God’s Providence
Excellent series of articles by Dr. Russell Moore of SBTS
Christians have a unique perspective on the unfolding of history–whether on the broad, cosmic level or on the small, personal level of our own stories. We believe that God is king, and that he governs the flow of events around us. As Southern Baptists, we confess our belief with other Christians in what we call divine providence in this way: “God as Father reigns with providential care over his universe, his creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace.”
It is far too easy to confuse providence with a pagan vision of “fate” or “chance,” as though God were an impersonal force driving history along. Our confessional statement rightly though sums up the Christian consensus by noting that God rules “as Father.” God’s purposes in history have a goal, and that goal is not a “what” but a “Who.” The goal of history has a name, a face, and a blood type: Jesus.
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The same is true in our individual lives. Paul tells the church at Rome, “All things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). This isn’t a cheery “What don’t kill you makes you stronger.” The Bible doesn’t identifry everything as good. It says that every aspect of our lives is part of a goal to move us toward glory. That glory is itself part of a larger goal, that we’d be “conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:29).
Every believer’s story includes circumstances designed by God for our sanctification, to strip away from us everything that isn’t modeled on the image of Christ.
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All of human history is staging ground for the revealing of Christ–whether it’s the caravan of travelers that stumble across Joseph in a pit or the rise of the Roman Empire. In the same way, all the events of your life are pulling you toward conformity with Christ, for life in his Kingdom
The Extent of God’s Providence
Some of us think that God rules providentially over the broad parameters, the “big things,” but not over the incidental details of history or of our lives. But, as I’ve noted before, so much of history–and our lives–is itself detail driven. The Bible tells us God raises up and tears down nations and rulers–the kinds of spectacular things we read about in our history books and hear about it in real time on CNN. But Jesus also tells us that a bird doesn’t hit a window and break its neck apart from the Father’s care.
It turns out God saves the world through very minute and (it seems) random details. Apologist Peter Kreeft puts it this way: “If one Egyptian tailor hadn’t cheated on the threads of Joseph’s mantle, Potiphar’s wife would never had been able to tear it, present it as evidence to Potiphar that Joseph attacked her, gotten him thrown in prison, and let him be in a position to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, win his confidence, advise him to store seven years of grain, and save his family, the seventy original Jews from whom Jesus came. We owe our salvation to a cheap Egyptian tailor.”
Think of all the biblical prophecies that are dependent on the tiniest of details. What if Pilate had decided to whisk Jesus off to Alexandria, to protect him from the crowds? What if Judas had been murdered on his way to betray Jesus? What if the guards at Golgotha had decided to break Jesus’ bones to make it easier to pull him down from the cross? What if Paul had drowned in his first shipwreck because he wasn’t paying attention to a tidal surge, preventing him from taking the gospel to the Gentiles? We’d all be in hell right now. But God’s purposes aren’t dependent on chance or luck. He works all things out according to the counsel of his will.
The Mystery of God’s Providence
There’s also a horrible danger for humans to try to read divine revelation through the outworking of providence, rather than the other way around. That’s why the Old Testament is filled with warnings not to assume that God is blessing the wicked man, just because he’s flourishing right now. That’s why Peter warns against dismissing the Day of the Lord just because it hasn’t yet arrived (2 Pet 3:1-13). God is patiently bearing with evildoers. He’s working out his purposes in Christ. But judgment will come–and suddenly.
God doesn’t explain why he allows things to happen the way he does, in our lives or in the broader scope of history. It would be comforting, we might think, if God ended the Book of Job with the familiar “Footprints” poem, showing Job all the places at which God was “carrying” him–along with all the reasons why. Often we don’t know why God is doing what he’s doing. But we know God. We trust him, and, sometimes, we just shut our mouths and bow our heads (Job 42:5-6).
Challenges to God’s Providence
The major challenge to the Christian notion of providence though doesn’t come from a pipe-smoking heretic in a faculty lounge somewhere. The most dangerous sub-Christian theology of providence I can find is my own. It doesn’t show up in typed out discourses like this one. It shows up when I worry about the future–as though God does not have my future planned for me. It shows up when I’m anxious about how to pay for college educations or how to avoid my family’s genetic predisposition to heart disease or whether my church is going to do well next year. My fretfulness or my mistrust or my manipulation reveals a heart that doesn’t truly believe that God knows–or can do–what is best for me. These also reveal a heart that doesn’t yet fully get the goal of divine providence–conformity to Christ Jesus.
A Christian vision of providence ought to bring about a kind of enraged tranquility. Because we know the goal to which God is moving history–and us–we ought to cry out in anguish when we see what doesn’t please him–especially in our own hearts. At the same time, though, we’re not fearful. We know that no one or nothing can harm us apart from the Father’s permission (John 19:11), and God’s silence in the face of our suffering doesn’t mean God has forgotten us.