Trusting in Sovereign Grace

By Rev. Raymond Coffey

September 2007

In recent months several books by prominent atheists have been published and have captured the attention of the reading public by their bold titles and claims. Christopher Hitchens’ book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and Richard Dawkins’ work, The God Delusion, are two of the most prominent works available. Now their claims and arguments have been ably answered and refuted by various philosophers and apologists. However, they do present some formidable problems that we as believers in Jesus Christ must continually contend with, not only philosophically but on a practical level as well. And the most pointed attack always focuses on the suffering of children. Dostoevsky presented this argument in a very powerful way in the classic work The Brothers Karamazov.  The manner in which Ivan Karamazov describes the problem of believing in a God who allows children to suffer is both painful and, on a first reading, persuasive. Examples could be multiplied of the plight of children and the dangers and horrors they are exposed to in our fallen world and they are of course very difficult for us to ponder.  I have expressed some of my own struggles as I have grappled with questions and doubts that arise when faced with the suffering of children. I have often had to reread a paragraph by Flannery O’Connor as I think about this matter. In a collection of essays entitled Mystery and Manners she writes,             

One of the tendencies of our age is to use the suffering of children to discredit the goodness of God, and once you have discredited his goodness, you are done with him….In this popular pity, we mark our gain in sensitivity and our loss in vision. If other ages felt less, they saw more, even though they saw with the blind, prophetical, unsentimental eye of acceptance, which is to say, of faith. In the absence of this faith now, we govern by tenderness. It is a tenderness which, long since cut off from the person of Christ, is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber.  

But as noted above, this is not just a philosophical problem. It becomes very personal when we confront issues with our own children. Questions are raised in our own minds when our own children face a debilitating or life-threatening illness, a difficult birth defect, a severe injury, or an emotional problem.  If a child is abused or neglected, we grieve with a grief that cannot be measured. And then there are the problems that arise from the consequences of their own actions, ranging from drug or alcohol abuse to reckless driving.  

 I am, however, convinced that the most difficult concern we face is when our children grow up and seemingly reject the gospel we sought to teach and model to them.  As those who believe in God’s faithfulness to his covenant promises for our children, this is the hardest matter to deal with in our lives and families. We may not raise the same questions that a Christopher Hitchens or Ivan Karamazov are concerned with, but our struggles are just as disconcerting as theirs.  We find ourselves asking why God does not intervene in their lives, or why they have not been brought to the faith, seeing that we believe in elective grace.  

This is most evident when we have claimed the promises of God on behalf of our children and yet they do not seem, at the present time, to be effectual. We call upon God in prayer, (though most of us could stand some improvement in this area); we seek to ‘trust’ God or ‘turn it over to God’ and ‘leave it with him’ even as we wrestle with our fears. We turn to these phrases because they do indeed convey what it is that we must do in the face of certain situations that we cannot control.  

And that is just the point we need to remember. There are things that we cannot control. It is beyond our ability to change most circumstances or to change the  lives of those we love.  But it is in the midst of those moments that we are called to trust in the sovereign grace of God. This is not just another cliché that we are to repeat nor is it a trite phrase that is supposed to help comfort us when we do not know what to think or say. It is the premier of Scripture, it is the foundational reality of all that is known about God. This is the heart of the covenantal structure of Biblical revelation. As a Reformed community who confess the covenantal nature of redemption, it is crucial that we anchor our lives, our faith, our hope and our futures in the sovereign grace of God.  

This is the answer to those skeptics who deny the existence of God because of the suffering of children. This is also the answer for us as parents who have baptized our children in Triune name of God, have claimed his covenantal promises, and pray for their salvation. Even when we see our children stray from that which they have been taught, we call upon the sovereign grace of God to turn their hearts and fulfill his purpose in their young lives. And we do so in trust and hope.  This is not an empty truth that has no power in it.  

In a recent article in the journal First Things, Anthony Sacramone penned some thoughts following a dialogue that the evangelical theologian Alister McGrath had with Richard Dawkins, filmed for Dawkins’ BBC documentary The Root of All Evil. Sacramone’s comments were especially helpful in thinking through the question of children, suffering and God’s purposes.  And they apply to the questions we in the church have in relation to our children coming to faith in Christ. (I quote this lengthy section because it is so essential to what we are discussing.)

 “I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven,” Jesus tells his disciples (Luke 10:18). The end of Evil and its attendant evils is a foregone conclusion, a closed case. Natural disasters and the machinations of wicked men have been finally arrested—at the cross. But Jesus’ declaration of victory is an eschatological statement—made even before the cross had been planted in Calvary’s soil. We finite creatures are caught in the molasses of time and must endure the death throes of all that is contrary to God’s final purposes as if in slow motion. And so it is important to remember that Jesus is speaking to the seventy-two sent to preach and teach in his name. The victory of Jesus must still be published to all the world because it is a victory that is not immediately discernible except through the eyes of faith.

Which is to say that there’s the “already” of salvation history—He is risen—and the “not yet.” And the “not yet” entails suffering in this passing age—suffering that is often unjust and seemingly pointless, but in the hands of a sovereign and good God a tool to conform his children to the image of his Only Begotten, the true purpose of their predestination. (So as not to be misunderstood, because suffering falls within the permissive will of God, and can even be used by him for ultimately good ends, it is no excuse for complacency; the alleviation of pain, done in the name of Jesus, is, like preaching and teaching, a heralding of the kingdom and a diffusion of hope.)

Now, a sovereign God does not displace secondary causes in Christians’ thinking about how the world works. Shifting tectonic plates do give rise to earthquakes and tsunamis. But Christians also believe God continues to intervene in the affairs of his creatures and does so to remind them that the world and its horrors are not beyond his purview, and that the saved child and the answered prayer is a foretaste of the age to come, in which every tear shall be wiped away and the body will no longer be an occasion of sin or pain.

But a foretaste only. Which is why sometimes only one child is saved. And why only Lazarus is raised from the dead. They are signs of the “already,” while the rest endure the “not yet.”

We are called, in this period in which we live in the “already” and in the “not yet” to trust in the sovereign grace of a good God and to do so with assurance and confidence that God will fulfill his purposes in our children’s lives for his everlasting glory!  But we do so as we look to Jesus Christ, the incarnation of sovereign grace, the embodiment of God’s goodness and call upon him to be merciful to us and our families. And yes, we are to teach, train, mentor, guide and instruct our children in the truths of God’s word. As a ministry we are to be one of the secondary causes that God uses in bringing our young people to know Christ. And let us give ourselves with all diligence to this work. But let us supremely trust in the sovereign grace of our faithful God to accomplish his will in their lives.