The Sovereignty Of God

Waymarks Vol 6 (1934):

It is well, in a subject of such importance as this, to first of all define our terms. The word sovereignty suggests to the mind the thought of law and government, and in our day what is of greater importance than right government? But—divine sovereignty! What a stupendous theme! It brings us necessarily to consider the divine character.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, drawn up by eminently godly men in 1647, says: “There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, invisible, without body, parts, or passion, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of His most righteous will, most gracious, merciful and longsuffering.”… “God, from all eternity, did 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 creature, nor is the liberty of second causes taken away, but rather established.”

Our subject demands that we specially consider God’s Omnipotence and Eternity. He is the only All-mighty and only ever-living Being; therefore, the only absolute Sovereign. The absolute will of God may be seen in nature, illustrated by the earthquake, or terrible storm, with its resultant damage, loss of life, and we can only say, “None can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?” (Dan. 4:35).

God’s will may be also seen in Providence. Sometimes disease or death will overtake a useful Christian, and we have to say, “It was evidently not God’s will to spare him longer.” It may be seen in grace, e.g., in the call of Abraham, Jacob (not Esau) Saul of Tarsus, Lydia, the Philippian jailer, etc. How very true is the declaration of the Psalmist in Psa. 135:6: “Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He, in heaven, in the earth, in the seas, and all deep places.” Augustine has the following quaint but striking remarks on this text: “His will was the cause of all that He made. Thou makest a house, because if not, thou wouldst be left without a habitation; necessity compels thee, not free will. Thou makest a garment, because if not, thou wouldst be naked. Thou sowest seed, otherwise thou wouldst not have food. All such things thou doest of necessity. God has made all things of His goodness. Whatsoever He pleased, that did He. Dost thou do all that thou wiliest even in the field, or in thine own house? Thy wife, or thy children, or thy servant, perchance, gainsays thee, and thou doest not what thou wiliest.”

Now we must remember that this “whatsoever” is limited in this sense, that God being righteous, as well as Almighty, does only those things which are agreeable to His nature. The whole Bible reveals Jehovah so ordering the affairs of all individuals, and of nations, as to secure the grand purpose He had in view in creation, viz., the promotion of His own glory, in the salvation of an innumerable multitude of all peoples, and nations, and tongues.

Elisha Coles (whose book is a classic on this subject) says that the acknowledgment of this doctrine brings support to faith, and quietness of ‘mind under mysterious Providence. He thus sums up God’s sovereignty: “That the great God, blessed for ever, hath an absolute power and right of dominion over His creatures, to dispose and determine of them as seemeth Him good, and that in the doing thereof He cannot but do right.” Again, Cole says: “The great act of God’s sovereignty was His decree for making the world, and of doing, or permitting to be done, whatever should be in it, to the folding of it up.” As to salvation and election, Coles may be thus summarised: It pleased the infinitely great and good God, happy and blessed in Himself, to communicate Himself to others, to set up the first man to be the head of all that should come of him, that he should be created in the image of God, and enjoy communion with Him, that he should have a perfect freedom of will, that his happiness or ruin should be set before him as depending on the use lie made of his freedom. Foreseeing the fall of man, God chose a certain number of Adam’s race, and ordained them to .eternal life, leaving the rest in that state of sin and bondage and guilt they had brought themselves into, ordaining also that the chosen ones should be redeemed and rescued by the Son of God, who should become incarnate, and by His perfect obedience to the law, and by the infinite merit of His death, should destroy the works of the devil, and reconcile the elect unto God, that He should rise from the dead, and be invested with all power, and finally bring many sons to glory.

Divine Sovereignty is clearly revealed as a doctrine of Holy Scripture. “So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God” (Gen. 45:8): “But He is is one mind, and who can turn Him? and what His soul desireth, even that He doeth” (Job 23:13). “The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever” (Psa. 33:11). “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord,…He turneth it whithersoever He will” (Prov. 21:1). Want of space forbids further quotations, but the reader is referred to Matt. 11:27; Acts 5:39; Rom. 11:11-24; Eph. 1:11; Rev. 4:11, etc., etc.

Divine Sovereignty is abundantly illustrated in Scripture history. In the case of Joseph, most remarkably. In the case of Hainan, where everything seemed to turn on the fact that “on that night could not the king sleep.” In the case of Daniel, in his preservation and gift of special wisdom. In the case of Moses, Pharaoh’s daughter being directed to the exact spot at the right time. These and many other instances might be adduced, but the most striking, and by far the most pregnant with consequences, is that concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, as recorded in Acts 2:23 and 4:28. Though wicked hands crucified Christ, yet they could only carry .out the determinate counsel of God. On this mysterious branch of the subject, Chas. Bridges well observes on Prov. 20:24: “Man is not moved as a machine, but acted upon by intelligent principles.” All parties act freely, yet the goings are of the Lord.

Divine Sovereignty may be considered, further, as illustrated both in history and in providence. On reflection, it will be felt to be the only logical conclusion to be derived from the omnipotence, supremacy and wisdom of God. So Calvin felt. His view, as described by Dr. Wylie in his “History of Protestantism,” was that the absolute sovereignty of God is as a corner-stone. As Author and Ruler of His own universe, God must proceed in the government of His creatures, according to a divine plan, which must have been formed unalterably from everlasting, and must embrace not merely the grander Issues of Providence, but all the means by which those issues are reached. This plan is based on reasons infinitely wise and righteous, though these reasons have not been revealed to us. Calvin embraced the doctrines of the fall of man and of election, because he saw them in the Scriptures, and proclaimed in the facts of history, and also because they were logically and inevitably deducible from the idea of the supremacy, omnipotence and intelligence of God. Any other scheme would be the dethroning of God from His own universe, and abandoning its affairs to blind chance. But Calvin also believed in that freedom of man which is essential to moral accountability. He admitted the difficulties, but he felt they were, after all, only part of the larger problem of the very existence of sin.

Providence and grace can never be separated in the experience of the true child of God. Flavel, in his “Mystery of Divine Providence,” gives remarkable instances of conversion, shewing how circumstances were ordained to lead to the conversion, and how one event hinges upon another. It has been well observed that we are not consulted as to the time or place of our birth, as to our ancestry, or sex, but all these things are appointed for us. What, then, becomes of man’s much-boasted freedom? It is our highest wisdom to bow down before God, realising that it is not for us to analyse His inscrutable decrees. To understood God, I must myself ‘be God. We are amazed and overcome sometimes at the working of a piece of man’s machinery, with its various, parts, big wheels and little wheels, revolving in opposite directions, and we admire the master-mind behind it all. And shall we, must we not, be overcome with yet more amazement and awe in contemplating the workings of divine omnipotence? Our life abounds in paradoxes ,and seeming contradictions; but God can reconcile these things, and as in classical music discords blend in harmonies, so divine teaching can bring us to say that “of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36).

One or two illustrations will be of interest to younger readers. A young minister, named Clark, at Trowbridge, Wilts, had (in 1794) been preaching several years with no apparent success. He became so discouraged that he resolved to give up, and in spite of friends’ remonstrances, said he could not face the evening service (on a certain Sunday). Just then a knock came at the door, and an old lady who lived some distance away, and knew nothing of Mr. Clark’s feelings, said she could not rest till she had asked the minister to preach from the text: “Then I said, I will preach no more in His Name, but His word was as a burning fire shut up in my bones.” This, extraordinary circumstance so struck Mr. Clark that he agreed to preach, and with such liberty that he continued till his death with much success. The truth of this incident was vouched for by one who was present.

Another striking illustration of the timing of events, too marked to be a mere coincidence, and therefore shewing God’s sovereign control over all things, is as follows. When the godly Andrew Bonar, of Edinburgh, died, one of his elders received the first notice of his death when out for a walk, and being, overcome with sadness, he turned down a quiet avenue, feeling in his first grief it would be almost impossible to live without his revered minister, Dr. Bonar. Just at that moment he happened to pass a nursemaid with two children in the perambulator. The nurse was saying to one of the children, who was perhaps overcome with sleep, “Don’t lean on Andrew Bonar! Don’t lean on Andrew Bonar!” (Many children at that time were called Andrew Bonar, after the godly minister.) The effect upon the grief-stricken elder was remarkable, at once rebuking him, and also turning his eyes to Him who never fails nor forsakes His people.

Divine Sovereignty is a truth believed by godly men, and even admitted by non-Calvinists. It may not be generally realised that nearly all the authorised creeds of Protestant denominations (except the Wesleyan body) are more or less Calvinistic in character. Such was the creed of the Waldensians of the Alps, of the Puritans of New England, of the founders of free states, and of the pioneers of foreign missions. (See also the Articles of the Church of England.) Speaking of the Puritans, J. A. Froude says, in his “Short Studies”: “They dwelt on the all-disposing power of Providence. They were crushed down, but they rose again. They abhorred all impurity, and moral wrong of every kind. Whatever exists at this moment in England and Scotland of conscientious fear of doing evil, is the remnant of the convictions which were branded by the Calvinists into the people’s hearts.”Even an agnostic like Professor Huxley says of the Puritan theology: “The doctrines of predestination, of original sin, of the innate depravity of man, and the evil fate of the greater part of the race, faulty as they are, appear to me to be vastly nearer the truth than the liberal popular illusions that babies are all born good, and that the example of a corrupt society is responsible for their failure to remain so; that it is for everybody to reach the ethical ideal if he will only try, and other optimistic figments.” Students of history know that though some of the Puritans were fanatical on some points, yet they were upright, stern, liberty-loving men, and that it was the dissolute court of King Charles, with its gaiety and sin, which first enabled Arminianism to obtain a firm footing in the Church of England.

The late Lord Morley, a professed “Free-Thinker,” in his “Life of Cromwell,” says: “While Calvinism is a theory which might have been expected to sink men into despair, it has yet proved itself a famous soil for rearing heroic natures. On this black granite of fate, predestination and foreknowledge absolute, the strongest of the Protestant fortresses all over the world were founded. Well might it have been anticipated that such fatalism would have driven men headlong into desperation and unclean living. On the contrary, Calvinism exalted its votaries to a pitch of heroic moral energy that has never been surpassed, and enabled them to exhibit an active courage, a cheerful self-restraint, an exulting self-sacrifice, that men count among the highest glories of the human conscience.”

Divine Sovereignty may be considered, finally, as a secret of encouragement to the preacher, Sunday school teacher, etc. If this be not a truth, there is’ nothing but chaos and uncertainty. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good” (Eccles. 11:6). Dr. Wylie, in an excellent passage dealing with the danger of ignoring means, which is fatalism, says that Calvin’s view of predestination, linking the means with the end, and arranging that the one should be reached only through the other, is to make a man feel that he is working alongside a power that cannot be baffled, and that he must be finally crowned with victory. 

As believers in sovereign grace, we need despair of none, for God is omnipotent, and we remember how, when Paul was depressed, the Lord appeared to him, and said, “Be not afraid, for I have much people in this city” of Corinth. Many ministers of the gospel, including the writer, could give instances of God’s sovereignty in blessing their messages in unexpected ways, and to unexpected persons. Further, there is the argument that God paid the price for His people, and they must therefore be saved, of His death was in vain. 

We cannot close this paper without drawing attention of our younger readers to the fact that the truths of Divine Sovereignty—election, particular redemption, etc.—are the strongest preservative against the seducing claims of the Roman and Anglo-Catholic priesthood. The Bishop of London has spoken most bitterly against Calvinism, describing it as “a mischievous misrepresentation of Christianity;” and a writer in the Irish Ecclesiastical Gazette some years ago spoke of baptismal regeneration (the doctrine that an infant becomes a child of God by sprinkling) as a “most wholesome doctrine,” and referred to “gloomy and crushing Calvinism.” This shows that those Protestants who hold graciously in their hearts the truths of God’s sovereignty and grace are at the very opposite pole to those who teach salvation by man’s merit. Indeed, it is a significant fact that the Roman Church seldom, if ever, receives into its fold any clergymen from the Established Church who have held “Calvinistic” views.

In conclusion, may our readers be graciously enabled by the Holy Spirit to realize that God is the

“Sovereign Ruler of the skies,

Ever gracious, ever wise;

All my times are in His hand,

All events at His command;”

and that “all things work together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). May we be led to adore that gracious Being, whose purposes are all centred in Christ, by whom, and for whom (Col. 1), all things were created, visible and invisible, in whom all sovereignty is vested (John 5:26, 27); and may we realise that we are savingly interested in that great work of redemption, which shall be culminated in the gathering together of all things in Christ, and when, finally, “God shall be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).