The title given to me for this conference does give me somewhat of a free hand in deciding what I should speak about. Church History is so broad that there is a host of issues which one could treat. However, I have decided to touch on two areas which in my view have cardinal importance for the way teachers deal with this subject in our schools. First, I propose to deal with the question concerning God's hand in history, and from there move to the more limited issue of God's hand in the history of His Church. The second question is then a more detailed examination of one aspect of the first question.

Why are these issues so significant today? In my view, the greatest threat to the proper teaching of Church History today is relativism. This perspective says that although the Bible gives authoritative explanations about why things happened as they did in Biblical times, we lack such authoritative explanations today, and cannot directly apply Biblical narratives of the past to our situation. For example, although the writer in 2 Kings 17:17ff. could attribute the exile and its accompanying humiliation to Israel's sin, such a direct connection of cause and effect is not possible today. The ancient writers were, after all, inspired agents of God. We, on the other hand, are in a more limited position, and can only work with what God has revealed in the past. In opposition to such a relativistic standpoint, we are challenged to maintain absolute standards in teaching Church History. Yet we must maintain these standards in a proper way, not with arbitrary applications of selected passages of Scripture or a prejudiced reading of historical events, but with the application of Reformed principles drawn from Scripture.

The Problem Defined⤒🔗

The discussion concerning the question of man's ability to discern the hand of God in history originates for the greater part in the historiographical perspectives developed by Groen van Prinsterer (1801-1876). This well-known Dutch statesman and historian authored the famous lectures, Unbelief and Revolution.¹ These lectures formed a clarion call to his countrymen, urging them to abandon the course of the supremacy of reason, and follow the sound words of God's revelation in the development of national life. Groen contrasted revelation and revolution. And – as the title of his lectures indicates – his fundamental thesis was that unbelief with respect to God's revelation is the cause of the revolution as it raged through Europe from the end of the 18th Century on.

What was the nature of the causality that Groen posited? J. Kamphuis calls this causality a covenant-qualified causality.² Although Groen used natural causality in physical science as an analogy in explaining what he meant, he did not mean to refer to a mechanistic or fatalistic pattern in history. Kamphuis notes that Groen certainly did not neglect the role of human responsibility. On the contrary, this is one of the dominant themes in his lectures. But Groen defends the Scriptural principle that one reaps what he sows. For example, Groen readily applied the words of 1 Samuel 2:30 to his own time: “those who honour me I will honour, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.” He also made frequent use of Jeremiah 6:19: “I am bringing evil upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not given heed to my words…” Groen applied this in particular to his own country. It was a land without the gospel, and so, as he said, without God and without hope in the world, Ephesians 2:12. Through the Reformation the gospel came to the Lowlands. But now that message of healing was being rejected. Therefore God could not but send His punishments to a people who had rejected Him.

The standpoint of Groen has been subjected to a good deal of criticism, both from within and outside of Reformed circles. It would take us too far afield to consider all of this criticism. However, I would like to pay attention to one voice of criticism in particular, that of a high school history teacher who taught at the school across the road from where I lived in my student days in Kampen. This teacher, H.G. Leih, defended the proposition that one cannot readily discern the hand of God in history.³ Leih is critical of Groen's stand. He also takes issue with P.K. Keizer's approach to the teaching of church history, since he finds that Keizer all too readily draws a parallel between God's actions and the actions of men with all their weaknesses and shortcomings on earth. A telling example that Leih refers to in order to prove his point is Keizer's statement with regard to William of Orange and the Dutch resistance in the 1570s. Keizer says:

God's church did not reach for weapons of war in order to defend itself. The LORD himself rose to save His people, in His time and in His way, in answer to the many supplications sent before His throne by the heavily persecuted church.⁴

Leih's problem with this approach is whether one is permitted to make such bold statements about God's own actions in our world.

He asks:

do we have a certain instrumentarium by which we can discern certain causes which non-Christians can hardly discover? Can God's dealings be pointed out concretely, and are they scientifically verifiable?⁵

R.H. Bremmer has expressed similar reservations concerning the approach of Keizer. And while he endorses the general approach of Groen, he disputes the application of the term “causality” to historical forces. According to Bremmer, the term “causality” belongs in physics, and cannot be used in normative science.⁶ So the fundamental issue here is: how do we use Scripture in analyzing historical events, both in church and in world history? How far can we go in pointing concretely to the hand of God?

A Confessional Approach←⤒🔗

It is not my intention to give a detailed evaluation of all the points of view here expressed. In fact, Miss J.L. Van Essen has provided a good summary of the positions involved, and has, I feel, gone a long way to chart the appropriate course to follow.⁷ For she refers quite emphatically to the line of the confession as found in Lord's Day 9. And this confession forms a safeguard against making superficial causal links. One cannot operate with a few passages of Scripture, but one must apply a confessional perspective, i.e., a perspective which summarizes the teaching of Scripture.

A confessional approach will keep the broad sweep of revelation and its essential principles in mind. Prof. K. Schilder fought against any form of dualism between God's history and that of man. He also fought against any dualism by which God would be relegated to the edge of our history, or by which he would be turned into an equal partner in it. God is transcendent, yet reveals Himself as immanent in the world. We cannot cut off God from the world, but when we acknowledge Him we must see Him in all His works. And the center of His work is found in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, true God and true man – He is the center of all history, and His work forms the constitutive principle for a Christian view of history.⁸

Clearly, passages like Genesis 3:15, Revelation 12, and the drama of the antithesis between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent are key elements to keep in mind in developing our church history lessons. From the perspective of the antithesis, the teacher must introduce and develop the ideas of the offensive of the gospel in the world, the persecution of the church, and the insuperable power of the preaching of the gospel as a determinative factor in world history.

In all this there is advising theodicy. A recurring theme in the Old Testament is that God brings the violence of the wicked upon their own heads, (see e.g., Judges 9:57, 1 Kings 2:6, 9, 44). A cardinal rule for church history is: “Blessings are on the head of the righteous … but the wicked falls by his own wickedness,” Proverbs 10:6, 11:5. Scripture uses the expression “find out” with regard to sin, as, for example in Numbers 32:33: “your sin will find you out.” Sin cannot be hidden, but ultimately is always discovered and rewarded. Thus, just as sin is a factor in historical events, so is punishment. And all things lead to the vindication of God's elect, and the ultimate destruction of the reprobate.

However, one cannot apply this principle in specific cases as a direct reader of God's counsel and plan for the world. For at the same time, we must be aware of the apparent contradictions observed by the poet Asaph in Psalm 73. Sometimes the wicked prosper, and the righteous are afflicted. This can continue for long periods. Within God's theodicy there are hidden turns and pathways which far surpass our understanding. Anyone attempting the specific recognition of God's hand will also keep this aspect of His theodicy in mind.

Central Scriptural Passages←⤒🔗

One could isolate a host of Scripture passages which back up the confessional approach sketched above. Let me simply mention a few more significant passages.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says God “has put eternity into man's mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

These words indicate that although we have in the Word of God a principle which transcends the regular course of events, even with that Word we cannot discern the whole counsel of God. We have in Scripture all we need to know for our salvation. But we cannot curiously pry into God's counsel beyond the limits he has set.

This requires that we remember the word of the Lord Jesus with respect to the blind man in John 9. His blindness was not a result of his own guilt, “but that the works of God might be made manifest in him,” John 9:3.⁹ And in Luke 12:1-5, Jesus warns His listeners not to apply a superficial causality with respect to tragic events. The victims of the falling tower of Siloam were not to be reported as worse sinners than the rest of the inhabitants in Jerusalem. Such a skewed causality was also applied by the friends of Job, and it was on this point that they needed correction, despite the fact that in general terms their statements were valid. Their words were not wrong in themselves, but they erred in the specific application of their words to Job.

In this regard, Bremmer is correct in pointing out that some of Keizer's use of Scripture is too direct.¹⁰ At one point, for example, Keizer makes the statement: “Dutch history shows many parallels to the history of Israel (Psalm 106:7).¹¹ While one may find similar ebbs and flows in the history of the two nations, there is a danger that one reads the pattern of Biblical history into his national history. In fact, the essential critique, in my view that must be directed against Groen's approach is that he applies texts of Scripture to the whole nation rather than to the church. More accurately, nation and church were too closely identified in Groen's thought. In other words, he was directed in his thinking by the notion of the national church, and this colours his use of Scripture.

A confession of God's providence that is truly anti-revolutionary in the classic sense of the word is one which recognizes that God has a purpose in all He does. Sometimes the wicked prosper, and the righteous experience adversity. One cannot draw an automatic link between temporal blessings and obedience, and disobedience and temporal adversities. Groen's proposition with regard to historical causality had a deeper perspective. He wanted to show that if a society chooses the way of unbelief, and eliminates God from the sphere of political and social activity, it can only end in revolution. It must declare the people to be absolutely sovereign, with the result that there is no basis for authority in society.

In summary, we must maintain the reference to the hand of God in teaching both church history and world history. But we must do so strictly in the light of the confession. This requires a careful and consistent use of Scripture. With regard to the world history the application of Scripture will necessarily be more restricted. One should not draw automatic parallels between ancient Israel and various other nations today. But the general truth applies: where there is no vision the people perish, Proverbs 29:18. And in the case of Church History, it must be clearly pointed out that the line of the seed of the serpent ends in death, while the promise of victory holds good for the seed of the woman, even though this involves hardship and persecution to the very end. Only a perspective like this gives hope and confidence for future generations, so that they may take their place and fulfill their task in the unfolding drama of the counsel of God.