The Eternal Sovereignty of God (Part Two)

The Eternal Sovereignty of God (Part Two)

Khen Lim

Image source: acuerdos.cl

Understanding God’s Kingship

By and large, God’s sovereignty claims is not up for debate. After all, every Protestant Christian denomination unequivocally agrees that God is preeminent in both absolute power and uncontested authority. It is His divinity in sovereignty that defines the natural consequence of why He is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. 

In other words, here is a God – with a capital G – who knows way beyond what we know, who is more than powerful enough to create and destroy at anytime, anywhere and anyhow, and who can be present everywhere at the same time to exert His Godship. By that qualification alone, no earthly king comes even remotely close to matching.

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (Jn 1:1, NIV)

God has knowledge of everything and on that fact alone, He therefore is perfect in the way He does things. His plans are always going to work. His execution is flawless. He cannot fail. He doesn’t make mistakes. And hence, He harbours no regrets. 

No monarchs today or in history can claim this extent of knowledgeability. His limitless span of knowledge also means that He can see out His plan even if it takes tens of thousands of years to accomplish. Earthly sovereignties would have to go through endless generations to see through such grand plans and by and large, no monarchies in history have ever done so.

“How great is our Lord! His power is absolute! His understanding is beyond comprehension!” (Ps 147:5, NLT)

God’s power over life and death is beyond incredible. His is a quality no earthly king has but through history, we have witnessed many who though they could, which resulted in millions of unjustifiable deaths through wars and battles as well as executions, assassinations and whatever else. 

Not an insignificant proportion of these were actually done in God’s Name especially throughout Europe where ‘divine right’ monarchies were mushrooming everywhere. These were kings who believed that they were only answerable to God but not the people they ruled. 


Emperor Hirohito was revered as a living god by his subjects (Image source: Wireless Toyz)

Across in Asia, emperors ruled with even greater impunity and were essentially considered gods by their people. Infamously, post-Second World War Japan woke up to the reality that their Emperor Hirohito was, after all, no god.

God, on the other hand, has complete dominion over life and death. Of the two, He can create life unlike any earthly king. He is the Creator of all life as well as the entire Universe. He created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. It was His master design that gave humanity existence. 

God’s power also means that ultimately, it is He we must count on to defeat evil. In the unavoidable Armageddon of the future, only God’s power can inflict defeat upon Satan and his forces. No king, dead or alive, can face the wrath of Satan, let alone God’s.

“Before the mountains were born, before You gave birth to the Earth and the world, from beginning to end, You are God.” (Ps 90:2, NLT)

God can be everywhere because He is, after all, God. Earthly kings need prelates or emissaries or ambassadors to do that. Even so, none of them can execute decisions simultaneously at all places at once whereas God can. God can be creating – or destroying, for that matter – in multiple places at any one time and still do all of them perfectly. 

He can also be in the present and the future at the same time. He can see where our lives are today and He will also know where we’ll be ten years from now. He has crystal-clear knowledge of every intricacy that surrounds all our individual lives. No earthly king can do any of these. No matter what technologies kings have today, they cannot tell the future any more than they can flawlessly predict what is going to happen in the next hour.

Yet do all these define God’s sovereignty?

God’s will or our free will

Image source: Like Success

Most people do not question that God is sovereign. His power and authority are not just beyond question but they are also implied. The contentious issue is how far God’s sovereignty can be applied as He exerts His will over us. 

In other words, when people speak of God’s sovereignty, it is often spoken in the same breath as His governing of and over the Universe but the argument seems to centre on when and where His control is and isn’t direct.

The Bible prevalently describes God in ways we mentioned earlier. He is all-knowing and all-powerful, and He operates beyond our human notion of time. He is also the all-round Creator of everything, including things we have neither seen nor heard. 

But these are just the minimum way of understanding of God’s divinity, His absolute royalty in the Universe. What they tell us is that without His tacit consent, nothing takes place. This is because God has absolute power, authority and knowledge to determine what can and cannot occur within the space of life on Earth and beyond. For anything to happen, permission must be granted by the all-knowing God.

But even in His absoluteness, God offers humanity self-determination, which the Bible calls it ‘free will.’ Christians are familiar with this and Scripture records this through Moses’ writings:

“‘Now listen! Today, I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. For I command you this day to love the Lord your God and to keep His commands, decrees and regulations by walking in His ways. If you do this, you will live and multiply and the Lord your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy.

“‘But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live a long, good life in the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy.

“‘Today, I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!’” (Dt 30:15-19, NLT)

By offering the freedom to choose, God in His sovereignty has given man personal responsibility for their actions.

“You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sin of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected – even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject Me.” (Ex 20:5, NLT)

Sin and we pay the price. Choose rightly and we enjoy the benefits that God accords to those who obey His commands. We are to be accountable for what we choose in life for God does not coerce or intimidate us into action one way or another. It is ultimately our choice and He makes sure there is no interference from Him in this regard. 

Having said that, God reminds us that there is a price to pay for taking the wrong turn. This price does not, in whatsoever way, defines a compulsion on His part. He does forgive when we confess our wrongdoings. He hates the sin but He loves the sinner, meaning us. It pains Him to see us suffer or be hurt by our own misgivings but He’s always there to lift us up.

All of this point to a God whose sovereignty allows Him full dominion over everything but yet, in His will, we can still decide how we wish to perform throughout our lives, which is why He can seethe with anger when we do not listen to Him:

“In this way, Israel joined in the worship of Baal of Peor, causing the Lord’s anger to blaze against His people.” (Num 25:3, NLT)

Legendary women's basketball coach, the late Pat Summitt (Image source: USA Today)

If we’re in a football team, it is the coach who will exhort us to do our best. He’s likely to say to us that the game is in our hands and it’s up to us to turn up for the game and do our very best. He will remind us of how we trained for this and that we have the ability to win it and win it big. 

His rousing encouragement should fuel us to victory but ultimately, he will recognise that on the field, every player has the choice to play his best or otherwise. He may have assembled the top players to play on that night but he could also have substituted a few of them. 

His choice is ultimately his to make and in the end, it doesn’t matter who plays because he has no real hold on how they choose to perform. In the end, whether the player throws the game or not, the coach will soon find out.

In any such game, the result, barring a draw, can only be a win or a loss. In victory, we reap the rewards and realise that behind their win is a coach that guided and taught them, hone their skills to read the game and then instil in them the necessary discipline to stay on course and finish well. 

But in failure, we suffer the consequences in which ultimately, the players have themselves to blame. They will realise that the coach can only do so much but the field belonged to them. It’s up to them to play their best or not. Ultimately a defeat places the focus on how the players have erred.

Yet, failure can still turn into success because under grace, we can repent and start afresh, make the necessary changes and stick to them. It is this grace that defines God’s unique sovereignty because in Him, there is forgiveness. If we confess, He will wipe our slate clean so that we may have another chance to remedy our wrong ways.

God’s indirect control

Image source: lds.org

But here’s the thing about God’s Kingship. It is because He’s given us our free will that sin exists. Had God taken full control of our lives and determine for each of us what we say and do, sin wouldn’t have been present at all. But in His lovingkindness, free will was offered so we may decide for ourselves what we do in and for our lives. The presence of sin is evidence that not everything that takes place is the direct result of a holy God.

Just as His power and authority outlines His minimum boundary, it is the reality of man’s desires and his accountability that defines the outer boundary reaches of God’s sovereignty over the Universe. All that simply means that in God’s infinite control over the realm of life and creation, He will, up to a point, elect to let things unfold on their own. In other words, He can and often does not have direct intervention.

While God has everything in His power to determine any outcome He chooses, what level of control He exerts in any given circumstance is a wholly different matter altogether. Very often, in our discussions about God’s sovereignty, we oversimply the way we conceptualise it. 

We stumble and assume (wrongly) that God cannot be sovereign since He is not directly or overtly purposing an activity or a life. Therefore, He cannot be all-powerful and all-knowing. Perhaps then, there is either no God or someone even higher up than He is. Atheists like to think the former while those who latch on to other gods think the latter. And both are grievously wrong because they simply have no real understanding of God’s Kingship.

Sometimes, even Christians falter in their view of God’s sovereignty. For example, when life’s challenges become ‘too much,’ some of us begin to question God and His role in our lives. Those who especially lose loved ones or have everything ‘taken’ away from them find it very difficult to cope and might therefore turn angrily towards Him. They not only demand answers from Him but they also question His credentials as God. 

These and many others like to shoehorn God as someone who must do everything they imagine He can and since He can do anything, He cannot be sovereign until and unless His actions meet their standards and expectations. It may be an arrogant attitude but it is also consistently true in so many instances.

Yet this attitude is as false as it is illogical. If you catch a bug and confine it to an upturned glass, we could say that you have ‘sovereignty’ over it. In that sense, you can decide its fate one way or another. But at the same time, the bug will try to escape but you may or may not want that to happen. 

In fact you have plenty of options as to what you can do to it. You can, for example, decide to kill it in a wide number of ways. You could taunt and torture it in the worst possible wicked ways. You could simply imprison it and watch it with the curiosity of a child. Or you may, for whatever reason, choose to lift the glass and let it fly away. 

Whatever the choice, there are many and you are at one with the decision you make. You hold exclusive right to that decision and no one can tell you what to do with the bug. Your dominion over the bug makes you the sole controller of its life.

Yet be sure we understand that there is a difference between willingly letting the bug go and watching it escape and not being able to do anything about it. Remember that the bug’s life is in your hands and therefore, the latter is inapplicable. 

Therefore if you decide not to retain the bug inside the upturned glass, it doesn’t mean that you are incapable of keeping it there at all. Your sovereignty over the bug means that his life is exclusively yours to decide, actively or otherwise.

The three wills of God

Image source: crosswalk.com

God’s Kingship over our lives is roughly similar to that between you and the bug. He has everything in His power and authority to decide what to do with our lives. He can make things happen for us. He can stop whatever He deems necessary to stop. He can intervene for us in the midst of our enemies. 

Or alternatively, He can also let things run their course on their own for whatever reason, which means His actions are indirect. But whatever the decision and however the outcome, there is no doubting that His will be done. In the three types of wills that God exercises, this one is called ‘Permissive Will.’

Also called ‘perfect will,’ this defines God’s attitude and what pleases and displeases Him. It is in this that we ultimately find His rulebook that informs us of the decisions He takes including those that He seeks no pleasure from. 

While He is the God of love, His will decrees that the wicked must ultimately face death. He doesn’t find this a pleasurable thing to do but do, He must in order that divine justice be done. In his letter to Timothy, Paul writes:

“I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf and give thanks for them. Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peacefully and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. This is good and pleases God our Saviour who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth.” (1 Tim 2:1-4, NLT)

While God wishes for “everyone to be saved,” much to His dismay, He knows that won’t happen, which is what the last verse in the above passage is telling us. Those who won’t be saved will face death and ultimate ruination and it saddens the Lord to know this for it is His desire that all should know the truth and receive Salvation. Yet He also knows that in God’s sovereignty, there is only one way to receive this Salvation:

“For no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws them to Me, and at the last day, I will raise them up.” (Jn 6:44, NLT)

Theologians call the second type, ‘hidden will.’ Also known as ‘decretive’ or ‘sovereign will,’ this is God’s ‘ultimate’ will focusing on His sole unchallenged authority to ordain everything that comes to pass. 

This is the will that expresses the tenet that nothing escapes God no matter how remote or insignificant or unlikely. Even something like a greeting in a letter is not outside His sovereign will:

“This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.” (Eph 1:1, NLT)

Nor, as we can see, the very fact that it is within God’s will to choose whomsoever He fancies to be an apostle of Christ. God, after all, is the One “who works all things according to the counsel of His will.” And when He does, nothing gets in His way. “His will be done” affirms that no matter what obstacles anyone puts up, God simply bulldozes it away:

“I know that You can do anything and no one can stop You.” (Job 42:2, NLT)

Because of God’s divine sovereignty, His will remains completely unimpeded. While Hirohito buckled under Allied pressure to renounce his divinity as living god to his people, nothing is beyond God’s control. God is God and His will cannot be thwarted by anyone or anything. With God, nothing goes unnoticed.

The third type is called ‘preceptive will.’ Also known as ‘revealed’ will, the name suggests that in this case, God has chosen to reveal parts of His will, which the Bible reveals concerning the things we should or should not do. These are the revealed commandments of God’s published laws of which perhaps, the Ten Commandments is collectively the most well-known (but not the only one).

Because of the revelation, we know that it is God’s will that we refrain from certain conduct and engage in certain practices. We are commanded not to steal, to speak profanely, to murder and to be covetous but instead to forgive those who wrong us (Mt 6:14-15, Eph 4:31-32 et al), to love our enemies (Mt 5:44, Lk 6:27-36 et al) and repent of our transgressions (Lk 5:31-32, Mt 4:17 et al). Most importantly, we are to be holy because He is holy (1 Pt 1:15-16).

In all of this, the outstanding keyword is ‘obedience.’ To be in compliance with God’s commandments is to listen and follow the Word:

“The Lord called to him [Moses] from the mountain and said, ‘Give these instructions to the family of Jacob; announce it to the descendants of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. You know how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now if you will obey Me and keep My covenant, you will be My own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to Me. And you will be My kingdom of priests, My holy nation.’ This is the message you must give to the people of Israel.’” (Ex 19:5-6, NLT)

His preceptive will is not only expressed in His Word but it is also built into our conscience, through which God has His moral law etched into the hearts of all men (and women). These laws, be it in Scripture or our hearts, are binding upon us so that in disobedience, we are held accountable by God.

The third and final part will be published on August 13 2017