Most Wise and Holy Providence
Chapter 5: Of Providence
1.God, the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
2. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the First Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.
3. God, in His ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure.
2. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the First Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.
3. God, in His ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure.
In the previous chapter, the Confession spoke about God’s work of creation in which He brought all things into being. oddly enough, there are ideas out there that come into conflict with this teaching. I say "oddly" because the Bible doesn't mince words about the subject, but many people want to skirt around it for some reason or another. Of particular interest is a form of teaching called deism which claims that after God created the world, He merely set it into motion, and then stepped back to let it run on its own. Often times the analogy of a clock maker is employed: the clock maker constructs, winds the clock, and then lets it do its own clock things without any more interference. However, as already indicated, the Bible adamantly teaches that this is most certainly not the case. Instead, the Word of God says things like “in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28). This means that all things were made, exist, and continue to exist solely by the will of God sustaining them. One preacher once said that there is no rogue molecule hurtling out of control in the universe. The theology term for this is God’s sovereignty: the fact that He rules uncontested over all that He has made.
Yet the Bible doesn’t stop with creation when discussing God's sovereignty, but that He divinely oversees all: all creatures, all actions, and all things. Consider the following statement which Joseph spoke to his brothers who sold him into slavery: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:20). What a statement, right? “You had your own sinful agenda, yet even that fell under the scope of God’s greater agenda.” Did this change the morality of what they did? No, they were still guilty of a great sin; nor were they declared innocent because this was part of God's plan. It was still wrong and they still chose to act this way out of the fallenness of their hearts. However, Joseph forgave them because he recognized God’s grace and purpose in the whole situation; yes even regarding the sins of people. Along with this, think about Pharaoh, Judas and Peter. All three of them did things which God declared beforehand that they would do: Pharaoh's heart was hardened as God told Moses would happen; Judas betrayed Jesus, as the scriptures--and Jesus Himself--said would happen; and Peter denied Christ three times, just as Jesus told Peter would happen. Did God foretell their behavior because He is really really good at guessing the choices people will make? Or, as is commonly believed, did He know because He looked into the future? We have already discussed in previous entries why that cannot be the case. None of those is the case. Instead, this is what the scriptures have to say:
“...for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it. (Isaiah 46:9-11).
God will accomplish His purposes. And how does God accomplish His purpose? Is it only through the great big, amazing miracles, like the plagues of Egypt, or the sun standing still in the sky, or the person healed of leprosy? What about the small, less spectacular events? For example, imagine two people healed of cancer: one through the regular administration of chemotherapy, and the other through some extraordinary event that leaves doctors puzzled. Is the miraculous healing from God but not the mundane one? No, God’s hand is in both of them. God is certainly able to circumvent the natural order to carry out to His infallible and free will, yet Yet His ordinary method of providence is through ordinary means: the laws of nature, and secondary causes (including the choice a person makes).
This is what the Westminster Assembly meant by paragraph 2 and 3. The Assembly referred to God as the first cause—the One who decrees all that will come to pass, and who establishes secondary causes. Secondary causes refers to things in creation such as the laws of physics and nature which God has established. For example, Gravity is a necessary cause; when someone jumps, they immediately drop back down to the ground. When it speaks about "freely," it is referring to the choices which people make, which are not determined by natural laws: Peter choosing to lie and say that He did not know Jesus, for example. Finally, contingently means that something will happen a particular way if a particular condition is met. For example, God warns the Israelites before entering the promised land that there would be consequences for both their obedience and their disobedience, so He exhorts them to choose life rather than death!
So what does God use to carry out His will on earth? All sorts of things, which are ordinary parts of the world He created: gravity, thermodynamics, people's choices and actions, the ordinary means of grace, meaning the church, the preaching of the word, the people of God, and even their prayers! We may not understand how our choices and prayers are used by God in this way, yet He tells us that they are. This is one of the great mysteries of God's sovereignty and it should make us stand in awe of Him.
But we also see in scripture, as the Confession says in paragraph 3, that God is free to work "without, above, and against these secondary causes. That is, He is quite capable--and has--worked miraculously in history. Think of all the accounts in the Bible. God did not use secondary means when He created the world--that was the point when these things were established. Or Sarah having a child in her old age; while she bore the child according to the natural method of child bearing, it required God's work for a woman well past child-bearing age to successfully and safely bear and give birth to Isaac. Or consider such miracles as the metal axe head that floated on water (2 Kings 6:1–7), or the donkey that spoke to its rider (Numbers 22:21-39); these are all works that go against the ordinary patterns and systems of nature: metal normally sinks, and donkeys do not talk, yet God shows forth His control over that which He made by these miraculous works. It is an interesting thing when people reject the Bible because "those things just don't happen." There is an awful lot such a person is assuming, chief of which is that there is no sovereign creator of the Universe. Yes, they are surprising and unnatural events that many of us have never experienced--but that's the point, isn't it? Otherwise they wouldn't catch attention.
Now, when all is said and done, God's uncontested control over creation and history should be extremely comforting to the Christian! I am reminded of something my brother said to me once that was very helpful. I was nervous about getting on a rollercoaster, and he pointed out that my mind and body is reacting to a sense of danger, which is understandable--hurling at high speeds down steep slopes, and strapped into a small container is something the body is not used to. He told me that I need to remember that even though my body was screaming "danger," the reality was that we were on a track, and we are secured into the ride. Because of this I was able to enjoy my first ride on Space Mountain--and my first rollercoaster in over 20 years. And while there certainly is a chance of mechanical malfunction on a roller coaster, the same is not true of the Christian's life. There is no derailing of God's sovereign plan. Sure, you can make mistakes that will profoundly affect you, but at the end of the day, God is working all things according to the council of His will, for His glory, and for your good (Romans 8:28-30). Yes things may seem to be plummeting out of control, but behand all of these events is the God who has determined the end from the beginning.
Yet the Bible doesn’t stop with creation when discussing God's sovereignty, but that He divinely oversees all: all creatures, all actions, and all things. Consider the following statement which Joseph spoke to his brothers who sold him into slavery: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:20). What a statement, right? “You had your own sinful agenda, yet even that fell under the scope of God’s greater agenda.” Did this change the morality of what they did? No, they were still guilty of a great sin; nor were they declared innocent because this was part of God's plan. It was still wrong and they still chose to act this way out of the fallenness of their hearts. However, Joseph forgave them because he recognized God’s grace and purpose in the whole situation; yes even regarding the sins of people. Along with this, think about Pharaoh, Judas and Peter. All three of them did things which God declared beforehand that they would do: Pharaoh's heart was hardened as God told Moses would happen; Judas betrayed Jesus, as the scriptures--and Jesus Himself--said would happen; and Peter denied Christ three times, just as Jesus told Peter would happen. Did God foretell their behavior because He is really really good at guessing the choices people will make? Or, as is commonly believed, did He know because He looked into the future? We have already discussed in previous entries why that cannot be the case. None of those is the case. Instead, this is what the scriptures have to say:
“...for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it. (Isaiah 46:9-11).
God will accomplish His purposes. And how does God accomplish His purpose? Is it only through the great big, amazing miracles, like the plagues of Egypt, or the sun standing still in the sky, or the person healed of leprosy? What about the small, less spectacular events? For example, imagine two people healed of cancer: one through the regular administration of chemotherapy, and the other through some extraordinary event that leaves doctors puzzled. Is the miraculous healing from God but not the mundane one? No, God’s hand is in both of them. God is certainly able to circumvent the natural order to carry out to His infallible and free will, yet Yet His ordinary method of providence is through ordinary means: the laws of nature, and secondary causes (including the choice a person makes).
This is what the Westminster Assembly meant by paragraph 2 and 3. The Assembly referred to God as the first cause—the One who decrees all that will come to pass, and who establishes secondary causes. Secondary causes refers to things in creation such as the laws of physics and nature which God has established. For example, Gravity is a necessary cause; when someone jumps, they immediately drop back down to the ground. When it speaks about "freely," it is referring to the choices which people make, which are not determined by natural laws: Peter choosing to lie and say that He did not know Jesus, for example. Finally, contingently means that something will happen a particular way if a particular condition is met. For example, God warns the Israelites before entering the promised land that there would be consequences for both their obedience and their disobedience, so He exhorts them to choose life rather than death!
So what does God use to carry out His will on earth? All sorts of things, which are ordinary parts of the world He created: gravity, thermodynamics, people's choices and actions, the ordinary means of grace, meaning the church, the preaching of the word, the people of God, and even their prayers! We may not understand how our choices and prayers are used by God in this way, yet He tells us that they are. This is one of the great mysteries of God's sovereignty and it should make us stand in awe of Him.
But we also see in scripture, as the Confession says in paragraph 3, that God is free to work "without, above, and against these secondary causes. That is, He is quite capable--and has--worked miraculously in history. Think of all the accounts in the Bible. God did not use secondary means when He created the world--that was the point when these things were established. Or Sarah having a child in her old age; while she bore the child according to the natural method of child bearing, it required God's work for a woman well past child-bearing age to successfully and safely bear and give birth to Isaac. Or consider such miracles as the metal axe head that floated on water (2 Kings 6:1–7), or the donkey that spoke to its rider (Numbers 22:21-39); these are all works that go against the ordinary patterns and systems of nature: metal normally sinks, and donkeys do not talk, yet God shows forth His control over that which He made by these miraculous works. It is an interesting thing when people reject the Bible because "those things just don't happen." There is an awful lot such a person is assuming, chief of which is that there is no sovereign creator of the Universe. Yes, they are surprising and unnatural events that many of us have never experienced--but that's the point, isn't it? Otherwise they wouldn't catch attention.
Now, when all is said and done, God's uncontested control over creation and history should be extremely comforting to the Christian! I am reminded of something my brother said to me once that was very helpful. I was nervous about getting on a rollercoaster, and he pointed out that my mind and body is reacting to a sense of danger, which is understandable--hurling at high speeds down steep slopes, and strapped into a small container is something the body is not used to. He told me that I need to remember that even though my body was screaming "danger," the reality was that we were on a track, and we are secured into the ride. Because of this I was able to enjoy my first ride on Space Mountain--and my first rollercoaster in over 20 years. And while there certainly is a chance of mechanical malfunction on a roller coaster, the same is not true of the Christian's life. There is no derailing of God's sovereign plan. Sure, you can make mistakes that will profoundly affect you, but at the end of the day, God is working all things according to the council of His will, for His glory, and for your good (Romans 8:28-30). Yes things may seem to be plummeting out of control, but behand all of these events is the God who has determined the end from the beginning.