What does it mean that God is sovereign?

God’s sovereignty needs no proving. “Of Him … are all things.” There is but one God, supreme and alone. Nothing exists or could exist, but what came into existence “through Him.” If He were alone, the only will in the universe, then He could only act in sovereignty. For sovereignty means power to exercise will without reference to any.

Here again are two parallel lines of truth, each one perfectly true in its place, neither interfering with the other, and yet often confused in the minds of men. As to God's sovereignty, Nebuchadnezzar, though he himself an absolute monarch, was brought to fully confess, "I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever: for His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. But He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth: and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, What hast Thou done'?" (Dan. 4: 34,35).

God has absolute power, absolute authority, absolute sovereignty. He does as He will and none can challenge or change lt. Added to this is the fact that He has an "eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Eph. 3:11). That purpose cannot be changed: it will be absolutely and perfectly carried out. The believer fully acknowledges this and finds greatest delight in such magnificent truth.

Blind unbelief again is ready with needling questions. lf God is sovereign and has an absolute plan and purpose for the universe, then men will argue that it makes no difference what people do. Whatever they do, they argue, this was going to be the case anyway, so they could not avoid doing lt. This is the fatalistic way of saying that man is not responsible for his own actions. This seems to them to be a logical argument. They are saying that God's sovereignty and man's responsibility cannot be true facts at the same time, because they do not understand how it can be so.

C.C. — If God has a purpose, it must be a holy purpose. In a certain sense, we may say there are no limitations with God. His sovereignty is not a delegated sovereignty, it is intrinsically His. With men, in kings and rulers, it is a delegated sovereignty, with limitations. Not so with God, except by the exigencies of His own nature and character.

Through all, spite of all, He yet "worketh all things after the counsel of His own will." He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him: What doest Thou? We rest, for we know Who reigns. It is not mere sovereignty, the almighty despotism of mere will, to which we bow because we must, hut the sovereignty of wisdom, holiness, and goodness, - of One in whom love is revealed in light. How strange and saddening that in any phase of it the sovereignty of God should be an unwelcome theme to a Christian heart! Surely, one would say, there must be something very wrong with the state of such an one, or with the manner of its presentation to him, or with both, for this to be the case. Yet is it not so, that the sovereignty of God in salvation, - and where else is the thought so simple and so necessary? - is by the large mass of Christians perhaps a thing most vehemently denied; and even where entertained, is entertained with coldness and suspicion. The truths of election and predestination, while the favourite cavil in the mouths of unbelievers, are undoubtedly, by many who receive them, received with inward shrinking, as at most necessary, rather than really approved. And both causes named no doubt contribute to this result.

Yet if God be (what He must be to be God,) perfect goodness, and wisdom without fault, what could one possibly desire, but that everything should he absolutely in His hand, plastic to and moulded by His blessed will, working, according to plan and forethought, His eternal purpose? It is not possible to conceive objection on the part of any, worthy of the least respect. But this is all that predestination can at all imply. It is the simple and necessary result of a really dlivine government, - of the supremacy of One who lacks neither wisdom nor power, nor benevolent interest in the work of His own hands. I know, of course, the objection that will be raised. "Open your eyes," it will be said, "and look around!

Yes, the mystery of God's permission of evil remains. The mystery of His will is another thing, revealed now, not then, and only to be manifested at the coming of the Lord, when all things shall be gathered in one under His Headship. (Eph. 1:9-10) It is not yet the time to order all as the expression of His will, though He is the maker and sovereign disposer of all. Undoubtedly experience has its place, as each has his own measure of discrimination which should profit by length of days; but there are no laws discoverable or possible to bind God, in whom alone is perfect wisdom and power in providence. There are laws which He has imprinted on all above our eyes and below our feet, and around us; but the highest, truest law of all, if law it should be called, is that God is free, not bound, to act, free to act as and when He will. So He acts with man as with the elements, with the more and the less wicked, with counsellors, and judges, and kings, with priests, and heroes, and senators, with whole nations, reduced or aggrandized, with their chiefs infatuated to utter ruin. God is sovereign.

“He judges among the gods” and He is supreme. This we must recognize and hold without fear, doubt or equivocation in spite of all appearances to the contrary, for it is only as we do this that we shalt have confidence and rest of soul in the midst of the welter of iniquity and the successes of the evil powers that abound. Consider the alternative: If any evil power in the universe could break the bounds of God’s permission, and act in defiance of His absolute will so that the final supremacy of that will would be made impossible there would exist a throne of darkness against which He would have no power, and He would cease to be God, faith would be vain, and the hope of the complete overthrow of evil would vanish for ever. That is unthinkable We must maintain with the utmost tenacity our faith in the absolute sovereignty of God in the affairs at this world He is not for the moment intervening publicly, nevertheless providentially He controls all things. GOD IS, and must ever be; this is the unmoveable anchor for our souls amid the threatening waves. “The Most High rules in the kingdom of men” (Dan. 4:17).

God is sovereign

While man is responsible, God is sovereign: ‘in him we live and move and exist’ (Acts 17:28). It is impossible for us to do anything against His determined will (although, as discussed above, this does not negate man’s responsibility, nor should we use it as an excuse for inaction, weakness or failure). We should never underestimate God’s sovereignty. He is so great that He gives man liberty to make his own decisions and at the same time directs all things in a way that corresponds with His purpose. God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are like two sides of a coin. We can never see the two sides at the same time. Only God can. Human philosophy tries to explain this mystery but always fails. ‘The hidden things belong to Jehovah our God; but the revealed ones are ours and our children’s for ever’ (Deut. 29:29). We should distinguish these two matters but not seek to separate them.

Yet if God be (what He must be to be God,) perfect goodness, and wisdom without fault, what could one possibly desire, but that everything should be absolutely in His hand, plastic to and moulded by His blessed will, working, according to plan and forethought, His eternal purpose? It is not possible to conceive objection on the part of any, worthy of the least respect. But this is all that predestination can at all imply. It is the simple and necessary result of a really divine government, — of the supremacy of One who lacks neither wisdom nor power, nor benevolent interest in the work of His own hands.

(Vv. 19-21). But someone will say, If this is so, "Why doth He yet find fault?" Who has resisted His will? If God hardens a man, how can the man help himself, and how can God find fault with the man? The Apostle's first answer to this objection is a very peremptory one. He asks, "Who are you to find fault with God?" Supposing you do not understand, is God to give an account of His matters to you? We have to remember that we are mere men and that God is God, and we do well to give Him His place as God. God is the One that forms. Man is the thing formed, and shall the thing formed complain to the One that forms, "Why hast Thou made me thus?"

Has not the potter absolute power over the clay — to make one vessel to honour, or, if he so wills to make a vessel to dishonour? The Apostle thus establishes the absolute right of God to act, as He will, without giving account of His matters to man. Nevertheless, while the illustration of the potter asserts in the strongest way the absolute right of God to do as He pleases, it does not teach that God has made any vessel to dishonour. The illustration simply asserts and maintains God's prerogatives.

Rom. 9:19-29. But man does complain, and a second objection is: Since the sovereign God decides everything, why does He any longer find fault? For who has resisted His purpose? And what I am, I am: I can only be what He pleases. Nay, but thou, man, says the apostle, who art thou that answerest again to God? Does the creature of the dust dare to judge the Creator? God does what He will, and renders account of His acts to none. Thus man complains of God's righteousness when it touches himself, as he dislikes the grace which justifies others freely and absolutely. And to this indeed the question will be found to come: Is God to judge man? or is man to judge God? In the entire answer there are three propositions. First, as we have seen, the apostle maintains, in all its strength, the right of the sovereign God — the authority that He has to do just as He will with His creatures. Has not the potter power over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honour and another for dishonour? Next, he comes to the facts, and sets before us, that God, even when minded to show his wrath and make His power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction — vessels which He did not fit, but had long endured. Thirdly, there is the revelation that He had afore prepared for glory vessels of mercy. The vessels of wrath were fitted by themselves — by their sins — for wrath; but the vessels of mercy were prepared of God, for in truth no man is prepared of himself for glory: grace alone effects His work in favour of the elect. The passage is written, if we may so say, carefully, by the Spirit, that we should not impute the fitting of the wicked to God. His title to act sovereignly is asserted as a general and abstract truth in Rom. 9:21. But when we come to the facts as they are, Paul declares that it is not by God's act that they are fitted to destruction. On the other hand, it is expressly said that God endured vessels of wrath, (Rom. 9:22) and that he prepared vessels of mercy. Such are the cases supposed. Who or what, then, prepared those vessels of wrath? Sin, without doubt. Nevertheless, the word on this point preserves silence. What profound revelations result from the existence of sin — from God's way for us and for His own glory in respect of it! God alone suffices to Himself, and His power is necessary to the maintenance of everything, as it was needed to create all. The creature can only fall, if it be not sustained. The moment it seeks an independent existence it is fallen, and that even before committing a positive act of sin.