A. W. Tozer, "The
Sovereignty of God"
The Sovereignty of God
Who wouldst not fear Thee, O Lord God of Hosts, most high and most
terrible? For Thou art Lord alone. Thou has made heaven and the heaven of
heavens, the earth and all things that are therein, and in Thy hand is the soul
of every living thing, Thou sittest king upon the flood; yea, Thou sittest king
forever. Thou art a great king over all the earth. Thou art clothed with
strength; honor and majesty are before Thee. Amen.
God’s sovereignty is the attribute by which He rules His entire
creation, and to be sovereign God must be all-knowing, all-powerful, and absolutely
free. The reasons are these:
Were there even one datum of knowledge, however small, un-known to
God, His rule would break down at that point. To be Lord over all the creation,
He must possess all knowledge. And were God lacking one infinitesimal modicum
of power, that lack would end His reign and undo His kingdom; that one stray
atom of power would belong to someone else and God would be a limited ruler and
hence not sovereign.
Furthermore, His sovereignty requires that He be absolutely free,
which means simply that He must be free to do whatever He wills to do anywhere
at any time to carry out His eternal purpose in every single detail without
interference. Were He less than free He must be less than sovereign.
To grasp the idea of unqualified freedom requires a vigorous
effort of the mind. We are not psychologically conditioned to understand
freedom except in its imperfect forms. Our concepts of it have been shaped in a
world where no absolute freedom exists. Here each natural object is dependent
upon many other objects, and that dependence limits its freedom.
Wordsworth at the beginning of his “Prelude” rejoiced that he had
escaped the city where he had long been pent up and was “now free, free as a
bird to settle where I will.” But to be free a bird is not to be free at all.
The naturalist knows that the supposedly free bird actually lives its entire
life in a cage made of fears, hungers, and instincts; it is limited by weather
conditions, varying air pressures, the local food supply, predatory beasts, and
that strangest of all bonds, the irresistible compulsion to stay within the
small plot of land and air assigned it by birdland comity. The freest bird is,
along with every other created thing, held in constant check by a net of
necessity. Only God is free.
God is said to be absolutely free because no one and no thing can
hinder Him or compel Him or stop Him. He is able to do as He pleases always,
everywhere, forever. To be thus free means also that He must possess universal
authority. That He has unlimited power we know from the Scriptures and may
deduce from certain other of His attributes. But what about His authority?
Even to discuss the authority of Almighty God seems a bit
meaningless, and to question it would be absurd. Can we imagine the Lord God of
Hosts having to request permission of anyone or to apply for anything to a
higher body? To whom would God go for permission? Who is higher than the
Highest? Who is mightier than the Almighty? Whose position antedates that of
the Eternal? At whose throne would God kneel? Where is the greater one to whom
He must appeal? “Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his redeemer the
Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no
God.”
The sovereignty of God is a fact well established in the
Scriptures and declared aloud by the logic of truth. But admittedly it raises
certain problems which have not to this time been satisfactorily solved: These
are mainly two. The first is the presence in the creation of those things which
God cannot approve, such as evil, pain, and death. If God is sovereign He could
have prevented their coming into existence. Why did He not do so?
The Zend-Avesta, sacred book of Zoroastrianism, loftiest of the
great non-Biblical religions, got around this difficulty neatly enough by
postulating a theological dualism. There were two Gods, Ormazd and Ahriman, and
these between them created the world. The good Ormazd made all good things and
the evil Ahriman made the rest. It was quite simple. Ormazd had no sovereignty
to worry about, and apparently did not mind sharing his prerogatives with
another.
For the Christian this explanation will not do, for it flatly
contradicts the truth taught so emphatically throughout the whole Bible, that
there is one God and that He alone created the heaven and the earth and all the
things that are therein. God’s attributes are such as to make impossible the
existence of another God. The Christian admits that he does not have the final
answer to the riddle of permitted evil. But he knows what that answer is not.
And he knows that the Zend-Avesta does not have it either.
While a complete explanation of the origin of sin eludes us, there
are a few things we do know. In His sovereign wisdom God has permitted evil to
exist in carefully restricted areas of His creation, a kind of fugitive outlaw
whose activities are temporary and limited in scope. In doing this God has
acted according to His infinite wisdom and goodness. More than that no one
knows at present; and more than that no one needs to know. The name of God is
sufficient guarantee of the perfection of His works.
Another real problem created by the doctrine of the divine
sovereignty has to do with the will of man. If God rules His universe by His
sovereign decrees, how is it possible for man to exercise free choice? And if
he can not exercise freedom of choice, how can he be held responsible for his
conduct? Is he not a mere puppet whose actions are determined by a
behind-the-scenes God who pulls the strings as it pleases Him?
The attempt to answer these questions has divided the Christian
church neatly into two camps which have borne the names of two distinguished
theologians, Jacobus Arminius and John Calvin. Most Christians are content to
get into one camp or the other and deny either sovereignty to God or free will
to man. It appears possible, however, to reconcile these two positions without
doing violence to either, although the effort that follows may prove deficient
to partisans of one camp or the other.
Here is my view: God sovereignly decreed that man should be free
to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree
by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does
not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as
the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he
should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give
man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, “What doest thou?” Man’s
will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not
bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.
Perhaps a homely illustration might help us to understand. An
ocean liner leaves New York bound for Liverpool. Its destination has been
determined by proper authorities. Nothing can change it. This is at least a
faint picture of sovereignty.
On board the liner are several scores of passengers. These are not
in chains, neither are their activities determined for them by decree. They are
completely free to move about as they will. They eat, sleep, play, lounge about
on the deck, read, talk, altogether as they please; but all the while the great
liner is carrying them steadily onward toward a predetermined port.
Both freedom and sovereignty are present here and they do not
contradict each other. So it is, I believe, with man’s freedom and the
sovereignty of God. The mighty liner of God’s sovereign design keeps its steady
course over the sea of history. God moves undisturbed and unhindered toward the
fulfilment of those eternal purposes which He purposed in Christ Jesus before
the world began. We do not know all that is included in those purposes, but
enough has been disclosed to furnish us with a broad outline of things to come
and to give us good hope and firm assurance of future well-being.
We know that God will fulfil every promise made to the prophets;
we know that sinners will some day be cleansed out of the earth; we know that a
ransomed company will enter into the joy of God and that the righteous will
shine forth in the kingdom of their Father; we know that God’s perfections will
yet receive universal acclamation, that all created intelligences will own
Jesus Christ Lord to the glory of God the Father, that the present imperfect
order will be done away, and a new heaven and a new earth be established
forever.
Toward all this God is moving with infinite wisdom and perfect precision of
action. No one can dissuade Him from His purposes; nothing turn Him aside from His
plans. Since He is omniscient, there can be no unforeseen circumstances, no
accidents. As He is sovereign, there can be no countermanded orders, no
breakdown in authority; and as He is ominpotent, there can be no want of power
to achieve His chosen ends. God is sufficient unto Himself for all these
things.
In the meanwhile things are not as smooth as this quick outline
might suggest. The mystery of iniquity doth already work. Within the broad
field of God’s sovereign, permissive will the deadly conflict of good with evil
continues with increasing fury. God will yet have His way in the whirlwind and
the storm, but the storm and the whirlwind are here, and as responsible beings
we must make our choice in the present moral situation.
Certain things have been decreed by the free determination of God,
and one of these is the law of choice and consequences. God has decreed that
all who willingly commit themselves to His Son Jesus Christ in the obedience of
faith shall receive eternal life and become sons of God. He has also decreed
that all who love darkness and continue in rebellion against the high authority
of heaven shall remain in a state of spiritual alienation and suffer eternal
death at last.
Reducing the whole matter to individual terms, we arrive at some
vital and highly personal conclusions. In the moral conflict now raging around
us whoever is on God’s side is on the winning side and can not lose; whoever is
on the other side is on the losing side and can not win. Here there is no
chance, no gamble. There is freedom to choose which side we shall be on but no
freedom to negotiate the results of the choice once it is made. By the mercy of
God we may repent a wrong choice and alter the consequences by making a new and
right choice. Beyond that we can not go.
The whole matter of moral choice centers around Jesus Christ.
Christ stated it plainly: “He that is not with me is against me,” and “No man
cometh unto the Father, but by me.” The gospel message embodies three distinct
elements: an announcement, a command, and a call. It announces the good news of
redemption accomplished in mercy; it commands all men everywhere to repent and
it calls all men to surrender to the terms of grace by believing on Jesus
Christ as Lord and Saviour.
We must all choose whether we will obey the gospel or turn away in
unbelief and reject its authority. Our choice is our own, but the consequences
of the choice have already been determined by the sovereign will of God, and
from this there is no appeal.
The Lord descended from above,
And bowed the heavens most high,
And underneath His feet He cast
The darkness of the sky.
On cherubim and seraphim
Full royally He rode,
And on the wings of mighty winds
Came flying all abroad.
He sat serene upon the
floods,
Their fury to restrain;
And He, as sovereign Lord and King,
For evermore shall reign.
Psalm paraphrase,
by Thomas Sternhold
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