A. The opening words of this article are important:
1. It emphasizes first of all that what is contained in the confession is the object of faith. Natural understanding and a corrupt heart can never believe what is contained in the creed, but will always corrupt the truth.
2. That the believer believes in his heart, he also confesses with his mouth, even in a wicked world that hates the truth. A true faith inevitably results in an oral confession. 3. The confession proceeds theocentrically. This is a mark of the reformed faith. Lutheranism was always rather soteriological and anthropological. But the Calvinistic reformation always emphasized God. To begin with God means:
a. To find in Him the beginning of all truth.
b. To speak essentially of nothing else but God in the entire confession.
c. To end with His glory.
4. It is important to understand the truth concerning God, therefore, for how we say “God” will profoundly influence how we say “Man”, “Salvation”, “Christ”, “Church”, and “Last Things”.
B. The article first speaks of God’s Being. Of His being it says that He is:
1. One. This means that He is the only God. There is none besides Him in heaven or on earth. This also means that He is the absolutely self-sufficient One. He is wholly complete and perfect in Himself and has no need of anyone or any being outside of Himself to perfect His glory or to make His life more rich.
a. Overagainst the error of Deism the church has always confessed that God is immenent. I,e., that God’s whole being is in every particle of all the creation.
b. Overagainst the error of Pantheism, the church has always confessed that God is transcendent. That is, that He is absolutely above all the creature, infinitely to be distinguished and separated from it.
2. Simple. God is not divisible, but remains One in all His attributes and works. There is never any division or essential difference between any of God’s attributes. For His attributes are His Being and are one in Him. And in all His works He remains the one true God, Who does all things.
3. Spiritual. His being or essence is essentially different from ours or from the creatures. There is no similarity at all between the being of creation and the being of God. And this includes the world of spirits. God is not like the angels in that they are spiritual beings; He is also infinitely different from them. For this reason God is not knowable by man. Man can never know God by himself. The powers of his intellect and the reasonableness of his logic will never bring him to a knowledge of God. No mystical experience and no emotional inner movement will cause him to know the Most High. If God is to be known, He must reveal Himself.
C. Some of God’s attributes are also mentioned in this article. Usually the attributes of God are divided between communicable and incommunicable attributes. The former refer to those which belong to God alone; the latter to those which are reflected in man.
1. The incommunicable attributes mentioned are:
a. Eternity-God’s eternity is not time infinitely extended. This is a rather common misconception. The eternity of God is His transcendence above time. That means that God is essentially above time, is not bound by it, is not influenced by it, and is above it with all His being and counsel.
b. Incomprehensibility-Although God can be known, He cannot be comprehended. If the creature could comprehend God, God would not be God any more, for He would be bound by the limits of the human mind. He is infinitely extended beyond man’s knowledge of Him, and even beyond His own revelation in creation and Scripture.