help Thou mine unbelief…
[Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from Bullinger’s Decades and have been lightly adapted.]
Why does our doctrine of creation matter? How does our understanding of how the world began relate to our hope in Christ today? Are election and predestination austere doctrines to be downplayed or the very source of warmth and hope in the now of the Christian life? Bullinger’s sermon content is ambitious. And he explores these questions in what may be the shortest sermon we’ve seen in the series to date.
God, being the maker of all things, has created all things – both visible and invisible – wholesomely for mankind’s benefit, and now as always wisely governs the same.
We keep coming back to this: God’s character revealed to us. God has shown himself in creation and in his word. They’re mutually reinforcing. What we see in creation affirms what we see in the word. The word explains what we see in creation. Herman Bavinck explains this wonderfully in the first chapters of his Wonderful Works of God. Natural revelation and special revelation go together. They both strengthen each other.
Now who can be so utterly foolish as not to easily see the proofs gathered that demonstrate how great God’s power is? How great our God is! How great is his power. How good, how rich, how freely giving to man – who never deserved any such thing at his hand – our God is, who has created such great riches, such exquisite delights, and such provisions as cannot be sufficiently praised, and all this for man alone. God has made all created things subject to man, and he has them obey man as their lord and master.
There’s a tactful way to use this in our evangelism, and there’s also an untactful way to use it. But the truth remains: it’s plainly obvious to everyone who wants to see, God is gloriously great, and he has created all things. This world simply cannot exist on its own. Not only that, but if God has created all things, then he must also be the one sustaining all things as well.
We here attribute nothing to destiny, either stoicism or astrology. Nor do we have anything to do with luck, either good or bad. We utterly detest philosophical arguments in this case, which are opposed to the truth of the prophets’ writings and the doctrine of the apostles. We content ourselves simply in the only word of God, and therefore we simply believe and teach that God, by his providence, governs all things, and he does so according to his own good will, just judgment, and pleasing arrangement, by means most just and equal.
Bullinger, as the rest of the Reformed theologians in these first centuries after the Reformation, points to an important (but often neglected today) truth about God’s care in the world: God uses means.
Some say, ‘because all things in the world are done by God’s providence, therefore we don’t need to do anything. We may snort idly and take our ease. It is enough for us to expect the working and pushing of God. If he needs our help, he will – whether we ask or no – even push us to the work which he wants us to be accomplished by us.’ But the saints in the scripture are presented to us as having thought, spoken, and judged more sincerely of God’s providence.
God’s creation and providence is a motivation for us today to be busy about the things God has called us to do. ‘Let go and let God’ was bad theology. It also produced bad ethics. A right understanding of Christian doctrine is an incentive for Christian action. Providence spurs us to use the means God has given us to accomplish the work God has revealed to us in his word. In other words, the doctrines of creation and providence help us love God and love others.
Bullinger doesn’t spend much time looking at our action in this sermon. The main application from this sermon is to believe upon God. Faith is the central application Bullinger presses on his people.
Faith is a most assuring sign that you are elect.
Fight the doubts and lies that arise from within (and come from without) regarding election and predestination. Believe on the Lord, and keep believing on the Lord. When we doubt our salvation, when our assurance feels weak, when our God seems distant, what do we need? Faith.
The simpler sort really are greatly tempted and exceedingly troubled with the question of election. The devil goes to great lengths to throw into their minds the hate of God, as though he envies us our salvation and had appointed and ordained us to death. That he may persuade us of this, he labours tooth and nail with great wickedness to weaken and overthrow our faith. As if our salvation were doubtful, which leans and is supported upon the uncertain election of God! Against these fiery weapons the servants of God arm their hearts with meditations and comforts drawn out of scripture.
He then shows some of the weapons we’ve been given to fight sinful doubt. Predestination is based on God’s free grace and mercy. It’s certain because it depends on God. God has chosen us for Christ, not because of us, and because we are now in Christ, our election is certain. God is our Father, and our Father has given us his Son for our salvation. God loves repentant sinners, and because he has caused us to repent, therefore he loves us.
Where does faith come from?
The story of the demon-possessed boy’s father in Mark 9 is one of my favorite scenes in scripture. Jesus’ patience in the story seems almost cruel. The demon is mauling the boy in front of his father and the crowd, yet Jesus wants to discuss faith with the father. The poor man needs help not a theology lesson! Isn’t that so often how we feel? Jesus thinks otherwise. What good is it if the boy is healed but the father’s heart remains cold? So Jesus gently draws out faith from the man, so not only his son’s body is healed, but also this man’s very soul is healed. Bullinger uses this story to show how truly we can trust in God, even when our faith is weak.
I don’t wish any man to despair, if slowly he feels his way to and in his mind labours for a maturing and perfect faith…. Even the disciples prayed, ‘Lord, increase our faith.’ In the Gospel of Mark a truly distressed man cried out to the Saviour, ‘If you can do anything, Lord, have compassion on us, and help us.’ He heard the Lord immediately reply to him, ‘If you can believe it, all things are possible to him that believes.’ And this miserable soul cried out, ‘I do believe Lord, help my unbelief.’ This woeful wretch believed, feeling in his mind that God had given him faith, that he stood in need of God’s help and aid. Therefore he prayed, ‘help my unbelief,’ that is, my faith, which compared with an absolute and perfect faith may seem to be unbelief. But hear me – I plead with you – what this faith worked and brought to pass, however little it may have been, see what a humble mind and hanging upon the mercy of God alone was able to do. For right away he healed the child of this miserable father, and being restored to health, almost even raised from the dead, and he gave him again to his father. Therefore, if anyone feels faith in his mind, let him not despair, even though he knows it is a weak and feeble faith. Let him cast himself wholly upon God’s mercy. Let him presume very little, or nothing at all, of his own worth. Let him continually pray for the increase of faith.
There are times when believing that Jesus created all things by speaking, that the world exists by the direct act of God, that God determines salvation, that he chooses, that he sustains and upholds all things, that the sin I really want right now is worth fighting because God says so, seems too outlandish to be believed. It sounds like a fairy-tale, not the real world. Is this really what I’m depending on and living my life today based on? Is this really what I’m hanging my eternal soul – something I can’t see or really even understand – on today and in the life to come? Am I just colossally deluding myself?
Then I come limping back, like the father in Mark 9. ‘Oh God, if you can…help my faith.’ After all, like Peter said, ‘Where else can we go? You have the words of life.’ It all goes together. The God who creates also sustains. The God who creates faith will also sustain that faith. If God has created life and faith in me, he’ll provide for it and sustain it. So when my faith is weak, I simply need to come back to him. I do believe…help thou mine unbelief.
Thomas Watson has a line in his Doctrine of Repentance (I know, I’ve used it before): ‘He that can believe without doubting, suspect his faith; and he that can repent without sorrowing, suspect his repentance.’ He’s using doubt and faith as an illustration for sorrow and repentance, that they go together. It’s a comment about repentance not faith. Yet his assumption behind the comment is striking. Belief without doubts is untrustworthy… How often does the very fact of unbelief in our heart frighten us and send us down the rabbit hole of questions related to our assurance? Watson says, no, true faith usually involves a measure of doubt. I guess that’s why it’s called faith.
Bullinger points out Jesus’ words in Matthew 7 on prayer, on seeking God as Father, on looking to God as One who gives good things to his children. But then he points us back to Christ. When we feel our faith is week, when we question our election, ultimately, we look not to ourselves but to Christ. Christ is our hope.
Let us keep it deeply printed in our breasts, that God has chosen us in Christ, and for Christ’s sake he has predestined us to life. Therefore, he gives and increases faith in Christ in them that ask it. God puts that faith in our hearts.
As a skilful shepherd caring for his tender sheep, Bullinger closes his sermon reminding his congregation of God’s care for the Israelites in the wilderness, that their shoes and clothes didn’t wear out during the 40 years. They wandered in the desert as punishment for their sin, yet God still provided for them lavishly. From top to bottom, God cares for the work of his hands. God as creator and sustainer sees both the whole picture and the little pieces as well. His care reaches from upholding the universe to providing for the sparrows. If our God is so great as to be able to create the world by the word of his mouth yet he also cares for the least of his creation, then we can know he will care for us.
Next, on worshipping the true and living God
