The Decrees of God are certainly Efficacious

The decrees of God are certainly efficacious, that is, they render certain the occurrence of what He decrees. Whatever God foreordains, must certainly come to pass. The distinction between the efficient (or efficacious) and the permissive decrees of God, although important, has no relation to the certainty of events. All events embraced in the purpose of God are equally certain, whether He has determined to bring them to pass by his own power, or simply to permit their occurrence through the agency of his creatures. It was no less certain from eternity that Satan would tempt our first parents, and that they would fall, than that God would send his Son to die for sinners. The distinction in question has reference only to the relation which events bear to the efficiency of God. Some things He purposes to do, others He decrees to permit to be done. He effects good, He permits evil. He is the author of the one, but not of the other. With this explanation, the proposition that the decrees of God are certainly efficacious, or render certain all events to which they refer, stands good. This is proved, --

1. From the perfection of God, which forbids the ascription to Him of purposes uncertain as to their accomplishment. No man fails to execute what he purposes, except through the want of wisdom or power to secure the end proposed, or through some vacillation in his own mind. It would be to reduce God to the level of his creatures, to assume that what He decrees, should fail to come to pass.
   
2. From the unity of God's plan. If that plan comprehends all events, all events stand in mutual relation and dependence. If one part fails, the whole may fail or be thrown into confusion.
   
3. From the evident concatenation of events in the progress of history, which proves that all things are intimately connected, the most important events often depending on the most trivial, which shows that all must be comprehended in the plan of God.
   
4. From the providential and moral government of God. There could be no certainty in either if the decrees of God were not efficacious. There could be no assurance that any divine prophecy, promise, or threatening, would be accomplished. All ground of confidence in God would thus be lost, and chance and not God would become the arbiter of all events. The Scriptures variously and constantly teach this doctrine,
   
   
   
   1. By all those passages which assert the immutability and sovereignty of the divine decrees.
      
   2. By those which affirm that He fixes the bounds of our habitations, that our days are all numbered, and that even a hair from our heads cannot perish without his notice.
      
   3. By those which declare that nothing can counteract his designs. "The Lord of hosts," says the prophet, "hath purposed, who shall disannul it? And his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back." (Is. xiv. 27.) "I will work, and who shall let it?" (xliii. 13.)
      
   4. By those which teach doctrines that necessarily assume the certainty of all God's decrees. The whole plan of redemption rests on that foundation. It is inconceivable that God should devise such a scheme, and not secure its executions and that He should send his Son into the world, and leave the consequences of that infinite condescension undetermined. It is, therefore, the doctrine of reason as well as of Scripture, that God has a plan or end for which the universe was created, that the execution of that plan is not left contingent, and that whatever is embraced in the decrees of God must certainly come to pass.
      
   
   

Hodge v 1 p 540-ff

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A lot of melt here! Spring is right around the corner! Rachel is home this week (Spring break) and is working at West Thompson.