Divine Sovereignty: This may sound a little strange, but over the past couple of months I’ve found myself doing something I probably never would have done a few years ago. Whenever I have the chance to listen to a sermon while loading or unloading trucks, I’ve increasingly gravitated toward messages that I strongly disagree with. I realize that sounds a bit backwards. Most people listen to preaching because they expect to agree with it. Yet I’ve found there is often something to learn by listening carefully to views that are different from my own. Some messages have been helpful. Some have left me scratching my head. Others have simply given me something to write about. As I’ve listened, however, I’ve begun to notice a recurring pattern. On the surface, the disagreements may be about free will, salvation, judgment, suffering, or human responsibility. But underneath many of those discussions lies a much deeper question: How sovereign is God, really?
Because the real test of our view of God’s sovereignty is not whether we affirm it when we understand His ways, but whether we affirm it when we do not. We gladly confess that God is sovereign over salvation, sovereign over history, sovereign over nations, sovereign over kings, sovereign over weather, sovereign over life, and sovereign over death. Yet the moment sin, suffering, evil, or judgment enters the discussion, many suddenly begin speaking as though God is merely reacting to events rather than ruling over them. The Bible never seems embarrassed by God’s sovereignty. It simply declares it.
At some point, these questions become unavoidable, even though many Christians seem determined to avoid them. If God knew what Adam would do and created him anyway, what does that tell us? If God knew every act of human wickedness before the foundation of the world, every war, every murder, every betrayal, every funeral, every grave, every broken heart, and every tear, and still chose to create, what does that tell us? Before the first sin was committed, God knew. Before the first grave was dug, God knew. Before the first mother wept over the loss of a child, God knew. And knowing all of it, He still said: “Let there be light.”
We may not like those questions, but refusing to ask them does not make them disappear. In fact, I find it difficult to see how anyone can speak of an all-knowing and sovereign God without eventually confronting them. Besides, many who called themselves christians seem eager to proclaim God’s sovereignty until they encounter one of its more difficult implications. Then the discussion often shifts from defending God’s sovereignty to explaining why sovereignty cannot possibly mean what it appears to mean. The result is a God who governs everything we find comfortable, but very little that troubles us.
The same Bible that declares God to be infinitely holy also declares Him to be absolutely sovereign. The same Bible that condemns sin declares that God “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” Ephesians 1:11. The same Bible also declares: “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” Isaiah 46:9-10. Those truths have stood together in the pages of Scripture from the very beginning. Perhaps the problem is not that God has failed to explain everything, but that we insist on resolving what He has revealed beyond what He has explained.
There are times when faith must simply bow where reason reaches its limits: “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever.” Deuteronomy 29:29. That is the place where we stop demanding explanations and simply receive what God has revealed. Instead of trying to rescue God from the implications of His own sovereignty, or explaining away the passages that make us uncomfortable, we simply bow before the God who has revealed Himself. If He is as absolute as we confess Him to be, then He will always be greater than our systems, our categories, and our ability to comprehend Him. The goal is not to reduce God to the measure of our understanding, but to let our understanding be shaped by the God revealed in Scripture.
The greatest evidence of God’s greatness is that He continually calls us to trust Him beyond the limits of our understanding. It is no wonder that after contemplating God’s sovereign purposes, Paul could only exclaim: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” Romans 11:33. MPJ