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A Guide to Christian Theology - Lesson 16

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Providence (Part 1/2)

Providence is God’s ongoing guidance of creation and events toward His purpose, incorporating human choices while emphasizing His sovereignty. Passages like Psalm 33 and Romans 8:28 support this. The lesson explores the tension between sin, suffering, and God’s justice and compassion, highlighting His anger at sin and love for sinners. It offers insight into the complex, multifaceted nature of providence and deepens understanding of God’s role in the world.

Gerry Breshears
Gerry Breshears
A Guide to Christian Theology

I. Introduction to Providence

A. Definition of Providence

B. Key Aspects of Providence

II. God's Plan and Providence

A. God's Sovereignty and Plan

B. Biblical Passages on Providence

1. Psalm 33

2. Romans 8:28

3. Ephesians 1:11

III. Common Agreements about Providence

A. God's Autonomy

B. Evil's Origin

C. Sin and Responsibility

D. God's Moral Character

E. The Irrationality of Evil

F. The Reality of Suffering

 


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Providence. It's one of those, again, very significant, very significant pastorally, and significant differences among views. But the general idea of providence, again, working from the notes, providence has three different sides to it. One is upholding his creation. We talk about providence, meaning God is upholding His creation, and then He's also directing all things toward His ultimate goal. Those are the two key aspects of providence. God has a plan by which He is upholding creation. If God quit paying attention to the world, it would just kind of wink out, but He's sustaining the creation. But the fundamental idea of providence is God is guiding, governing, directing the universe to an ultimate goal, and so we're talking about there is how that works out.

What I'm talking about here, just in the beginning, is things that everybody agrees on in this definition. His plan includes all the decisions and actions of persons who act free and responsibly. Somehow our choices fit into His plan. We talked about sovereignty already. There's some differences opposed to that, but what it's saying here is God is working things according to His plan. If I come back and look at, say, Psalm 33, it's such a fabulous Psalm. "Sing joy for the Lord, you righteous. It's fitting to praise him. Sing good songs." Get a worship leader who can play skillfully.

Verse five, "God loves righteous and just as the earth is full of [inaudible], by the word of the Lord, the heavens are made, the starry host by the breath of His mouth," talking about creation, His work over the rulers, let all the earth fear him. Then Verse 10 begins the idea of providence. "The Lord foils the plans of the nations. He thwarts the purposes of the peoples," so the nations, those are the evildoers, are worshiping, serving others gods. He foils their plans. He thwarts their purposes, but Verse 11, "The plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations."

That's the heart of providence, right there, is God has a plan and His plan stands firm and He is working. Or Verse 14, "He watches overall who live on earth. He forms the hearts of all, considers everything they do, no king is saved," and so on. That's a key passage we're looking at when we think of providence is God is the one who is overseeing and directing. We find this in a number of other passages.

One of the famous passages is Romans 8:28 in New American Standard. It says here, "We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love God are called according to His purpose." That's, again, a standard view for providence, and we'll look at that one as we dig into this a bit.

The other one we're going to look at is Ephesians, Chapter 1, Verse 11. We just looked at Ephesians, Chapter 1, the earlier part of it, and I suggested to you from my view, this is God having eternal plan for us in Him to be a beautiful bride for His precious son. Well, what about Verse 11? Actually, starting back in Verse 10, "We have a view to administration suitable to the fullness of times that is a summing up of all things in Christ, things in heavens, things under the earth. In Him also we've attained an inheritance, having been predestined, according to purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His will." Ephesians 1:11, "God works all things after the council of His will."

That's an obvious governance thing. We're talking about God as the governor and ruler of the universe, and we could go to many passages that talk about that. God works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we first hope in Christ would be to the praise His glory. When I think about providence, just in a general context, some things we would all agree on. God doesn't give account to anyone, and that sounds so obvious, but it's really significant.

There's no power, no force that God has to justify Himself to. When He decides to act, it happens. In Psalm 33, He makes it clear. No one can frustrate Him. When He decides to act, nobody can stop Him and that we all agree on. It's pretty clear in scripture. God is the ultimate. There's at the God level, He's the only up there. Whatever's down below Him, all the angels, all the demons, all the humans, all those other things are under His leadership.

Another thing we would all agree on is evil is a result of morally significant free actions of God's creatures. Again, we all agree on that. Evil is a result of morally significant actions of God's creatures. God never ever does evil and He never ever makes someone else do evil. All Christians agree on that. Even really hard Calvinists would agree on that. God renders things certain, but He's not making anybody do evil against their will. That would be an agreement.

Another thing is that sin is really evil, and moral agents, humans and angels, are responsible for their sinful choices. Again, fundamental thing everybody agrees on is that sin is really sin. Can God use sin to accomplish a greater purpose? Yes, many would say that. Can God work good in the context of sin? Yes, we would say that, but we're all going to agree that sin really is a violation of God's command and it really is evil. We would say really, truly God is angry at sin. God is really, truly angry.

Why? Because it's in the scripture. Well, if God ordained it, how can he be angry about it? Put that off for a minute. It's very clear in scripture that God is angry at evil. The other side of it is He's very compassionate and loving enough to come, call and die for those same sinners that He's angry at. Now, to me, this is fundamentally important. God is both really angry at sin and compassionate and loving enough to come and die for those very sinners. Those are both true at the same time. That's complex emotion, to be sure, but that's critically important as we approach this.

We would all agree that God is too good to do evil and too wise to make a mistake. We would all agree on that. God is too good to do evil and too wise to make a mistake. God is too good to do evil. He is too wise to make a mistake. Again, these are all things we'd be coming to this debate. We would all agree that God is loving enough and powerful enough to do good in the worst evil. Again, everybody agrees on this. God is too good to do evil, too wise to make a mistake. He is loving enough and powerful enough to do good in the worst evil.

There's a lot of things we'll disagree around that, but that we all agree on, and there's a lot more we can say. But another thing we would say very much is that evil is fundamentally irrational. It makes no sense. There is no rational explanation for evil, and so when you try to explain it and can't, okay, don't worry about it, because it's irrational. Why in the world would creatures, angels or humans rebel against the God that we see described in scripture, except I want to do it my way?

We'll talk about sin soon. Oh gosh, there's so much more I could say here, but let me just say one more thing here. Sin really hurts. Suffering really, really hurts, and when we are in a context of hurt and pain, the thing to do is we should grieve. We should express our hurt. Psalm 13 is a very important psalm for me for a variety of reasons. In Psalm 13, written by David, the same guy who wrote Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd," and all that. In Psalm 23, he says this, "How long, oh Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?"

Now, you can put your emotion into that, but I see a man who is just hurting desperately for whatever reason. We don't know what the context is. He's deeply, deeply, deeply hurting. "How long must I wrestle my thoughts day after day and with sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?" Look at me, God. I think Verse 5 and 6, though, is not a resolution, but at the same time, it's a contrasting contemporaneous emotional feeling. At the same time, he is saying, "How long, Oh Lord? Will You forget me forever?" He's also saying, "I trust in your [foreign language], Your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in Your salvation."

I think when we do things with the deep maturity of a good theology of providence and a good theology of sin, that we will at the same time... God, why have You forgotten me? The agony of lost-ness, and at the same time sing, "I trust in Your [foreign language]," and somehow bringing those to where we can feel both of those at the same time is the goal of every spiritual blessing. I think that's what God's trying to work with us.

When I think about Providence, one of the things I think about is this thing of how do you deal with human suffering and real evil in the context of a God who is a ruler over all? How we come out on that, we've got to have the reality of God's compassion. We've got the reality of God's justice. We've got the reality of human responsibility. We've got the reality of human sin and genuine, deep, painful evil in our world. How do those relate? I'm glad you asked. I'm glad you asked.

What I'd like you to do here is just take a short break and just turn to Psalm 13 and Psalm 33 and think about it a bit. Ponder on it a bit. I did a lesson with a group called Call to Be Handicapped down at Cannon Beach Conference Center. I did it twice, but one of the times I did the three psalms as meditation. These are severely handicapped people. They're coming in and they're in beds and their powered wheelchairs together at Cannon Beach.

David was the leader and he has cerebral palsy. By the end of his life, nobody could understand him, but what a magnificent man of God. I did Psalm 3, Psalm 13, Psalm 23, and Psalm 133 in our four meditations where we took communion together. They're magnificent Psalms. Just take a break here for a few minutes and just look at Psalm 13. Look at Psalm 33 and ponder it, and then when you get ready, come turn your computer back on and we'll take a look at theories of Providence.

 

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