Understanding God’s attributes, considered both absolutely and relatively, is key to the proper understanding of how the divines explain the nature of the decree. This absolute-relative distinction (opera ad intra-ad extra) highlights the independence and freedom of God in contrast to the created order. God is free, for example, to create and not to create; the creation is not part of God, neither is it an emanation from him, but rather it is radically contingent–it does not exist necessarily but is created ex nihilo (J.V. Fesko, The Theology of the Westminster Standards, 100).

The distinction between God’s internal and external work rests upon another key distinction covered in the previous chapter, archetypal and ectypal theology–God’s knowledge of himself, which is perfect, infinite, and known only to him, and the revealed copy or shadow, which is perfect and true but finite and suited for humanity (J. V. Fesko, The Theology of the Westminster Standards, 100).

This division of attributes, though listed together in [Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 2], relies upon a standard way of explaining God’s person and work, namely, his opera ad intra (internal work) and opera ad extra (external work). In other words, God can be considered either absolutely separately form his creation, or relatively, as he is related to his creation. As Johannes Wollebius (1589-1629) notes, “Both essential and personal works include those affecting God alone [ad intra] and those whose effects are felt outside of God [ad extra].” Likewise he states, “Those works of God which have their object outside of him are either immanent and internal, or outgoing and external” (J. V. Fesko, The Theology of the Westminster Standards, 100).

And the essence of the Christian religion consists in the reality that the creation of the Father, ruined by sin, is restored in the death of the Son of God and re-created by the grace of the Holy Spirit into a kingdom of God (Bavinck, Prolegomena, 112).

Throughout Scripture, the act of worship is shaped by and related to God’s acts of redemption in the closest possible way (R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession, 258).

The worshipers God desires have always worshiped God in accordance with God’s revealed will, e.g., Abram built altars, Moses assembled a Tabernacle, Solomon constructed the First Temple in Jerusalem. But for us, for New Covenant believers, what is acceptable worship? How do we serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear?

We worship and serve God in Christ, because the Father through Christ has redeemed us. We are born again, by Word and Spirit, and reborn we see and enter into the kingdom of God (John 3).

Hebrews 1:1-2a: God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.

Hebrews 12:28: Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.

“A disciple is one who learns and comes under instruction and guidance. . . . The church Is not only where disciples go once a week; it’s where disciples are made, by the ordinary ministry and the fellowship of the saints” (Michael Horton, Core Christianity, 141).

Well, no wonder the psalmist, joyful for the sake of others, said, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD” (Psalm 122:1).

John Murray was a 20^th century biblical theologian. Consider his reflection on Ephesians 1:3-4, that we were chosen “in Christ” before the foundation of world, and its implication for union with Christ.

The Father elected from eternity, but he elected in Christ. We are not able to understand all that is involved, but the fact is plain enough that there was no election of the Father in eternity apart from Christ. And that means that those who will be saved were not even contemplated by the Father in the ultimate counsel of his predestinating love apart from union with Christ–they were chosen in Christ. As far back as we can go in tracing salvation to its fountain we find “union with Christ”; it is not something tacked on; it is there from the outset (John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied, 162).

Your union with Christ does not ebb and flow. Union is not conditional on anything finite. But rather, the only thing your union with Christ is conditional on is the Father’s eternal, electing love of having chosen you in Christ.

“[I]f there were no earlier testimonies, the very fact that at the close of the second century there was such a remarkable consensus among all parts of the Church would show that the doctrine [i.e., the virgin birth] was no new thing, but must have originated long before. But as a matter of fact there are earlier testimonies of a very important kind. Among these earlier testimonies should, no doubt, be reckoned the so-called “Apostles Creed.” The form of that creed which we use today was produced in Gaul in the fifth or sixth century, but this Gallican form is based upon an old Roman baptismal confession, from which it differs for the most part only in minor details. The virgin birth appears as clearly in the older form of the creed as in the Gallican form. . . . The old Roman creed is no elaborate compilation, but is very brief; the only facts about Jesus to which it gives a place are the virgin birth, the death, the resurrection, the ascension, the session at the right hand of God, and the future judgment. Evidently such an enumeration was intended as the very minimum of Christian belief. The virgin birth might well have been accepted by a large portion of the Church without finding a place in such a creed. Its presence there shows that it was regarded as one of the essentials, like the death and the resurrection” (J. Gresham Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ, 3-4).

“It is part of the calling of the ἐκκλησία to learn to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge and also to make known . . .  “the manifold wisdom of God” in order that the final end of theology, as of all things, may be that the name of the Lord is glorified. Theology and dogmatics, too, exist for the Lord’s sake” (Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1, 46).

“The task of dogmatics is precisely to rationally reproduce the content of revelation that relates to the knowledge of God. Naturally, in this reproduction of the content of revelation, a danger exists on many levels of making mistakes and falling into error. This fact should predispose the dogmatician, like every practitioner of science, to modesty” (Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1, 45).