Student Recipient Spotlight

The Strength of Westminster

Matthew Bardwell. Photo by Rachel Achtemeier.

By Matthew Bardwell

Introduction

I owe much to the tenets of the Reformed faith, for God used the study of what is commonly referred to as Calvinism to fan the small spark that was my faith into what I would consider today a great fire that God is sustaining by the mighty power that is the Holy Spirit.  I was spending time with my core group Bible study leader at his house when I came across an exposition of the tenets of Calvinism.  I took the book off the shelf, and the Lord used it to launch me into studying the scriptures to have a spiritually enlightened systematic understanding of my faith.  I thank God for God’s work, and pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to open my eyes to more and more truths found in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament.  Here are the five statements of the Westminster Catechism which best undergird the faith I have been given by God.

Humanity’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

The outset to the confession provides a succinct yet powerful answer to a question which every single person has or should ask themselves in this lifetime: What is the chief end of humanity?  As a student about to graduate college, this question has been plastered into my head.  What is my purpose?  What have I been put on this earth to do?  What is the best possible way to spend my existence?  It is to this first declarative statement of the catechism that I have been led.  My purpose is to live for God.  My purpose is to bring God glory.  My purpose is to spend my days seeking God’s will for them and responding to God’s revelation in the scriptures of how God is brought glory.

It is this same statement that shows me how God is brought glory.  God is brought glory by enjoying God.  God is brought glory by taking delight in God’s nature, attributes, word, and all that God has done, especially in the person of Jesus Christ.  I desire that my friends, family, co-workers, and all other people who see me see that I have one holy passion, and that is to know and being known by Christ and following after him.  Enjoying God to me is showing the world that I am willing to give up everything (for example a well-paying comfortable job and comfortable life I could obtain with my engineering science degree) to follow Christ.  He is the pearl of great value as the Scriptures portray him, and to enjoy him is to show the world that there is something outside of it that brings so much more joy, a deeper joy that cannot be satisfied by anyone else.  And it is this truth, if I allow it to penetrate to the core of my being, which brings the Lord great esteem and glory.

Finally, this statement, the bombshell at the beginning of the Westminster catechism, is a statement which can lead to multitudes of people coming to know Christ.  It is a start for opening conversations with people looking for meaning.  There are countless numbers of men and women floating through life, searching for their purpose, and the scriptures, which the confession uses to point to this truth, point to the fact that we have a wonderful privilege to have our lives bring honor to the Lord!  How?  By believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and following in his footsteps along the hodos, or Way, where the healing and saving power of God is being made known.  The first statement of the catechism is a crucial aspect of my faith and the Christian faith.  It has given me grounding and perspective in life and leads me to the God whom I will love to serve.

God having, out of God’s mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into estate of salvation.

This is a hotly debated issue in the church today.  I believe, though, that the Reformed doctrine stays as close as possible to the biblical teaching on election.  This truth was very hard to come to terms with in my faith, but after wrestling around with it for much time, I have found it to be of an unspeakable comfort and have grown to love it.

I imagine that I am in a community where the Apostle Paul has been preaching and teaching.  He comes to me and says, full of the Holy Spirit, “I want to reveal a mystery to you, one that God has revealed to me.  Your receiving of the Lord did not take God off guard.  God has planned these days of yours.  God has set out to bring you to a knowledge of Jesus Christ.  He has ‘predestined you to be adopted as a son’ (Ephesians 1:4-5) and it was according to his unbreakable will.”  This gives me unspeakable joy.  In justification we meet God as Judge, but the scriptures speak of God planning to become our Father, a faithful Father who is for us.  And that is the context of the teaching on election.  It is spoken to the church to affirm it.  It speaks of a God whose wonderful plan is carried out.  If God did not elect anyone, no one would believe.

It again speaks as well of the grace of God.  It was out of God’s sheer grace that God chose to elect a people who did not deserve anything from God.  It undercuts any sort of notion that I could of my own accord come to the Lord.  It gives glory to the sovereignty of God, as it is God’s purpose that is carried out in salvation, and not ours.  It teaches us to say with full confidence from the scriptures: “Salvation is of the Lord.”  (Jonah 2:9)

The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man and so was, and continues to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.

This mighty scriptural statement not only strengthens my faith, it speaks of the One who is the object of my faith.  There is so much that should be said regarding the Lord here; such short space does not do it justice.  The scriptures speak of a God who does not remain apart and away from his people.  God does not continue to communicate to his people by third parties.  God becomes a man!  He leaves the majesty and glory of Heaven where he was continuously praised by the angels and comes to dwell among his people.  He (Jesus) teaches them, heals, performs many miracles, and purchases us back, paying the debt that we owe in full.

The teaching from scripture is such that it provides unspeakable comfort and security in the midst of life’s trials.  The Lord has chosen me.  God almighty has set me apart as one of his elect in Christ and Christ has purchased me with his own blood, a purchase made at great cost.  The work of the God-man in redemption instills in me the greatest admiration for Him.  God is a God who has mercy and gives grace in Christ.  God will carry out God’s purpose, and the purpose of salvation for God’s glory will be complete in my life.  No matter what I am going through, I know that Jesus has gone ahead of me.  God experienced himself firsthand what it was like to be human, and can completely identify with all that could ever come my way.

The teaching also speaks to the complete uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  There could be no other Redeemer.  God in his infinite wisdom sent his Son to take on humanity.  There is no other person in the universe like Jesus: fully human and fully divine.  His humanity allowed for him to take our place on the cross and his divinity allowed for the sacrifice to purchase a people back for himself.  As the book of the Ephesians states, “the manifold wisdom of God is being made known to the rulers and authorities of the heavenly realms.”  The angels are witnessing the dispensation of grace as it is carried out by the Lord Jesus Christ.  I count it an unspeakable and awesome privilege to have this grace, and praise the One who left Heaven to complete it.

The Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.

The knowledge of the work of the Holy Spirit in giving the gift of faith was transformational for me.  Before coming to terms with this truth, I believed that the work of faith, and I thought it was a work, was completely my own doing.  At age fifteen, after truly hearing the Word preached at Woodridge Baptist Church, I believed that if I could just produce faith, if I could just believe, then God would have to give me eternal life.  But I was always asking the question: How do I know I have truly believed?  It was not until it was revealed to me that the Holy Spirit was the agent in working faith that I truly rested with assurance.  God Almighty even grants faith as a gracious gift as part of his overall work in salvation.  Realizing the totality of the work of God even in giving faith strengthens that faith all the more.  Knowing that the Holy Spirit is the primary player in leading me to Christ has shown me a God who does not just lay out requirements to be met, but guides his children in fulfilling them as a gift.  It is critically important that one realizes that even faith is a gift, so that God receives the totality of the glory he deserves and people may rest in God’s gracious provision.

Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein God pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.

The doctrine of justification by faith alone is the cornerstone that all other doctrine should rest upon.  It teaches so many vital scriptural truths that it must be learned and put up into our hearts.  First, it speaks of God’s grace.  A true right standing with God is God’s doing solely because he is a merciful God.  It speaks of our sins being pardoned.  We are declared innocent, as if we had never sinned at all, and it is all because of the work of Christ.  This doctrine increases faith in Christ because it points us to his complete work in the fulfilling of all righteousness that is to be credited to us.  And it answers an extremely practical question: How do we get into a right relationship with God?  The answer is simple: place one’s faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The doctrine’s importance arises in the living of the Christian life as well.  Before I could ever try to perform any good works by the power of the Spirit, I must know that the Christian life really has begun.  This doctrine, so taught in the scriptures, assures us that by standing in awe of the complete work of Christ in his life, death, and resurrection, we can know that God has accepted us and build upon that foundation.  As an engineering student I have studied and know much about foundations, but it does not take the degree I will earn to know that it is unwise to build on a shaky foundation.  The doctrine of justification by faith alone is a solid foundation upon which Christians can build and grow in the grace of the Lord.

Conclusion

These five statements of the Westminster Shorter Catechism strengthen faith and point people to the work of God.  They are God glorifying truths which should be meditated upon and taken to heart.  The biblical doctrines of election and justification by grace through faith are truly life giving and should give the church its true identity.  The church is a collection of justified sinners, receiving forgiveness from Christ and giving it away to others.  In the midst of an ever changing culture, these biblical doctrines stand because we know that “the word of the Lord stands forever.” (1 Peter 1:25)

Matthew Russell Bardwell, a member of First Presbyterian Church of San Antonio, Texas, graduated from Trinity University in May 2007 with a B.S. in Engineering Science. He is in his first year of the M.Div program at Princeton Theological Seminary and is an Inquirer under the care of Mission Presbytery.