Again, it's John 21, John chapter 21, verses 20 through 25. And let us hear the word of the Lord. Then Peter turned about and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, which had also leaned on his breast at supper. And he said, Lord, which is he? And he said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? When Peter therefore saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, what shall this man do? Jesus said unto him, if he will that I tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. Then went this word abroad among the brethren that this disciple should not die. Yet Jesus said not to him he shall not die, but if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? This is that disciple which testifieth of these things and wrote these things. And we know that his testimony is true. Now there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they should be written every one, I suppose, the world could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. And that ends the reading of God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we do ask you would bless us as we consider the words here that you would teach us and lead us. And we pray it in Christ's name. Amen. And please be seated. My wife and I once had invited a couple to dinner who professed to be Christians. And it was in the course of examining that point, I think maybe we suspected and thought they might be Christians. And so I asked them if they were when they were after dinner. And I asked them for a test, what is it you believe? And what I got was a discussion from them about trying to do what's good. And I quickly pressed them that salvation was by faith a gift of God. And they agreed to that, but rather grudgingly, I thought. They knew that I was examining what they said and correcting what they said that I didn't like, and they didn't like it. But in the end, I was left doubting whether or not they were in fact Christians. Now, John's gospel aims at remedying what we can call a non-self-conscious situation among men. He wants men to be clear on what is truly the Christian faith. And he has taken pains in this presentation throughout this gospel to point these things out. And you remember, as we began, we said, look, John is dealing with the doctrine of Antichrist. The doctrine of Antichrist denies Christ's deity. says that, well, he's a created being, or he's just an angel and not a man. Or worse, he's a man upon whom the Spirit came for a time. But again, there's no essential deity in the person of Jesus. And that's Antichrist doctrine. It's the idea simply, it's the old Greek form matter dichotomy. God certainly couldn't come in the flesh. That's a horrid idea. to the Greek mind. And that's what the doctrine of Antichrist is about. And it exists down to our day in groups like Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons or holiness, you know, where they deny the deity of Christ, say he's a created being. They might call him the Son of God, but not in the sense of deity. And that's, of course, the thing John is dealing with. But so John the Apostle is dealing with that too. He's trying to demonstrate the deity of Christ as he brings a consistent understanding of who Jesus is to bear upon those in his century, and of course, down to ours. So if we consider that, he wants men to be clear. And if we want to see that John is doing this in comparison of verse 25 here, which is a sort of a disclaimer, there are also many other things which Jesus did, to which if they should be written every one, I suppose the world could not contain the books that should be written. Now he's saying, look, that's an apologetic for what he has written in saying, don't expect that I'm telling you everything there is to say about Jesus or about Jesus' life or all the things that happened. There's a lot I'm not saying, okay? But if we compare that with John 20 and verses 30 to 31, Many other signs also did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is that Christ, that Son of God, and that in believing ye might have life through his name. So you see, I'm not saying everything. I'm saying what's necessary so that you might believe that Jesus is that Christ, that Son of God, and because of that, through that, have eternal life. John has a purpose in writing, and that's to bring men to a consistent knowledge of God and to salvation. And that's what the book is all about. So it's like saying, look, there's lots more that could be said, but I'm aiming at faith in the ones who read my letter. And that's why he says it the way he says it. Believing, that is believing what John teaches here, we have eternal life through Christ. But believing is believing the things of God rightly as John presents them, and not just believing any old thing or things that are contrary to the true interpretation of the Word of God. So once more we can note this emphasis on the person of Christ. Again, 2031, that Jesus is that Christ, that Son of God. What Christ? What Son of God? That one. Well, the promised one. In other words, Jesus is the Christ that scripture has been talking about all along. Jesus is that Son of God who was there at creation, by whom all things were made. So it's Christ, that Jesus, that Christ, that Son of God that we're interested in. And that is certainly not to the exclusion of what John tells us that Jesus taught, but certainly it's not, if you believe in the person of Jesus, you make, you take that teaching on authority. You take what Jesus said on authority. If you believe that Jesus is that Christ, that son of God, then you take what Jesus said on authority. Now, in the interest then of remying what I say I think is a defect in the Christian church, let's try to take an overview of John's Gospel here and let's summarize what we have seen in John's Gospel. And if we do that, I think we'll see more clearly the problem of men's understanding. Now, in the interest of this, I want to take a linear tour through what we have seen. a summary, we're at the end of the Gospel, let's go through the Gospel that we've seen. First, there is the revelation of the Eternal God, focusing on Christ as the Word of God made flesh. That's all the way back in John 1, beginning with verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, and that Word was with God, and that Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by it, and without it was nothing made that was made." This is the 1599 Geneva Bible. I would rather use the pronoun him. In him was life, and that life was the light of men, and that light shineth in the wilderness, and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This same came for a witness, to bear witness of that light that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but sent to bear witness of that light. This was that true light, which lightneth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He prerogative to be the sons of God, even to them that believe in His name, which are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And that word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw the glory thereof as the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth." Now that is the revelation of the eternal God and Christ, the Word of God, who is made flesh. It's very clear that from the beginning, Christ is the Son of God involved in the creation of the world. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. That's the Lord Jesus Christ, that's His person. From the beginning, this person, the Word of God, who becomes Jesus Christ in taking human flesh, was there and created all that is. And that's the context of the creation of the world by God in Trinity. There's a Father, there's a Son, eternally begotten of the Father, and there's a Holy Spirit. So in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the waters, and God said, you see, so from the beginning, beginning of the world at creation, you have a Trinity involved in the creation of the world, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the beginning was the Word, John says, and the Word was with God and the Word was God and that Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That's the person of Jesus Christ, that's who he is. So, again, from John's Gospel, in the beginning was the Word, he's dealing with, in Trinity, the fact that Jesus Christ pre-existed his birth. He pre-existed his birth as the Son of God, eternally the Son of God, and in the course of time, in the process of history, took upon himself human flesh. John the Baptizer is introduced and bringing the same testimony about Jesus in John 1 15. John bear witness of him and cried saying this was he of whom I said he that cometh after me was before me for he was better than I so he he was before me and then again John 1.27, He that cometh after me which was before me, whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose. Again, that's his idea. Or with verse 34, And I saw in bare record that this is that Son of God. And again, all this is in John's testimony about who Jesus is. He is the son of God. So again, we can note this emphasis on the person of Christ. Jesus is that Christ, that Son of God, as John says in 20 and 31. So the emphasis upon the person of Christ in the midst of the battle over doctrine is really important. And that He is the Christ, the Son of God, the Lamb of God also, verses 20, John 1, He confessed and denied God and said plainly, I am not that Christ. And then in 36, beheld Jesus walking by and said, behold, that Lamb of God. And of course, with a little bit of imagery, blended together, you recognize what he's saying. Look, I'm not the Christ, he's the Christ, he is the Lamb of God. Christ, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. So again, from the beginning of John's Gospel, we're establishing the identity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God who has taken to himself human flesh. and that God exists in Trinity, the world was created by him and now it's this second person, the Son, eternally begotten of the Father, who has come into human history. Once Jesus' identity is established by the claims, the miracles that follow are the proof of that. You know, who can speak and the sea obeys him? You know, who can heal man? Who can speak and men are healed? And all the things that are done testify of the reality of the one whose identity is established in the beginning chapters. At the same time, there are certain themes revealed throughout by Jesus' teaching, and we ought to pay attention to those themes. For example, a sacrificial death, John 2 and verse 19, Jesus answered and said unto them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again. You destroy it, and that is Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross, and I will raise it up, and that's, of course, the resurrection of Christ that vindicates him. And so, destroy the temple, I'll raise it up in three days. That involves an interpretation of the entire Old Testament ritual of sacrifice, because the death was a sacrificial death of the Lamb of God. And so, again, it's an aspect of the revelation in the teaching of Christ that he would die a sacrificial death. That also implies man's guilt and alienation from God through sin. And so also the application of a remedy through the sacrifice of Christ, which is a gift of God. And Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3, 3, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And later in John 6, 44, no man can come to me except the Father draw him. So, again, you've got the sacrificial death of the Lord that's foretold, you have man's guilt and sin, which involves a complete inability to come to God unless God draws him, and then the identification of the gift of God, which is faith, or belief in Christ, John 3 and verse 16, for God so loved the world that he hath given his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. The gift of God is faith, or belief, and the implication of faith in Jesus is eternal life. You believe in Jesus, you have eternal life. You believe the narrative about Jesus, You believe the scripture itself, that God spoke the world into existence, that it was a trinity that made the world, and that that second person, the eternally begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, came into human history in the person of the seed of Abraham, Jesus of Nazareth, and he died an atoning sacrifice. As you embrace that, that's eternal life. That's believing God in the narrative that God has made about himself, and about the world, and about you, and about eternal salvation. So the narrative about eternal salvation is believe God and be saved. And if you believe God, well, you believe the story God tells. You embrace that as your orientation. And of course, that marks reconciliation, John 3 and verse 36. He that believeth in the Son hath everlasting life, and he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. Again, that's John interpreting the significance of these things. Now, we can take up these themes Make sure I'm in the right place here. We can take up these themes with a number of different helps. In other words, the Church has recognized this in human history in a lot of different ways. For instance, the works of the Westminster Assembly include a section, a work called the Sum of Saving Knowledge. What is it to be saved? What is saving knowledge? And they talk about the sum of saving knowledge being this. First, the woeful condition which all men are in by nature through the breaking of the covenant of works. Secondly, the remedy provided for the elect in Jesus Christ by the covenant of grace. Third, the means appointed to make them partakers of this covenant. and for the blessings which are effectually conveyed to the elect by these means." Well, these four heads are answered by the things that we've noted, but there's more. If we move on in John's gospel, there are other things which receive major treatment. The emergence of opposition to the Lord Jesus from within the church is explained. And since men must be born again to see God's kingdom, and what is it to be born again? It's to be regenerated by the Spirit of God. It's to be taken from the sinful position that is your nature and given the Spirit of God so that you have a new insight, a new understanding, a new heart and a will created in you. since men must be born again to see the kingdom of God, and since only the elect of God or the chosen of God can see it, this is the result of human sinfulness and the bondage of sin. And you suddenly see that, look, there are churchmen, the church leaders in Jesus' day are in the bondage of sin. They're in darkness. They're full of sin. Jesus tells them they are of their father, the devil, and the deeds of their father, they will do, John 8, 44. And that's how he's characterizing leadership in the church. So one of the great themes that arises once the things that we've seen in the first three chapters are laid out, then one of the great themes that arises is the fact that the ones who should know don't know. He came to his own, to the children of Abraham. He came to the greatest and the best among them, the ones who were in authority. He came to his own, and his own received him not. No, they fought against him. They betrayed him and murdered him ultimately. Okay, well that's explained by what John is presenting as the gospel. That no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. and I will raise him up at the last day." That you must be born again. And Nicodemus doesn't understand, he's a church leader, he doesn't understand. What, are you going to enter into your mother's womb the second time and be born? How can a man do that? And Jesus, don't you understand? That that's born of the flesh is flesh. That that's born of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that I said to you, you must be born again. He's clearly talking about an action of the Spirit that Nicodemus doesn't understand. That the church leaders don't understand. So again, the opposition to the Lord Jesus from within the church is explained by the doctrine that Jesus is teaching. And it's not ultimately surprising. It's shocking, but it's not ultimately surprising. That's one of the major themes. And so that runs throughout the next many chapters. God's grace in election operates in converting what are seemingly unlikely people, and that's amazing too. So, if we recognize that God is converting by His Spirit and elect people that are a people of His choosing, it's amazing the contrasts in the reaction of men to Jesus' miracles and His teaching. For example, there was a town of the Samaritans. You remember the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman that he met at the well. Well, the end result of that was that the whole town said, come and abide with us and teach us. You know, so you've got a whole town of the Samaritans who are responding to Jesus and saying, stay with us, teach us, who come to him and want to know what he has to say. Now, those are contrasted with Galilee where he's from. You know, you've got these Roman regions, you've got Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, and Galilee up in the north where Jesus is from, Nazareth is in Galilee. When Jesus goes to Galilee, there's only one God that can be spoken of that comes to him. So the whole town of Samaritans can be contrasted with one Galilean. Now, that's Jewry. That's the former northern tribes, the area of the former northern tribes. But you see the contrast? That's really surprising, that a whole town of Samaritans you know, down below Galilee, and of course Samaria was resettled, you know, after the captivity and they were thought to be the scum of the earth, you know, Samaritan dogs and that kind of thing. You know, Galilee, Samaria. Surprising. There is an impotent man healed by Jesus who then sided with the Pharisees against him. So Jesus healed him, and now that he's well, he can walk and all of that, he wants acceptance in the crowd and so on and so forth, and he knows the religious leaders of his day are after Jesus, so he helps them identify him to persecute him. That's really surprising. It's surprising that here you do good to a guy and he turns against you and he stabs you in the back. Then crowds who followed Jesus out of Jewry, whose motives he condemned." Now that's interesting. You know, here they are, and he's saying, you're following me not because you believe the doctrine, because you ate the bread. You know, labor not for the meat that perisheth. You know, John 6.27. So he's got crowds of people following him. whose motives he questions and warns about. On the other hand, he has prostitutes and demon-possessed who are converted through faith and are among his closest confidants who are in the company of people traveling with him. The religious leaders obfuscate, oppose, and ultimately murder the Christ. There's a man born blind who sees spiritually Jesus and he's healed, and then the ones who have eyesight are spiritually blind. Now these are all themes that run through John's Gospel in people's reaction to the truth that's being presented by Jesus. All the while, Jesus' miracles testify to his divine person and authority, right down to the raising of Lazarus and Jesus declaring, I am the resurrection and the life. I mean, so if you want to know what God can do, God's the only one that can raise the dead. Here's a dead man wrapped in grave clothes that's been put away for three days. And his sister said, look, he stinks. You're not going to want to do this, you know. And Jesus says, Lazarus, come forth, and dead comes out of the grave. So right down to the raising of Lazarus, Jesus shows who he is as the Son of God. So those things are in the middle of John's gospel, and it's about receiving him, how you accept him, what with all of the accurate evidence, with all of the undeniable evidence, yet man's sinfulness prevails in certain individuals, and God's grace prevails in other individuals who are of surprising sort. You know, Samaritans and prostitutes and, you know, all this kind of stuff. Yet we're not done until we note the major emphasis on the truth of God. And this was a consistent point of reference. In John's Gospel, there are a dozen times where reference is made to the Word of God. Either an explanation of why Jesus did what he did, but more frequently, in Jesus' teaching, it's the Word of God quoted as authoritative. Have you never read? the stone which the builders rejected, you know, that kind of a statement. And so it's always quoted as authoritative. We come down to the high priestly prayer of Jesus concerning his followers. Sanctify them with thy truth, thy word is truth, John 17, 17. And this points us to the source of knowledge and ultimately an ethical difference between the followers of Jesus and the rest of the world. The followers of Jesus are to be sanctified, set apart, different from the rest of the world. And how are they to be made different? Through the truth, which is the word of God. And so that emphasis is also in John's gospel, a major emphasis we ought not to miss. So that points us to the source of knowledge and the ethical difference between the children of God and the children of the devil. So the word of God is how we know what we know, and that's the major emphasis that John brings us. And of course it's with reference to that word, any point of our thinking may be confirmed. The commandment or the law which like Jesus, which is like how Jesus lived, that's our ethical standard. And so we're brought to that point. So if I bring that down then, so if I say, look, that's what we're seeing in John. That's what John has presented to us about the gospel of Jesus. And when we bring that down to a consistent profession of faith, each of these things ought to be expressed in what we call Christianity. So again, my couple at dinner, who I asked them, What is it you believe? Well, we just try to do good. We try to live right. That was their explanation of what made them a Christian. If I ask that of the Christian, if I say to you, what is it that makes you a Christian? When men ask, are you a Christian? Or examine a profession of faith, what would we say? And I'm going to give you a paragraph, three sentences, that I think capture what John has presented to us. What makes me a Christian? I believe the word of God in the holy scriptures and in the revelation it makes in the creation of the world by the triune God, in the fall of my first parents, and in my own guilt and sin as a result. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of all those who put their trust in Him, and through the gift of faith trust to enter into all God's promises in Him. And because I believe Him, I understand the necessity of a life conformed to the moral law of God. And I'm seeking, by God's grace, to put my own sin to death and to live my life in conformity with the commandments, even as I take my place in the Christian church." Okay, now that's my one paragraph confession of faith. that answers, I think, what John has shown us here. And I'd like to explore that. But if you believe the things that I just said, you're a Christian. And if you are a Christian, you ought to be self-conscious about believing them. So it's not just, well, OK, I believe these things, but I didn't know I believed them, or I believed these things, and I didn't see the significance of them. I couldn't put it all together. There's some of that out there, but it ought not to be. In other words, we ought to be consistent. We ought to be self-conscious about what it is we believe, what it is that Christianity is. So we ought to be self-kind, and we ought to be ready to do what Peter says in 1 Peter 3 and verse 15. He says, "'Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and reverence.'" And that's basically what we're trying to come to here. We're trying to say, okay, so what has John shown us? What is it we can come down to? We can come down to a simple confession of faith in three sentences that sum up the teaching of John's Gospel in 21 chapters, or for that matter, teaching of the entire Scripture. Now let me end by comparing, then, those three sentences with membership vows. And this is where the application comes in. Of course, the application comes in in being able to make this kind of a confession of faith. But I think we can shed some light on this when we compare membership vows. So if I turn to the PCA's version of membership vows, which was used in the RPCUS. They insisted upon using these. Here's what they asked then of members. Okay, do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save in His sovereign mercy? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of sinners? and do you receive and rest upon him alone for salvation as he is offered in the gospel? Do you now resolve and promise in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit that you will endeavor to live as become the followers of Christ? Do you promise to support the church in its worship and work to the best of your ability? Do you submit yourself to the government and discipline of the church and promise to study its purity and peace? Okay. Now that's basically what they used in the RPC-US, what we were required to use. And you can compare that to the RPC-GA vows for membership. Now let me read those. Do you believe the Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments in their original autographs, to be the inspired, infallible, and inerrant Word of God, and its doctrine of salvation to be the perfect and only true doctrine of salvation? Do you confess that because of your sinfulness, you abhor and humble yourself before God, and that you trust for salvation not in yourself, but in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Do you acknowledge Jesus Christ as your sovereign Lord and do you promise in reliance on the grace of God to serve him with all that is in you, to forsake the world and mortify the deeds of the flesh and lead a godly life? Do you agree to submit in the Lord and do you adhere to the government of, et cetera, the church, in other words? Okay, so those are two contrasting versions of this. Now, I'm going to add one more thing, and that is saving faith in the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 14 and Article 2. By this faith, A Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the word for the authority of God himself speaking therein, and acteth differently upon what each particular passage thereof containeth, yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace. some things that we can deal with. So I have three points of analysis that we can deal with in looking at any of these, in looking at the membership vows that we have in the church organizations and comparing them to the Westminster Confession of Faith. I have three points of analysis. Get three fingers up there. Three. That other one wants to go up. There's three. The three points of analysis are ontology, epistemology, and ethics. These are Van Til's points of analysis, okay. But if we want to analyze these things, let's question then what it is we have here. The clearer the statement is on these three points, the better the confession is. The PCA says nothing about the Word of God or the being of God generally. In other words, ontologically, as far as God's being, it is entirely lacking. It doesn't say that God exists in Trinity. It doesn't say who Jesus is. It doesn't say anything ontologically about God. And for that matter, the RPCUS didn't say anything about God ontologically. And so although it identifies Jesus as the Son of God, certainly creaturehood is open. In other words, when you take this, could a Jehovah's Witness say these same things? Well, you haven't said anything about who Jesus is. You haven't said anything even about the Word of God. A Jehovah's Witness, I think, can say, yeah, I agree with those things. You haven't really ruled anything out when you say that. Then ethically, you agree, OK, I will live as becomes a follower of Christ. I mean, you're going to be, you promise to live a godly life, we'll call it godly, okay, you're going to live, but what's that based on? Is that based on my own thinking that is the standard? In other words, I'm going to do what I think is right. Isn't that what the non-Christian on the street believes too? I'm a good person, I do what I think is right. When in reality, it's God who is the one that tells us what right and wrong is. So are we embracing His definition of right and wrong? Are we saying, I have a commandment from God that is the moral law, that is the standard of my life, and I embrace that against myself because I don't live up to it? Am I going to embrace an objective standard of life against myself and say, yet that is my standard. Yet when I fail, I cry out for the grace of God. In repentance, did he give me grace? Are we going to embrace that kind of a life? Well, that's really what's open in this vow that this PCA So I'm not saying anything, when I say I'll live as a Christian, I'm not saying anything about the standard of that, whether I think the standard is my own thinking or the law of God. Now when we began in the RPCUS as a mission work, I wrote a set of vows which I proposed to Presbytery and were shot down. We were using them and then There was some discussion about using the vows that were there. I said, well, I wrote them already. Here they are. This is what we're using. Is there something wrong with that? You can't use that. You can't. You're not going to do that. You've got to use this nebulous, unspecific set of vows that has no ontological bearing upon Christianity and that has really no ethical bearing upon Christianity. That's what you've got to use. Now the RPCGA vows correct the ontological problems with respect to the Word of God. Okay, they're not necessarily clear on the Trinity or Jesus as the Son of God in that sense, so the ontological connect, but the Word of God is the standard. What is saving faith? That everything contained in the Word is true. But then there's a principle, acts of saving faith and believing and resting upon Christ alone for salvation. So the RPC-GA is far ahead in the ontological area here. and saying, look, it's the Word of God. Now, again, they don't mention Trinity, and they don't mention the Son of God as the second person in the Trinity. So it could be improved, but it's much better than this PCA version of the thing. So I consider that superior. Okay, on ethics, the RPCGA version uses the phrases, Jesus is my sovereign Lord, I will serve him and mortify the flesh. And that points to an objective standard, but it doesn't necessarily make clear that it's the moral law. that is that standard. So let's go back now. Part four of the sum of saving knowledge is evidences of true faith. And they say so much for laying the grounds of faith and the warrants to believe. Now for evidencing of true faith by fruits, and this is the work of the Westminster Assembly, these four things are requisite. One, that the believer be soundly convinced in his judgment of his obligation to keep the whole moral law all the days of his life, and that not the less, but so much the more, as he is delivered by Christ from the covenant of works and curse of the law. Number one, I'm convinced it's my duty to obey the moral law of God. Number two, that he endeavored to grow in the exercise and daily practice of godliness and righteousness. And that is not only, oh yeah, I should be doing that. Well, you know, I'm not. Someday I'll get around to it. Not that. No, I'm convinced it's my duty, and I'm working at it. I'm committed to working at it. Number three, that the course of this new obedience run in the right channel. That is through faith in Christ and through a good conscience to all the duties of love towards God and man. You're going to keep the moral law? How are you going to do it? Through Christ. By faith. Because there's nothing in me capable of meeting that standard. So I'm going to keep the moral law through faith in the power of Christ And number four drives that home, that he keeps great communion with the fountain Christ Jesus from whom grace must run along for furnishing of good fruits. And do you see the point? So when we talk about the sum of saving knowledge back in Westminster Assembly and the products that they come up with, It's really clear. We know what the standard of life is. It is the Ten Commandments. It is the moral law, understood spiritually. And when we get down to saying, how are we going to keep the moral law? God help me. It's only through Christ, through faith in Him. And I've got to be in communion with Him daily to make that happen. Now that's self-conscious, I would say. So you see the problem with men's understanding. It's not only, I would say, this couple that we had at dinner many years ago. But it's the PCA. You know, it's the whole supposedly conservative Presbyterian church out there who can't put a consistent ontological argument together, who doesn't say what the word of God is or who Jesus Christ is or that God exists in Trinity even. I mean, we can't make that as terms of communion? Who are you kidding? And the RPCGA has done better on it, although I would point them to the sum of saving knowledge. Let's get consistent about what godliness is. Let's get consistent about what it is to mortify the deeds of the flesh. Okay? And so we're quoting scripture, we're quoting concepts of scripture, but we're not right at the point of clarity in saying, oh, well, it's the Ten Commandments. Every church for 2,000 years that was anything, when they talk about how it is you live, turns to the Ten Commandments. And that's true of Roman Catholicism in the Middle Ages. I mean, the Baltimore Confession exposits the Ten Commandments. They do it poorly. They misunderstood an awful lot. But nevertheless, they do. Even Luther does that. You know, and the Dutch Reformed Church and the Presbyterian Church. So, you know, for 1,600 years or 1,700 years, that's all that anybody would turn to when you talk about Christian duty. What's the matter with you people? What's the matter with these people out here? Well, the heresies have crept in, and they're all not under the law, and they don't understand what that means from the Scripture. So you see the point. If we're going to have a Christian confession, we ought to be clear If we're going to be consistent as Christians, if we're going to give an answer like Peter tells us, be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you. If we're going to give an answer about the hope that is in us, we ought to be clear what the content of that hope is. It is ontological in the first place. Or maybe I should say, look, it's epistemological. It's about knowledge in the first place. How do I know anything by the word of God? So we're going to begin. If we're going to be consistent here, we're going to say, number one, I believe the word of God. And my knowledge is based on that word to me that I believe and have embraced. And what that word of God says About God, he exists in Trinity, an eternal God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that Son, eternally begotten of the Father, came into human history and took upon Him human flesh and died for sin and atoning sacrifice in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the ontological concept of Christianity that we must embrace, that the world was created by God, and that tells me who I am. Now my anthropology comes in. Okay, now what is my problem? What is your problem? What is the world's problem? Well, they're the creatures of God who have rebelled against God in their first parents, Adam and Eve, fallen from righteousness and now are born that way. Now, if we understand that, then we're making a confession about our own sin and the need of a Savior. And when we say that, that is taking the truth of the Word of God and bringing it down to our level. How do we know? It's because the Word of God has said it. That's my doctrine of knowledge. That's how I know anything. The Word of God has told me. And I embrace that. So I embrace the ontology, the doctrine of being about God. in Trinity, Trinity in unity, I embrace the ontology about the person of Jesus Christ, the Son. And what I think about myself and my world, the knowledge I have of anything is all based on what the Word of God says. And it's taught me then to flee to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the atoning sacrifice for sin. And when I flee to the Lord Jesus Christ as the atoning sacrifice of sin, I surrender my righteousness. I surrender any hope I had of pleasing God by some works or something like that. I come as a beggar. I come as a beggar wanting salvation, submitting myself to Him. And when I submit myself to Him, I look for an ethical transformation. If the definition of my sin before God is the violation of His holy law in Ten Commandments, but that's just a summary. I mean, you can take the law of God, you can take the ethical standard for man and say it's simply, look, the ethical standard for man is to love the Lord as God with all his heart and soul and strength and mind, and love his neighbor as himself. And all the commandments hang on, okay, We have a thing with birthdays, so we can remember birthdays, and it has hooks, you know, and you put everybody's thing underneath it so we can remember how many birthdays we have. There's five this month or something? Okay. That's where the problem comes in. So you understand. So look, if you love the Lord your God, you can hang four commandments on that one, and you can hang six commandments on love your neighbor as yourself. And if you open the book of Romans at Romans 12 or something like that, you know, where Paul begins to talk about how we should live, and close your eyes and point to a verse, I can categorize that verse under the commandment of God, what it is to serve God. Okay, and so I point at the verse 13, distributing unto the necessities of the saints, giving yourselves to hospitality. Oh, Sixth Commandment, of course. I mean, we're taking care of the lives of people. We're concerned about their state, about their condition, and so on. We give them what we need. That's Sixth Commandment stuff. Okay, so Paul happens in verse 13 of Romans 12, we talk about the Sixth Commandment. You see what I mean? So ten commandments are only a summary. You can hang all the other commandments on them. That's the ethical picture of what God requires of man. And when we come to Jesus Christ for salvation, we're saying, look, I agree, I understand that I'm a sinner and I can't help myself, save me. I've broken all those commandments, and when you save me, Build in me obedience, so that I can fulfill the commandments of God. And that's what the sum of saving knowledge is talking about. I'm convinced it's my duty. I'm going to do it through faith, in communion with Christ. You see? I'm convinced it's my duty. I'm doing it. in communion with Christ, that's what I want to see in my life. That's the ethics of Christianity. And so again, if we say, well, what kind of a confession should we have? One that is self-conscious epistemologically, that says, look, how I know what I know is by the Word of God. That's my doctrine of knowledge. one that is self-conscious ontologically about being, about who God is. And that says, God is in Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The world is created by him. And Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, took upon himself human flesh and came and died an atoning sacrifice for sinners. That's self-consciousness in ontology. in the nature of being. And thirdly, we ought to be ethically self-conscious, self-conscious about law. We ought to be able to say the Ten Commandments are my duty and I'm working at them through faith in Christ. And for all of those things, to put all of those things together, it's not hard. It doesn't take much. You see? I did it in three sentences. And you ought to be able to do it in three sentences or something like this. Listen again to what I've written here. I believe the word of God in the holy scriptures and in the revelation it makes in the creation of the world by the triune God, in the fall of my first parents, and in my own guilt and sin as a result. Sentence one. Sentence 2, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of all those who put their trust in Him. And through the gift of faith, trust to enter into all God's promises in Him. That's second sentence. That's Jesus is my Savior sentence. And because I believe him, I understand the necessity of a life conformed to the moral law of God, and am seeking by God's grace to put my own sin to death and live my life in conformity with the commandments, even as I take my place in the Christian church." Simple. We ought to all be able to say that. And that's the essence, and that's what I mean when I say, as Christians, we ought to have a self-conscious confession of faith. We ought to be ready like Peter says. That's what John has given us in his gospel. That's the amazing thing. When you really try to say, okay, so what are all the topics? What is all this stuff we have gone over? What have we looked at, you know, in John's gospel for 20 chapters? That's what he's given us, these things here. He's given us who Jesus Christ is as the Son of God, who the Father is, and the Son revealing the Father, and the Father revealing the Son. He's given us all that. And He's pointed us to the source of that in the Word of God, that it is what God said it was. And it's always been that way. And then He's pointed us to the way of life in Him. obedience, sanctify them. Your word, Lord, is that that sanctifies. Let's pray. Father, we do ask you would cause us to be self-conscious in our understanding of the Christian faith, that we might say with clarity to those around us, to those in the world, to those who would inquire, that we might say with clarity what it is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. and with a clarity that doesn't leave it up to their definition, with a clarity that takes away from them autonomy and takes away from them unbelief, but one that demands affirmation of these things and intends to live it out. We pray, Father, you would give us that, that you would give us a testimony to men and make us self-conscious in that testimony. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.