We see trouble; they see beauty. We see monotony; they see creativity. We see a nuisance; they see a story. Oh, how much we might learn from them, how much more we might see through their eyes. G.K. Chesterton writes, “Children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.” (Orthodoxy, 81)

One afternoon this summer, my 6-year-old came running through the house to find me. His eyes were wild with excitement. “Dad, you’ve got to come look — right now. Come look, come look, come look! Hurry, you’re going to miss it!”
We raced back to the living room, to the big window looking out over our backyard. From the day we moved in, that window has been our favorite room in the house. My son’s eyes searched one of the trees, searching and searching, and then he saw it again. “Dad, there! There! Do you see it? Do you see it?” And I did. Probably 25 feet up in one of our tallest trees was the backside of a big raccoon, comfortably perched out on one of the branches.
I mean, at first, we assumed it was a raccoon (too big to be a squirrel, too small to be a bear, too fat and furry to be a bird). We sat transfixed, watching that rear end — waiting for the animal to eat, or climb, or fall, or even just scratch an itch. Then it moved. Its tail swung down where we could see it, with its trademark black and gray stripes. “Dad, its tail! It is a raccoon!”
As I looked in my son’s eyes — and there was so much in those eyes — I saw a wisdom I once had and now sometimes struggle to remember. For that moment, he was my teacher, and I was his son.
Monotony or Creativity?
For the “mature” like me, raccoons are almost immediately a nuisance. They make homes under porches and climb down into chimneys. They tear away shingles and break holes in walls. When we see them, we reach for the phone to pay someone to come and remove them. Within a business day, if possible.
When my children see a raccoon, they see an entirely different creature. They’re not worried at all about the structural integrity of porches or the possibility of a four-legged home invasion. To them, animal control may as well be the KGB (just watch any animated movie with animal control workers). No, when they see a raccoon, it may as well be a triceratops. They don’t see problems; they see curiosities. They ask questions (lots of them): Where did he get his stripes? Why is he sleeping during the day? Does he have any friends? Can I pet him? We see trouble; they see beauty. We see monotony; they see creativity. We see a nuisance; they see a story.
Oh, how much we might learn from them, how much more we might see through their eyes. G.K. Chesterton writes,
Children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. (Orthodoxy, 81)
What 6-Year-Olds See
I recently felt my flabby imagination when our family went to pick KinderKrisp apples at a local orchard. Having tasted apples every week of their lives, it was our children’s first chance to actually grab one from a tree.
You could see their minds spinning, trying to connect the dots — they knew both apples and trees, but could not imagine them holding hands like this.
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Written by R. Fowler White |
Friday, July 1, 2022
God will intervene to destroy the present world with fire (2 Pet 3:4-10). And that last Day will not only be a Day of Destruction, but also a Day of Judgment. From His seat in the Holy of Holies in heaven, Christ will return to judge, and all will see His glory. Until that Day, we must bear witness of His return to judge. For all who would enter God’s presence on their own, there will only be unending agony and anguish. But for all who trust in Christ who submitted Himself to God’s judgment in their place and removed all the curse from them, there will be everlasting comfort and consolation. 

Continuing this series of posts on the Apostles’ Creed, we focus now on Article 7: from there—from the right hand of God the Father Almighty—He will come to judge the living and the dead. Just as we did with Article 6, it’s important to go back in history to get the most out of Article 7.
Remember the question that has haunted dying sinners since the fall: Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? In the liturgy of Leviticus, God provided Moses His answer to the question: only a man undefiled by sin and death is welcomed on His mountain. Thus God made known that the way to enter His presence undefiled was through the sacrifice and the priesthood that He required. Following God’s direction, Moses set up the sacrifices and the priesthood for the first old covenant worship service, and then he and Aaron were ceremonially cleansed to enter the Holy Place to meet with God and to intercede for the people. The drama of that first old covenant worship service was not over, however, when Moses and Aaron went into the Holy Place. No, the culmination of that service was when Moses and Aaron came out of the Holy Place to bless the people as the glory of the Lord appeared to them.
It is at that point that we engage with the seventh article of the Creed: Jesus our High Priest and King will emerge again from Heaven’s Holy of Holies, descending from His seat at His Father’s right hand. In other words, we confess what the Apostles heard when Christ ascended: This same Jesus, who has been taken … into heaven, will come back in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven (Acts 1:10). In the Creed, following Scripture, we confess His purpose in returning: He will come back to judge. As we know, depending on the context, the verb to judge can be negative, or positive, or both. Both is the Creed’s point. Christ’s purpose when He returns is to hand down His rulings, whether negative or positive. The Heidelberg Catechism, Question 52, makes this point well when it declares, He will cast all His and my enemies into everlasting condemnation, and He will take me and all His chosen ones to Himself into heavenly joy and glory. Here we can pick up again the events that unfolded back in Leviticus. After Moses and Aaron came out of the place of meeting, they pronounced God’s blessing on the people, and all the people saw the fiery glory of the Lord, and they let out shouts of joy and fell on their faces, overcome with awe.
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How should we respond to God’s decree, not just his decision to pass over some, but to ordain all things? Embrace it! Believe that God’s eternal decree has established the meaning of your choices. God’s working in you “to will and to work for his good pleasure” is why you can and must “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12–13). As your will and works harmonize with God’s good intentions you will joyfully praise, revere, admire, and obey God. God’s sovereign decree can become your comfort. 

When studying God one quickly has to answer challenging questions. How far does God’s authority extend? How much of what happens in this world is God responsible for? For those who take Scripture seriously God’s eternal decree cannot be avoided. Paul sums up what the entire Bible reveals: God “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). He wills and does all things. You must believe that. And in the abstract, for God to be sovereign is just what anyone might expect.
But the teaching gets hard when we apply it to specifics. How does God’s sovereignty relate to evil in this world? Does God’s decree undermine human responsibility? Is the eternal punishment of the wicked really God’s will? Clearly “this high mystery … must be handled with special prudence and care.” We must “deal with this teaching in a godly and reverent manner … with a view to the glory of God’s name, holiness of life, and the comfort of anxious souls.”[i]
God Sovereignly “ordain[s] whatsoever comes to pass” (3.1–4)
The biblical God is not local and limited. Either God predetermines everything that comes to pass or he is not God. If God is, then his decree is free, eternal and unchanging, holy, and comprehensive. God cannot be pressured to act. He never changes course. He never makes a mistake. And he decides all things down to common events, like sparrows falling to the ground (Matt. 10:29).
More personally, God’s decree extends to the predestination of some creatures for salvation and others for destruction. Like a potter, Paul explains, God has the right to make out of the same lump of clay “one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use” (Rom. 9:21). Just as the number of creatures God will make is unchangeably set, so is their character and eternal destiny.
Don’t misunderstand God’s decree.

God’s decree does not make him sinful. God is essentially holy; he cannot sin. But he can create humans who freely sin against his holy design while acting according to his “definite plan and foreknowledge (Acts 2:23).
God’s decree does not violate the will of his creatures. God’s hardening of Pharaoh (Ex. 4:21) was so in-line with Pharaoh’s will that Samuel can say Pharaoh hardened his own heart (1 Sam. 6:6).
God’s decree does not cancel the reality of secondary causes. “God has decided the end from the beginning, but the middle still matters.”[ii] In fact, our choices matter only because of the existence and actions of an eternally decreeing God.
God’s decree is not based on foresight or deduction. God knows what will happen because he has decreed it to happen, not merely because he has seen that it will happen.

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