What Is Divine Sovereignty?

What is divine sovereignty as defined in the Bible? Why is it important for us to know?

Sovereignty Defined

Sovereignty is the state of being supreme in power, status, and authority over all subjects and nothing can happen outside of the sovereign one’s will that is not part of their will, therefore the one who is sovereign has unlimited power and is independent of their subjects and can act regardless of the will of those who are reigned over. In the human realm, dictatorships or socialistic or communistic leadership typically have been sovereign over everything that happens in their nations. Of course they cannot control everything, because they cannot possibly monitor everything, but in the general sense, dictators or communists are sovereign in power, status, and authority.

Biblical Sovereignty

A good biblical definition is found in both the Book of Job and in the Book of Proverbs. For example, Proverbs 21:1 says “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” which means that God is sovereign over all, even a pagan king’s heart and it isn’t dependent upon whether the king knows it or not. God turns the king’s foot to where God wants it planted. Examples are found throughout the Old Testament when God uses other nations to do His disciplining or punishment for Him, including His own nation Israel who later split into the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah, from whence come the “Jews”). When Satan sought to test Job, whom God declared righteous, he was allowed to inflict suffering on Job but even this had limits as “the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand” (Job 1:12), meaning you can do much to afflict him but you can’t take his life. It is as Martin Luther summarized; even the Devil is God’s Devil. He can do no more than God allows but even the evil he does, God can bring about good (Gen 50:20). Just look at the cross.

Sovereignty in Persecutions

In Acts 4: 23-24 it says, “When [the apostles] were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them.” What had just happened to make them praise the Sovereign Lord? It is even more amazing because the apostles Peter and John had just been arrested for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and so “they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:18-20). Peter knew they must obey God over man (Acts 5:29) so “when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened” (Acts 4:21). The people rejoiced and praised the Sovereign Lord because no one was able to prevent the gospel from being preached!

Who Chooses Who?

I have heard some say “I found Jesus” when speaking about becoming a Christian but was He lost? Who found who? The biblical truth is God was sovereignly working in their life, whether they knew it or not, and He was leading them directly to repentance and faith. It is God that grants us the ability and desire to repent (2nd Tim 2:25) as it says “to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18). Jesus reminded the disciples “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide” (John 15:16). The Apostle John writes, “to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). Even the Greek in Jesus’ talk with Nicodemus about the necessity to be “born again” (John 3:3-7) means “born from above.” Jesus assures them, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37). The Apostle Paul writes, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph 1:11), having “predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Eph 1:5), not ours (John 1:13).

Conclusion

Nothing comes to pass unless it first passes through the sovereign hands of God. Solomon, in all of his God-given wisdom wrote, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (Prov 16:9) and “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand” (Prov 19:21). This ought to humble us because we know it wasn’t our goodness that God reached out to save us for (Rom 3:10-12) because nothing we could ever do or have ever done could merit our salvation (Eph 2:8-9). Knowing that God’s purpose from the beginning was to redeem us (Rom 8:29-30), let us submit to His authority, power, and status as Supreme God and rejoice as did the first century church as they shouted, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them.”

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.