“The whole history of the world gives an irrefutable testimony to this justice of God.
We cannot speculate out of the world the special revelation in Christ which tells us of the love of God; if we were to do that the general revelation with its benefits and blessings would be lost to us.
But if we were, but for a moment, in our thoughts to leave the revelation in Christ to one side, there would remain very little ground for belief in a God of love.
For if the history of the world clearly teaches us anything, it is this: that God has a quarrel with His creature. There is disagreement, separation, conflict between God and His world. God does not agree with man, and man does not agree with God.
Each goes his own way, and each has his own idea and will about things. The thoughts of God are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways (Isa. 55:8).
Therefore the history of the world is also a judgment of the world. No, it is not as one poet has said, the judgment of the world, for that will come at the end of days, and it is not judgment alone for the earth is still full of the riches of God (Ps. 104:24).
All the same, the history of the world is a judgment, a history full of judgments, full of struggle and war, of blood and tears, calamities and afflictions.
Above it are written the words which Moses once spoke when he saw the race of the Israelites dying away before his eyes: We are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled (Ps. 90:7).
This testimony of history to the justice of God is confirmed by the fact that mankind has always looked for, and still looks for, a lost Paradise, for a lasting bliss, and for a redemption from all evil that oppresses it.
There is in all men a need for, and a seeking after, redemption.”
–Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God (trans. Henry Zylstra; Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1909/2019), 242-243.
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