The Divine Tapestry of Creation: 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith Chapter 4

Hi there, welcome to Reformed Ex Mormon. I am Pastor Braden, and I hope you're having a wonderful and blessed day today. Today I wanted to make a video talking about God's creation in light of two recent events.

One was I was able to take a lovely motorcycle ride the other day where I was able to just take in the scenery and the grandeur of God's creation. I just was really taken back by that. And also recently for my seminary, Reformed Baptist Seminary, I had an assignment for one of my classes, which was to write an exposition off of one of the chapters of the 1689 Lenten Baptist Confession of Faith.

And so I chose to do chapter four, God's creation, from that confession to fulfill the requirement of that assignment. And so I wanted to make this video as a means of hopefully glorifying God and also for the purpose of edifying the saints and just sharing some thoughts regarding the 1689 Lenten Baptist Confession of Faith, which if you don't already own a copy of one of those confessions, of one of the confessions, I would really highly encourage you to do so.

They're such a blessing as it articulates the orthodox view in the writer's day, as well as highlighting some of the issues that they were going through in their time. And it just really ties you to historical Christianity, as well as an aid and guardrails to the individual, as well as the corporate body of Christianity goes.

So I hope that those things are a blessing to you. But what we'll do is we're going to open up the 1689 Lenten Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter four, and look at the three paragraphs therein and discuss some of the particulars that are found here in this confession.

And the first thing that you should take notice of is if you were to compare this to the Savoy Declaration or the Westminster Confession, of which the 1689 is inspired by, you would notice that there's some very minute differences, but also important differences between those confessions.

And one of the biggest differences that you would see is in all three of those confessions, chapter four, God's creation, is found in the same place. However, the format of the 1689 is different than the Savoy Declaration and the Westminster Confession.

I think that this is done very purposefully. In the Westminster and the Savoy, you would see that it only has two paragraphs. And even though the wording is almost identical in the 1689, you would see that the 1689 has taken paragraph two and it has divided it into another additional paragraph, thus making three paragraphs.

And so I think that we will see some of the implications of why that was done, as the understanding of the law and also understanding of the covenant of works is so foundational for the differences regarding covenant theology in that of a particular or Reformed Baptist mindset compared to other Reformed traditions, that you can see, I think, some of the emphasis of why that paragraph was divided in that way.

Another important thing that you should take notice of is the placement of chapter four. It comes between chapter three and chapter five, and you might chuckle and think, well, that's how all chapter fours come about.

But what I'm talking about is the titles of the chapters that are surrounding chapter four. And you should already know this, or if you don't, just as a reminder, chapter one of these confessions start with talking and establishing that we believe that the scriptures are inspired, God-breathed, and are the foundation of our faith, and that everything that we talk about as doctrine must stem from the only inspired source, which is the Bible.

And then it goes on to say that we believe in one God who exists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And so that's the foundation of this confession is the holy scriptures and then the being of who God is.

But following this, we start to get into what I would say are the two pillars of this confession, which is chapter three and chapter five, which is God's decree and the divine provenance. Now, if you look at chapter three of the 1689, you would see that the reformed confessions always say that God is the one that has decreed everything, and that he did this in and of himself, and that he did this perfectly wise and holy and of his own will, and that he's done this freely and unchangeably.

And just looking at this, it's such a heavy emphasis in giving God the glory for all things in his sovereignty, is what we see there in God's decree. But then when you look at divine provenance, you would see that that thought really carries on.

I'll read just part of paragraph one here from divine provenance of chapter five. It says, God, the good creator of all things in his infinite power and wisdom, upholds, directs, arranges, and governs all creatures and things from the greatest to the least by his perfectly wise and holy providence, the purpose for which they were created.

He governs, according to his infallible foreknowledge, in the free and unchangeable counsel of his own will. His providence leads the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.

And so one could think that it's kind of odd to see chapter four of God's creation placed in between these two pillars of the confession that are very heavily focused on divine sovereignty and say, why did they not put creation after that?

And I think that the reason is, is if you look at paragraph one of the creation of chapter four, you see that it very clearly demonstrates that God is the creator of all things. And so when you look at chapter three to chapter five, you should walk away saying, God has decreed all things, God has created all things, and God sustains all things.

And then when we look at bookends, what's remarkable about this takeaway from these early chapters in the confession, when you go to the last chapter of the confession, which is on the last judgment, chapter 32, we also see a bookend that's very important for us to take notice of.

In paragraph one of chapter 32, it says, God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ. And so foundationally, if you believe to be a reformed individual, a reformed Baptist in this case, you should walk away after reading this confession saying that God is sovereign, that God does and has decreed according to his foreknowledge, that God has created for his own glory, and God does sustain and uphold all things for his end purposes, and that even the last day is a day that God has appointed, that there's nothing that falls outside of God's all-powerful, all-encompassing sovereignty.

So that's just a really important takeaway that I think people can lack or lose view of in this chapter four, is that it's purposefully placed between these two pillars of sovereignty, because creation falls within God's sovereignty.

The Trinity and God's Sovereign Work in Creation

And so in chapter four, paragraph one, it begins by saying, In the beginning, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And I'd like to pause there and just make it clear that the confession has already illustrated for us that the orthodox view of Christianity is that there is one God, but that he exists in three co-eternal, co-equal persons, which is the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And so we see here, that's what's set up for us, is that it's saying that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit was pleased to create or make the world and all things in it. So it confesses in here that all three persons of the Trinity were active in the creation of all things.

And it says both visible and invisible. So what that does for us is that is an eliminating statement. It means that there's nothing outside of God that has been created that wasn't created by him. And this is very clearly the confession or the teaching, the doctrine of all the Bible, as we would see in John chapter one, verse three, as well as other scriptures.

And if you have a confession open, you'll see all these scriptural supports and the reason why these individuals wrote the confession in the way that they did. We'd also see that it goes on to say it was done in a six-day period and all was very good.

Now, it should be clearly understood that the reformers, the reformed Baptists of the 17th century, of the 1600s, understood and taught that God created all things in six 24-hour period days, also known as creationism.

This has been my understanding. This is what the confession teaches. This is what reformed Baptists should hold to, is a creationism view of God's creating power. It says that all of this was very good, and it says that he did this to manifest the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness.

So we see, again, one of the fundamental catechism questions that are asked to all little ones of every church that utilizes catechisms, is what is the chief end of man? And the answer is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

And so we see that echoed here in paragraph one of God's creation here in chapter four. So just like in the Bible, we see that in Genesis chapter one, we have a very, maybe one could say, a little bit of a broad brushstroke of depicting of what creation was for God, where we see God creating from day one to day six, resting on the seventh, and in that it encapulates all of God's creation there in chapter one of Genesis.

However, when you go to Genesis chapter two, we have a recapitulation or a retelling of day six, where God created man. This is not a contradiction that we see in the scripture, but rather it is a retelling with more focus, more detail, of God's crowning jewel, which is the image bearers, both male and female, Adam and Eve there in the garden.

And so we see that very clearly play out here in the confession. So in paragraph one, we have a grand picture, a broad brushstroke of the six days of creation and how it was all brought about by God, not from previously existing matter, but that everything visible and invisible was created then and there.

And then here in paragraph two, after God had made all other creatures, he created humanity. He made them male and female. So God created mankind, and notice in here the exclusion of the possibility, which is not a possibility, it's absurdity and quite terribly a distortion of God's created image as well as God's created order, that there's only two genders.

There's male and there's female. There is no trans, there is no anything in between those two or anything outside of those two. It's male and female. And then it talks about how he created them. So it says that he created them with rational and immortal souls, thereby making them suited to that life lived unto God for which they were created.

They were made in the image of God, being endowed with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. They had the law of God written in their hearts and the power to fulfill it. Even so, they could still transgress the law because they were left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject to change.

And so in here, I think what we see in here is some of the understanding from these Reformed thinkers on what the image of God looked like. What is the image of God? This is something that is of a lot of speculation.

And I'd like you just to take note of that within both male and female, we see that they have a knowledge, they're endowed with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. They had a law that was written on their hearts and the power to fulfill it.

So thinking through this a little bit, they're given what's called the communicable attributes of God. They're able to reflect their creator in certain ways. So mankind can love, they can show mercy, they can forgive, they can show justice.

They have these abilities to reflect their creator in these ways. This is one of the parts of the Imago Dei, of the image of God. However, they don't take place or take part of the non-communicable attributes of God, which are things such as omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence.

Mankind will not ever be all-knowing, all-powerful, all-everywhere, all-present. They don't have those non-communicable, thus making them non-communicable. We share it with God in His communicable attributes.

Things that all mankind can show. We, in the garden there, have the law of God written on our hearts. And we'll talk a little bit more about that topic here in paragraph 3, as I think it's important that the Reformed Baptists have divided this paragraph into another section here in paragraph 3.

But the law of God written on the heart is another part of being an image-bearer of God. And you would also see that they had a purpose there in the garden, right? They were given a chief, and in this, it was to tend the guard, to have dominion, to go and procreate.

They had a purpose in life. And so I think all these things put together that is laid out here in this confession make up a very robust understanding of what the image of God is. And before we read paragraph 3, we should also take notice of how man has fallen from this.

Mankind still possesses the image of God, but it's a very poor image. It's one that is ruined and soaked and twisted and hell-bent in sin. It's not like what it was in the garden. The law of God that's written on all man's hearts, now it's a heart of stone.

It's one that does these works to try to justify themselves rather than to glorify God. They have communicable attributes that are so distorted that they justify everything they do in order to try to elevate themselves above their neighbors.

Their chief end or their end have dominion, and all these things that we see there in the garden is now of a life of purposeless. Now many live life seeking their own peace, their own purpose. We see the image of God still being present in individuals, in unbelievers.

However, it is corrupted. It has not been restored. And it has not been renewed yet in the second federal head, which is Adam. They are still underneath being of the image like their first federal head, Adam, which was corrupted there at the fall.

Just some interesting things that we need to take away from that, with that, and the image of God there in the garden. But paragraph three, it says,. So I would like to pause here, because this is something that has been of a popular topic for many Reformed people as well as Reformed Baptists, especially in recent days.

The confession clearly lays out for us, and it's seen very early on in the confession, even here in chapter four, that there was an understanding that the law that's written inside the heart is different than positive law.

And we'll talk about positive law here in a moment. Let's just go ahead and read this, and then let's break it apart after. So they were fulfilling that which the image of God was meant to fulfill. Now, take notice of in here, there's two things that are talked about.

There is the law that is written in their hearts, and that they receive a specific command. This specific command was to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In this law, there was a promise or a reward based off of fulfilling that law.

And there was also a punishment that was tied to it. Many Reformed thinkers would say that this is very clearly a covenant of works. And I would profess that too, that this is a covenant of works. God imposed this specific precept on them that had rewards and punishments tied to them.

This is the covenant language that we see all throughout the Old Testament. So this was clearly a covenant of works given to Adam in the garden as our first federal head. But notice in here that the law that was written on their heart is different than the positive law.

Why is it positive? Because Adam didn't need to be told to not murder his wife, to know it was wrong to murder his wife. However, he did need to be told not to eat of a specific tree. And if he had not been told to not eat of the specific tree, it would have been okay for him to eat of it.

Because there would have been no knowledge. There would have been no precept. There would have been no positive command for them to know better. This is the difference between transcendent law, which I'm saying is the law that was written in their heart.

It's part of the makeup of the image of God. Transcendent because it comes from the transcendent being God. Compared to that of positive law. Positive law can have an end in mind. It can be given to only specific people.

It can have different intended results from God, for God, and for man. And it's added, right? The moral law is not added. Positive law is added. Transcendent law is always there. It doesn't need anything else to make it true.

Positive law is added because transcendent law is true. And where I'm going with this and why it's important to distinguish these things is later on in this confession in chapter 19, it goes into the law of God, which also has some pretty important implications for us in regard to the civil magistrate that's also talked about.

But in the law of God, chapter 19, we see that it talks about this law that was first written on Adam's heart. That's going to be called the moral law. We also then see God has a judicial law given to the people of Israel and a ceremonial law that was given to the people of Israel of which that positive law, the judicial and the ceremonial, ceased with that nation except for its general equity that can be applied still therein.

The reason that those laws that were given to Israel could end with Israel is because they were added for Israel. And not only this, but they had a specific purpose in mind. In Galatians chapter 3, I believe it is verse 17, it says that this was added because of transgressions and it was until Christ.

And so it's added because it's not transcendent. It had a purpose that was to bring about the Christ and it had an end which was until the Christ. And so why was it just in that time? How did it get its moral reasoning to obey that positive law?

Because moral law is true. Transcendent law is there in the heart. And so think about this for a second. In the garden for Adam, why was it good for Adam? What gave Adam the occasion to be obedient to God?

Why was it important for Adam to be obedient to that positive law given? It's because he first had moral law written on his heart that he knew he ought to be obedient to God, that he already knew to love God and to love his neighbor.

He already knew those things inherently. And because of those things being true, when God said, don't eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it was incumbent upon Adam to be obedient to that positive law.

If Adam didn't have that moral needed obedience, that positive law wouldn't have meant what it did for Adam. If Adam was told by God to jump ten times in a row, it would have been good for Adam to jump ten times in a row because the moral law dictates for him to be obedient to God.

The positive law doesn't dictate that and the moral law does. So the positive law gets its effectual power from that of the moral law. And so that's what we see here. And so that's why I believe and I would argue that the Reformed Baptists of the 1689 have broken paragraph two into two separate paragraphs, thus making the paragraph three.

And we see that there's an addition to the letter of the law that was written on the heart of Adam. And that was the specific precept, the specific law that was to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The Moral Law and Positive Law in the Garden

Now, in all these things, what do we see today? Why God's creation? Again, it was to demonstrate his power, his goodness, his wisdom, his glory. It was to manifest himself. Well, in the hearts of the new covenant members that have been renewed by the second federal head Adam, the second Adam, our new federal head Christ, those that have been restored by Jesus are now new covenant members.

They've had a change of heart. They've had the law of God written therein, thus restoring us, thus bringing us back towards the garden, thus sending us back westward from which we were sent out. It has restored the new covenant member to acknowledge Christ as King and as Lord.

It has restored us to being better image bearers, though at times we do still do poorly at representing God and bearing, reflecting that image. It has made it so that now we are able to glorify him in what we do because we do not seek our own glory, but we seek the glory of God.

And so thus, in God's creation here in chapter 4, the individual Christian, just as myself, who goes riding a motorcycle and enjoys God's creation outside, I can now see God's eternal power and wisdom and goodness in what he has created.

Thus, the chief end of man to glorify God and to enjoy him forever is being accomplished today. It's going to be accomplished tomorrow, and it will be accomplished for eternity because God has decreed it, God has created it, God has sustained it, and God has ordained a day in which he will collect those individuals that confess and profess those doctrines.

And it is those of the new covenant that profess such. So I hope that this video has been helpful. I hope that it has edified you on the topic of the Bible, and maybe even more specifically on the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

And I hope that you go in peace and tell the world of this mighty king that you and I serve. God bless, and go in peace.