GOD'S
Benjamin B. Warfield
"We
cannot be robbed of God's providence." This was one of the sayings current
in the household of Thomas Carlyle, apparently much on the lips of that
brilliant woman, Jane Welsh Carlyle. In it, the plummet is let down to the
bottom of the Christian's confidence and hope. It is because we cannot be
robbed of God's providence that we know, amid whatever encircling gloom, that
all things shall work together for good to those that love him. It is because
we cannot be robbed of God's providence that we know that nothing can separate
us from the love of Christ -- not tribulation, nor anguish, nor persecution,
nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword.
For
over us there curves the infinite
Blue
heaven as a shield, and at the end
We
shall find One who loveth to befriend
E'en those who faint for shame within his sight.
Were not God's
providence over all, could trouble come without his sending, were Christians
the possible prey of this or the other fiendish enemy, when perchance God was
musing, or gone aside, or on a journey, or sleeping, what certainty of hope
could be ours? "Does God send trouble?" Surely,
surely. Hc and he only. To the sinner in punishment,
to his children in chastisement. To suggest that it does not always come
from his hands is to take away all our comfort. Even the Unitarian poet knew
better than that:
These
severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise:
But
oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume
this dark disguise.
The world may be
black to us; there may no longer be hope in man; anguish and trouble may be our
daily portion; but there is this light that shines through all the darkness:
"We cannot be robbed of God's providence." So long as the soul keeps
firm hold of this great truth it will be able to breast all storms.
A
firm faith in the universal providence of God is the solution of all earthly
troubles. It is almost equally true that a clear and full apprehension of the
universal providence of God is the solution of most theological problems. Most
of the religious difficulties with which men disturb their minds, rest on the
subtle intrusion into our thinking of what we may call Deistic postulates, and
would vanish could but the full meaning of God's universal providence enter and
condition all our thinking. It is because we forget this great truth that we
vex and puzzle ourselves over difficulties which seem to be insoluble, but
which cease to be difficulties at all so soon as we
remember that God's providence extends over all. Let us illustrate this by one
or two instances, from regions which seem at first sight sufficiently remote
from the influence of the doctrine of providence.
Here
is the difficulty about the divine origin and the divine trustworthiness of the
Bible. What is the root of it? Men have had their attention strongly directed
to the human element in the Bible, and to the human factor in its origin. They
are saying to themselves that the human element is real, and that it is much greater
than they once thought it was. Their hearts sink within them as they then infer
that the divine element is, therefore, less great, less pervasive, less determinative than they had thought. They feel driven
to the conclusion that we can no longer say that the Bible is a divine book,
but can only say that it is a mixed divine and human book. They perceive that
much of it is Paul's or John's or Peter's; and they do not know how to say,
therefore, that all of it is God's. They have, however, only forgotten God's
providence that is over all. For what is the conception which they are forming
for themselves as to the way in which the Bible originated? Is it not something
like this? They imagine that the divine and human factors have approached each
other from opposite poles, as it were, and united on some common intermediate
ground in the formation of a joint product, the Bible. So that so far as the
Bible is divine it is not human; and so far as it is human it is not divine.
The divine and human are conceived as contradictory forces infringing upon one
another, and the Bible is the resultant of the two.
But
are the divine and human factors which unite to form our Bible thus
contradictory and independent forces pushing in opposite directions? Not if
God's providence is over all. Whence came even the human factor but from God
himself, preparing by his providence for the production of his Book? We are not
to conceive the matter as if God had simply found the Chronicler, say, with his
historical bias; or the Psalmist with his emotional nature already hardened in
a purely earthly mould; or Paul with his habits of thought already developed
and fixed: and has been compelled, by the pure force of his inspirational
impact, to force his word with difficulty through their resisting tissues. Were
this so, it might well be that God's Word would come out stained and discolored
by the "personal equations" of the human authors, and would no longer
be the pure Word of God, but, at best, only the mixed word of God and man. But
there was, in fact, no Chronicler save as God had himself made him by the
providence which is over all. If he had a bias, it was a bias which God in his
providence had given him; and had given him for the specific purpose that he
might view the history of Israel thus and not otherwise; and so write it down
for the instruction of the ages. There was no David, save the David whom God
had moulded and prepared for the specific purpose of
composing precisely these Psalms. The tones in which he sang were the tones to
which his heart had been attuned by the overruling providence of God. There was
no Paul save the Paul whom God had separated from his mother's womb, and
trained as he would have him trained -- that in the fulness
of time, he might declare as he would have him declare, all the words of his
truth. It is thus not merely what we call the divine element of the Bible that
is from God. What we call the human element in it, too, is equally from God.
The real contrast is not between the divine and human in the Bible; but between
the inspirational and the providential factors which have entered into the
divine making of the Bible. It is all from God.
Thus,
it is only when we forget that God's providence is over all that we can fancy
that the human factor may introduce into the Bible aught that would mar its
designed perfection as the Word of God. So soon as we
remember the reach of his providence, we find that the discovery of a human
element in the Bible only enriches our conception of the ways in which God was
active in producing this Divine Book. We perceive him preparing the matter to
be written, in the age-long development of his self-revelation to men; in the
divine direction of the course of history in general, and of the history of his
chosen people in particular; in the production of occasions by which men's
hearts were wrung, and they were made to feel deeply the greatness, the glory,
or the goodness of God. We perceive him preparing the men to write, raising
them up in just the circumstance in which their special powers would be
developed; granting them just the ancestry, the gifts, the environment, the
training which would prepare them best to write just the portions of Scripture
to be committed to them; and then bringing them in contact with just the
surroundings which would produce the precise bias, or call out the precise mode
of expression, which was expected of them. We perceive him adding from time to
time the open visions and the direct revelations which were needed to
illuminate human darkness and to make known his gracious purposes. Then we
perceive him compacting all these processes into the
making of a book, superintended by his direct inspiration in every item of its
preparation. And we no longer doubt that this Book, though human through and
through, is the very word of God, and is clothed with all the qualities that
belong to it as such. We take another example: this time from the distribution
of God's saving grace. How many of us are opposed in spirit as we think of the
heathen in their darkness. It is a black problem, we say. The Scriptures
clearly teach that there is no salvation for adult men and women save through
faith in Jesus Christ. And "How shall they believe in him whom they have
not heard? and how shall they hear him without a
preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be
sent?" But can we really credit that men and women, beyond the possible
reach of the gospel message, perish without hope, because of the mere accident
that the gospel has not been carried to them? Our souls faint at the thought.
But we are only forgetting the universal reach of God's providence again. There
are no accidents from the point of view of providence. Not even a sparrow falls
to the ground without our Father; and the very hairs of our head are all pumbered. Probe the state of mind which such trains of
thought represent, and what do we find? In the last analysis probably this: A
half-formed, or perhaps even less than half-formed, feeling that there is no
other way for such heathen to be saved but by an exception to God's ordinary
methods of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. And does such a fancy rest
on anything else than lack of faith in God's providence? For God surely needs
no exceptions. It can never be true that he must break through his announced
methods of salvation or else renounce his purpose to save. Is it not easy for
him to convey the gospel to the remotest isle? And may we not be perfectly
certain that no man was ever lost for lack of power on God's part to convey to
him the gospel? His providence is over all; and by his providence he both can
and will always present the means where his grace has determined on the end.
Many
appear almost to fancy that God dispenses his grace with one hand and his
providence with the other, and does not let his right hand know what his left
hand does.
But,
it may be asked, may not the Church fail in her duty of extending the knowledge
of the gospel? May she not withhold the gospel from the world, and thus bring
down the blood of the perishing on her head? Undoubtedly she may: unhappily she
has done, and is doing, just this. But our faithlessness shall never make of
none effect the faithfulness of God. Let us hearken to the philosophy of
Mordecai: "For if thou altogether holdest thy
peace at this time, then shall relief and deliverance arise from another place,
but thou and thy father's house shall perish." God has not committed his
honor to another. Neither has he committed the Souls of men to their fellows'
keeping. He has laid responsibilities upon us, and we shall stand or fall
before him according to our fulfilment of them. But
we must bear our own punishment; it will not be inflicted on others. His
purposes of mercy will never fail because of our unfaithfulness, for his
providence is over all. And there are none of us -- not the neediest, not the
meanest, not the most remote who can be robbed of God's providence.
It
is only, then, when we forget that God's providence is over all that we are
tempted to fancy that need may arise for him to save his people by some
exceptional method, outside or beyond his announced method of salvation through
faith in Jesus Christ. So soon as we remember the
reach of his providence, we find his announced method of salvation adequate for
the needs of the world; and our conceptions of the saving operations of God are
enriched, as we perceive all his providential working harnessed to its service.
Thus we can better understand what he means when he declares that all power and
authority have been committed to Christ, and that he has been made head over
all things for his Church. Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of men, is now the God of
providence, and all providence is administered, now, for the interests of his
saving work. That work, therefore, cannot fail in a single particular for lack
of providential co-operation.
from Selected Shorter Writings
of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. 1, Edited by John E. Meeter,
published by Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1970. originally from The
King's Own, VI. 1895, pp. 671-675.