Providence

“Providence,” Pastor Brown, August 22, 2004

There is a sense in the Bible that the same God who creates is the God who shapes destinies and all of history. That sense permeates the Bible. There is everywhere a foreseeing, providential God.

Of course, some deny this. Deists—common in John Wesley’s day and our own—claim that God created the world, but being an unconcerned God, left the world to its devices. Those who know Jesus Christ declare it impossible that the God “so loved the world” with that kind of over-reaching goodness, yet could then forsake it. Christians see God’s hands and face in all the events and judgments of the world. In our view creation requires a “living” God.

God’s providence refers to God’s foreknowledge of and his provision for the needs of the world. God governs the world. Government becomes the sustaining activity of God. The psalms speak of God’s providence in various ways. But God’s aim always is seen as the fulfillment of his purposes for creation.

God has created and is still creating. In the beginning God spoke nothingness into something-ness. Today God’s creates in us new birth in faith. Ultimately, God will “speak the word” ans there will be an entirely new creation; the “re-creation.”

Most of this we understand; we were programmed to believe it, and nature confirms it. If we stumble in our theology, it isn’t over God’s plan for our lives, but over the quirky uncertainty of specific events in our lives. For example, as Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, they are disheartened, certain that retribution will be fierce and swift. Yet Joseph does a remarkable thing. He forgives his brothers. He tells them that though they had intended him harm, God “intended” their actions for good, “to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Gen. 50.20)

So we ask ourselves: Is God in control of every human thought and action? Some believe this so, particularly those who trace their Christian convictions back to John Calvin and the reformers. The Reformed Churches, the Presbyterian Church, the Congregationalist Church, and to some extent our Baptists neighbors might be expected to hold such to be true, but most other flocks of faith would conclude differently.

Methodists traditionally have seen God’s influence as “everywhere persuasive” rather than “everywhere coercive.” Methodists see it that way because they acknowledge the free will God graciously breathed into humankind. I might confess this to a friend by explaining that God implanted in us a notion of loving relationship in perfect freedom. What God has implanted in us, he calls us to employ.

Thus, God’s grace is persuasive, yet it can be resisted. Our experience tells us this, and so does the Bible. But grace is unique. It provides what it is we need for real life; not the shadowy eternal life to come, but the real thing, now. Grace is sufficiently powerful that in the long run there is a sort of inevitability to it. Perhaps that is what Joseph had in mind when he said, “What you
intended for harm, God intended for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

God’s providence assures that God has the ultimate victory, yet our God must allow for short term contingencies caused by our free will. God does, because he esteems and values us enough that he gave us both responsibility and choice. For example, God didn’t compel the brothers to sell Joseph into slavery. The brothers freely made a hurtful choice, one contrary to God’s nature, and God allowed them to do that. But building on the opportunity, God led Joseph to repent of his childish ways. Like a quarterback calling an audible at the line of scrimmage, God saw a hurtful situation as the opportunity to offer Joseph an occasion for repentance. God poured his grace upon Joseph, and—give the glory to God!—-Joseph turned away from his former ways and pledged himself to serving God in whatever station his changed life held for him

This is not Calvinistic determinism at work, but Godly providence. God means to govern the world and see that it bears fruit. But God is more imaginative than 16th century Calvinists reckoned. Perhaps we can understand it this way: God flows like a stream, around, through, and over all obstacles. In creating us in his image, he empowered us to act both freely and lovingly. If we locate the image of God imprinted within us, we tend to freely act lovingly. If we turn from that image and we tend to act freely, but unlovingly. All along, God waits to “work all things for good for those who love God, [those] who are called according to his purposes.” (Romans 8.28) “For those he foreknew he also predestined . . . and those whom he predestined he also called.” (Romans 8.29-30)

The American philosopher William James used the analogy of a chess master to make this point. The chess master can easily defeat a less skilled opponent or even a dozen such opponents simultaneously. Although the master doesn’t know in advance the moves the opponents will make, the master’s skill is so far greater than his opponents’ that he can always bring about an end position in which he is assured of victory. To say that God foreknows “every event” only indicates the richness of God’s imagination. In Christ, God has provided for every possible contingency. That is why Paul claims that Christ died “once for all.” Christ had so ordered the world at creation that seemingly random human acts, though contrary to God’s ultimate purposes, end up ultimately serving his aims, that many lives would be saved.

Is this understanding of providence some radically new idea? Hardly. Those who compiled the Old Testament often saw God’s enemies as unwittingly serving God’s purposes. Thus one pharaoh can love Joseph while another pharaoh will fear and despise Joseph’s descendants. That’s the short term unpredictability typical of human choice. But even still, God’s overruling sovereignty is at work through Jesus Christ directing salvation history.

By God’s grace we become pieces on the board to be used to outmaneuver God’s enemies, but for this purpose: to cause them to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord of lords and King of kings. That he is simultaneously Servant of love and High Priest of hope. He is Savior both of the world now and the world still to come.