01.11. Creation and Providence.

11. Creation and Providence. The practical significance of the doctrine of the Trinity for the life of the Christian makes it beyond all doubt that Scripture does not wish to give us a deductive concept of God, but to bring us all personally into contact and fellowship with the living and true God Himself. It breaks down our ideas and concepts and leads us back to God Himself. And that is why it does not speak about God, but lets us see Him and shows Him in all the works of His hands. Lift up your eyes and see who created all these things. From among the creatures His unseen things, His eternal power and Divinity, are thought to be seen from the beginning. Not without His works, by reflection and reasoning, but from His works in nature and grace, God is known and glorified. That is why Scripture constantly points out to us the great works of God. It is both a description and a song of praise of the works of God. Precisely because it wants us to know the living, true God, it mentions His mighty deeds on almost every page. As the living God, He is also the working God; He cannot but work, He is always working, John 5:17; for all life, and therefore especially the perfect, infinite life of God, is power, energy, activity. According as the Maker is, His work is. As God is the Maker, the Creator of all things, His works are great and victorious, Psalms 92:6, Psalms 139:14, Revelation 15:3; true and faithful, Psalms 33:4, Psalms 111:7; just and merciful, Psalms 145:17, Daniel 9:14. These works include the creation and maintenance of all things, the heavens and the earth, mankind and his people, the miracles performed on Israel and the works which he accomplishes through his servant, Genesis 2:2-3, Exodus 34:10, Job 34:19, Isaiah 19:25, John 9:4 etc. And all these works praise him, they praise him for his work. And all these works praise Him, Psalms 145:10; yes the Lord rejoices in them, Psalms 104:31. He is the rock, whose work is complete, Deuteronomy 32:4.

All these works, by the way, are not thoughtlessly and forcibly brought about by God either, but at the most consciously and freely. This is already evident from the fact that He creates, maintains and governs everything through His Word. Speaking, commanding, He brings things into being, Psalms 33:9. Without the Word, which in the beginning was with God and was God Himself, not even a single thing was made that was made, John 3:13. In Job 28:20 ff. and Proverbs 8:22 ff. it is thus presented that God, having created the world, first consulted it with wisdom, viewed it and searched through it, so that now everything is made with wisdom, Psalms 104:24, Jeremiah 10:12. The same idea is expressed elsewhere in Scripture, that God brings about everything according to His counsel. Only here it is more clearly and powerfully expressed that all God’s works, in creation and re-creation, are not only a revelation of His thought, but also a product of His will. That is why, in human terms, all God’s work is preceded by a deliberation of the mind and a decision of the will. Therefore the name of the counsel of the Lord, as it appears for example in Psalms 33:11, Proverbs 19:21, Isaiah 46:10, Acts 2:23, changes elsewhere with that of decision, Genesis 41:32, Psalms 2:7, Isaiah 10:23, Isaiah 14:27, intention, Jeremiah 51:12, Romans 8:28, Romans 9:11, Ephesians 1:11, Ephesians 3:11, 2 Timothy 1:9, predestination, Acts 10:42, Acts 13:48,Isaiah 60:1, Isaiah 61:2, Matthew 11:26, Acts 17:31, Romans 8:29-30, Ephesians 1:5, Ephesians 1:11, pleasure, Isaiah 49:8, Isaiah 53:10 Isaiah 60:10, Isaiah 61:2, Matthew 11:26, Ephesians 1:5, Ephesians 1:9, and Paul speaks of the counsel and pleasure of God’s will, Ephesians 1:5, Ephesians 1:11. Of this counsel of God the Scriptures further teach that it is great and victorious, Isaiah 28:29, Jeremiah 32:19, independent, Matthew 11:26, indestructible, Hebrews 6:17, indestructible, Isaiah 46:10, and that it has authority over all things, Ephesians 1:11, even, for example, over the crime of the unrighteous to hang Christ on the cross and kill him, Acts 2:23, Acts 4:28. Because things and events, even the sinful thoughts and deeds of men, are eternally known and determined in the council of God, they are not robbed of their character, but on the contrary all determined and safeguarded in their own nature and nature, in their context and circumstances. Sin and punishment, freedom and responsibility, a sense of duty and conscience, law and justice, are all contained in the council of God. Everything that is and is done, is mutually related in the counsel of the Lord, precisely in the same way in which it appears to our eyes in reality. The conditions are determined in it as well as the effects, the means as well as the ends, the ways as well as the results, the prayers as well as the hearings, the pleasure as well as the justification, the sanctification as well as the glorification. According to this counsel God gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Thus understood, in the sense of the Holy Scriptures and according to the understanding of the Spirit, the confession of the ever-wise counsel of the Lord is a source of rich consolation. For by it we know that no blind chance, no dark fate, no unreasonable and unholy will, no unavoidable force of nature governs the world and mankind, but that the government over all things rests in the hands of an all-powerful God and a merciful Father. Certainly faith is needed to understand this. For we often do not see it, and man walks around on this earth in mystery; but that faith nevertheless keeps us standing in the struggle of life and makes us face the future with confidence and hope. For the ever-wise counsel of the Lord endures forever, has everlasting power. The creation of the world was the beginning of the execution of this counsel of God. As Scripture alone makes us know the counsel of God, so it is also alone that discovers the origin of all things and speaks of God’s creative omnipotence. The question of where everything comes from, man and beast and plant and the whole world, is an old one, but it will always remain on the order of the day. Because science has no answer to it. It is itself a creature and has arisen in time; it stands on the basis of the things created and presupposes the existence of the things it researches; and it can therefore, by its very nature, never go back to the time before things existed and never penetrate to the moment when they received their existence.

Experience, empirical research, tells us nothing about the origin of things. But even the thinking of philosophy has searched in vain for an explanation of the world throughout the ages. Tired of pondering, one has often finally resigned oneself to the idea that the world had no origin, but existed eternally and will exist eternally. This idea was then worked out by the philosophers in different directions.

Only a few have believed that this world, as we now know it, was eternal and would also continue to exist forever. This idea, however, meets with so many objections that it has been generally abandoned today. On the other hand there is the idea of evolution or development, according to which nothing is, but everything becomes and the whole universe with everything in it is in a never beginning and never ending process.

Now development is a wonderful thing, but it always presupposes something that develops and carries the germ of development within it. Development, of course, is not and cannot be a creative power which causes things and produces them, but at most it is an expression of the process which things go through once they are there. The theory of evolution is thus unable to explain the origin of things; it implicitly assumes that these things existed eternally in their undeveloped state. It starts with an assumption which is completely unprovable and thus rests as much on faith as the doctrine of the creation of all things by the hand of God. But the theory of evolution is not finished with this rather arbitrary assumption. It may say that things existed eternally in an undeveloped form; but it must then give some account of the original condition in which things existed and from which the present world has then been formed. There are now two answers to this question, depending on the school of thought in which one is moving. In the world we observe two groups or series of phenomena, which we commonly refer to as spirit and matter, soul and body, things unseen and things seen, psychic and physical phenomena. But this duality is not satisfactory; today we want to be monistic and derive everything from one principle. And so, naturally, one can go in two directions. On the one hand, one can say: matter was the first, it is eternal, and it has always had force as a property. That is the direction of materialism, (the doctrine of the material) which holds matter to be eternal, the original unchanging element of the world, and now seeks to explain the force out of matter, the soul out of the body, the psychological phenomena out of the physical. But one can also stand on the other side and say: no, force was the first and is and remains the basis of all that exists, and matter is a revelation, an appearance, of that force; the body does not create the soul, but the soul the body. This is the direction of pantheism, which holds the force to be eternal, the fundamental principle of all things, and from this force tries to derive the present world. This original force, present in all the world, is called by pantheism by all kinds of wonderful names: spirit, reason, will, etc. But it thinks of something quite different. But it thinks here of something quite different from what is usually understood by these names. It does not think of a personal God, who has intellect and wisdom, reason and will, but it regards that eternal power, even if it calls it spirit or reason or will, as an unconscious, reasonless and will-less urge which only in the course of man’s process lifts itself into consciousness, reason and will. This eternal force is not spirit, but is only called such because it can become spirit in the course of its development. In both directions, materialism (the doctrine of the material) and pantheism (al-Goddism), at the beginning of the development of the world, there is therefore a principle which is presented either more as matter or more as force, but of which in either case one cannot form a clear conception. It is much less something positive than something negative. It is not actually something definite, but only contains the possibility of becoming everything. It is not an entity, but only an incomprehensible thing that can be anything, an absolute potential (an infinite possibility), a deified thought-derivative; in the main, a substitute for the one true God, inventing something on which scientific man puts his trust to explain the world, but to which as little reality is ascribed as to the gods of the nations. The Scriptures take an entirely different course. What it says about the origin of things it does not offer us as the fruit of scientific research or for the sake of a philosophical explanation of the world, but so that by it we may know the one true God and place our trust in Him alone. It does not come from the world, but from God. Not the world, but God is eternal. Before the mountains were born and the earth and the world were created, yes from eternity to eternity He was and is God, Psalms 90:2. He is Jehovah, who is and was and shall be, exalted above all things, a fullness of unchangeable. And in distinction from Him the world has become, eu ever becoming. That which the Scriptures guard against in the first place is the mixing of God with His creatures. It cuts off at the root all unbelief, but also all idolatry and superstition. God and the world, as Creator and creature, are essentially separate from one another. As a creature, the whole world has its origin in God alone. There is no substance and no eternal power apart from God, but heaven and earth and all things are called into being by Him. The Holy Scriptures express this with the word create. In a wider sense she uses this word also for the works of maintenance, Psalms 104:30, Isaiah 45:7. But in a narrow sense it means that God has brought all things out of nothing. It is true that the expression that God created all things out of nothing does not occur in Scripture, but only in the second book of the 2Ma 7:28; and this term can also give rise to misunderstanding. For nothingness is not and cannot be the principle or origin from which things have come; for out of nothing nothing can nothing become. On the other hand, Scripture says that the world was brought into being by the will of God, Revelation 4:11, and that the things which are seen were not made from things which appear before our eyes, Hebrews 11:3. But still the expression: out of nothing, can be understood in a good sense, and also be of great service against all sorts of errors, as if the world were formed out of some substance or force which eternally existed beside God. According to Scripture, God is not merely the Former, but also the Creator of the world. Humanly speaking, He existed first alone and then the whole world came into being according to His counsel and will. The being of the world was preceded by a complete non-being, and to that extent one can rightly say that God created the world out of nothing. This is the explicit teaching of Scripture, that God existed from eternity, Psalms 90:2, but that the world had a beginning, Genesis 1:1. It is often said that God has done something, e.g. chosen and loved, before the foundation of the world, John 17:24, Ephesians 1:4. He is so powerful that He only needs to speak to make something be, Psalms 33:9, and can call things that are not, as if they were, Romans 4:17. Only by his will does he give birth to the world, Revelation 4:11; he made everything, the heaven and the earth with all that is in them, Exodus 20:11, Nehemiah 9:6; everything is of and through him, Romans 11:36. Therefore He is also the Almighty Possessor of heaven and earth, Genesis 14:19, Genesis 14:22, who does everything that pleases Him, to Whose power there is no limit, upon Whom all creatures are dependent in an absolute sense, so that they cannot move or stir without His will, Psalms 115:3, Daniel 4:35. Scripture knows nothing of an unformed, eternal substance apart from God; He is the sole, absolute cause of all that is and is done; visible things were not made from things that appear, but the whole world was prepared by the word of God, Hebrews 11:3.

If God, who is the eternal and perfect being, has created the world by His will, the question naturally arises as to why and for what purpose He has called it into being. To find an answer to this question, science and philosophy have always tried to make the world necessary and thus to deduce it from the essence of God. And in doing so, they have taken two different directions. Some have suggested that God is so overflowing and overabundant that He cannot control Himself, that He lacks the power over His own being, and that therefore the world has flowed out of Him, like the stream from the well, or like the water from a vessel that overflows. Others, on the contrary, have thought that God was poor and empty in Himself, nothing but a hungry, wanting will, and that He brought forth the world to replenish Himself and meet His need. In both cases the world is necessary to God, either to relieve Him of His abundance, or to meet His need.

Both ideas are completely alien to Scripture. It takes an entirely different, diametrically opposed position. According to these two ideas, the center of gravity is shifted from God to the world, and God is there for the sake of the world; God is the lesser and the world is the greater, because the world serves to redeem and sanctify God, who through excess or lack is unsatisfactory in himself. Although this thought is also expressed by men of renown today, it is indeed blasphemous. Scripture, which is the Word of God and stands up for God from beginning to end, expresses on the contrary decidedly and forcefully and loudly that God is not there for the sake of the world, but that the whole world with all its creatures is there for God, for His sake and to His honor.

God is the sufficient and complete one in Himself. He needs the world and no creature in any way for His perfection. Will a man be of benefit to God? Is it profitable for the Almighty that you are righteous, or profitable that you are perfecting your ways? Job 22:2-3. Man’s righteousness gives him nothing, and his wickedness takes nothing from him. He is not served by the hands of men, as if in need of anything, since He gives to all life, breath and all things, Acts 17:25. There was no compulsion or necessity in the nature of God to create the world. Creation is entirely a free act of God. It cannot be explained by the righteousness of God, although that righteousness is also revealed in the world, for to whom could God be indebted? Nor is it to be deduced from the goodness and love of God, although both also appear in the world, because the life of love of the triune God needed no object of love outside of Him. The creation rests solely on God’s power, on His eternal good pleasure, on His absolute sovereignty, Revelation 4:11.

This, however, does not at all imply that the creation of the world was a senseless act of arbitrariness. Here, as elsewhere, we must resign ourselves to God’s sovereignty as the end of all contradiction, and are thereby trained in quiet confidence and filial obedience. But nevertheless God has had His wise and holy reasons for this act.

Scripture shows this first of all in that it describes the creation to us as a work of God triune. When God creates man, He first consults with Himself and says: Let us make men in our image and after our likeness! Genesis 1:26. And so all God’s work rests outwardly on a counsel of God. Before the creation He consulted wisdom, Job 28:20 ff, Proverbs 8:22 f. And in time He "created all things by the Word, which in the beginning was with God and was God Himself, John 1:1-3, Ephesians 3:9, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:2, and in the Spirit, who searches the depths of God, quickens the creatures and adorns the heavens, Job 26:13, Job 33:4, 1 Corinthians 2:10. Thou hast made them all with wisdom, the earth is full of thy goods, Psalms 104:24. In addition, Scripture also teaches us that God has created, maintains and governs all things to His own honor. The end with which the creatures were created cannot, of course, lie in them, because the determination of the end precedes the means. Scripture therefore says in general, that as all things are of God, so also all things are through Him and unto Him, Romans 11:36. And it elaborates on this, when it mentions that the heavens honour God, Psalms 19:1, that God glorifies Himself in Pharaoh, Exodus 14:17, and in the blind man, John 9:3, that He does all the good in the world, and that He is the greatest of all. John 9:3, that He gives all the benefits of grace for His name’s sake, Isaiah 43:25, Ephesians 1:6, that Christ came to glorify the Father, John 17:4, and that one day all knees will bow and acknowledge His glory, Php 2:11. It is God’s desire to bring the virtues of his triune being to light in the creatures, and thereby to obtain glory and honor from all creation. For this glorification of Himself God does not need the world either, because it is not the creature that independently and autonomously increases His honor, but it is always Himself, who without or through the creature glorifies His own name and delights in Himself. God therefore never seeks the creature, as if it could give Him something He lacks, or could take away something He possesses. But the whole world in its width and length is a mirror to Him in which He reflects His own virtues. He always remains at rest in Himself as the highest good, and remains eternally blessed through His own salvation.

Scripture not only tells us that God by his will created the world out of nothing, but it also tells us something of the way in which this creation took place.

It begins by saying that God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning (Genesis 1:1). This beginning is the moment from which the things which received creation, existed. It was the beginning when God, who has no beginning nor can have the Word, which is with God and God Himself, was already of eternity, John 1:1, but in which all created things began to exist. Time and space also began then. It is true that these two are not independent creatures, produced by a special act of God’s power; in the creation story there is not a single word about them. But time and space are the necessary forms of existence of created things. God alone is eternal and omnipresent, but all creatures are as such subject to time and space, although in very different ways. Time makes it possible for a thing to exist in a succession of moments and therefore for things to exist one after the other; and space makes it possible for a thing to expand in all directions and therefore for things to exist side by side. Thus, in the same moment, time and space began to exist as their essential forms of being. They did not exist beforehand, as empty forms, to absorb the creatures; for if there is nothing, there is no time and space either. Nor were they created separately, alongside and with the creatures, and added to them from outside. But they were created in and with the creatures as the forms, in which they necessarily exist as limited, finite beings. That is why Augustine rightly said that God did not create the world in time, as in an already existing form or condition, but that He created it at the same time as time and time with the world.

Furthermore, the first verse of Genesis tells us that God created the heaven and the earth in the beginning. By heaven and earth the Scriptures mean here, as elsewhere in Genesis 2:1, Genesis 21:4, Exodus 20:11, etc., the whole world, the whole universe, which from the beginning according to God’s will is divided into two parts: the earth with all that is upon and in it, and the heaven, which comprises all that is outside and above the earth. So to heaven in the sense of Scripture belongs the firmament with the sky and the clouds, Genesis 1:8, Genesis 1:20, furthermore the stars, which are the host of the heavens, Deuteronomy 4:19, Psalms 8:4, and finally also the third heaven or the heaven of the heavens, which is the dwelling place of God and the angels, 1 Kings 8:27, Psalms 2:4, Psalms 115:16, Matthew 6:9, etc. When Genesis 1:1 says that God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning, then on the one hand this must not be interpreted as if this verse were only a heading above and a short summary of everything that follows, and on the other hand this must not be interpreted as if, with the act of God described in Genesis 1:1, heaven and earth had already been created in a perfect state. The first interpretation is contradicted by the fact that the second verse begins with and: and the earth (in the Dutch translation: de aarde nu) was desolate and empty. By this conjunction the story is continued, and to the first fact narrated in Genesis 1:1 a second one is added. The second explanation is therefore not plausible, since the heaven as sky and cloud only comes into being in Genesis 1:8, and both heaven and earth are only mentioned as accomplished and completed in Genesis 2:1.

Although we cannot speak with absolute certainty, it is nevertheless probable that the heaven of the heavens, the dwelling place of God, was already established at the first act of creation in Genesis 1:1, and that the angels were already given birth at that time. For in Job 38:4-7 the Lord replies to Job in a storm, that no man was present when He laid the foundations of the earth and caused it to sink to its columns, but that He nevertheless accomplished that work amidst the jubilation of the stars and the cheering of the sons of God, i.e. the angels. Thus the angels were already present at the preparation of the earth and the creation of man. But otherwise we are told very little about the creation of the heaven of heavens and its angels. After mentioning it briefly in the first verse, the narrative in Genesis immediately moves on to a broader description of the preparation of the earth in the second verse. Such a preparation was necessary because the earth, although already created, was still in a wild and empty state for a time, and was covered by darkness. It does not say that the earth was desolate or destroyed, as some have thought, who thought of a judgment pronounced by God on the already completed earth as a result of the fall of the angels. But Genesis 1:2 only says that the earth was desolate, i.e., in an unformed, formless state, in which no separation had yet been made between light and darkness, between waters and waters, between earth and seas. Only the works of God, described in Genesis 1:3-10, put an end to the desolation of the earth. And likewise it is said that the original earth was empty; it still lacked all ornamentation of plant and tree, and was not yet inhabited by any living creature; the works of God, which are enumerated in Genesis 1:11 ff, put an end to that emptiness of the earth, for God did not create the earth to be empty, but that people should dwell in it, Isaiah 45:18. The first group of works begins with the creation of light and introduces distinction and separation, form and shape, color and tone. The second group of works begins with the creation of the bearers of light, the sun, the moon and the stars, and then serves to populate the earth and provide it with inhabitants, birds and fish, animals and men.

According to the repeated testimony of Scripture, Genesis 2:1-2, Exodus 20:11, Exodus 31:17, the entire work of creation was completed in six days. Nevertheless, there has always been great freedom of thought and a remarkable difference of opinion regarding the conception of these days. No one less than Augustine was of the opinion that God had created everything at once and at the same time, and that the six days were not successive parts of time, but only points of view from which the rank and order of the creatures could be considered. On the other hand, there are not a few people who think that the days of creation are much longer than twenty-four hours.

Now Scripture speaks very definitely of days, counting from morning to morrow, which form the basis of the division of the week and of the feast days among Israel. But nevertheless they themselves contain data which oblige us to think of days other than our ordinary days, worked out by the rotation of the earth. In the first place, it is not certain whether what is told in Genesis 1:1-2 precedes the first day, or is included in the first day. In favor of the first opinion is, that the first day according to Genesis 1:5 begins with the creation of light and ends after the evening and the night on the following morning. But even if one includes the events of Genesis 1:1-31, Genesis 2:1-25 in the first day, one obtains nothing but a very unusual day, which was first darkness for a while; while the duration of that darkness, which preceded the creation of light, is not specified in any way. In the second place, the first three days, Genesis 1:3-13, were certainly very dissimilar to ours. For our days of 24 hours are worked by the rotation of the earth on its axis, and by the consequent different position opposite the sun. But the first three days cannot have been formed in this way, for they did alternate with the appearance and disappearance of light; but Genesis itself informs us that the sun, moon and stars were not formed until the fourth day. In the third place it is certainly possible, that the second series of three days were formed in the ordinary way. But if we take into account that the fall of angels and men and also the later deluge have caused all kinds of changes, also in the cosmos, Genesis 3:14 f., Matthew 4:8-9, Romans 8:20 f. and considering also, that in every field the period of creation differs in a remarkable way from the period of normal growth, then it may not be improbable, that also the second series of three days were in many respects unequal to ours.

Finally it also deserves consideration, that all that according to Genesis 1:1-31 and Genesis 2:1-25 took place on the sixth day, can hardly be limited within the boundaries of a time which is completely equal to our day. On this one day, Scripture records the creation of the animals, Genesis 1:24-25, and the creation of Adam, Genesis 1:26, Genesis 2:7; the planting of the garden, Genesis 2:8-14, and the proclamation of the test commandment, Genesis 2:16-17; the leading of the animals to Adam and his naming, Genesis 2:18-20; the sleep of Adam and the creation of Eve, Genesis 2:21-23.

However, the six days remain the creation week, in which the heaven and the earth and all their host are completed. They indicate the temporary order in which the creatures received existence one after the other, but at the same time they contain an indication of the rank relationship in which they stand to one another. And this corresponds to reality, as we still observe it daily. No scientific research can overturn it. Because in rank and order, the shapeless precedes the shaped, the inorganic precedes the organic, the plant precedes the animal, the animal precedes man. And man is and remains the crown of creation; the preparation of the earth ends with him. That is why Scripture says so little about the creation of the heavens and the angels, and confines itself principally to the earth. In the astronomical sense *) the earth may be small and insignificant; in mass and gravity it may be surpassed by thousands of planets and suns and stars; in the religious and moral sense it remains the center of the universe. It and it alone is chosen as a dwelling place for mankind; as a battleground, in which the great struggle is fought against all evil power; as a place of settlement for the kingdom of heaven.

All created things are summarized in Scripture under the name of heaven and earth and all their host, Genesis 2:1, or also under the name of world. The original words, which are represented in our Bible by world, sometimes refer to the earth as a globe or circle of the earth, 1 Samuel 2:8, Proverbs 8:31, and then again more to the earth as the dwelling place of mankind and in so far as it is inhabited by mankind, Matthew 24:14, Luke 2:1; sometimes they draw more attention to the world in its temporary, changing, transient form, Psalms 49:2, Luke 1:70, Ephesians 1:21, and then again more to the world as the unity and totality of all creatures together, John 1:10, Acts 17:24. Especially these last two meanings have a rich content. One can, as it were, always look at the world from two points of view; one can see it in its width and one can see it in its length. In the first case it is a unity, one coherent whole, but in that unity it shows an incalculably rich diversity. From the beginning, that it was created and formed, it contains within itself heaven and earth, visible and unseen things, and narrow. From astronomy = astronomy and human beings, animals and plants, living and lifeless, animated and inanimate beings. And all these creatures are in turn infinitely varied among themselves; among the angels there are thrones and powers, dominions and forces; among the human beings there are men and women, parents and children, authorities and subjects, peoples and nations, tongues and languages; and in a similar way plants and animals, and in a certain sense also minerals, are again divided into classes and groups, families and genera, species and varieties. All these creatures have and preserve, within certain limits, their own nature, which they have received from God, Genesis 1:11, Genesis 1:21 ff, and are therefore all subject to their own laws. They do not only exist one after the other in the sense that they were created one after the other and continue to exist in their lower or higher ranks, but they also exist side by side and continue their existence side by side up to the present day. Creation is not unified but multiform, and in its entirety and in all its parts it displays the richest and most beautiful variety. At the same time, the world continues its existence and development throughout time. Although everything God created was very good, Genesis 1:31, this does not mean that it was already everything it could and should be. Just as man, although created in God’s image, received a calling and a destiny, which he had to fulfill in the way of works, so the world, when it was created, was not at the end but at the beginning. It had a long history, a history of centuries before it, in which it had an ever richer and ever clearer revelation of God’s virtues. Creation and development are therefore not mutually exclusive; creation is the beginning and the starting point of all development. Because God created a world with an incalculably rich diversity, in which the different kinds of creatures have their own nature and in that nature received their own thought and power and law, only that is why development is possible. All development derives its starting point and at the same time its direction and its goal from this creation. Even though sin has interfered with and destroyed this development, God nevertheless fulfills His counsel, upholds the world and leads it to its final destination. When Scripture speaks of the world in this way, it implicitly assumes that there is only one world. In the systems of the philosophers this has often been thought of differently. Not only were and are many still of the opinion that there are several worlds apart, and that not only the earth but also other planets are inhabited by living and thinking beings. But the idea that different worlds existed one after the other was especially popular. The present world was therefore not the only one, but had been preceded by countless others and would be followed by many more. Some have even connected it with the idea that everything that is today existed in exactly the same way before and will return again later. Everything that exists is in a constant process; everything is subject to the eternal law of appearance and disappearance, shine and sink, rise and fall. The Scriptures pass over all these conjectures and imaginations in silence. It tells us that this world was created by God in the beginning, that it goes through a history of centuries, and that at the end of it there is the eternal sabbath rest which remains for the people of God. And likewise, it knows nothing about the habitability of planets other than the earth. She does learn that the world is infinitely diverse, that there are not only human beings but also angels, that there is a heaven as well as an earth. But it also maintains that only man was created in God’s image, that the Son of God did not take on the nature of angels but of man, and that the kingdom of heaven is spread and realized on this earth. In the same way, Scripture teaches us that the world is finite. This means, first of all, that it had a beginning and was created at the same time as time. Here the question of how long the world has existed is irrelevant. Even if it had existed thousands or millions of years longer than is actually the case, it would still never become or be able to become eternal, just as God is eternal; in that case it would also remain finite, limited and created in and with time. It is important to note this, because Scripture, which teaches a beginning of the world, also maintains that it will not have an end. Of course, in its present form, because the form of this world passes away, but not in its substance and essence. But even if the world, even if mankind and angels continue to exist indefinitely in the future, they remain creatures and will never be partakers of eternity, as God possesses them. The world exists in time and continues to exist in it, even if in another dispensation time is calculated according to a completely different standard than it is here on earth today. And just as with time, the world remains bound to space. It is true that the newer science has extended our circle of vision endlessly; the world has become much larger for us than it was for our ancestors; we dizzy over the number and size of the stars, each of which is a world in itself, and the distances at which these stars are situated from our earth are far beyond our imagination. Yet the world cannot be thought of as infinite, as God alone is infinite. It may be infinite, so to speak; but infinite and infinite are not different in degree, but in essence. We cannot think of time and space outside the world; we cannot imagine that we could reach the boundary of the universe somewhere, and then stare out into the void. But time and space stretch out as far as the world, and as far as they exist, they are also filled with the things created. But everything together, even if it goes far beyond our intellect and our imagination, is finite, because a sum of finite parts, however unspeakably great, never gives infinity. Eternal and omnipresent and infinite is God alone.

Finally, Scripture also teaches us to believe that the world is good. It takes some courage to pronounce this today. For although the eighteenth century was very optimistic, looked at everything from the best side and therefore taught that God had created the best of all worlds and that no better world was possible, the nineteenth and also this twentieth century have taken an entirely different look at life, the world and society. Poets, philosophers and artists teach us today that everything is misery, that the world is as bad as it can be, and that if it were just one degree worse, it could not be bad enough to exist. Whatever exists, so many think and speak, is only worth destroying. And while some therefore still want to enjoy life for what it is worth and chant the slogan: let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die; others surrender to fatigue and an idleness of life, or hope fervently for the future, for the socialist utopia, for the other side of the grave, for nirvana, which the present does not give them.

Scripture again takes its own stand on this question. It says, first, that the world was good, very good, as it first came into being by the hand of God, Genesis 1:31. Nowhere is the fragility and transience of life, the smallness and insignificance of all that exists, the depth and pain of suffering more poignantly and movingly described than in the Holy Scriptures. But it does not stop there, but continues in the third place, and declares that not in this fallen and guilty and vain world the good pleasure of God is accomplished; and from the destination towards which the world is led, this world may also be called good again; it is and becomes and remains, in spite of sin, a means through which God glorifies His virtues, an instrument which He makes available to the honour of His name. And finally, Scripture concludes its teaching with the wonderful promise that this world, with all its suffering and pressure, will become good again for us, if we submit our will to the honor of God and make it subservient. To those who love God all things work together for good," Romans 8:28; they even learn to glory in tribulation, Romans 5:3; their faith is the victory of the world, 1 John 5:4.

All these considerations already lead involuntarily from creation to Providence. From the very first moment that the world as a whole or each of its creatures is brought into being by the creative act of God, it passes immediately and at once into the hand of God’s providence. There is no gradual transition here, much less a separation or cleavage. For just as the creatures, precisely because they are creatures, cannot exist by themselves, so they cannot exist for a single moment by themselves. Providence immediately joins Creation, and Creation passes directly into Providence. This shows the intimate connection and close relationship that exists between the two. It is of the utmost importance to maintain this indissoluble connection between creation and providence in the face of all deism. Deism is to be understood as that school which still assumes creation in the beginning, but which furthermore believes that immediately after creation God withdrew from the world entirely and left it to its own devices. Creation serves only to give the world its independent existence, and in this sense was even accepted by Kant and Darwin. But in the creation God had equipped the world itself with complete autonomy and with a fullness of gifts and powers, so that it can continue to exist completely of and by itself and can also fully save itself in all cases. The world was thought of here, according to the usual image, as a clock, which once wound up, goes its own way and expires by itself. Of course it follows that man’s mind never needed any revelation, but could find all the necessary truth itself, by its own power and means. Deism naturally brings with it rationalism, that is, the direction in which reason can discover all truth from and through itself. And from deism for the will of man follows the doctrine of Pelagianism, which ascribes to the will of man the power to lead him to salvation.

According to deism, the will of man, like his reason, is created to be independent and is equipped with such gifts and powers that it does not need a mediator to do its work of salvation.

Opposed to this direction, it is therefore important to maintain the link between creation and providence. The Scriptures do so, when they call the work of providence a making alive, Job 33:4, Nehemiah 9:6, a renewing, Psalms 104:30, a preserving, Psalms 36:7, a speaking, Psalms 33:9, a will, Revelation 4:11, a working, John 5:17, a carrying by the word of His power, Hebrews 1:3, a caring, 1 Peter 5:7, yes even a creating, Psalms 104:30, Isaiah 45:7, Amos 4:13. In all these expressions it is clear that after the creation God did not leave the world to itself and does not just watch it from afar. The word ’providence’ must not be interpreted in this way and must never be used to push the living God and His activity aside or into the background. Providence does not only mean that God foresees things, that He anticipates and foresees them, although they go their own way, but it also implies that God provides all that is necessary for the world, Genesis 22:8, 1 Samuel 16:1, Ezekiel 20:6, Hebrews 11:40. It is an act, not only of God’s intellect, but also of His will, an execution of His counsel; an activity by which He sustains the world from moment to moment.

Maintenance, which is usually considered to be the first activity of providence, is therefore not a passive observance, not a leaving in place, but a making in place, a keeping in the most real sense of the word. The Heidelberger Catechism very beautifully describes providence as that omnipotent and omnipresent power of God by which He maintains heaven and earth, as well as all things, as with His hand. From God emanates power, almighty and divine power, as much for the continuation of the world as for its creation in the beginning. Without such power no creature could exist for a moment; in the same instant in which God withdrew His hand and withheld His power, it would sink into nothingness. Nothing comes into being and nothing exists except by God sending forth his Word and his Spirit, Psalms 104:30, Psalms 107:26, speaking and commanding and will, Psalms 33:9, Psalms 147:15, Revelation 4:11. And that power does not work from afar, but from near; it is an omnipresent power. God is present with all His virtues, with His entire being in the entire world and in all creatures. In Him we live and move and are, Acts 17:28. He is not far from every one of us, Acts 17:27; He is a God of nearness; no one can hide in a corner, that the Lord should not see him; He fills the heavens and the earth, Isaiah 23:2-3. Who can go before his Spirit and who can flee before his face? He is in heaven and in the realm of the dead, at the end of the sea and in the depths of darkness, Psalms 139:7 f. His providence, his sustaining power extends to all creatures, to the lilies of the field, Matthew 6:28, the birds of the air, Matthew 6:26, and even the hair of the head, Matthew 10:30. All creatures exist according to their nature, as long as they exist, and as they exist, by the power of God; as they are of Him, so they are through Him, Romans 11:36. The Son, through whom God made the world, continually carries all things by the word of His power, Hebrews 1:2-3; all things exist together through Him who was before all things, Colossians 1:17, and are created and renewed by His Spirit, Psalms 104:30.

Because of this close relationship between creation and providence, the latter has sometimes been called a continuous or ongoing creation. The term can be understood in a very good sense, but then it must be protected from misunderstanding. For with the same seriousness with which we must maintain the connection and similarity between creation and providence, the distinction between the two should also be recognised and respected. Just as in the first case we would fall into deism (belief in one God, without revelation), so in the second case, if we ignore both distinctions, we land on the cliff of pantheism (idolatry). This is the direction which erases the distinction between God and the world, identifies the two as two sides of the same thing; God is then thought of as the essence of the world and the world as the manifestation of God; they are related as the ocean and its waves, as being and its forms, as the invisible and the visible side of the same whole.

Scripture avoids this error with no less care than that of deism. This is immediately evident in the fact that God is not only presented as having begun the work of creation in the first place, but as having come to rest after the work of creation is completed, Genesis 2:2, Exodus 20:11, Exodus 31:17. In the creation something is accomplished, which then comes to an end. As was clearly shown above, resting with God is not an end to all work, because providence is also a work, John 5:17, but it is an end to that particular work, which is indicated by creation. If creation and providence can be placed in relation to each other like work and rest, then this implies beyond any doubt that both, however related and connected they may be, are still distinct. Creation is the bringing forth of nothing, but the maintenance is the enduring of the existence that was once given. Therefore, although the world does not become independent through creation, for an independent creature is an inner contradiction, it still receives a being and existence distinct from the essence of God. God and the world are not distinguished from one another in name or form, but in essence; they differ from one another as eternity and time, as infinity and finitude, as Creator and creature. ’ In itself it is already of the greatest importance to hold on to this essential distinction between God and the world. For he who misunderstands or denies this distinction falsifies religion, reduces God to the creature, and in principle makes himself guilty of that same sin of which Paul accuses the Gentiles when he says that, knowing God, they have not glorified or thanked Him as God. But there is also another consideration, which makes it necessary never to lose sight of the distinction between God and the world, between creation and providence. For if God is alone with the world, and therefore not really distinct from mankind, then all man’s thoughts and actions are immediately and directly attributable to God; then sin is His work, and there is no longer any sin.

Now the Scriptures, on the one hand, express it as strongly as possible, man with all his thoughts and deeds and also with all his sins is under God’s control; man is never independent of God. The Lord looks from heaven and sees all children of men, Psalms 33:13; He forms all their hearts and watches over all their works, Psalms 33:15; He determines all their homes, Deuteronomy 32:8, Acts 17:26. directs all their steps, Proverbs 5:21, Proverbs 16:9, Jeremiah 10:23, and does with the host of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth according to his pleasure, Daniel 4:35; they are in his hands as clay in the hand of a potter, and as a saw in the hand of one who draws it, Isaiah 29:16, Isaiah 45:9, Jeremiah 18:5, Romans 9:20-21. When man becomes a sinner, he does not thereby make himself free from God, but his dependence merely takes on a different character; it loses its reasonable and moral nature and becomes creaturely subjection; man, who becomes a slave to sin, reduces himself in God’s hand to a mere instrument. And so the Scriptures also say that God makes man stiff-necked, hardens and blinds him, Exodus 4:21 ff, Deuteronomy 2:30, Joshua 11:20, Romans 9:18, that He sends a spirit of lies in the mouth of the prophets, 1 Kings 22:23, that He invites David through Satan to count the people, 2 Samuel 24:1, 1 Chronicles 21:1, that He commands Simei to curse David, 2 Samuel 16:10, that He gives men over to their sins, Romans 1:24, that He sends a power of error, 2 Thessalonians 2:11, and makes Christ not only a resurrection, but also a fall for many, Luke 2:34. And yet, however much God’s providence is concerned with sin, the Scriptures maintain just as firmly and decidedly that sin has its origin not in God, but in man, and that it is not the fault of God, but of man alone. The Lord is just and holy and far from ungodliness, Job 34:10, Job 34:4; a light without darkness, 1 John 1:5, tempting no one, Mark 1:13, abundant fountain of all that is good and pure, Psalms 36:10, Mark 1:17. He forbids sin in His law, Exodus 20:1-26 and in the mind of every man, Romans 2:14-15, has no pleasure in godlessness, Psalms 5:5, but hates it and is wrathful against it, Romans 1:18, and threatens it with temporal and eternal punishment, Romans 2:8.

These two lines of Scripture, according to which sin is under God’s control from beginning to end and yet is the responsibility of mankind, can only be connected if God and the world are not separated from each other and yet are essentially distinct. This is what theology tries to do when it mentions cooperation in God’s providence as the second part, after maintenance. For by this it tries to show that God is the first cause of all that is and is done, but that the creatures under and in and through Him also act as second causes, cooperating with the first cause. Already with the inanimate and inanimate creatures we can speak of second causes, because even though God lets the light rise over the bad and the good and rains over the righteous and the unrighteous, He still uses the sun and the clouds as means by which He lets light and rain down on earth. But of much greater importance is this distinction with the reasonable creatures. For they have received from God a mind and a will, with which to lead and govern themselves. Now, in the reasonable creatures, too, all existence and life, all gift and power, come from God, and they remain, however they use that gift and power, under the control of God’s providence. Nevertheless, there is a difference between the first and second cause, between God and man. Just as it is God who works in mankind to will and accomplish good things according to His will, and yet man himself wills and acts; so, and to an even greater extent, it is God who gives life and power to evil, but it is man and man alone who commits sin and is guilty of it. We cannot solve the riddles that God’s providence places before us in life; but the confession that God and the world are never separate but always distinct still points in the direction in which the solution must be sought, and saves us from wandering either to the right or to the left. And so understood, the doctrine of creation and of providence is rich in encouragement and comfort. There is so much that depresses and takes away the power to live and to act. Not only the adversities and disappointments that we encounter on our life’s journey, not only the terrible disasters and calamities that sometimes cause hundreds of human beings to perish in unutterable fear, but also life in its normal course often raises doubts about God’s providence. Isn’t mystery the life and destiny of all human children? Is there not a worm of anxiety and fear gnawing at everyone’s existence? Is it not true that God has a quarrel with his creator, and that we perish through his wrath and are terrified by his wrath? No, not only the unbelievers and the simpletons, but also the children of God, and they the most profound and the most serious, are seized by the awesome gravity of reality. And sometimes the question is forced from the heart to the lips, whether mankind might have been created by God on earth in vain. But out of that doubt, they raise their heads again through faith in God’s creation and providence. Not the devil, but God, the Almighty, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ created the world. It is in its entirety and in all its parts the work of His hands and of His hands alone. And having created it, He has not let it go. He upholds it by His omnipotent and omnipresent power; He intervenes with His power in all creatures, and He governs and governs them in such a way that they all lead to and cooperate with His appointed end. God’s providence, together with its maintenance and cooperation, takes up the third part of government. God rules; He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, 1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 19:6, and His kingdom lasts forever, 1 Timothy 1:17. Neither chance nor fate, neither arbitrariness nor constraint, neither capricious whim nor iron necessity, govern nature and history, the life and fate of mankind’s children. But behind all secondary causes lies and works the almighty will of an all-powerful God and a faithful Father.

It goes without saying that no one can truly believe this with his heart and confess it with his mouth, except those who know themselves to be children of God. The faith in providence is closely related to the faith in salvation. Of course, God’s providence is one of those truths that can be partially recognised by His general revelation in nature and history. Pagans have often spoken and described it in beautiful ways; one of them said that the gods see and hear everything, are present everywhere and take care of everything at the same time; and another testified that the order and arrangement of the universe is maintained by God and for God’s sake. But none of them knew the Christian’s confession that the God who maintains and governs all things is his God and Father for his Son Christ’s sake. Faith in the providence of God was therefore shaken by doubt, and often proved unable to withstand the vicissitudes of life. The eighteenth century, was very optimistic and thought, that God had created the best of all worlds. But when the city of Lisbon was largely destroyed by a terrible earthquake in 1755, many began to blaspheme God’s providence and to deny His existence. But the Christian, who has experienced the love of God in the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation of his soul, boasts with the apostle Paul, that no tribulation or distress or persecution, no hunger or danger or sword, shall separate him from that love. Romans 8:31. Though the fig tree shall not flourish, nor shall there be fruit on the vine; though the olive tree shall lie down, and the field shall not bring forth food; though the flock shall be torn from its cage, and there shall be no cattle in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation, Habakkuk 3:17-18. In that joy of heart he even calls upon the whole earth to praise the Lord; the Lord reigns, the earth rejoices, the islands rejoice! Psalms 97:1.