God's Sovereignty

I would like to talk about the sovereignty of God, and I must confess it is something  I do not fully understand—similar to the Trinity and the timelessness of God, there are things the mind of men can’t fully grasp.  Sovereignty refers to God's absolute authority and control over all creation, events, and circumstances. It emphasizes that He rules without limitation, answers to no one, and accomplishes His purposes without interference.

But the Sovereignty of God and the free will of man are two truths mentioned throughout the Bible that are little at odds with each other. Scripture is clear that God knows the future (Matthew 6:8; Psalm 139:1-4) and has total sovereign control over all things (Colossians 1:16-17; Daniel 4:35). But the Bible also says that we must choose God or be eternally separated from Him. We are held responsible for our choices and actions (Romans 3:19; 6:23; 9:19-21). But how to fully explain this and grasp how these facts work together is impossible for a finite mind to comprehend (Romans 11:33-36).  But that’s okay.  I still don’t this, but neither do I  understand the internet, and yet I use it every day.

When it comes to the nature of God, human understanding will only take us so far.  Beyond that, we have to walk by faith, remembering that He loves us and recognizing that He has given us a mind with which we can reason—but it is limited.  Sometimes we forget this. We can only move forward by trusting that God truly is good and that He can be trusted.

It is not possible for a finite creature like me to grasp the intricacies of God's infinite will (Romans 11:33-36). People have been discussing free will and sovereignty for ages and will continue to do so. But regardless of what conclusion you come to about election or free will, remember that we are commanded to read the Bible,  take the gospel to the whole world (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8), turn away from sin in our own lives, follow Him, and forsake this world. We are to love Him and love our neighbors, our brothers, and our enemies in emulation of Christ. Divine sovereignty means God’s universal and loving lordship over all things; and yet by faith we understand that His sovereignty does not remove human freedom; we are free to do what we want to do—that’s been obvious since Eve first sinned in the garden of Eden.  Humans have the freedom to do whatever it is that they want, within their power,  while their desires are in turn influenced by their natures, situations, and, ultimately, God. As most of you know, Christians often take one of two extremes in regard to the nature of God’s sovereignty and man’s freedom. Some emphasize the sovereignty of God to the point that human beings have no choice in terms of loving God or not—God has already selected some and determined for them to eventually fall in love with Him—it cannot be resisted.  The other extreme emphasizes unlimited free will, resulting in a view where God is not in control of the universe—He’s more of a watchmaker who winds up a clock and sees what happens, and if you want things to happen bad enough, you can gang up on God, pray for your will, and it will trump God’s will.   Neither of these positions is totally biblical. The truth is that God does not violate our wills by forcing us to choose Him, and prayers do make a difference but cannot stop Him from doing what He plans on doing.   God’s in control—like it or not.

The truth is found somewhere in the middle, I think.  Jesus once said that, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19), and “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16).  It’s two ways—He has made the first move to love…but we must make the second move. He will not force us, and more than we can force our children to love us by loving them.

Is God completely in charge of everything? Yes—but He is not responsible for the free choices His creatures make. That’s the dilemma for us intellectually.  God is a good Creator and totally Sovereign, yet He lets us mess things up.  No one can stop God’s ultimate plans, but He lets us try.  Under the law of this state, I am responsible for the actions of my children so long as they are minors. I don’t choose to do some of the stupid things they do, but I am considered the “responsible one” in terms of being in final control.  We seem to similarly blame God for the bad things His children. He could stop them, yes, but then you and I would be no different from an oyster—only able to do what oysters do, with no freedom to do good things. He wants us to choose Him and to choose to honor Him.

The point is that God cannot make us free and at the same time make us happy about what He wants to do.   So, if we try to explain how God's sovereignty works alongside man's free will, we must define these terms. A basic biblical description of God's sovereignty is His kingship, His rule, and the fact that He has the final authority in everything. Sovereignty means that from the highest king to the smallest atom, everything bows, ultimately, to His power (Romans 14:11, 11:36).  All things flow from God.  Many people live like there are no rules and they can do as they wish—and they can—as long as God permits. But soon, that’s going to end.

Do people have to answer for their choices and actions? Absolutely. “For whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7, ESV).  Our choices and actions have eternal implications.  That’s why Jesus came to die. To redeem us from the consequences of man’s free will.  “Free will" is used to describe the concept of man's ability to make choices as he goes through his life and his responsibility to make the right choices.

That said, it is not possible for mankind to trump or overrule God's ultimate plans for history, but if you were looking at life on this planet right now, you might think that God has checked out!  Things are crazy!  But this matter was discussed in the first book of the Bible ever written—-the Book of Job.  In that book, Satan is referred to as the Leviathan, a horrible monster. But if you listen to what God says to Job, you realize that the Leviathan can’t go one inch beyond the leash on which the Lord keeps him.  Neither can dictators like Putin, Xi, the wackos in Iran, or our own government or our most vengeful enemy.

Friends, God not only does not stop all evil,  but He allows it for his good purposes. The most evil deed in the history of the human race—the time our Savior was killed on a cruel cross—was the moment brought about by “the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). This was the moment of the “Behemoth’s and the Leviathan’s’ definitive defeat.

G. K. Chesterton suggests that as Job listened to God’s speeches, “he felt the terrible and tingling atmosphere of something which is too good to be told. The refusal of God to explain his design is itself a burning hint of his design. What God conveyed to Job—and to us—in the Behemoth and Leviathan descriptions is indeed almost too good to be told.  And yet it’s true.”  God is in control! The future is neither unknown nor something to fear.

Leviathan and Behemoth are figures of darkness and all that is terrible and frightening to us.      It seems Behemoth is the embodiment of death. And the Leviathan in biblical imagery is the archenemy of God—the devil. In the Leviathan we see the embodiment of beastliness, of terror, of undiluted evil. When, at the climax of his description, we read “he is king over all the sons of pride” (41:34), we’re reading of the one who elsewhere is called “Beelzebul, the prince of demons” (Matt. 12:24).

So the figures of Behemoth and Leviathan come not as an anticlimax, but rather use the language of well-known stories to make the point that only the Lord can keep evil on a leash. The Leviathan is “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31), “the prince of the power of the air”—that supernatural region that lies above us but below God’s heaven (Eph. 2:2). If we thought evil was bad, when we come face to face with the Leviathan we realize it’s infinitely more frightening than we had thought. “You cannot begin to take on the problem of evil, is what God told Job—it’s what He’s telling us today. And Job knows that.”  “But I can!” says the Lord. And that’s the point.

God reminds Job that the awesome monster is “a creature” (41:33), a created thing. “I made him too, and I can tame him. And he is on my leash, even if he cannot be on yours” (cf. 41:5).  Think of it this way: You enter a farmyard and are terrified by wild dogs, snarling and snapping around your ankles. You’re scared. The question you are bound to ask is: Are these dogs restrained in any way? Are they on a leash? Is there an owner around who can call them off? As Job suffers, his greatest and deepest fear is that the monster who attacks him is unrestrained, that the attacks will go on forever, with unrelieved ferocity, and that the monster has been given a free hand—unlimited access to Job and his life. He’s afraid there exists no sovereign God who has evil on a leash. Friends, God has Putin, Xi, Maduro, the despots of Iran, Honduras, and even the craziest politician in our nation, and all other leaders on a leash.  We need to pray, to vote and to fight—but we need not be afraid.

But that does not mean that SXi, Putin, or Chairman Kinm are directed or forced by God to evil, any more than the good things some people do were pre-ordained.  Chesterton once said that: “To the one that believes in man’s free will,  every daily act is dramatic dedication to the service of good or of evil. To the Calvinist, no act can have that sort of solemnity, because the person doing it has been dedicated from eternity, and is merely filling up his time until the crack of doom.”

Those who believe in the free choice of men and women to choose or reject Christ believe that if a man repents and professes Jesus Christ is Lord,  God will accept him.  When we are most free, it is only with a freedom God Himself has given us: and when our will is most influenced by Grace, it is still our will. And if what our will does is not ‘voluntary’, and if ‘voluntary’ does not mean ‘free’, what are we talking about?”  (Lewis)

When you consider, as a last example, Paul’s letter to Timothy:  “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—  for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.  This is good, and pleases God our Savior,  who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,  who gave himself as a ransom for all people…”. I Timothy 2:1-6a, NIV

1- Friends, we’re to “pray for all people.”

2- “God, our Savior, wants all people to be saved.”  But that does not mean that it will happen. God desires this, but if, in fact, all people are one day saved, you’re endorsing universalism, and again, it’s just not biblical.

3- Christ Jesus gave Himself not for a limited few, but “as a ransom for all people”.

My conclusion is that either everyone will go to heaven then, or only those who have made their decision to proclaim that Jesus is Lord and believe in their hearts that God has raised them from the dead.  You can’t have it both ways.