The answer to the first question, by most of the Christian tradition, would be “Yes, God does control history…but it depends on what you mean by ‘control’.” We acknowledge that God is sovereign over all things, but there are two different ways of interpreting what this means. It could mean that God is in active control over everything that happens, that history, indeed, proceeds entirely according to his own divine plan. Or, it could mean that God holds sovereign prerogative over all things—he has the power to direct events whenever he so chooses, but he may also permit events to happen of their own accord without his active involvement in directing them. Even if merely the latter is true, most Christians would still believe that God intentionally directs some events, such as the great narrative of the Old Testament. What, then, does this part of “his story” have to say to us as Christians?
Why did God bother with the Old Testament story?
Up until the Protestant Reformation, the dominant way to read the Old Testament was as an allegory—it was a story in which God was placing elements which all pointed toward and foreshadowed Christ. However, in terms of Christian theology, the Old Testament seemed to be unneeded. If human beings were sinful from the time of the Fall, and the remedy for sin was the Incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ, then why didn’t God just send Jesus right away? What was the point of Israelite history and the Law if it didn’t actually solve humanity’s problem?
The Calvinists shine new light on the Old Testament
John Calvin, following less than a generation after Martin Luther, was one of the leading lights of the Protestant Reformation. He engaged in a labor of biblical-theological synthesis practically unseen in Christianity up to that point. His book, Institutes, was the first truly biblically-based systematic theology that the Christian faith had ever produced. Instead of mining the Old Testament simply for allegories of Christ and the church, Calvin and his followers carefully studied the structure of the Old Testament until they had discerned an overarching pattern: God’s sovereign guidance of history through the means of covenants.
Covenant Theology - The Calvinists saw three great covenants operating in the Bible:
- The Covenant of Works: This covenant was established with Adam and Eve, and later expanded under Moses as the Law for the people of Israel. Under this covenant, God gives commandments for humanity to keep; the reward for keeping them is life in relationship with God; the reward for breaking them is death. Adam, as the “federal head” of all humanity, broke the covenant of works; all of us, incorporated in him, share his punishment, and we also ratify his actions with our own sins.
- The Covenant of Grace: This is the covenant of the New Testament, instituted in Christ. Jesus himself, as the “federal head” of a new humanity, perfectly fulfills all the requirements of the Covenant of Works. We enter the covenant of grace through faith in Christ, and, incorporated under his headship, we benefit from his perfect keeping of the Covenant of Works.
The Three Uses of the Law
Even though the first covenant is superseded by the covenant of grace, Calvin and the reformers recognized that it was still God-given and still had application to the Christian life. Martin Luther had posited two uses for the Law: (1) civil use, in which the righteous standards of the Law help us organize civil society, so that the wickedness of unredeemed humans is curbed; and (2) pedagogical use, in which the Law convicts an unredeemed person of sin, confirms his inability to be righteous, and points the way to Christ. However, as Calvin recognized, these two uses alone would mean that redeemed Christians still have no actual use for the Law. So Calvin discerned a third use: (3) didactic use, in which the Law (although it no longer has power to condemn the believers) helps Christians find the way to a holy, righteous way of living. In this way, even the Law becomes a gift of God’s grace.
The Sovereignty of God over All Things
Thus, Calvin saw in the events of the Old Testament evidence about the way God works: he orders the events of human history toward his own ends and makes them part of his grand narrative. In the same way, Calvin followed the tradition of Augustine in claiming that God is in active control over all things, even our individual lives. Everything we experience, including our faith in Christ, comes from the will of God alone, and it is only by his gracious choice that we are saved.
Application
If God is really sovereign over everything, do I really need to take responsibility for anything? The answer, of course, is yes. The best advice here comes from an old Christian saying: “Believe as if everything depended on God, and act as if everything depended on you.” The wisest course of all is to take everything that happens to us as mercies and disciplines coming from the hand of God, and at the same time to take responsibility for our own actions.
Study the Old Testament! These books are given to us by God for our growth in holiness. Though we are no longer under condemnation for our failure to keep his commandments, those commands can still help to guide us on our way to a full, joyful life of righteousness.