Hello,

It has been a long time but I think I have something new to add to the discussion.  I need your help to see if it is strong. 

Thesis:  Providence is when there is no immediate cause/effect for sin.  In God's direct rule sin is immediately judged and we see cause/effect.  God’s rule is declared by God Himself or through His authoritative prophets only.  When He brings His rule ALL the evil are punished and ALL the righteous are blessed.

In the garden before the fall, God ruled directly and there was no providence.  All His wishes were obeyed by man and man obeyed all the commands of God and did not sin.  God commanded that the day in which they ate of the wrong tree they would die. 

We know that Adam and Eve did not immediately die.  I have heard two main explanations for this.

1.  They died "spiritually."

2.  The "day" was 1,000 years based upon the verse in Peter.  

I would like to propose that they "died in Christ" and that the death on that day was accomplished in the death of the animal for its skins and that this looked forward to the death of Christ.  This then would be a parallel of the passage in Hebrews in which Abraham received Isaac back from the dead.  Thus, even the very first day of the fall the blood od Jesus was what covered sins. 

From that time on, we see that God does not immediately punish sins.  Because of the shedding of blood, Adam and Eve lived and thus the seed promise lived on in their descendents.  If God had immediately imposed cause and effect on the guilty we would not exist. 

At this time their was a direct rule of God and those who remained in His "kingdom" experienced His discipline imposed after the fall - the suffering imposed on them in the curse.  After Cain sinned he was expelled from the presence of God.  I maintain that he left the covering given by the acceptable offering that looked forward to Jesus.  Cain's offering was not acceptable, his deeds were evil and he was expelled from before the face of God. 

The sins of men continued and there was no immediate cause/effect.  God did not "secretly will" these sins nor did He approve of them.  He simply chose to delay His judgment and impose His direct rule out of mercy.  This mercy does not "allow evil" but chooses to withhold immediate "cause/effect" on sinful actions.  This initial time of providence had a defined ending in which God imposed His direct rule on the earth.  The result of His rule is to punish ALL the evil and to bless ALL the righteous without exception.  We find this in the flood.

This same concept is seen in Babel in which God comes down to the earth to impose His direct rule on Man.  ALL are guilty and afflicted with the punishment.

The story of Sodom is more interesting in that we find providence (with its "injustice") in Genesis 14 contrasted with God's direct rule with perfect justice in Genesis 19.  In Genesis 14 we have 4 kings come and capture the 5 cities of the plain including Sodom and Gomorrah.  We have no prophet explaining the direct rule of God.  The same wicked people, the same righteous people, the same city the same everything.  At first we see the righteous taken captive by the wicked with the wicked.  Then we see the wicked being saved with righteous from the wicked.  This is an example of providence where we don’t find judgment but mercy.  The same afflictions are common to wicked/righteous and thus the wicked are still given time to repent. 

In Genesis 19 we find that God comes down and announces His direct rule.  In Abraham’s words we see that when God acts directly He never judges the righteous with the wicked.  Righteous Lot preaches to the men of Sodom from his door and they refuse to listen.  Ultimately God spares ALL the righteous and kills ALL the wicked. 

God declares direct rule upon Pharaoh and ALL the firstborn of those who do not obey His decree to hide behind the blood are destroyed.  ALL the firstborn of those who obey are spared.

We see in Genesis that were it not for providence and the fact that there is not an immediate cause/effect, ALL would have perished.  Because God delays His judgment and some men find shelter in the blood of His Son, some are saved and escape the coming wrath of direct rule because His Son already bore it.

Thus, God never ever wills evil or secretly plans evil.  Out of mercy God chooses to delay His cause/effect and offer shelter in the death of His Son. 

Hi Spen,

I have to say your idea is Interesting, I’ve never heard of anything quite like it before.  How did you come up with this thesis?  I would like to read some more about it.  Thanks - Mark

Post Edited (sparknheart) : 9/29/2005 12:47:56 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (sparknheart) : 9/29/2005 12:56:53 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Violin for God) : 9/30/2005 1:10:27 AM (GMT-5)

Vi,

In some way, if all sin is not immediately and thoroughly judged, providence exists after sin.  Some of the things you bring up don’t seem to be laid out in scriptures with the same level of exactitude as we have for the race of man.  We are not explicitly given the “rules” or commands concerning what constitutes a sinful behavior for angels.   Would eating of the tree be a sin for them?  We are given some kind of hint in Gen 6:3 and the subsequent actions taken by God but we are aware of them only because they intersect with humanity.  The sin of the sons of God is what ultimately sets up the worldwide judgment of the flood on all living flesh.  The direct rule of God that was delayed in the pre-flood is imposed with the flood and ALL the wicked perish and ALL the righteous are spared. 

2 Peter speaks briefly concerning the angels,

And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day,

There are some evil angels that God has imposed cause/effect for their actions upon in this temporal world  (which I believe refer to the sins of the sons of God and physical intercourse with women) that are awaiting the ultimate imposition of direct rule in the great day when it is imposed eternally.  While we know this with certainty, we are not told why other evil angels are not immediately judged and exist in providence.  We do know with certainty that God hates their evil actions and has decreed eternal punishment for them in a lake of fire, but for now that lake is empty.

Until the day when direct rule is imposed we do not see cause/effect and wickedness continues in our world.  I do believe we are given the reason for the delay of cause/effect for the race of Adam (not the angels).  The reason for providence is mercy for the race of Adam.  If God would have executed His judgment immediately on the sinners, the seed would have failed and Christ would never have come incarnate as the seed of the woman, Abraham, David.  You and I would never have existed.  None would have been saved and there would have been no mercy.  It is because of mercy that God has decided to delay judgment.  Because of this delay some are saved.  Those who demand immediate cause/effect are opposing the mercy of God and in some sense are like the slave that was forgiven much but demands that his fellow slave pay up immediately.  During our suffering in this wicked world we all long for direct rule to return.  However as we long for it and pray for it, we still leave it with God to determine the time when He will impose His direct rule again.  Direct rule will terminate the rule of providence in which we find mercy.  God’s "promise" referred to in the following passage is the simultaneous promise of life to ALL who obey the gospel and  eternal death to ALL who disobey.  Both sides of this promise are fulfilled at the imposition of His direct rule.

2 Peter 3

Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

When it comes to Genesis 3 and death, we know that God promised that Adam and Eve would die the day that they ate of the tree.  The only death that is recorded that day is that of the animal that God slew in order to provide skins to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve.    I believe that this death of the animal looked forward to the incarnation and the death of the ultimate Lamb whose blood is the only true covering for our nakedness and sins before God.  In receiving the skins in faith, Adam and Eve died in Christ.  Christ died for them on that day and received death as punishment for their sins as God commanded.

2 Peter 3

knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Gal 2

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

I think that the “curses” we find listed there are simply the “means of grace” that God gave them before the flood.  As long as they stayed on the ground that God had given them and suffered in tilling it for their strength, they were with God and had hope in the seed promise given to them.  Cain was expelled from this ground of suffering and this meant that he was also expelled from the presence of God and the face of God.  Cain established an economy outside the suffering ground where God dwelt and they waited for God to fulfill His promise.  It was Cain and his descendents that brought us music and technology.  These were the ungodly that Enoch prophesied about in Jude.  The people of the seed promise stayed on the toilsome ground.  The faithful were still there toiling the cursed land in the time of Noah.  Lamech, Noah’s father prophesied that Noah would deliver them from the curse on the ground in Genesis 5.  This happened and in Genesis 8.

The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth;

I believe that we see an even broader imposition of providence after the flood in Genesis 8 than what we had seen prior to the flood.  Those who sinned had an immediate cause/effect realtive to the ground.  Adam's sin had the immediate effect of serving God on cursed ground.  Cain's sin resulted in an immedate effect of increasing this curse aon the ground.   After the flood we see even this cause/effect removed as God removes this curse.  What is astounding is the reason He removes it – because the intent of man’s heart is evil!  We expect a reduced curse because men are improving when in reality God removes this curse because it has been proven by the flood that we are only evil.  Now we see providence in which it rains on the just and the unjust.   

Thus, in Genesis 8 God imposes an economy of providence in which evil men will not have the punishment of cursed ground to deal with.  God knowingly removes a cause/effect on evil in light of the exemplary punishment of direct rule that He has brought upon ALL evil with the flood.  He also gives the rainbow as a sign for all men of His direct rule for them to remember it by and hold them accountable for its return. 

After Genesis 8, rain or lack of rain is not to be interpreted as God's direct rule except through the authoritative prophet, such as Elijah.  Strangely, at the end when providence gives way to direct rule we find that it will not rain on the just/unjust anymore.  Zechariah 14:17 says of the millenium, "And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain on them." 

The key issue that this thesis is that God always hates evil and never approves of it.  It seems to me that the problem of evil and the scandal of certain concepts to somehow imply that God secretly wishes evil is the motivation for much of the discussion on this site.  There has been considerable effort expended to demonstrate that God never approves of evil by focusing on limitations of His foreknowledge.  This concept provides the same comfort in a way that is much more straghtforward.  Moreover, the themes of scriptures as well as specific passages seem to support this view.

Post Edited (spenlake) : 9/30/2005 4:53:50 PM (GMT-5)

Hey Spen,

I was thinking about this that you wrote:

When it comes to Genesis 3 and death, we know that God promised that Adam and Eve would die the day that they ate of the tree.  The only death that is recorded that day is that of the animal that God slew in order to provide skins to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve.  I believe that this death of the animal looked forward to the incarnation and the death of the ultimate Lamb whose blood is the only true covering for our nakedness and sins before God.  In receiving the skins in faith, Adam and Eve died in Christ.  Christ died for them on that day and received death as punishment for their sins as God commanded.

There are two things I was thinking about regarding this.  The first I wrote under the post “Romans 8:29-32” in my reply to Mr. I.  See what I wrote about the part of Adam and Eve dying, but even further, separating themselves from the life.  The only word we really have available in English to denote a “separation from life” is “death”.  But often when thinking of “death” we don’t (or at least I don’t) explicitly think of the separation of life but separation of the spirit or soul.  I wonder how the Jews actually thought of that word used in Hebrew “tamooth”.  … Whoa, Vine’s Expository Dictionary is cool!!  It totally verifies that.  “Essentially ‘mut’ (OT: 4191) means to ‘lose one’s life’.”  There’s more to it, but this section supports what I was guessing.  Cool. 

The second thing I was thinking was about the skins that God provided to Adam and Eve.  I wonder if it symbolizes even more than that.  What are the skins?  A carcass.  Has no life.  Perhaps it was an outward symbol of what happened on the inside.  All throughout the OT, God gave the Israelites pictures or symbols of something of greater significance.  If there is one thing that God taught the Israelites, it’s “remember this, remember that, remember, remember.”  Perhaps these skins were a symbol them to remember.  (Later perhaps I’ll have a chance to mention other things I think are symbols too.)  And after thinking about it, I think I agree with you that this also seems to be a foreshadowing of what Christ was going to do: to die and be resurrected.  Without death, there is no resurrection.  Christ’s death on the cross has many areas of significance I think, and we only know of a few.  But I think (along with all that we already know about Calvary), this was also a symbol: of the Body (ie Christ and the Bride which were, pre-fall, one flesh) dying because of sin and God resurrecting the Body, bringing Christ and the Bride back to a glorified state.

Post Edited (JEE) : 10/6/2005 1:51:05 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (spenlake) : 10/6/2005 6:36:15 AM (GMT-5)

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Post Edited (spenlake) : 10/6/2005 4:24:31 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (spenlake) : 10/6/2005 7:23:13 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (jefscott) : 10/6/2005 8:14:41 PM (GMT-5)