This article is the second installment in our series "Christian, What Do You Believe: The Belgic Confession of Faith". Find the whole series here.
Christians today need to know what they believe and make known their convictions to a world dominated by secularism and awash in relativism. Paul put it simply: “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Rom. 10:10). Everyone believes and confesses something. God calls us to trust and confess him.
The first words of the Belgic Confession capture this urgent need of every age. It starts by enlarging the opening of the Nicene Creed (“I believe in one God): “We all believe with the heart and confess with the mouth” the “being whom we call God.” A true confession begins with God. This is so both because to know God is to have life (John 17:3), and because God’s existence, character, and actions inform all other knowledge. The starting point of saving faith is to “believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Heb 11:6). Scripture pointedly states that only a fool starts with the opposite belief, that there is no God (Ps. 53:1). That assumption is wrong; it denies what can be known from living in God’s world (Rom. 1:19). Denying God is also dangerous. If there is no God everything is permissible; atheism leads to corruption and “abominable iniquity” (Ps. 53:1). And God will scatter the bones of his enemies (Ps. 53:5). That’s a sobering thought. But it should help us make the good confession about who God truly is.
To think rightly about God means having great and accurate thoughts about him.
The Supremacy of God
Although God is immanent—“not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27)—he is also transcendent, “high and lifted up” (Is. 6:1). Notions of a domesticated God shrink our confidence in him, impair our worship, and inhibit our witness. Pondering God’s being and perfections is just what we need to expand our sense of his majesty and fuel our zeal for his glory (Rom. 10:2). We should not think that the Lord of heaven and earth can be defined; he is not a specimen to dissect and label. Still, we can describe God, saying true things about him based on how he has revealed himself.
Before pondering God’s attributes, it is wise to reflect on his nature. We should know three basic truths about the supreme being.
- God is one. There is a single being that we rightly call God. His oneness speaks to both his unity and his uniqueness. Though he reveals himself as three persons, his essence is unity. And there is none like him. God is different from every other category of existence. There are no other gods. Polytheists worship many creatures because they have “exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (Rom. 1:25). Scripture declares this foundational lesson: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one!” (Deut. 6:4; 1 Cor. 8:4).
- God is simple. God is not the sum of parts, as we are, made up of body and soul. He is the God who simply is (Ex. 3:14). In God there is “no composition, no contradiction, no tension, no process.”
- God is spiritual. “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). God does not have a body; his hands (Isa. 64:8), feet (Ps. 60:8), eyes (Prov. 15:3), and face (Rev. 22:4) are literary symbols that reveal important truths about his character. God’s spirituality helps us reject materialism—the notion that the universe consists only of matter—and glorify him in body and spirit (1 Cor. 6:20 NKJ).
God “is a single and simple spiritual being.” But what is he like?
The Attributes of God
God’s attributes aren’t exactly like character traits. Rather they are different ways of understanding God as the only perfect being in a class entirely his own.
God Is Eternal
Children ask, “When was God born?” But he wasn’t. The Bible starts with these profound words, “In the beginning, God” (Gen. 1:1). Moses praised him with these words: “from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Ps. 90:2; cf. Rev. 15:7). In all ways mortals should defer to the eternal One.
God Is Incomprehensible
“Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? (Job. 11:7). No. God “does great things that we cannot comprehend” (Job 37:5). God’s incomprehensibility both humbles us and invites us to press on to know him more (1 Cor. 13:12; Hos. 6:3).
God Is Invisible
No one can fully see God and live (Ex. 33:20). “The Lord of lords…dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.” (1 Tim. 6:15, 16). God is pure essence; he “cannot be perceived by the senses.” We see him only with “the eye of the soul or the spirit.”
God Is Immutable, or Unchangeable
For us time is like “an ever-rolling stream” bringing constant change, sweeping one generation away after another. Nothing is constant in this world but God. With the Lord “there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). His stability gives us confidence in uncertainty.
God Is Infinite
Measuring requires parameters. God has none. He is boundless. “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable” (Ps. 145:3). God’s infinity applies to all his attributes; for example, he is almighty and completely wise. This is good news for weak and anxious people like us.
God Is Almighty
“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14). No. He is “God almighty” (Gen. 17:1). For God “all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). He has no weak points. Neither his mercy nor his anger represent lapses of power. As even children can confess, “God can do all his holy will.”
God Is Completely Wise
God uses the best means to execute the best plans. He consults with no one, learns from no one, is corrected by no one, and worries about nothing (Isa. 40:13, 14, 17). Those of us who lack wisdom can seek it from God and rest in his perfect plan (James 1:5).
God Is Completely Just
God’s justice is his “holiness in action, by which he maintains himself and his will by rewarding good and punishing evil.” Both he and his rules are righteous (Ps. 119:137). God’s justice gives us a standard of conduct and relieves us of trying to force desired outcomes.
God Is Completely Good
God does not just do good things, he is good in himself. He is kind, tenderhearted, and sympathetic. And he is the fountain of all good. He makes the sun to shine on all—showing his common goodness, and loves his people in Jesus—revealing his special goodness.
Idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of him. True religion requires repenting of idolatry and thinking rightly about God. And each of God’s attributes helps us to love him, fear him, trust him, and obey him. He is “Perfect in power in love and purity” in all that he is. We must believe what God reveals to us and speak what we know. We don’t have to prove him. But we must proclaim him. Believe in this God. Confess him before the world. And trust what the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame” (Rom. 10:11).
Footnotes
For a brief and practical introduction to the doctrine of divine simplicity see William Boekestein, https://credomag.com/article/the-beauty-of-divine-simplicity/
Jakob Van Bruggen, The Church Says Amen: An Exposition of the Belgic Confession (Neerlandia, Alberta: Inheritance Publications, 2003), 24.
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 2:187.
Isaac Watts, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” Trinity Psalter Hymnal, 222.
First Catechism, Q/A 13, https://opc.org/cce/FirstCatechism.html.
Peter Y. De Jong, The Church’s Witness to the World (Pella, IA: Pella Publishing Inc., 1960), 1:72
Reginald Heber, “Holy, Holy, Holy!” Trinity Psalter Hymnal, 230.
