Of Providence<\/p>\n
“…and that not by a bare permission”<\/em><\/p>\n This chapter has to do with God’s sovereign control over everything. \u00a0“God doth uphold,\u00a0direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions and things from the greatest even to the least.” This is what is known as meticulous providence, that everything— even seemingly random thoughts that go through our heads every day—was ordained of God down to the minutest detail, even before the foundation of the world. \u00a0Is this really the best way to understand God’s sovereignty?<\/p>\n On the opposite side of the sovereignty spectrum is what is known as open theism; God really cannot know our thoughts and actions before we do, but He can react to them with lightning speed. He is likened to a master chess player playing a billion games at once.\u00a0Surely this way of explaining God’s sovereignty is way off the mark.<\/p>\n What then do we mean when we say “God is in control”? As the Scriptures declare, a day is coming when Christ will “rule the nations with a rod of iron”. Christ will be in control then. But He is no less in control now, albeit in a different way. In fact, the awesome truth is that Christ was no less in control when He hung on the cross! “[Jesus], being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.” Acts 2:23.<\/p>\n The awesome truth is a mystery, an antinomy. God’s purposes are eternal and transcendent, even as they are worked out in the messy, often seemingly random events of human history.<\/p>\n It is not that God wanted Adam to fall, and so decreed it from all eternity. God deals with Adam’s fall to be sure; that is what the great plan of redemption is all about. “God is not willing that any should perish.” Yet it is also true that the fall did not take God by surprise. “The Lamb was slain before<\/em> the foundation of the world.”<\/p>\n Before. What does before<\/em> even mean to the One who “inhabits eternity”? God’s foreknowledge and his decrees are simultaneous. He is Alpha and Omega, at the same time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Of Providence “…and that not by a bare permission” This chapter has to do with God’s sovereign control over everything. \u00a0“God doth uphold,\u00a0direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions and things from the greatest even to the least.” This is what is known as meticulous providence, that everything— even seemingly random thoughts that go through … <\/p>\n