I. What is being confessed in this article?⤒🔗

This article confesses how this wild world, in which the devils and the wicked are at work, is yet ruled by our good God.

1. Our good God did not make the world only to abandon it afterwards; he continues to govern it. Therefore, literally nothing happens outside of His holy will.
2. As He arranges and makes all things happen, it is very good and just, even though the devils and the wicked work unjustly. His power and his goodness are both great and beyond our comprehension.
3. Therefore we will not curiously inquire into God’s reign, inasmuch as it is beyond our understanding. We do, however, deeply revere his righteous decisions, even though we cannot understand them. We shall be content to be disciples of Christ. What he teaches us through his Word is sufficient for us. It is also the ultimate limit for our knowledge.
4. This teaching gives us unspeakable consolation. After all, from this we understand that nothing is happening to us by chance. While God rules everything, he watches over us with his fatherly care. Without his will and permission not even a hair would fall from our head. Therefore we are assured that the devil and all our enemies cannot harm us, if he does not permit it or wills it to happen.
5. We therefore reject the error of the Epicureans, who claim that God lets everything take its course without interference. They are named after the Greek pagan philosopher Epicurus (±300 BC), who taught that the gods did not interfere with earthly life.

II. What is meant by God’s providence?←⤒🔗

1. The heading above Article 13 indicates that it will be about God’s providence. That is an accurate description, even though we do not actually find the word "providence" in this article. For we must know that it was confessed in the previous article that God rules all things “according to his eternal providence.” However, this was not further elaborated in Article 12. That is what this article will do. And so Article 13 deals with the providence of God, even though we do not encounter the term itself here.
   In short, this article understands the providence of God as his work in which “according to his holy will he so rules and governs all things, that nothing happens in this world without his direction.”
2. Nothing happens without God’s direction. In all the actions of men and angels, including their misdeeds, God’s hand is at work in a way that is hidden from us. This includes everything that is happening to us. According to our article, God has left nothing to fortune or chance.
   Jesus has illustrated this when he said that sparrows are cheap: two for a penny. Yet even such a bird does not fall to the ground without God’s will. God has even counted the number of hairs of our head (Matthew 10:29-30). God’s providence is therefore at work even in the smallest details.

III. God’s providence and the evil in this world←⤒🔗

1. In the case of evils that may befall us, we can think of misfortunes for which we really cannot blame anyone. This applies to hardships such as famine, disease, and loneliness. Yet Scripture is clear that no calamity or disaster will come to a city unless the LORD has sent it (Amos 3:6).
2. However, this article focuses on especially the ungodly, unjust enmity against God and his church. After all, it speaks of “sins which are committed” and of “devils and wicked men who act unjustly,” and of “all our enemies” who seek to hurt us. "Evil" is therefore, especially, the enmity that believers experience from the world and from the devil.
3. However, this evil of enmity is entirely under God’s direction. We give some examples:
   • ​Peter blames the Jews for having Jesus nailed to the cross. Yet he adds that this crime was done “according to the definite plan of God,” in other words, according to God’s own decree (Acts 2:23).
   • A certain Shimei once cursed David terribly. He did this out of enmity against David. But David himself says that God told Shimei to curse David (2 Samuel 16:9-12).
   • King Rehoboam made a foolish decision that split his kingdom in two. That was his own fault, and yet it happened because God willed it (1 Kings 12:15).
   • The Egyptians suddenly began to hate the Israelites living in their land. That was their own wickedness. Yet Psalm 105:25 says that it was God who turned their hearts to hate his people.
   • A frightened church confesses to the Lord: Our enemies are ready to “do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28).
4. ​From the whole of the Scriptures it becomes clear that the providence of God is manifest also in the most heinous crimes. Obviously, this raises the question of who is actually responsible for these evil things.

IV. God’s providence does not make him the author of sins←⤒🔗

1. The article says that God literally directs everything “according to his holy will” and that “nothing happens without his direction.”
   So God could restrain sin and prevent all wrongdoings. He does not do so! He permits all that evil to come to pass. Is he then in no way responsible for sin? That seems to be the only conclusion to our way of thinking. But here we read, “Yet God is not the Author of the sins which are committed nor can he be charged with them.”
2. How is it that God also controls sinful actions and yet is not to blame for them? We cannot understand this. God’s decrees are unsearchable and inscrutable (11:33). Our mind cannot grasp this and fails us. Only our faith can grasp it, because it accepts without question what the Bible says, which is that what God is doing is "very good and just," even though he allows devils and the wicked to act unjustly. Even then he is acting "according to his holy will." That is why this article speaks of "this good God" right from the start.
   But how do the Scriptures explain that God can allow sin without being responsible for that sin? If a person can prevent a murder and he fails to do it, then he is partly responsible for it. But can God allow a murder without being in any way responsible for it? How is that possible? Our article responds, “For his power and goodness are so great and beyond understanding that he ordains and executes his work in the most excellent and just manner.” Through his power God is able to tolerate the sin he hates, while he is by no means guilty of it because of his goodness.
   Through faith we say two things at once: God hates murder, adultery, torture, theft, and because of his goodness he abhors all sins. But secondly he also has the incomprehensible power to make them happen anyway, while his hatred of sin remains. His goodness does not limit his power in any way. And conversely, what God does or permits because of his power is never at the expense of his goodness.
   We cannot and may not say more about this. For it is beyond our comprehension how his goodness and power work together. And therefore it is confessed here that both his power and his goodness “surpass our human comprehension.”

V. Our attitude towards God’s providence←⤒🔗

1. So we cannot fathom that our good God allows bad things to happen. Our article is extremely careful on this point and repeatedly says that much of what God is doing is beyond human understanding. It does not try to explain it, as we often do. And today many people try to solve this dilemma in this way: the sick are told that their misery does not necessarily come from God’s fatherly hand and that God cannot help it if they have become ill; he is completely removed from all this. In this way his goodness is played off against his power (see the previous section). But the article states that “we content ourselves that we are pupils of Christ who have only to learn those things which he teaches us in his Word, without transgressing these limits.”
2. Yet we should not tip the scales by allowing God’s providence to come upon us quietly and passively. The article also says that “with the greatest humility and reverence we adore the just judgments of God, which are hidden from us.” So even though we do not always comprehend God’s actions, we do adore them, believing that they are always righteous decisions. This means that we will always speak very positively about God’s actions—like Job, who could exclaim, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).

VI. The comfort of God’s providence←⤒🔗

1. Nearly half of this article, namely the second part, speaks of the “inexpressible consolation” of this teaching. So this is not about the dilemma of God’s providence, but about the comfort that we may always trust our mighty and at the same time good Father in heaven with complete peace of mind. Even in the midst of the toughest tempests he is behind everything that happens – no matter how confusing everything is. And he causes literally everything to work together for our good (Romans 8:28, Genesis 45:8).
2. These are not just some cheap words. The church confessed this in difficult times. We need to learn to understand the comfort mentioned here. As the church has carefully stated: “This doctrine gives us inexpressible consolation, for we learn to understand by it that nothing can happen to us by chance, but only by the direction of our gracious heavenly Father.”  

Points to discuss←↰⤒🔗

1. Discuss whether 2 Samuel 24:1 and 1 Chronicles 21:1 contradict each other.
2. Notice how Jesus talks about anxiety in Matthew 6:25-34:
   • Does it help to be worried (Matthew 6:27)?
   • Why does Jesus point to birds and lilies (Matthew 6:26, 28)?
   • Why should we not be anxious about tomorrow (Matthew 6:34)?
   • Why should we not be apprehensive at all (Matthew 6:32, 33)?
3. Discuss the difference between a careful and a careless handling of the earth’s resources. This may be connected, for instance, to overpopulation.
4. Does someone who takes out insurance or inoculates himself thereby fail to trust the providence of God?
5. In his book Reconciled with Suffering Dr. H. Wiersinga argues that the well-known confession of Job 1:21b has been wrongly used as a textbook example of our proper attitude in so many obituaries. According to him, Job was closer to the truth when he began to protest against his suffering, because such suffering does not come from God’s fatherly hand. Give your opinion on this. Remember to check Job 1:22.
6. Based on Proverbs 16:33, is using dice in a game actually playing around with God’s providence?