[JORDAN QUINLEY]
Redeemer Catechism Series, Question 5
In this post, I will elaborate on question 5 of the Redeemer Catechism. This question along with questions 6 and 8 give us an idea of what God is like ontologically, that is, in His being. As such, they are foundational to everything else we believe. Everything begins with God.
Q5: Who is the first and preeminent being?
A5: God is the first and preeminent being.
This question is adapted from the 1693 Baptist Catechism, which asks, “Who is the first and chiefest being?” John Piper, in his adaptation of the Baptist Catechism, renders chiefest as best. I tried to find a term I thought most clearly captured the intended meaning of chiefest and I think preeminent comes very close. The American Heritage Dictionary defines preeminent as “superior to or notable above all others; outstanding.” It is this notion of superiority above all others that I think was meant in the older catechism.
God is superior in all ways to all other beings. He is morally more pure, even than the holy angels, as God is Himself the standard of all goodness, and the one who is “light, and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 Jn. 1:5). His power is greater than that of any creature, not only in degree (in that he is more powerful than others), but in its nature. By this I mean both that God’s power is unlimited (it has no external constraints) and that God’s power is that by which the power of every other being is upheld and sustained. Hear the words of the twenty-four elders pictured around the throne of God saying, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being” (Rev. 4:11).
A millennium earlier, King David sang this song to the Lord:
Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.
Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hand are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name (1 Chr. 29:10–12).
God’s preeminence literally cannot be overstated! David reaches for every superlative to describe God’s greatness. Amazingly, this kind of language, which can only be attributed to God, is used of Christ in the New Testament without any hint of impropriety. The apostle Paul says that Christ is seated “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church” (Eph. 1:20–22).
Compare this quote with Paul’s words in Colossians 1:15–18: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” (See also Php. 2:9–11.)
Truly there is none like God, clothed with splendor and majesty. “Great is the Lord,” proclaims the psalmist, “and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom” (Ps. 145:3). He is due all our worship, adoration, and obedience.
The catechism also says that God is the first being. Obviously, this means he existed from eternity past (Hab. 1:12, Rev. 1:8), and therefore was prior to all other things, and that all other things exist only because God brought them into being. “I am the first and I am the last,” says God (Is. 48:12), and likewise God the Son says, “I am the First and the Last” (Rev. 1:17).
Similarly, compare the opening verse of Genesis with the opening verse of John’s gospel: “In the beginning God” and “In the beginning was the Word”. The persons of the Godhead coexisted from eternity past, so that the Word “was with God in the beginning” (Jn 1:2, see 1:15, 30).
Additionally, though, being first speaks of God’s aseity. This is the fact that God is an absolute and absolutely independent reality, having life in himself (Jn. 5:26, 1Tim. 6:16). When Moses at the burning bush asks for a name by which he can identify the God who sent him to rescue the Jews, God says, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM’ has sent me to you” (Ex. 3:4). There is no more fundamental name by which God could identify himself. He is the One who is. God cannot not be.
Thus I can think of four ways in which God is the first being. He is first in time, and before all time. He is first in the sense of being the greatest—first in rank. He is also logically first. I mean that God precedes all other realities because God is the only, and only possible, self-existing, necessary, and absolutely fundamental reality.
God is the reality to which nothing is logically prior, in that nothing, not even some abstract principle or reality structure, was a necessary precondition for God to have being or to be as He is. There is no why that precedes God and makes Him be the way He is and not different. He is the why.
And fourthly, God is first in the sense that He is the ultimate source of all other things, the ultimate fountainhead of all being and all reality. That is to say, He is the first cause.
“For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen” (Rom. 11:36).†
- How Did God Create Humankind? - February 29, 2024
- What is God’s Work of Creation? - August 24, 2023
- What Are God’s Decrees and How Does He Carry Them Out? - June 22, 2023
Absolutely beautiful tribute to the Father of all good things, who was and is and will be forever the focal point of all that has being through Him.