Thursday, September 11, 2014

Providence, Not Common Grace


The continued existence of the world after man’s fall, as of reprobate, ungodly humans, is providence, not grace. By His providential power, God keeps His creation in existence, now under His curse as a kingdom of Satan. By His providential power, God maintains fallen man as man, though now displaying the image of the devil and serving the god of this world (Acts 17:24-28).
 
The notion—popular with those who confuse common grace and providence—that God had to administer a dose of common grace to fallen man to prevent him from becoming a devil is utterly without biblical and creedal basis. The notion is foolish. No more than there is evolution is there devolution of the species. Creation fixed the species. Neither sin nor salvation affects fixity. God made MAN, and man remains, whether a saint or sinner, whether glorified in heaven or shamed in hell. Even the most ardent advocates of common grace will grant that damned men and women in hell will be humans, not devils. But the reason will not be common grace, since on the admission of the defenders of common grace themselves, common grace must cease on the day of Christ.
 
The purpose of God with the continued existence of the world, as of the reprobate, ungodly race of humans, is gracious. It is His gracious will to save an elect church from all nations and races to the praise of His glory in Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:9-12). This gracious purpose extends to the creation itself, which will share in the “glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). Recognition of a gracious purpose of providence does not confuse grace and providence.
 
As providence explains the continuing existence of a fallen world, so also does it account for the various physical, mental, scientific, artistic, technological, and political abilities of unregenerated men and women. Likewise, providence is the power of the natural, cultural development of nations. The only nation whose development is due to grace is the “holy nation,” the church, the spiritual kingdom of Christ.
In creating man, the Creator gave him many unique, excellent gifts. Indelibly stamped on man, as man, are kingship and community. Although the fall severely weakened man’s natural powers and made him a rebel-king who seeks community apart from God, providence maintains man’s gifted kingship. In a mysterious way, the everywhere present and almighty power of providence arouses and compels fallen man to develop their gifts and powers, and to do so in order finally to establish a grand world-kingdom in which the race is united. This is to say, the power of the Creator that made man in the beginning now maintains him as man and impels him to behave as man.
 
An aspect of the aesthetic nature of man by virtue of creation is music. The fall did not strip man of appreciation and ability for music. As a power bestowed on man by His Creator, the gift of music is good. But as devoted by the totally depraved sinner away from the glory of God and away from the promotion of the kingdom of Christ to the glory of man and to the promotion of the kingdom of this world, the actual activity of composing, or playing, or singing is sin.
 
High among the abilities of men, as the Reformed have always recognized, is the political gift, the ability to move and rule a people and nation. Adolf Hitler had this gift. The ability itself is good, as a gift of providence. Therefore, in a way, Hitler and his propagandists were right, in spite of themselves, when they proclaimed that Hitler had been raised up by “providence” as the uniquely gifted leader of Germany. But, in fact, they lied, for they meant that God gave Hitler and his gift of ruling to Germany in His grace and as a blessing. They confused grace and providence. Would the defenders of common grace want to contend that Hitler possessed and exercised his remarkable gift of ruling by the common grace of God, whether as blessing of Hitler, of Germany, or of the world?
 
The deepest concerns of Richard Mouw in defending common grace, as of Abraham Kuyper before him, are the continuing existence of the world after the fall, the presence and development in the fallen human race of all kinds of splendid natural abilities, and the Christian’s association with the ungodly in everyday earthly life, using and even enjoying the cultural products of the wicked.
The explanation is providence, not grace.
To confuse grace and providence is to go wrong as regards both of the outstanding works of God, creation and redemption.

David J. Engelsma
Common Grace Revisited, pp. 61-63

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