The grace of God is powerfully communicated to us in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul calls the Gospel the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16-17). I want to begin by looking at the Bible verse the ESV study Bible calls the most famous summary of the Gospel in the entire Bible. Of course that is John 3:16. The reason to begin here is that we can really only embrace the sovereignty of God for our lives if we embrace the Lord Jesus Christ. As we look at God’s sovereignty through the lens of the Gospel we begin to see just how wonderful it is that our God is indeed in the heavens and he does all that he pleases (Psalm 115:3). The Gospel of grace enables us to rest in God’s control and not our own.
God loved the world by giving his Son for the world. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so all those rebellious folk who had been bitten by the serpents God sent as a judgment for their sins might look up at that bronze replica of the very snakes that at injected them with their venom and live. That bronze serpent was a type of Christ who was lifted up on the cross so that all who now look to him (believe in him) might not perish but have everlasting life.
The word ‘world’ has to be understood in two senses. First, it is set in contrast with the exclusive idea wrongly held by many in Jesus’ day that God only loved the people of Israel. The world consists of all the Gentile peoples for whom God had raised up Abraham to be a blessing. (See Genesis 12:3 and Isaiah 49:6) God’s love is for all people without distinction. Second, the word ‘world’ is ethically colored in John’s writings. It is the world system comprised of people who oppose God. So we are told in 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Yet God loves the world! He loves that which does not love him. It might be expressed in this fashion: God loves the men and women of the world (and so should we) but God does not love the world of men and women (and neither should we).
So in loving the world and not just the people of Israel God demonstrates in one sense the universal nature of his love in that he loved all kinds of people without distinction. But it also demonstrates the amazing grace of his love – in that he loved that which did not love him. He loved his enemies. He loved the men and women of the world whose very hearts shape the values of the world, which in turn continues to contaminate the hearts of the men and women of the world. He loved a rebellious world or the men and women of a rebellious world system.
We (apart from God’s grace) are part of this world. The good news is that God loved the men and women of the world (Jew and Gentile alike) that he gave his Son. Here is the free offer of the Gospel: whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus is given by the Father and this means that he lived the life we could not live and he died the death that we all deserve. Now the offer is this: come to Jesus and you will not perish (a reference to hell and judgment) but have everlasting life. Jesus will not turn anyone away who acknowledges why he or she needs Him as the rescuer and turns from their sin opening their heart in faith to receive him as their savior. It is that simple and that wonderful.
It is the Sovereign God who loved the world in this way by giving the world his Son and who now makes this offer of the Gospel to anyone who would want it. What does it mean for God to be Sovereign?
A sovereign is a supreme ruler. The Bible indeed reveals that the Creator God is the supreme ruler or governor of all that He has created. (1Timothy 6:15-16; Acts 4:24-31)
God’s sovereignty is seen in the Bible in the eternal plan or counsel of God and in his works. Thus the Triune God planned his work and is even now working his plan. God doesn’t act arbitrarily or whimsically. He doesn’t make up things as he goes along. He first established a wise and well considered plan by which he now is working. He has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass and by his providence and miraculous power preserves, governs and carries out all things according to his plan or purposed counsel.
This plan of God is also referred to as God’s will, God’s purpose, God’s pleasure, (or what pleases God); God’s counsel and what God ordains. (Ephesians 1:11; Revelation 4:11, Psalm 33:4-11, Isaiah 46:9-10, Lamentations 3:37-38, Hebrews 6:17, Job 23:13, Job 42:2, Isaiah 14:24, 26-27, Psalm 115:3, Psalm 135:5-6, Daniel 4:34-35).
God’s will is eternal – it precedes his work of creation and is the basis of that work. It encompasses all things. His will in unchangeable. His will cannot be frustrated nor will it fail to be fulfilled. God’s will of decree is different than God’s will of desire or preference. God actually decrees many things which he disdains. He permits His revealed will to be disobeyed and His name to be dishonored. It is God’s will that we love him and one another yet we don’t. So we need to make a distinction between God’s secret will of decree that foreordains all things and his preceptive or revealed will that tells us how we are to understand him, live before him and in relationship with one another. (See Deuteronomy 29:29).
God’s secret will or counsel and God’s work in carrying out that will – what we can call God’s providence and his miracles govern all that comes to pass. Yet we must not abstract God’s will and his work as he executes His will from His attributes of wisdom, knowledge, goodness and justice. God’s secret will is the ultimate reason for all things. Yet God’s will is not arbitrary. There is indeed a great deal of mystery surrounding God’s will but this does not mean that God’s will is capricious. God’s wisdom, knowledge, goodness and justice shape his plan and shape how he carries out this plan. We who have come to trust in Jesus Christ for God’s promised salvation must also trust in the wise, good and just purposes of the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth. So God has planned his work and he works his plan.
Paul states clearly that God works out all things according to the counsel of is will. His will of decree is what ultimately governs all things that occur and take place in all of God’s creation. God’s plan encompasses and governs the following:
Ø the creation and the fall – which includes the introduction of sin and evil into God’s creation
Ø nature: inanimate creation and animate creation i.e. animals
Ø seemingly random or unimportant events
Ø the affairs of nations and the flow of history
Ø the various aspects of our lives from the smallest to the largest and this includes the plans we ourselves make
Ø the presence of evil and the schemes of the devil
Ø Salvation
Ø the final judgment
Ø the ultimate consummation of all things
God’s sovereignty calls us to worship him. It was the case with Paul. When he concludes his section in Romans (chapters 9-11) where he sets forth the doctrine of God’s sovereignty in grace he worships God. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:33-36Only those who embrace the free offer of the Gospel and open their hearts to Jesus Christ as their savior will be moved to worship God for his sovereignty. Likewise we can find great help from this teaching. Isn’t it wonderful that he has ultimate control and not us? Isn’t it wonderful that He is in charge and not us (we submit to his authority)? Isn’t it wonderful that he is sovereignly present in our lives working out his purposes for us? Isn't it wonderful that it was His sovereign will that His Son come into this world so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life?
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