The Basics: God’s Providence
God controls, sustains, and directs all things so that they fulfill the purpose for which they have been created. This is often spoken of as “preservation.” As the Bible reveals that God created all things by his all-powerful word, so too, his same word governs the creatures he has made. God commands the creatures he has made to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:22). He commands the same of Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:28). God does not merely act upon creation as an all-powerful external force, he acts within his creation, sustaining, and directing every portion of it as the all-powerful creator and sustainer.
A Christian doctrine of creation establishes a Christian doctrine of providence. As God created all things out of nothing, so too, he upholds and sustains those things which he has created. Just as in the doctrine of creation, here too we encounter the triune God working in and through all that he has made. Paul lays out this connection between creation and providence in his letter to the Colossians, “for by him [the Son] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17). We read elsewhere that the Holy Spirit too was hovering over the face of the deep at creation (Genesis 1:2, Psalm 33:6). Thus we affirm that God the Father works all things in and through the Son, in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, nothing can happen that is outside the will, purpose, and superintendence of God. This is the foundation of a Christian doctrine of providence. The Creator maintains and directs his creation. He does not sleep nor slumber, nor is he ever caught off-guard or unaware.
There are several ways in which we ought to think about God’s providence. The first is that God controls, sustains, and directs all things so that they fulfill the purpose for which they have been created. This is often spoken of as “preservation.” As the Bible reveals that God created all things by his all-powerful word, so too, his same word governs the creatures he has made. God commands the creatures he has made to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:22). He commands the same of Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:28). God does not merely act upon creation as an all-powerful external force, he acts within his creation, sustaining, and directing every portion of it as the all-powerful creator and sustainer.
The doctrine of preservation should also be understood in close relation to “common grace,” in which we see God’s fatherly provision for all his creatures (cf. Matthew 6:25-35), and his divine image-bearers (Matthew 5:45). The importance of common grace is evident in Acts 14:17, when we read, “yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” God cares for and sustains all that he has made. His common grace bears witness to all his creatures of his goodness.
In fact, a brief summary of biblical passages demonstrates that God’s providence is said to extend over the entire universe. “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all” (Psalm 103:19).
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A Present Urgency
Written by Bruce A. Little |
Thursday, August 18, 2022
Over the last 20 years, there have been a number of insane turns within evangelicalism. These turns were not away from theology, but as David Wells said it has been a turn to a different theology. Most disheartening in all of this is that Christians in the pew have been cheated from the treasure of their birthright in Christ. With the passing of time, Christian leaders became more occupied with being relevant to the modern world than true to the God of the Book.In the Preface to True Spirituality Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984) confessed that in 1951-52 while living in Champery, Switzerland he experienced something of an existential crisis in his Christian life. The book is the conclusion of that struggle. He explained the struggle with the “problem of reality” of Christian truth in his own life. He was troubled by the realization that the “reality [of his faith] was less than it had been in the early days after [he] had become a Christian” (195). I think many Christians, if honest, would confess something of this struggle themselves if they ever stop to think about it. However, for Schaeffer this would not do, either Christianity meant something about living each day in the Truth of God’s reality and the reality of Christian salvation, or it did not. Although Schaeffer was convinced of the truth of historic Christianity, he was concerned with the growing weightlessness he experienced of the reality of Christ in his own life (Christ in me), a reality he had known in the early days of becoming a Christian. Unsettled by this lack of reality, Schaeffer determined to go back to the beginning of his confession of Christ to see where things had gone wrong for him. The crisis ended when the liberating truth that Christians have been freed from the bonds of sin because of the new birth. He explained that without this truth arresting him, the work like L’Abri would not have been possible”( 196). In fact, he says, “This book was published after a number of others, but in a certain sense it should have been the first” (195).
Over the course of the next several months, I intend to link this book with Schaeffer’s last book, The Great Evangelical Disaster.
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The Point of Christmas: Salvation from Sin
Do we desire a Savior who will come into our lives, cleanse us, forgive us, renew us, change us, make us holy, and give us, in the end, eternal life? That’s the kind of Savior Jesus is. Christ, the baby born to Mary, is God’s gift to us, and His work of salvation is the point of Christmas.
“What do you want for Christmas?” Asking that question of others is always a diverse experience. There’s the person who is ready with a long list of things. Then there’s the person who only wants one thing, or the person who is offended by the question, or the person who has no idea what they want.
Now consider what we would find if we asked people not, “What do you want for Christmas?” but, “What do you want for a Savior?” Perhaps we would uncover similar answers. We’d find the person who has a list of problems this savior would have to be able to solve. Then we’d discover the person with one major issue in their life they want the savior to solve. Maybe we’d find people who feel that God has let them down, and unless the Savior comes up big, it’s only going to make them more bitter. Undoubtedly, we would also identify people who feel like life is pretty good, and they’re not even sure they need a Savior.
The way we answer the question, “What do you want for a Savior?” reveals a great deal about the spiritual condition of our hearts. This answer highlights what is important to us and reveals what we believe our greatest needs to be. It discloses whether we are even aware of our need for salvation.
As we continue with our study of Christmas: What’s the Point? we turn to Matthew 1:18-25 to see that Jesus, the true Savior, came to save His people from their sins. There are three questions that must be answered as we use this passage to consider the salvation Jesus secured.
First, as we think about God’s provision of salvation in Jesus, what qualifies Jesus to be the Savior?
This critical question was important to the original readers of Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew wrote his account to a primarily Jewish audience, who were familiar with the Old Testament promises and prophecies about the Messiah. One of Matthew’s goals for this Gospel was to prove that Jesus is the promised Savior, starting this quest by establishing that Jesus was qualified to be the Savior. Matthew is intent on showing how it is that Jesus is qualified to be the Savior, the heir to the Davidic dynasty, even though He is not the biological son of Joseph.
Matthew first tells us, in no uncertain terms, that Jesus is qualified to be the Savior because He was born of a virgin. Notice in our passage that Matthew adds that Mary was with child by the Holy Spirit, indicating this was not unfaithfulness to her soon-to-be husband, but a miracle God performed by His Spirit in her. Mary’s Son was not a mere human but the product of the Holy Spirit causing her to conceive apart from any relationship with a man. The clear testimony of Scripture is that Jesus was born of a virgin.
What’s more, the virgin birth is one thing that qualified Jesus to be the Savior. We need a Savior who is free from the stain of sin, who is not under the curse incurred by Adam, and who can represent us before God. Any child born naturally would have the imputed sin of Adam and already be disqualified from being the Savior. A natural birth simply could not provide a righteous Savior who was undefiled and separate from sinners! In addition, our Savior also must be a mediator.
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Thinking Holistically
Written by Bruce A. Little |
Monday, January 16, 2023
From the very beginning in Genesis we see the stark outline of things to come and how we should understand the history of the Old Testament. Tamper with the early chapters of Genesis and one throws the history of the Old Testament into confusion. However, it goes further than that, it distorts the Christian relationship to the world which is ruled by the god of this age. It is easy to view cultural issues today as only moral issues and fail to see that they are the enemy’s attack on Christ’s Body, the Church.Francis A. Schaeffer wrote: “The Christian system (what is taught in the whole Bible) is a unity of thought. Christianity is not just a lot of bits and pieces—there is a beginning and an end, a whole system of truth, and this system is the only system that will stand up to all the questions that are presented to us as we face the reality of existence” (Complete Works of Schaeffer, vol 1, p 178).
In this quote, Schaeffer puts his finger on a growing problem with evangelicals today as they increasingly fail to think holistically when thinking about the Bible. Much of evangelical biblical thought, when it exists, is very fragmented. That means, one portion can be preached without concern for its coherence with another portion. That seems to be happening especially with the Old Testament.
For example, one text of Scripture that is, in some cases, being walled off from the rest of Scripture is the first three chapters of Genesis. It is concerning to hear some evangelicals promoting a “different” way to understand the first three chapters of Genesis. The logic of that position is that earlier Christians simply got it wrong. It seems, for example, that some Christians are embarrassed to speak of a real Serpent in the Garden. For one to say they affirm inerrancy of Scripture and then interpret the text according to science is incoherent.
However, one of the most concerning effects of this move is how it interferes with the truth of the spiritual warfare between the enemy of God and the people of God. From the very beginning in Genesis we see the stark outline of things to come and how we should understand the history of the Old Testament. Tamper with the early chapters of Genesis and one throws the history of the Old Testament into confusion. However, it goes further than that, it distorts the Christian relationship to the world which is ruled by the god of this age. It is easy to view cultural issues today as only moral issues and fail to see that they are the enemy’s attack on Christ’s Body, the Church.
Today, in the West, we are witnessing the evaporation of the distinction between man and woman even to the mutilation of children and a host of other humanity-defying acts. To put it bluntly, this is part of the dehumanizing strategy of the enemy that began in Genesis three. It is the lie that all cultural, political, and economic issues can be explained by an oppressor-oppressed template which is the height of relativism. It is not just a theological or philosophical problem; it is a devilish plan intended to destroy humanity itself. Without understanding that, any response to it will fail to be spiritual prepared for the battle. Of course, such ideology may have some sliver of truth to it, but it must not be rewarded for that. It is only a way to pull non-thinking Christians into supporting the base lie.
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