THE EXECUTION OF GOD'S DECREES

 

THE EXECUTION OF GOD’S DECREES

      Westminster Shorter Catechism 8

Quest. How does God execute His decrees?

Ans. God executes His decrees in the works of creation and providence.

Introduction

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God has foreordained everything that comes to pass. Therefore, what we see happening around us is God expressing His mind. To be sure, we mere mortals have trouble comprehending why many things happen. But when we look at the Scriptures we can see clearly that everything in creation is running according to God’s eternal plan.

In the following we’ll be looking at a subject very much related to what we have already considered in Westminster Shorter Catechism 7. Before we really get going here, we need to note what’s up ahead in the Catechism. WSC Q&A 9 goes on to tell us about God’s work of creation. And Q&A 11 goes on to tell us about God’s acts of providence.

Therefore, we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves at the moment. What we’re dealing with here is not so much: What are God’s works of creation and providence? But rather, the question is not what, but how? How does God execute or “carry out” His decrees? We are told therefore, in this Catechism answer, that to execute or “carry out” all the decrees God had from all eternity, He created all things, and still to this day constantly upholds them.

Creation

There are twenty-four elders around God’s throne in heaven who attest to God’s creating and upholding His creation. They’re the ones who cast down their crowns before His throne saying, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created” (Rev. 4:11). Thus the Triune God created all things by His own will. All things came into being by an act of His will.

So, we see then that God willed creation into being. Therefore, creation itself is in accordance with the will of God. God, from all eternity decreed to create creation, this creation. Therefore, this creation is the creation God wanted.

Think about it, there must be no end to the amount of possible creations God could have created, yet He had this model in mind. Of course, we’re thinking about this in terms of men. But the Triune God, the Almighty is not a man like us. That’s why the Lord in Scripture says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9).

So, we need to be careful not to engage in mere speculation about the deep things of God. We need to stick with what we know from Scripture. However, we do know that God has made the heavens higher than the earth simply because He decreed it to be that way. However, there’s nothing wrong with asking the question: Why did God decree it that way? And if we can’t find the answer to that question from Scripture, then fair enough! But surely this is a more Biblical approach to Scripture than the “blind faith” approach. The “blind faith” approach asks no questions of God’s Word. “Blind faith” is happy with broad generalities. “Blind faith” says that whatever God has done is fine but never asks what God has done!

But that’s not the way it is with real Christianity, is it? Real Christians want to glorify God in everything. Therefore, the real Christian wants to know, if possible, why God chose or decreed to create this creation and not any other possible creation.

When the real Christian considers the fact that God could have willed any one of an infinite number of possible creations into existence, he marvels. And he concludes that this creation must be the best possible creation God could have created for His own purpose. Otherwise, God would not have created the creation He created – as revealed in Genesis chapter one.

Now to be sure, there is any number of different things God could have done even with this creation model. However, it is God’s purpose for creation that is the key factor. God created this particular creation for a purpose. What is that purpose? Well, contrary to popular belief God didn’t will creation into being just so that man could do his own thing and try to ignore God. No, God decreed and willed this creation to appear simply for His own glory. For what is the chief end of man and every other thing? It’s to glorify God!

Now, some people (especially children), think God created creation because He was lonely. They think that God wanted someone to talk to, so He created man in His own image and likeness. But we know already that God is the Triune God, three Persons yet one God. The three Persons of the Godhead have an intrapersonal relationship with each Other. So, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had each Other to talk to from all eternity. Therefore, God didn’t will creation into being because He needs it.

You and I might get a car because we need a car. We need it to get around the place. Or we might buy some food because we need to eat. Well, God doesn’t need any created thing to be or to help Him be. God is self-existent, self-supporting. He is self-sufficient. Mere words fail to truly describe God as He is in and of Himself. God Himself describes Himself as the “I AM THAT I AM.” Therefore, God is the “always was, always is, and always will be” One. He is the eternal “I AM”. So, creating creation didn’t change God.

For instance, God didn’t expend any energy when He willed and spoke creation into being. He didn’t need to rest on the seventh day because He was tired or anything like that. God does not change. Therefore, creation didn’t change the Being of God. Creation did not and does not have any effect of God whatsoever. What God did in creating – and does in providence – is execute His decrees.

He had a plan from all eternity, and He put that plan into action. We call this action Creation and Providence. We’ve looked a little at creation and we’ve seen that God willed creation into being. And the purpose is for His own glory. If you will, God gathered His thoughts and set them in concrete on the six days of formation, as a glorious monument to Himself. No offence to bricklayers and such like, but perhaps it would be a bit more poetic if we said that God crystallized His thoughts in creation to reflect His own glory.

Now, we know that creation isn’t a stagnant and sterile place. We know that because we aren’t stagnant and sterile. We know this because things move in creation. Creation itself is not static. Stars run their courses in the night sky. Animals roam, birds fly, fish swim, grass grows, trees produce their fruit. The seasons come and the seasons go, and the weather changes.

So, God’s creation is not like Stonehenge, a pile of stones standing upon each other and nobody’s sure why, when, or for what. Creation isn’t a stationary object. It’s a moving and active thing, isn’t it? Some things remain relatively stable and in one place like Stonehenge. Yet even Stonehenge is going somewhere, isn’t it? The whole of the cosmos is in a state of swirl and twirl! Yet it’s all going somewhere.

So, we ask the question: What causes the cosmos, creation to swirl and twirl? What keeps the cosmos swirling and twirling?  What keeps the grass growing and the weather changing?

Providence

God from all eternity decreed to keep on upholding His creation. Have you ever seen those people with all the plates on the TV or in the circus? They balance spinning plates on the end of sticks. At any given time, they might have a dozen or more plates spinning on the ends of these poles. And just when it looks like one of them is about to stop spinning and fall to the floor and smash to smithereens, along comes the man to put some more spin on the plate. Well, that’s nothing like the way God upholds His creation! No, you see, God doesn’t have to run around looking for things that need to be upheld because they are about to collapse.

First off, God is everywhere present at once. He’s Omnipresent. Therefore, He doesn’t have to run around His creation. He is already there. And God is all-knowing. He’s Omniscient. Therefore, He always knows what’s going on everywhere in His creation. And finally, God is all-powerful. He’s Almighty, Omnipotent. Therefore, He is the One who sets things in motion. He is the Creator. He is the One who keeps everything in motion. He is the Preserver or Sustainer. And let’s not forget, He is the One who stops the motion of things. He is also the Destroyer, “The LORD preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy” (Psa. 145:20).

So, if a hair falls out of your head, God did it. If a sparrow drops out of a tree, God did it. If a man drops dead, God did it! As the Apostle Paul says, “For in Him we live and move and have our being…” (Acts 17:28). It is God who sets things in motion. He keeps things in motion. And He stops the motion of things. If it’s not God who does these things, then who or what is in control of God’s creation?

Now, to be sure, no human being would drop dead were it not for sin, (not necessarily his own sin). The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. Dying then has everything to do with God. For it was God who placed mankind under His judgment on account of our sin, Adam’s sin. And it’s on account of God’s curse that creation groans for rebirth (Rom. 8:22). Yet God is not the author of evil, which is to say that He didn’t cause man to sin. Man sinned against God of his own volition, his own free will. But we won’t get too involved in that now. (We’ll get into fee will in more depth when we get to WSC Q&A’s 11-19. And we’ll even find out more about God’s providence in Q&A’s 11-12).

For now, all we need to know is that Adam was the cause of mankind’s fall. And that God cursed the ground on account of Adam’s sin. If Adam were a plate spinning on the end of an upright pole, he refused the touch of the hand that would have kept him in motion. And you and I and all the rest of mankind rejected God in him. As fallen and shattered plates we don’t want God to put a hand anywhere near us in this our unregenerate state! Thus Man, the image and likeness of God, in Adam, like a clay plate, fell and shattered into pieces on the ground out of which he was formed.

Yet, God didn’t destroy His creation and man along with it. No, He continued to maintain and sustain it, which is to say that He continued to provide for His creation, even though the state of His creation had been altered due to the fall of man. So, when it comes to God’s providence, or God’s “looking after” His creation, things changed after the Fall.

God’s relationship to His creation before the Fall was different to Hs relationship to it after it. God’s relationship to His creation is always in covenantal terms even before as well as after the Fall. The Covenant, i.e., the everlasting Covenant of God, always remains the same. However, the terms of the administration of His everlasting covenant change. Whereas before the Fall God related to His creation creationally (I’ll explain what I mean by creationally in a moment), after the Fall God dealt with His creation redemptively. So, before the Fall the terms of God’s Covenant were creational. After the Fall the terms of God’s Covenant were redemptive.

Now, as you know, man was the crown of God’s creation. He was made in the image and likeness of God. Man was to rule over God’s creation as God’s vicegerent or God’s vice-regent, which is to say that man under God was to rule as king over creation.

Man was to go forth and multiply to God’s glory. He was to subdue the earth to God’s glory. And He was to rule over all the earthly creatures to God’s glory. In a word, man was to do all things in creation to the glory of God his creator. So, we see that God then dealt with man before the Fall in terms of the creation. This is what I mean by God dealing with man creationally.

When God made Adam, He wrote His Moral Law (which is summarized in the Ten Commandments) on his heart while entering into a Covenant of Works or Life with him. God put the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the middle of the Garden to test Adam as man’s representative. Although God knew the outcome from all eternity, God wanted to, as it were, see if Adam would remain faithful to God’s Covenant. (We’ll be looking at this in more depth up ahead, but for now I’m simply trying to establish God’s relationship to His creation at this very moment). God’s providence or upkeep of His creation, therefore, before the Fall, was all in terms of the creation itself, which is to say that His everlasting Covenant was, if you will, “built into” creation.

All of creation was held together in terms of God’s everlasting Covenant, which is to say that all things were governed in accordance with God’s eternal Moral Law; which is summarized in the Ten Commandments. The profound statement on a bumper sticker says, “God’s Law or Chaos.” Thus, the entire cosmos before the Fall was ruled by God according to His Covenant Law.

What we’ve just been talking about, and what happened after the Fall, is summed up in the words of the Lord’s Prophet Isaiah, “The earth mourns and fades away, the world languishes and fades away; the haughty [or proud] people of the earth languish. The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell in it are desolate. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left” (Isa. 24:4-6). Man then has broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore, the curse has devoured the earth.

So, what does all of this have to do with the providence of God? Well, before the Fall God’s creation produced life in abundance by the providence of God. Every green herb flourished; every fruit tree was prosperous. Every wheat field, every crop was a bumper harvest. And all of this was because God had blessed His creation. But when man broke the everlasting Covenant in Adam God cursed the ground for the sake of or on account of man (Gen. 3:17).

So, this means that in the providence of God creation itself began to work against fallen man. The broken Covenant meant a change in God’s relationship with His creation. It would be difficult now for man to go forth and multiply after the Fall. There would be stillborn children, sickness and death at various ages and stages. It would be much tougher for man to subdue the earth. Man would have to live by the sweat of his face. He would have to battle against thorns and thistles to produce his food. If he overworks the land, the land grows tired and needs to be rested before it will produce again. If he tries to force the land to produce by pumping it full of chemicals or whatever, he defiles the land and the streams and rivers around it.

He would no longer rule over the animals the way he did before the Fall. They would turn against him, and he would have a difficult time taming and domesticating them. The world languishes. It has become weak and feeble – and fallen man along with it!

So, you see then, that after the Fall God still upholds all things. The sun, the moon, and the stars in the sky still run their courses. Season gives way to season, and the grass still grows on the earth. However, the arrangement for God’s providence has changed. Creation remains in bondage on account of the broken everlasting Covenant. But God, by His grace has provided for the removal of His curse upon the ground and creation’s bondage. This He decreed in the counsel of the Godhead in eternity past. This He executes in space and time.

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“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption [or decay]…” (Rom. 8:20-21). God executed His eternal decree to deliver His mankind (including the creation in which man dwells) from the curse and bondage by sending His Son as Deliverer. “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law…” (Gal. 4:4).

So, from the time of the Fall of the first Adam (and all of Mankind in him) God has dealt with His creation redemptively, which is to say that His providential maintaining and sustaining of creation has been in terms of the Covenant of Redemption/Grace.

Conclusion

When Westminster Shorter Catechism 8 says that “God executes His decrees in His works of creation and providence” we now know that this is simply God putting His eternal plan for His own glory into action. And, that it’s all done in accordance to His own everlasting Covenant. In eternity past He decreed to create all things and in time providentially to sustain them. But also, in eternity past He decreed to redeem His creation in time. Therefore, not only is God the great Creator but He is also the Great Redeemer.

As the Prophet Isaiah puts it, “You, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from everlasting is Your name” (Isa. 63:16b). And as the Apostle Paul puts it, “For it pleased the Father that in [Jesus] all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross” (Col. 1:19-20).

Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world – the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. In the execution of His decrees God by His wonderful acts of providence has provided us with a wonderful Saviour in Jesus Christ His Son. As the Apostle John records in Revelation, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created” (Rev. 4:11).

So, How does God execute His decrees? God executes His decrees in the works of creation and providence.