A Baptist Confession and God's Decree

The most well known and widely published Confession of Faith in Baptist history is The Second London Confession of 1689. It was the adopted confession for the very first Baptist Association in America in 1742 (i.e., the Philadelphia Association, est. 1707). The Charleston Association (1767) also adopted it as their confession for Baptists in the South; and in 1839, Jesse Mercer (1769-1841), republished the 1689 Confession to run as a series in The Christian Index (the Baptist state paper for Georgia) - calling it, "our Old Confession." Moreover, the 293 delegates who met in Augusta, Georgia to form The Southern Baptist Convention (May 8, 1845), all came from Baptist churches and associations who held to the 1689 Confession in its adopted form as the Philadelphia/Charleston Confession of Faith.

Now among the 32 chapters which frame this confession, the third chapter, handles with the greatest care and most well chosen words, the biblical truth of God's decree. In the first paragraph of this chapter, the overall truth of this doctrine is affirmed:

"From all eternity, God decreed all that should happen in time, and this He did freely and unalterably, consulting only His own wise and holy will. Yet in so doing He does not become in any sense the author of sin, nor does He share responsibility for sin with sinners. Neither, by reason of His decree, is the free working of second causes put aside; rather is it established. In all these matters the divine wisdom appears, as also does God's power and faithfulness in effecting that which He has purposed."

Now to just begin wrapping one's mind around this mammoth truth of Scripture, it would be helpful to simply paint with a broad brush a few central truths which are expressed in this paragraph. First, God's decree is His eternal sovereign purpose over all things in the universe. This means that we are not speaking here of what has been called "God's revealed will." The revealed will of God is clearly pronounced commands in Scripture (e.g., the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:1-17). God's will, in this respect, can be obeyed or disobeyed by man. However, God's decretive will is not "revealed" in every respect (Deut.29:29) nor is it a moral command God has given us to obey. Rather, God's decree is His eternal sovereign purpose that encompasses everything that happens in the universe. Hence nothing happens in the universe apart from God's decretive will (see Isa.46:10; Dan.4:34,35; Eph.1:11).

Second, God's decree cannot be frustrated or thwarted by man. Proverbs 19:21 says, "Many are the plans in the mind of man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand." In Isaiah 14:24-27, God's decree concerning His judgment on Assyria is couched in terms which bespeak of His sovereign will as irresistible: "The Lord of hosts has sworn: 'As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand...For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who shall annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back' (vv.24,27)?

Finally, God's decree is not conditioned by anything outside of Himself. The Confession states that what God decreed, "He did freely and unalterably, consulting only His own wise and holy will." God does not wait for man to act and then decide what He should do. Never! When God decreed all things to come to pass, He did so as an act of sheer sovereign will. The universe and all its events, great and small, bow the knee to the decretive will of a holy, all-wise God who says: "it will be done."