I was excited to find out there was a new Reformed Baptist church near my house. Whenever I attend a Reformed Baptist church, I fondly reminisce about attending Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in New Jersey to hear Al Martin preach. I attended Kings at the time, and everyone said he was too harsh, but I always defended him and became known as a “stone-cold Calvinist—a nickname I readily accepted.
I attended the church in Virginia Beach for the first time today and right off the bat had a theological debate with myself during the music. One of the songs we sang was “Whatever my God Ordains is Right.” Talk about wearing your theology on your sleeve!! Calvinists aren’t known for subtlety. Everybody is “stone cold” here! The song poses some real theological questions. Socrates’ Euthyphro dilemma asks: Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? The first option makes morality an arbitrary whim, while the second implies an independent standard of goodness that limits God’s omnipotence. The Calvinist takes the first option with stone-cold conviction. Far from being arbitrary, whatever God commands is “Good” or “Right” because, as an all-powerful, all-knowing God, He commands it. It’s circular reasoning, but the Calvinist may say, “So what”?
However, those with the “stone-cold” faith have more unanswered questions.
If whatever God ordains is right and God ordains everything, then even acts we deem evil are ultimately “Right”. But the Westminster Confession attempts to resolve the resulting tension: “God from all eternity did ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet, neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away.”
However, scripture seems to indicate both options: James 1:13 states that “God cannot be tempted by evil and does not tempt anyone,” but Isaiah 45:5-7 states, “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me… I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things.”
These were my thoughts as I sang the song below. And my conclusion? I got nothing.
Whatever My God Ordains Is Right
VERSE 1
Whatever my God ordains is right
In His love I am abiding
I will be still in all He does
And follow where He is guiding
He is my God, though dark my road
He holds me that I shall not fall
And so to Him I leave it all
VERSE 2
Whatever my God ordains is right
He never will deceive me
He leads me by the proper path
I know He will not leave me
I take content, what He has sent
His hand can turn my griefs away
And patiently I wait His day
VERSE 3
Whatever my God ordains is right
Here shall my stand be taken
Though sorrow, or need, or death be mine
Yet I am not forsaken
My Father’s care circles me there
He holds me that I shall not fall
And so to Him I leave it all
VERSE 4
Whatever my God ordains is right
Though now this cup in drinking
Bitter it seems to my faint heart
I take it all unshrinking
My God is true, each morn anew
Sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart
And pain and sorrow shall depart