Theology 101 has spent two months looking at various aspects of God’s essential nature as He has revealed Himself through Holy Scripture. By nature God — who is Spirit — is eternal, personal and triune. He is omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (everywhere present at the same time), omniscient (all-knowing) and immutable (unchanging). When we attempt to account for all these truths about God’s being, we might use a single, descriptive term: “sovereign.”
Early Christians were right on target when they addressed God in prayer as “Sovereign Lord” (Acts 4:24). In a similar manner, 1 Timothy 6:15 speaks of God as “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion.” Revelation 6:10 records heavenly witnesses addressing God as “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true.”
God is supreme
By sovereign, Christians mean God is supreme, having no rival or equal. Through the prophet Isaiah, God spoke, saying, “For I am God and there is no other” (Isa. 45:22). He is absolute ruler with ultimate authority over all that is distinct from His own being as Father, Son and Spirit. God is sovereign over all He has created. His is the right of governance and control. Acts 17:24 references Him as “God who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshipped with men’s hands as though He needed anything since He gives to all life, breath and all things.” In His sovereignty God does not answer to any other being concerning His actions and decrees. To the contrary, Ephesians 1:11 declares God works “all things after the counsel of His own will.”
Since God is sovereign, no external compulsion or force motivated Him to create all things. He chose to do it. Similarly, no outside influence prompted God to provide redemption. Sovereign love moved Him to provide the way for humans to escape condemnation and spiritual death.
The sovereignty of God informs our worship. He alone is worthy of adoration and worship. God instructed Israel, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4). God is not merely the supreme God among lesser gods. No lesser gods exist. As Sovereign of the universe God does not share His glory with any other, having decreed, “My glory I will not give to another” (Isa. 48:11).
God’s sovereignty informs our ethics and morality. He alone has revealed moral distinctions. By His sovereignty God has decreed some actions to be immoral and sinful while others are acceptable and commendable. Sovereignty, nor society, sets the standards for acceptable human behavior. Majority opinion of human communities does not determine what is right or wrong. God does.
Being absolutely sovereign, it is God’s prerogative to choose to recognize and honor freedom of choice to those made in His image. His is the authority to refrain from dictating or predetermining human actions. Furthermore, it is God’s sovereign right to place all of the created order under laws of nature which He establishes.
In His sovereignty God possesses the authority to determine that some things He wishes to happen can only come to be in response to human persistence in believing prayer. Thus God has the right to say, “You have not because you ask not.”
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