If we could understand everything that's in Section 2 of Chapter 2 of the Westminster Confession of Faith with respect to our

understanding of the nature and character of God, that I would say to you that 90% of the theological issues that rage over the centuries within the church would be resolved.

Well, that certainly has my attention, and I hope yours as well, because I think all of us would be in favor of resolving the vast majority of theological issues that rage within the church today.

Welcome to renewing your mind, I'm Lee Webb. We are exploring the Westminster Confession of Faith with Dr. R. C. Sproul.

If you're unfamiliar with this historic theological document, it is one of the most precise and comprehensive statements of biblical Christianity.

It was written in the mid-17th century, and it's helped generations of believers understand what the Bible teaches about a host of Christian doctrines.

Today as we get started, Dr. Sproul will quote from Chapter 2, Section 2 of the Confession. Let's join him now.

Section 2 of Chapter 2 is on to say that God is the alone fountain of all being. This of course flows out of the idea that since He is the only one who has the power of being within Himself, all other things that exist in this world are dependent upon God's being.

We've talked about that where Paul says that in Him we live and move and have our being. So here, following on that biblical concept, the confession is saying, God is the sole only single fountain or source of being.

Being doesn't come from anything else or from anyone else or from anywhere else because God alone is the source of anything that exists in this world.

And now we get a group of statements of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things. Let's look at that briefly. Of whom, again, that refers to God's being the universal creator of everything that exists.

Nothing does exist apart from Him. Nothing can exist apart from Him because He's the fountain of being. So all that exists, or that is all of whom, all things exist.

And it goes on to say, through whom, that is by means of His creative energy, by means of His power, all things that exist come into being, and to whom are all things.

You notice how this is the same language that Scripture uses for the second person of the Trinity, for the logos, who is the member of the Trinity through whom the created order comes to pass, that Christ is the one by whom, through whom, and for whom all things exist.

Of course, touching is divine nature. And so the purpose for the existence of anything that does exist in this world is not for the creature itself, but it is for God.

It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves, and not only are we made by Him, but we are made for Him.

Now, this is again something that we do when we try to rob God of His glory and exchange the truth of God for lies, serve and worship the creature rather than the creator, as Paul tells us in Romans 1,

that's when we think that the universe was made for us. For me, I want to be the point of all things. That was the lie that was offered to Adam and Eve. You shall be as gods.

No, the creatures are made for God, not God for the creatures.

And He hath most sovereign dominion over them. Now, let's look at that. That's an abstract concept.

And again, we see that word, the superlative word, that we've noticed earlier in chapter 2, that word most.

And most here modifies the word sovereign. God is not just relatively speaking sovereign, or partially sovereign, or more sovereign than other things.

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