The Belgic Confession of Faith -- A commentary by Dr. Chuck
Baynard
The Belgic Confession of Faith, Article II
By What Means God Is Made Known unto Us
We know Him by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and
government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most elegant book,
wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters leading us to
see clearly the invisible things of God, even his everlasting power and
divinity, as the apostle Paul says (Rom. 1:20). All which things are sufficient
to convince men and leave them without excuse. Second, He makes Himself more
clearly and fully known to us by His holy and divine Word, that is to say, as
far as is necessary for us to know in this life, to His glory and our salvation.
We touched on this in the commentary on Article 1. The
main consideration here is to distinguish general knowledge about God through
nature from special revelation of God as revealed in the Bible.
Nature reveals enough about the existence of God that no man can claim
not to know God exists. Paul goes so far in Romans to say that by the light of
nature alone man even knows about the invisible things of God to include God’s
power and of the Godhead (Trinity). Without the first word of the revealed word
of God, the Scriptures being present all mankind stands condemned by the sure
knowledge of God all obtain from nature.
This might seem like we are
beating a dead horse so to speak, but that all mankind is condemned already
needs to be understood. The hard doctrines of the Bible (no they are not an
exclusive of Calvinism) will not be accepted by man without the foundation of
understanding that all mankind is doomed to the fires of hell already and there
is no way man can save himself. Total depravity is a God revealed truth. It is
only with this understanding the necessity of grace, the election and the
sending of His own Son as our Redeemer will make sense to the limited mind of
the created.
To a mankind condemned and
assigned to the judgment of hell God reached out in grace choosing some to
eternal salvation in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son. Love and mercy as
revealed in grace precede all acts of salvation to include the election.
God having used the dual
revelation of Himself found in nature and the Bible are not efficacious to the
salvation of any person. Salvation takes the application of this truth to the
heart (soul) of the person by God the Holy Spirit. (Mt. 16:15-18)
This is what we call regeneration or the rebirth, where God opens the
eyes of a fallen man by the supernatural revelation of the Holy Spirit. But this
new heart is not in some spiritual way only, but in a realistic way. We read in
Ezekiel 11:19 “And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit
within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give
them an heart of flesh:
Why did God do this? God created
and does all things for His own glory. In
the election God left man the ability to choose in difference to the holy angels
whom God reserved in holiness and unable to sin. As scripture testifies, not one
man has or ever will of his own accord choose God. It takes the gift of faith
that comes from God in regeneration by grace alone. God does not violate this
ability of man to choose, but God does so providentially order all things that
those whom God has elected are made willing to be willing to serve God alone.
The choice then of a free creature to worship God alone makes the glory of God
manifest. We might word another way; man cannot and will not choose God, but
with the revelation of God and the operation of the Holy Spirit within man,
whereby a heart of stone is exchanged for a heart of flesh, life will make the
one so enlightened by God to obey God from love and thanksgiving. The preferred
wording here is that God makes the elect willing to be willing. (Php. 2:13
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good
pleasure)
