The Holy Ghost is True and Eternal God

Image: September morning, North Garden, Virginia 2026

(Notes from last Wednesday's Midweek Meeting series through Belgic Confession):

Belgic Confession:

Article 11 The Holy Ghost is True and Eternal God

We believe and confess also that the Holy Ghost from eternity proceeds from the Father1 and Son,2 and therefore is neither made, created, nor begotten, but only proceedeth from both; who in order is the third person of the Holy Trinity, of one and the same essence, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son; and therefore is the true and eternal God, as the Holy Scriptures teach us.3

1 Ps. 33:6, 17; John 14:16

2 Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:9; John 15:26

3 Gen. 1:2; Isa. 48:16; 61:1; Acts 5:3–4; 28:25; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; Ps. 139:7.

Notes:

·         Articles 8-11 in the Belgic Confession teach the doctrine of the Trinity. There is one God who is from all eternity Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Article 10 focuses on Jesus Christ as True and Eternal God. Now, Article 11 says the Holy Ghost is True and Eternal God. We are not unitarians!

·         Charismatics speak a lot about the Holy Spirit, but Reformed believers also believe in the Holy Spirit. B. B. Warfield called John Calvin the theologian of the Holy Spirit.

·         The Trinity: The Father: eternally unbegotten. The Son: eternally begotten of the Father. The Spirit eternally proceeding (or spirating) from the Father (John 14:16) AND the Son (John 15:16). Contrast the Eastern Orthodox Church which says procession is only from the Father.

·         The Spirit is the same essence with the Father and the Son and is equal in power and glory with the Father and the Son. See Acts 5:3-4 which speaks of the lying to the Spirit and lying to God in parallel. The Spirit is God.

·         What are some of the operations or works of the Spirit? Here are a few:

-The Spirit is the Creator (Gen. 1:2) with the Father (Gen. 1:1) and The Son (John 1:3).

-The Spirit is omnipresent (Psalm 139:7).

-The Spirit sent and anointed prophets, apostles, and ministers (Isaiah 48:16; 61:1).

-The Spirit was at work in the conception/incarnation of Christ (Luke 1:35).

-The Spirit raised Christ from the dead (Rom 8:11).

-The Spirit brings about the new birth/regeneration (John 3:5-8).

-The Spirit does the work of sanctification (Rom. 15:6; 1 Cor. 6:11; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2).

-The Spirit inspired the Scriptures and speaks through them (Acts 28:25; 2 Tim 3:16).

-The Spirit indwells the believer (Rom. 8:9-16; 1 Cor. 6:19).

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

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JTR

The Vision (9.18.26): The Confession of the Man Who Had Dwelt Among the Tombs

 

Image: Morning scene, North Garden, Virginia, September 2026

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Mark 5:1-20:

Mark 5:1-20 records Christ’s casting out a Legion of demons from a man “dwelling among the tombs” in the country of the Gadarenes (vv. 1-2). After Christ cast out this legion, sending them into a nearby herd of swine, the man was found “sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind” (v. 15).

When Christ came to the ship to depart from that land, the former demoniac asked if he might go with the Lord, that “he might be with him. Howbeit Jesus suffered him not” (vv. 18-19).

There is a spiritual lesson here, no doubt.  The Lord Jesus acquiesced to the demonic request to be sent into the swine (v. 13).  He agreed to the populace’s request that he leave town (v. 17).  The only request he denied was the one that came from the former demoniac who had become his disciple!  Does it not often seem to us, from our human perspective, that God allows the desires of the wicked to prosper while the simple requests of the saints are denied?  How much greater is his wisdom! 

The Lord Jesus tells him, “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee” (v. 19). Perhaps this man had exotic dreams of traveling with Christ to faraway places to preach the gospel, and the Lord sent him instead into his own patria, to his own household, family, friends, neighbors. The Lord Jesus tells some men to go and follow him. He tells others to stay and follow him.

Mark reports the man’s obedience, “And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel” (20).

These final verses (vv. 19-20) offer a striking Christological statement. Christ told the man to go and tell what the Lord (God) had done for him (cf. Luke 8:39). The man went and told what (the Lord) Jesus had done for him.

The man who had dwelt among the tombs was now confessing, “Jesus is Lord.”

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

WM 393: A PURITAN'S WARNING at the Birth of Modern, Reconstruction TEXT CRITICISM

 

JTR

Comma Conference: 1 John 5:7-8

 

JTR

The Vision (9.11.26): Great Storm, Great Calm, Great Awe

 

Image: Summer evening, North Garden, Virginia.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Mark 4:36-41:

The record of Christ stilling the storm in Mark 4:36-41 has been a comfort to many believers over the years, as they have encountered their own storms.  It might be the storm of losing a job, of failing in a business, of having conflict with a parent, spouse, or child, of losing a loved one, of serious illness, of facing deep spiritual discouragement, depression, or despair.

The adjective “great (Greek: mega)” is repeated three times in this passage. There was a “great [mega] storm of wind” (v. 37), a “great [mega] calm” (v. 39), and a “great [mega] fear or awe” (v. 41, where the AV reads, “they feared exceedingly”) in the aftermath.

From this account we gain the application that we are to rely upon Christ in all the circumstances of life and never doubt his tender concern for us.

We should first consider the comfort of the fact that the Lord Jesus was awakened by the cries of his disciples in their distress.

Matthew Henry observed, “When Christ seems as if he slept in a storm, he is awakened by the prayers of his people; when we know not what to do; our eye must be to him (2 Chron 20:12); we may be at our wit’s end, but not our faith’s end, while we have a Savior to go to.”

Sadly, even our prayers to Christ in distress can take on that complaining tone of the disciples, “Master, carest thou not that we perish?” (v. 38).

Christ himself taught his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount not to be overcome by worry (Matthew 6: 25-34).

Someone said, “Worry is an old man, with bended head, carrying a load of feathers which he thinks are lead.”

Another wrote,

Fear knocked at the door.

Faith answered.

No one was there.

Peter exhorted that we are to be “Casting all our care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

Christ told his disciples that every hair upon their head were all numbered by the sovereign Father (Matthew 10:30).

Some years back I read a devotional book titled Jesus is Victor by Corrie Ten Boom, the Dutch believer whose family was sent to a concentration during WW2, where her aged father and beloved sister would both die.

She writes of her initial imprisonment which included four months of solitary confinement in a dark dank cell:

Once I stood with my back against the wall with my hands spread out, as if to try to push away the walls that were closing in on me.  I was dead scared.  I cried out, “Lord, I’m not strong enough to endure this.  I don’t have the faith!”

Suddenly I noticed an ant roaming the floor of the cell for days.  I had just mopped the floor with a wet rag, and the moment the ant felt the water on the stones, he ran straight to his tiny hole in the wall.

Then it was that the Lord said to me, “What about that ant?  He didn’t stop to look at the wet rag or his weak feet—he went straight to his hiding place.  Corrie, don’t look at your faith; it is weak, like the tiny feet of that ant.  Don’t dwell on the treatment you might receive from these cruel people.  I am your hiding place, and you can come running to Me just like that ant disappeared into that hole in the wall (pp. 79-80).

Let us remember that though the Lord may permit great storms, he also provides great calm, that issue in great awe.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

J. A. Alexander on the increase yield of the good ground seed in Mark 4:8, 20

 

X Post:

Interesting comments by J. A. Alexander in his 1864 Mark Commentary on the increase yield of the seed that falls on the good ground as “some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred” (Mark 4:8, 20).

Interestingly enough, in his comments on Mark 4:8 Alexander suggests that gains at this proportion are “moderate and modest” if not low: “The productiveness ascribed to the nutritious gains in this place is by no means unexampled either in ancient or modern times. It is indeed a moderate and modest estimate compared with some recorded by Herodotus, in which the rate of increase was double or quadruple even the highest of the three here mentioned, and the recent harvest in our western states affords examples of increase greater still.” Later in his comments on Mark 4:20 Alexander’s focus is not on the measure of the yield, but the “proportional diversity” of the rate. The notes in the MacArthur Study Bible on Mark 4:8, however, offer a different evaluation: “An average ration of harvested grain to what had been sown was 8 to 1, with a 10 to 1 ratio considered exceptional. The yield Jesus refers to are like an unbelievable harvest.” When Grok is asked if a 100 to 1 ratio is good for wheat, it says: “Yes. 1:100 is high for wheat. The standard seed-multiplication ratio used by seed-certification agencies for wheat is 1:20. That is the figure expected in ordinary commercial production. You can get ratios closer to 1:80–1:100 (occasionally even higher) only in special seed-increase plots that are planted at a much lower seeding rate than a farmer would use for grain. Those plots sacrifice yield per hectare in order to stretch a small quantity of expensive nucleus or foundation seed as far as possible. In a normal wheat field grown for grain, 1:100 would be an unusually high return.” In context with the parable of the mustard seed in Mark 4:31-32, in which the mustard seed “less than all the seeds” produces a plant “greater than all herbs,” it would seem best to think the yield of the seed on the good ground would be high rather than moderate of modest. So, was Alexander just wrong here? Can his view be justified? What was he thinking? If the harvest was "moderate and modest," what is the spiritual point about the good ground yield?

JTR

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JTR

The Vision (9.4.26): The Secretly Growing Seed

 

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Mark 4:26-34.

“And he said, so is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground… and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how” (Mark 4:27-28).

“It is like a grain of mustard seed, which… is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: but when it is sown, it groweth up... and shooteth out great branches…” (Mark 4:31-32).

What do we learn from our Lord’s parables of the secretly growing seed (Mark 4:26-29) and the mustard seed (Mark 4:30-32)?

First, we need to apply this teaching to our understanding of Christ’s kingdom. It is here, but not yet.

The Lord is sovereign over his own work. His kingdom is here, and it is secretly growing, just like that seed in the parable. It is his work. He will bring the fruit when he is pleased to do so and according to his timetable. Rest assured, however, a harvest time is coming.

Sometimes the present kingdom can look to us like such a small and weak thing. No bigger than a mustard seed. But it has a great God behind it. And when he is pleased it will become a mighty branch and a resting place for men from many nations.

As the prophet Zechariah asked, “For who hath despised the day of small things?” (Zech. 4:10).

That is the view from the macro-scale, but we can also apply this, secondly, to the micro-scale.

You may look at the seed sown in you and see little growth and no fruit, and you may despair.

You may look at the small seed sown in the lives of loved ones, children, friends, and neighbors, and ask, Where’s the fruit?

We are reminded today to put our trust in the Lord. The kingdom is like a secretly growing seed. It is small as a mustard seed. But it is a great God’s work, and he who began this good work will be faithful to complete it. Consider the words of James:

James 5: ⁷ Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

⁸ Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

All the aches and pains and disappointments will indeed be ended at the time when Christ comes again with power and great glory. It will be the time of the final harvest, the final resurrection. So, let us take heart, fellow pilgrims. Let us be steadfast, unmoving, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

He is lisping this to us in ways we can understand and untangling it for us in ways we can grasp, as he did to the first disciples in parables (Mark 4:33-34).

The kingdom has come in Christ’s incarnational ministry. It is here right now. And it will be here one day in ways greater than we ever could have asked or imagined.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

René Pache (1904-1979) on "Escaping the Trap of Subjectivism"

 

From X Post:

"For all practical purposes, everyone who makes a distinction between Scripture and the Word of God accepts biblical criticism, often in its most radical form. With this, every word of the text can be, and is indeed, subjected to question. All the knowledge which modern theologians have... and that which they call 'the Word of God'--all of this comes from the very words of the Bible. But if those words are not sure or are not worthy of confidence, must one then keep searching his own mind for certainty? How can anything definite be made out of this nebulous communication, seeing it is not the words themselves which speak to us? Moreover, the Word perceived will be variable from one person to another, even from one great theologian to another...."

-The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, 260-261.

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JTR