Latest / Reformed Thinking / Providence: A Bath of Truth, the Defeat of Death, and the Gift of Birth

Transcript

Providence: A Bath of Truth, the Defeat of Death, and the Gift of Birth · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  You know, usually when we talk about a medical diagnosis, there
• 0:04
  is this, this expectation of total precision.
• 0:07
  Right, it is very black and white.
• 0:09
  Yeah, it is. It is very much like
• 0:10
  engineering. You know, like you break your
• 0:12
  arm. The X-ray shows that jagged
• 0:15
  white line on the screen, and the doctor just points a pen at
• 0:18
  it and says, well, there it is. Yes, you look at the film and
• 0:21
  the issue is just completely clear.
• 0:24
  Broken or not broken, it is a clean binary and let us be
• 0:29
  honest, it is incredibly comforting.
• 0:31
  Oh. Absolutely.
• 0:32
  We want things to be that clear. We do.
• 0:33
  We like things to be visible, to be categorized, and to be
• 0:36
  entirely within our grasp. But then you step into the world
• 0:40
  of human existence. That is where it gets messy.
• 0:43
  Right. You start looking at breath, you
• 0:45
  know, at where life actually comes from, where it goes, and
• 0:47
  who is pulling the strings behind the curtain.
• 0:50
  Yeah, and suddenly that pristine X-ray machine is just completely
• 0:53
  useless. Spot on.
• 0:55
  Human life just does not work like a simple scan.
• 0:58
  We are looking at a landscape that is murky, it is layered and
• 1:02
  it is often really obscured by our own assumptions.
• 1:05
  Yeah, we bring a lot of baggage to.
• 1:06
  It we really do. So welcome to reform thinking.
• 1:10
  Today we are taking a deep dive into a stack of sources that,
• 1:15
  well, they strip down the illusions we hold about the
• 1:17
  womb, the tomb, and everything in between.
• 1:19
  And it is a necessary stripping down.
• 1:21
  It is, and I want to speak directly to you, the listener,
• 1:24
  from the start. We all walk around with a set of
• 1:26
  assumptions about our own lives and our eventual deaths.
• 1:30
  Everyone does, whether they admit it or not.
• 1:32
  Right. You assume a great deal about
• 1:33
  your autonomy, your rights, and your control over your own
• 1:38
  destiny. We think we are in the driver's
• 1:40
  seat. Yeah, we do.
• 1:41
  So the mission of this deep dive is to wash away those cultural
• 1:44
  illusions and look at the raw, unvarnished theological reality
• 1:48
  of Providence. It is a heavy topic, but it is
• 1:51
  so freeing. It really is, and joining me as
• 1:53
  our guide for this detailed examination is our resident
• 1:57
  theological expert. So to kick things off, the
• 2:00
  sources we're looking at today argue that we are all walking
• 2:03
  around in a condition of spiritual blindness.
• 2:06
  Yes, they use some very specific language for it.
• 2:08
  They call it a noxious mist. I mean, what is this mist and
• 2:12
  how does it actually function in our daily lives?
• 2:16
  It is a really vivid image, is it not?
• 2:18
  The text describe our current condition as living under this
• 2:23
  this murky haze or a noxious mist that completely clouds our
• 2:27
  vision of reality. So we are just stumbling around
• 2:29
  in the dark. Basically, yeah.
• 2:31
  We do not naturally see life and death as they truly are because
• 2:34
  we are enveloped in this spiritual cocktail.
• 2:38
  A spiritual cocktail. That is an interesting way to
• 2:40
  put it. Well, according to the sources,
• 2:42
  this miss is grew from three very distinct ingredients.
• 2:45
  OK, let us break those down. What is the first one?
• 2:47
  First there is the ancient hiss from the father of lies.
• 2:50
  Right, going all the way back to Genesis.
• 2:52
  Yes. Second, there is the hedonistic
• 2:53
  impulse of sin. And then a third There is a
• 2:57
  secular culture that codifies rebellion against the creator.
• 3:01
  So it is a three-part problem. Right.
• 3:03
  These three elements blend together to form a worldview
• 3:06
  that the sources label a coding of folly.
• 3:08
  You know, reading through these papers, that phrase coding of
• 3:11
  folly, it really stuck with me. It is a great descriptor.
• 3:15
  It is because it implies something that covers everything
• 3:17
  else up. You know something you might not
• 3:18
  even realize is there until you actively try to scrape it off.
• 3:21
  Yes, it is like grime on a window.
• 3:23
  You forget what the outside actually looks like.
• 3:25
  Yeah. Let us unpack those three
• 3:28
  ingredients, starting with that ancient hiss.
• 3:31
  How does that set the groundwork for this massive delusion?
• 3:34
  Well, the ancient hiss goes all the way back to the Garden of
• 3:36
  Eden. Like we said, it is Satan's
• 3:38
  specific lie, which was you will not surely die.
• 3:43
  Denying the reality of death right from the jump.
• 3:45
  Exactly what that does is create this aggressive denial of
• 3:50
  death's reality in the human heart.
• 3:53
  So we just pretend it is not going to happen to us.
• 3:55
  Right. It fosters an illusion that we
• 3:57
  are somehow immune to the decay of the fall.
• 4:01
  We operate as if we have an endless horizon in front of us.
• 4:04
  And I imagine the second ingredient just feeds right into
• 4:07
  that. It does.
• 4:08
  The hedonistic impulse builds right on that denial.
• 4:10
  It is the mindset of let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.
• 4:14
  So the first lie says death is not real, and the second one
• 4:17
  says, well even if it is real, just distract yourself with
• 4:21
  today's bread. Precisely.
• 4:23
  It restricts human vision entirely to the immediate.
• 4:26
  It cuts off any sort of eternal perspective.
• 4:29
  Just focusing on what feels good right now.
• 4:31
  Right. It reduces the human experience
• 4:34
  to consuming pleasure in the present moment.
• 4:37
  And then, you know, the third ingredient acts as the cultural
• 4:40
  reinforcement for the 1st 2:00. The secular culture part.
• 4:42
  Yes, secular culture constantly declares life as an autonomous,
• 4:47
  self determined possession. We hear that language all the
• 4:49
  time, do we not? Oh, everywhere we hear about an
• 4:52
  unalienable right to life, treating our heartbeat as if it
• 4:55
  were a possession we own by right.
• 4:57
  Rather than a divine gift held in trust.
• 4:59
  Spot on. We think the three score and 10
• 5:01
  years belong entirely to us, to do with as we please.
• 5:05
  You know, the psychological weight of that is just
• 5:07
  staggering to think about. I was thinking about this idea
• 5:10
  of treating life as self owned property it creates.
• 5:12
  A lot of tension. It really does.
• 5:14
  It is like it is like a tenant who rents a house and lives
• 5:19
  there for so long that they start acting like they hold the
• 5:22
  deed. That is a brilliant analogy.
• 5:24
  Right. They completely forget the
• 5:26
  landlord even exists. They start knocking down walls,
• 5:28
  they change the locks, they repaint the exterior.
• 5:32
  Making themselves right at home. Yeah, and then they act utterly
• 5:34
  shocked and offended when the actual owner finally shows up to
• 5:38
  inspect the property. They feel violated.
• 5:40
  Yes. So how does this tenant mindset
• 5:44
  change the way humans operate on a day-to-day basis?
• 5:47
  Well, what happens when you operate with a tenant mindset is
• 5:50
  that you generate an incredible, almost suffocating amount of
• 5:53
  anxiety. Because you are constantly
• 5:55
  guarding something that is not yours.
• 5:57
  Right. Think about the mechanics of it.
• 5:59
  When you believe your years belong entirely to you, any
• 6:03
  threat to that lifespan feels like a literal theft.
• 6:06
  Oh wow I never thought about it like.
• 6:08
  That it is true. You view sickness, aging, or
• 6:11
  danger as someone actually robbing you of your rightful
• 6:14
  property. Because if you are the ultimate
• 6:15
  owner of your life, you are also its ultimate protector.
• 6:19
  Yes, you have to carry the unbearable weight of sustaining
• 6:22
  it all by yourself. The text argues that this leads
• 6:26
  to a state of lifelong slavery to the fear of death.
• 6:30
  Lifelong slavery. That is heavy, but it makes
• 6:33
  sense. If I am a landlord and the roof
• 6:35
  caves in, that is entirely on me.
• 6:37
  That is the core mechanism of the anxiety and the proposed
• 6:41
  solution in our sources is not just about gaining new
• 6:44
  information, you know. It is not just reading another
• 6:46
  book. No, or adopting a fresh
• 6:48
  philosophical outlook, it argues that human minds need a bath of
• 6:52
  truth to step into the bracing air of God's Word.
• 6:55
  A bath of truth. So we need to wash off the mist.
• 6:58
  Yes, this requires a complete ethical and spiritual cleansing.
• 7:01
  We need to dive into a purifying pool of biblical truth and wash
• 7:05
  off this tenant mindset. So we can actually see God's
• 7:08
  absolute sway over all things. Right.
• 7:10
  We have to realize who holds the deed.
• 7:12
  It is a fundamental rewiring of how we perceive reality.
• 7:15
  I mean, if we truly internalize that we do not own our own
• 7:18
  existence, it forces us to ask where that existence comes from
• 7:21
  in the first place. Which points us right to the
• 7:23
  origin of life. Exactly this deep dive naturally
• 7:26
  takes us to the very beginning of life, and the text has some
• 7:29
  incredibly sharp critiques of modern scientific assumptions
• 7:33
  regarding the womb. It really pulls no punches
• 7:35
  there. No it does not.
• 7:36
  It looks at biological reproduction and says basically
• 7:40
  you are missing the primary actor here.
• 7:42
  It does. The sources firmly reject
• 7:45
  evolutionary naturalism. And for the listener, that is
• 7:47
  the worldview that reduces everything to matter and chance.
• 7:51
  Right, Yes, that specific worldview attempts to reduce
• 7:54
  life to a closed system of physical processes.
• 7:57
  It says that human life is just the outcome of cellular
• 8:00
  multiplication. Just sperm and egg interacting
• 8:03
  under the laws of biology, nothing more.
• 8:05
  Right, but the text insists that while humans are participants in
• 8:08
  the process, I mean, they bigot, they procreate.
• 8:11
  God is the sovereign cause who gives the soul.
• 8:13
  So he is actively involved. It is not just a biological
• 8:17
  machine running in the background.
• 8:18
  No, not at all. The creation of a human life
• 8:21
  involves the direct personal action of God, who alone
• 8:24
  constitutes the person. Biology is not an autonomous
• 8:28
  system. You know, I was looking at the
• 8:29
  translation notes for Genesis chapter 4 in the source material
• 8:33
  and there is this detail about Eve.
• 8:36
  Oh, the birth of Seth. Yes, she uses a really specific
• 8:39
  word for the birth of her son. The word is Shythe.
• 8:43
  It struck me because reading her reaction, it does not sound like
• 8:47
  she is just marveling at biology.
• 8:49
  She was seeing much deeper than that.
• 8:51
  Yeah, how does this specific semantic choice reprogram our
• 8:55
  understanding of procreation? Well, the Hebrew word shythe
• 8:59
  means to deliberately set, to establish, or to put in place.
• 9:04
  To deliberately set that implies a ton of intention.
• 9:07
  It does. In Genesis 4.25, Eve says God
• 9:10
  has appointed for me another offspring.
• 9:13
  The text highlights this to show the intentionality behind the
• 9:16
  event. So she is not to say, oh look,
• 9:17
  human reproduction works. Right.
• 9:19
  This is not the language of a watchmaker God who winds up the
• 9:23
  clock of human reproduction, steps back, and just lets it run
• 9:26
  on autopilot. Right, the whole watchmaker
• 9:27
  analogy just falls apart here it.
• 9:29
  Does it is the language of a sovereign who personally places
• 9:33
  every single soul into its biological vessel.
• 9:38
  Eve recognized that God was the decisive, efficacious actor and
• 9:42
  causing conception. She saw right through the
• 9:44
  biology to the divine hand. Yes, she understood who was
• 9:48
  really doing the. Work and this realization.
• 9:50
  It is not just an isolated incident with Eve.
• 9:53
  The sources use the matriarchs of the Old Testament as a
• 9:56
  historical laboratory for this doctrine.
• 9:58
  We see this play out over and over again in Genesis and
• 10:01
  beyond. You do.
• 10:02
  But to really grasp the weight of this, we need to talk about
• 10:05
  the world these women lived in. The ancient Near East was not a
• 10:08
  vacuum. Not at all.
• 10:10
  We have to look closely the cultural context of the ancient
• 10:12
  Near East to see why this theology was so radical back
• 10:15
  then. Because everyone else was doing
• 10:17
  something completely different. Yes, the covenant community of
• 10:19
  Israel was surrounded by cultures that relied heavily on
• 10:22
  fertility deities. We were talking about gods like
• 10:25
  Ball and Asherah. The Canaanite gods.
• 10:26
  Right in the Canaanite mind, the womb, and agricultural fertility
• 10:31
  for that matter, was controlled by capricious gods.
• 10:34
  Gods who had moves and tempers. Exactly.
• 10:37
  These deities had to be manipulated.
• 10:39
  They had to be appeased or even awakened through rituals.
• 10:43
  Because if the gods are a sleeper, distracted, your crops
• 10:46
  fail and your womb remains closed.
• 10:49
  Right, it was all on the worshipper to get the gods
• 10:51
  attention. The entire religious system was
• 10:54
  purely transactional. I scratch your back, you give me
• 10:56
  rain. Yes.
• 10:58
  It was driven by a desperate need to control the
• 11:01
  uncontrollable. Against that terrifying
• 11:03
  backdrop, he always stands completely alone.
• 11:06
  He is not like Ball at all. No, the text described him as
• 11:10
  the original possessor of life. He does not share this
• 11:14
  jurisdiction with any pantheon, and he definitely does not
• 11:18
  require transactional rituals to act.
• 11:20
  He does not need us to wake him up.
• 11:22
  Right. He operates entirely on his
• 11:23
  sovereign will, and the matriarchs provide historical
• 11:25
  demonstrations of this reality. Let us examine those
• 11:28
  demonstrations because the stories are familiar to many,
• 11:30
  but the theological mechanics behind them are just massive.
• 11:33
  Let us start with Sarah. Yeah, the text sets up a
• 11:35
  scenario with her that is literally biologically
• 11:38
  impossible. With Sarah, we see a situation
• 11:41
  that was historically, medically and biologically hopeless.
• 11:45
  She was well beyond the age of childbearing her.
• 11:47
  Womb was, for all intents and purposes, entirely dormant.
• 11:51
  Completely, but the text notes that she conceived because God
• 11:56
  calls into existence the things that do not exist.
• 11:59
  Wow. He calls into existence things
• 12:01
  that do not exist. The Lord did not simply find a
• 12:04
  womb in a favorable condition and bless it.
• 12:06
  He governed that condition. He overruled the biology.
• 12:09
  He. Suspended the natural laws of
• 12:11
  biology to demonstrate that he is the sole author of life.
• 12:15
  He does not need ideal conditions to act, he creates
• 12:18
  the condition. Right.
• 12:19
  And then we see a similar, yet distinct dynamic with Isaac and
• 12:23
  Rebecca. Yeah, Rebecca was also barren.
• 12:25
  Yes, but in her case she conceived as a direct answer to
• 12:28
  Isaac's prayer to the. Lord, So it was an interactive
• 12:30
  relationship but not a transactional ritual.
• 12:33
  Exactly. The text emphasizes that Isaac
• 12:35
  did not appeal to a fertility cult.
• 12:37
  He did not go to the prophets of Baal.
• 12:39
  He appealed directly to Yahweh, recognizing who held the keys to
• 12:42
  the womb. He knew who the true landlord
• 12:45
  was, and the situation with Rachel and Leah creates an even
• 12:48
  sharper contrast. It is almost like a theological
• 12:51
  case study in cause and effect. The narrative of Rachel and Leah
• 12:55
  explicitly records the divine action behind conception.
• 12:59
  The text says that the Lord saw Leah was hated so he opened her
• 13:04
  womb, but Rachel was barren. So God is actively opening 1 and
• 13:08
  closing another based on his own counsel.
• 13:10
  Yes, and when Rachel grew desperate and demanded children
• 13:14
  from her husband Jacob, his response was incredibly telling.
• 13:17
  What did he say? He said, Am I in the place of
• 13:19
  God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?
• 13:21
  Wow. Am I in the place of God?
• 13:24
  Jacob recognized the boundary. There he knew he was just a
• 13:27
  participant, the secondary, 'cause he could not force the
• 13:29
  primary cause to act. Biology alone cannot produce
• 13:32
  life if the author of life withholds it.
• 13:35
  Which brings us to Hannah in the book of First Samuel.
• 13:37
  This feels like the climactic example in the source.
• 13:40
  Hannah's story is absolutely vital to this whole framework.
• 13:43
  The text states with sobering clarity that the Lord had closed
• 13:46
  her womb. The Lord had closed it.
• 13:48
  Not chance, not a medical condition, right?
• 13:51
  Her barrenness was not a punishment, nor was it an
• 13:53
  accident. Biology.
• 13:54
  It was a providential setup for a massive display of God's
• 13:58
  absolute sway. Setting the stage for something
• 14:00
  bigger, yes. And later, in his mercy, the
• 14:04
  text says, the Lord remembered her when she finally bore
• 14:08
  Samuel. She did not just celebrate
• 14:09
  having a son. Her song of Thanksgiving became
• 14:12
  a sweeping theological declaration.
• 14:14
  She understood the assignment. She really did.
• 14:17
  She sang. The Lord kills and brings to
• 14:19
  life. She understood that the opening
• 14:21
  of the womb is inextricably bound up with what it means for
• 14:24
  God to be God. She saw the big picture.
• 14:27
  And you know, when we look at modern society, we treat
• 14:30
  children so differently. We treat them as trophies of
• 14:32
  human achievement. We really do.
• 14:34
  We think we are in total control of family planning.
• 14:37
  Yeah, we plan them, we schedule them, we post about them on
• 14:40
  social media as if they are the ultimate capstone to a
• 14:42
  successful, well managed life. Like a project we completed.
• 14:46
  Exactly. But these texts frame them
• 14:49
  entirely as gifts of Divine Mercy.
• 14:52
  If God is the one who personally knits the soul and appoints the
• 14:55
  offspring, how does that perspective alter our view of
• 14:58
  human dignity? It changes everything about how
• 15:00
  we assign value to a person. How so?
• 15:03
  Well, if God is the architect of the soul, then human dignity is
• 15:06
  not tied to utility. It is not about what you can
• 15:09
  produce, right? It is not tied to physical
• 15:12
  strength, social contribution, intellectual capacity or stage
• 15:16
  of development. It levels the playing field
• 15:17
  completely. It does.
• 15:19
  The child in the womb, the infinite weakness, the disabled
• 15:22
  individual, the elderly person nearing death, all alike stand
• 15:26
  before us as lives given by God. Therefore, they are worthy of
• 15:29
  the highest honor. Yes, the fear of God must govern
• 15:32
  our view of life because the hand of God is upon it.
• 15:35
  We cannot selectively value life based on whether it appears
• 15:38
  desirable, convenient, or burdensome to us.
• 15:41
  Because we are not the landlord. Exactly.
• 15:43
  Every person comes into the world under the Creator's claim.
• 15:46
  That is a staggering reality to sit with.
• 15:49
  I mean, if we truly internalize that we do not own our first
• 15:52
  breath, it forces a terrifying question about our last breath.
• 15:55
  The two are intimately connected.
• 15:57
  They are. The anxiety we feel about our
• 15:59
  tenant mindset peaks at the deathbed If God holds absolute
• 16:03
  authority over the womb, these texts demand we analyze his
• 16:07
  jurisdiction over the tomb. We.
• 16:09
  Have to look at both bookends of life.
• 16:10
  Right, and I appreciate that the sources refuse to put a soft
• 16:15
  filter over this. They do not romanticize death at
• 16:18
  all. They absolutely refuse to
• 16:20
  sanitize it. The text stresses that death is
• 16:22
  dreadful. It is not natural.
• 16:24
  No, it is an enemy, it is the wages of sin.
• 16:26
  It is a dark intruder into a good creation.
• 16:29
  It literally tears the body from the soul.
• 16:31
  It is a violent separation. It is, and the sources offer, a
• 16:34
  sharp critique of certain modern religious movements,
• 16:37
  particularly the prosperity gospel and seeker sensitive
• 16:40
  pragmatism. Because they try to hide the
• 16:42
  reality of it. Yes, they try to hide the smell
• 16:44
  and mess of the deathbed. They try to paint it as a
• 16:47
  peaceful transition, you know, or just slipping off to sleep,
• 16:50
  completely ignoring the physical and emotional agony involved.
• 16:54
  Precisely. The Bible does not invite us to
• 16:56
  pretend that dying is easy or that grief is a sign of
• 16:59
  weakness. Bodies fail, minds falter,
• 17:02
  disease ravages the flesh. Yes, any theology that ignores
• 17:07
  this anguish or tries to slap a careful bumper sticker on it is
• 17:11
  considered incredibly naive by these texts.
• 17:13
  It is intellectually dishonest. Really it is.
• 17:16
  So we are dealing with a paradox here.
• 17:19
  On one hand, death is dreadful and agonizing, but on the other
• 17:22
  hand, the texts insist it is defeated.
• 17:25
  It is a defeated enemy. It makes me think of a chained
• 17:27
  dog. Oh, that's a good picture.
• 17:29
  Yeah, think about it. The dog is massive, it is
• 17:31
  aggressive and it is terrifying. It still barks loud enough to
• 17:35
  shake your and if you get close it still bites.
• 17:37
  It can still hurt you, right? But if you look closely, you
• 17:40
  realize it's chain is anchored to a stake and the leash is held
• 17:44
  securely by someone else. It cannot actually reach you to
• 17:47
  deal a final fatal blow. That captures the dynamic
• 17:50
  perfectly. Death is a chained enemy.
• 17:54
  It may still wound the flesh, but it cannot finally destroy
• 17:58
  those who belong to Christ the Luch.
• 18:00
  Only goes so far. Right.
• 18:01
  It cannot separate believers from the love of God.
• 18:04
  This is why a Christian can be entirely realistic about the
• 18:07
  horror of death while still maintaining an unshakable hope.
• 18:10
  Because we know who holds the leash.
• 18:13
  Exactly. Death has lost its final sting
• 18:16
  because Christ stands on the other side of it, holding the
• 18:19
  luge. And the sources dig into the
• 18:20
  mechanics of how exactly Christ defeated it.
• 18:23
  He did not just avoid it or find a loophole in the system.
• 18:26
  No, he faced a head on. I was reading the section
• 18:29
  breaking down the Gospel of John, specifically regarding the
• 18:32
  Greek word exusia. How does that word change your
• 18:35
  understanding of what happened on the cross?
• 18:37
  Well, in John chapter 10 verses 17 and 18, Christ discusses
• 18:41
  laying down his life and he uses the Greek word exusia which
• 18:45
  translates to authority, right or jurisdiction.
• 18:47
  Jurisdiction. That is a legal term.
• 18:49
  It is, he repeatedly emphasizes his own absolute agency in the
• 18:54
  event he says. I lay down my life.
• 18:58
  I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it
• 19:01
  up again. So he is in complete control of
• 19:04
  the timeline. Yes, he was not a victim of
• 19:07
  Roman political pragmatism, and he was not outmaneuvered by
• 19:11
  Jewish envy. He wasn't just a good teacher
• 19:14
  who ended it in the wrong place at the wrong time and got
• 19:16
  crushed by the wheels of the Empire.
• 19:18
  Not at all. The syntax in verse 18 is really
• 19:20
  striking. He says no one takes it from me,
• 19:22
  but I lay it down of my own accord.
• 19:24
  Of my own accord. Yes, that phrase functions as a
• 19:27
  discourse marker of total volitional sovereignty.
• 19:30
  So in plain English, Jesus is saying I am not a victim of a
• 19:34
  rigged Roman trial. I am actively pulling the
• 19:36
  strings on my own execution. Spot on.
• 19:39
  Christ chose the exact moment of his death and the exact moment
• 19:43
  of his resurrection. The sources argue that Christ
• 19:45
  did not just survive death. He didn't just barely make it
• 19:47
  through. No, he made a strategic
• 19:49
  intrusion into it. He intruded himself into death's
• 19:52
  domain, allowed it to swallow him, and then killed it from the
• 19:55
  inside out. He snatched death.
• 19:58
  He hijacked the mechanism of the tomb itself.
• 20:00
  That is a great way to say. It and that flips the entire
• 20:03
  script for humanity. It means that for the believer,
• 20:06
  death is no longer sovereign. It is a defeated master.
• 20:09
  To die is gain, leading to a glorious resurrection and a
• 20:14
  renewed creation as an eternal habitation, yes.
• 20:18
  Because Christ holds the keys of death in Hades, having died and
• 20:21
  now living forever more, the believer has the absolute
• 20:25
  assurance that in the moment of death they will be with Christ.
• 20:28
  Which changes how we face that final moment.
• 20:31
  Completely. This is the bracing reality that
• 20:33
  the sources invite us to step into.
• 20:35
  It is the truth that washes away the noxious mist we talked about
• 20:38
  at the beginning. It delivers us from that
• 20:39
  lifelong slavery to the fear of. Death.
• 20:41
  Yes, it sets the captives free. The discussion in our sources
• 20:45
  then moves to synthesize these two massive of concepts, the
• 20:49
  womb and the tomb. Bringing it all together.
• 20:51
  Right. They show that these are not
• 20:53
  isolated ideas, but a cohesive plan of the ages.
• 20:56
  They use a specific literary term here, the inclusio of
• 21:00
  Providence. Yes, the inclusio.
• 21:02
  For those who might not be familiar with literary framing
• 21:04
  devices, an inclusio is essentially a pair of bookends.
• 21:08
  You start a narrative with a specific theme or word, and you
• 21:11
  end the narrative with that same theme, creating a bracket that
• 21:15
  gives meaning to everything in between.
• 21:17
  A framing device for all of history.
• 21:19
  Exactly. So how do the incarnation and
• 21:22
  the cross function as these providential bookends?
• 21:25
  Let's look at the first bookend the incarnation as the ultimate
• 21:30
  opening of the womb. The texts argue that all those
• 21:34
  barren wombs of the Old Testament.
• 21:36
  Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Hannah. Yes, all of them.
• 21:41
  They were historical shadows pointing forward to the virgin
• 21:44
  conception of Christ. They were establishing a pattern
• 21:46
  of divine intervention, teaching Israel to look for God's hand.
• 21:50
  Yes, if God could open a biologically dormant womb like
• 21:53
  Sarah's, he could certainly bypass the biological
• 21:56
  requirements entirely to bring forth the Incarnate Son.
• 21:59
  Biology is not a barrier for him.
• 22:01
  Not at all. In the case of Mary, the natural
• 22:03
  biological rules were completely suspended by the overshadowing
• 22:07
  of the Holy Spirit. Proving Gabriel's declaration
• 22:09
  that nothing will be impossible with God.
• 22:11
  Exactly. The virgin birth is the supreme
• 22:14
  historical witness that no life enters the world apart from
• 22:19
  God's decision in action. It is the ultimate display of
• 22:22
  Providence over the womb. And just as the incarnation is
• 22:26
  the ultimate display of Providence over the room, the
• 22:28
  cross is the ultimate display of Providence over the tomb.
• 22:31
  The second bookend, right? But the sources are adamant
• 22:34
  about one specific detail regarding the cross.
• 22:37
  It was not a reactionary measure.
• 22:39
  It was not Plan B to fix a broken world after things went
• 22:42
  off the rails in Eden. That is a crucial distinction.
• 22:45
  It was never Plan B. Talk about.
• 22:47
  That the plan for the Lamb of God to be slain and the slay
• 22:51
  death was decreed before the foundation of the world.
• 22:54
  The references The Book of Life of the Lamb who was slain.
• 22:57
  So this was decided before Genesis 1, yes.
• 23:00
  This Ledger, this redemptive plan, existed long before sin
• 23:04
  and death ever entered through Adam.
• 23:06
  All that has ever come to pass sits within the all-encompassing
• 23:08
  Providence of God. The victory over the tomb was
• 23:11
  always Plan A Always. I want to pause here and look at
• 23:14
  this from a pastoral angle, because theology has to touch
• 23:17
  the ground. It definitely does.
• 23:19
  Imagine a listener who is sitting in a hospital waiting
• 23:22
  room right now. You know they are waiting for a
• 23:24
  dreaded diagnosis or they are watching someone they love fade
• 23:27
  away. A very real scenario for so
• 23:30
  many. If everything is Plan A, If God
• 23:33
  holds meticulous authority over the womb in the tomb, how does
• 23:37
  knowing this was the plan of the ages offer comfort?
• 23:41
  Doesn't it run the risk of coming across as a cold
• 23:44
  mechanical formula? That is the most pressive
• 23:46
  question we can ask, and the sources address this pastoral
• 23:50
  concern directly. Providence gives meaning where
• 23:53
  the world sees only chaos. Meaning in the dark.
• 23:56
  Think about the alternative if suffering and death are random,
• 23:59
  if they are just the result of blind evolutionary forces,
• 24:02
  genetic bad luck, or cellular misfires.
• 24:05
  Then there is no point to any of.
• 24:07
  It then they are truly meaningless, and meaningless
• 24:10
  suffering is entirely terrifying.
• 24:11
  It is despair. But if those events are under
• 24:13
  the jurisdiction of a wise and good father, then even the
• 24:16
  darkest hours have a purpose, even if we cannot perceive it in
• 24:20
  the moment. It changes the suffering from a
• 24:21
  random tragedy into a severe mercy.
• 24:23
  It does, and the text reminds us that believers are not called to
• 24:27
  be emotionless stoics. We are allowed to cry.
• 24:30
  Absolutely. Christ himself wept at Lazarus's
• 24:33
  tomb. Even though he knew he was about
• 24:36
  to raise him. Yes, he knew he was about to
• 24:39
  raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew he held the keys to the
• 24:42
  grave. Yet he still wept at the
• 24:44
  visceral horror of death tearing a family apart.
• 24:47
  So the theology does not cancel out the tears.
• 24:50
  No, we are meant to grieve, but we are instructed to grieve with
• 24:54
  hope. We grieve knowing the final
• 24:56
  hours governed by the hand of the Father, not by chance, not
• 24:59
  by disease, and certainly not by a chaotic universe.
• 25:02
  Which brings an immense weight to how we live out our days.
• 25:05
  It really does. Moving from these high
• 25:08
  theological concepts to the required response of the human
• 25:10
  heart, how does taking this bath of truth alter our daily
• 25:14
  posture? It requires a total shift in how
• 25:16
  we view ourselves. The sources focus heavily on the
• 25:18
  destruction of human autonomy. They use the phrase the Armenian
• 25:22
  delusion. Yes, that is a loaded term.
• 25:24
  For those who might be fuzzy on their seminary history, they are
• 25:28
  referring to the theological camp that strongly emphasizes
• 25:31
  human free will and self determination.
• 25:33
  Right. Why do the sources call that a
• 25:36
  delusion here? They call it a delusion because
• 25:39
  it assumes a level of autonomy that biologically and
• 25:42
  spiritually does not exist. It is a fantasy.
• 25:45
  Yes, the text details how the doctrine of Providence shatters
• 25:49
  the fantasy that we are self-made, self owned, or self
• 25:51
  governing. The reality is that we belong to
• 25:55
  God doubly. Walk me through that double
• 25:57
  ownership. How does that work?
• 25:58
  1st we belong to Him by right of creation.
• 26:01
  He made us. He personally knitted us
• 26:03
  together in the womb as we discussed.
• 26:04
  So he holds the patent on us. Exactly second for the believer,
• 26:09
  we belong to Him by right of purchase.
• 26:11
  Christ bought us with a price, His own blood.
• 26:14
  Bought and paid for. Therefore, the believer cannot
• 26:17
  speak of themselves as self owned in any sense whatever.
• 26:19
  Our bodies are not our own possessions to use autonomously
• 26:22
  and our souls are not self determining.
• 26:24
  Recognizing this just completely humbles human pride.
• 26:28
  It strips away the illusion of the tenant who thinks he owns
• 26:30
  the house. It brings us right back to that
• 26:32
  analogy. Let us look at Job, because his
• 26:35
  response to absolute catastrophe seems to be the model the
• 26:39
  sources want us to adopt. Is the ultimate test case for
• 26:42
  this. In Job chapter one, verse 21, he
• 26:46
  loses his wealth, his livelihood, and his children in
• 26:48
  a single day, and his response is staggering.
• 26:52
  Let us examine the specific wording he uses.
• 26:54
  In job 1.21 we find a raw, unfiltered doxology.
• 26:59
  Job says the Lord gave and the Lord is taken away.
• 27:02
  Very simple, but very heavy. Yes.
• 27:04
  The Hebrew verbs here are Nathan meaning to give or bestow, and
• 27:08
  lecoq, meaning to take, seize, or carry off.
• 27:10
  OK. Both of these action words are
• 27:12
  attributed directly and exclusively to Yahweh.
• 27:15
  What is so striking about the original syntax is that Job
• 27:18
  deliberately bypasses all secondary causes.
• 27:20
  Right. He does not mention the Sabians
• 27:22
  who raided and stole his livestock.
• 27:24
  He does not blame the wind that collapsed the house on his
• 27:27
  children. He looks right past the
• 27:29
  immediate physical causes and isolates the lore as the primary
• 27:32
  efficacious cause of his reality.
• 27:34
  He doesn't say the Lord gave and the Sabians took away.
• 27:36
  He attributes it all to the sovereign giver and taker.
• 27:39
  He understands that while the sea beings and the wind were the
• 27:42
  instruments, the hand wielding them belong to God.
• 27:46
  That requires so much faith to say in the moment of grief.
• 27:49
  If we connect this to the bigger picture, it means the
• 27:51
  appropriate response to our existence isn't a demand for our
• 27:55
  rights. Not at all.
• 27:56
  It is not shaking our fists at the sky when things go wrong.
• 28:00
  It is total trembling submission.
• 28:03
  It requires A wholly seriousness about who is actually in charge.
• 28:07
  Yes, and the text is careful to point out that this is not a
• 28:10
  crushing humiliation. It is not meant to destroy us.
• 28:13
  No, it is a healing humiliation because it restores the creature
• 28:17
  to sanity. It cures the blindness caused by
• 28:19
  that noxious mist. Brings us back to reality.
• 28:22
  It teaches us that true blessedness is found not in
• 28:25
  asserting our independence from God, but in joyful, total
• 28:29
  dependence on Him. And this brings us to the final
• 28:32
  posture the sources emphasize, which is worship.
• 28:35
  Because theology that does not end in worship is just dead
• 28:37
  academic theory. Precisely.
• 28:40
  The doctrine of Providence must end in doxology.
• 28:44
  It is not meant to be DRY abstract speculation about
• 28:47
  timelines and decrees. It is meant to lead to praise.
• 28:51
  Because Christ made that strategic intrusion into the
• 28:54
  tomb, because He currently holds the keys of death and Hades, the
• 28:58
  believer can worship not just in the bright joy of the delivery
• 29:01
  room, but even in the cold shadow of the grave.
• 29:05
  The Lord is sovereign over both bookends of life.
• 29:07
  Both the opening of the womb and the closing of the tomb.
• 29:10
  Because the one holding the keys is the crucified and risen Lord.
• 29:14
  This has been a massive paradigm shift.
• 29:16
  Let us recap the territory we've covered in this deep dive.
• 29:19
  We covered a lot of grounds today.
• 29:20
  We really did. Yeah, we started by recognizing
• 29:23
  the desperate need to wash away the noxious mist of self
• 29:26
  ownership, to stop acting like tenants who own the deed to the
• 29:29
  property. Stepping into the bracing air of
• 29:31
  truth. Yes, we examined the absolute
• 29:34
  divine authority over the opening and closing of the womb,
• 29:37
  seeing that life is a specific appointed gift, completely
• 29:40
  dismantling the idea of biological autonomy.
• 29:43
  Rejecting the blind clockmaker idea.
• 29:45
  And we witnessed Christ's strategic victorious intrusion
• 29:49
  into the tomb, proving that while death is a dreadful enemy,
• 29:52
  it is a chained and defeated 1. And through all of that, we see
• 29:56
  a unified reality. From the very first breath to
• 30:00
  the final exhale, we are held securely in the hands of
• 30:03
  another. The Lord gives and the Lord
• 30:05
  takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
• 30:08
  I want to leave you, the listener, with the final thought
• 30:10
  to ponder. Building on everything we have
• 30:12
  just unpacked, we have spent this time looking at the massive
• 30:15
  bookends of existence. The first breath and the last.
• 30:18
  Exactly. If the Creator holds such
• 30:20
  meticulous, unshared authority over your very first breath in
• 30:24
  the room and your very last breath at the tomb, what does
• 30:28
  that mean for the thousands of ordinary, seemingly mundane
• 30:31
  breaths you will take in between today?
• 30:34
  That is a question we all need to answer.
• 30:35
  Who do those breasts belong to and how will you use them?
• 30:39
  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive on reformed
• 30:41
  thinking. Keep seeking the truth.