Q. What are God’s works of providence?
A. God’s most holy, wise, and powerful works of providence are for preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions.
Commentary
Having considered creation, the catechism turns to providence, the ongoing work by which God upholds and directs all that He has made. God’s works of providence are for preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions. Providence has two parts. By preservation, God keeps every creature in being, sustaining the existence He first gave, so that nothing continues for a moment by its own power. By government, God directs all things to the ends He has appointed, ruling over every creature and every event so that all things serve His purpose. “In him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17), and He “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3).
The catechism describes these works as most holy, wise, and powerful, and their reach as extending to all His creatures and all their actions. His providence is powerful, for it governs the vast and the minute alike, from the courses of the stars to the falling of a single sparrow and the numbering of the hairs of our head (Matthew 10:29–30). It is wise, for it orders all things to good and fitting ends, even when its ways are hidden from us. And it is holy, for in governing even the sinful actions of His creatures, God remains untouched by their sin; He directs, limits, and overrules evil for good while never Himself being the author of it. Nothing is too great to exceed His control, and nothing too small to escape His care.
No doctrine yields more daily comfort to the believer than this. Because God governs all His creatures and all their actions, the Christian knows that nothing enters his life apart from his Father’s wise and holy will. Sickness and health, plenty and want, the kindness of friends and the malice of enemies are all held within the hand of God and bent to serve His good purposes. This truth does not excuse our idleness, for God ordinarily works through means, and we are called to use them faithfully. But it does banish our anxiety, teaching us to cast our care upon the One who upholds the universe and yet stoops to number the hairs of our head.
Scripture Proofs
“You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you” (Nehemiah 9:6).
“The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all” (Psalm 103:19).
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:29–30).
“And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).
“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3).
2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689
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.