God rules everything He has made according to His will, power, and grace.
Foundations for a Christian Worldview: God (5)
“If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’— you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs and the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. So shall the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.” Deuteronomy 7.17-19
Sovereign – of course
The books of Moses – the Law of God – unfold on the basso continuo of the sovereign will, power, and grace of God. He made all things, rules all things, and causes all things to serve Him. His will is not constrained by anything beyond Himself; His power is limited only by His will; and His grace issues from His will to abound to all that He has made, but especially to His people.
Throughout the book of Genesis, God demonstrates His sovereign rule over all that He has made. God works upon His creation immediately, causing the creation to obey His will at all times. The people of God in the book of Genesis seem to have taken for granted that God was sovereign and that He could do whatever He wanted with whatever He had made.
It’s interesting to consider that, in the book of Genesis, none of the primary figures, from Adam through Joseph, looks at any of the works of God as a “miracle”. Not the creation. Not the flood. Not the confusing of tongues. Not the opening of barren wombs. Not the overthrow of wicked cities. Not the ram in a bush. Not wrestling with an angel. Not the preserving of Joseph. Not the famines and deliverances. All this was just God doing what God wanted to do for His program with His people.
In fact, the Hebrew word for “wonder” or “sign” or “miracle” – מוֹפֵ֑ת– does not even occur in the book of Genesis. The first time we encounter this word in the Law of God is in Exodus 7.9, where it is put into the mouth of the pagan Pharaoh. What unbelievers viewed as miracles, the people of God simply took in stride as God’s sovereign work, according to His good pleasure.
The first generations of the people of God appear to have had the same view of God’s rule over the creation as Jonathan Edwards, when he wrote, “It is by the immediate influence of God upon things according to those constant methods which we call the laws of nature, that they are ever obedient to man’s will, or that he can use them at all” (An Humble Attempt). That God was sovereign over all things was merely taken for granted by the patriarchs: of course, God is sovereign. And, while it may have been forgotten during Israel’s 400 years of captivity in Egypt, His sovereignty would have become abundantly clear to the people of Israel in Moses’ day.
The Law of God reveals the sovereign power and might of Three-in-One, eternal and holy God in three ways.
The sovereign Creator
First, God is sovereign in that He created the world and all things in it according to His purposes and for His pleasure. You have probably heard it said that God created the universe “out of nothing.” This is true, except for the creation of living creatures, which were made from the things of earth. Even then, the earth only produced plants and animals, as well as Adam, at the command or by the direct involvement of God. It is perhaps more accurate to say that God created the universe into nothing, for nothing existed outside of God when He created the world and everything in it.
God by His mighty power spoke the creation into being, out of nothing and into nothing. He did not need the creation in order to fill up some lacuna in His own being or existence; rather, He freely chose to create it, and He created it according to His will and power, and as an expression of His grace. The matter of which the creation exists is not eternal; only God is eternal. God spoke the matter of the cosmos into being, and everything in the cosmos which is comprised of that matter.
God is sovereign over everything, and He is sovereign over nothing. Nothing existed when God began to create. Yet God made nothing into something good, by filling it with everything that agreed with His purpose and plan. God’s people should not be discouraged when “nothing” exists which seems desirable or possible according to God’s purposes or plan. God is sovereign over “nothing”, making all the nothings of our lives into good things, according to His purposes.
Sovereign over creation
Second, the people of Israel would have observed the sovereignty of God in His ability to command the creation to accomplish His pleasure. The sea parted, rocks gave forth water, poisoned wells were cleansed, food fell from heaven, plagues descended, the river divided, the hearts of men melted – all at the command of God.
Doubtless, thoughtful Israelites would have seen in such displays a power that commands the creation at all times and in all its creatures and powers. The “laws of physics” are by secular thinkers regarded as principles inherent in matter, embedded in the stuff of the cosmos, which determine how matter coheres, functions, and relates. But the laws of physics are not determinative of the cosmos; they are merely descriptive, and what they describe are the ways God faithfully and powerfully upholds the cosmos and everything He has made by His Word of power (Heb. 1.3).
God is sovereign in creating and commanding and sustaining what He has made. The world and everything in it are the creation and obedient servants of the Three-in-One, eternal and holy God (Ps. 24.1; 119.89-91).
Sovereign in redemption
Third, God is sovereign in delivering His people from bondage to sin, to life in His covenant. Not even the greatest nation of its time could stand against God when He determined to call His people unto Himself. And no nation would be able to resist God, or His people, as they undertook His holy plan and covenant to create a new nation and to bring into being a new worldview before the pagan peoples of the earth.
God rules the creation, and He rules all the nations of the earth, establishing their boundaries and appointing their purposes within His larger, eternal and redemptive program.
The Three-in-One, eternal, holy God of the covenant is sovereign over everything. And we can believe that He stands ready to exercise His sovereignty in the outworking of that worldview He has promulgated, beginning in His Law.
Questions for reflection
1. What do we mean by saying God is sovereign? Is God sovereign still today?
2. How should knowing God is sovereign affect our prayers?
3. God is sovereign, and He exercises His sovereignty in line with His Word. How should knowing this affect our attitude toward and use of Scripture?
Next steps – Transformation: How can contemplating the sovereignty of God increase and improve your prayers of thanksgiving and praise? How can it help you in learning to pray without ceasing? Let the sovereignty of God inform your prayers throughout the day. Then at the end of the day, review all the reasons you have to give thanks and praise to God.
T. M. Moore
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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.
