Providence and the covenant of life

This week's questions

What are God's works of providence? God's works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.

Question 11

What special act of providence did God exercise toward man in the estate wherein he was created? When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience; forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death.

Question 12

After creation last week comes the second work Question 8 named: providence, God's keeping and ruling of the world he made, and his special act of providence toward the first man.

All his creatures, and all their actions

Providence is preserving and governing. The Son upholds all things by his powerful word (Hebrews 1:3), and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). God's "kingdom rules over all" (Psalm 103:19); even of a lot cast into the lap, "its every decision is from the LORD" (Proverbs 16:33).

The three words of the answer have their proof texts. In the first the LORD is "righteous in all His ways" (Psalm 145:17); the King James Version of the divines' day goes on, ‘and holy in all his works’. Providence is ‘most holy’ because God orders even sin to his holy ends, while "the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God", who "neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin" Westminster Confession 5.4. It is ‘wise’, for "In wisdom You have made them all" (Psalm 104:24), and ‘powerful’, for his word upholds all things. Another proof text shows how far down it reaches:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Matthew 10:29-31

The English minister Matthew Henry writes on these words, "See how the care of Providence extends to all creatures, even to the sparrows. This should silence all the fears of God's people" Matthew Henry. The Heidelberg Catechism, which the continental Reformed churches have long taught, answers the question what providence is:

The almighty and every where present power of God, whereby, as it were by his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth, with all creatures, and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, all things, come not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.

Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 27

So we may be "patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity" Q. 28, and the Belgic Confession, of the same churches, finds in this doctrine "unspeakable consolation" Art. 13. How God permits and rules evil, as Arminian, Molinist and Thomist Christians explain it, is the subject of Providence, in the Christian Doctrine course, and The problem of evil and suffering, in the Apologetics course.

The covenant of life

Question 12 names one act of providence toward man alone. God gave him every tree of the garden, and forbade one:

but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.

Genesis 2:17

Life was promised on perfect obedience, the tree was its test, and death its penalty. Setting it against the way of faith, Paul sums up the law's principle in Leviticus's words, that the one who does these things will live by them (Galatians 3:12). ‘Covenant of life’ is the name the Shorter and Larger Catechisms use; the Confession names this first covenant with man a covenant of works WCF 7.2. Many read Hosea 6:7, as the BSB translates it, of Adam's covenant: "But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant" (Hosea 6:7); the King James renders the Hebrew ‘like men’.

The name and nature of this covenant are discussed within the Reformed world. John Murray, the Scottish-born theologian who taught at Westminster Theological Seminary, preferred to speak of ‘the Adamic administration’, since Scripture uses ‘covenant’ for God's redeeming grace and ‘works’ does not do justice to the grace already present in Eden; yet he held that Adam was put to the test as the head of all mankind John Murray, The Adamic Administration. Others, too, stress the goodness in it from the first, since the Larger Catechism sets beside the covenant of life such gifts as paradise, marriage, the sabbath and "communion with himself" Larger Catechism, Q. 20. The Reformed Baptists' Second London Confession keeps the name: "The Covenant of Works being broken by Sin" 1689 Confession 20.1. Lutherans and Catholics do not describe Eden as a covenant of works, but teach that the first man was created in an original righteousness and holiness that he lost in the fall. The covenant of works and the covenant of grace, in the Reformed Faith course, treats this covenant at length; see also Is God in control? and Why does a good God allow evil?

To ponder this week

Where in this week's ordinary things, the weather, meals, meetings and delays, can you see your Father's hand? The Heidelberg Catechism counts even rain and drought, meat and drink among what comes by his fatherly hand. Each evening recall one ordinary thing from the day, and thank your Father for it or commit it to him. At home, each can name one place they saw his hand that day.

Practice