ISBN: 9781483511375
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Part 1: The Sovereignty of God
1 Sovereignty: The Mystery of God in All Things
2 Sovereignty: Paul’s Statement in Ephesians 1:3-14
3 Sovereignty: Examples of God’s Sovereignty on Earth
4 Examples of God’s Sovereignty in World Events
5 Prayer and God’s Sovereignty
Part 2: The Grace of God
6 Grace: The Method of God in All Things
7 Evidences of Grace in Our Spiritual Lives
8 Evidences of Grace in Daily Living
Part 3: The Glory of God
9 Glory: The Magnificence of God in All Things
10 Illustrations of The Glory of God
11 The Glory of God Among The Nations
12 Missions And God’s Unfolding Plan of Redemption
Questions For Discussion
Bibliography
Sovereignty - The Mystery of God
Grace - The Method of God
Glory - The Magnificence of God
There is always a danger in over simplifying the Christian life with phrases such as “Seven Steps to …” or “Five Secrets of ….” No one wants to make the Christian life a mechanical exercise of doing something. I want to avoid that pitfall as well. Nevertheless, as I have studied Scripture for a number of years, three themes continue to surface. These three concepts have an integral relationship that I believe God desires the believer to assimilate into the fabric of his Christian life. The concepts are summarized with the three words which I have used as the title of the book. If you get hold of the principles behind these words, you will not only live a spiritually satisfying life, but also will live the life that God designed for you. And when He designs something, it must be for your good and happiness. Briefly stated: God is in sovereign control of our lives. We may not understand all of the mysteries that surround our lives, or the whys and wherefores of our circumstances. We are forever asking why did God allow this or that.
Everyone that has been born or that will be born has come into this world under His careful eye and planning. Everything that we are or have is from Him, and He designed it from eternity. In addition to orchestrating our lives, God has given us the wherewithal to live the life that He has designed. He has provided us with His grace both for salvation and for daily living. We need to make a distinction between mercy and grace, and we will do that later. But for now, in summary, we have no resources in ourselves that will bring us to the end result that God designs for us. If God does not provide us with His daily grace, we will fail miserably. We may think that we are clever or resourceful to live our lives apart from His help, but we are fooling ourselves.
But we also ask ourselves: “Why has God brought us into this world, and allowed us to live as we do? What is the purpose of our lives?” The answer is to please and honor Him. The catechism of the Reformed Church asks the question: “what is the chief end of man?” The student responds with the answer: “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” The sole purpose of our lives is for God’s glory and “eternal satisfaction.” Just stop and think of that truth. God does everything possible and imaginable to help us fulfill what He has designed us for by taking control of, providing for, and helping us end with a life that not only brings us enjoyment, but brings him satisfaction.
As I pondered this truth, it struck me forcefully that this is also God’s plan to bring a lost world to Himself. In fact, the careful study that we will pursue in this book will show that from the beginning of humankind, God wants to carry out that plan in the lives of every person on earth. Unfortunately, sin has marred this beautiful plan, and humanity has gone its own way, thinks that they can make it on their own, and lives for their own glory and selfish purposes. Even professing believers live confused lives because they fail to see this design from their Lord and Savior. But God cares enough for His creation that He has worked a beautiful pattern which not only includes those who have heard the Gospel and have had the opportunity to respond to it, but also those who have never heard those truths that God has beautifully woven for His non-believing creation.
At first blush, you might think that this is some great theological treatise or complicated scheme that only a few can understand. As I study this subject, I am amazed to see how simple these truths are, that even a young person can comprehend the mystery of this plan. God knows that we are finite and cannot comprehend His infinite mind. So He has purposefully made it simple enough for us to grasp in order to respond to Him in the way He designed for us to live. After all, when we think of the widespread cultures of humankind throughout the world, there are many who have a lack of understanding God. They have never even heard of His name. Therefore the Lord has to place it on a level that all people can grasp so as to fulfill His plan and purpose for their lives when it is explained to them.
This Biblical plan is foundational in witnessing and evangelism. How often has a Christian used the statement in sharing the Gospel: “God has a wonderful plan for your life.”? What he is saying basically is that God is sovereign in lives, has laid out something beautiful for humanity, and wants to intercept a wasted life by restoring it to the original purpose that He created for that person to live. The witness then goes on to say that humankind cannot do anything to obtain salvation except by grace through faith in the work of Christ, and when believers do come to faith in Christ, they cannot live the Christian life apart from the grace that God provides for them (Eph. 2:8-10). Finally, he might add that those who follow Christ must surrender their lives to the Lord (Rom. 12:1-2) and not live for themselves. In so doing, believers honor God with their lives. That is another way of saying that believers desire to bring glory to God. Ephesians 2:10 conveys a similar truth because God wants us to do the things that He has planned for us to accomplish in order that we may attain maximum benefit and joy while at the same time bring maximum honor and glory to Him. That accomplishment can only be obtained by God’s grace actively at work in us.
The goal of the book is to make this user friendly to the lay person even though there are some technical and theological terms included. The book will have a solid Biblical base and can be incorporated into small group Bible studies, personal evangelism courses, or as a personal guide in witnessing. My greater vision is that this study will prompt people to consider a lost world that needs the Savior, and so touch lives that people will believe that they can be witnesses, not only in their homeland, but where the name of Jesus has never been heard. The seminal thoughts for this book will be taken from Ephesians 1:3-14, that great one sentence passage (in the original) that Paul wrote under inspiration when he communicated the letter to the Ephesian Church. That epistle deals with the person of Jesus Christ and His headship over the Church. But Paul goes back in time to reveal the original plan of God which included the salvation of the elect and the incorporation of these believers into the family of God, His Church. We will examine his logical layout of this truth under the aspects of sovereignty, grace and glory.
All Biblical quotes are taken from the New King James version unless otherwise indicated.
PART ONE - THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
We have to start with a disclaimer: we will never fully understand the mystery of God. Having said that, we must not shy away from attempting to delve into the mystery of His heart simply because we are finite and He is infinite. He has left us enough information in His inspirited Word for us to understand in general the ways that He works, without fully comprehending all of the mysteries of His character. To understand the concept of sovereignty to the extent that we can is to grasp the foundation of our faith. That is why Paul begins the Ephesian letter the way he does. He begins with God’s mysterious foreordained plan, and proceeds to develop the truth of salvation by grace, and the resultant glory He receives from His great plan of redemption both in the individual and in the Church, which is composed of redeemed individuals.
Let’s begin with a simple definition of the word sovereignty. It is the supremacy of God to do anything He wants to do in heaven and earth without the interference of man or angelic being to hinder those actions. He is all powerful and nothing can hinder His purposes or oppose His will. The wise reader of scripture will immediately raise a red flag and say “But what about the passages in the Bible that talk of man choosing, or in popular parlance, man has free will?” If God is sovereign and man freely rebels against Him, is that an act of God, or a decree that He has set forth in which man has no choice but to do that sinful thing? Does that make God the author of sin? These are valid questions not to be taken lightly. The simple, but profound answer is that God is sovereign over everything without being culpable or guilty of evil or wrong doing. This is the mystery of all things. How can God make sovereign decisions that seem to implicate Him in evil (at least from man’s viewpoint)? To understand this is to become like Him, infinite in knowledge and wisdom. We can never fathom the depths of His wisdom to rule the world justly and righteously despite all of the wickedness that occurs in it. We must leave that mystery wrapped up in His righteous and loving heart, and trust Him to be who He says that He is in the Bible; God most holy and without sin.
In the book For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper, Bruce Ware gives this definition of sovereignty which seems to be all encompassing of God’s purposes,
God exhaustively plans and meticulously carries out His perfect will as He alone knows is best, regarding all that is in heaven and on earth, and He does so without failure or defeat, accomplishing His purposes in all of creation from the smallest details to the grandest purposes of His plan for the whole of the created order. (Piper 2010, 128).
This quotation from Ware succinctly summarizes how God acts toward His creation from His own viewpoint. But we must also make a distinction between the thought of a sovereign God working His plan, and the terms fatalism or determinism. Fatalism as defined by Peter Thussen is “The absolute and unalterable determination of all things by an impersonal force” (Thussen 2009, 5). Determinism implies that certain causes determine certain outcomes, whether those causes are God related or man related.
The word sovereignty when used in connection with the person and plan of God, is more of a theological word. In the Old Testament, the word that is translated sovereign in the New International Version (NIV) frequently refers to the Hebrew name of God which is, Adonai, meaning Lord. In the New Testament, there are words that are used or translated in conjunction with the sovereignty of God, such as predestined, foreknowledge, foreseeing, and chosen. We will define these words below to convey what is meant when we talk about God’s sovereignty.
Another facet in defining the sovereignty of God is to say that God is all in all, and everything has its beginning and ending in Him. 1 Chronicles 29:11 says, “Yours O LORD, is the greatness, the power, and the glory, the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and You are exalted as Head above all.”
That verse just about sums up who God is. His supremacy is seen in everything He is, does, and allows (cf. Ps. 89:11; 1 Tim. 6:15). He sets up kings and brings them down (Ps. 75:6-7). He exercises His right to do anything He wants anytime He chooses with all of His creatures. This will include miraculous acts that defy or go against the normal laws of nature, such as Jesus feeding 5000 with five loaves and two fish. There are also what we would call His superintending acts i.e. actions that do not go against nature, but are under His sovereign watch care to change the events of the situation, such as the release of Peter from prison (Acts Ch. 12), or, on a practical level, protecting a house in the midst of a tornado. We think of those kinds of deliverances as miraculous because they would not have happened had God not intervened. But no law of nature was “broken” to accomplish His will in the act. God redirected the sequence of happenings to appear to be miraculous, and we give Him the glory and credit for the deliverance just as we would give Him in performing miraculous acts. The multitude of events in our lives that we think of as miraculous are not really that, but rather the superintending intervention of God to change the course of that event. Just think of the times that drivers have been spared from seeming accidents, avoiding injury or death. God displays His sovereignty to act on our behalf in those events. He is able to do that because of His character and attributes which include His omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, eternality, infiniteness, grace, mercy, love, and a host of other attributes which are in perfection.
In Ephesians 1:5, Paul states that God “Predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ.” In Ephesians 1:11 we are “Predestined according to the purpose of Him Who works all things after the counsel of His will.” The word predestined is proorizo. The word basically means to predetermine, foreordain, to decide or appoint beforehand. Hendriksen translates that word “pre-encircled” (Hendriksen 1967, 5). That is very descriptive, as it pictures God’s chosen people as being completely encompassed by the sovereignty of God. The New Testament usage generally refers to God’s decision making or His decree from eternity. The word is used in six places in the New Testament; Acts 4:28; Rom. 8:29, 30; Eph. 1:5, 11, and 1 Cor. 2:7. In two of the passages (Acts 4:28; 1 Cor. 2:7), the word is used in connection with God orchestrating prior events. In the other four passages, the word is used in connection with God’s prior relationship to people. In the better known Rom. 8:29 passage Paul says, “”Whom He foreknew He also predestined.” 1 Cor. 2:7 tells of the wisdom that “God ordained before the ages for our glory.” The Acts passage refers to the prayer of believers recognizing the hand of God in the death of Christ. He predestined the Savior’s death, and allowed man to carry out that plan under His sovereign control.
In all six instances of the usage of the word predestine, God is the one who pre-determines the events of mankind. Not only that, but in every instance, the word is used in the aorist tense. Many grammarians have defined the aorist tense in various ways, but a succinct meaning would be that it is an action completed in the past without making mention of a time or progress as to its accomplishments or completeness. It is a simple occurrence of an act. God in His sovereignty at some point in past time determined the destiny of all things, especially in the setting apart of people for salvation. God gives no reason for His action, or who and how He determined should be included in this action. He simply states that this is what He did without being influenced or motivated by anything outside of Himself. Here is where the mystery of His sovereignty enters the picture. Knowing the nature of God Who is only goodness and righteousness (plus a whole host of other glorious perfect characteristics), He has designed a salvation that is perfect in its execution for all mankind as only a perfect God could administer. We must conclude that a sovereign God creates all things with a perfect ending, or He cannot be the God of the Bible.
Not only that, God cannot be influenced, bribed, or coerced to do anything based on what man might desire Him to do. As John Piper states “God is not constrained by anything outside of Himself to do anything He does not want to do” (Piper 1987, 2). Certainly no one can bribe Him since He is the Creator of all things, and does not need anything from man to satisfy or please Him. In the same way, He cannot be influenced by anything that man can offer to make Him happy, or to do anything for Him, since His happiness and satisfaction are secure within Himself. Psalm 135:6 says “Whatever the Lord pleases, He does in heaven and in earth.” This is another way of saying that He is sovereign and determines all things beforehand.
Another word used in conjunction with the sovereignty of God is the Greek word proginosko, which basically means to know beforehand. We get the English words “prognosis” and prognosticate” from the root word. The Jews knew of Paul’s life (or beforehand) Acts: 26:5. Peter refers to the diaspora who knew certain facts beforehand about the scriptures (2 Pet. 3:17). It is also used of God’s knowing beforehand in Rom. 8:29 and 1 Pet. 1:20. In the Romans’ passage, God foreknew those who were called for salvation and so were foreordained (proorizo). In the Peter passage, Jesus Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world. The King James version translates the word “foreordained”, while the NIV uses the word “chosen“. But it is the word proginosko. The noun form of this word is used by Peter in His Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:23 with regard to the death of Christ. The word translated there is foreknowledge. The Romans passage is in the aorist tense, and the Peter passage is in the past perfect tense. Again we conclude that God is working in eternity past to perform acts that only He decides should transpire.
A third word that can be connected with the sovereignty of God is the word eklego, or eklegomai, meaning to be chosen. This word is used in a wide variety of ways in scripture from choosing one thing over another (Luke 10:42), to the choosing of Jesus’ disciples (John 6:70). The word itself is usually expressed in the past tense, and is especially true as used in Ephesians 1:4. Believers have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. The verb is in the aorist tense and the middle voice, which refers to choosing for oneself. God sovereignly chose for Himself, according to His own standards, who would become believers. As an illustration; a person goes to the market to buy some peaches. In choosing the fruit, he will examine carefully the condition of the fruit for ripeness, and to assure that none are spoiled. He then chooses what he thinks are the best among the available choices. The fruit has nothing to say as to who chooses it. In the sovereignty of God, no “fruit” is good because all men are sinners. God chooses among the fallen sinners of mankind a people whom He in His sovereignty decides will be part of His family, apart from any goodness or favorableness of mankind. A person has nothing to say or to offer anything to God that will persuade the mind of the Lord to choose him/her. In that choosing, there is not necessarily a rejection of the one who is not chosen since God loves the entire world. It is only a choosing of what God deems to be appropriate for His own cause and pleasure.
Thussen makes a keen observation in discussing Paul’s choosing of Israel in Romans chapters 9-11. Why does the apostle emphasize God’s sovereignty here, as well as in the great Ephesians one passage? Thussen observes that the reason may have been the marvelous Damascus Road conversion of Paul, who was called by God for a special purpose (Thussen 2009, 19). Certainly Paul himself reiterates this in amazement, and confesses his unworthiness to be called an apostle: (see 1 Cor. 15:8-9; Gal. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:12-16). He recognizes that God did not have to make Paul His servant. Nor did God see that the persecutor Saul would become the apostle Paul, and so ordained his salvation. Rather, God sovereignly chose the persecutor Saul in order to change him and make him to become the apostle Paul. The choice was God’s not Paul’s. The decision was made unconditionally; that is, Paul had no say in God’s choosing Him other than to respond to His divine election and calling. This is what he emphasizes so clearly in Galatians 1:15, “When it pleased God (italics mine), who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me by His grace.” The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament notes that the word choose means “to take pleasure or delight in, be glad in” (Kittel Vol. 2 1965, 738). God took delight in Paul from eternity long before Paul was Saul the persecutor.
In Romans 9:15-23, a conundrum faces the student of the Word. One could take from this passage the fact that God predestines people to hell, because He says in verse 15, “ I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” But a closer examination of the context may bring us to a different conclusion. In verse 22 we note that God is longsuffering. He is not willing that any should perish. The end of that verse says that they (the unbelievers) are “prepared for destruction.” The verse does not say that God prepared them for destruction. It only says that they were prepared for destruction. We cannot attribute the fate of unbelievers to God. Because of their sin, the unbeliever has prepared himself for destruction, and must receive the wrath of God because of His holiness. Compare this with the next verse which says, “He (God) had prepared (believers) beforehand for glory.” Notice the past tense (actually aorist tense in the Greek) for both the words prepared and called in the next verse. God prepared His elect for glory from eternity past (so Romans 8: 29-30), but the unbeliever prepared himself for destruction. That does not refer to annihilation, but to separation from God for eternity in hell.
Another way to deal with the dilemma of sovereignty and free will is to ask the question about the sinfulness of humankind in relation to God’s choosing people for salvation. If, as some say, God grants grace to all men initially (a concept which does not seem to be biblical) so that all can be saved, and He then chooses some for salvation while neglecting to choose others, He is capricious and cruel since all people should be saved by that initial grace. But all people are sinners (which is stated clearly in the Bible) and have no right to claim anything from God but rather to receive condemnation and separation from Him. They are destined for hell. Now God intervenes and rescues some from this fate by giving them the ability to choose Him. He is then a merciful God. The manner in which He chooses is still a mystery, but reflects His loving character to rescue some from condemnation. From the illustration above, we can draw the general principle that God is constantly in the business of choosing people for salvation. We must never think of Him as being reluctant to want to redeem humankind because of sinfulness. Indeed, God is holy and cannot tolerate the presence of sin or sinful people. But as holy as He is, He is also loving and not willing that any should perish, but rather that they have eternal life (John 3:16). To that extent, He continually seeks humankind, even though they continually reject Him, and indeed are dead in sin so that they cannot seek God of their own accord. This makes His sovereignty more majestic in choosing reluctant, sinful and incapable people to be part of His eternal plan. John Piper makes a cogent observation,
Death and misery of the unrepentant is in and of itself no delight to God. God is not a sadist. He is not malicious or bloodthirsty. Instead, when a rebellious, wicked, unbelieving person is judged, what God delights in is the vindication of truth and goodness and of His own honor and glory.
(Piper Feb.1, 1987, 6)
In delineating these truths, it would appear that we have a conflict or inconsistency between the method of God’s choosing and the response of man in accepting the sovereign will of God. But a careful study of scripture reveals that there is no inconsistency between the two. This is part of the mystery that we will never understand, We must believe and accept both parts of this mysterious equation, while at the same time allowing God to be God in whatever he chooses to do. J.I. Packer says of this seeming dilemma,
We shall not oppose them to each other. Nor shall we qualify, or modify, or water down, either of them in terms of the other, for this is not what the Bible does either. What the Bible does is to assert both truths side by side in the strongest and most unambiguous terms as two ultimate facts. (Packer 1961, 35).
In our own finite way, whenever we are faced with a seeming dilemma about God’s actions, we should choose as an option the “default” mode in the computer of our minds. That default mode is to give the benefit of doubt to the glory of God. Paul does this in Romans chapter 9. He answers those who wrestle with the purpose of God in electing Israel, and cannot understand God’s workings in choosing Jacob over Esau (Rom. 9:13). Charles Hodge says of this, “It is not unjust for God to exercise His sovereignty in the distribution of His mercies, for He expressly claims the right” ((Hodge 1993, 284). Paul continues to answer this wrestling in verse 16 when he mentions that God raised up Pharaoh to execute His sovereign will. Again, God has the prerogative to do that. To the person who says “That is not fair” Paul summarizes with the statement in Romans 9:18-21,
Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He Wills He hardens. You will say to me then “Why does He still find fault?” For who has resisted His will? But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor, and another for dishonor?
Paul’s answer to the mystery of God’s working is that He is God, and we are not God. God has the lawful right to do as He chooses. Let that be the final answer for the questioning of His acts when we do not understand His ways.
The importance of these word studies is to lay a foundation that shows the mystery of God in dealing with His world, and especially with His elect. God is the source of all things created and is sovereign in the way He deals with that creation. Because He is that source, all creatures are dependent on Him for their survival. That puts God in the supreme position of having the final say as to the fate of His creation since no one can tell Him what He should do. This is especially true when it comes to our salvation. In His sovereignty, He chose a mysterious plan that only He could devise, i.e. to choose the second Person of the Trinity to become like we are in the person of His Son Jesus, and to have Jesus sacrifice Himself on the cross to pay for the sins of humankind.
In thinking about sharing the Gospel of Christ with others, we should have the understanding of these beliefs in the arsenal of truth in our minds, but this is certainly not necessary to present to the unbeliever as we attempt to win that person to Christ. It would be ludicrous to approach a person with the intent to witness, and then remind him after he does profess Christ, that God had this in mind for that person before the foundation of the world. We do not dump the entire theology of redemption on a person when that person professes Christ as Savior. Our response to his belief is to rejoice with Him that he received Christ, as God gave him the understanding by His Spirit to believe by faith in the finished work of the Savior. As this brother or sister grows in faith and understanding, we can disciple that person and help him/her to realize that this was indeed God’s eternal plan from the foundation of the world. By the same token, we would not tell a person who rejects our witness that God may have predestined that person to hell (which actually is not true) if he/she does not receive our witness and repent. To make such a statement is both unwise and judgmental. We do not know what God has in mind for anyone’s future. Our responsibility is to tell the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to that person and let God deal with the destiny of his/her soul.