No matter where in the sane world we live, the events of September 11, 2001, will linger long in the memory. Outside of living in Washington or New York City, Pennsylvanians could not get any closer to the dark atrocities of that sunny day. Here at Westminster Seminary we are just 90 miles south of the Big Apple, 150 miles north of D.C. and in the same state as the crash of the fourth hijacked plane. Suddenly our ready talk of divine sovereignty in ST113 (Doctrine of God) has been put to the most public terrestrial, cable, digital, and satellite test the world over. Was God, as we surmise in our most devil-inspired moments, genuinely ruling that morning?

One of the many things that Lloyd-Jones taught us was to counter depression by “garrisoning” all we know from Scripture. Yes, that means a doctrinal response to what has been a diabolical tragedy. Far from starving us of hope, doctrine is the very feeding tube that keeps it alive. As John Calvin put it:

The theologian’s task is not to divert the ears with chatter, but to strengthen consciences by teaching things true, sure and profitable. Inst. I:xiv:4

Thus, we go to Scripture for the affirmation that what we saw with our human eyes coalesces through spiritual eyes with what we have read of God in His Word. There we find numerous ways in which God is portrayed as sovereign.

First, God is Sovereign in Preventing Suffering⤒🔗

While the potential for innuendo against our Maker has been muted by the blatant wickedness of the act, the world that has looked on traumatized is a humanity that is fallen and condemned. In all our analysing, then, we resist the temptation to set God in the dock. Rather, we call to mind, whether as Christians or not, the many days in which we have gone without the oppressive pain that suffering is. Prolonged have been the periods that most have spent in health and happiness. Truly, God makes his sun rise on the evil and sends rain on the unjust (Matt. 5:45).¹ This is a fact for which he is to be praised and worshipped.

But the divine prevention of suffering is also a matter of intervention. Whether by instrumental use of angels charged with the protection of God’s people (Ps. 91:10-11), by the perforation of the natural sequence through miraculous expressions of divine power and grace, or by the proliferation of ordinary providences, eternity alone will tell how much suffering each of us has escaped because of the often unseen and unrecognised intervention of God.

Secondly, God is Sovereign in Ordaining Suffering←⤒🔗

Within the range of macro events (the rising and falling of nations) and micro events (my hair loss and yours) the “no risk”² nature of providence informs us that the details of 9/11, to use local slang, must be within the orbit of divine ordination. Nothing is out with God’s control, not even the imploding of what were once two of the world’s highest towers. Even so, why the ordaining of this exceptional glimpse of hell? (WCF 3:1) While we await eternity’s definitive explanation of this phase of the divine plan, it is not hard to envisage the long­ term benefits for the gospel of a dismantling of the conspiracy of silence surrounding death, the current western societal taboo. Nonetheless, can God’s integrity fully escape unscathed in the face of such carnage?

We understand that in the run-up to the events of that “fateful” morning God so released his gracious hand that the usual restraint against sin was taken away, with the result that the depraved culprits flew towards sin in a manner completely natural to them. Accordingly, while the ordaining of these atrocities lies in the realm of God’s ultimate responsibility (he removed his hand), an appreciation of the battle in the unseen realm causes us to discriminate a proximate responsibility borne by the devil (he stirred their hearts), and an immediate responsibility that belongs to the hijackers (they personally committed the horrific acts). This is what we mean when we say that God’s ordaining of the current war does not implicate him in its guilt. He remains free from the heinous sins that have wreaked the havoc, while still remaining enthroned.

Thirdly, God is Sovereign in Sharing in Suffering←⤒🔗

To think of the foreordination of suffering is to consider the transcendence of God. Yet God was not aloof or remote from the crashing of the towers. Would a God who commands us to weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15), not also suffer with those who suffer? But even such a moderate view of divine possibility requires careful formulation. Because omniscience is not surprised by suffering, or omnipotence inwardly overcome by it, God is neither emotionally disturbed from within nor lacking composure without. Furthermore, he is not affected bodily. He has no corpus. Nonetheless, while not irrational, the one who is “infinite, eternal and unchangeable” (Shorter Catechism 4) as well as superlatively holy in every pro-action and reaction (Ps. 11:6-7) does not stand by inert to our pain. He has already gone towards it at the cross, so defeating suffering through the death of his Son. Thus, in the midst of the present chaos we preach a gospel of hope in which the penitent may follow their Father by grace, counting it all joy in the face of various trials or calamities (peirasmoi).

Fourthly, God is Sovereign in Deploying Suffering←⤒🔗

Nowhere is this more so than in the lives of his people. For us, suffering is not only the curse of the fallen world it is also part of the solution. First, it connects us to Christ. Whereas Christ suffered for us, we suffer in Christ.³ As such, the pain takes on meaning, not least because it helps us to empathize for the slain Lamb of God. Not only so. It serves as a testimony to him. Our sufferings display his (2 Cor. 4:8-12). Furthermore, our pain represents the discipline of the Father. Our heavenly Father, we remember, is also our holly Father. Accordingly, his is the right to chastise us (Heb. 12:5-12) and to beat us for our faults (1 Pet. 2:20). Far better, however, to be chastised than ignored. The very attention that is implied in discipline comforts us with the assurance that we really are the Father’s children. We therefore embrace the training he puts us through, because, fourthly, it prepares us to meet him. Al in all, then, the filial training we undergo is for our sakes, not God’s. He is not the divine vivisectionist at work in his cosmic laboratory conducting trials merely for the thrill of the experiment (à la C S Lewis in Shadowlands). Rather, we are tested so that we “may be found to the praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:7). Thus, our light and momentary affliction works for us a far more exceeding wait of glory.

Not so the unbeliever. Suffering is deployed as a wake-up call (Dan. 4:28 -37). Who can deny that the sound of the divine megaphone reverberated throughout the world on 9/11? Despite the shock value, the closure of the airports, the mass of funerals and communal grief, how many will have the wisdom to seriously consider their latter end? (Deut. 32:29)

This leads us to one final aspect. God is sovereign in terminating suffering. That said, for those outside the safety of Christ there is no termination. The earthly suffering intended to bring them back to God is, according to C S Lewis, ratified and, we may add, intensified as they lock themselves in hell. The Reformed, however, do not regard this finality so anthropocentrically. Ultimately, it is God who, being impeccably just, will finally turn the lock and dispose of the key.⁴

How contrasting are the prospects for each child of God! The Day of Judgment awaits us, too, but for our greater consolation in adversity (WCF 33:3). Ripened by the sanctifying of the trials of life, we await a painless eternity. Once our eyes have closed for the last time we shall await the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:22­ 23; Larger Catechism 86), when, with the coming of Christ, we shall pass from the intermediate to the final state, the ethereal heaven to paradise relocated to a regenerated earth: no more death, crying, sorrow, or pain. The former things will have passed away (Rev. 21:4). What tears our ducts will let shall be solely for the venting of joy in Christ our Saviour.

In the meantime, it is our hope in the “not yet” that helps us to garrison strength for the “now”. Thus we sing in resolute faith with John Ryland of old:

Plagues and deaths around me fly,
Till he bids, I cannot die;
Not a single shaft can hit,
Till the God of love sees fit.⁵

In summary: the towers are gone, but the Tower remains. Let us find safety in Him (Prov. 18:10).