LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
God’s Provision for Counseling
A Paper Submitted to
the Faculty of the School of Divinity
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (Ed. D) Department of Christian Leadership and
Church Ministries
By
Mary Gracias
Lynchburg, Virginia
10/2022
God’s Provision for Counseling
A necessary presupposition of biblical counseling is that God has indeed provided every
essential truth the believer needs for a happy, fulfilling life in Christ Jesus. It is the belief that
God has not left us lacking in any sense. The apostle Peter states it emphatically in his second
epistle: “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our
knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3).
Note the word everything. God has provided absolutely everything man needs for physical
and spiritual life. This is a primary consideration. If Peter is correct, then God has given us all
the information we need to function successfully in this life. Every essential truth, every
essential principle, every essential technique for solving human problems has been delivered in
God’s Word. Peter underlines this fact when he writes, “[God] has given us his very great and
precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape
the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2 Peter 1:4).
This is to be the goal of biblical counseling—escaping the corruption of the world. We are
not told merely to cope or to survive as victims. We are not told just to do the best we can; we
are told we can escape the corruption of the world through obedience to the truths of God’s
Word.
Some reply, “Yes, but God could provide for our inner healing through psychological
means, couldn’t He?”
Of course He could, but there is no biblical evidence that He does. Instead, the Scriptures
demand that we accept personal responsibility for our inner health. Peter insists that we “make
every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge,
self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to
godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love” (2 Peter 1:5–7). Note that we
must “make every effort.” God does not produce sanctification in His children as we sit
passively waiting. We are to cooperate fully with the Holy Spirit as He develops His fruit within
us.
Paul refers to this cooperative submission in Galatians 5:16: “So I say, live by the Spirit, and
you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” He amplifies it further: “Those who belong
to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the
Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (verses 24, 25). These are active choices that Paul
commands us to make.
The result, according to Peter, is that “if you possess these qualities in increasing measure,
they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus
Christ” (2 Peter 1:8). Life does not have to be empty, pointless, and confusing for God’s
children.
“But,” Peter warns, “if anyone does not have [these qualities], he is nearsighted and blind,
and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins” (2 Peter 1:9). I am saddened
when I see a believer dragged back into the putrid muck of former years by a counselor who is
convinced that a person can only be healed in the present by returning to his past. The
counselee is made to forget “that he has been cleansed from his past sins,” and the pain and
depth of guilt he feels is even greater than before he knew Christ.
Peter condemns teachers who “secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the
sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves” (2 Peter 2:1). Now
I repeat that I do not believe most integrationists intentionally deny the Lord, but when they
destroy believers’ confidence in the sufficiency of Christ’s work on the cross, that is the net
effect.
They claim that their innovative therapies will solve inner problems, and people respond
because it seems so sophisticated to accept psychological findings and so simplistic to follow
the Word of God. Peter says that teachers who deny the Scriptures “mouth empty, boastful
words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who
are just escaping from those who live in error” (2 Peter 2:18).
He describes the devastating results:
They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a
slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have escaped the corruption of the world by
knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are
worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to
have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on
the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog
returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud” (2
Peter 2:19–22).
Once again, I must pause to emphasize that I am not accusing my integrationist brethren of
intentionally enslaving their counselees. I truly believe that they are sincerely trying to help the
hurting. I love them and respect them. But I grieve that they dispense psychological remedies
that are doomed to failure rather than the truths of God’s Word—truths tha t are the “power of
God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). It is God’s power that
transforms the human heart.
Man’s Fallen Condition
Biblical counseling accepts the unpleasant doctrine of the depravity of man. The Bible
paints a bleak picture of the condition of man’s heart:
Genesis 6:5—The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that
every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
1 Kings 8:46—There is no one who does not sin.
Psalm 14:3—All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one
who does good, not even one.
Proverbs 20:9—Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin”?
Ecclesiastes 7:20—There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never
sins.
Isaiah 53:6—We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 64:6—All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are
like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
Romans 3:23—For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Galatians 3:22—But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin.
1 John 1:8—If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
1 John 5:19—The whole world is under the control of the evil one.
In direct contradiction of Scripture, a foundational precept of psychology is the inherent
goodness of the human heart. It is sometimes described as “the innocent child within.” Man is
seen as a victim, not a sinner, and as long as he perceives himself as an innocent casualty rather
than a willful rebel, he will remain in his sins. Yet man’s only hope for change is to acknowledge
his fallen condition and helplessness before God and to cry out in faith for God’s transforming
power to be applied.
