life

 

John 17:3

 

I slipped up last week. After making a mental note to put my reading of the Russian author Anton Chekhov’s Short Stories to one side, I picked them up again and read one. It was called “Typhus” and was the story of a soldier coming home to Moscow after serving in the army in Siberia. It begins on a train, with the soldier in a bad mood at a fellow passenger. Before long, the soldier starts to feel sick and run a temperature. When he gets home to Moscow, he goes straight to bed. After 2 weeks fevered hallucinations, he wakes up to a beautiful bright morning. He feels great. He’s managed to survive a dose of spotted typhus, a great killer disease of the day. Just when the story looks as if it is going to conclude on an uncharacteristically Un-Chekhov high point, the downer hits – this man’s younger sister nursed him back to health – a girl with all the promise and beauty of a life ahead of her – but during the her brother’s illness, she caught spotted typhus from him and quickly died. The last line of the story reads, “And joy gave way to the boredom of everyday life and the feeling of his irrevocable loss.”

 

Shorter Catechism on God (Q.5):1- There is Only One God

Deuteronomy 6:4

 

According to a recent study by finance giant MBNA, around 2 million football fans in Britain alone have pre-match rituals. These range from taking the same route to every game, to wearing lucky clothing, to using a lucky toilet before the game starts. Most football fans have their habits. In the same way, over the years, we Christians often develop habits, some of which are not always helpful. One of these is the imprecise ways in which we speak of God. The Puritan Stephen Charnock wrote, “It is impossible to honour God as we ought, unless we know him as he is.” The more precisely we know God and are able to describe God, the more it becomes possible to honour Him in lifestyle worship and service. The better you know Him, the more you will love Him and the more you will want to give up your life to Him.

 

The Shorter Catechism on God (Q.4, 5):14 – God is Truth

Read: 1 Kings 18:17-40

 

We come, tonight, to our final study into Q & A 4 of the Shorter Catechism, ‘What is God? God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in his being wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth’ – God is Truth. I haven’t gone through this study with you to bore you, or to tire you, but to enthuse you about the God you serve so that you may know Him better, praise Him sincerely, and serve Him enthusiastically. I have also chosen to do these studies on a prayer meeting night, not because I want to cut down the length of time we pray, but because I want us to use each of God’s magnificent attributes as the focus for our prayers on behalf of ourselves and other people.