Q. How does God carry out His decrees?
A. God carries out His decrees in the works of creation and providence.
Commentary
Having confessed that God has foreordained whatever comes to pass, the catechism now asks how that eternal purpose is brought to pass in time. God executes His decrees in the works of creation and providence. The decree is the plan; creation and providence are its accomplishment. What God purposed in eternity He performs in history, so that all His works in time are the unfolding of His single, wise, and holy counsel. There is, therefore, a perfect harmony between God’s eternal purpose and everything that actually happens. The world is not adrift, but is being carried, moment by moment, toward the ends God appointed before time began.
These two works, creation and providence, together comprise all that God does outside of Himself. By creation, God brought the entire universe into existence out of nothing, calling into being all things visible and invisible. By providence, He preserves and governs all that He has made, upholding every creature in being and directing every action to its appointed end. “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Were He to withdraw His sustaining hand for a single instant, the whole creation would collapse into nothing. Thus, the same power that first made the world continually keeps it, and the same wisdom that planned all things continually governs them.
This truth fills the believer’s life with reverence and gratitude. Every sunrise, every harvest, every breath is the immediate work of God carrying out His good purposes. “Look at the birds of the air...your heavenly Father feeds them” (Matthew 6:26), and the God who clothes the lilies and numbers the sparrows is the same God who has ordered the believer’s whole life. To live well in such a world is to receive all things as from His hand, to give thanks in every circumstance, and to trust that the God who made all things is even now governing them for His glory and His people’s good.
Scripture Proofs
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:26).
“Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17).
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Revelation 4:11).
2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689
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.
5.1: God the good Creator of all things, in 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.