Mark G. Knox Christian Faith

Though the storm rages…

  Though the fig tree should not blossom, 
  nor fruit be on the vines, 
  the produce of the olive fail 
  and the fields yield no food, 
  the flock be cut off from the fold 
  and there be no herd in the stalls, 
  yet I will rejoice in the LORD; 
  I will take joy in the God of my salvation. 
  GOD, the Lord, is my strength; 
  he makes my feet like the deer’s; 
  he makes me tread on my high places.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Hab 3:17–19.

I was in Port Charlotte, Florida last weekend to speak at my former church, Freedom Bible Church. I was scheduled to stay until Tuesday. But, as forecasts for Hurricane Ian came in, I decided to leave on Sunday right after church, hoping to get ahead of the traffic that would certainly come when people started evacuating. This proved to be wise.

Before moving to North Carolina in 2009, we lived in southwest Florida for about 24 years. It was providential that I happened to return last weekend right before the area was hit with the devastation from Ian. For reconnecting with my friends there renewed my love for them and has given a sense of immediacy as I hear updates from so many on social media.

Again and again, the refrain is something like, “We’re safe, some damage to the roof, some trees downed; God is good.”

But what of those who lost all? What of those whose lives were not spared? Was God not good for them?

We often connect the goodness of God with our personal fortune. If things aren’t as bad as they could be, then God has been good to us.

But I don’t believe this is what my friends are saying. I think deep down what they continue to recognize is the goodness and the grace of God which is not negated by misfortune. If they had lost all possessions (and some have) or even life itself (and some have), they would still affirm that God. Is. Good.

It is as my former pastor, the late James Kibelbek, once said, “We don’t measure God’s goodness by our circumstances; we measure our circumstances by the knowledge that God is good.”

Habakkuk understood this: “Though the fig tree should not blossom. nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places” (Hab. 3:17-19).

Some people choose in times like this to question the very existence of God, or at least his power or goodness. “How could a good and powerful God allow such suffering?” Habakkuk chose to rejoice in the Lord, to take joy in the God who saves.

I love that expression – to take joy. We must seize it, willfully grasp for it, intentionally take hold of it. For our joy is in the God who saves.

The fact is, we don’t deserve the house that got destroyed in the first place; it is a gift from God. We don’t deserve the life, however long or short, that is snuffed out; every breath is a grace.

What life we have, no matter the degree of suffering, is more than we deserve.

I take heart from all my friends who are using this time of unimaginable devastation to proclaim the goodness and faithfulness of God our Savior!

Mark G. Knox Christian Thought

Even foreseeing is foreordaining

The “U” of the Calvinistic acronym “TULIP” stands for unconditional election. This is the idea that for those that God chose to be his own, there was no conditional reason in them that caused him to choose them and not others. No merit, no inherent value, no perceived future action on their part. Just God, for his own good pleasure and his own sovereign purpose, choosing an elect people made up of those he set his heart upon.

This is not to say that God’s choice of his people is arbitrary. Rather, the reasons are unknown to us but are hidden in the eternal counsel of his will.

On the other hand, those of a more Arminian viewpoint take a different tack when it comes to God’s election.

First of all, no biblical Christian denies that God has chosen and predestined his people. After all, these are biblical terms that cannot be denied (Rom. 8:29-30; Eph. 1:4, 5, 11; 1 Peter 1:1-2). The difference comes in how God elected people to be saved.

Based on Romans 8:29-30 (“For whom he did foreknow he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified”) and 1 Peter 1:1-2 (“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect…according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”), the Arminian builds his understanding on the idea that election is based on foreknowledge. This is biblical and true, but it is how he defines “foreknowledge” that is the key to his understanding.

As we have said, God’s sovereignty commonly conceived may consist only in affirming that God knows what will happen before it does. This is the Arminian understanding of foreknowledge when it comes to God’s election. Foreknowledge is foreseeing, and God elects based on that kind of knowledge.

It is often expressed this way – In eternity past, having decided that he would offer salvation to fallen humanity, God looked down through the corridors of time to see which individuals would respond positively to the gospel message. He “foresees” Joe and Mary and Steve and Chloe and countless others freely placing their trust in Jesus. Based on that “foreknowledge,” he then elects them unto salvation and predestines them to conformity with Jesus (Rom. 8:29) and to adoption (Eph. 1:5). This is “elect according to the foreknowledge of God” according to the Arminian understanding.

This solves the problem of election and free will in the mind of these theologians, because God’s election does not violate the free choice of those chosen. In fact, his election is based on the free will choice of those who will believe. The problem, they believe, with a sovereign grace understanding is that in unconditional election, God chooses people first, rendering it certain that they come to faith, and this is without regard to their free will and choice. Choice and free will become meaningless, because in sovereign grace teaching, humans necessarily become puppets.

I will address in a later post the issue of whether this is the proper understanding of the term “foreknowledge” as applied to God. But for now, let’s grant the assumption that foreknowledge is merely foreseeing what will happen, and ask the question, does this really solve the problem for the Arminian line of thought?

I believe it does not. It simply moves the problem to a different spot in the “equation.”

If God chooses people based solely on what he foresees they will autonomously do, doesn’t that still render it certain? Anything that God foresees will happen, will happen, and this is just as certain and locked in as if he directly foreordains that it will come to pass. And if it is certain, wouldn’t that render void the “free choice” of the person? For when the time comes, the person responds positively to the gospel in faith, as God has foreseen, and since it was foreseen, does he really have any choice?

As John MacArthur has somewhere said, “There is really no difference between what God foresees, what God allows, and what God ordains.” Even foreseeing is foreordaining. So the Arminian still has a problem in his mind with the certainty of God’s sovereign will and what he thinks about man’s free will.

In reality, there is no problem to be solved. We must simply affirm those things that the Bible affirms and hold them in tension if necessary without trying to explain or reconcile the irreconcilable. I have said before that nowhere does the Bible treat us like machines, like puppets. We are implored, commanded, and invited to believe the gospel. This is how God has ordained to call his elect to faith and repentance. We can hold in tandem God’s sovereign choice and our responsibility to respond.

And so we return to the affirmations we have made before (which the confessions have declared), that God decrees or ordains whatever comes to pass, but that God is not thereby the author of sin, nor is violence done to the agency or responsibility of humanity. We affirm these without trying to reconcile them, for they are only reconciled in the mind of eternal God, to him be all glory!

Mark G. Knox Christian Thought

What do you mean by sovereignty?, part 4

To say that God is sovereign over all is a given among Bible-believing Christians. What is not a given is what we mean by that. Dig deeper and you’ll find that there are differences in what various teachers mean when they affirm God’s sovereignty.

We began this series in part 1 discussing how the sovereignty of God is commonly conceived by most Christians. In this, God’s rule over his creation is spoken of in terms of his pre-knowledge of what will happen, his permission allowing certain things to happen, or his eventual conquest of his enemies so that ultimately his will is accomplished. He is seen much like a good and powerful earthly king who uses his might when necessary to achieve his ends, but is not directly controlling events and people. Commonly conceived, God’s sovereignty is a passive rule.

In part 2, we looked at several songs that allude to a verse in Genesis in some of their lyrics. The songs seem to affirm a biblical understanding of God’s sovereignty, but fail with a critical mis-quoting of what Joseph actually said. Instead, they all end up affirming the same passive view of God’s rule over us.

Finally, in part 3, we looked at some Scripture verses that portray God’s active rule over his creation. Rather than seeing these texts as “problem texts” that need to be explained away, we should take them at face value as indicative of the comprehensive teaching of Scripture about the sovereignty of God.

Now I will look at several historic Church creeds that affirm what the Bible teaches. Rather than these statements being the heretical statements of fringe Christians, they are the consistent testimony of the Church for centuries, even from the beginning.

The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) puts it this way: “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass” (3:1).

The London Baptist Confession (1689) similarly says, “God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass” (3:1).

The Belgic Confession of 1561 reads, “We believe that the same God, after he had created all things, did not forsake them, or give them up to fortune or chance, but that he rules and governs them according to his holy will, so that nothing happens in this world without his appointment” (13).

All of these statements are simply systematizing what is said in Eph. 1:11 – God works all things according to the counsel of his will. Each of these statements is notable for affirming a sovereignty that is not passive but rather active. “Ordain, decree, rule, and appoint” would be the active verbs in use.

Now these statements, in all three cases are immediately followed with qualifiers:

  • WCF: “…yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”
  • LBC: “…yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”
  • BC: “…nevertheless, God neither is the author of, nor can be charged with, the sins which are committed. For his power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible, that he orders and executes his work in the most excellent and just manner, even then, when devils and wicked men act unjustly.”

Simply put, the Confessions all assert that (1) God ordains whatever comes to pass, and (2) God is not the author of sin, and (3) violence is not done to the agency of men.

Now, how can we reasonably hold these seemingly contrary statements together? It’s because the Bible holds them all as true. All of those statements are backed by Scripture. How can we reconcile them? In our finite minds, we cannot. We start to get in trouble when we attempt to explain or reconcile these assertions; that is when we fail and when we create a theology that is not biblical.

If you are in a place where you feel you “can’t figure it out,” good! That is where you must be. There is mystery here, as is always the case when we approach closely to the nature of God. How can three persons be God, and yet there is only one God? As soon as you attempt to explain the Trinity or offer a meek analogy, you diverge in some way from the biblical teaching. And so we embrace the mystery of the Godhead.

How can infinite-eternal God come to earth in the flesh in the second Person of the Trinity, so that Jesus is fully God AND fully man in one person? Terms like “hypostatic union” sound profound, but don’t really help us understand how it could be. Again, we embrace mystery here and accept what the Bible unflinchingly teaches, that Jesus is eternally God, the Word who became flesh (John 1:14) and dwelt among us.

So should it also be when we consider the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. We ought to accept the mystery as something that God has not chosen to explain to us fully or not equipped our minds to grasp. This is as it always must be when considering the Godhead. “As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the maker of all things” (Ecclesiastes 11:5).

In his book The Five Points of Calvinism, Edwin H. Palmer points out two inadequate attempts to solve the problem of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility – Arminianism and Hyper-Calvinism. Both groups, while holding to the Bible to a point, come to a place where rationalism takes over. The Arminian, Palmer says, “holds to man’s freedom and restricts God’s sovereignty.” The hyper-Calvinist “sees the clear Biblical statements concerning God’s foreordination and holds firmly to that. But being logically unable to reconcile it with man’s responsibility, he denies the latter” (p.84-85). He goes on to state, “Thus the Arminian and the hyper-Calvinist, although poles apart, are really very close together in their rationalism.”

Instead, Palmer writes, “Over against these humanistic views, the Calvinist accepts both sides of the antimony….[and] holds to two apparently contradictory positions. [Footnote: It should be emphasized that the contradiction is only apparent and not real. Man cannot harmonize the two apparently contradictory positions, but God can.]” (p.85).

So, rather than seeing the teaching of God’s active sovereignty as an aberration of Christian theology, one that is to be ignored as “obviously” wrong or dismissed as Satanic (as some have said), we see through the confessions that this has been the creed of the historic Church for centuries – yes, even to the beginnings of the Church and beyond throughout all of the Bible.

To God alone be the glory!

Mark G. Knox Christian Thought

What do you mean by sovereignty?, part 3

To say that God is sovereign over all is a given among Bible-believing Christians. What is not a given is what we mean by that. Dig deeper and you’ll find that there are differences in what various teachers mean when they affirm God’s sovereignty.

We began this series in part 1 discussing how the sovereignty of God is commonly conceived by most Christians. In this, God’s rule over his creation is spoken of in terms of his pre-knowledge of what will happen, his permission allowing certain things to happen, or his eventual conquest of his enemies so that ultimately his will is accomplished. He is seen much like a good and powerful earthly king who uses his might when necessary to achieve his ends, but is not directly controlling events and people. Commonly conceived, God’s sovereignty is a passive rule.

In part 2, we looked at several songs that allude to a verse in Genesis in some of their lyrics. The songs seem to affirm a biblical understanding of God’s sovereignty, but fail with a critical mis-quoting of what Joseph actually said. Instead, they all end up affirming the same passive view of God’s rule over us that is so prevalent among Christians.

In this post, I would like to examine several verses that speak to a different view of God’s ruling sovereignty. Rather than being the occasional “proof-text” that needs to be explained away, these verses confirm the narrative of Scripture throughout.

Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.

Psalm 135 6 ESV

The Bible continually affirms that the Lord God works his will over creation. He is not the passive, reactive God, responding to the things that happen. Rather, God actively accomplishes all that pleases him to do.

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Colossians 1:16-17 ESV

These verses, referring to Jesus Christ, demonstrate the pervasiveness of his rule. As creator of all things, he rightfully rules over them all. In Christ all things “hold together” – meaning he preserves all that he has made, down to the finest detail.

I am the LORD, and there is no other.
I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD, do all these things.
You heavens above, rain down my righteousness;
let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide,
let salvation spring up,
let righteousness flourish with it;
I, the LORD, have created it.

Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker,
those who are nothing but potsherds
among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter,
“What are you making?”
Does your work say, “The potter has no hands”?

Isaiah 45:6b-9 NIV

This is a powerful passage with God himself speaking, letting us know in no uncertain terms that he is the Sovereign God. His repeated use of the “I, the LORD” construction leaves no doubt who is in control. “I, the LORD, do all these things.” What things? Light, darkness, prosperity, disaster. Instead of saying that God allows these things to occur, God says he actively does them. “I, the LORD, have created it.” Created what? Righteousness and salvation. We speak of God saving people who put their trust in Christ, and rightfully so. But decisively behind that faith is the Sovereign Lord who creates righteousness and salvation. This is more than God providing a way for salvation; he sovereignly calls salvation to spring up.

This passage ends describing the folly of those who would object to this. You are not just arguing a theological point of view; you are quarrelling with your very Maker. To do this is like saying that God has no power at all (“the potter has no hands”). This is echoed in Romans 9:19-21, where Paul uses the same vessel/potter analogy to rebuke those who would “answer back to God” (v.20) in their objection to his electing choice.

Does disaster come to a city,
unless the LORD has done it?

Amos 3:6

Again, to speak of God ordaining good, but merely allowing disaster is a sub-biblical perspective. For the believer, we take encouragement from all the ways that God provides for us in the midst of adversity. The doctor who happens to be driving behind us when we get into an auto accident, the job offer that arrives just as we become aware that our current job is being down-sized, the storehouse of grain in Egypt that God furnishes to feed his people in Canaan are all examples of God’s providential care for his people. We justly thank God for his gifts! But in the midst of those adverse circumstances, we often forget that God could have prevented those events in the first place, that truly, he has brought them to us by his design and plan! To say that God has worked some great and good things from something like the global COVID pandemic and not recognize that he has ordained the pandemic is to sell his sovereign rule short. (See also, Lamentations 3:37-30)

For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. 

Acts 4:27-28 ESV

This is an explicit statement that the Lord God directly predestines the acts of people. And yet, it was also acknowledged and proclaimed by these same apostles that those predestined acts were acts for which they were responsible. In Acts 2:23, Peter says, “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” In 3:13, Peter accuses them, “you killed the Author of life.” There is no hesitation in proclaiming that these events were predestined under God’s sovereign hand and plan, and yet the people carrying them out were not regarded as mere puppets, but were culpable of those evil deeds.

I have heard some say that just because this particular evil action was predestined by God, or others like the abduction of Joseph (see my previous post) were ordained by God, we cannot go on and assume that every event is likewise God’s sovereign plan. To that, I would ask, are you going to make the determination as to which events are and which are not sovereignly ordained? To do so would be to place yourself above God. Oh, tread lightly here! The burden of proof is on those who would maintain that God doesn’t ordain everything that comes to pass.

Just because we can’t always understand God’s purpose in ordaining events is no proof that he hasn’t done so. And just because we can’t understand how this “works” is no proof either. The Bible puts God’s predestinating power alongside man’s responsibility, and makes no attempt to explain or reconcile these truths. Neither should we.

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.

Ephesians 1:11 ESV

Ephesians 1:11 is perhaps the clearest statement of God’s sovereign decree. Our having been predestined – for adoption as sons (1:5) – is said to be according to, or under the umbrella of God’s “purpose” as he works all things according to the counsel of his will. Focusing on this last clause, God works all things. In other words, God’s sovereignty is an active sovereignty; all things, all events, all disasters, all blessings, all decisions are his work. As R.C. Sproul has somewhere said, “If God is not sovereign over all, he is not sovereign at all.”

Rather than these selected verses (as well as many others like them) being “problem passages” that need to be explained away or softened to accommodate our finite understanding, they form the backbone of a biblical understanding of God’s nature and decree. Again, the burden of proof would be on those who would soften the weight of these passages.

This of course raises the question: if God has ordained all that comes to pass, and even sinful actions on the part of man have been ordained by God, doesn’t this make God the author of sin? A fair question, one that we will attempt to address in our next post.

Mark G. Knox Christian Thought

What do you mean by sovereignty?, part 2

To say that God is sovereign over all is a given among Bible-believing Christians. What is not a given is what we mean by that. Dig deeper and you’ll find that there are differences in what various teachers mean when they affirm God’s sovereignty.

In part 1 of this series, I wrote about how God’s sovereignty is commonly conceived by the typical Christian – that nothing happens unless God allows it to happen, that God knows what will happen before it does, or that in the end God’s ultimate will will prevail as he triumphs over his foes.

All these are true to a point, but suffer from the same flaw. They portray God as ruling in a kind of passive and reactive way. In this post, I’d like to show how this viewpoint has shown up in a couple of songs from recent contemporary Christian music.

The first song is Sovereign Over Us by Aaron Keyes. This is a poignant, encouraging anthem of great comfort to those who sing it. The second is See a Victory from Elevation Worship, a somewhat repetitious declaration of triumph over our battles. A third song is For My Good by R&B artist Todd Galbreath. I don’t believe this was designed as a corporate worship song, but is worth considering here.

All three of these songs have some lyrics that are so similar that the teaching in those common lyrics points to a similar shared understanding of God’s sovereignty as regularly conceived. Namely –

Sovereign Over Us – “Even what the enemy means for evil, you turn it for our good, you turn it for our good and your glory.”

See A Victory – “You take what the enemy meant for evil, and you turn it for good, you turn it for good.”

For My Good – “And what the enemy meant for evil, God has worked it out for my good.”

These lines make an allusion to the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis, when Joseph’s brothers took him captive to kill him and decided to sell him into slavery instead. In time, Joseph rose to a position of power and influence. When his brothers came before him to beg for food during a famine, not knowing he was their long-lost brother, Joseph was able to provide for and save his family (and thus the nation). Later, the brothers feared Joseph’s reprisals for the wrongs they had done to him. But Joseph, in one of the great personal declarations of God’s sovereignty in all of Scripture, calmed their fears and said, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive” (Genesis 50:20).

There is a subtle, yet critical difference between Joseph’s statement and the lyrics of the three songs I quoted above. Did you catch it?

The songsActs meant for evilGod turns (or worked) for good
The BibleActs meant for evilGod meant for good

This is a simple distinction that makes all the difference. In the song lyrics, God is responding to the prior act of the enemy and “turning” it to good (“worked” in the third song). In these songs, God is regarded as the responder to our situation. This implies a passivity prior to his stepping in to turn things around for us. In other word, life gave us lemons, and God makes lemonade out of it.

But in Joseph’s statement, it’s, “you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” Same word used. Grammatically, equal agency. Theologically, God has prior agency. “Before you intended to harm me, God intended for me to be harmed.” God is the sovereign worker here. This is not simply semantics; this is a critical statement. Do not gloss over this.

In fact, the entire story of Joseph is a testimony to God’s sovereign work. When Pharaoh dreams disturbing and confusing dreams, Joseph is able to interpret them. He begins by saying, “God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do” (Gen. 41:25, emphasis mine). Not only is the selling of Joseph into slavery by his evil brothers intended and planned by God, but the famine itself is part of God’s sovereign design.

If we as believers are to have any hope that God will work all things for our good (Rom. 8:28), then it must be on the basis of his sovereign intentions over all things. Indeed, the promise of Romans 8:28 is based on his prior decisive acts of foreknowing his people, predestining them to be conformed to Christ, calling them by the gospel, justifying them, and glorifying them.

Whatever we go through in this life, it will not do to only be able to say, “This was meant for evil, but God will turn it for good.” That would be a God of limited, passive, responsive sovereignty. It is ultimately an empty promise.

But to be able to say with confidence, “This was meant for evil, but God designed it, ordained it, intended it, meant it for good” is to proclaim a sure promise based on the character of an actively sovereign God. This is the God of Joseph, the God of the Bible. This is our God.

In my subsequent posts, I will discuss some of the clear biblical evidences of God’s active sovereignty as well as how the various Confessions stated the doctrine of the sovereignty of God.

Mark G. Knox Christian Thought, Uncategorized

What do you mean by sovereignty?, part 1

To say that God is sovereign over all is a given among Bible-believing Christians. What is not a given is what we mean by that. Dig deeper and you’ll find that there are differences in what various teachers mean when they affirm God’s sovereignty.

A.W. Tozer wrote, “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.” So far, so good. To the average Christian, to say God is sovereign is to reference that all-powerful rule over his creation.

The question then becomes, how does he exercise his rule over creation?

I believe that for most Christians, this rule is envisioned much as one would envision an authoritative, benevolent earthly king. This king rules with a kindly governance that oversees but does not dictate. For the most part, he has put things in place to ensure the smooth operation of his kingdom but is not hands-on in the day-to-day of his people. Occasionally, he may bring his force to bear when it suits his needs to achieve desired ends. This force may be a gentle persuasion, or at times it may require the full range of his might to subdue his enemies. But as to the dictating of his peoples’ everyday actions, this is beyond the scope of his chosen means of rule, for his people live and move and breathe freely. This king sees to it, however, that his desired end is achieved.

This is God’s sovereignty, commonly conceived.

This is where Tozer, in his otherwise excellent Knowledge of the Holy (quoted earlier) lands in his attempt to reconcile the idea of God’s sovereignty with the will of man. He gives a “homely” (his word) illustration of an ocean liner that the captain steers to its final destination, but within the ship, the people move freely about. Tozer bases this on his statement, “the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it” (p. 111). In other words, God is sovereign over the end but not the particulars of the meantime. The passengers on God’s ship do as they please within the bounds of the boat and the Eternal Captain steers them to his desired end.

In this view, God’s sovereignty is viewed in a passive and limited sense. God is not decreeing each and everything that happens, but he works with what happens to turn it to good and to finally in the end see his plan come to fruition. While A.W. Tozer has been something of a spiritual hero and mentor to me through his prolific writing, he is wrong here. For one thing, there is no Scriptural basis for his claim that God has only decreed that man should be free to make choices. Neither does his analogy fit with the Bible, as we will see.

I believe that most Christians, however, are satisfied with this explanation. To them the sovereignty of God may mean that nothing happens unless God allows it to happen, or that he knows what will happen before it does. It may simply mean that no matter what happens, in the end God will have the last word (see Tabletalk magazine, March 2017, p. 30).

This kind of understand ultimately fails because to see God’s sovereignty as limited or passive in this way is to deny his sovereignty at all! To quote R.C. Sproul, “if there is one molecule in the universe running loose, outside of the control of God’s sovereignty, what I like to call ‘one maverick molecule,’ then the practical implication for us as Christians is that we have no guarantee whatsoever that any future promise God has made to His people will come to pass” (Chosen by God, Lecture 2: God’s Sovereignty). Namely, there’s no guarantee the ocean liner will make it to harbor!

We will have more to say on the biblical view of God’s sovereignty later. In my next post, I want to delve into a couple of modern Christian examples from our worship music on how this passive view has manifested itself.

Mark G. Knox Christian Thought

Bowing at the idol of free will

Most Christians recoil in horror at any teaching about the sovereignty of God. Without any attempt to explain the Scriptures that are explicit in their teaching (Romans 8:29-30; 9:11, 16, 19-20; Ephesians 1:4-5, 11; etc.), they know that sovereign grace can’t be true because, you know, “free will.” This one-word retort (yes, I know that that’s technically two words, but it’s spoken as one term) is all the evidence they need.

In the mystery that encompasses God’s sovereign choice of his elect on the one hand and the agency and responsibility of humanity on the other, it is always God’s dominion that is softened and mitigated, and it is always free will that is held as absolute.

This is the objection that is voiced in Romans 9:19 – “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? [human responsibility] For who can resist his will? [human free will]'” We must protect our ultimate, autonomous, unadulterated, precious free will. And to this protectionist complaint, Paul doesn’t answer the question, because he knows the wicked heart from which it proceeds. This is not an honest question of a mysterious truth; it is a rebellious heart cry of substituting God’s reign for our own. And Paul responds appropriately in verse 20 – “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?”

When we “answer back to God,” we are following in the footsteps of our First Adam, who followed the lie of “Has God said…?” We are bowing at the golden calf of our autonomous free will as we reject the tablets of God’s revealed truth.

Oh may God rid us of this heinous rejection of his Word!

Mark G. Knox Christian Thought

God is sovereign, and we are not machines

In the years that I have believed in the Reformed doctrines of grace, I have come to believe that what sets “Calvinistic” thinkers apart from others is the ability to embrace mystery. (A short video with John Piper helped start me on that understanding.) It is the Calvinist’s ability to exegete Scripture to say what it says without necessarily explaining the tensions contained therein.

So, for example, when we read in Acts 2:23, “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men,” we have no problem holding in tandem the idea that an event occurred that the Sovereign God ordained for which wicked men are held accountable. It’s a mystery (not a contradiction) that we can’t reconcile; yet we affirm both truths because the Bible affirms both truths. And we let the mystery stand.

It’s only when we start to philosophically explain these truths-in-tension that we fall short. “God can’t control everything,” we say, “because that would go against free will and human responsibility.” I always find it amazing (maybe I don’t, really) that when we attempt to reconcile these truths, it’s always the greatness and glory of God that gets mitigated and softened, while we make human free will absolute.

Yet, even sometimes, Calvinists make the mistake of absolutizing sovereign grace truths to the point of becoming unbiblical in our expressions and emphases. We say things like, “I did thus and so because it was predestined,” as if we are afraid to speak naturally and just say, “I did it because I wanted to.” The Bible speaks naturally. It affirms that God “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11), yet never speaks as if we are puppets or, in the words of Francis Schaeffer, “machines.”

Let’s look at a couple of Calvinistic truisms and how they can become distortions of biblical thought.

“Faith is a gift of God”

That the faith itself that we exercise in Christ unto salvation is a gift of God is a cherished truth of sovereign grace doctrine. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). And while I cannot say that “this” and “it” grammatically point back to the word “faith” as their antecedent, I do believe that this verse clearly teaches that the whole of salvation (including our faith) is the gift of God.

Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:25, “God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.” So it’s true that God completely eliminates any basis for self-determined boasting in our repentance and faith.

But sometimes, Calvinists have a hard time saying something as simple as “I believed.” We want to give God the glory for his work in salvation and to take no credit for ourselves. We forget that in giving faith as a gift, God doesn’t believe for us; we are not machines. We believe.

And sometimes we have a difficult time calling men to faith and repentance. What do we ask them to do if our emphasis is on God’s doing? The apostles’ call to sinners was clear: Believe! Repent! (as if it were their doing). There is no tension here. Paul has no problem telling us that “God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19), and imploring men in the next breath to “be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). Acts 13:48 holds these in tandem: “as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” God appointed; they believed! Even as ultimately a gift of God, we exercise faith in Christ. We are not machines.

“No one seeks for God”

It’s hard to call this a truism, because it’s directly in the Bible (Psalms, Romans). Coming out of our understanding of the fallen and depraved state of mankind, we affirm that no one seeks God on his own. Indeed, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44).

But sometimes in our zeal for doctrinal purity, we again make ourselves to be machines. A new, young Christian giving her testimony shares how she was “seeking the truth,” and we pounce on her theological imprecision – “NO! You weren’t seeking truth!” Poor girl.

While affirming that no one seeks for God who has not been first sought by God, it’s OK to recognize that there’s a kind of seeking that men do that may eventually lead them to God. After all, we don’t know how long the Father sovereignly draws an individual to himself, and that too is not in a machine-like way. It can be a seeking for God. Paul himself used those words in Acts 17, when he told of God determining times and places for mankind “that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him” (17:27).

So then, let us hold fast to the great doctinal truths that affirm both God’s sovereignty and man’s humanity in a biblical way.

Mark G. Knox Christian Thought

Sovereignty on the back end needs sovereignty on the front end

What follows is part of an ongoing series of articles that discuss places in Scripture where the sovereign plan and working of God are clearly seen to intersect with time.  Rather than trying to fit these descriptions into a pre-determined theological understanding, I aim to let these revealed descriptions stand for themselves. See other posts in this series here and here.

A number of us were conversing, and someone noted that God had worked some good things in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. I asked, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, if it also wasn’t true that God had worked to bring the pandemic. As usual, they rolled their eyes and sighed at my theological intrusion. “The same God who has worked good from the pandemic is the same God who could have prevented it, but didn’t,” said I.

We often look at various disasters as bad things, and something about our mindset will not allow us to attribute those to the divine Hand of Providence. We recoil at saying that God brings disaster. But the Bible does not. Amos 3:6 says, “Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?” Such directness is hard for us, who may want to soften the blow by affirming that God may “allow” such disaster but not actively cause it.

We tend to speak in terms of God doing good things, and allowing bad things, all the while retaining for ourselves the right to define what’s good and what’s bad. We even take a promise such as Romans 8:28 (“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”) to mean something like, “here’s this bad thing, and God turns it into good.” Kind of a lemons-lemonade dynamic.

Again, this is not the biblical perspective. One of the greatest examples of a biblical understanding is found in the life of Joseph, whom his brothers planned to murder, sold into slavery instead, and then years later were rescued from starvation by this very brother. In the end, they worried that Joseph, now Pharaoh’s #2 in Egypt, would exact vengeance on them for past wrongs. Instead Joseph said, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20). Not, “you meant evil, God turned it to good.” But, “you meant evil, God meant good.” Equal agency. In fact, I would say that God was the primary agent. The God who orchestrated Joseph’s rise to power in order to save people from famine could have ordained that there was no famine to be saved from.

All this to say that God is sovereign over and ordains all that comes to pass (Ephesians 1:11). The greatest sin ever perpetrated in human history was the crucifixion of Jesus, “crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men,” yet the Bible is clear that he was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). It would be completely unbiblical to say that God only “allowed” the crucifixion of Jesus, and then turned it into something good.

We love the promises and provision of God in the midst of trials, but the sovereign care that comes in trial has been there all along, even over the occurance of the trial. If God is to work all things for good for his people, it is necessary that he be sovereign over all things. Sovereignty on the back end requires sovereignty on the front end.* May we affirm this; may we trust this.

*This is an expression that I’m pretty sure I heard from John Piper. I cannot locate the source.