God’s Sovereignty and Our Sin
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We can be so puffed up with our own righteousness. We have so deceived ourselves against the depth of corruption that still resides in our hearts that we have not learned humility. We have not learned grace. We have not learned to depend completely on the righteousness of Christ. We begin to take confidence in our own righteousness, which is filthy rags.
When we think about the theological questions surrounding the sovereignty of God, His providence and evil in the world, we typically think about Adam's sin and the fall of mankind. But what about how God's providence relates to your sin and to temptation in your life? This is the Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. The providence of God is a significant and important area of theology, which is why we're spending this week considering it and why the writers of the Westminster Confession of Faith needed seven sections just to summarize it. So far we have considered the question of where God is when tragedy strikes, God's use of means in providence, how the providence of God relates to the origin of evil, and today Dr. Sproul will consider God's providence, temptation, and our own sin. Well, here he is in section 5 of chapter 5.
We're going to continue now with our study of the providence of God as it's found in the fifth chapter of the Westminster Confession in our last session. We were looking at section four, and we didn't quite complete that entire section. You will recall, I trust, that in that very troublesome affirmation that God's providence extends, even to the first fall of the human race and to the sins of people in this world, and not simply by a bare passive permission of God, but in a way that He orders and governs and so on. And now we come to another semicolon where we get a proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God, who being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be. the author or approver of sin.
You see, the reason why it tells us that God can't be the author of sin or the approver of sin is because for God to approve sin, or to author sin, actually do sin, would be to act against His own nature, which is altogether holy, so that the law of His own person makes it utterly impossible for Him to do these things. Sometimes we think the doctrine of God's omnipotence means that God can do anything. The Bible says with God all things are possible, but that is circumscribed by other teachings of the Scripture. With God all things consistent with His nature are possible, but it's not possible for God to be God and not be God at the same time and in the same relationship. It's not possible for God to die.
It's not possible for God to lie, and it's not possible for God to sin. It's not only that he doesn't sin, but he's utterly incapable of it because the necessary conditions for sin to take place don't exist in God's moral character. And so, as strongly as section 4 affirms the extension of God's providence over sin, it equally affirms that the sinfulness of that sin resides strictly with the creature and not with the Creator at all. Again, yet in such a way that the sinfulness thereof, that is of these sins, proceeds only from the creature and not from God. who being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or the approver of sin. So again, we see in summary that what section 4 is saying is that God's providence, His power, His goodness, and His wisdom extends over all things, including the fall, that God in a certain sense ordained that the fall should take place, but that the end would come not through His sinful behavior, but through the free sinful choices of His creatures. out of whose hearts come that wickedness.
Let's go to section 5 that relates God's providence to our sins. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave for a season His own children to manifold temptations. Common, let me stop there for a second. that God will, in His graciousness, in His goodness, often will leave us open to manifold temptations. Now, let me just pause for a second.
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