Sovereign ... or not?

In a recent conversation that wandered from "Can you lose your salvation?" to "free will", I made this statement: "You have a very scary God whose will is held captive by His creatures, since He is obligated to always allow them to do whatever they want to do. It is inevitable that at some point someone will do something that will be outside of God's will and God's sovereignty will be completely terminated (instead of 'mostly dead' like it is now)." This elicited the very understandable "Huh??!!" kind of response. "Are you saying that people NOW do everything that is within God's will? That when Hitler killed millions, THAT was within God's will?? That when rape and child abuse occur, THOSE are within God's will? I can't imagine you truly think that, but you tell me."

It is a reasonable response and demands a reasonable explanation. Am I actually claiming that all that occurs on this planet is within God's will? I mean, how can that be??!! And I see the problem ... but do you see the other problem? There are multiple places in Scripture that assign to God the term "Sovereign". In 1 Tim 6:15 He is, in fact, the only Sovereign. We also read in Eph 1:11 that God works all things after the counsel of His will. So now we have a problem. Either my outrageous assertion that everything that happens on this planet falls within the will of God is true as it lines up with these passages, or these passages are just as wrong as my assertion is. So what do we do?

Well, let's try it from a human perspective (first), understanding first of all that we are not sovereign. We only like to think we are. So, I tell my wife, "Wouldn't it be nice to have an RV to travel around in" or I tell my grandson, "Clean up your room" and I have expressed my will, have I not? Of course, these are actually two types of "will". One is a wish, something that I don't even expect to have, and the other is a command which may or may not be obeyed. The theological terms for these types of will are "permissive will" and "preceptive will". In one case I offered a desire with not real intention of fulfilling it, and in the other I offered a command that ought to be fulfilled ... but might not. As humans we can understand these categories.

God also has these two types of wills. We know, for instance, that God "desires all people to be saved", but we also know that it won't happen. This would be His "permissive will", something He would like but doesn't actually intend to fulfill. We also know, for instance, that adultery is against the will of God because He said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." We know, again, that people commit adultery, so God's precept in this case doesn't occur. So God shares these two types of will with humans. There is -- must be -- a third type of will of God, however, if the passages I referenced above are to be held as true and valid. This will is not present in humans because God is the "only Sovereign". This will the theologians refer to as God's "decretive will". This will always occurs ... if God is actually Sovereign. This will is the one that agrees with Eph 1:11 -- God works all things after the counsel of His will. This will would encompass everything that occurs on this planet, and nothing that occurs would fall outside of this will of God.

Let me offer an example. Joseph's brothers first threatened to kill him, then sold him into slavery. It is not possible to call that "God's will" in either the sense that He would desire it ("Wow, I sure wish Joseph's brothers would toss him in a well and sell him off as slave.") or that it was in line with His commandments (as evidenced by the fact that they lied to their father about it). It was not in line with God's will in those senses. However, in the end, this sin saved his family and the Jewish race. So we hear Joseph say to his brothers, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." There are multiple things in play in that sentence. First, they are not off the hook. It was evil and they are liable. Second, God planned for it to happen to bring about an end that He wanted. He didn't cause it. He allowed it because it fit with His plans. Third, He didn't merely work it out. "Oh, my, that's a bad thing! Now, how can I work this out so it becomes good?" No, He meant it for good. He used their sin for His plan.

Of course, there is a much better example. The sin of Joseph's brothers was minor compared to this one. This example is the murder of God's innocent Son. About this we read:

"The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed -- 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 4:26-28).

On one hand, then, we have the very clear indictment that these people had set themselves against God, and on the other hand we have the undeniable claim that they carried out "whatever Your hand and Your plan had predestined to take place", an undeniable example of both evil and "God's will".

Logically, then, if the Bible is true when it claims that God is the only Sovereign and if it is true that God works all things after the counsel of His will, then it is unavoidably true that all things that occur fall within God's will in some sense. Biblically we know that 1) God states His will in ways that do not come to pass and 2) God works all things after His will. Experience tells us that some things will be a violation of His wishes (like people that aren't saved) and some things will violate His precepts (like committing known sin). But if we have a God who simply has things that occur outside of His ultimate, Sovereign will, then He is not Sovereign and we are without hope because the Creator has succumbed to the creation.