Fridays with the Heidelberg

Lord’s Day 9

26. Q. WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE WHEN YOU SAY, “I BELIEVE IN GOD, THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH”?

A. That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them, who still upholds and rules them by His eternal counsel and providence, is my God and Father because of Christ His Son. I trust Him so much that I do not doubt He will provide whatever I need for body and soul, and He will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me in this sad world. He is able to do this because He is almighty God; He desires to do this because He is a faithful Father.

Creeds and Confessions are a blessing to the church. They help guard us from error. For instance, the Heidelberg’s response to the first phrase in the Apostles’ Creed provides several weighty statements that correct a variety of false teaching that, to this day, pollute the church. Here are two:

the Eternal Father – Which came first, the chicken or the egg? What about this one; who came first, The Father or the Son? The first person of the Trinity, the Father, has eternally existed as Father, because the Son, the second person of the Trinity, has eternally existed as the Son. Kevin DeYoung wrote, “there never was a time when the Father was not a father to the Son and the Son a son to the Father.”

Throughout the history of the church, numerous heresies (Arianism, Modalism, etc), have existed that deny the eternality of the Son and therefore the eternality of the Father.

Out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them – God has created all things in heaven and earth. In so doing, God created the world out of nothing. Any attempt to suggest a cooperative effort in creation between God and any evolutionary processes, denies this essential biblical conviction. Heb. 11:3, “By Faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” – ESV®

Can you think of any other false teachings that are corrected by either the question or answer in today’s reading?