There are many ways that human beings can display our pride and arrogance toward God. There are many ways that even those of us who love him can display that we think we know better than he does. There are many ways we can behave with conceit, but perhaps never more so than when we take it upon ourselves to let God off the hook for his words and deeds.
From the opening verses of Genesis to the closing verses of Revelation, God proclaims his sovereignty over all the affairs of this world. He is the one who called it into being (“In the beginning God…”) and he is the one who will bring it to its end (“Surely I am coming soon.”). Never in the meantime does he lose his sovereignty, diminish it, or outsource it. Certainly he gives human beings the freedom to choose whether we will honor or dishonor him, whether we will walk in his ways or walk in some other way. Yet even the decisions of moral beings—and they truly are decisions—fall within the realm of God’s sovereignty, for “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). What is true of kings is true of paupers, and what is true of paupers is true of you and me. None of us acts or is acted upon outside the knowledge and will of God.
This would be easy to accept in a perfect world, but we may struggle to accept it in an imperfect one. It would be easy to accept if all around us we saw people thriving, living peaceably, and enjoying one another. It would be easy to accept if we saw people treating God’s creatures and creation with the care they deserve. It would be easy to accept if every man bowed the knee to God. But this is not the world we live in. We look around and see humanity rebelling against God and taking out its anger toward him on the things he has made. We look around and see anger, warfare, and destruction. We look inward and see how we have suffered at the hands of others and caused others to suffer at our hands. This world and the people in it are an absolute mess.
With that being the case, we are quick to think thoughts like these: If I were in charge of this world, I would not allow people to harm one another. If this were my universe, I would never fail to intervene to prevent suffering. If I were God, I would never have permitted sin in the first place. From here, it is but a short step to thinking that because we would not do this, God would not either. We judge him by our standards, but since we cannot find him guilty, we instead invent ways to let him off the hook. We suggest that he must not have the ability to stop the evil in this world, or perhaps that he has willingly ceded it to human beings. Perhaps the only actions that are truly meaningful are those that are motivated by complete freedom of the will. Or perhaps God has chosen to withhold from himself the ability to see the future, so that he is learning just as we are—a willing bystander rather than a bold actor.
Yet in the end, we have to look some realities straight in the face. God is sovereign. He is completely sovereign, absolutely sovereign, and totally sovereign. He is sovereign to such a degree that not a single thing has ever happened in this universe that was not in some way a part of his decree for it. No bad thing has ever happened that God had no power to prevent. The Westminster Confession says this with clarity, and though it speaks specifically to God’s sovereignty in salvation, it extends far beyond that one doctrine.
God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions; yet hath He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.
It continues in a section on divine providence, saying:
God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the First Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. (See also R.C. Sproul on this.)
If all of this is true, then in even the most troubling actions, and even the most reprehensible, we must be willing to say, “This was God’s will.” Of course, it was not God’s will in such a way that he authored the evil or forced anyone to do wrong. He is morally blameless in every matter. And yet deplorable things happen only because they are part of his decree for this world. I admit that my fingers pause over the keyboard as I type the word “decree.” Even I, who write these words and believe them, sometimes struggle to type them. But it is true. It is true and it must be good, for God is both true and good.
Jefferson famously trimmed away all the parts of his Bible that demanded a supernatural explanation; many of us trim away the bits that proclaim God’s complete and total sovereignty over this world.
In the end, we simply have to admit that God is not like us. We cannot judge him by our sinful hearts, limited knowledge, or diminished capacities. If we judge him at all, we must judge him by the measure of the cross where he accomplished what “your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28). At the cross we see the most abhorrent of all actions—the murder of God’s own Son—accomplishing the greatest of all goods—the salvation of his people to the eternal praise of his name. If the greatest of all evils can bring about the greatest of all goods, what can we do but bow the knee in humility and trust that he can and will use every pain and every sorrow in such a way that they will ultimately be proven to bring glory to his name? What can we do but trust that his mind and his will are as definitively, mysteriously, and positively involved in our suffering as they were in the suffering of Jesus Christ?
Jefferson famously trimmed away all the parts of his Bible that demanded a supernatural explanation; many of us trim away the bits that proclaim God’s complete and total sovereignty over this world. And we do this to protect God from himself. Yet just as we must never excise Scripture of its miracles, we must never excise God of his sovereignty. We must never be embarrassed by God’s acts and deeds and must never rationalize away his complete control over this world. We must never apologize on his behalf or let him off the hook, for he makes no apologies and never wishes to be let off the hook. Instead, we must simply bow and trust. As we do so, we can be confident that when our heads are lifted, when our hearts are cleansed, and when our perspective is widened, we will see. We will see, we will marvel, and we will praise his name. From our mouths will come by sight the words we now say by faith: God does all things well.
