This article is the fourteenth installment in our series "Christian, What Do You Believe: The Belgic Confession of Faith." Find the whole series here.
If you want to know what people really believe about God, test their doctrine of providence. And administer the test, not on a happy day but when everything has fallen apart. A strong majority of Americans (81%) say they believe in God. But less than half (48%) believe that God determines what happens to them. I suspect that the percentage of those who affirm divine providence would plummet in the context of a crisis or in a moment of melancholy.
What about you? When things go awry, do you still believe that “nothing happens in this world without [God’s] orderly arrangement” (BC 13)? Is it always true that he “leads and governs” all things “according to his holy will”? Or are you a fair-weather believer? Your view of providence is a true test of your faith.
The doctrine of providence can provide “unspeakable consolation.” But only if you believe what Scripture says about God’s involvement in his world.
What Should I Believe about Providence?
Providence is simply God’s continued rule over everything he created (Eph. 1:11). If there is a creator, there must be a provider upon which everything depends for its ongoing operation (Acts 17:28). God is committed to his creatures. He doesn’t create and then sit back and watch. God himself ties together creation and providence: “I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things” (Is. 45:7). And God’s government includes the affairs of people. “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” (Prov. 21:1). He even works the countless small things that affect our lives. You hardly notice that hundreds of hairs fall from your body every day. But God numbers each one (Matt. 10:30). Nothing happens in this world apart from his appointment. “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that pleases him” (Ps. 115:3).
This might seem to suggest that providence equals tyranny. But God is incapable of tyranny. God is good. His will is holy. He “does his work very well and justly.” While groaning in his trouble, David confessed to the Lord, “you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you” (Ps. 5:4). And believers confess God’s fatherly providence (Matt. 10:29). In a special way, God, by his providence, takes care of his church as a good father cares for his family (Rom. 8:28).
Still, there is a dark side of this doctrine. In a sinless world, providence would not be controversial. But to affirm God’s government over a broken world raises the question of his complicity in sin. Sometimes God forbids evil. He “holds in check the devils and all our enemies, who cannot hurt us without his permission and will” (see Matt. 8:31). Still, under God’s control “the devil and wicked men act unjustly.” How can we explain that? Here’s an important distinction: “God does not act in and with evil but over and against it.” When God ordains trouble, it is for a greater good (see Gen. 50:20). The Lord’s sovereignty and the wicked acts of men are harmonized most shockingly in the death of Christ (Acts 4:28; 2:23). It was God’s will for Christ to die for the sins of the world and it was the greatest sin for wicked men to put him to death. But God used sin to conquer Satan and save the elect. “Ultimately, then, a Christian defense of providence must always return to Christ and his victory over sin and death.” If sin and death cannot stop God’s saving purposes, nothing can.
How Should I Respond to God’s Providence
Providence doesn’t depend on your response. But your response to providence can radically change your outlook on life.
Respond to God’s Providence with Acceptance
Trouble tempts us to believe that God has failed us. A toddler receiving a shot while being held by his mother cannot understand her good intentions. But he can trust her. When Job realized that he was but a vapor that vanishes upon appearing he admitted, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:3; cf. Ps. 77:19; James 4:14). Even when we don’t understand we can still trust. If you know Christ as Savior, the Spirit as Comforter, and God as Father, you can rest in divine providence. If God cares even for the welfare of the littlest creatures, we can trust him to make wise decisions for his well-beloved children (Matt. 10:31).
Respond to God’s Providence with Adoration
Has God provided for your needs? Has he worked good through decisions you disagreed with? Has he presided over even your failures? Has his hand been unmistakably present in your life? Then you have experienced the beauty of providence! What the spiritually blind attribute to fate or chance you can credit to the wise and good work of your heavenly Father. When Paul pondered God’s surprising work of redemption he burst forth with praise: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?’” (Rom. 11:33–36). “In all humility and reverence we adore the just judgments of God,” even those that “are hidden from us.”
Respond to God’s Providence with Action
If the Lord works out all things for good (Rom. 8:28), why must we do anything? Because “God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means.” God appointed Christ to die on the cross as a sacrifice for sinners. But Jesus still had to “fulfill all righteousness” and “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Matt. 3:15; Luke 9:51). God promises to save sinners and requires us to repent and believe. God will preserve us from evil (Ps. 121); we must persevere in faithfulness. We may not pry into God’s providence or live as though we believe in fate. We should be “content to be Christ’s disciples, so as to learn only what he shows us in his Word,” and then perform our responsibilities, especially when things seem to go against us. We should trust that God sometimes leads his children through trouble “to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself.”
Belief that God is totally involved in the world he made should not depend on circumstances. Either he is sovereign in all that he does or he is not God. If we believe in the God of providence we can answer Job’s question with a resounding, yes. “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (Job. 2:10 NKJV). We shall! Blessed be the name of the Lord!
Footnotes
https://news.gallup.com/poll/393737/belief-god-dips-new-low.aspx
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/04/25/when-americans-say-they-believe-in-god-what-do-they-mean/
Michael Horton, The Christian Faith, 358.
Horton, The Christian Faith, 371.
Westminster Confession of Faith, 5.3.
Westminster Confession of Faith, 5.5.
