The beauty and goodness of God’s sovereignty is in the way that it forms a backdrop to everything else that we see of God and the way that he works. It is a foundation for trusting that he can and will do all that he says he will do. And it is our confession of a God who is a secure rock upon which to rest and in whom to put our trust in every area of life.
“God is sovereign in creation, revelation, redemption and final judgement.”
What are we affirming in this statement?
God is sovereign. He alone has absolute power to do exactly as he wills to do, whenever he wishes. He also has the authority or the right to do so; there is no principle or being that is above him dictating his actions. He is not just good, just, and righteous; He is goodness, justice, and righteousness not subject to their judgement.
God’s sovereign power and authority means he is able to override any other power or authority. Nothing can thwart God’s purposes, he has both the power to enact it and the authority (the right) to do so.
Isaiah puts it well,
“Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’”
Sovereignty extends to every conceivable realm – the Doctrinal Basis (DB) highlights creation, revelation, redemption, and final judgement not to circumscribe the bounds of God’s power and authority but to indicate his sovereignty in all things while highlighting key dimensions to remember.
"in creation"
Nothing exists that hasn’t been created by the Triune God. The world is not explicable in merely naturalistic or materialistic terms. God is the origin of all that exists, not merely as its first cause as in deism, but as its ongoing source of life as he providentially sustains all creation.
There are two key things to note here:
1) In his sovereignty, God creates with purpose. Anything good about creation is intentionally so and derives its goodness from the goodness of God. The world is neither arbitrarily rigid nor random and chaotic. Because of God’s sovereignty there is a discernible way that the world ought to be. This is a key foundation for Christian engagement in both science and ethics. (NB we are not identifying how the world ought to be with how it actually is. This discrepancy is explained by the doctrine of the fall.)
2) In his sovereignty, God sustains all creation. In everything that happens we must reckon with God’s providential sustenance. This is especially pertinent with respect to human agency; our agency and will exists as it has been created and is sustained under God’s sovereignty. Any freedom and responsibility that we have is afforded to us by God, it is not ultimately our own. Even those who oppose or deny God can only do so with the breath that he sustains.
"in revelation"
All that we can know about God is intentionally made known by him. All that creation reveals about God is his intentional communication, just as intentional as his self-disclosure in Scripture. These two streams of revelation may communicate differently about God, but in God’s sovereignty it is both true that “the heavens declare the glory of God” and “the law of the Lord is perfect” (Psalm 19:1, 7).
"in redemption and final judgement."
Mercy and justice are from first to last in God’s hands. We do not save or justify ourselves but rest upon God’s action to redeem us and to execute ultimate justice. Nothing can thwart his redemptive purposes and execution of justice (cf. Acts 4:27-28; Romans 8:38-39). The precise way that this relates to our will and apparent cooperation with God is a point on which evangelicals may legitimately disagree, but we must nonetheless confess the primacy of God’s sovereignty in salvation, acknowledging the witness of Scripture that “no one can come to [Jesus] unless the Father who sent [Jesus] draws them” (John 6:44)
Where is this challenged or a challenge when studying theology at university?
Just as God’s sovereignty extends to all conceivable realms, it touches on every area of theological academia and is in the background of many challenges to Christian faith from the academy. Here are just a couple of examples where God’s sovereignty may be in the foreground.
Free will and determinism:
Secular accounts of free will and determinism tend to bounce between the poles of radical freedom and a strong determinism. These are either set up in conflict with each other, or simultaneously held (somewhat inconsistently) depending on the specific situation – we often see determinism when considering responsibility for sin or causal links in historical developments, radical freedom when in the realm of meaning making. God’s sovereignty cuts across the dichotomy between the two, his authority and power forming the context in which any sense of genuine human freedom and responsibility can exist. Biblically, moral freedom does not equal indeterminate randomness wholly without cause or explanation. God’s sovereignty need not entail physical determinism and human responsibility need not equal dispassionate, uninfluenced autonomy.
God’s relation to the world:
There is a tendency to imagine God’s relationship with the world in deistic ways – a distant God whose interactions with world can only ever be obvious interventions which break the natural order of things. A strong distinction between the natural and supernatural which overlooks God’s providential sustaining of creation has been reinforced in the western academy by enlightenment thinkers such as Immanuel Kant.
This is manifest in presentations of an apparent conflict between science and God as creator and sustainer. If God’s only interaction with creation is interventionist then he is relegated to the gaps in our scientific knowledge. Any observation of natural processes involved in effects credited to him (such as in the origins of the universe) threaten belief in (this kind of) God.
Recognising God’s sovereignty in all things helps us overcome this challenge. God is actively at work sustaining all things including every observable natural process. He is not the great clock maker tinkering within the laws of nature to guarantee some outcome, nor only ever breaking the natural order to occasionally achieve some end. He is the one who created and sustains the very laws of nature themselves and there is continuity between this work of sustaining all things and more dramatically intervening on specific occasions.
How does this help us do Evangelical Christian theology better?
Beyond providing a way of thinking about God which avoids some of the pitfalls of modern philosophy, an appreciation of God’s sovereignty is the basis for an evangelical humility in the study of theology.
God is sovereign in revelation, meaning that we don’t approach him or even Scripture as those in control. We don’t set up tests for God or put him or his word under the microscope. Instead we are invited by God to get to know him as he desires. Theology is always only a response to what God has already chosen to reveal about himself, not an exercise of our own intellectual prowess.
It is also a great comfort when we begin to worry if we made the right choice of university, if we’re choosing the right modules, essay questions, dissertation topic. We can trust in God’s providence, that regardless of how good or not our decisions appear to be, God is at work directing our lives. Even our poorer choices, God can and does use to lead us in the way that he would have us go. If we trust him and seek to follow him we will see that nothing (even our worst essay) is wasted by him.
