(WCF 3.1) God’s Eternal Decree: Why Anything and Everything Happens - James Hakim

 Last month, we considered how having submitted itself to the Scriptures, the WCF began where the Scriptures begin: God Himself. Now, WCF 3 takes place at the same time as WCF 2. That is to say that it takes place outside of time. The reason time exists, the reason that anything exists, the reason that anything happens is because God has wisely, righteously, and freely decided that it will. This decision takes place in God Himself.

“God from all eternity, did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will…”

Because men wish to be in control, this truth offends them. But it is utterly inescapable. From all eternity, there is only God; if now there is something else, it is because He willed it. If He is such a God as we have confessed from His own Scripture that He is, then He is perfectly powerful over it, and perfectly wise and holy in ordaining it.

“…freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass…”

If God is God, then it ought to be plain that this applies to “whatsoever comes to pass.” Perhaps as you have come to embrace the doctrines of Scripture as we confess them, you have found that this is immensely comforting. Even when there are evil entities intending and doing evil, God is good and has intended it for the good that He does in it (cf. Gen 50:20).

Nothing can happen except that God has intended it for the good of His elect (more on election next month, Lord-willing)! Ephesians 1:11 is one of the clearest assertions of “God’s Eternal Decree” in Scripture, and it is given precisely to bolster assurance and comfort: “in Whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him Who works all things according to the counsel of His will.”

In other words, the One Who predetermined to adopt us (Eph 1:5) as heirs (Eph 1:11) is the One Who works all things according to that same will. Because He works all things, we know that all of those things work together to make us His heirs. This is the great “good” in the “all things for good” of Rom 8:28.

So the great part of the answer to every “Why did this happen” question that a believer asks is: “because God willed it, in order that He might bring me into the inheritance that He is determined to give me.” Precious comfort!

“…yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures…”

We make real choices. In the Gen 50:20 example above, Joseph’s brothers had certainly made real choices. (The problem for us, this side of the fall, is that apart from redeeming grace we make only bad ones, and apart from restraining grace we would make only the worst possible ones). We have real freedom to exercise a real will. Thankfully, the good God can intend and do good through our (or devils’) intending and doing evil. 

Scripture does not argue this; it simply asserts it as fact. And, both Scripture history and our own experience bear this out. God has constantly intended and done good through men and devils’ intending and doing evil. The most obvious place that this occurred was the cross of Jesus Christ. Who would deny God’s intentionality and action at the cross? And who would deny the intentionality and moral responsibility of the wicked at the cross? 

As Peter preaches in Ac 2:23, “Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.” And as the apostles pray in Ac 4:27–28, “For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, Whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.”

God authored good, even in their authoring sin, accomplishing it exactly as He had ordained to do. Without this reality, there is no gospel.

“…nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”

We’ve already pointed out the liberty of second causes—those culpable actors through whose free actions God accomplishes His wise and holy will. How do we know that God has unchangeably ordained that their actions would be necessary, and that the ordained outcomes would depend upon the contingency of those actions? Because that is how it actually happens. And if it happens this way, then it must have been God Who decided that this is the way it would happen. The passages already quoted sufficiently show this.

One paragraph into chapter three, our Confession has already differentiated itself from much of what claims to be Christian theology at this time in our nation. But in doing so, it is plainly Scriptural in a way that safeguards the gospel of Jesus Christ and affords great practical comfort to the believer. “Why did this happen? This happened because God willed it, in order that He might bring me into the inheritance that He is determined to give me!”