1. There is but one only (Deut. 6:4; 1 Cor. 8:4, 6), living, and true God (1 Thess. 1:9; Jer. 10:10),
Not that this should be necessary to say, but the Christian faith is monotheistic. But this does not mean that “Christianity” is a belief system which contains one God within it, so that people within our faith community can function that way. Rather, the living and true God is the one who made heaven and earth, to whom the Christian faith points, and within whom the Christian faith operates, along with everything else.
who is infinite in being and perfection (Job 11:7–9; 26:14),
When we say that God is infinite, we are simply saying He is not finite. He is not finite or limited in His essence, or in the perfection of His attributes. We have no clear positive notion of what we mean by infinite, because we are finite creatures. But we do know that God is not like us.
a most pure spirit (John 4:24), invisible (1 Tim. 1:17), without body, parts (Deut. 4:15–16; John 4:24; Luke 24:39), or passions (Acts 14:11, 15);
God’s being is spiritual, not material, and He cannot be seen. When it is said that He is without body, parts or passions, this refers to the fact of God’s simplicity. He is not a complicated, tangled knot of attributes. There is no contradiction within the Godhead between this attribute and that one. But we have to be careful with the truth that He is without “passions.” If this is handled wrongly, it can make the orthodox position vulnerable to the charge of Hellenism. His anger, of course, is not like a man’s temper tantrum—a man’s passion. But neither is it like a calm summer day. His anger is far more terrible than a man’s anger. His anger would be trans-passionate, not sub-passionate.
immutable (James 1:17; Mal. 3:6), immense (1 Kings 8:27; Jer. 23:23–24), eternal (Ps. 90:2; 1 Tim. 1:17), incomprehensible (Ps. 145:3), almighty (Gen. 17:1; Rev. 4:8), most wise (Rom. 16:27), most holy (Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8), most free (Ps. 115:3), most absolute (Exod. 3:14);
God cannot change or be changed. He is boundless, immense. He is eternal, which is not the same as everlasting. Eternity refers to a trans-temporal existence. A finite head cannot contain the truth about God; He is incomprehensible. If He could be comprehended by us, He would not be worthy of our worship. He has all power, but this power is not disconnected from wisdom. His holiness is the confluence of all His attributes, just as white is the combination of all colors. He is free, not constrained by anything other than His own nature and attributes. He is the standard by which anything else is to be judged.
working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will (Eph. 1:11), for His own glory (Prov. 16:4; Rom. 11:36);
God has a plan for everything He does, and what He does encompasses everything. He works out all details according to His master plan. The
telos behind all that He determines to do is His own glory.
most loving (1 John 4:8, 16), gracious, merciful, long–suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin (Exod. 34:6–7); the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6); and withal, most just, and terrible in His judgments (Neh. 9:32–33), hating all sin (Ps. 5:5–6), and who will by no means clear the guilty (Nah. 1:2, 3; Exod. 34:7).
The world is a display case for many of God’s attributes, and this explains why He permitted evil to come into the good world He created. In a world without sin, God’s mercy and justice would have gone unrevealed. As this is intolerable, God determined to create a world in which sinners would rebel against Him, some of them receiving mercy and others justice. Those who receive mercy understand that He is most loving and gracious. They see His patience, and the abundance of His kindness, including His willingness to put away sin and iniquity. Further, His goodness is shown in how He rewards those who seek Him. At the same time, with others, His justice is plainly in evidence. He is terrible, and hates sin (not to mention the sinner). In no way can God be brought to clear the guilty.
2. God hath all life (John 5:26), glory (Acts 7:2), goodness (Ps. 119:68), blessedness (1 Tim. 6:15; Rom. 9:5), in and of Himself; and is alone in and unto Himself all–sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which He hath made (Acts 17:24–25), nor deriving any glory from them (Job 22:2–3),
God is self-sufficient. He is a sun, not a moon. He reflects nothing, but rather is the eternal fountainhead of all these attributes, which are then reflected by all things that have been created. He is the source of all life, glory, goodness, and blessedness. He did not create us because He was lonely. He created all things to glorify Himself, but this does not mean He needed glory, or somehow was lacking in it. An infinite Being, He is the source of infinite surplus.
but only manifesting His own glory in, by, unto, and upon them.
His glory is manifested in the world, but not made possible by the world.
He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things (Rom. 11:36); and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever Himself pleaseth (Rev. 4:11; 1 Tim. 6:15; Dan 4:25, 35).
As the Lord of all creation, His right of disposal is absolute. All things flow from Him, and all things have their meaning and value in reference to Him. Being who He is, He may consequently do whatever He feels like doing. Our God is in heaven; He does as He pleases.
In His sight all things are open and manifest (Heb. 4:13), His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature (Rom. 11:33–34; Ps. 147:5), so as nothing is to Him contingent, or uncertain (Acts 15:18; Ezek. 11:5).
God’s knowledge is not mediated to Him in any way, or by any means. God learns nothing. He in no way troubleshoots the created order, going first this way, then that. Nothing stands between God and what He knows. All things are certain to Him. He has no epistemological difficulties.
He is most holy in all His counsels, in all His works, and in all His commands (Ps. 145:17; Rom. 7:12). To Him is due from angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service, or obedience He is pleased to require of them (Rev. 5:12–14).
The fact that God’s power over the creation is absolute does not mean that He wields this power in unrighteousness. He works all things according to His counsel, but it must be remembered that His counsel is holy. Consequently, if God tells us to do something, it is holy and right for us to obey Him without question. This is to be distinguished from obeying without question something which someone falsely claims to be the Word of God. Apart from the Word of God, for a father to do to his son what Abraham did to Isaac would be most wicked.
3. In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost (1 John 5:7; Matt. 3:16–17; 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14):
When we confess the Trinity, we are confessing the tri-unity of the one God. One and three are not predicated of the same thing. One refers to the substance, power, and eternity of God, while three refers to the Persons within the Godhead, who each have all the same attributes of the one God. Each Person of the Trinity is eternal, meaning that the Trinity did not begin at a certain point, but was mere Unity before that. The three Persons involved are revealed to us in Scripture as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
the Father is of none, neither begotten, nor proceeding;
The Father is the authority and source. But since He is eternally the source, the other two Persons are equally eternal, and eternally dependent upon the source. The Son is begotten, the Father is not. The Spirit proceeds, the Father does not. The Father does not come from anywhere.
the Son is eternally begotten of the Father (John 1:14, 18);
To use the phrase applied to this by John the apostle, the Son is
monogenes, the only-begotten. This is a technical term, referring to just this truth. In some places, Scripture refers to Christ as the first born from the dead, referring to the resurrection. But this is referring to the eternal relationship of the Father to the Son.
the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son (John 15:26; Gal. 4:6).
The Westminster Confession here follows the Western church, accepting the
filioque clause which was inserted into the Nicean Creed, and which caused much trouble. But aside from how the clause came to be confessed, this particular confession remains sound. The Spirit is in truth the Spirit of Christ, as well as the Spirit of the Father.