Week Ten - Day Two: Sovereignty Examined

We said yesterday that two significant questions arise from our experience which tend to give us heartburn as we think about the sovereignty of God. The first question is how we explain God’s sovereignty in light of the reality of suffering in the world. We looked at that yesterday. Today we will look at how we should understand our experience of the world, our sense of freedom, in light of God’s sovereignty.

In the week seven discussion, we looked at three proverbs which highlighted the sovereignty of God. They help underscore the supposed tension between our freedom and God’s sovereignty.

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)

“A man’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?” (Proverbs 20:24)

“The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases.” (Proverbs 21:1)

Say what? What does that make of me and my free choices?

People have answered that question in a variety of ways over the centuries with varying degrees of effectiveness. But a huge majority of those who have tried to answer it have ended up agreeing with one another at a devotional level. In other words, they may have disagreed with one another in the specifics of how they put human freedom and God’s sovereignty together, but they end up agreeing that both realities are affirmed by Scripture and should be held to by us. Both realities are true: God is sovereign and we are free and responsible.

Listen to Joshua’s faith declaration. (Also note the call that he makes to his people.)

Joshua 24:14-15

(14) “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. (15) But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

Sounds to me like an act of freedom, and a call to arms for others to act freely in service of the Lord. Now, one could argue that God had moved (sovereignly) in Joshua to inspire him to make this choice. In which case, was it a truly free choice? Perhaps that’s right; it seems to be the implication of Scripture and the logical conclusion of a clear doctrine of sovereignty. Perhaps we don’t have absolute freedom.

But there’s no great discovery in that, is there? I mean, you can’t choose to be in two places at once, even if you freely want to. You can’t choose to defy gravity. You can’t choose to live forever in your current body. Obviously, our freedom has limits. But Joshua still had to choose – and he still calls others to do so!

Even though God is sovereign, He chooses to operate through us! He chooses to make us part of His activity and part of the execution of His will and even His governorship of things. Paul even calls us “co-heirs with Christ.” (Romans 8:17) He still calls on us to believe, and we have no indication that He will by-pass that choice in His work with us.

Just like Joshua, we must make choices

Just like Joshua, we must make choices. And we know this to be true, don’t we? This isn’t where we lose sight of the truth, is it?

When we think of this issue, we almost never run into problems because we cannot figure out how to think of ourselves as free agents. No, the problem really comes because you and I construct our view of the world in such a way that limits God’s sovereignty so that we can accommodate a full and absolute freedom for ourselves in our choices. After all, this is how we experience the world.

In answer to this problem, I’ll quote from a section of R. C. Sproul’s book Chosen By God. He talks about addressing this very issue in one of his classes.

“I began the class by reading the opening lines from Chapter III of the Westminster Confession:

God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.

I stopped reading at that point. I asked, ‘Is there anyone in this room who does not believe the words that I just read?’ A multitude of hands went up. I then asked, ‘Are there any convinced atheists in the room?’ No hands were raised. I then said something outrageous: ‘Everyone who raised his hand to the first question should also have raised his hand to the second.’

A chorus of groans and protests met my statement. How could I accuse someone of atheism for not believing that God foreordains whatever comes to pass? Those who protested these words were not denying the existence of God. They were not protesting against Christianity. They were protesting against Calvinism.

I tried to explain to the class that the idea that God foreordains whatever comes to pass is not an idea unique to Calvinism. It isn’t even unique to Christianity. It is simply a tenet of theism – a necessary tenet of theism. That God in some sense foreordains whatever comes to pass is a necessary result of his sovereignty … This idea only declares that God is absolutely sovereign over his creation. God can foreordain things in different ways. But everything that happens must at least happen by His permission. If He permits something, then He must decide to allow it. If He decides to allow something, then in a sense He is foreordaining it.”

Remember our affirmations of truth yesterday? Here we go again. Let’s affirm some truth to help us out of the swamp. It is absolutely true that human beings are free and that they make meaningful choices. We know this from experience and Scripture agrees. Almost every theologian, regardless of their theological persuasion, agrees. It is also absolutely and fundamentally true that God is sovereign and that this sovereignty is unlimited.

So, let’s try to hold those things together in our minds the way the authors of the Bible did. If you want to know how to do that, you will need to do some reading outside of these exercises. But I’ll give you a hint that has worked for me over the years. If I need to compromise either my freedom or God’s sovereignty in my thinking, I choose to compromise my freedom. God gets the benefit of the doubt.

Before You Start Your Day

1. Take a look at Philippians 2:12-13. Look at how Paul weaves both sides of our “problem” together seamlessly.

   (12) Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, (13) for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

2. Thank God for his purposes for you. Ask Him to fulfill those purposes through you today. Submit yourself to His foreordination.
3. Go, work out your salvation with fear and trembling!