What Do We Believe About God, the Father? We believe that God is eternal. Before time began, God already was. Somewhere in his eternal existence. God planned his universe. This is called predestination. He created this vast and beautiful universe by his word, out of nothing. And now God rules over it all, shaping us and our world to his purpose. By emphasizing God's eternal plan and loving providence, we don't deny our own responsibility to believe and obey. We simply recognize that behind and around and beneath our human efforts is God's controlling and unfolding purpose. God could have dealt with the world's people in a variety of ways. He chose to do it as a Father. He made people his partners by calling them into covenant with himself. Covenant is an important idea in Christian Reformed thinking. It means an agreement by which God binds both himself and us to certain terms. God first made such an agreement with Adam and Eve in Paradise. He promised to be their daily companion; they promised to obey him. But Adam and Eve disobeyed and broke the covenant. The generations born from those first parents were all born sinners in a sinful world. But that didn't change God's decision to be a covenant God. He chose Abraham to father a new community of people. With Abraham and his children God made a covenant of grace unto everlasting salvation. |
