1689 Class - Chapters 4-9

Creation, Providence, and the Doctrine of the Fall

All right, so chapter 4, 4 .1. In the beginning, it pleased God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for the manifestation of the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness to create or make the world and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good.

All right, so God created, and by God, we mean the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We've got passages all over Scripture attributing it to each person, the Trinity. But of course, just in the first couple of verses, you have God creating through His Word while the Spirit hovers over the face of the waters.

And this is all for the manifestation of His glory, for the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness. That, of course, is a reference to Romans 1 .20, where it talks about His creation, evidencing His eternal power.

And yeah, all things, whether visible or invisible. So not just one class of things, but He has truly made all things, and He did it in the space of six days. A few things about six days, of course, that's pretty controversial to a lot of people.

So just to answer a quick thing, though, it is not seven days. Some people wonder, well, why isn't it seven days if there were seven days, weeks? Well, He made the earth in six days, and then—and by earth, I mean, I really mean universe—He made the universe in six days, and then He rested on the seventh day.

Six literal days. So on one hand, you could point to the way that He created and say, well, before there are planets, etc., how could it be said that days were passing? Because we measure days by, you know, rotations of the earth, etc.

But in Exodus 20, when it describes the Sabbath, it describes it as being one day of the week because on the seventh day, God rested. So the implication is that these time periods that were happening before, they would be measured by the means that we measure them, were roughly the same.

Otherwise, that would be a somewhat meaningless statement.

Yes, yeah, go for it. So I finally reached a resolution to this big debate. I think on the fourth day, don't quote me, but it defines a day. It was light and there was dark. Right now, we have light and dark because of the sun and rotation of the earth, right?

But it doesn't say how fast the earth was rotating or if it was rotating at all. It was light and dark. That's the definition of a day. So that day could have been a million years. I'm just proposing that it's not clear that it was a literal 24-hour day that we have today.

So when it says, yeah, there was evening and there was morning the first day, right? And so what I was saying in the beginning is that you could say that maybe those were longer days because we didn't have the rotation of the earth or whatever.

But Exodus 20 treats it as a similar sort of day. And then secondly, the only real reason to suggest that it would be anything else is typically to squeeze in evolution. Usually, people don't have any other agenda when they're suggesting that.

Usually, it's for evolution. The problem with evolution, and that's where the real issue happens, is then you have survival of the fittest, which requires death before the fall, and you start undermining the gospel.

It's not just, oh, maybe things happened a little bit differently. It's usually something undermining the authority of Scripture so that, oh, okay, this is just poetic, and we really don't know what it means.

And two, yeah, if you have death before the fall, what is even Jesus solving? If sin isn't what brought death in and death already existed, is Jesus even addressing the main problem that's befallen humanity?

Oh, and just to be clear, I'm not debating macroevolution or anything like that. Sure, sure. I'm just stating that in terms of the way the earth was created, it's possible to go along and satisfy the scientists because they're saying evidence that this rock was a million years or whatever.

It's like, so what? It doesn't say that it was 24 hours that we know it today. It says a day is light and dark. It doesn't even say the sun was the source of the light, right? But I do take it literally that a day is defined as darkness and then light.

Right.

Yeah, so, yeah, I'm acknowledging that if you want to be really flexible with the text, well, no, I don't think it's necessarily brilliant because it's basically just saying, given what we say here, is there any possible way we could squeeze in this understanding that would satisfy these people that we really want to satisfy, right?

And I just don't think that that should be a significant motivation when we read the text. Not just that, yeah, the text has to be more important, but additionally, I don't believe that a lot of the, you know, quote unquote science that exists is really very scientific.

I mean, a lot of it is operating on assumptions. That God doesn't exist. Well, yeah, that God doesn't exist, too, that a lot of these methods actually work, like carbon dating, etc., right? Which, yeah, sure, maybe they work for the time periods we've been able to actually test them.

But then when they are assuming that something is, you know, X million years old or whatever the case may be, and then determining carbon dating by that, you basically have a false assumption reinforcing a false assumption.

And so it's, yeah, it just becomes something where I used to want to come up with explanations that would satisfy, you know, different people and still be faithful to the text. I have, yeah, I just have less interest these days in doing that.

Yeah, the more that I've realized there's very little reason to even care about satisfying those parties. One, they'll never be satisfied. Two, there's just not a lot of honest research that's being done, you know, if you're taking the word honest, not making a lot of unnecessary assumptions.

And yeah, the Word doesn't give us any reason to, doesn't suggest that at all. But it does suggest days that are 24 hours because of the fourth commandment that says, yeah, six days shall you labor, and you shall rest on the seventh because God rested on the seventh.

So if it's really saying, if it's saying, okay, you should work six days because God worked six days and rest on the seventh, what would be the implication? Oh, that you should work this very short time because God worked this very long time, right?

That's not, it doesn't really fit there. If our work is supposed to be analogous to God's and he demonstrated that by, even though he doesn't exist within time and he's not subject to time, he chose to create in six days and demonstration to us that we are supposed to pattern ourselves after.

So why would God, if he doesn't have to create over time at all, if he doesn't have to be, if he's not subject to time itself, why would he have chosen to create in six days and give us that analogy for our own work if it wasn't even the same six days?

Well, I think we, I mean, we aren't God, right? So we can't last for 10 ,000 years or 100 ,000, right? So it makes sense that he's talking to us. He's going to, time is fixed now, right? The earth rotates at a certain speed.

So I think it makes sense in Exodus for him to define it that way. I mean, we still have the same light and dark, right? Which defines, he clearly says in Genesis, the definition of a day. Otherwise we'd be debating what is a day, you know, but he clearly defines it as light and dark.

Yes.

Yes. The pattern of time he's given us to work into rest is, you know, it's not just defined by light and day. Yes, those are the parameters by which we know it, but it is a particular period that our bodies would not bear under if it changed too much.

Right, right, right.

Yeah. But I mean, otherwise you have to ask, why did he define it as light and dark? He could have left that out.

Yeah, well, I, yeah.

So I think, I guess from my perspective, that definition still fits. He had his light and dark.

We have our light and dark. Still a day. Well, I'll give you a real answer to that. I believe the reason that he's defining it as evening and then morning the first day is so that that matter can be changed.

You'll notice that on the seventh day, he doesn't define it as evening and morning. He leaves it blank, which is interesting because the Sabbath changes from the last day of the week to the first day of the week, and for the Christian, the Sabbath begins at midnight because Jesus was discovered to be resurrected as it was approaching dawn, and midnight is the first moment that's approaching dawn.

So for the Christian, and even for the typical modern day person, everything is measured morning and evening rather than evening and morning. So Jews began their Sabbath in the evening and then to the morning.

We begin ours morning to evening, and that's generally how we reckon days now. So I believe part of the point of describing that is so that there can be a transition that shows that the new creation is defined by light.

So there are reasons to give there. Yeah, all right. 4 .2. After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male, and female with a reasonable and immortal souls, rendering them fit unto that life to God for which they were created, being made in the image of God in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, having the law of God written on their hearts and power to fulfill it, yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject to change.

So man is the pinnacle of creation, man meaning both male and female. Man is made with reasonable and immortal souls. So the soul of man is reasonable. You know, we think we have a consciousness, and our souls are immortal, meaning that they will continue on forever.

Not that there isn't any sense in which we'll experience death. The Bible does speak of a death that many will have to undergo in their soul for all eternity. But yes, our souls will continue on forever, and that makes us fit unto that life for God for which they were created, different than the animals, were made in the image of God with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness.

One thing the catechism adds is dominion over the creatures, which is traditionally not counted as a particular aspect of being made in the image of God. In fact, I've found more recently that a lot of Reformed authors spoke of angels likewise being made in the image of God.

But man, one of the derivative aspects, one of the consequences of him being made in the image of God is that he has dominion over the creatures, which is something that's not true of the angels, right?

Man has a particular dominion that the angels don't have over the creatures. Man is made with righteousness and holiness. Yes, this positive thing that God has created man with, so man is capable of communion with him.

This is different than the Roman Catholic conception of man and his creation. The Roman Catholic conception that nature is not enough, that something else had to be added to man in order for him to have sufficient kind of holiness or righteousness in order to communicate, commune with God.

And that, yeah, anyway, so the Roman Catholic conception of man and his creation is different on this point. But we believe that man, just by nature, without any added thing, has sufficient righteousness and holiness to commune with God.

Having the law of God written on their hearts and power to fulfill it. So Adam was able to obey God's law, yet at the same time, the possibility of transgressing. The way we say this is that he was upright yet unstable.

So he was righteous, yet he had the ability to fall from that position. And we'll talk more about free will in a later section in chapter 9, but yeah, here it gives a hat tip to that. And yeah, it says that the liberty of his will was subject to change.

Any questions on that?

What is the position of man relative to angels? Because we will be judging the angels. So does that mean we have dominion over them and they're just another creature that we don't typically see? We could also cast demons out and tell them to go take a hike, and Satan as well, right?

So we don't fall into his deception.

Sure. Well, let me answer those questions backwards. I actually don't believe that it's right for us to rebuke demons as such. So it says, but when the archangel Michael, this is Jude 9, contending with the devil was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you.

So I don't believe we have dominion over the angels to be able to command them. Oh, I see. We're doing it in the name. Right. I mean, we can pray, but we can't ourselves command angels. Also, yeah, we shouldn't be speaking to the dead, first of all, right?

Which we know as Protestants. Likewise, we're not supposed to be speaking to angels. You might know, okay, it's wrong to pray to an angel, but what are you doing when you're rebuking a demon? You're communicating with an angel in a communication that's not permitted by God.

So yeah, that's not good. I think, I won't say who, because I would need to verify these details, but I heard a story once about a pastor who was saying that he was at some conference of pastors, and one of the pastors got up to the pulpit to pray, and there were some charismatic leanings, and he began his prayer, Satan, I bind you in the name of Jesus or something like that.

Right. So a lot of people think that it's appropriate in their prayers to speak to Satan, but no, we're supposed to be praying to God, which is, I mean, it's obvious when you say it, but a lot of, I remember growing up in that environment where it was considered perfectly acceptable in prayers to switch from talking to God to talking to Satan.

So secondly, you had asked, the first part of your question was about what is the position of angels relative to man. Psalm 8 says, what is man that you are mindful of him? You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings, right?

You've made him a little lower than the angels. So man is a little lower than the angels.

Now, what's interesting is that…. Good angels, right, versus the demons. I would say all the angels.

You know, they're all…. Oh, they're heavenly. Yeah, heavenly powers, right. Yeah, they're all powers that are, you know, above the earth in a sense. Even Ephesians calls them, you know, powers of the air.

So in Hebrews 2, Psalm 8 is quoted about Jesus, but instead of saying that he's made a little lower than the angels, it says he's a little while lower than the angels, and this is right after Hebrews 1 that talks about him being higher than the angels.

So Hebrews 1 says that Jesus is greater than the angels, and then it goes on to say, well, how come he seemed, while he was with us, lower than the angels? And so it says he was made a little while lower than the angels.

But what you see is he's been raised up of all powers so that every knee may bow to him, etc. And what's interesting about that is we are raised up with him. Ephesians says that we're seated with him in the heavenly places, and like you pointed out, 1 Corinthians 6 says that we will judge angels.

So in Christ, we have a status not yet manifest, but a real status being seated with him above the angels that will be manifest, that we will judge them. So mankind was not created above the angels, but thankfully, due to the fact that God had ordained Adam's sin in Christ's salvation that he provided, we are raised up higher than the angels.

So in our current state, we are below the angels, but we rise up after eternity.

I would say there's even a reality now where we're above the angels in that we're seated with Christ in the heavenly places. So it's not a manifest reality, but it is a reality, all the same. All right.

4 .3. Besides the law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God and had dominion over the creatures.

All right. So there are two kinds of law. We can call that natural law and positive law. Okay, so natural law is just written in creation. It comes from the very character of God. It can't be changed because God himself cannot be changed.

Right? It's not going to be okay one day to murder. It's not going to be okay one day to lie. God himself is truth. God himself is love, etc. However, there's also positive law. Positive law are things that are wrong because God says they are wrong because he is free to command his creatures however he will.

So in addition to the natural law that was written on man's heart, which when it's written, sometimes we'll call that moral law. So the moral law written on Adam's heart. In addition to that, there was also a positive command given, which was that he was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So it wouldn't have been wrong to eat this tree if God had not made that command. But because he made that command, that was wrong. And the stipulation was that if he kept this law, both of these laws, both natural and positive, then he would be happy in his communion with God and have dominion over the creatures.

And additionally, it's also implied in the scripture that if he had passed this test because he was under probation, probation meaning a test, that he would have achieved the glorification that we have in Jesus Christ.

So Christ, having perfectly obeyed God, earned a status of glory. Adam likewise, if he had obeyed, could have. First Corinthians 15 says that if there is a natural body, describing the kind of body Adam was made with, there is also a spiritual body.

So even built into creation was the idea that man was made for something more, for a spiritual body, for a glorified status. So Adam, of course, did not keep that. We will look at that in a moment. But so long as he did, he would have dominion over the creatures.

Okay. And I suppose... You don't think that's ever possible, right? What's that?

That he would keep God's... Well, it was not ordained that he would, but it could have been just like it said a moment ago that he had the power to fulfill God's law. So it's thinkable that he could. Now, that introduces a lot of other complications because what God had in store for his people were benefits that could only be received in Christ.

Like I mentioned a moment ago, you know, being raised up above the angels, etc. It's not clear that that's something that even the kind of perfect obedience Adam could have rendered would have gotten, right?

And then the Bible also talks about us seeing Christ and that transforming us. This is the great reward of the Christian life is the beatific vision, beatific meaning blessed, like the beatitudes blessed.

That's not something that would happen apart from Christ because we wouldn't know God in the incarnation through Jesus Christ. So yeah, there's a lot of things that break down, but Adam did have a potential for having passed that test and achieving some kind of state of glory where he would be immutably right with God as opposed to that unstable status.

He began with. So there was no death at the time, right? So Adam could have lived to hypothetically 10 ,000 years. At what point does he pass the test?

Yeah, that is a good question, and there have been different answers given on that. I do not myself have a certain answer to that, but some of the answers that have been given are it could have just been some time period that either was given to him or that God knew and has not been revealed to us.

It could have been the command to expand the garden, right? And so maybe if he had expanded the garden to a certain point, if he had fulfilled that dominion mandate to a certain point, that would have satisfied God such that he would have been considered to pass the test.

It could have been the particular temptation with the serpent. So if he had just survived that one temptation, that could have been enough. Or it could have been that he just had to continue on until he happened to cross the tree of life and ate from that.

So these are various options that people have given. I myself am not satisfied with any of them in particular, but there was some probation that he was under.

Thanks. I hadn't thought of that. My personal opinion is he was destined to fail just like we cannot fulfill God's love perfectly. And just mathematical probability, if they were blindfolded and they picked from every fruit, you know, it would be nearly impossible if the garden is as large and beautiful and plush as I picture it to reach that one tree in the center of the garden.

Well, they managed to reach the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right?

Exactly, but it was because of temptation. All I'm saying is by random chance, they had to go out of their way to find this tree. It wasn't by accident that they stumbled.

Across it. From the way it's described, it seems to be a prominent tree. Yeah, I'm not sure about that. But you had said something a moment ago that caught my attention. What were we talking about a second ago?

The tree test, the reward, how long the test was, yeah.

He gave three different plausible points.

Yeah. Oh, I was going to talk about the knowledge of good and evil.

One point is, you know, I deal with the law. You know, we all deal with the law every day, right? Just look at the traffic book. I mean, it's this thick. They had one law to follow. One. It's a yes, no.

Did you eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil or not? It's not that difficult. Whereas I find, you know, just walking across the street without a crosswalk, you've just violated law. My point being is, you know, we managed to survive with all these laws.

Sure, we're failing every day, but when there's only one law, it's like, how difficult can it be? And like I said, they had to have gone out of their way. You know, obviously Satan had a hand in this, right?

But they had to go out of their way purposefully to eat that fruit. It was only one law. And the consequences of that one law is huge. So I don't think it happened by accident. I think it was part of God's sovereign, you know, plan.

And like you said, Jesus wouldn't have a reason to come if this didn't happen. I just see this whole beautiful picture. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, and this is the beginning.

Yeah, it was definitely ordained by God, as we covered in the previous chapter. At the same time, we can't say that he was destined all the same way that we're not able to do what is perfect. Because the point of this previous part is that he did have an ability that we don't have.

We're made fallen creatures who just are inherently sinful. He was not. So there's a sense in which he was capable. Also, the name, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is worth talking about a little here as well.

What does that mean? People have come up with different ideas of what this means. First, they say, oh, maybe it's just the experience of good and evil. Adam would have experienced good and evil by eating the tree.

Well, he already knew what good was. And they say, well, maybe it's just the understanding of right and wrong. Maybe he's like a little child that doesn't know right and wrong. But the whole point is that he did know what was wrong when he broke it.

He's without excuse. What the knowledge of good and evil refers to here is the idea of autonomy. So throughout scripture, if you look at the phrase good and evil, it refers to being capable of judgment.

It's used for little children to talk about when they become a little more capable of judgment. It's used of Solomon to describe the fact that he's a good king because he knows good and evil. He is capable of making judgments.

So here God is telling people what is right and wrong, writing that on their heart, and putting this one tree in the garden. Basically, it's a question of whether or not they're going to trust God's judgment or whether or not they're going to take judgment into their own hands, become autonomous, and no longer live under the rulership of God.

Are they going to make themselves like a king, like Solomon, knowing good and evil? And they chose autonomy by eating the fruit of the tree. And also, if we're made in God's image,.

I assume we have the pride that God has in his creation, good things. I sense that that's exactly the mechanism Satan used because he's saying, surely you won't die. Surely you know better than what God told you.

So it's man's pride. He was exercising Adam's pride and saying, you can be independent. You don't have to wait for God to tell you.

Well, certainly it was prideful of man to entertain those thoughts. At the same time, I hesitate to say that Satan was appealing to their pride because that suggests that they had sinful pride prior to his temptation.

Well, I think that the pride is neutral.

It could be used for good or bad. God had pride in the creation.

So that's colloquially how we use the word pride. But yeah, we might just call that an appreciation of goodness or a sense of self-worth or whatever it might be. But yeah, I hesitate to call it pride in the same sentence that we're using.

It refers to the sinful disposition.

So you're saying it's a distinct pride? I mean, there's a good and pride? Because I think of it like anger. Anger is not wrong if you're angry at Satan, for example, or angry at sin. But if you're angry at your wife because you're self-focused, then that's a bad use of anger.

I don't know,.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Biblically, if you just look through the Bible, all the times the word pride is used, I'm not aware of any occasion where it's ever used positively. The word boast can be used positively to talk about boasting in the Lord, but I'm not sure pride is ever used that way.

Now, I might be relying a little too much on English translation to make these statements, but that's just my understanding. I understand that colloquially, you might talk about being proud of your kids, etc. in a way that's not talking about a sinful sense of self-evaluation, but this is why I'm hesitating.

It's just the theological.

Vocabulary we're given. So in Greek, you might use two different words to describe the pride that's described in English or used in English? Maybe. Okay, got it, got it. Okay, I'll leave it.

All right,. 5 .1. God, the good creator of all things, and his infinite power and wisdom, does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, to the end for the which they were created, according unto his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.

Okay, so the reason that we have this chapter here where we do is because God's works are generally considered twofold. There's creation and providence. We just covered creation, so now we're covering providence.

His decree before in chapter three encompassed both of those, and now we look at the second half of his work. So creation is obviously where he brings things out of nothing and forms them, and then providence is where he governs all creatures and their actions.

So God, being the creator of all things, it starts off with, and his infinite power and wisdom, so he knows what is best, and he is able to do what is best. He upholds, he directs, he disposes, he governs all creatures and things, from the greatest even to the least.

So yeah, even the most minute things. Proverbs says that the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. By his most wise and holy providence, to the end for which they were created, okay, so all things were created for a purpose, even the wicked.

Proverbs, once again, same chapter, says that God has made all things for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil. He's done this according to the infallible foreknowledge in the free and immutable counsel of his own will.

So counsel of his own will means that he's not deciding based on other things what is best, right? He simply knows what is best. To the praise of his glory, excuse me, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.

So the way he has providentially upheld all things and ordered things by his providence is so that people can praise his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy. Just like creation itself evidences his power and wisdom, so his.

Providence evidences his power and wisdom. Yeah. Here it says, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and we talked in a previous session about how God doesn't make decisions based on what he can see in the future.

Is this talking about something else?

I believe it is, yeah. Let me read a couple of verses. Acts 2, 23 says, This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

First Peter 1, 2 says, According to the foreknowledge of God the Father and the sanctification spirit for the obedience to Jesus Christ and for the sprinkling of his blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Okay, so your question is, is he looking into the future, seeing what's going to happen, and then acting accordingly? So there is a sense in which he knows all things that are going to take place. We're going to talk about that in the next paragraph.

So there's a sense in which he is aware of what could take place if something else were to happen, and I think that's kind of what it's getting at with the sense of foreknowledge. It's basically his plan according to not just what he is going to do, but also the effects other things are going to have on each other as he does those things.

So in summary, I don't believe this is him observing and gathering information, but it is him knowing in not only what he will do, but what will take place in.

Light of him doing that. It's like the domino effect. He knows which dominoes are going to fall.

Right, yeah. Some things he's doing directly, and we're going to cover that here. Some things he's doing directly, and some things he's doing less directly, and he knows both of those. Also, I will say that when you now, beyond those two verses that I just read, when you see the word foreknow in Scripture now, of course, different translations might say this differently, but I believe in let's see.

Okay. No, I can't say that from the ESV because it doesn't use the word that often, but a lot of these passages that talk about foreknowing often talk about people, individuals, and they're not really talking so much about plans.

It looks like the ESV does not use the term that often to point that out, but yeah. Might those two verses be.

Added to your are you handing this one out when you do the video? What's that? Are you using.

This to follow along? I might just use this. Yeah, this is the modernization. It has the same proof text, though. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, these proof texts are original to the confession. They're not things added on after that.

5 .2. Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, so that there is not anything all right, I've got to think about that grammar there so that there is not anything befalls any by chance or without his providence.

Yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. Okay. That's what you were just saying. Yeah. There's a reference to that too.

Right. So this is yeah, this is what I was getting at. God is the first cause of all things. All things come to pass immutably and infallibly by him, so he is determining all things. It's not that he's in control of some things and other things not.

However, that being said, some things he's doing directly and other things are what's known as second causes, which is everything else. I think you mentioned billiards a second ago, right? The cue ball hits the others, and so the cue ball is responsible for everything.

Oh, you mentioned dominoes, right? The cue ball is responsible for everything, but still there are some indirect activities. So, for example, God created the laws of physics, and things operate by those laws.

That's not him operating directly when something falls to the ground, but it is him operating indirectly through the thing that he created. And so similarly, some things fall out either necessarily, freely, so like, for example, by free will, or contingently.

Okay. What do those terms mean?

Okay, so necessarily means that something is just a necessary consequence. So I'm trying to think of a good example, but I think this would be even beyond the laws of physics. Like just definitionally if one thing happens, another thing can't happen, right?