55 “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3), the Father according to His good and perfect will determines what is possible and impossible in our historical experiences. He knows the future no less than the past because He has foreordained all events that have happened as well as those yet to transpire. This includes both good and bad experiences: “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things” (Isa. 45:7). God’s sovereign rule over history, then, is absolute and perfectly righteous, even though His ultimate purpose may be hidden from us (Gen. 50:20). Because God is the author of every moment, history as a form of knowledge is objective without being impersonal — yet personal without being arbitrary or unpredictable. Scripture explicitly references God’s providential control over the universe as a whole (Ps. 103:19; Dan. 4:35), over the earth (Job 37; Ps. 104:14, 135:6; Matt. 5:45), over the animal kingdom (Ps. 104:21, 28; Matt. 6:26, 10:29), over nations and political events (Job 12:23; Ps. 22:28, 66:7; Acts 17:26), over the creation of life and its duration (1 Sam. 16:1; Isa. 45:5; Gal. 1:15, 16), and over our prosperity and failures (Ex. 4:11; Ps. 75:6–7; Luke 1:52). Not only has the Lord predetermined our life span (Ps. 139:16) but He also intimately exercises His authority over the mundane aspects of it as well, for “Even the hairs of your head are all numbered [pre-established]” (Matt. 10:30). Therefore, what we call “natural law” is really the moment-by-moment upholding of all things by the Second Person of the Trinity, for “in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17; John 1:3–4; Acts 17:28); Christ is the unifying power of the created order — not an unconscious and undirected natural force. Since man’s chief end is to glorify God, in order to give our Heavenly Father all honor and glory due Him, Christians must reject the pagan notion that history “naturally” occurs apart from divine control; this is the ancient Greek concept of a world ruled by an impersonal fate that controlled all things and limited what even the gods could do. However, time does not exist apart from Him nor does it operate outside His jurisdiction. God knows the future because He foreordained it in the past, even “before the foundation of the world” was laid (Eph. 1:4; see also 2 Thess. 2:13; 2 Tim. 1:9; Rev. 13:8, 17:8). He did not “fast-forward” through time as if it were independent of Him, and then once informed of our future choices, works in the present to bring them about because He cannot override our “autonomous” decisions. This unbiblical view would diminish God’s sovereignty — and make history capricious — by limiting
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