Second London Baptist Confession of Faith 5.1-3
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-On Wednesday evenings we have been considering certain doctrines from Scripture using creeds and confessions as our launch points for discussion. Too often we think that theology or doctrine is theoretical, but it doesn’t really impact our lives. We might fail to see the connection about why it is important to rightly believe about God and His Word and His work so that we have a right perspective on what’s going on with us and the world. But, I believe, that if we can grasp these truths, it will help us navigate the journey we are on.
-And then we come to a topic that I will begin tonight that has a lot of implications on our lives, but it is so deep and dense that we can’t just leave it behind in the church building. This is something that we are going to have to take home with us and wrestle with it because we may not necessarily like where it leads us, and yet it is truth that is hard to deny.
-I actually considered skipping over this topic for now because there are a lot of our members who are suffering through many things—real life trials and troubles. And the topic might be a little raw for them. This is real life stuff. As much as all of us have to wrestle with the implications of these truths, there are some who are in the battle right now. But I don’t want anyone to miss the importance of it. And if anything, even if we can’t grasp it at least the truth of who God is and what He is capable of should put some ointment on the wound. But, like some ointment, it might sting at first before the healing begins.
-The doctrine that I’m sort of tip-toeing around is the doctrine of divine providence. Wayne Grudem says that this is:
The doctrine that God is continually involved with all created things in such a way that he (1) keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them; (2) cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do: and (3) directs them to fulfill his purposes.
-As of late I’ve used the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith to guide the discussions, and the placement of this topic in Chapter 5 makes sense. In chapter 3 it talked about God’s decrees. We might say that God’s decrees are the blueprint or plan and His providence is the execution of the blueprint or plan. And chapter 4 was about God creating the universe, and this is the realm of His providence. And the first part of the chapter says:
Confessing the Faith: The 1689 Baptist Confession for the 21st Century (V. Divine Providence)
5:1 God the good Creator of all things, in His infinite power and wisdom, upholds, directs, arranges and governs all creatures and things, from the greatest to the least, by His perfectly wise and holy providence, to the purpose for which they were created. He governs according to His infallible foreknowledge and the free and unchangeable counsel of His own will. His providence leads to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness and mercy.
5:2 All things come to pass unchangeably and certainly in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, who is the first cause. Thus, nothing happens to anyone by chance or outside of God’s providence. Yet by the same providence God arranges all things to occur according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or in response to other causes.
5:3 In His ordinary providence, God makes use of means, though He is free to work apart from them, beyond them and contrary to them at His pleasure.
-Right away the confession tells us that God, as the good Creator of all things, didn’t just wind the universe up and let it go on to fend for itself. God is involved in His creation. It says that God is involved by His infinite power and wisdom. This is attested by Scripture where we learn:
12 The Lord is the one who by his power made the earth. He is the one who by his wisdom established the world. And by his understanding, he spread out the skies.
-He created with wisdom and power, and now He actively works in the universe with that same wisdom and power. But, what is God’s involvement in the universe? The confession summarizes it as that God upholds, directs, arranges, and governs all creatures and things. Another way we might say it is that God preserves, supports, governs, and directs the universe by His power and wisdom. The Bible tells us:
3 The Son is the radiance of his glory and the representation of his essence, and he sustains all things by his powerful word, and so when he had accomplished cleansing for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
25 nor is he served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives life and breath and everything to everyone.
26 From one man he made every nation of the human race to inhabit the entire earth, determining their set times and the fixed limits of the places where they would live,
27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope around for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28 For in him we live and move about and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’
-We could say that from every angle God providentially works within the universe, moving and guiding and sustaining it according to His power and wisdom. And He controls not just the big, major things, but the confession says He upholds, directs, arranges and governs all creatures from the least to the greatest. We consider what Christ said:
29 Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.
30 Even all the hairs on your head are numbered.
31 So do not be afraid; you are more valuable than many sparrows.
-A bird doesn’t die outside of God’s providence, how much more involved would God be in the lives of those made in His image? What is God involved in? Everything that is going on. It says that He governs by His perfectly wise and holy purpose to the purpose for which they were created.
16 for all things in heaven and on earth were created by him—all things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers—all things were created through him and for him.
17 He himself is before all things, and all things are held together in him.
-Everything was created and is directed by Him and for Him—for His purposes. As one author states:
All things were created for a purpose, and they are upheld and directed for the realization of that purpose. God’s control of creation is compatible with His purpose in creation. Providence is the direction of all creation to its intended purposes, not the least of which are redemptive. Creation is the stage upon which redemption is played out.
-But here is where we as humans begin to find our finiteness wrestling with God’s eternal character in understanding God’s extent of involvement in certain events. We know that by God’s character and nature (and Scriptural evidence) that God cannot perform a moral evil or tempt people to evil, and yet God can use the evil moral choices of His creation and the natural evils that come from a cursed fallen world to His own purposes—toward some ultimate good that we might not be aware of, and (as the paragraphs say) He receives glory from it, which is the ultimate purpose behind everything.
-So, I think of the story of the blind man in John 9. He was blind from birth and Jesus and the disciples come upon him and the disciples ask a question that reveals the thought process of the Jews at that time:
2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who committed the sin that caused him to be born blind, this man or his parents?”
-The belief was that bad things happen to people because of somebody’s sin. But, as attested in Scripture and as we see in real life, it is a fact that bad things happen to good people. But sometimes it goes beyond that to a realm that is beyond us at the time. Sometimes, in God’s providence, something bad happens to good people for an ultimate reason known only to God. This happened to Job, and it happened to this blind man. Jesus lifts the veil when He corrects the disciples thinking here when He ways:
3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but he was born blind so that the acts of God may be revealed through what happens to him.
-Or, we consider the death of Lazarus. When Jesus receives the news that Lazarus is sick, He says something interesting. It might sound almost like a lie or misdirection, but in actuality Jesus was stating what the ultimate outcome would be.
4 When Jesus heard this, he said, “This sickness will not lead to death, but to God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
-The sickness actually did lead to death, but yet again it did not in that he was raised by Jesus. But in hindsight we can understand Jesus as saying that even though Lazarus would be sick unto death, he wouldn’t stay dead but be raised so that God is glorified and Jesus is glorified through that act of resurrection. And here is where we have to wrestle with providence—God through His wisdom and power upholds, directs, arranges, and governs even these seemingly bad things. God was providentially in control with what happened to Job—He allowed Satan to do what he did. God was providentially in control in letting the blind man be born blind. God was providentially in control when Lazarus got sick and died. And God was providentially in control when everything that has happened to you happened to you. And we have to wrestle with this. This is not easy.
-And as the paragraphs state, God is providentially in control when just the natural things of life happen—the paragraphs call it secondary causes. Think of how we consider this aspect of providence. We work and make money so we can buy food so we can eat. And yet when we sit down for dinner we pray and thank God for the food. It is a recognition that God was behind the natural processes of that food growing (it was by His providence that the seed was planted and the water fell and it grew and was harvested by a farmer). Is was God’s providence that allowed us to have the job to make the money to buy the food. God’s providence is behind the curtain of these secondary causes. There is a recognition that God can perform what we would call miracles—that is, He can bypass these secondary causes, these naturally occuring phenomena, but He can use the natural systems He created.
-Yet, we have to wrestle with the fact that God is providentially in control of the good, but He is also providentially in control of what we would call the bad. And knowing this ought to cause us to run to Him for strength and peace, with the knowledge that He is providentially in control. And it helps with our trust—if God is providentially in control and I know that He loves me, even if I might not like the outcome I know that He has grander purposes beyond my understanding. But we don’t just use that as a pat answer. It is a theological truth that has to be wrestled with and we have to come to terms and come to peace in this...