HC Q. 28 — The Personal Advantage Of Embracing God’s Exhaustive Providence

As we take up the Heidelberg Catechism again we bump into this delightful habit that the catechism has throughout of pausing to make sure that the catechumen understands the impact of the doctrine they are being taught. The catechizers want the catechumens to know the application of the doctrines that they are being taught in terms of the impact of the doctrine upon the lives of those being taught.

Too often, systematic theology can be taught as an abstraction. However, the HC desires that our systematic theology, which includes, of course, the truth that God as Creator, in His providence, is the sustainer (preserver/upholder) and governor of all things. This is also a truth that provides advantage/comfort to God’s people.

Question 28: What advantage is it to us to know that God has created, and by His providence doth still uphold all things?

Clearly, the implication here is that those who do not believe in God’s providence, do not have the advantage of all that is involved in the answer. People who do not embrace God’s providence are bereft of the comfort we find in the answer.

Answer: That we may be patient in adversity;8 thankful in prosperity;9 and that in all things, which may hereafter befall us, we place our firm trust in our faithful God and Father,10 that nothing shall separate us from His love;11 since all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move.12

If we break this down in the form of an outline we get;

I.) The Advantages from affirming God’s Providence

A.) Patience in Adversity
B.) Thankfulness in prosperity
C.) Firm Trust in the character of God our Father that He loves us whatever befalls us

That adversity comes from God is a point that the HC labors to demonstrate again as it already has established from the previous question and answer of HC 27. The Psalmists ask,

Ps. 39:10, Remove Thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of Thine hand.

The HC teaches that because of the reality of God’s providence that when adversity (persecutions, hardship, trials, sorrows) does come upon us we can learn to be patient. Of course, patience is a virtue that characterizes Christians (Galatians 5:22) and as such we should rejoice when God’s providence works to the end of folding this attribute into the Christian’s life. As such, God’s providence is a means by which God works this particular fruit of the Spirit into our lives.

Secondly, on this score, we that adversity in our lives is an opportunity to thank God that He continues to sanctify us as His children. The deepest desire of every Christian is to be conformed to Christ and adversity is one means by which God conforms us to His Son. The joy in being conformed to Christ in adversity is one reason we can be “thankful in adversity.”

Samuel Rutherford understood somewhat of this point. A point that is made in Roman 5:3

 Rom. 5:3, And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.

“O what I owe to the file, hammer, and furnace! Why should I be surprised at the plow that makes such deep furrows in my soul? Whatever direction the wind blows, it will blow us to the Lord….Whether God comes with a rod or a crown, He comes with Himself. “Have courage, I am your salvation!” Welcome, welcome Jesus!”

Oh, what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus! who has now let me see how good the wheat of Christ is, that goes through His mill, and His oven, to be made bread for His own table. Grace tried is better than grace, and it is more than grace; it is glory in its infancy.

 

Samuel Rutherford

Maybe someday yet, I will have Father Rutherford’s maturity on this score.The second advantage in believing God’s Providence is that we can be thankful in prosperity. Oddly enough, it can be as difficult at times to be thankful in prosperity as it is to be patient in adversity. When things are good there is the temptation to forget that it is God’s providence that is the reason for whatever prosperity we are knowing and experiencing. Instead the HC teaches us that we are to be thankful to God who is the ground of our prosperity,

9Deut. 8:10, When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which He hath given thee.

1 Thes. 5:18, In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

There is nothing as unbecoming and inconsistent as a non-thankful Christian. Indeed, any Christian who is characterized by a niggardly, unthankful spirit is in danger of coming under God’s fatherly discipline.

God grant us grace to be genuinely thankful.

By learning God’s providence God’s people also have the decided advantage of knowing that the sovereign God of the universe loves them for the sake of Jesus Christ and that no matter what befalls us (comes into our lives).

Rom. 5:3–6, And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

The intent of this teaching of the HC I think is to anchor us in the reality that God is never absent from His people come what may and that because God is never absent from them, and because God loves them for the sake of Christ, they can be confident that even in the hottest fire God’s love remains steady and fixed upon them.

11Rom. 8:38–39, For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is more easy to affirm these truths when not in the cannibals pot of persecution but will we be able to be steadfast in affirming God’s love for us even when circumstances, read apart from God’s revelation, scream to the contrary? Are we ready to affirm God’s love when cancer strikes? When loved ones die?  When civilization begins to dissipate while we are watching? When the New World Order looks like it is going to run the table? In times of adversity will we be able to continue to affirm both God’s providence and God’s deep and abiding love for us because of the finished work of Jesus Christ for God’s elect. Let us pray even now for the grace to stand if and when those days of travail visit us. Let us pray that we might remember our catechism as it faithfully exegetes Scripture if and when Job like days of trouble arrive.

12Job 1:12, And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.

Job 2:6, And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.

(Note in the two Job passage’s above that Satan is merely God’s attack dog on a long chain.)

Matt. 8:31, So the devils besought Him, saying, If Thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.

Isa. 10:15, Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood.

In the end, this affirmation of God’s providence is naught but the old stout Reformed doctrine of God’s exhaustive and totalistic sovereignty.  This sovereignty taught in the Bible is not embraced by Rome, it is not embraced by the Arminians, it is not embraced by the Lutherans and alas, it is not embraced by many Reformed people today who, when this doctrine is taught, start screaming things like “hyper-Calvinism.”

However, this Heidelberg Calvinism, which exalted God’s sovereignty at every turn is what is taught everywhere in the pages of Holy Writ and people eschew God’s Providence at their soul’s own peril.

HC Q. 27 — God’s Providence; The Belief That Makes Men, Men

As we return to the Heidelberg Catechism in Lord’s Day 10 we are taking up the the meaning of the Apostles Creed when it says, “I believe in the God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.” In systematic theology when God the Father’s work as Creator is examined what is included also is God’s work as Sustainer (Preserver) and Governor. God as Father is Creator, Sustainer, and Governor of all things. When we consider God as Sustainer and Governor we often speak of God’s Providence.  The Heidelberg takes question and answer 27 to explain simply the meaning of God’s Providence.

Before getting into the question itself we should notice that the HC’s bold affirmation of God’s Providence removes all Deistic conceptions of the God of the Bible where God creates the world but then wanders off uninvolved with His world allowing it to run on its own mechanism and power. The character of God that the HC teaches is one where God, the Father continues to be intimately involved in His creation. In the words of Francis Schaeffer, “God is there and He is not silent.”

We see this in Lord’s Day 10 as it discusses the meaning of the Apostle Creed’s phrase, “I believe in God the Father, Creator of Heaven & Earth.”

Question 27 picks up the them begun in the previous Question & Answer.

Question 27: What dost thou mean by the providence of God?

With this question we learn, as mentioned earlier, that underneath the category of God as Creator, is the sub-category of God’s Providential control of all reality, from the blowing of a gentle breeze across a picturesque meadow, to the movement of great armies across vast plains. The totality of that control is seen in the answer provided by the Catechizers;

Answer: The almighty and everywhere present power of God;1 whereby, as it were by His hand, He upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures;2 so that herbs and grass, rain and drought,3 fruitful and barren years, meat and drink,4 health and sickness,5 riches and poverty,6 yea, and all things come, not by chance, but by His fatherly hand.7

Note here, following Scripture, that the Reformed faith embraces the nearness of God

23 “Am I a God near at hand,” says the Lord,
“And not a God afar off?
24 Can anyone hide himself in secret places,
So I shall not see him?” says the Lord;
“Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the Lord. — Jeremiah 23

Following Scripture, the HC affirms both the transcendence of God as well as the immanence of God. Because of God’s providence there is no where that we can escape the almighty and everywhere present power of God. God is closer to us than our next breath.

St. Paul likewise affirms this every present power of God;

Acts 17:25–28, Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed any thing, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring.

The totality of God’s providence is exhaustive. This confidence in God’s providence goes a long way toward explaining the absolute fearlessness in the Reformed throughout the centuries. People who believe that God controls all are a people who have no fear and so are a people who will wage all on doing the right thing before God’s eyes. People who believe in God’s exhaustive providence don’t consider what other people might be able to do to them. Those who believe in God’s providence are a dangerous people.

Note, the phrase in the answer to question 27, “He upholds and governs.” Therein is contained the idea of God as sustainer of all and God as governor of all. Not only did God create all, but He is the one who sustains (preserves/upholds) all so that all continues. God is the reason why life continues. It may be that some might account that there is a self-subsisting power in our life and being, yet life is of such a nature to make it clear that any putative self-subsisting power is contingent upon many factors. Clearly, were we not upheld and nursed by the power of God’s providence any self-subsisting power would be extinguished immediately and to dust we would soon return. Surely, it is in Him we live and move and have our being.

And that upholding and governing of God that is the Creator God’s providence is applicable to  “heaven, earth, and all creatures.”

Heb. 1:3, Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Nothing is outside the providence of God. Indeed, outside the providence of God — outside the sustaining and governing power of the God of the Bible — man would slip into nothingness.

Men who do not acknowledge this exhaustive providence of God are blasphemers. They are, in their existence, being kept by God all the while denying the reality of the God who keeps them. Anyone who denies this lofty and Biblical notion of God’s providence, at best, are Christians not yet matured. Such people certainly should not be allowed anywhere near a pulpit, nor should any esteem be given them.

This must be said because many “Christians” do deny this HC answer and do deny this Reformed doctrine of God’s exhaustive providence. How many Christians are ready to affirm that;

 that herbs and grass, rain and drought,3 fruitful and barren years, meat and drink,4 health and sickness,5 riches and poverty,6 yea, and all things come, not by chance, but by His fatherly hand.7

This doctrine of God’s providence teaches that all things come into our lives by the hand of a Sovereign God who loves us for the sake of the finished work of Jesus Christ. What a source of comfort this is to the Christian who is conversant troubles, and yet how difficult to bury this truth in the marrow of our beings. This doctrine of God’s providence is easily forgotten when God’s people are going through the fire of trials, persecutions, or sorrows.

The whole book of Job teaches the providence of God. Job never gets an answer to his why questions in the book of Job. What Job does eventually get at the end of Job is a series of questions put to him by God that bespeak God’s providence and that God being God is in control of all.

The Scriptures teach and the HC follows by teaching God’s people to trust God at every turn, including the turns that include adversity. This entrusting ourselves to God does not mean that we do not flee adversity if possible, nor that we should not resist wickedness if possible. It merely means that what men intend for evil, God intends for God. It may be that God providentially orders hardships in order to providentially order our response that will seek to escape or put down the mediate cause of that hardship when possible.

So, this doctrine of God’s providence does not teach a kind of pagan fatalism. We do not know that all God might be doing in His providential arrangement. We do know that when adversity comes to us in God’s providence we should repair to the Scripture to see what our response might be for any given ordained providential circumstance.

Note, how the HC goes out of its way to teach that things do not come to us “by chance.” Chance has no reality. It is a word that we use in order to explain something that otherwise cannot be explained. Even when we talk about the chances of a coin flipped coming up heads or tails, it is not chance that is making the coin come up one way or the other. Chance may be predictive but it is never causative. (But even in being predictive chance has to presuppose the God who alone provides the order wherein chance as predictive can exist.) Chance causes nothing. Neither does “luck,” — another word that is mistakenly used by people to explain causation.

No, for the Calvinist/Reformed, following his HC catechism, all things come to us by God’s Fatherly hand.

Christians use to affirm this every time they attended a funeral — often the most difficult of all of God’s hard providences — when they would hear the minister say, “The Lord Giveth, the Lord Taketh, Blessed Be the Name of the Lord (Job 1:21).” The Lord gives herbs, grass, rain and drought and He takes it away;

Jer. 5:24, Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the Lord our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in His season: He reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.

The Lord gives fruitful and barren years, meat and drink and the Lord takes them away;

Acts 14:17, Nevertheless He left not Himself without witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.

The Lord gives health and sickness, and He takes them away;

John 9:3, Jesus answered, Neither hath this (blind) man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

The gives riches and poverty, and He takes them away;

Prov. 22:2, The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all.

Job 1:21, And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

When that scripture is heard as echoed by the HC and believed it is a affirmation of the HC’s teaching on God’s providence. In all things the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh, blessed be the name of the Lord who, in His providence worketh all things after the counsel of His will,

Eph. 1:11, In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.

God’s providence is so exhaustive that even the falling of birds from the sky are ordered by the God of all providence who upholds and sustains all things according to His glorious will;

Matt. 10:29–30, Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

It is only because of God’s providence we can humbly nod and silently say “Amen” at the funeral committal service when we hear;

“The Lord Giveth And the Lord Taketh. Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord.”

Contra Mundum Journal Reviews “Saved To Be Warriors”

http://contra-mundum.org/index_htm_files/McAtte_R2kT.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2sBNBmFnRMagy00IlKH4J8NGe1gW2pAZCMq1G2YyyxH8rx7uHM_7O2kl4

Honestly, whoever wrote this review should write a book criticizing Radical Two Kingdom theology. The author of this piece is masterful at connecting the dots in the faults of Radical Two Kingdom theology. I suspect that this review of the book was written only as a platform to provide the reviewers convictions on the dangers of R2K. I am not opposed to that and am more than glad that the book I wrote could be used as a platform to put yet more lances through R2K.

I wish I know who the author was. Whoever it is, it is obvious that while I may have read my thousands of books so as to assault R2K, the reviewer has read his tens of thousands. The author of this review is informed and erudite and frankly in some instances it is clear that I should be learning from him and not y’all from me. Whoever this reviewer is, it is he who should be writing books attacking R2K. It really is a masterful piece of analysis on his part. I’d like to think whoever this is, he is 75 y/o Professor of theology who is retired humoring himself by reading the lesser lights out there.

He critiques me at several points, and at a couple of those points I might quibble, but the important point is that in the end he is attesting that R2K sucks wind as a theological model.

I might come back to this again with a few of my quibbles but I encourage all of you to read this review to get a even fuller understanding why R2K is heresy.

McAtee Takes On The Editor of the Babylon Bee

“Unpopular take: mass immigration could save this country. They are hard-working mostly Christian/Catholic people coming in. The Democrats want to immediately hook them on welfare and turn them into a permanent underclass voting bloc. We could prevent that by assimilating them.

It’s a fact that first-generation Americans are more hard-working, more appreciative of America’s blessings, and more likely to have traditional families. The democrats want to bring these people in, keep them poor, and destroy their culture, just like they did to black Americans.

They’re doing that anyway right now. Maybe it’s time for Conservatives to start thinking about a realistic plan for amnesty, assimilation, and welcoming these folks as American citizens before the Democrats can destroy these people.

These people coming in are culturally conservative. Who knows–they just might save our culture.”

Joel Berry
The Babylon Bee — Managing editor

Now, before we dissect this we have to keep in mind that “The Babylon Bee” is a publication dedicated to satire. As such it may be that Joel was being satirical here on his twitter account. If he was he outdid himself in terms of the use of sarcasm’s caustic wit in the service of attacking and exposing human foolishness. The fact that anybody could seriously believe the above quote might be the epitome of human foolishness.

However, we are going to treat this vapid and jejune quote as Joel being serious. In doing so, we would say that the first thing this torpid sentiment establishes is that conservatism is dead. Berry and the Babylon Bee sells itself as a conservative publication but this tidbit of wisdom (that’s satire) proves that conservatives means only slightly less liberal and even sometimes slightly more liberal. When someone tells me “I am conservative” my response any more is, “I am sorry to hear that. There are remedies for that you know.” We are far from the conservatism of Burke or de Maistre or even the later conservatism of Hamilton Fish III, John T. Flynn, or Lindbergh. Indeed being genuinely conservative today is like being a genuine unicorn. So, again, I would say Berry’s quote is one more piece of evidence that claiming to be conservative today means only that if Walter Mondale were running for President today the modern conservative would vote for him. Berry is conservative the way that Stalin was a moderate.

In terms of the text itself, first, Berry offers that he is going to give a “unpopular take.” Unpopular take? Is that why we are gathering record numbers of “undocumented workers” at the border? Is it because immigrants are unpopular that some put the number of illegals here at 30 million? Is Berry’s view being unpopular seen by the disappearance of any notion of border? Is Berry’s view being unpopular seen by the constant idiot cant coming from pulpits across America on the virtues of untrammeled immigration? Saying that his view is unpopular is like a teenager saying that the Homecoming Queen is hated by everybody.

Next Berry offers that “mass immigration could save this country.” I can only offer that if mass immigration saves this country then the country that is saved is not the one that needed saving before the mass immigration began. Is Berry thinking that the third world immigration is going to save us the same way the immigration of the Goths, Visigoths, and Ostrogoths saved Rome? This is just ignorance on stilts. If the immigrants had the capacity to save this country would they not have been the grist by which the countries they are fleeing from would have been saved? Their home countries they could not save but America the can save?

Next the genius from the “Bee” writes of this immigrant horde descending upon us that, “they are hard-working mostly Christian/Catholic people coming in.” I would encourage Mr. Berry to read Ann Coulter’s “Adios America” for another opinion on this matter. Secondly, how can Mr. Berry possibly know this? Do he take a poll of the people coming in? Did he talk to the MS-13 gang members slipping in? Thirdly, since when did Protestants (Mr. Berry is Baptist) equate Roman Catholic with being Christian?  Fourthly, I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Berry has even examined Central American Christianity/Catholicism, mixed as it typically is with syncretism and expressive more often than not of some form of Liberation Theology? Now, this might not be a problem since America is no longer a Christian nation in any significant sense. I would go so far as to say that if these immigrants were indeed Christian or even faithful Catholics that there is no way in Hades that our elite would be allowing them to pour in like water through ever possible crevice. Mr. Berry perhaps reaches the very apex of his ignorance with this sentiment.

Berry actually gets it right with his next pearl of wisdom. The Democrats do want the immigrants in, in order to hook them on welfare so as to be a permanent underclass. However, Berry (who I would guess is Republican) fails to tell us is that Republicans also desire the immigrants to pour in, so that there is a ready pool of cheap labor to work in Mega-Corporate organizations. Also, were these people as hard-working as Mr. Berry asserted would not these hard-working people eschew welfare? Secondly, on this score, does Mr. Berry recognize that all these immigrants he wants to allow in are already ripping asunder the welfare safety net? There will be no welfare to get hooked on should the immigrants keep coming. Actually, that might be good news because once the hammock is torn asunder the immigration will cease.

The last phrase of Berry’s first paragraph above is perhaps the grandest knee-slapper of them all. Berry proposes assimilating these foreigners, strangers, and aliens. Has Berry never heard of Putnam’s “Bowling Alone?” Putnam decidedly demonstrates that foreigners don’t assimilate but instead when people of different ethnicities are thrown, cheek by jowl, next to each other the result is balkanization and a refusal to interact. There will be very little assimilating and what assimilation that happens will result in heartache for both cultures/ethnicities that end up assimilating.

Under the banner of conservatism, Berry has proposed every New World Order aficionado’s  wet dream. Keep in mind that the cry of “assimilation” is merely the cry for the white man being replaced. Berry’s conservatism is in support of the replacement theory which intends to breed the white man into numerical diminution.

In the second paragraph of the quote above, Berry presses on to reveal his abject stupidity. Berry talks about “it’s a fact.” How does Berry know this? Has Berry investigated the track record of the “South of the Border” influx to determine that immigrants “are more hard-working, more appreciative of America’s blessings, and more likely to have traditional families.” That might have been true once upon a time with earlier European immigrations, but so far as I know there are no statistical analysis of the first generation third worlders that have come since Ronald Reagan’s first amnesty program. Having said this, I quite agree that Americans, generally speaking, do not know what it means to work hard, are not appreciative of America’s blessings, and no longer have traditional families. Indeed, I would even contend that Mr. Berry is an example of that. If the man was more appreciative of America’s blessings he would not be advocating third-worldizing America by means of bringing in the third world to populate America.

Now we turn briefly to Berry’s third paragraph above. Maybe it is time for Mr. Berry to realize that these people have already been destroyed as seen by the countries they are coming from and that the only end for amnesty and assimilation is the destruction of what little is left of traditional America. Now, just to cover myself, I have no doubt that there are third-worlders who could be fine upstanding Americans. However, generally speaking I agree with former President Trump who wondered  why America would want immigrants from “all these shithole countries” and that the U.S. should have more people coming in from places like Norway.

Mark my word, the immigrants will eventually be given amnesty — either in a dejure or the current defacto sense and the result will be the morphing of this country into a “shithole country.” We are already seeing this transformation in our major cities in America. The damage has already set in and the fact that “thought leaders” like Berry can’t see it is the stuff upon with satire feasts.