Thoughts With Dalt

This week’s post is less of a misunderstood verse, and more of an unaccepted reality from several scriptures. The issue up for discussion? God’s sovereignty. We will see shortly that the real issue is an understanding of the word “sovereignty”. No Christian has an issue with a God that is sovereign in some areas, however many Christians won’t accept that He is sovereign in all areas. By definition, there is no partial sovereignty.

This is not a new issue, but it certainly is a current issue. I won’t go through the entirety of church history to demonstrate the fight over this topic, but I will list a few notable names that fought for this doctrine.

• Paul recognized and diligently defended God’s sovereignty all through the new testament.
• Clement followed in Paul’s steps after serving alongside him.
• Theophilus would follow 60-80 years later in teaching this doctrine.
• Augustine fought against the attack of God’s sovereignty in the 400s.
• The most famous defense of the doctrine of course fell around the 1500s in the reformation, led by Martin Luther and John Calvin

Now we find ourselves again in a moment of struggle where human pride is trying to create a God that has no power to make decisions over His creation. I won’t try to sugar coat that sentence any, or make any apologies. That is the unfortunate cause of our current struggle. How do I know? I have been through it.

It was rare to hear a sermon on a sovereign God that chooses some and not others during my younger years in church. In my very young years, the sermons were more in line with The Left Behind series, and reasons we should “let” Jesus into our hearts or “make” Him the Lord of our life. Again, not sorry. Just trying to be honest for the sake of telling my story. God was painted as a boyfriend with flowers waiting at the alter begging for me to come hold His hand so that He didn’t have to send me to Hell. I am sure most of you reading this will be able to relate to that description well. Especially if you were raised in the South.

Fast forward to my high school days. I started hearing people use curse words like “predestination” and “election”. I quickly tuned them out and wrote them off as heretics, since I obviously knew everything about God and was wrong about nothing. Sound like a high schooler? At some point in my high school sunday school class, I was assigned a passage to teach a lesson from. I can’t recommend that enough to a high schooler. You don’t know a passage until you have to teach it. Teaching requires thorough study. My passage assigned was Ephesians 2:1-10. I was about to get shook up!

The first verse wastes no time in accurately describing what salvation looks like. Technically, the description starts back in chapter 1, verse 4, but that wasn’t my passage. Verse 1 tells us we were dead in our sins. This is establishing a time context, and our condition within that context. I always explain it as a dead man on the ocean floor, chained down. This is our condition prior to salvation, and it is in this condition that God saves us. Look at verse 4: “But God…because of the great love with which He loved us…EVEN WHEN WE WERE DEAD…..made us alive together with Christ.” This did not sound like the God I had grown to believe.

I read through that and thought of it as a kind gesture from God, not really understanding the implications. Evidently, Paul knew several would have the temptation to read past and not accept what he had just explained. In effort to be abundantly clear, he picks back up in verse 8. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And THIS IS NOT YOUR OWN DOING, IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD“. But I thought that God saved me because I demanded He do so? Paul doubles down once more. Verse 9: “Not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

This really through me for a loop. How had I missed this? If memory serves me correctly, I had at least read the New Testament once at this point. The new testament is littered with black and white teaching of God’s sovereignty. I had interpreted scripture through the lens of my preconceived notions and alongside a god that I had constructed.

Through many years of study and listening to sermons, podcasts, small group discussions, and prayer, I finally arrived at the point where I could accept a totally sovereign God. This was only by God’s grace (as was my salvation). My heart wanted to fight it. I didn’t want to have a God that had not only the ability to not choose me, but the right to not choose me. Deep down I knew I could not earn my salvation, but I didn’t want the answer to be that God gave it solely because of His love. That doesn’t pair well with the nasty pride all of us humans harbor.

So, what made it abundantly clear to me that this passage taught a totally sovereign God? The whole of scripture. From the very beginning of scripture, God establishes a pattern of choosing this group but not this group. Think about it. Able and not Cain. Jacob and not Esau. Issac and not Ishmael. Moses and his people, and not Pharaoh and his. Entire books of the Old Testament tell of how God chose one group of people to erase another group of people.

Why would that pattern change at any point? God is immutable (unchanging), He operates consistently throughout history. If He has a historical pattern of choice before Jesus’ incarnation, you can bet He has the same pattern after His incarnation. Here are a few verses:

• Ephesians 1:4 – chose “us” indicating a group that was not chose
• Romans 8:29 – “those” He foreknew, he also predestined. Some argue this and say that He just knew and did no choosing. Nope. 2 issues. 1) Back up to verse 28 and see He is talking about those who are “called”. 2) God “knows” everyone. If he just foreknew everyone, is everyone predestined and saved? Nope.
• John 15:16 This one is so clear. “You did not choose me, but I chose you”, speaking to his disciples. He didn’t choose everyone.
• John 6:44 The nail in the coffin. Actually, the lag bolt through a thick chain around the coffin. “No one can come to me UNLESS the Father who sent me draws him”

There are so many more verses, from Genesis to Revelation that point to a totally sovereign God that has the ability and the right to choose some and not some. “Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay..?” (Romans 9).

The issue in pride is ultimately rooted in us believing that we are owed salvation. We forget that we are actively fighting against the One in charge of our salvation every time we choose to love our sin more than Him. We aren’t owed another breath from our Creator, much less forgiveness and eternal life.

By God’s grace, I have changed my question about God’s choice. In my prior set of beliefs, I wondered how God could choose some, and not all.

Now I wonder why God would choose any at all.

Praise God that He saves “some”.

–Dalton