The Larger Catechism

Question 6: What do the Scriptures make known of God?

Answer: The Scriptures make known: What God is, the persons in the Godhead, his decrees, and the execution of his decrees.

"this is the way to have eternal life - to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth"

John 17:3

With Question 6, the Catechism begins its great exploration of the first of these themes -- what the Bible teaches us about God. These are themes which will be explored further in the ensuing questions and answers. In general, however, the theology of the Catechism is concerned with four issues:

1. the BEING of God

2. the NATURE of God

3. the DECREES of God

4. the WORK of God

The Being Of God

The Bible teaches us what God is. That assumes, of course, that God is. We have already noted that the Bible does not go out of its way to provide an apologetic -- a reason or rationale for its worldview. It assumes the reality of God from the very outset. But as the revelation unfolds, and the Scriptures gradually reveal more and more about God, we are not only taught that God is, but taught what God is.

We have already noted in these studies that one of the glorious aspects of the biblical revelation is that it is dressing the indescribable in human language -- putting words on something so majestic and glorious that it defies categorisation and description. Paul captures for us something of the grandeur of the God of salvation when he says in Romans 11:33-36 --

Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods! For who can know what the Lord is thinking? Who knows enough to be his counselor? And who could ever give him so much that he would have to pay it back? For everything comes from him; everything exists by his power and is intended for his glory. To him be glory evermore. Amen.

Yet it is this glorious God that has spoken to us in the Bible, and woven through the Bible's histories, biographies, prophecies, warnings and promises is such a revelation of the nature of God that we learn about his very being -- what God is, and what God is like. John reminds us in John 17:3 that eternal life means knowing God; and without the knowledge of God we cannot even begin to be wise.

The Nature Of God

Secondly, the Bible teaches us that God reveals himself to us as One, yet more-than-one. He is unity in trinity, singularity in plurality. This is, as all Christians readily admit, a great mystery, yet it is fundamental to the biblical revelation. There is a God, and there is a Godhead. The biblical idea of God is built around two axioms: the first, that there is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4); the second, that God is plural. This is hinted at in Genesis 1:26 where God (singular) says, "Let us (plural) make man in our (plural) image...". The Hebrew word for God is also plural in form, hinting at a doctrine that will be clarified in the New Testament -- that the one God that there is is nonetheless Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

The Catechism makes the distinction by talking of God when the concept of the deity as numerically one is in the foreground, and talking of the Godhead when the concept of plurality is to the fore. The distinction is helpful, but needs to be used with caution and care. "Godhead" sounds extremely impersonal, and may encourage the idea of some kind of divine committee that runs the universe. We must also note that the concept of 'godhead' is not a biblical idea. Of course, neither is the word 'Trinity' to be found in the Bible, but the doctrine is clearly taught.

To be sure, it is difficult in any language to capture the idea of someone who is numerically one being simultaneously three. That, however, is the biblical revelation. To know God, and to worship God, means knowing him and worshipping him as a Trinity.

The Decrees Of God

The Bible also teaches us, according to the Catechism, what the decrees of God are. This means that the Bible takes us beyond a doctrine of the fact and being of God, to a doctrine of the God who plans, who frames ideas with a view to meeting ultimate ends. He is not idle, nor remote -- he is God in action, God whose thoughts and ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:3), and who performs his will. The heathen king Nebuchadnezzar was forced to conclude this when he said of God that no-one can keep back his hand or say to him, "What are you doing?" (Daniel 4:35).

The whole of reality is what it is because of the mind, will and purpose of God. Salvation is available to us because of what God has purposed and planned. All that is revealed in the Bible is the consequence of the God who measures situations and purposes to act.

The Catechism will explore the implications of this. But at the outset we are reminded that the doctrine of God is not some arid, barren theology, but a theology with heart, and purpose, and determination. God is personal, and as such he moves forward to the accomplishment of his divine and eternal purpose.

Some theologians have found fault with the Westminsterian theology at this point, accusing it of shifting the focus away from what God has done in Christ as the basis for our salvation, to what God determined pre-temporally (before time began). T.F. Torrance, for example, argues that the teaching of the Confession and Catechisms of Westminster was at a remove from the older Scottish evangelical tradition, which placed the saving work of Christ at the centre. Instead, it is argued, Westminster drove the issue back to God's determinating decree, which both distorts the presentation of the Gospel, and thus robs people of their assurance of salvation.

It is doubtful whether there is evidence for Torrance's position even within the literature of Scottish evangelicalism; but whether there is or not, a more obvious issue raises its head. Where are God's works rooted, if not in his mind and purpose? If God is rational at all, then he does not perform an act or an activity for no reason, and for no purpose. The God of the Bible created the world for his own glory, permits sin for his own wise ends, and determined (cf. Acts 2:23) to send Christ into the world to be our Mediator and Saviour. Far from distorting the message of the Gospel, and the centrality of Jesus Christ in the Gospel, the Catechism's doctrine of God's decrees actually remind us of the great grace and love which did not allow man to remain in the sin and ruin into which he had brought himself, but made provision in Jesus for our needs. What greater basis of assurance could we have than the decrees of God, culminating in the provision of a Saviour?

The Work Of God

The Bible teaches us, fourthly, how God 'executes his decrees', and carries out his puposes; it tells us how he accomplishes what he has willed to be done, and how he brings to fruition the seed of his plans.

We must, of course, be careful to remember that God is not like us -- he is not bound by the constraints of time or of space. With God there is no yesterday nor any tomorrow. He is above time, in his own time, where one day is to him like a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. In the strictest sense, therefore, God does not plan today and execute his plan tomorrow. If God exists in the eternally present, then planning and execution run concurrently!

But there is another factor -- it is that what God plans to do, and the way God does what he plans, intersects with our lives and experience in a time-bound universe. We can only read God's work from our own perspective, and when we do so, we realise that there is a mystery to God's purpose and the fulfilling of his purpose that causes us to become lost in wonder, love and praise.

May his purposes and work continue to work such love and praise in us as we continue our studies!