The Trinity and the Family
Nothing shows the importance of the biblical doctrine of the Trinity so much as its connection to family life. It is the foundation of the family and of our various callings in the family.
Understand! The confession that God is a triune God is also the confession that He is a family God. In the Trinity, He reveals Himself as a Father, a Son and an Holy Spirit. He is, therefore, in the Trinity, a family. In that family He lives one life of perfect fellowship, in perfect harmony and love.
This is why God’s word speaks so often of families (Ps. 68:6, 107:41). This is why He saves families (Jer. 31:1; Amos 3:2; Acts 16: 31-34). The family is always a reflection of His own glory as the triune God.
This has many practical implications. For one thing, it explains the deterioration of the family and of family values today. The family, created to be a reflection of God’s own trinitarian family life, cannot prosper apart from Him.
What is more, the Trinity is where we learn how to live as families. That we go to God to learn about family life does not just mean that we go to His word in the Bible. It means that we go to Him as Father to learn about being fathers (and mothers) to our children. It means that we bring our children to His Holy child Jesus to learn about their calling as children. It means that we go to Him as Holy Spirit to learn about peace, unity, love, fellowship and all the other blessings of family life. Only the Spirit can teach us these things. He is the source of these blessings in the Godhead and in our families.
The Bible itself draws this parallel in passages like Psalm 103:13: “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.” The same parallel is drawn in Ephesians 6:1-4 and Colossians 3:18-21. The obedience of children, the submission of wives, the love of husbands and the mercy of fathers is not “right” and “fit” and “well-pleasing” just because it is what God commands, but because it shows His own glory as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
What is true for the family is true for the church. The church is called a family or household (Gal. 6:10; Eph. 2:19; 3:15). It is built up of families (Acts 5:42; 20:20; Col. 4:15) and takes the form of a family with its officebearers (I Cor. 4:15; Gal. 4:19; I Tim. 5:1–2). In fact, it is the family of God, acknowledging God as Father and submitting to the rule of Christ, the elder brother in the house of God (II Cor. 6:18; Heb. 2:13). Therefore, the church also must learn her family life from her family God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The most important thing for our families, therefore, and for the larger family of the church is to know God and to know Him as He reveals Himself in the Trinity. May God grant us that knowledge! Rev. Hanko
The Lord Creates Evil (4)
“Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” (Amos 3:6).
“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things” (Isa. 45:7).
We have discussed how these texts, and many others, teach that God is sovereign in all things including sin. In this concluding article, we want to discuss briefly the great problem which such a view brings to our attention and with which the church has struggled throughout the centuries.
The problem is this: How can God be sovereign over sin and yet hold man accountable for sin? God’s complete sovereignty over sin seems to us to preclude man’s accountability.
You will notice that I use the word “accountability” rather than “responsibility.” There is a reason for this. That man is responsible goes without saying: He is a rational and moral creature who is responsible for what he does. The question is basically how this responsible man can also be accountable for his sins when God is sovereign.
It is important to notice, first of all, that Scripture simply states the fact. It asserts with powerful statements that God is indeed sovereign.
This is taught clearly in the context of the passage in Isaiah which we quoted above. God says to Cyrus: “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:5-6). Then the text: “… I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
But Scripture also emphatically teaches man’s accountability. God moved David to number Israel; but David confessed his sin. God told Shimei to curse David; but David, who recognized this, did not allow Shimei to escape punishment. God’s counsel was executed in the horrible sin of the crucifixion of Christ; but those who crucified the Lord of glory were condemned for their dastardly deed.
Scripture makes no effort to harmonize these ideas. Scripture lets them stand as they are.
The same is true of the wicked who perish. They know with absolute certainty that they are responsible for their sin. In the judgment day, and eternally in hell, not one wicked man will ever say: “I am not accountable for what I have done.” Every one will admit that he is punished justly for his sins. The child of God, too, believing the truth of God’s sovereignty, nevertheless, confesses his sins in the full consciousness of his own accountability.
Some have attempted to explain this relation by calling God’s sovereignty over sin God’s “permissive will.” It is interesting that when the Westminster Confession discusses this very question, it rejects the idea of permission: “The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in his providence that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, … yet so as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God” (5.4).
We must insist that while God is indeed sovereign over sin, nevertheless, He is not the author of sin; for our God is holy and just in all He does. He is holy also in His sovereign control of sin.
God is sovereign; man is responsible. Man sins and must suffer sin’s punishment. The question really is: How does God’s will as executed in the sin of man so touch man’s will that, while God remains sovereign, man’s will remains the power behind his sin?
We must admit that here we stand confronted with a mystery. This mystery is the reason why the Westminster Confession speaks of God’s unsearchable wisdom in His relation to sin.
That we cannot understand this does not bother me, for I am unable to understand the very least of God’s works. I cannot understand how God makes an oak tree grow from an acorn. I cannot understand how God forms a child in the womb of its mother. I am not troubled by the fact that I cannot understand God’s works in His control over sin. I can only bow in humility and worship, all the while confessing: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom. 11:33-36). Prof. Hanko
What is Saving Faith?
Herman Hoeksema (1886-1952):
[By] faith we are ingrafted into Christ … It is the means whereby we are united with Christ, the spiritual bond whereby we are made one body, one plant with Him, so that by faith we may live from Him, draw our all from Him, and thus receive all His benefits … You can put a dead stick in the ground, but it will never show signs of life, nor do you expect it to sprout into foliage and bear fruit. On the contrary, it will rot. And the richer the soil, the faster will be the process of decay. But plant a little tree in that same soil, and it will strike its roots into it and draw its nourishment from the soil, and grow and bear fruit. This may illustrate the difference between the unbeliever and the believer. You may bring the former into contact with the Christ through the preaching of the gospel: it will only harden him in his unbelief. And the richer and stronger the gospel that is preached to him, the more he will hate it and rebel against it. But let the wonder of grace be performed upon a sinner and let the power of faith be implanted in his heart, and he will strike the roots of his soul into the Christ that is presented to him in the gospel, and from that Christ he will draw his life … The bond whereby we are united with Him is faith, a gift of God, a means whereby God joins us forever to Christ. (The Triple Knowledge: An Exposition of the Heidelberg Catechism [RFPA, 1970] vol. III, 52; vol. I, 305, 307, 308).
