HC 28

Q28. What does it benefit us to know that God has created all things and still upholds them by His providence?

We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and with a view to the future we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from His love; for all creatures are so completely in His hand that without His will they cannot so much as move.

Proof texts

• Job 1:21-22 — [21] And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” [22] In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.
• Ps. 39:10 — [10] Remove your stroke from me; I am spent by the hostility of your hand.
• Jas. 1:3 — [3] for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
• Deut. 8:10 — [10] And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.
• 1 Thess. 5:18 — [18] give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
• Ps. 55:22 — [22] Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.
• Rom. 5:3-5 — [3] Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, [4] and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, [5] and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
• Rom. 8:38-39 — [38] For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, [39] nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• Job 1:12 — [12] And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.
• Job 2:6 — [6] And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.”
• Prov. 21:1 — [1] The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.
• Acts 17:24-28 — [24] The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, [25] nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. [26] And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, [27] that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, [28] for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

For discussion

1. The Assembly cited Job 1:21-22 in support of this answer. Read it in context — how does it bear on what is claimed here?
2. 12 passages are cited here. Which does the most work, and is anything claimed that the proofs do not obviously carry?