by Garrett Glende

Continuing on in the study of God’s inter­ac­tion with His cre­ation, we will now con­sider the issue of God’s prov­i­dence. Grudem defines the term as “God being 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.” A full dis­cus­sion of this topic would require a lengthy arti­cle (Grudem’s chap­ter alone is about 40 pages), so we’ll only cover the essentials.

The doc­trine of God’s prov­i­dence starts with the fact that He is cre­ator of all things, thus giv­ing Him lord­ship over all (for fur­ther insight, check out last week’s arti­cle). Providence basi­cally boils down to the nature of God being God. If He were not in con­trol of any sin­gle mol­e­cule, then He really isn’t its God. Scripture affirms that every act of cre­ation hap­pens under the sov­er­eign hand of God and we see that inan­i­mate cre­ation such as rain and snow obey the voice of God (Job 37:6) and that ani­mals are depen­dent on the good­ness of their cre­ator (Psalm 104:27–29, Matt. 10:29). While there are “nat­ural” expla­na­tions for why it rains and why the grass grows, we know that God is truly behind it all, work­ing ulti­mately for His own glory. Moreover, God has sov­er­eignty over all aspects of our lives. Grudem writes, “our words, our steps, our move­ments, our hearts, and our abil­i­ties are all from the Lord.” While we do make real choices, we must also sub­mit to the clear teach­ing of Scripture: that God’s prov­i­dence extends into our own lives com­pletely. Psalm 33:14–15 says that God fash­ions the hearts of the world and Acts 17:28 says that it is in Him we live and move.

It’s not dif­fi­cult to admit the truth­ful­ness of Scripture at this point, but the next ques­tion for many is a chal­leng­ing one to tackle. What about evil? If God is in con­trol of every­thing, doesn’t that mean He knows and allows all the bad things in the world? What we believe about God and His rela­tion­ship with evil will strongly influ­ence our lives when tough times do come, so we must believe rightly about what is called theod­icy. First, it is imper­a­tive to note that God is in no way the author of sin. He tempts no one (James 1:13–14), bears no respon­si­bil­ity for the sin­ful actions of man (Luke 22:22), and will judge all sin. However, Scripture is clear that God uses evil for His own per­fect pur­poses, His own glory, and our own good. A clear exam­ple of this is in the story of Joseph, where the many sin­ful actions of Joseph’s broth­ers landed him enslaved in Egypt, yet he was still able to say that “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen 50:20). Evil actions such as the broth­ers’ hatred of Joseph, their desire to kill him, and their sell­ing him into slav­ery, ulti­mately were meant for a greater good by God. Later on in the verse we read that this pur­pose was “to bring it about that many peo­ple should be kept alive, as they are today.” Even more than Joseph’s story, we see that God uses evil in the cru­ci­fix­ion of Christ, an event that ulti­mately leads to our sal­va­tion. Acts 2:23 says that Jesus was “deliv­ered up accord­ing to the def­i­nite plan and fore­knowl­edge of God [and] cru­ci­fied and killed by the hands of law­less men.” The ulti­mate evil act, the mur­der of Jesus Christ, is also the most glo­ri­ous event in all of his­tory because of the divine prov­i­dence of God in work­ing out all things for His glory.

The most impor­tant thing that this means for us is that God has a pur­pose to every­thing that goes on in this world. Nothing is mean­ing­less. When dev­as­tat­ing news comes, when can­cer strikes, when earth­quakes kill thou­sands, or when­ever we see evil in this world, we can rest on Gods promise in Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called accord­ing to His pur­pose.” We can have hope in know­ing that there is not one atom in this uni­verse that is out­side of God’s sov­er­eign con­trol. As John Piper says, “God doesn’t do things willy-nilly.” There is always a pur­pose to what He does and His ulti­mate pur­pose is the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Himself, most beau­ti­fully seen through the gospel. Many want to argue that God can have no involve­ment in the evil things that hap­pen in this world. “What kind of good God allows such hor­rors?” they ask. Well, con­sider the alter­na­tive. If God does not per­mit evil and use it for His glory, then there really isn’t any pur­pose in the count­less atroc­i­ties that hap­pen every day. So when a fam­ily mem­ber gets can­cer we just have to call it bad luck, because God cer­tainly couldn’t have any pur­pose in such a trial. This view of God is unbib­li­cal and unhelp­ful in deal­ing with many coun­sel­ing sit­u­a­tions, as we will not be able to offer any sort of rea­son or pur­pose for someone’s suf­fer­ing. Hard times will undoubt­edly befall us, but we must con­front them with a bib­li­cal world­view. Our under­stand­ing of the prov­i­dence of God will help us respond to evil, know­ing that God is work­ing in our lives to con­form us to the image of His Son. In this way we can have hope even in the dark­est of hours.

Probably Related Posts

• Peacemaker Chapter 3: Trust in the Lord and Do Good
• Living Theology #13 — Creation
• Living Theology #17 — Angels, Satan, and Demons
• Living Theology #8 – The Existence of God
• Living Theology #11 – The Communicable Attributes of God (Wisdom)

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