ALL Things?

I wrote this on a message board, and wanted to offer it for your edification (if anyone reads this anymore).

In the thread, "Coincidence or Providence?" on the Crossings...

For some odd reason, I cannot sleep tonight (trying to adjust from Haiti), so I logged on out of sheer boredom lying in bed, tossing and turning.

My opponent said:

Many of these things are inevitable, but so many people try pushing the blame on God because they say He controls everything. I have problems with that philosophy, but this isn't the thread for that.

This is completely the thread for that, so don't be bashful about bringing it up.

Regarding your most recent post, you are way, way oversimplifying one of the most complex theological issues to deal with.

That's why we have sin! In His perfect sovereignty, holiness, and wisdom, He made Adam and Eve sin! He controls everything, so since He made the first sin occur, sin must be according to His will. If sin is according to His will, then what's the point of saving us from it? Isn't living in sin also living in God's will if sin is God's will?

This is in reality a gross misstatement of what the will of God is, which relates directly to what Providence is. If God is working all things together for our good (Romans 8:28), He works all things after the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11), ordered and secured all things (1 Samuel 23:5), from whose hand all things come (1 Chronicles 29:14), who can do all things and whose purposes none are frustrated (Job 42:2), the God we cry to because He accomplishes all things for our happiness in Him (Psalm 57:2), to whom belongs all things (Psalm 119:91), through whom all things are possible (Matthew 19:26; Mark 9:23; 10:27), through whom all things came into being (John 1:3)....

And if our God is in the heavens and He does whatever He pleases (Psalm 115:3), and if He has shut up all in disobedience in order that He might show mercy to all (Romans 11:32), and if He was willing to make His wrath and power known on vessels of wrath prepared beforehand for destruction so that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy prepared beforehand for glory (Romans 9:23-24), and if He inflicts pain and gives relief, wounds and His hands also heal (Job 5:18), and if no one speaks unless the LORD has commanded it, from whose mouth both good and ill go forth (Lamentations 3:37-38), and if He has even made the wicked for the day of evil (Proverbs 16:4), and if Job didn't sin by saying that we should receive both good and evil at the hand of the LORD (Job 2:10), and if He has mercy on whom He has mercy and hardens whom He hardens (Romans 9:18)....

Your objection ends up sounding just like the anticipated objections from Paul's opponents in the book of Romans.

But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), "Let us do evil that good may come"? Their condemnation is just. (3:7-8)

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we, who have died to sin, still live in it? What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Therefore, what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. (6:1-2, 15, 21)

You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" (9:19)

We must come to some sort of grip on these passages. Paul argues in Romans 3:1-6 and 9:23-24 that if you want to glorify God by sinning, prepare to see His wrath manifested against you. But that is not how His children glorify God. He is most glorified in us when we are recipients of His mercy. The outcome of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), but even the murder of Christ, the most sinful act of history, was ordained by God (Acts 2:23; Isaiah 53:10), which resulted in His receiving much glory.

Certainly God has a revealed will, His moral law, also called the "royal law" (James 2:8), the "law of Christ" (1 Corintians 9:21), the "perfect law" / "law of liberty" (James 1:25), and we may disobey it and suffer the results from doing so (as numerous passages have consequences to our actions). But we err greatly if this is all we think about the will of God being, for it is this same God who says:

Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, 'My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.' (Isaiah 46:9-10)

The changeless omnipotent God said:

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares 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. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth And making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My my Word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.

Do we all know for what matter God always sends out His Word? No, we do not.

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)

All of this to say, do not limit your conception of God by boxing Him to being limited to the fallible, worthless whim of grass (Isaiah 40:6-7). There must be some sense that God ordains that evil be, but yet works it out so that He is just and man is guilty. I do not presume to exhaust this mystery, only highlight it with the above Scriptures (which are shockingly numerous). The cross that saved us from sin was not God's backup plan or second best. We have it so much better than Adam ever did (as Paul explains in Romans 5).

When I think of how God works all things according to the kind intention of His will, how He does all things to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy whom He prepared beforehand for glory, I have to agree with Paul in Romans 11:30-36 and give all the glory to Him who knows infinitely more than I do how to accomplish His purposes for His glory and my best good.

For just as you [Gentiles] once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of [Israel's] disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy.

For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN?

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.