1. The Evangelistic Opportunity Carrying a Bible Brings – the underground carriage was packed and most people had their faces surgically joined to the Metro, but each person in our vicinity (without wanting to be noticed) glanced at this young guy and his Bible. In that instant, each person made a decision not just about the sanity of this young guy, but also about the Bible itself – and the God of the Bible. Maybe our Bibles aren’t visible enough!
2. The Encouraging Opportunity Carrying a Bible Brings – how blessed I was to have this man sit next to me. How encouraged I feel to have had that fellowship at the beginning of the day.
3. Printed Bible 1 Kindle 0 – both of us were reading the Bible, but his was unmistakeable to the watching world, whereas I could have been reading anything.
4. How God is Building His Church – this young man doesn’t come to the Free Church. He goes to the West End Vineyard. We have mutual friends in Ryan and Laura Smith. How wonderful it is to know that God is raising younger generations to love and serve Him! And if this young man is anything to go by, they will be more faithful to Him than we have been.
5. How God is Working in that Young Man – this man’s Bible was tatty and well-used. I love to see well-used Bibles! A well-thumbed Bible is the sign of a well-disciplined heart. If he keeps reading and doing, He cannot but fail to grow in His faith in Christ.
6. How to Redeem the Time – rather than being annoyed at how long it takes us to get to work, how many distractions there are to our days, use the time of travel or the moments of idleness. Pick up your Bibles and use the time to meditate upon all God has done for us in Christ Jesus.

I am so thankful to God for this young man. I hope he’s thankful to God for me. I’m sure that at some point we’ll bump into each other again. I hope that this time I’ll be able to encourage him in the same way he has encouraged me.

1 John 1:5-11

When I was just a child, my father taught me how to play golf. It may seem obvious to say, but golf consists in hitting a ball in the right direction and as far as you want it to go. To do that, you have to swing a golf club and then bring it down so that it hits the ball. Each person has his own unique swing. Most golf swings achieve, to one degree of success or another, the primary purpose of the game – to hit the ball. But one kind of swing which never hits the ball is that swing which takes the golf club back to the height of the backswing and then doesn’t bother bringing the club back down to hit the ball. Unless the golf club makes contact with the ball, the ball won’t go anywhere and the primary purpose of the game is defeated. If you just play a half-swing, a back-swing, golf is only half-done.

When it comes to Gospel repentance there is an equivalent of the uncompleted golf swing – namely, that repentance which is merely turning from sin. For there to be repentance unto life, there must be a turning away from sin. The most frequently used word in the Bible for repentance means to change one’s mind. To change one’s direction you have to turn away from the direction in which you were walking. But that is only half the story. Many turn away from their sin having no intention of repenting unto life. This is only half-repentance. According to our catechisms, full repentance unto life consists not only in ‘with grief and hatred of sin turning from it’, but also, ‘turning from it unto God’. These two little words, ‘unto God’ transform the nature of repentance from the half-thing which it is if only we turn from sin, to the fullness of repentance if we turn unto God. As we think about what it means to turn unto God, I want to see three things this evening: first, conditions of turning; secondly, confession of sin and lastly, confidence in God’s forgiveness.

[A] Conditions of Turning

The heart of Gospel repentance unto life consists in turning unto God. There is, especially in the minor prophets of the OT, a multiplicity of invitations to return to God. As we think about what it means to turn unto God, we are to train our minds in two directions: first, turning to a person and secondly, turning to our joy.

1. Turning to a Person – the consistent Biblical command is, ‘return to me’ (Jeremiah 4:1; Joel 2:12; Malachi 3:7 etc). This is a command to return not to a set of standards; not to a religious ceremony – but to return to a person – to God Himself. The prophets who penned these words are often presented as uncaring men who enjoyed preaching doom. Nothing could be further from the truth – these were men who, in the last analysis, were lovers of God. The Puritans who framed the Shorter Catechism are likewise presented as harsh, unforgiving men of iron – but these too, if you should read their writings, are men filled with passionate affection and ardent love for God. How many illustrations we could provide of how true Gospel repentance consists in not only turning away from our sin but turning towards God – the God who is the lover of our souls: the child who disobeys his parents but returns to them because he loves them or the husband who offends his wife but says sorry because he loves her. Repentance is first and foremost not a system for the absolution of our sins, but a means of returning to God – to our Father, to our spiritual husband, to the fairest among ten thousands, to the Son who gave Himself for us, to the Spirit who is transforming us, to the Father who loves us. In repentance, we turn from lost rebellion to loving relationship.

2. Turning to our Joy – Amos 4 forms a devastating inditement of all that is wrong with God’s people. There is religious hypocrisy and pride. To bring them to their senses, God sends various trials but the consistent refrain of the passage is, “’yet you have not returned to me’, declares the Lord.” They are being oppressed by foreign nations, their crops are failing and their people are falling victim to disease – but despite all these goads from God, they refuse to return to Him. In our spiritual lives, we may be going through times of dryness or joylessness – could it be that these are God’s goads calling us to repentance? Could it be that we are forfeiting our joy in the Christian life because we are refusing to return to Him? Do we not realise that our highest joy is to be found in our deepest repentance? To return to God is to return to joy in the Christian life. Our greatest happiness in the Christian life is found in our deepest humility before God. Weeping bitter tears of repentance leads to weeping glad tears of joy. Far from repentance being a call to ultimate grief; it’s a call to find our ultimate joy and pleasure in a close relationship with God.

The heart of Gospel repentance consists in turning to God. And therefore, lest we perform a proud, self-sufficient half-repentance, let’s repent unto life by returning to God’s greatest glory and our deepest joy.

[B] Confession of Sin

The heart of repentance and turning to God is the confession of sin. The word most frequently used in the Bible for confession means, ‘to say the same as’. In other words, to confess our sins is to confess that we feel the same about our sins as God does – that we find our sin repulsive, offensive and hurtful. According to the passage we read in 1 John 1:9, it is as we confess our sins to God that we are forgiven and purified. Confession plays a part in all the major prayers of the Bible – from the prayers of Paul to the Lord’s prayer with its famous line, ‘forgive us our debts’, to the prayers of the Psalms and the prayers of Solomon. Does confession of sin play a prominent role in our prayers? Do we tell God that we feel the same about our sin as He does and that we desire His presence more than our sin? If we do, then there are to be four features of our confession: first, it is to be heartfelt; secondly, it is to be honest; thirdly, it is to be holistic and lastly, it is to humble.

1. Heartfelt – when we talk about ‘heartfelt’ confession of sin, we’re back in the territory of the grief with which we grieve over sin and the hatred with which we hate sin. This is to be the heartfelt confession of sin in that our sin troubles us. We dare not remain arrogant and proud in our rebellion before the God who loves us and who has given His Son to die for us. Rather, we return to Him with grief over the offence we have caused Him. Our confession is to be a heartfelt return to the experience of the loving embrace of our God.

2. Honest – honesty in our confession relates to the sincerity and simplicity of our repentance. There are many different reasons why a human being may repent, but only repentance unto life is a saving grace – that repentance which pursues and returns to personal relationship with God Himself. Jesus berates and condemns those hypocritical Pharisees of Matthew 6 who put on a show of piety, but whose hearts are insincere – they want only the praise of men, not of God. Similarly, sincerity and honesty in repentance means returning only to God; no double-mindedness or lukewarm-ness – a sincere, single-minded repentance unto God.

3. Holistic – in our confession of sin, we must echo the prayer of Psalm 139 – “search me and know my heart … See if there is any offensive way in me.” Our burden must be to confess all our sins. Whether these be sins of thought, word or deed; whether these be evil things we have done or good things we have failed to do, we confess them all before God. We confess them individually and we confess them generically.  It is as God says in Ezekiel 18:30 – “repent, turn away from all your offenses.” We dare not allow precious sins to go un-confessed – to pray for forgiveness for greed but to remain unrepentant concerning our hatred.

4. Humble – to be humble in our confession of sin is to refuse to justify ourselves – it is to refuse to pretend that we had to sin; or to suggest to God that what we did wasn’t that sinful. To be humble before Him is to accept how offensive our sin is to God and not to try to attempt self-justification. It is to say, ‘mea culpa’ – ‘I am guilty’. ‘But’ is never a word we should use concerning our sins – ‘but I had to’, ‘but if it had been you’, etc. Rather, we accept responsibility and confess.

Heartfelt, honest, holistic and humble confession is a vital element in turning to God from sin. This isn’t the Spanish Inquisition, this is our returning to the experience of the love of God and to the pleasures of His joy in us.

[C] Confidence in God’s Forgiveness

If in the spir       If in the spirit of returning to God that we may regain the experience of the intimate beauty of close fellowship with Him, we confess our sins to Him, can we be sure of His forgiveness? Can we be confident that He shall forgive us and that He shall ‘return to us’’? The answer is yes – God isn’t like us – He doesn’t sulk or give us the silent treatment; rather, in predictably beautiful love, He will forgive and restore us. There are three grounds upon which we can have such confidence: first, His paternal love; secondly, His plan of salvation and lastly, the promises of Scripture:

1. Paternal Love –the parable of the Prodigal Son should, I believe, be renamed the parable of the Loving Father. It reveals the heart of our Loving Heavenly Father to us – a Father who is more willing to give forgiveness than we are to receive it – a Father who is waiting to embrace us. His love for us ensures that we shall receive His forgiveness for the asking. This is the heart of God – that His people should return to Him that He may shower the blessings of His presence upon them.

2. Plan of Salvation – why did God demonstrate His love for us as sinners if it was not to forgive and purify us? Why did Jesus suffer on the Cross if it was not to win our forgiveness? Why does the Holy Spirit strive within us if it is not to bring us to repentance? The whole plan of salvation has been perfectly worked so that people like us may repent of our sins and find forgiveness in the blood of Jesus Christ. His blood has been provided for this very reason – this is what the Cross is for.

3. Promises of Scripture – Scripture is filled with promises which assure us of God’s forgiveness of our sins. The Old Testament contains promises such as Zechariah 1:3 – “’return to me’, declares the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will return to you’ says the Lord Almighty.” The New Testament contains promises such as 1John 1:9 – “if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to purify us from all unrighteousness.” Scripture is a repository of promises for the repentant sinner.

It is said of certain people that, ‘he does nothing by halves’. Let’s ensure that in this one thing, repentance unto life, we do nothing by halves. But rather, in turning from our sin we turn unto God. He shall restore the years the locust has eaten, restore our salvation’s joy and give us back the joy we had in Him. Brothers and sisters in Christ – let’s joyfully and grievously repent unto life by turning unto God. In this repentance unto life, there is great glory for God and great joy for us.

With good jobs getting scarcer and scarcer, earlier this week I was thinking of what I would do if for some strange reason, I could no longer be a minister. Perhaps I could stock shelves in Asda; perhaps I could retrain as a teacher – in order to feed your family and keep a roof over their heads you’d be willing to do just about anything. But one thing I’d never be willing to do would be to take a job as a gravedigger. The melancholy of the job would get to me after a while with the only definite career progression being one of moving from digging someone’s grave to occupying a grave someone else had dug for you. I’d run a mile from a job offer from Graves Incorporated or Cemetery Limited.

These thoughts were brought into sharper focus when I read a quote from the Puritan Thomas Watson where he says, “sin digs our graves”. We may fear the gravedigger’s job; but if we only knew how true Watson is when he talks of sin digging our graves, the thought that we would sin is the greatest grief and the chief hatred of our hearts! The gravedigger consigns our bodies to the ground; but sin consigns our bodies and souls to hell. And so we run from it in repentance to the living God who alone can forgive us and give us eternal life.

In this third study on the Shorter Catechism’s analysis of the Biblical Doctrine of Repentance, I want to look at how we run away from and turn away from sin. How necessary it is that we turn from sin in repentance – for it is impossible for someone to turn to the light whilst still clinging to the darkness. As then we consider how we turn from sin, we notice that the catechism calls us to do so ‘with grief and hatred of sin’. I want to look at two things this evening together: first, the elements of turning from sin (grief and hatred of sin) and secondly, the exercise of turning from sin – or what it means to turn away from sin. My prayer is that as we examine afresh the repugnance and monstrosity of sin and how it digs our graves, we might pray that God would give us the very grief with which we are to grieve over sin; and the very hatred with which we are to hate it.

[A] The Elements of Turning from Sin

The passage we read from Luke 18 and the confession of the Tax-Collector highlights for us the elements in turning from sin. This man, who we know had lived a dishonest and traitorous life stood afar off, kept his eyes low and beat his breast saying, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” The two elements of his turning from sin the Catechism emphasises are his grief over his sin and his hatred of sin.

1. Grief – grieving over sin is sorrow for sin. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 38:18, “I am troubled by my sin.” We are sorry because of the defilement it has brought upon us and the disgrace it has brought to the name of Christ. We are troubled because our sins have wounded our consciences but more importantly, they caused the wounding of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on the Cross. It is a shameful thing not to be ashamed of our sin. It should worry and trouble us as Christians when we aren’t grieved by our sins – for they are ugly monsters who dig our graves. Are we sorry for our sin and troubled by it? Let me apply this point of grieving over sin in two ways: first, the grief we feel over our sins is a good diagnostic tool for the progress we are making in the Christian faith. Paul wrote his epistles to Timothy towards the end of his life; these are his mature reflections on a lifetime’s discipleship. One thing is clear – the greater his progress in the Christian faith; the closer he got to Christ – the more his sin grieved him. In 1 Timothy 1:15 he calls himself, ‘the chief of sinners’. Sin bothered him more as he went on in the Christian life, not less. Thomas Watson writes, ‘a gracious soul labours to make the worst of his sin, but hypocrites make the best of them.’ Do you make much of your sin or do you make little of it? Secondly, the grief we feel over our sins varies. The tax-collector was utterly devastated; the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears was greatly disturbed. And yet, there are others who have a so-called, ‘dry constitution’ who aren’t given much to tears but we dare not question the grief they feel over their sins. Again, Thomas Watson is helpful here when he says, “we are to find as much bitterness in weeping for sin as ever we found sweetness in committing it.” Grief, bitterness and trouble cannot always be quantified by the number of tears someone sheds. And yet, there must be grief over our sin or else we shall not be disposed to leave it behind and turn to God.

2. Hatred – hatred over sin is the loathing of sin. There are many disturbing, troubling things in the world – personal suffering, persecution – but of them all, we find our own sin the most hateful. Watson writes, ‘Christ is never loved until sin is loathed.’ There are a plethora of reasons why the Gospel-motivated Christian hates his sin – and most of them have to do with the majesty and grace of the God against whom he is sinning. We hate those things which grieve the Father who loves us, the Son who died for us and the Spirit who sanctifies us. I think I told you the story of a young man in the Highlands who recently drowned. The man had an alcohol problem and on the night in question, was blind drunk. He fell into the sea and because he was so inebriated, couldn’t swim and so drowned. At his funeral, the minister warned his congregation over the dangers of alcoholism and drunkenness. But after the man had been buried, there was a reception at a hotel at which all his friends themselves got blind drunk. Given that it took the life of their friend, you would think that they would have hated getting drunk. Given that sin took the life of our Lord Jesus, you would think we would hate it – do we? Or do we cherish darling, precious, respectable sins like gossip, selfishness, power-games, the love of money, lust and greed? I want to apply this by asking how we may know if we truly hate sin. We might hate sin for the wrong reasons – for its effect upon us or for the punishment of it. The right reasons for hating sin is that it causes offence and grieves God. How can we know if we have the right attitude to our sin? Suppose our sin remained undetected by our consciences or by the Spirit of God; suppose there was never to be any punishment for our sins – would we still hate sin – the sins we commit and the sinners we are? Do we hate sin because of its inherent and intrinsic ugliness and offensiveness before God – because it is an offence to His love; His sacrifice and His holiness? Sufficient are the reasons for God to command us in Psalm 97:10 – “Let those who love the Lord hate evil.”

The Pharisee made little of his sin; the Tax-Collector much. The Tax-Collector grieved over his sin and hated it. But the Tax-Collector left the temple justified and right with God. The Tax-Collector repented unto life. The Christian is called to hate sin and to grieve over it – he’d rather lose his life than have a sinful life. Glimpse the holiness and love of God; gaze at the sacrifice of Christ; cooperate in the inward sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit and repentance will never be far away.

[B] The Exercise of Turning from Sin

Assuming that to one extent or another, we each grieve over our sin and hate it, I want to give some practical applications into how we turn away from sin. Good ideas and intentions are one thing; turning away from sin is what counts. Briefly, there are three levels in the exercise of turning away from sin: first, internal and external; secondly, immediately and enduring and lastly, individual and everything.

1. Internal and External – the chief place we should mourn for sin is in the heart. The problem the Pharisees of Matthew 6 had was that their repentance was all external – they looked the part of penitent sinners. But there was no broken and contrite heart, as David puts it in Psalm 51:17. Be careful of those who make a public show of their humility and repentance – who wear faces saying, ‘I am a sinner’ rather than, ‘I am a saved sinner.’ Rather, just like our sins come from the heart, so our grief and hatred of sin must begin in the heart. Our hearts, according to Thomas Watson, are ‘seminaries of evil’ – let them also be colleges of repentance. Yet, whilst avoiding overt displays of public grief over private sins, there are times when we cannot but show our grief and hatred of sin. For example, when we have committed a public sin it is right that we publicly express sorrow. Likewise, it is wrong for a Christian who despises sin inwardly to rejoice in sin outwardly. Again I say that we should be careful of those who pride themselves on their unworthiness, and yet if we hate sin in private, we must also hate it in public.

2. Immediate and Enduring – turning from sin can be an immediate action. We do something wrong and we immediately know it to be sinful. Immediately, our heart fills with sorrow over what we have done and we confess it to God. It is an immediate turning to God. On a larger scale, perhaps that’s what many of us did when we were savingly ‘converted’ – we saw that magnitude of our sins and were granted the grace of one-off repentance. However, just like being filled with the Spirit is both a one-off action and a permanent state; so repentance must also be enduring. We grieve over our sin at the beginning of our Christian lives; we hate it even more at the end – the more we grow as Christians, the more we despise our sin; and as long as we live in this sin-sick world and in this sin-sick body, we must continually exercise repentance unto life with its grief and hatred of sin.

3. Individual and Everything – there may be times when God shows us individual sins which we are committing. It may be that, through the regular reading of the Bible, God shows you that you have a problem with violent, uncontrollable anger. God shows you that sin so that you may grieve over it, hate it and turn to Him from it. Again, you may have a problem with greed for money and God afflicts your conscience through His Word and you begin to grieve over your greed so that you repent. But other times, you can point to no specific area of your life where you are sinning by omission and commission. At times like these, we must pray for God to show us more of ourselves – but in the meantime, we grieve over our generic sinfulness. We grieve that, having been shown so much grace by God through Christ and in the Spirit, we show so little gratitude. We grieve over single sins and over the seminary of sins; over individual sins and the collective.

We live in an ultra-tolerant, pluralistic society. Could it be that we have become too tolerant of sin in our lives – so much so that we do not grieve over it and hate it like we should? If, in the Scriptures and by prayer, we should gaze at the glory of the love of the giving Father; the glory of the grace of the crucified Son and the glory of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, it won’t be long before we realise how monstrous a thing sin really is. Thomas Watson writes, ‘sin is a cursed thing; it is the mis-shapen monster’. Let’s be rid of this cursed thing, this mis-shapen monster – let’s put into practice the elements and exercise of turning from sin in repentance unto life. If, in the next while, you get offered the job of digging your own grave, just say no. AMEN

The Biblical Doctrine of Repentance is very nearly as old as the human race itself, and yet for many of us, myself included, it remains an undiscovered network of beauty and wonder. Perhaps because the Doctrine of Sin has been so downgraded in our thinking the Doctrine of Repentance has also been ignored – after all, what need is there to repent of something which isn’t wrong? But there can be no serious discipleship in the Christian faith without serious repentance.

The Shorter Catechism is a beautifully worded summary of the Biblical Doctrine of Repentance. Last week, from Q and A 87, how repentance is a saving grace, we learned about the connected contexts in which repentance lives – the contexts of the law of God, the wrath of God, faith in Jesus Christ and the diligent use of the means of grace. But what are the motives for repentance? What factors drive us to our knees and onto our faces; what things cause us to turn with grief and hatred of our sin from it unto God with full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience? After all, it must take strong motives to make us turn away from self and towards God; from sin towards holiness? We read of two: first, a true sense of sin and secondly, an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. These two pillars form the temple of motive for the believing Christian in our fight for repentance.

[A] A True Sense of Sin

Going back to my home village keeps my feet very firmly on the ground. One of the people I often meet in my home village is my teacher from when I was in Primary 2. When I became a minister she reminded me of a time in her classroom when she asked the class to think of a word which begins with the letter ‘S’. I was only 6 at the time and when it came to my turn to say a word beginning with the letter ‘S’ I said ‘Sin’. I’m sure if Sigmund Freud had been my teacher he’d have had a few things to say about my state of mind! Over the years, to my shame and not my honour, I’ve been infected with the post-modern view of sin. Perhaps, like me, you feel a little uncomfortable and a little primitive to talk of such a thing. And yet, without a true sense of sin, as the Shorter Catechism puts it, there can be no repentance. In Psalm 51, having committed adultery, murder and deception, David repents out of a true sense of his sin when he says in vs. 4 – “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight”. He knew that sin is ultimately committed against the person of God – an affront to who He is. Therefore, whatever it means to have a true sense of sin must bear reference not merely to the impact sin has upon us, but more importantly, the offence it gives to God Himself. It is we sense what sin means not to us, but to Him that we gain a truer assessment of its true severity. A true sense of sin therefore comprises two elements: first, a sense of sin and secondly, the severity of sin.

1. The Sense of Sin – how do we sense sin such that it presents a true reflection of sin’s deformity and ugliness before God? Whilst next week we’ll be looking at the grief and hatred we feel towards our sin, I want to talk about how we detect sin in such a way that it leads us to repentance. There are two areas in which we sense sin: first, the sight of sin and secondly, the feeling of sin.

a. The Sight of Sin – the sight of sin is no reference to our physical vision. Rather, it is the awareness of how malign a thing sin is in the eyes of a holy God. We’ll come back in a moment to its offence to the holiness of God, but how we gain the sight of sin is by meditating upon who God is and who we are by comparison. There is a way whereby we gain a sight of sin by means of a disturbed conscience. We sin and our consciences are seared within us – we go through the same torture as the Psalmist in Psalm 32 whose bones are wasting away through his all-day groaning. But conscience is an unreliable guide –especially in days when social conditioning works against the standards of God’s Word. The most reliable way to see our sin is over against God’s Word itself. It is, to use James’ analogy in James 1, to have the Bible as our mirror; to use the analogy of Hebrews 4, to have the Bible as the sword; to use the Psalmist’s analogy, to have the Bible as our Light. It is as we measure ourselves up against the standards of the Word of God we get a sight of the true sense of sin. But in particular, it is as we measure ourselves up to the perfection of Christ in the Scriptures we realise how far short we fall. The sight of sin is the awareness of how we transgress the love of Christ, the compassion of Christ, the holiness of Christ, the wisdom of Christ, the delight of Christ. Do you have a true sense of sin in terms of seeing your reflection in the mirror of Christ’s Word and Life? Do we realise the offence of iniquities in thought, word and deed?

b. The Feeling of Sin – the sense of sin is no mere cognitive awareness that we have sinned against God – nor even a mental assent to how offensive sin is to God. Rather, the sight of sin’s ugliness before God translates into a feeling of pain at how much we have offended Him. That feeling isn’t primarily concerned with how we have let ourselves down; nor is it concerned with the legal implications of its actions – rather, it is concerned with how it has offended the person of God. John Colquhoun writes, “the true penitent loves God supremely and therefore his sins are a heavy burden to him.” What grieves us in evangelical repentance is that we have sinned against the God we love and who loves us. What one of us would consider it normal behaviour to steal from our parents; to lie to our children; to kill our spouses? Would doing these things not grieve us more than breaking a speed limit or forgetting to insure our cars? Of course they would because they are sins against those we love and who love us. The grief of our sins against God and His love will cause us to cry far more bitter tears of repentance than any legal or natural awareness of sin will. We will feel evangelical repentance, repentance unto life, more than any other form of repentance. It will penetrate our bones and cause the kind of groaning of which Psalm 32 speaks.

We gain a true sense of our sin through sight and feeling. Can we understand how grievous our sin is before the face of our God who has revealed Himself in the written Word as the Living Word?

2. The Severity of Sin – having sensed sin in our lives by seeing its reflection in the Scriptures and by feeling its offence against God, we must understand against what we are sinning which makes sin so severe. If we view ourselves as sinning merely against our own standards then we might repent – but our repentance will be no different from the New Year resolutions of millions. If we view ourselves as sinning merely against a set of standards given by God then we might repent – but our repentance will be merely legal and not borne out of love or desire in any way. Neither natural nor legal repentance is true repentance unto life and a saving grace. Rather, to go back to King David’s confession in Psalm 51:4 – ‘against you, you only have I sinned’; our sin is against God Himself – sin against a person. As we think through what this means, I want to see three aspects of the severity of sin – a sin against each person of the Godhead – sin against the holiness of God; sin against the Horror of the Cross and sin against the heart of the Holy Spirit.

a. Against the Holiness of God – in Isaiah 6, the prophet is given an awesome vision of the holiness of God. Isaiah sees the exalted throne of God, the train of whose robe fills the temple. He sees a myriad seraphim flying before God’s throne crying out to one another, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty’. He feels the shaking of the ground and He sees smoke billowing through the temple. His knees buckle beneath him as his eyes behold the holiness of the King, the Lord Almighty. By contrast, Isaiah sees himself as a man of unclean lips who dwells among a people of unclean lips. He sees the ugliness of his sin played out against the dazzling holiness of God Himself and he falls down in repentance unto life. Whenever we sin, let’s remember the holiness of the God against who we are sinning – so holy that even the mighty angels must hide their faces from Him.

b. Against the Horror of Calvary – in Zechariah 12:10, God is prophesying a time when the people of David will look on the one they have pierced and they will mourn and grieve bitterly. They will mourn because they have pierced him – their sins have nailed Him to the Cross. Can we conceive of how horrific the sufferings of Christ onCalvary’s Tree were? His physical appearance was disfigured beyond that of any man; His soul was crushed by the infinite wrath of an all holy God.Calvary was a horrific, terrifying place – a place of torture and death. And Christ bore it lovingly for us. Whenever we sin, let’s remember the horror ofCalvary and that it is sins like the very ones we are committing which nailed Him to the tree.

c. Against the Heart of the Holy Spirit – in Romans 1:4, the Holy Spirit is called, ‘the Spirit of Holiness.’ His name is ‘the Holy Spirit’ not just because He Himself as God is thrice holy, but because His work in us sanctifies us and makes us holy. His sanctifying work of holiness within us is with the purpose of making us more like Christ. His fruit of love, joy, peace, patience and so on, is the antithesis of the works of darkness. The heart of the Holy Spirit so overflows with love for Christ that to sin is to grieve Him. Whenever we sin, let’s remember how we are grieving the heart of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

“A true sense of our sin”, according to the Scottish preacher John Colquhoun, “is an affecting sight and feeling … of the exceeding sinfulness or malignity of sin. It is a sense not only of our evil doings but of the evil of our doings.” If we have a true sense of our sin, then surely we have a strong motive for repentance – for turning away from that which grieves God and back towards Him!

[B] An Apprehension of the Mercy of God in Christ

I wonder what kept the Prodigal Son away so long? Was it merely because he’d spent all his money or was it because he thought his father harsher than he actually was? Had he known that his father was ready with a warm embrace, had the ring of sonship ready for him and had fattened a calf for a banquet, I’m sure he would have returned far quicker than he did! In the same way, the chief motive for our repentance unto life, and what makes it so different from any other kind of repentance, is that we are motivated by the mercy of God in Christ. This is Gospel-motivated evangelical repentance – that God will show us mercy as we return to Him from the far-off countries of our sins. There are three aspects of the apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ I want us to focus on: first, the attitude of God; secondly, the action of Christ and lastly, the attraction of the Holy Spirit.

1. The Attitude of God – in Jeremiah 3, God accuses His people of ‘living as a prostitute with many lovers’. Such was their idolatry and syncretism that they were unfaithful to God. Their loyalty to God was in the dust and they had transformed holiness into shame. And yet, in vs. 22 God says to them, “return, O faithless sons; I will cure you of your backsliding”. See the mercy of God – that even though they had acted as whores with many lovers, their spiritual husband was willing to take them back and love them freely. His attitude towards them was one of mercy and grace; of love and forgiveness. I have said it before, and I say it again, the first instinct of God, if we may speak about such things, is towards loving mercy. How harsh our view of God if we think that He will cast us off as Christians and never show us mercy! Rather, He will move towards us before ever we move towards Him. And so, in Jeremiah 3:22, the invitation of God to His wayward people is met by their enthusiastic reply, “yes, we will come to you, for you are the Lord our God.”

How many broken relationships there are because of a refusal to accept or to show mercy! A child gets into trouble but doesn’t want to tell his parents because he thinks they won’t show him mercy. He is so afraid that he runs away – in his hour of greatest need he runs not towards them but away from them. And all the time, his worried parents pray for their child’s safe return. As Christians, one cause of backsliding may be that we have committed sins and we think God will punish us and not show us mercy. And so, rather than running to him with our guilt and shame, we run away – and all the time, the mercy of God is available to us – His embrace is waiting; a ring for our finger and the fattened calf of celebration. God is full of mercy and abounding in love for us. So we run to Him in repentance with our sin and, whilst never taking it for granted, expect His mercy to be shown us.

2. The Action of Christ – the Cross of Christ is the centre-piece of all our spiritual experiences of God. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself there. But who was He reconciling? For whom did Jesus die? And, to go back to Q and A 87 of our Catechism, for whom is repentance unto life? The answer to all three is ‘sinners’. We learn that God demonstrated His love for us in this, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The Physician is for the sick – the Healing is for the blind – the Cross is for sinners. For whom did Christ die if was not we sinners? For whom did He shed His precious blood if was not for the race of mankind lost? The promise of 1 John 2:1 is that if we do sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One, and He is the propitiation for our sin.

Repentance unto life is for sinners. Perfect people need not apply – only sinners. Have we sinned – the blood of Christ has been shed for us and He invites us to come and wash ourselves clean? Have we transgressed – He was wounded on account of our transgressions? What do we do with our sins? We take them straight to Christ; plead for His forgiveness and without ever taking it for granted but always being amazed at its freeness, expect His mercy to be shown to us.

3. The Attraction of the Holy Spirit – the Holy Spirit dwells within us – we each are temples of the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of Holiness who works with us to sanctify us and prepare us for glory. His work is to produce holy Christians set apart for God. If He is within us, He draws us towards Christ and not away from Him. He is the Spirit of Jesus and He is the comforter, who comforts us by pointing us towards Christ. To stay away from Christ requires us to actively suppress the inward call of the Holy Spirit to return to Him. It really needs us to close our ears to the Bible both read in private and preached in public; to close our hearts to both individual and corporate prayer and to deny the efficacy of the sacraments. It takes more energy to hold a spring down than to let it bounce. Can a true Christian suppress forever the Holy Spirit within Him drawing Him back to Christ for mercy and forgiveness? I don’t think so – rather, the Holy Spirit will bring to her remembrance the promises and invitations of Scripture – ‘return, O faithless ones, I will cure you of your backsliding’; ‘come, though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be as white as the snow’; ‘I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more’. The attractive power of the Holy Spirit will continually remind us of the mercy of God towards us in Christ – He will bring to our memory the sheer wonder of who Christ is and the infinite value of knowing Him.

The mercy of God in Christ is a most powerful incentive for prodigals to return home. His mercy is like a cash machine network in Australiawhich, earlier this year, was giving out free money. A computer glitch meant that people could withdraw as much as they wanted without it showing on their statements. You can imagine that long queues built up at the 40 ATM’s in question. The Good News of the Gospel is that there is free mercy available to us in Christ. Evangelical repentance will always be met with the forgiveness and mercy of God – not because God is soft on sin but because our sinful debt has been paid by Christ. If we only knew how ready God was to show us mercy, we’d be like the church father Tertullian who once said, “For sinner as I am of every day, I was born for nothing save repentance.”

And so, as we close, we ask how this affects our experience of the Communion weekend? How do these two foundational motives for repentance unto life change the way we think about the bread and the wine? Simply this: before we eat and drink, we are commanded to examine ourselves with a view to this kind of evangelical repentance. Now is the time to meditate on the holiness of God, the horror of Calvary and the heart of the Holy Spirit that we may gain a sight and have the feeling of the deformity and offence of our sin. Now is the time to consider the merciful disposition of God towards us; the gracious offer of the blood of Christ towards us; the attraction of the Holy Spirit towards Christ in us so that we may come in heartfelt repentance and proclaim the Lord’s Death until He comes. Who knows, between now and Sunday, we too may discover a hitherto unknown wonder of the Christian faith – the beauty of repentance unto life based upon a true sense of sin and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ.

I find that I have fallen into the trap of being misunderstood. The offending speech was delivered on the invitation of the Chair of the College Board. I cannot but confess that in delivering that speech, I had many conflicting emotions running through my head. The particular area in which I was misunderstood was in asserting that preaching had been the main factor in the growth of Glasgow City Free Church. I came across to some as being arrogant and blowing my own trumpet. Rather I should have spoken about the Spirit blessing the preaching of the Word in Glasgow City Free Church. If I did come across that way, I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant. Perhaps I fell into the first trap of public speaking - speaking not so much to make myself understood but more to ensure that I am not misunderstood.

Putting aside what I perhaps perceive as pickiness and piety, the question is: do I believe that the Spirit of God is involved in the preaching of the Word? Yes, Yes and Yes Again. The Preaching of Paul was so effective not because of his rhetoric but because it was filled with a demonstration of the power of the Spirit. Question and Answer 89 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism states – “The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort, through faith, unto salvation.” No Spirit – no Convincing and Converting of Sinners, not upbuilding in holiness and comfort, no faith, no salvation. He is the fountain of the effectual word. How grateful we are for the Reformed, Biblical teaching of the Spirit’s role in preaching – it frees us from self-loathing and frees us to give all the glory to Him.

Does this remove from us the responsibility for earnestly and diligently studying for preaching? Well, we don’t believe in ‘letting go and letting God’ when it comes to personal sanctification; and we don’t believe in ‘letting go and letting God’ when it comes to preaching. Does this mean that we must place preaching as our number one priority in the ministry? I go back to the answer of the Shorter Catechism – how is the Word made effectual unto salvation? Through the Spirit’s making the reading and the preaching of the Word effectual. Committees don’t give comfort to the dying believer. Management strategies don’t build us up in holiness.

And so, although I would like to write more on this subject and fully intend to in the near future, although I apologise for any misunderstandings of what I was saying, I don’t apologise for emphasising the primary of the preaching of the Word. I struggle with a proud heart and I confess my own sinful pursuit of self-glory (if any minister should say they don’t they either don’t know themselves very well or are liars). But for anyone who knows me, you’ll know that I’m not a self-promoter – I’m very good at disguising my proud sinfulness.

I hate speaking at General Assemblies. Next time I’m asked to go I think I’ll politely decline and suggest they send someone else.

Acts 11:18

Earlier this year, 26 year old Joe Page from Brightondid something extraordinary. Page had cheated on his girlfriend but very soon afterwards realised how big a mistake he had made. Desperate to get his girlfriend back, he stood in the centre of Brightonwearing a sandwich board which read, “I cheated on my girlfriend. I am humiliating myself to show I am sorry.” Whatever you think of Joe’s actions, the celebrity status of the story brought the issue of Repentance into the news. It’s a welcome reminder for us as Christians of the word Repentance. Probably because sin is such a small deal to us today, repentance from sin is most never mentioned. That’s a huge shift from the attitude of our forefathers. The Bible is replete with references towards repentance. The early Church Fathers Tertullian and Ambrose both wrote treatises on the topic of repentance. Our Fathers in the Reformed Church spoke much of our need of Repentance. The Puritan Thomas Watson and the Scottish Father John Colquhoun both wrote books called, ‘Repentance’. It was while reading Thomas Watson’s book on repentance I unpleasantly realised how little emphasis I was giving to repentance in my personal walk with God and therefore how little I was preaching the Doctrine of Repentance.

Bearing these things in mind, I decided to spend the next 5 Wednesdays reflecting with you on the Doctrine of Repentance. I want to look at this doctrine through the helpful definition afforded to us by the Westminster Shorter Catechism Q & A 87 – “What is repentance unto life? Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience.” Tonight I want to focus on the first clause of the answer – repentance unto life is a saving grace. How important and crucial repentance in the Christian life is!

Repentance in the Bible and in our Catechisms doesn’t appear from nowhere, parachuting in as a take-it or leave-it spiritual discipline. In both cases it is an essential saving grace. We see that in the four contexts in which repentance is dealt with in the Shorter Catechism. First, repentance and the Law of God; secondly, repentance and the wrath of God; thirdly, repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and lastly, repentance and the diligent use of the means of grace.

1. The Law of God – back in Q. 3 of the Shorter Catechism we are asked, “what do the Scriptures principally teach”, to which the answer is given, “the Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man.” The second of these, ‘what duty God requires of man’ is picked up again in Q.39 – ‘what is the duty which God requireth of man?’ to which the answer is given, “The duty which God requireth of man is obedience to his revealed will.” Obey the revealed will of God, whatever that is, and you have fulfilled every duty which God requires of you. But what is this revealed will? The next 25 catechism questions and answers refer to what that revealed will is – it is the moral law as summarised in the Ten Commandments. In Matthew 19:17, Jesus tells the Rich Young Man who comes to Him that “if you want to enter life, keep the commandments”. Sin is when we transgress or we fail to live up to the standards of the Ten Commandments – we lie, steal and cheat; we worship idols, break the Sabbath, dishonour our parents and so on. Repentance unto life is framed in the context of a broken law – that broken law which is summarised in Q.82 of the Catechism, “no mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word and deed.” We break God’s Law; we fall short of God’s Law and repentance operates in this context of broken law. Repentance isn’t for the perfect person, but for sinners – for people like us who break the Law in thought, word and deed. Do we sin either by breaking God’s Law or failing to live up to God’s Law? Repentance is for you!

2. The Wrath of God – we learn in Catechism answer 84 that “every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse, both in this life and in the life which is to come.” Post-modernism as a philosophy has eroded the doctrine of sin by relativising everything – there is no such thing as sin. We call it ‘lifestyle choice’ or ‘indiscretion’ or perhaps even ‘weakness’. But the consistent teaching of Scripture is that God is angry with sin – for example in Romans 1:18 we read, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men”. Our transgression of, and want of conformity to the Law of God, the duty which God requires of us, brings His sure and certain wrath and curse. As you read through our working definition of the doctrine of repentance in A. 87, you will notice that there is no mention of the wrath of God – the motive for repentance isn’t the wrath of God, rather it is the mercy of God – and yet, repentance breathes in the atmosphere of realising how serious a thing sin is – not so much because of its effect on us, but because of the offence it causes to the holiness of God. Again, do you think God smiles at our sin like some Cosmic Santa Claus – does He wink at it and laugh – or does it make Him angry and full of wrath? Repentance is for us.

3. Faith in Jesus Christ – in order to escape the wrath and curse of God due to us on account of our sin, God requires three things from us: first, faith in Jesus Christ; secondly, repentance unto life and thirdly, the diligent use of all the outward means by which Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption. Faith is the channel by which we are united to Christ – as A. 86 tells us, “faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel.” Repentance lives and thrives in an atmosphere of humble dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel. Repentance and faith go together as a holy duet making salvation melody before God. It is impossible to have faith without repentance unto life – the true Christian who rests upon Christ for salvation will also exercise repentance unto life. This works in direct proportion – the more faith the more repentance. The bitterest tears of repentance are shed by the maturest Christian. But likewise, it is impossible to have repentance unto life without faith – the person who does not know Christ and rest upon Him for salvation cannot exercise repentance unto life. He may exercise some kind of repentance – a natural repentance where he has disappointed himself; a legal repentance because he is afraid of God’s wrath; but not the kind of repentance unto life spoken of in Q. 87. Faith and repentance are Christian bedfellows. And, in this respect, there are two further sub-points I want to mention:

a. The Gospel and Repentance – Whilst I love the expression, ‘repentance into life is a saving grace’, I think I prefer the title the Edinburgh preacher John Colquhoun gave it – ‘an evangelical grace’. Repentance has far more to do with Gospel than with Law (if it is possible to make such a Law/Gospel division).  We’re going to come back to this in later studies, but I want us to understand that in the New Testament, what causes Christians the most grief isn’t their transgressions against a set of standards we call the Law; but their transgressions against the grace of God. That’s why Paul spoke of himself as the chief of sinners, not just because he had been a murderer and violent man, but because he was still sinning against the magnitude of the grace which had been shown him in Christ. The puritan Thomas Watson writes, “repentance is a pure Gospel grace. The covenant of works admitted no repentance; there is was, sin and die. Repentance came in by the Gospel”.

b. The Giver of Repentance – when we ask the question, ‘who believes in Christ’, we must answer, ‘we do’ and yet we also know that the only reason we believe is, according to Ephesians 2:8, that God has given us the faith as a gift of His grace. Likewise, when we ask the question, ‘who repents’ we must answer, ‘we do’ and yet again we know that the only reason we repent is because God has given us a repentant spirit. As we shall find out in later studies, there are many different forms of repentance and not all of them worthy or right, but this one, Gospel repentance unto life, this saving, evangelical grace, can only be given to us from God. In Acts 5:31 and in Acts 11:18 the repentance of Israel and the nations is spoken of as a gift of God. God even gives us our repentance lest we should boast in how penitent and contrite we are. John Colquhoun writes, “The Holy Spirit … implants the principle of it in the heart … and converts the principle into a habit. True repentance is not a work of nature but of grace; not of a man’s own spirit, but of the Spirit of Christ.” That’s why we may pray not just for a spirit of faith but also a spirit of repentance because both are God’s to give to us.

4. Diligent Use of the Means of Grace – to escape God’s wrath and curse we are also called to the diligent use of all the outward means by which Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption – the means of grace – detailed for us in A. 88 – “the word, sacraments and prayer.” We might think that there is a Christ + element to our definition of salvation here – Christ + Bible study; Christ + prayer; Christ + baptism/communion. But we’d be wrong to think that. Certainly, we are commanded to study the Bible; we are commanded to pray on all occasions; we are commanded to be baptised and to take communion – but none of these are considered works we do which bring merit. Rather, they are spoken of as means by which God distributes to us the grace which He has for us in the Gospel. In Christ we are justified – how does He communicate that justification to us – through the word, prayer and the sacraments; in Christ we are adopted – how does He communicate that adoption to us – through the word, prayer and the sacraments. That’s why we devote so much energy to these foundational and ordinary means of grace. No man ever understood or lived his status as justified in Christ with no Bible, no prayer and no sacraments; no man was ever secure as a daughter of the living God without reading and understanding the Bible; without speaking to her heavenly father in prayer; without the communication of grace in the sacraments. Repentance thrives in the context of a well read Bible; calloused knees from prayer; the blessings of the covenant being applied in baptism and the strengthening grace of God being given in the Lord’s Supper. It is when we are closest to God in His Word, Prayer and Sacrament that we are closest to the place of repentance.

See where repentance unto life fits into the scheme of Biblical, Reformed theology. Repentance unto life is core to who we are as Christians. If we read our Bibles, it is close to us; it is even closer at the Lord’s Table; as we grow older, we become more aware of our need of repentance unto life. The maturest Christians I know are those who are the most keenly distressed by their own sins – the mourners Jesus calls blessed in the Beatitudes. Much of what we heard tonight might be new to us – it has been to me as I studied – but tell me, are we better for and closer to Christ for having forgotten the Bible’s teaching on the Doctrine of Repentance?

Have you ever stood at the foot of a huge mountain with the intention of climbing it, and suddenly realised that the reality is somewhat different from the thought. In your mind’s eye, you dreamed of a smooth ascent on a sunny day; but the reality is a tortuous ascent and the rain is lashing down. It’s higher than you thought. There are difficult ridges you’ve got to get over, and just when and exhausted you think you’ve reached the summit, you realise there’s another hours climbing to go.

As we face the first line of the Apostles’ Creed – ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty’ – we are faced with a mind stretching mountain. For the preacher, there are 3 problems: first, these words are literally packed with meaning – too much to tackle in one sermon. Do we talk about who the ‘I’ who believes is, what it means for ‘I’ to believe, what God is – what do we talk about? As it happens, I have decided to concentrate on what it means for God to be Father and for Him to be Almighty. The second problem is one of text – do we simply use the Bible as a source of proof texts for this proposition ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty’ – in which case we could prove anything and everything; or do we narrow down our focus on one Biblical text related to the Fatherhood and Almightiness of God and study the Biblical text itself? Again, I have decided to concentrate our thoughts on Matthew 6:9 – words well known to us all since they comprise the opening line of the Lord’s Prayer – ‘our Father, who is in heaven’. Forgive me if you would rather me have taken a different approach to the first line of the Apostles’ Creed.

Whereas the first problem faced is one concerned with homiletics – or the study of preaching; and the second concerned with hermeneutics – the study of understanding; the third problem is more complex. Namely, the apparent philosophical tension which exists between these two attributes of God – namely God’s Fatherhood which tends towards His love; and God’s Almightiness. The problem is brought into sharp resolve in something written by the Swiss Protestant Theologian Emil Brunner. Brunner had been a horrified observer of and commentator upon the atrocities committed in the Second World War. In 1945, against the backdrop of the devastation of Europe, he delivered a series of sermons on the Apostles’ Creed in which, thinking of this tension between the Love of God and the Power of God he asks, “If we look at the reality, at the world over which the black handkerchief of mourning is spread, at this world in which the individual no longer counts, in which life is extinguished as one snuffs out a candlelight – can we conceive of a majestic God … who is also … a God of Fatherly Love?” He’s exploring depths in which few of us dare walk – if God is love, how come bad things happen to us; if God is Almighty and could stop these bad things happening, why doesn’t He? It seems an apparent problem – the problem of Christian theodicy. Christian writers including such great men as C.S. Lewis, John Calvin and Alvin Plantinga have all offered their own solutions. Such a problem deserves the thought of a thousand sermons, not just one, but before we throw up our hands and leave God behind, we must reckon with the consistent Biblical teaching of both truths – that God is a loving Father and that God is an Almighty Lord.

The Lord’s Prayer, or more accurately the prayer He gave to the Apostles, hence the name Apostles’ Prayer, is the most repeated prayer in the Christian world. It’s first line, ‘our Father who is in heaven’, captures the tension between these two doctrines of God as Loving Father and God as Almighty Lord; the tension between the immanence and the transcendence of God; the tension between the love and the power of God. For Jesus, these two different attributes of who God is did not present a problem, but offered an opportunity to understand how we may approach Him in prayer. Before then, we resolve the conflict, we must unravel the problem by looking first at the Fatherhood of God and then secondly, at the Almightiness of God – our Father, who is in Heaven.

[A] The Fatherhood of God

For all too many people in today’s Western world, the idea of God as Father doesn’t hold the same positive, loving connotations as it should. 19 year old Ilenia Moretti from Luzzara in NorthenItalywent to her father last year asking for a loan of 5,000 euros to fund a holiday to theUnited States. But then, instead of going on holiday, she used the money she had borrowed from her father to hire two hitmen to kill him. Fortunately, the hitmen got cold feet and turned themselves into the police before they could murder her father. For years, Ilenia’s father had subjected her to a torrent of verbal abuse. For Ilenia Moretti, to talk of God as Father doesn’t hold good pictures. And yet, we mustn’t judge the Fatherhood of God upon the corruptions and perversions of bad human fathers. God is Father – the first level at which we understand Him. There are three areas in which we can speak about God as being Father: first, God as the Ultimate Father; secondly, God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and lastly, God is our Father in Christ.

1. God is the Ultimate Father – to say that God is the ultimate father isn’t to say that God is like our human fathers. We can’t extrapolate from our human fathers a line which takes us back to God as our ultimate father – to do that would be to include within the fatherhood of God the sinfulness, limitations and mortality of our earthly fathers. Rather, we begin with God the Father – with His character and His attributes – and from there measure the standard of our fatherhood. You can’t judge how perfect the Pyramids of Giza are from a back of the envelope sketch I could draw – no, you judge how imperfect my sketch is from seeing the real Pyramids. God is the Ultimate Father – and if we want to understand what genuine, authentic fatherhood means, we need to go directly to Him.

2. God is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ – throughout the New Testament and the Epistles, God is presented as the loving Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. He it is, who in the language of Psalm 2 and John 1, begets His Son. This is the God who from the depths of eternity has been a Father and who exists as in person as Father. Within the rubric of the Apostles’ Creed, I think we should see this reference to the Fatherhood of God as primarily a Trinitarian distinction – I believe in the Father … I believe in His Son … I believe in the Holy Spirit.

Historically, in the fullness of time, the Son, not considering equality with His Father something to be grasped, made Himself nothing by taking the form of a slave. Throughout this Son’s earthly life, the voice from heaven spoke, ‘you are my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’. This is the Son who spoke frequently, affectionately and reverently about His Father. This is the Son who lost all awareness of His Father’s love as He hung and suffered for us on the Cross at Calvary. This is the Son who ascended to the Right Hand of His Father. This is the Son who will return in His Father’s glory. Throughout His ministry He is secure in the awareness that He is His Father’s Son. Paul often refers to God as ‘the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’. He is the Father who gave His Son the Spirit beyond measure – the Father who gave His Son the security, ability and motivation to complete His work of redeeming a lost mankind for Himself.

3. God is our Father in Christ – there is a sense in which God is the Father of Creation – but the major Biblical emphasis is upon how He becomes our Father. It happens through the change in status which Christ has achieved for us. Through faith, we are united to Him – He is the firstborn among many brothers. And in Him, united to Him, we have God as our Father – the Father who, in different sections of the New Testament, is spoken of as providing for us; as guiding and directing us; as disciplining and training us; as calling us to imitate Him and as promising us an inheritance of inestimable treasure. In one of the most magnificent of Biblical Texts, John exclaims, ‘Behold how wonderful is the love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God.’ How great is the love of the Father for us! So deep and intimate is our relationship to Him through Christ, that Christ encourages us to call Him ‘Abba’, the affectionate Aramaic word for Father. ‘Abba’ doesn’t mean daddy, but it is a term of deep affection and intimacy. Jesus tells us that our eternal home is in the house of His and our Father.

God is our loving, heavenly Father in whom we can rest secure. He is the Father in whom there is no sinful imperfection and no mortal limitation. Death will not steal Him from us – only usher us into His presence. Adolf Saphir, converted Jew and close friend of Andrew Bonar once wrote, “These words (our Father) are simple, yet all our lifetime we are but spelling them, and eternity alone can unfold all their meaning.” In terms of its immediate application to prayer, these words, ‘our Father’ teach us, in the words of our Catechism, ‘to draw near to God with all reverence and confidence, as children to a father, ready and able to help us.’ Pray to your Abba, Father with reverence and confidence in His Christ-shaped love for you.

And now, as we conclude this point, perhaps the hardest question I will ask tonight: do you believe in God the Father? I know plenty of Reformed Christians who believe in the wrath and anger of God, but do you really believe, not just in your mind but in your heart, that God is your heavenly Father who loves you? Perhaps its easy to say now, but for those of you who are grieving over loss, anxious about your health or frustrated with life, do you believe it still, because it is still true!

[B] The Almightiness of God

A picture from my youth constantly comes into mind when I think of God – the picture is the Record Cover of Pink Floyd’s Album, ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’. A pure, white light is being shone through a glass prism which refracts the light into all its constituent colours. As we shine the pure white light of our Father who is in ‘heaven’ through the prism of inspired Scripture, to try and understand what we mean when we talk about God our Father being Almighty, we see three colours in view: first, His transcendence; secondly, His attributes and thirdly, His sovereignty.

1. His Transcendence –to say that God is transcendent is simply to say that He is not like us. He is not a big version of you and me – He is of a different kind altogether. We take our descriptions of the Transcendence of God from the overall teaching of the Bible itself. For a start, God is a spirit. He doesn’t have hands and feet, a mouth and a nose – He isn’t bound by the same territorial limitations as we are. Because He is Spirit, He can be present everywhere at the same time. He doesn’t get sick and He is never poorly; He doesn’t sleep and He never lets His guard down. God is also infinite. He cannot be measured or calculated. He cannot be confined to a particular space or time. We are unable to think in terms of infinity because all we are used to is the finite. But God is Himself infinite. God is also eternal – without beginning and without end. There is no point at which God did not exist and which He will cease to exist. He is there at the beginning of your life and at its end. God is also unchangeable. Who He is He has always been and always will be. He doesn’t stand in time but beyond time. God does not change for the better or for the worse. His Name ‘Yahweh’ means ‘I am that I am’ – He is the same yesterday, today and forever. We can’t even begin to fathom how gloriously different God is from us – how much higher are His ways than ours and His thought than ours. Rather, in humble adoration, we bow before His otherness and transcendence with bent knee and adoring hearts.

2. His Attributes – when we talk about God’s attributes, we mean His character – who God is and what God does. Again, we could refract the light of His attributes through Scripture and learn that He is wise, powerful, just, good, holy and true. But I want to focus on the two most prominent attributes of God in the Bible.

• God’s holiness is the focus of much of the Bible’s teaching. In the Old Testament, God is presented as a holy God who, being other from us, cannot abide the presence of sin and injustice. The angels who fly in His presence continually sing ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty’. Their three-fold repetition of the motif of holiness drives home the serious holiness of God. The New Testament also presents God as a holy God – the God whom Jesus calls, ‘holy Father’, who sanctifies (or makes holy) His people through the blood of Jesus and who demands holiness from His people. This is a holy God – not to be played with as we might manipulate an imaginary friend or a cosmic toy. But, with the same reverence as Isaiah, we fall down before Him crying out, “woe is me, for I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
• God’s Love is to be understood as the chief of His attributes and the crown of His excellencies. John says of Him, ‘God is Love’. One of the Scottish Fathers, Ebenezer Erskine once wrote of God, “never were the perfections of God so gloriously manifested as they are in His Love in Christ.” The Bible’s consistent teaching is that the glory of God is seen in the love of God. His love is full of mercy and grace towards us, demonstrated in this – while we were yet sinners; and as we heard so eloquently this morning, His love for us led to Him sparing not His own darling, precious Son. How dare any of us doubt the love of God for us when we see His Son dying in agony on the Cross? If the glory of His holiness is not enough to bring us to our knees, the glory of His love will.

Great is our God – the God who is infinitely, eternally and unchangeably holy and loving. In prayer, this is the God we approach – a God whose attributes are perfectly suited to our needs.

3. His Sovereignty – in Psalm 115:3 we have some of the most challenging theology in the Bible. The Psalmist says, ‘our God is in the heavens; he does whatever pleases Him.’ God is sovereign – He is in control of all things and is Lord of Lords. None bend His will to theirs; none thwart His purposes. All authority and dominion is His. He is, as the New Testament consistently describes Him, the Almighty God. His purposes have been set from before the foundations of the world and they will come to pass. He doesn’t remove our free-will, but in a way we don’t always appreciate, our decisions are in His hands.

At the end of the age, when time and space shall be no more, we shall behold a golden throne on which shall sit the Lord Almighty. He shall be surrounded by an innumerable multitude and the voice of their praises shall be deafening. The glory of His holiness will light up the sky and His loving presence will give life to all. This is our God – our transcendent God – the Almighty God – and before Him we bow. In the context of our prayers, how does this vision of the Almightiness of God affect you? In the context of the Lord’s Prayer, it meant that Jesus teaches us to put God’s priorities before ours – ‘hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be on earth as it is in heaven’. Our prayers are shaped by the great purpose clause of our catechisms – ‘man’s chief end (even in prayer) is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever.’ No prayer we make for His glory will ever fall on ears which are deaf or a will which is powerless to answer. But again, I ask the hardest question – do you really believe in the sovereignty of God? It’s easy to glibly talk of His sovereignty when life is going well, but what about when life is hard – when we’ve lost our jobs or developed depression, when we hear the C word or are troubled by our singleness? Believe it and say it, because you know that God is Almighty.

Let’s go back then to the beginning and try and square the circle of what it means to believe in God the Father Almighty. Given the presence of so much pain and suffering, how can we say that God is both loving and Almighty? Given that black handkerchief of mourning, as Emil Brunner put it, that hangs over the world, how can we see clearly what it means to believe in a loving, Almighty God? I leave the last word to Emil Brunner, the theologian who set us the problem in the first place. He says, “the Almightiness of God and His love do not stand in opposition to one another but in a reciprocal relation. Were God not Almighty, how could we trust that He could really carry out His plan of love? And if God were not love, how could we ever (have enough confidence) to call Him God”. Though our minds may struggle with it, ultimately, through Christ and His Word, we know that He is our Loving Father, and we know that He is our Almighty Lord. Can then we say, both by Jesus-driven word and Gospel-transformed actions this week – “I believe in God the Father Almighty?”

 Bristol City council were left with red-faces last year after wasting £100,000 on hiring an advertising agency to rename a derelict building in the city centre. The former Industrial Museum had, for years, been called ‘The M Shed’. Having refitted the building, they wanted to rebrand it hoping to make it attractive to new investors. However, after months of brainstorming meetings, the advertising agency returned to the council urging it to revert back to calling this building ‘The M Shed’. No better name could be found to promote this building to prospective tenants and investors. Sometimes, in fact, most times, the old is the best.

If you remember, a year ago, I preached a series on sermons on the historical, devotional practice of renewing our covenant with God – something our forefathers thought to be an important part of their relationship with God. This year, I want to go back to something else our forefathers in the faith considered of vital importance to them – namely, the centrality of creeds and confessions. The Church throughout the ages has found Credal statements of faith central to the preservation and presentation of truth. But just like the practice of renewing our covenant with God, we have forgotten the old ways – we have forgotten that the Historic Reformed Position in Scotland under John Knox was to value and learn the faith of the Creeds. Has the Church in Scotland gained anything from the loss of the Creeds? Have we gained from forgetting Catechisms and Confessions?

A Creed, used in Christian circles, is a concise, formal statement of the essential articles of Christian belief. It is a statement of the great doctrines taught in the Bible. Historically, there are four creeds which are of maximum usefulness to us: first, the Nicene Creed. It was drafted in 325AD by a council of Christian leaders met in the city of Nicea. The Nicene Creed is an all-embracing, and yet concise, description of God’s actions as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Secondly, the Chalcedonian Creed. It was drafted in 451AD by an ecumenical council met in the province of Asia Minor. The Chalcedonian Creed is a beautiful statement concerned with the person of Jesus Christ as both man and God. Thirdly, the Apostles’ Creed. This Creed will be the object of our study over the next number of weeks, and later in this sermon we’ll examine it by summary. Lastly, the Westminster Confession of Faith. This was drafted in 1646 and was the result of a council of British Christian leaders (including the Scottish covenanter Samuel Rutherford and the English puritan Thomas Goodwin). They met together at Westminster Abbey over the space of some 3 years. The production of the Westminster Confession, together with its sister documents – the Larger and Shorter Catechisms – was a monumental achievement. These four creeds should be dear to us lest we forget the heritage of our forefathers and the foundations of truth.

But over the course of the next few weeks, I want us to study together perhaps the best known of these Creeds – the Apostles’ Creed. Tonight, by way of introduction, I want to explore two things with you: first, the need for creeds – because not everyone is convinced that we need creeds and confessions, but by way of rejoinder, I want to argue that the pattern of making creeds is Biblical and Practical. Secondly, I want to look in a very general way at the Apostles’ Creed – the Creed which the outstanding English Christian F.B. Meyer called the Creed of Creeds. So first, the need for creeds and secondly, the creed of creeds.

[A] The Need for Creeds

Perhaps you’ve always been a bit suspicious of creeds and confessions, believing, as do a great many Christians, that they lead only to arguments between otherwise peaceable Christians over issues that don’t amount to a pile of salt; and that they stop people thinking for themselves and turn Christians into blindly-led sheep. Perhaps you haven’t given much credence to creeds – or perhaps you haven’t given them a whole lot of thought in the first place. Unfortunately, in our recent Free Church tradition, the Creeds and Confessions of our forefathers have been neglected and embarrassingly side-lined – and yet, I would want to argue that Creeds are not only good, but necessary – Creeds like the Nicene, Chalcedonian and Apostles’ Creed, and Confessions like the Westminster Confession of Faith are necessary for us as Christians. There are 6 reasons for this: first, creeds are biblical; secondly, creeds are unifying; thirdly, creeds are preservative; fourthly, creeds are evangelistic; fifthly, creeds are educational and lastly, creeds are historical.

1. Creeds are Biblical – in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, the Apostle Paul is remind Christians of the things of first importance for their faith in Christ – certain Scriptural truths concerning Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and appearances. Here we have what may be one of the earliest Christian creeds – a set of words which Paul speaks and writes down of the Corinthians ‘receiving’ (vs. 1)  because Paul had ‘received’ and ‘passed’ them onto these Christians. Along with the Christ-hymn of Philippians 2:6-11, we have here an early Christian creed – an early statement of the great doctrines taught in the Bible. Paul himself, great intellect as he was, deeply spiritual man has he was, is passing on what he himself received – a creedal form of words. And you will notice that this basic creed is peppered with the phrase, ‘according to the Scriptures’, further pressing home to us the importance of creeds resting upon and being subordinate to the Bible. What are many of the Psalms if they are not creeds? The making of Scripture-filled, Biblically-faithful creeds is a Biblical endeavour.

2. Creeds are Unifying – in Jude 1:3, we read of one reason Jude wrote his letter: “I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share”. He goes onto talk about this salvation being the faith which was once delivered to the saints. Some Christians argue that statements of faith do not unite Christians, but divide them. The opposite is the case. These Creeds are the salvation we share – the faith once delivered to the saints. Like cold people huddling around a fire on a freezing night, we gather around these great Credal statements concerning the glory of the person of Christ and the beauty of His way of salvation and we say, “this is the salvation we share”. In Philippians 1:27, the Apostle Paul commands the Church to stand fast in one spirit, in one mind. It is hard to see how we can stand together unless we agree with one another on who Christ is and what Christ has done for us – so Creeds do foster unity, togetherness and fellowship. Just think, today, all over the Christian world, we, along with millions of other Christians, believe the same things.

3. Creeds are Preservative – in 1 Timothy 3:15, the Apostle Paul calls the Church, “the pillar and foundation of the truth”. Creeds and confessions preserve Biblical truth from generation to generation, through the centuries so that the Church of God in the 21^st Century believes the same fundamental truths about God as did the Church of God in the 1^st Century. Creeds are explicitly designed to be conservative – to conserve truth which the Church of God is commanded to preserve to all generations. Creeds are the formaldehyde of faith and the preservative of piety. Imagine losing what is most precious to you? Imagine losing your wedding ring or your passport. Imagine now forgetting the fundamental truths about God – forgetting the truth that He is Maker of all things visible and invisible as the Nicene Creed tells us; imagine forgetting the truth that Jesus is truly God and truly man as the Chalcedonian Creed tells us; imagine forgetting that the Holy Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ as the Westminster Shorter Catechism tells us. These Creeds are repositories of Biblical truth – preservatives of Christianity.

4. Creeds are Evangelistic – in 1 Corinthians 11:26, Christians observing the Lord’s Supper are said to be ‘proclaiming the Lord’s Death until He comes’. The celebration of the Lord’s Supper especially, but also all the other activities associated with Christian worship, have as their primary purpose, the worship of God, but have, as a secondary purpose, evangelism and mission. The idea is that as non-Christians observe Christians at worship, they are affected by the presence of God among them and the content of what is prayed, read, spoken and sung. As Christ is proclaimed in their hearing, the Holy Spirit powerfully drives home the Gospel message to their hearts and they are convicted of the truth of what they are hearing. Historically, God’s worshipping people have, at times, recited the creed during worship – and as those not yet Christians hear these magnificent truths about the forgiveness of sins, the return of Christ and the Holy Spirit, God drives home the truth of what they hear and they are challenged to come to Christ.

5. Creeds are Educational – in 2 Timothy 3:14 Paul is urging Timothy to continue in what he has learned since his infancy – yes, clearly a reference in vs. 15 to the Holy Scriptures, but also surely a system by which the Scriptures may be understood. His grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice had passed onto him not only the truth of Scripture but also a sound form of words – the doctrines of Scripture, or in other words, creedal statements taken from Scripture. Creeds are to be used as educational tools for our children, so that as we teach them the Creeds, they are learning about the Christian faith. For example, we may teach them to memorise the Apostles’ Creed and in so doing, they are storing up vital Christian knowledge regarding who God is, who Jesus is and what the Church is. Teaching our children historic Christian creeds and catechisms is like giving them gold coins in their pockets which, at the time they may not understand, but when the Holy Spirit begins to work in them, will make them rich beyond their wildest dreams.

6. Creeds are Historical – in 2 Corinthians 11:4, the Apostle Paul talks about preaching a Jesus other than the one he preached or receiving a different Gospel from the one Christians then accepted. The fundamental message and proclamation of the Gospel has not changed for 2,000 years. Since Jesus spoke to Nicodemus by night and said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life”, Christian preachers have preached the same Jesus, and Christians have been saved by the same Gospel. We live in historically arrogant days where we, in our ‘techno-age’ look down upon all previous human knowledge as primitive. Do you despise the learnings and formulations of 2,000 years of Christian thought – of the ways in which Christians theologians like Augustine and Athanasius declared Christian truth against a sweeping tide of heresy? Are we so arrogant to think that if we should ignore these creedal formulations, we shall be the better for trying to understand how it is possible for Jesus to be both man and God? Historically, it is when the Church has abandoned its creeds and confessions that heresy has swept in and destroyed the preaching of the Gospel.

So you see, we need creeds. We all live according to creeds anyway – the only question is this – what creeds we live by? And our answer must be, by the universally recognised systems of Biblical, historic Christian doctrine.

[B] The Creed of Creeds

Of all the Creeds of the Christian Church, the Apostles’ Creed is the best known. The famous English Preacher F.B. Meyer wrote a book on the Apostles’ Creed and called it ‘the Creed of Creeds’. It is the Apostles’ Creed which I want to study with you over the forthcoming few weeks – this Creed of Creeds. It would be my aim that by the end of our study we would each be able to recite the Apostles’ Creed not just out of bare rote, but with deep knowledge of what each phrase points to. Bearing in mind the 6 ways in which creeds are needful, I want to introduce the Apostles’ Creed tonight by saying four things about it: first, its source; secondly, its structure; thirdly, its use and lastly, its limitations.

1. The Source of the Apostles’ Creed – although it’s called the Apostles’ Creed, it almost certainly wasn’t made up by the Apostles. The Church Father Ambrose of Milan, the bishop through whom St. Augustine was converted, was the first to speak of the Creed of the Apostles at the end of the 4^th Century AD. Augustine himself mentions the Apostles’ Creed – but no-one before that time. So John, Peter and Paul did not sit round a table together and come up with this form of words, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth”. We don’t know who did. But we do know that much of the language used in the Apostles’ Creed is borrowed from other Credal statements. For example, another early Church Father, St. Ignatius, wrote his own creed around the middle of the 2^nd Century AD. Together with the Nicene Creed which was framed in 325AD, the compilers of the Apostles’ Creed probably incorporated segments of earlier creeds in making up a whole new creed – the Apostles’ Creed. This Apostles’ Creed was then adopted by the Western Christian Church, of which we in Britain are a part, as the definitive Christian Creed. Since then it has been used as a summary of faith across the whole Western world – in every Church and in every denomination.

2. The Structure of the Apostles’ Creed – the Apostles’ Creed follows a Trinitarian structure – beginning with God the Father – who He is and what He has done; then God the Son – who is He and what He has done; then God the Holy Spirit – who He is and what He has done. God the Father is the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. God the Son is our Lord Jesus. A brief summary is given of His life, death, resurrection, ascension, exaltation and return. God the Holy Spirit is He through whom the benefits of what Jesus came to do are distributed and applied to us. Through the Holy Spirit, we have access to the Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Although the Creed does not explicitly mention the Trinity, it is structured around this most fundamental of Christian doctrines.

3. The Use of the Apostles’ Creed – we tend to wrongly think of the 16^th Century Reformation as dispensing with everything that had gone before – all the theology of the Early Church Fathers and the Medieval Church Fathers is set aside and a new theology of grace and justification is invented by men like Martin Luther and John Calvin. But that’s simply not true – if you should read John Calvin’s most famous work, ‘The Institutes of the Christian Religion’, you find him quoting the early and medieval Church Fathers liberally. The Reformers were not interested in making up a new religion, but in returning to what the true religion of the Bible is – that of the infinite grace of God in Jesus Christ being offered to us free of charge – of the sinner being freely justified and made righteous before God not on the basis of her own works, but on the basis of Christ’s death and righteousness. And so, the early Reformers, wherever you find them, use the Apostles’ Creed. Martin Luther wrote a lengthy essay on the Apostles’ Creed; John Calvin’s ‘Institutes of the Christian Religion’ are structured around the Apostles Creed. The Dutch Reformer, Hermann Witsius wrote a 4 volume tome on the Apostles’ Creed.

Here in Scotland, John Knox used the Apostles’ Creed in public worship, calling on God’s people to recite the Creed every Lord’s Day. Later on, Robert Leighton, a famous Scottish preacher and theologian, wrote his own essay on the Apostles’ Creed. In the 16^th and 17^th Century Scottish Church, every service of public worship included a public recitation of the Apostles’ Creed. I do not know why it fell out of practice, but it would seem by the time of the Disruption in 1843, congregations in Scotland were no longer following the Reformation practice of publicly reciting the Apostles Creed. But over the Reformed world today – whether in Canada, America or Korea – the Apostles’ Creed still plays a vital role in the public worship services of the Church – this is the Church’s confession and profession of faith. But given the relative weakness of Reformed Church in Scotland compared to Reformed Churches in Korea and America, we must ask ourselves whether we are the better off for forgetting, sidelining and ignoring our creeds, catechisms and confessions.

4. The Limitations of the Apostle’s Creed – the Apostles’ Creed is not perfect – no creed or confession is. Only God’s Word the Bible is directly inspired by Him. Every other production of man is open to error. The Creeds are subordinate standards in the Church. The Creeds are summaries of the doctrines of the Bible. If that is true, how does the Apostles’ Creed fare as a statement of our faith and a summary of the Bible’s teaching. Well, in some ways, the Apostles’ Creed is too narrow. It does not mention key, foundational doctrines of the Christian Faith – it does not explicitly mention the Trinity, Grace, Justification by Faith Alone, the Inspiration of the Bible, the Sovereignty of God, the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper or many other doctrines which we believe to be indispensably necessary to Christianity. But, for the same reasons, the Apostles’ Creed is too wide. All different kinds of people can sign up to the Apostles’ Creed and count it as a statement of their faith – people who we would not consider to be Christians at all. Arians, those who believe that Jesus was not God but a mere creature, could sign up to it. So Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons could say, ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty etc’. The Roman Catholic Movement, with all its emphasis on justification by works, could sign up to it also. Even liberal theologians could sign up to it. As the final word on Confessions, the Apostles’ Creed is inadequate. That’s why, as the Orthodox, Reformed Christian Church, we also include the Nicean and Chalcedonian Creeds together with the Westminster Confession. By itself, the Apostles’ Creed is not the whole truth, but it is the truth and nothing but the truth and for that reason alone, it is worth more than gold to the Christian Church.

Sad to say, that if we were asked to recite the Apostle’s Creed from memory today, few of us, if any, would be able to. We have gained nothing from the loss of this, and other Christian Creeds. In an age when Christians need to stand together and be united around the Core Truths of the Christian Faith, how we need to rediscover the wisdom of our Forefathers in their framing of the Apostles’ Creed. We need to rediscover what it says the Almighty-ness of God the Father and His sovereign work of Creation. We need to rediscover the wonderful truths about the Holy Spirit and His Work in us and for us as individuals and as a Church. And more than anything, we need to rediscover the central truths about Jesus – His miraculous conception; His suffering life, His atoning death and His certain return in judgement. My question in closing is this – can you sign up to the Apostles’ Creed? Is it your Confession of Faith? If it is, then you better make sure that you do not merely listen to it and say it out of routine, but you believe it and act upon it – first and foremost by saying, ‘yes, I believe these things to be true, and I have trusted in Jesus Christ as my only Saviour’. “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell. On the third Day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits on the Right Hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of Sins, the Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting AMEN.”

Obadiah is the shortest book in the Old Testament, but in many ways, it is the most direct. It is one of the twelve books in the Old Testament called, ‘the Minor Prophets’, but there is nothing minor about their message. They call us, as Christians, to live in the full awareness of God’s Universal Sovereignty and His Passionate Love for His Covenant People. Last week we concluded our studies in the Book of Hebrews, and next week, God willing, I want to start a new series of Studies in the Apostles’ Creed, so as finish the one and anticipate the next, I want to fill in the gap with the major punch of the minor prophet Obadiah. As we consider this short book with the sharp sting I want to see three things: first, the context of Obadiah; secondly, the content of Obadiah and lastly, the call of Obadiah.

[A] The Context of Obadiah

The name Obadiah was common in Old Testament times. It can mean one of two things: first, a worshipper of Yahweh or secondly, a servant of Yahweh. Whenever you see ‘ah‘ at the end of an Old Testament name it is a reference to the covenant name of God – the Name Yahweh – names like Isaiah, Jeremiah or Zechariah are all connected with Yahweh. Obadiah was a prophet working in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. You can see from the various references to Jerusalem that he is concerned with the Southern area. It is unclear when he was working – the commentators differ in the dates they give. But he was probably prophesying just before Jeremiah. By that time, the Northern Kingdom of Israel had been destroyed through the Assyrian Invasion and only the Southern Kingdom of Judah remained. But then, since Judah refused to return to God but kept on worshipping the gods of the nations and living an immoral national life, God raised up the Babylonian empire which, in  587BC, under King Nebuchudnezzar, destroyed Judah. He laid waste to Judah’s cities and carried its people into exile in Babylon – present day Iraq. 

But the book of Obadiah isn’t a prophecy concerning Babylon, but Edom. Edom was a nation to the South East of Judah’s borders. If you look at Genesis 36, you will find that the nation of Edom was founded by Esau, the brother of Jacob. You will remember the story of Esau and Jacob, how Esau sold his birthright to his brother Jacob for a bowl of stew, and then Jacob deceived their father Isaac into blessing him rather than Esau. Over the centuries, the resentment between Edom and Judah grew – the history of Kings and Chronicles lists many wars between the two nations. There was long time enmity between Edom – of Esau; and Judah – of Jacob. This continues into the New Testament. Herod the Great, ruler of Judea at the time of Jesus’ birth was an Idumean – he was from Edom. This New Testament Edomite was responsible for issuing the command which led to the slaughter of all the baby boys in Bethlehem. Such was his hatred for the Jewish Messiah, that this man descended from Esau tried to do everything he could to kill the descendant of Jacob.

But that is not the particular sin of Edom which Obadiah is concerned with. Rather, Obadiah is concerned with the way in which, when the Babylonians invaded Judah and destroyed it, Edom followed behind them – looting, burning and bringing utter calamity upon God’s people. Tradition has it that it was the Edomites who were responsible for the burning of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. This is the Edom against which Obadiah is speaking – an Edom which gloats on, looks down upon and takes advantage of the misery of God’s suffering people. Edom should beware – for from its lofty, gloating position, God is going to bring it down.

But this book isn’t written for the benefit of the Edomites, but for the benefit of God’s own covenant people the Jews. God is declaring against Edom for the benefit of His own people in Judah. Judah may be down, but its not out – and, as the old saying goes, its not how many times you get knocked down which is important, but how many times you get up – and God wants them to know that He is still on their side and that, no matter how bad it gets, He will never let them go. Obadiah is a book written to deal with a specific situation at a specific time in the national history of God’s people in Judah, but by extension it has lessons to teach Christians today, to use the language of the catechism – ‘what we must believe concerning God and what duties God requires of man.’

[B] The Content of Obadiah

We do not know the precise mechanism by which the prophet Obadiah received his vision from the Lord – it falls under the rubric of Hebrews 1:1 – ‘in the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways’, but the message God calls him to deliver in this book can be divided into 2 sections: first, the doom of Edom (vs. 1-14) and secondly the day of the Lord (vs. 15-21).

1. The Doom of Edom (vs. 1-14) – supposing an infant should say to the mighty nation of Edom that her doom is assured, Edom would laugh. But when it is the Lord Yahweh who says it, Edom should tremble. The destruction of Edom is prophesied in three stages:

a. Pride and Downfall (vs. 1-4) – Edom though of itself as a major player in world affairs – one of the big boys at the top table. Their strongholds were located on inaccessible mountains – their capital city was called Sela which means ‘rock’. These are difficult places for an invading army to reach. Some of you may have visited the ancient monument of Petra in modern-day Jordan – Petra is the Greek translation of Sela. These Edomites, in their great pride, thought they were impregnable. But the Lord will bring them down no matter if they are as high as the soaring of eagles or the stars themselves. Pride goes before a fall – and if you don’t believe me, speak to the Edomites against whom Obadiah prophecies.

b. Searching and Destroying (vs. 5-9) – when a thief goes robbing, he usually leaves something behind. He might take the television but leave the settees; he might take some grapes but he would leave the gleanings. But such will be the destruction of Edom that nothing will be left – nothing at all. You can almost see the tumbleweed being blown down Sela’s night-life strip – this place is a ghost town. Even if other nations are ignorant of the riches of Edom, the Lord isn’t. He knows all about their diplomatic skill and in vs. 7 He’ll turn it against them and make their allies set traps for them. He knows about their wise men and he will destroy them. He has searched out Edom’s armies and mighty men and they will be annihilated. God will launch the ultimate search and destroy mission against Edom.

c. Violence and Gloating (vs. 10-14) – as I said earlier, the most serious crime the Edomites committed in the sight of the Lord was their complicity in the Babylonian invasion of Judah. The vast Babylonian army, in the language of vs. 11, strangers carried off Judah’s wealth, foreigners entered her gates and cast lots for Jerusalem. And the nation of Edom didn’t help the people of Jacob – the brother of their forefather Esau. They stood aloof. Furthermore, they gloated and rejoiced over the ruin of Judah. Worse still, according to vs. 14, they guarded the roads out of Judah and handed over the terrified fugitives and refugees to the Babylonians. Worst of all, according to vs. 10, after the Babylonians had ruined Judah, the Edomites looted and pillaged at will. Anything the Babylonians left, the Edomites took. They committed great violence (again that Old Testament word Hamas) against Judah. But for their violence and guilt, they will be covered with shame and they will be destroyed forever. No-one dare touch the apple of God’s eye – the people of His covenant love – without fearful consequence.

The doom of Edom is assured – the prophecies scarily shocking. These are the heights of political incorrectness – Edom is doomed.

2. The Day of the Lord (vs. 15-21) – throughout the prophecies of the Old Testament, the term ‘the day of the Lord’ often appears. It is one of these phrases used to look forward to various times of deliverance for God’s people – immediate deliverance from the Edomites; longer term deliverance from the Babylonians and still longer term salvation through the Messiah Jesus Christ by whom all God’s people everywhere will be saved from their enemies. It’s not always easy to know to which of these Obadiah is referring, but whatever the time, there are two stages:

a. Justice – the judgement of God upon His enemies will be dramatic and complete. It will be done to them as they did to God’s people – their deeds shall return upon their own head. So complete will be their destruction that, in vs. 16, it will be as if they have never been. But the remarkable thing about Obadiah’s vision of the justice of God is that it shall be His own people who God will use to judge His enemies. In vs. 18 the house of Jacob becomes a fire and the house of Joseph a flame (both references to Israel) and they shall consume Edom. So complete will be their consumption that God’s people will possess the lands of their one-time enemies. Those who were exiled in Babylon shall return and possess the lands of those who were partly responsible for their destruction. Edom will be ruled by ‘Saviour’s or deliverers from Mount Zion in Jerusalem. God will exact judgement and justice on those who have dared touch the apple of His eye.

b. Salvation – the people of Judah faced unspeakable tortures at the hands of Babylonian and Edomite. And yet, in vs. 17, Mount Zion will become a refuge – God’s City will be a place of safety and holiness. God’s people shall be re-united as the Southern Kingdom of Judah (called in vs. 18 – the brothers of Jacob) and the Northern Kingdom of Israel (called the brothers of Joseph) are brought together to the be the agents of God’s judgment on the nations. They shall go from being exiles and refugees to being possessors of the lands of their enemies. God will not merely save His people from their enemies – through Him, they will be conquerors.

The net result of the Day of Lord with its terrible judgement and awe-inspiring salvation are that ‘the Kingdom will be the Lord’s’. The violence of the Edomites will be judged and destroyed by the God who is victorious. Obadiah only has 21 verses – it is the shortest book in the OT. But as you can see – it fair packs a punch!

[C] The Call of Obadiah

Not only does the Book of Obadiah pack a punch, it is also packed with themes which reinforce the Biblical picture of God – the God who is the same in OT and in  New; the God who reveals Himself through Christ and sheds His own blood to save us from our sins. These are regal, royal and dignified themes which we can take with us into the week – truths about the God we worship which, if we should heed them, will keep us from sharing the scary fate of the Edomites. Among the many themes which Obadiah discusses, the four clearest are first, that God rules; secondly, that God judges; thirdly, that God loves and lastly, that God wins.

1. God Rules – Obadiah forces us to ask the question, ‘is your God too small’? In Old Testament times, nations thought of their gods as being localised to their land. The gods of the Canaanites were gods of thunder, mountains and seas – they were gods who lived in Canaan and were localised there. When Naaman, the Syrian General, is miraculously healed from his leprosy, he returns to Damascus carrying a bag of earth from Israel – in his primitive thinking, the God of Israel, the God who had healed him, was associated with the land of Israel and if Naaman could take a bit of that land with him back to Syria, it was like God was being transported there too. This is a mistake we can fall into too – thinking that God is more present in one place than in another; in one country than in another; in one region more than in another. God may rule in Sweden, but He doesn’t rule in Scotland; God may be in control of Ireland but not of Israel. By contrast, the consistent teaching of the Bible is that God rules over all the nations of the earth. He is the Sovereign God who oversees the national affairs of Edom and of Israel.

The post-resurrection Jesus said, “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”. The Sovereignty of God is localised in the person of Jesus Christ – in Him is the life of all nations. Did we not believe this, we would shudder at the thought of Christian missions to ‘heathen nations’ – for the truth is, that God is just as sovereign in these ‘heathen nations’ as He is in our ‘Christian nation’. And His authority is absolute – He is a global God – there is nowhere we can go where His sovereignty and authority is less than absolute. And though kings, presidents and prime-ministers make policy, the ultimate sovereignty is with the Lord.

2. God Judges – is God interested in the affairs of man or not? The cry of so many of the Psalms rests in the plaintive question, ‘how long, O Lord’? How long will the righteous be afflicted in their suffering; and how long will the wicked exult in their prosperity and unrighteousness? Will there be a reckoning – will He allow us to get away with murder? How long will it go on that the wicked prosper and the good die young? Will He bring the Edom’s of this world to book and call them to account for their violence and deceit? And Obadiah answers ‘yes’. This Global God, who rules the nations, will hold them to account for their character and behaviour – for their politics and social care; their culture and their treatment of the weak and defenceless. He judges the nations and He judges the individual. What you have done may have escaped the notice of everyone else; perhaps you have even blocked it out from your own mind; but it has not escaped God. The Bible says, ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ and the judgment of our sin is death both spiritual and eternal. The God of the Bible is a righteous judge – the God who, according to 2 Timothy 4:1, in Christ, is the judge of the living and the dead.

3. God Loves – the Book of Obadiah is filled with dark warnings, but it is also a book throbbing with the passionate heart of God for His people. His love and justice work together for the good of the people of His covenant. In vs. 13, God  says to Edom, “you should not march through the gates of my people”. The people of God may be wayward, but they are still God’s people – they are still ‘my people’. In the other prophetic writings, we learn of God’s passionate love for the children of Abraham – the Abraham to whom God said, “those people who bless you, I will bless; those people who curse you, I will curse.” Like a father and his difficult child, God will not let His people go – He will love them and they will, ultimately, reign secure.

The love of God is the over-riding feature of the Bible’s revelation of God – God is love. It was the love of God which led to Him giving His One and Only Son so that whoever believes in Him may not perish (like the Edomites) but have everlasting life. It was God who demonstrated His love in this, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It’s the passionate love of God for His covenant people which led to the Son humbling Himself and becoming obedient unto the death of the Cross. His love leads to the salvation of His people. It’s the love of God which precedes the justice of God – and it’s His love which brings forth Jesus. Obadiah stands alongside all the other prophets of the Old Testament pointing to Jesus Christ as God’s Saviour for us from our enemies – from sin, the devil and death itself. God loves – the call of Obadiah therefore is to trust in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord – as God’s ultimate Saviour – God’s love expressed in a suffering Cross.

4. God Wins – I want us to conclude on the high pinnacle of Obadiah’s thought-world – that pinnacle which asserts the victory of God over all His enemies. God will not be mocked, and He will not be mocked in the suffering of His people. Edom will be utterly destroyed and God’s people will possess the land of their enemies. By His grace, they shall be more than conquerors through Christ. Those suffering martyrs of God will be vindicated; those who have laboured under the trials of living in a sinful world will live in eternal peace, joy and contentment. The Book of Revelation, from which we read, has been the subject of many PhD’s and the speculations of the most intelligent of Christians. No two agree with each other to the exact details of what the timescales and visions of that awesome book correspond to. But this I do know – the ultimate message of the Book of Revelation is this: God wins, or to use the language of Obadiah, “the Kingdom is the Lord’s”.

Take courage, faltering Christian believer, the darkness will not endure for ever. Be strong, Christian in spiritual exile, the time of your return is set and Christ is Lord. Be filled with hope, despairing Christian, the day of your redemption is closer now than when you first believed. The message of Obadiah may be terrifying to the Edom’s of this world, but to the struggling people of God it is life and health. It points to Jesus as our Saviour from sin and it points us home to the heavenly Mount Zion in which we shall reign with Christ. Obadiah may be short – but without this message, we’d be lost and without hope. Is that where you are tonight – fearful that you should fall into the hands of the living God who is an all-consuming fire? Have you trusted in Christ as God’s provision for your sin? Come tonight – for the glorious offer of the Gospel has your name written upon it – Jesus died for people like us and He beckons you come and join the countless multitude gathered around His throne singing praise in an endless symphony of worship to the King who rules, judges, loves and wins, and all the glory will be God’s.