Beloved,
Perhaps all this recent talk of God-centered theology has left you thinking to yourself, “Isn’t the phrase unnecessarily repetitive? After all, theology refers to knowledge about God so of course it is going to be God-centered!”
One wishes that such were the case and that the adjectival qualifier God-centered was unnecessary. But if the history of theology makes anything clear, it is that such a notion is hopelessly naive. The natural bent of sinful man is to make himself the be-all, end-all of theology. Even after we are born again, the remaining corruption in our hearts continually tempts us to make man central and God peripheral. As contradictory as it is, much of so-called theology in the past and in the present is man-centered and man-exalting. Hence, the post-fall necessity of qualifying theology with God-centered.
God-centered theology is the subject matter of our primary standard (i.e., the Bible) and our secondary standards (i.e., the Westminster Confession and Catechisms). It is not enough to say that we are a church devoted to God’s infallible (i.e., unable to error) word. We must ask, what do these inspired Scriptures teach us about God? It is not enough to say that we are a church devoted to Westminster’s fallible (i.e., able to error) explication of the Bible’s teaching. We must ask, what do these uninspired documents teach us about God?
From cover-to-cover, the Bible and the Westminster Standards (as a faithful representation of the Bible) confront us with a God who is unsurpassingly glorious and exhaustively sovereign. He is the be-all and end-all of absolutely everything. “For from him and through him and to him are all things” (Rom. 11:36). How we would do well to brand that verse upon our eyeballs!
At no point does God-centeredness need to be stressed more than in our understanding of salvation. For man is always seeking to save himself. When we say we are a church devoted to God-centered theology, we mean we are a church that believes redemption is a supernatural work of God alone. Just as with God’s revelation, so too with God’s salvation, we do not work ourselves up to Him, but He comes down to us.
- This is true with regards to the arrangement of salvation: we exult in the Father’s unconditional, individual election in eternity past (see WCF ch. 3).
- This is true with regards to the accomplishment of salvation: we exult in the Son’s virgin conception, propitiatory death, and resurrection triumph in the fullness of time (see WCF ch. 8).
- This is true with regards to the application of salvation: we exult in the Spirit’s sovereign grace that unites sinners to Christ as their wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption in the present (see WCF chs. 10-18).
The entirety of our salvation is from the Triune God and through the Triune God, and hence it is ultimately unto the Triune God. For the chief end of our creation is now realized through our re-creation in Christ, namely “to glorify and enjoy God forever.”
Is God the beginning, middle, and end of your understanding of salvation?
The best way to know for sure is to look at your worship, for true theology always leads to doxology. The soul constrained by a true sense of God’s unsurpassing glory and exhaustive sovereignty in the salvation of sinners will be constrained to affectionately exalt (i.e., worship) God. That brings us to our second core principle, God-ordered worship, which we will begin to look at, God-willing, next week.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick