Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop
Canon Theologian, Anglican Diocese of the South

God’s Providence For Such A Time As This
A presentation for Women of the Word

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Let us pray.

I. For the Universal Church
O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen (BCP 2019, p, 646).

Introduction: Things Too Wonderful For Me

Scripture recounts history, codifies law, sings songs, quotes proverbs, unveils prophecies, tells parables, reveals God and man in visions and dreams and sermons and conversations in all the various events of human lives and societies that span over a millennium. Then, from these histories, laws, songs, prophecies, parables, and revelations we — collectively and individually — formulate doctrines to answer our questions and satisfy our curiosity. The process of doing this assumes — wrongly, I think — that the truth, that what is really essential, is not the history, law, song itself, but rather some abstract notion contained in and separable from the form in which it appears. Jesus did not really need to give us the parable of the Good Samaritan, for example; he could simply have said, “Everyone is your neighbor,” because that is the truth, the essence, the real meaning of the parable. The story was just a container for the truth, and we can dispense with the container once we have the truth. And though we act that way, we know it is not really true. The message and the form in which it is given are inseparably joined.

A famous choreographer and dancer once premiered a piece. She was asked afterwards by reporters what the piece meant, to which she replied along these lines: If I could explain it in words, I need not have danced it. The dance was irreducible to mere words; it was not a container for some essential truth. The dance was the truth. In the same way, the history, law, prophecies, parables, etc., are not mere containers of some truth, they are the truth as revealed by God and experienced by God’s people.

Even so, we all practice this kind of reductionism when reading Scripture, knowing that it robs us of much of the richness of God’s revelation. We all practice it when we think about and talk about Scripture; the only alternative is simply to quote Scripture — the whole of it in fact, so that we leave nothing out. And, that is not feasible. So, we select and abstract.

Then, having abstracted from what Scripture actually says to get these nuggets of immutable truth — let’s call them doctrines — we try to systematize these doctrines into a grand, sweeping theology in which each piece fits together with jigsaw puzzle perfection to make a perfectly clear and pleasing picture of God, man, and creation. Some attempts to do this are better than others. Some leave puzzle pieces lying on the table; some force pieces to fit where the do not really belong; some seem to borrow pieces from other puzzles and distort the picture. None of the attempts are entirely successful.

I mention this because it is what we will be doing today. You have asked me to speak to you about the providence of God. But Scripture does not present us a systematic theology in which the doctrine of providence is perfectly spelled out. Instead, Scripture gives us history in which we see God working, sometimes with gentle love and sometimes with tough love. It gives us law by which God orders the life of his people and in which we see part of God’s will. It gives us songs and proverbs that extol God’s loving care in creation and in the lives of his people. It gives us sermons — think of the Sermon on the Mount — that challenge us to trust in the father-like provision of God. And from all of these things, we will attempt to build a doctrine of providence that fits with other doctrines into a grand theology. We will fail. But, if the effort causes us to love and trust God more thoroughly and deeply, it will be a holy failure and well worth our time.

One other caveat is important before we begin. I strive always to speak with the Church when I speak for the church. I have no desire to say anything novel or to give you my opinion about a theological matter. I want to tell you what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. On some things — the content of the Creeds, for example — I can do that because the Church has spoken with one voice. Providence is another matter entirely; the Church has not and does not speak with one voice on the details of this doctrine. While there are some basic notions of providence on which seemingly all, or at least most Christians agree, Calvinists do not view providence in the same way as the Orthodox or the Roman Catholics do. To complicate matters even further for us, the formularies that present Anglican doctrine do not provide a robust doctrine of providence. For that reason, Anglicans span the spectrum from Calvinism to near open theism. For the sake of full disclosure, I like to think I am a middle-of-the-road Anglican with no real sympathy for either end of the providential spectrum.

With all that in place, perhaps we should move now toward a working description — if not a precise definition — of providence.

St. Andrews Theological Dictionary offers this:

Providence refers to the benevolent oversight, provision, and purpose of God in directing the natural world, the flow of history, and the circumstances of each individual life.

I might simplify that a bit for our purposes:

Providence refers to God’s wise, good, and loving governance of creation, history, and individual lives as he shepherds all things toward his ultimate purpose.

Providence assumes that God is present and active in creation, in history, and in human lives and that all things are moving toward the fulfillment of his purpose. Even events that seem random — and may have an element of randomness in them, in fact — are nonetheless incorporated into God’s wise, good, and loving governance of all things and promote, or at least do not thwart, his purpose.

Being the heirs of the Enlightenment, we immediately want to know how God’s providence “works.” How is God active? How does he shepherd all things toward the accomplishment of his purpose? How does human free will fit into this, or is everything predetermined from the foundations of the world? What about evil: how does that fit with God’s providence to accomplish his will?

Here it is good to pause, and to listen to St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) in his own writing about providence:

Above all, we must not be overly inquisitive, either at the outset or afterwards (John Chrysostom, On the Providence of God, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood (2021), p. 77).

Or, perhaps we should pray Psalm 131:

1 O Lᴏʀᴅ, I am not haughty; *
I have no proud looks.

2 I do not occupy myself with great matters, *
or with things that are too high for me.

3 But I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child upon his mother’s breast; *
so is my soul quieted within me.

4 O Israel, trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ *
from this time forth for evermore (BCP 2019, p. 447).

None of this is intended to dissuade us from considering the topic, but it is a reminder to do so humbly, tentatively, and to trust in God even when we get no satisfying answers to our questions. It is a reminder of our fellowship with Job who, at the end of God’s self-revelation, said:

Job 42:2–6 (ESV): 2  “I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3  ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
4  ‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.’
5  I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
6  therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”

With all these cautions in place, let us begin.

Agents of Providence: Part 1 — Creation

There is no better place to begin than in the beginning, with the creation accounts as found in Genesis and the prologue of St. John’s Gospel.

Nature

A recurring theme in the Genesis account is God evaluating each day’s creative work with the assessment, “It is good.” Let’s take day 3 as an example:

Genesis 1:11–13 (ESV): 11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

What does God mean when he says the vegetation — the plants and fruit trees — is good? That it is lovely to look at? That the fruit tastes good? That the reality on the ground matches what God had “envisioned?” The Hebrew word translated as good is tov. While tov can mean beautiful or pleasing, the more common connotation — and almost certainly the one intended in Genesis — is functional, fit for the intended purpose. God intended the vegetation to be fecund, capable of reproducing through its seed, self-perpetuating for the good of animals and man who would feed on it. So, God created the vegetation with a purpose in mind and fitted its nature for the fulfillment of that purpose. In that sense it was tov, good.

There is a hint of this in St. John’s prologue when he writes:

John 1:1–5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The Greek term that is translated as “Word” is logos. It means far more than spoken word. It connotes the reason or logic inherent in something; you even see logos in our word logic. It can mean the character or nature of a thing. It can mean the end or purpose for which something exists. When Christ the Logos of God created all things, he gave each created thing its own logos: its own inherent nature and reason for being, its own goal and created purpose. All creation is infused with logoi, with meaning and purpose and direction. Saying that creation is tov is saying that all creation is imbued with logoi and capable of achieving the various purposes for which God created it. And that means that the entire created order is an agent through which God exercises his providence, his good, wise, loving provision for all things as he shepherds all things toward his ultimate purpose. More about this later.

The entire created order is an agent through which God exercises his providence — his wise, good, loving governance of all things — as he shepherds all things toward his ultimate purpose.

Humans

Continuing with the creation account, we come to the creation of man, male and female, and the commissioning of man for the unique human vocation:

Genesis 1:26–31 (ESV): 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27  So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

This is a rich passage; from it I will select just one point pertinent to our topic, though many others could be explored.

Note that God makes man, male and female, in the divine image. What that entails in its fullness, we likely cannot know. But what it connotes here, in this account, is relatively clear; the next sentence offers the explanation: “And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Being made in God’s image entails exercising a delegated dominion and authority over a particular realm. As God is to all creation, so man is to be toward the earth: to rule, steward, and shepherd creation toward God’s intended purpose. Man is to accomplish this purpose by being fruitful and multiplying, by filling the earth and subduing it. This command to subdue the earth is interesting. It implies that, while paradise (Eden) is rightly ordered to accomplish God’s purpose, the rest of the earth is yet to be so, that it is the humans’ work, exercising the delegated authority of God, to bring God’s wise, good, and loving governance to bear to bring the whole earth to its proper purpose. And this means that humans are God’s agents of providence in the world, that God exercises his providence — his wise, good, and loving provision for all things — through his image bearers. The Psalmist wonders at this in Psalm 8:

4 What is man, that you are mindful of him, *
the son of man, that you visit him?
5 You made him little lower than the angels, *
to crown him with glory and honor.
6 You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands, *
and you have put all things in subjection under his feet:
7 All sheep and oxen, *
even the beasts of the field,
8 The birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, *
and whatsoever walks through the paths of the seas.
9 O Lᴏʀᴅ our Governor, *
how excellent is your Name in all the world (BCP 2019!

Notice how the Psalm insists on two complementary truths: the LORD is our Governor, and he has given dominion over the works of his hands to humans.

Humans are God’s agents of providence in the world, i.e., God exercises his providence — his good, wise, and loving governance of all things — through his image bearers.

It is this great truth, the providential vocation of human image bearers, that provides the context for the incarnation. When the first humans compromised their vocation, as we will see later, God did not abandon his intent. Rather, he himself provided the perfect human who incarnated the fullness of the divine image so that God himself in his humanity might be the ultimate human agent of providence. In Jesus, the plans of the sovereign God are not thwarted by the weakness of human flesh.

So far we have seen that God exercises his providence — his wise, good, and loving governance of all things — through creation and through his human image bearers.

Social and Power Structures

God also exercises his providence through human social and power structures — kingdoms, nations, rulers — often by judging them or by using them as instruments of his judgment. Three examples should suffice here: Pharaoh, Babylon, and Cyrus.

Pharaoh

Exodus 9:13–16 (ESV): 13 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 14 For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. 15 For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. 16 But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.

God used Egypt providentially to feed and shelter Israel. Then, when Egypt exceeded its mandate, when it enslaved Israel, God used Pharaoh providentially to demonstrate God’s power over false gods and brutal human empire.

Babylon

Habakkuk 1:1–12 (ESV): 1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2  O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
3  Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
4  So the law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.

This is Habakkuk’s assessment of the corruption of God’s people. He continues, now, with God’s response.

5  “Look among the nations, and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
6  For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
to seize dwellings not their own.
7  They are dreaded and fearsome;
their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
8  Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more fierce than the evening wolves;
their horsemen press proudly on.
Their horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
9  They all come for violence,
all their faces forward.
They gather captives like sand.
10  At kings they scoff,
and at rulers they laugh.
They laugh at every fortress,
for they pile up earth and take it.
11  Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!”
12  Are you not from everlasting,
O Lord my God, my Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.

God used Babylon providentially to reprove and judge Judah, to drive them from the land for their pollution of the land through injustice and idolatry.

Cyrus

Isaiah 45:1–7 (ESV): Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have grasped,
to subdue nations before him
and to loose the belts of kings,
to open doors before him
that gates may not be closed:
2  “I will go before you
and level the exalted places,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
and cut through the bars of iron,
3  I will give you the treasures of darkness
and the hoards in secret places,
that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
4  For the sake of my servant Jacob,
and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
I name you, though you do not know me.
5  I am the Lord, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
I equip you, though you do not know me,
6  that people may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is none besides me;
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
7  I form light and create darkness;
I make well-being and create calamity;
I am the Lord, who does all these things.

God used Cyrus providentially — though Cyrus had no idea that he was being used as an instrument of the God of Israel — to return the exiles of Judah to the land when their time of purification was complete.

God uses human social and power structures as his instruments of providence, i.e., God exercises his providence — his wise, good, and loving governance of all things — through social and power structures, even those who are ignorant of him or who act against him. That last point is important. God uses providentially even those powers that are arrayed against him. More about this later.

God uses human social and power structures as his instruments of providence, i.e., God exercises his providence — his wise, good, and loving governance of all things — through social and power structures, even those who act against him.

Angels

Let’s bring this section to a close with one more notion. Thus far we have looked at physical and visible agents of God’s providence: creation, humans, and social and power structures. But, we must not neglect the invisible realm of creation, in particular, the angels. They, too, are agents of providence as Hebrews makes clear:

Hebrews 1:7 (ESV): 7 Of the angels he says,

“He makes his angels winds,
and his ministers a flame of fire.”

Hebrews 1:14 (ESV): 14 Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

Throughout Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments, we see God exercising his providence through the ministry of angels: protecting and guarding, judging and destroying, rescuing and comforting, revealing and proclaiming.

God uses angels as his agents of providence, i.e., God exercises his providence — his wise, good, and loving governance of all things — through angels who act as his ministering spirits.

Summary

We should pause to summarize what we have found before moving forward. There are two major notions:

1. When we speak of providence, we are referring to God’s wise, good, and loving governance of creation, history, and individual lives as he shepherds all things toward his ultimate purpose.

2. God’s providence is not a unilateral, autocratic action, not something that God does alone. Rather, God has created and empowered providential agents to work on his behalf and with his authority to accomplish his purpose. Those agents include natural elements (plants, animals, seas, etc.), humans, social and power structures, and angels.

Agents of Providence: Part 2 — Fall

The reason we are thinking about providence at all is that something seems to have gone drastically wrong with it. Just as we do not think about the air we breath until is it filled with pollen or smoke, so, too, with providence; when it seems, from our perspective, to be working well, we do not notice it. But, speaking frankly, the world does not seem to be under the wise, good, and loving governance of God. It does not seem to be under any governance that we can discern. Whether that is the case, is yet to be determined. But that something has gone wrong is obvious on the face of it. And Scripture agrees with that assessment.

Previously, we identified four agents of providence: nature, humans, social and power structures, and angels. Something has gone wrong with all these agents. Some have willingly rebelled against God and their God-given agency. Some have been deceived into abandoning the right use of agency. Some have been made unwillingly complicit in rebellion and abandonment. We will look briefly at the “fall” of each of the agents.

Angels

We start with the angelic rebellion.

Revelation 12:7–9 (ESV): 7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

This text is subject to varied interpretations, but the essence of it is clear enough; Satan and a group of angels rebelled against God, were defeated by Michael and the hosts loyal to God, and were thrown out of the heavenly realms to earth. No longer is this part of the heavenly host active agents of God’s providence; rather they scatter, accuse, and deceive the whole world. They are agents not of providence, but of chaos.

Humans and Nature

Notice that in Revelation 12, Satan is called “that ancient serpent” and is described as a deceiver. And that refers us to Genesis 3.

Genesis 3:1–7 (ESV): 3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

St. Paul views Eve’s actions not as an act of rebellion, but rather as a lack of discernment; she was deceived by the Serpent and transgressed (see 1 Tim 2:14). The consequences of this deception and the transgression of both the woman and the man were enormous: the humans were exiled from the presence of God (spiritual death) and deprived of the tree of life (physical death); they forfeited their dominion of creation; and creation itself was cursed to no longer perfectly follow its logoi, its divine purposes. We read that not just in Genesis 3, but also in Romans 8:

Romans 8:19–22 (ESV): 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

Now, humans and nature are no longer perfect agents of God’s providence, but are, at best, compromised in their ability to cooperate with God’s purpose. At worst, they actively oppose it.

Social and Power Structures

The sins of the fathers will be visited upon their children, we are told. And we see it immediately in the Genesis text. Adam and Eve’s first son Cain became a fratricide. Then when God drove Cain away from his presence, deprived him of his agrarian lifestyle, and cursed him to be a wanderer and a fugitive, Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch (see Gen 4), the first society and power structure. The city quickly became not only a place of culture and technology (e.g., music and metallurgy), but also of violence.

Then comes the tower of Babel account in which people banded together (society) to thwart the purpose of God who had instructed them to disperse and fill the earth. Rather, they chose to create a name for themselves by exercising the power of their technology to construct another city. From here, social and power structures spiraled downward toward rebellion and chaos. When people band together, the societies they produce never perfectly function as agents of God’s providence. In fact, tribes, cities, and nations are most frequently portrayed as agents of violence, idolatry, and chaos in the biblical text, not least Jerusalem. Judah, the Davidic kingdom, failed to be God’s agents of providence and so incurred the judgment of God.

Summary

It is time to summarize again. God, who could have “scripted,” micromanaged, foreordained every single event throughout the whole history of creation, who could have been the sole agent of providence, instead engaged and invited nature, humans, social and power structures, and angels to be his fellow agents of providence, to move that portion of creation within their respective spheres of influence toward his ultimate purpose, to wisely govern in his name and on his behalf. But, angels rebelled, humans were deceived, nature was subjected to futility, and social and power structures sought autonomy. None of these agents of providence fulfilled their purpose, and the results of that are writ large in our world today: demonic spirits still deceive and destroy; humans increasingly ignore God and create idols for themselves and of themselves; nature is out of kilter; and social and power structures seem both ineffective, polarized and, in many cases, brutal. So, the question arises: What does God’s providence look like in such a time as this?

Providence: Part 3 — Agency or Instrumentality

In spite of the current state of affairs — a state that has existed from the first moment of rebellion against God — here is the Christian conviction: God is still sovereign and is still exercising his providence — his wise, good, and loving governance of all things as he moves them toward his ultimate purpose. On this, I think all Christians — wherever they find themselves on the spectrum of the theology of providence — can agree. And, here I should also say that the advertised title of my presentation today is a bit misleading, though not intentionally so: “God’s Providence For Such A Time As This.” That implies that this time — our time — is in some sense unique, that it is perhaps so dystopian that it calls into question God’s providence more than other times have. But it is not. All time has always been such a time as this: sometimes a bit better or worse in degree, but never different in kind. And God has always been and always will be sovereign. God’s providence has not, does not, and will not fail. Certainly, Jesus’ time was such a time as this, only more so. In Jesus’ time he called out, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” Where is providence in that? And yet, Jesus moved from that anguished question to, “Into your hands, I commend my spirit,” as profound an expression of faith in God’s providence as ever uttered. And, read the Sermon on the Mount; it is a testament to the providence of God:

Matthew 6:25–34 (ESV): 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Read Revelation, which allows for no doubt that the rebellion in the spiritual realm will be defeated, that man will be redeemed, that nature will be renewed, and that social and power structures will find their fulfillment in New Jerusalem in and through the perfect reign of God and of the Lamb. The scroll that only the Lamb is worthy to open is the unveiling and unrolling of history as is moves inexorably toward the fulfillment of God’s purpose, guided every moment by God’s providence. Read the entire Pauline corpus. Throughout, it expresses the conviction that the Church is evidence and agent of God’s providence.

Here is another conviction that I draw from Scripture: God still uses angels, humans, nature, and social and power structures in his good, wise, and loving governance of all things, either as agents of providence or as instruments of providence. Here is the distinction I want to make. An agent of providence is a willing participant, a co-worker with God in his providence. An instrument of providence is a recalcitrant tool that God uses for his purpose in spite of itself. In both cases the agent or the instrument acts with free will and is responsible, and in both cases God uses the action to further his purposes.

Concerning this conviction as it relates specifically to humans, N. T. Wright and Michael Bird write:

Given authority over God’s world, the humans tried to use it for their own advantage. The results were clear: exile from the garden, the Flood, the half-built tower and the confusion of tongues (Genesis 3 – 11). But — and again this points ahead to the paradox of politics — the Creator did not unmake the original purpose…the call to reflect God into his world has clearly not been rescinded. Faced with disaster, God calls a human, Noah, to engineer the immediate rescue operation. He then calls Abraham to be his partner in the slow, painful work of new creation itself. The human vocation is not abrogated: God still desires and intends to work in his world through obedient humans, and he continues to do so even when that obedience is at best patchy (N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, Jesus And The Powers, Zondervan Reflective (2024), p. 46).

Scripture does not provide a robust, detailed, systematic theology of how this works, and it is almost certain that we could not understand it even if it were provided. Instead the Scripture offers us history, law, songs, proverbs, prophecies, parables, visions, dreams, sermons, conversations, all of which exemplify and point toward God’s providence at work in such a time as this. And it invites us — it compels us — to trust in the wisdom, goodness, and love of God that we see in Jesus Christ, and also in the sovereign power that was on display supremely in the death and resurrection of the Lord.

God invited Abram and Sarai to be agents of providence in the creation of a people and a nation through whom God would redeem the world. And then God used other peoples and nations as instruments of providence to reprove and correct his people Israel: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome — all instruments of God’s providence, all acting freely in their in own interests yet being utilized providentially by God and held accountable for their free choices.

Balak, the son of the King of Moab, sent to the prophet Balaam to say about the people of Israel:

Numbers 22:5–6 (ESV): “Behold, a people has come out of Egypt. They cover the face of the earth, and they are dwelling opposite me. 6 Come now, curse this people for me, since they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them from the land, for I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.”

But, in the end, God used both Balak and Balaam as instruments of providence to bless Israel, not once, but four times. Men acting freely out of fear and treachery and greed, nonetheless became instruments of providence.

And there were Joseph’s brothers who nearly killed him but who settled finally for selling him into slavery instead. Though it took years to see it, Joseph was finally able to perceive how God had used even their evil deeds as instruments of providence:

Genesis 50:17–21 (ESV): 18 His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” 19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. 21 So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

These themes run throughout Scripture: God is sovereign over all and he uses angels, humans, nature, and social and power structures as either agents or instruments of his providence. Willing or unwilling, we are all caught up into the providence of God. We, the Church, have the privilege and responsibility of being agents, and not mere instruments, of God’s providence. That is true and possible because, through the victory of the cross, we are redeemed, renewed image bearers indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit. We then become God’s agents of providence as we pray and worship. We do that as we discern and do God’s will in the world, as we do the work God has given us to do as unto him, for his glory and for the welfare of his people. We do that as we suffer for the sake of Christ, as we unite the “ordinary” suffering of our lives with Christ’s redemptive suffering on the cross, as we share in the suffering of others and provide what comfort and relief we can. We do that as we engage in spiritual warfare, as we work to heal nature, as we strive for holiness in social and power structures through whatever influence God has given us, confident of this:

1 Corinthians 15:58 (ESV): 58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

God never abandoned his intent that his image bearing humans be his agents of providence in the world, being fruitful and bringing order — God’s justice — to all peoples and realms. In Christ, God has defeated the powers that worked to thwart that purpose and has set us free to fulfill our purpose. The Church should be the community in which and through which God’s providence is made most manifest.

Our Time

And now, because I was asked and expected to, I will speak a word about our time, about such a time as this, not because it is special, but because it is ours. I will mention two specific issues that challenge our understanding of God’s providence.

First: we face a presidential election this year. The obvious truth is that one of two deeply flawed candidates will be elected. Donald Trump is an ungodly man who exhibits none of the fruit of the spirit, but rather greed, licentiousness, lies, and self-idolatry. Joe Biden self-identifies as a pious Catholic while opposing the Church’s teaching by actively promoting the in utero murder of children, sinful sexuality, and errant anthropology. Let me be clear: from a Christian perspective — as a standard bearer of the Kingdom of God — neither man is fit to be president and neither has any apparent interest in being the agent of God’s providence. But, one will be elected, and one will be used as an instrument of God’s providence, just as Pontius Pilate was used as an instrument of God’s providence:

John 19:7–11 (ESV): 8 When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. 9 He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”

God, acting through the free choice of the electorate, will allow one of these candidates a degree of authority for a limited time, and God will use that man as an instrument of his providence, perhaps to bless our nation or perhaps to rebuke and punish it. And God will hold that man accountable for what he does with that authority and that time. We need not wring our hands and wallow in anxiety at the outcome of the election — regardless of who is elected — because God will not be wringing his hands; rather, he will be exercising his sovereignty. This word from N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird expresses the proper perspective:

…just as humans, liberated from sin, can take their rightful place as the royal priesthood, so the structures of governance, the tendons and ligaments of complex human society, are in principle reconciled. God intends that humans should share in running his world, and should be held accountable. Structures through which this happens — though still vulnerable to abuse and distortion — are not automatically evil. On the contrary, they are thus in principle reaffirmed and celebrated. As with everything else in God’s creation, once they stop being worshipped they stop being demonic (N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, Jesus And The Powers, Zondevan Reflective (2024), p. 60).

Second: as of 5 March 2024, over 31,000 people — the vast majority of them Palestinian civilians — had been killed in the Hamas attack on Israel and in Israel’s retaliatory response. Most of Gaza has been destroyed, and, at the time of writing, the humanitarian situation is dire and famine is imminent. The situation has only worsened since then. Let’s be clear: evil men on both sides of the conflict have done this. Self-serving nations in the immediate aftermath of World War II set the stage for this ongoing conflict; social and power structures were complicit then and are still complicit today. It is not hard for those with eyes to see and ears to hear to perceive the demonic at work, not least in the demonizing of each side by the other. It is difficult to identify anyone seeking to be an agent of God’s providence in this, save for those working for and praying for peace and God’s justice to come. And yet, God is sovereign, and in his sovereignty he has allowed evil men a degree of dominion just as he allowed Adam dominion in the Garden. And, as Adam was judged, these men and people and nations will likewise be judged.

What are we to make of this? First and foremost we want the hostages released, the victims on both sides to be made as whole as possible. We want the destruction to cease and we want lasting peace with Godly justice to reign. But, we also want to know what God is up to in the situation. We want to know how this constitutes wise, good, and loving governance. We want to know what good can come from this tragedy that justifies the horrors of the killing on both sides. And, the truth is, the frustrating truth is, we are not given to know; we do not and we likely cannot know now. Whether we ever will know is an open question. We cannot know the details of God’s providence, but we can know — through faith and through the word of God incarnate — the reality of God’s providence. God is sovereign and will use even this great evil, freely chosen by agents of evil for generations, as an instrument of his providence.

We cannot know what God is doing, but we can know what God would have us to do. Acting as agents of providence, we can enter into the pain of the situation by sharing with the suffering ones in our prayers: prayers for wisdom and forgiveness and repentance and peace and justice; prayers that the nations of the world will exert their God-given authority to pressure both sides in the conflict for a cessation of hostility and the establishment of lasting peace with justice; prayers that God will raise up a newer, wiser generation of leaders who will put this generation of children before the last generation of blame and grievance. We can comfort those who grieve. We can support aid organizations who work to alleviate suffering. We can speak prophetically of the Kingdom of God to the power structures of this world. We can disavow the false theology that identifies the current nation of Israel with the chosen people of God, and we can reject the terrorism of Hamas — or of any such group — as a legitimate means of resistance and protest. And we can let the violence in Gaza remind us that there is violence in our own inner city neighborhoods, the hunger in Gaza remind us that poverty and hunger are endemic in our city and state and nation, the injustice in the region remind us that our own legal system is multi-tiered and weighted against the poor, the people of color, the immigrant. And we can work with the skill and authority that God has granted us to alleviate these evils. If we do this, a certain degree of good will have emerged from this evil conflict, and we will have acted as agents of God’s providence.

Summary

St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople and great preacher and writer of the Church, died in exile in 407; his had been a difficult life and a tumultuous episcopacy. Yet, looking back on it, in the midst of the physical, mental, and spiritual burdens of exile, he wrote to his daughter in the faith, the deaconess Olympias, the statement that, more than any other, expressed his confidence in the providence of God: “Glory to God for all things.” It is said that those were also his final words.

This great saint wrote a treatise on providence entitled On The Providence of God. Among the themes he expounds, two seem to me most pertinent. First, we must not be too inquisitive into the ways of God, for we cannot understand them. Second, we must take a longer few of things than is our wont: a view beyond our time and beyond this world. I would like to close, with an excerpt from his book:

Above all, we must not be overly inquisitive, either at the outset or afterwards. But, if you are so curious and inquisitive, wait for the final outcome and see how things turn out. And do not be thrown into confusion, do not be troubled at the start. When an inexperienced man at first sees a goldsmith melting the gold and mixing it with ashes and chaff — if he does not wait till the end of things— he will think the gold is ruined. And, if a man who has been born and raised on the sea and is completely ignorant of how to care for the land is suddenly moved to the interior of the country, when he sees the wheat that has been stored away and protected behind doors and bars, and kept free from moisture, suddenly brought out by the farmer, scattered, thrown about, lying on the ground before all passersby, and not only not kept free from moisture, but given over to mire and mud without any protection, will he not consider the wheat to be ruined and pass judgment on the farmer who did these things? But this condemnation does not come from the nature of what is done, but from the inexperience and folly of him who is not judging well, casting his ballot immediately at the outset. If he waited for the summer and saw the fields waving, the sickle sharpened, and the wheat that has remained scattered and unprotected and rotted and ruined and given over to the mire now raised up and multiplied, appearing in full bloom, having put away that which is obsolete, set upright with great strength, as though having guards and a watch, raising its stalk up high, delighting the beholder, as well as providing nourishment and great benefit — then he would be highly amazed that, by way of such conditions, the fruit had been brought to such abundance and splendor.

Therefore, you too, O man, especially do not be inquisitive about the common Master of us all. But if you are so contentious and daring as to rage with such madness, then wait for the final outcome of events…. But by outcome I do not mean only the outcome in the present life — for often it will be here, as well — but also that in the life to come. God’s economy [and here we might say God’s providence] is directed toward a single end in each of these lives: our salvation and good repute (John Chrysostom, On the Providence of God, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood (2021), p. 77-78).

And so, pondering the mystery of God’s providence in this and every time, we say with St. John Chrysostom: Glory to God for all things. Amen.