Redeemer Catechism Series, Question 6
JORDAN QUINLEY
As noted in my last article, questions 5, 6, and 8 of the Redeemer Catechism discuss God’s nature. That is, they attempt to describe what God is like in His being. Question 6, which is taken almost word-for-word from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, takes a crack at giving us a true definition of God. It is to this day the best short definition of God that I know.
Q6: What is God?
A6: God is a Spirit, perfect, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
This description of God affirms first of all that God is a Spirit. That is to say, He is not a material or embodied being, but immaterial. God is not like us in form or substance. Jesus said that “God is spirit” (Jn 4:24). Three times the New Testament describes God as “invisible” (Col. 1:15, 1 Tim. 1:17, Heb. 11:27). In Romans 1:20, Paul describes the “divine nature” as one of God’s invisible attributes. Moreover, God’s omnipresence necessitates that God be spirit (see 1 Kings 6:18, Jer. 23:24). This fact is because, while God can manifest His presence more acutely to his creatures in particular places as He wills, He is not localized in any place. He is fully present everywhere. This truth was a great comfort to King David, as expressed in Psalm 139, and ought to be to us as well. Any theology that claims that God is in His nature a physical being like we are is flatly contradicted by the Scriptures.
In the next part of the catechism’s answer to question 6, we are told that all of God’s attributes are perfect, eternal, and unchangeable. These qualities apply equally to everything else about God. You could picture the relationship between these descriptors like this:
To say that God is perfect in all his attributes means that God possesses these qualities in their fullness and in their most absolute form. He is perfect in His nature. He is maximally holy, wise, good, etc. No greater expression of these qualities is possible than that which is in God. Thus God, in all His characteristics, is perfect both in the sense of complete (total and undiminished) and in the sense of a thing in its best possible state. Indeed, the attributes of God are sometimes called His perfections. And in each of these perfections, He has always been so and cannot change. As He is perfect, there can be no improvement. And as there can be no improvement, any change in God’s character would be a step away from perfection. But the Lord says, “I, the LORD, do not change.” Psalm 55:19, James 1:17, and Hebrews 13:8 affirm God’s immutable nature, and that last passage is speaking specifically about the person of Jesus Christ!
Each of the divine qualities mentioned could be the subject of its own article. For now, I think it only necessary to say that God’s unfathomable wisdom, his great power, his untainted and unapproachable holiness, his perfect justice, his moral goodness, and his complete truthfulness are all abundantly testified to in the Scriptures. Even a sampling of verses attesting to this would be too numerous to list. But all these things are also attributed to Christ specifically, and we will take a look at some of those passages. Christ Jesus, says Paul, “has become for us wisdom from God” (1 Cor. 1:30). He is the one who will come again “with power and great glory” (Matt. 24:30). Jesus our High Priest is “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens” (Heb. 7:26). The Messiah “will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.” (Is. 9:7). Jesus himself is the “good shepherd” of His flock, and is the one who not only tells us the truth, but came full of grace and truth, and said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (Jn. 10:11; Jn. 1:14; Jn. 14:6).
Let us be thankful that we serve an eternally perfect, steadfast God, who can be depended upon because “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (Jam. 1:17).
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“Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.” Colossians 1:12-20.