No Plan B

It’s a strange story (Gen 20:1-18). It centers on Abraham. That’s the same Abraham that Hebrews lists as a man of faith (Heb 11:8-10). Abraham, with God’s promise of an heir pending, went to Gerar to settle for a while. Worried that they might kill him to get his wife who was beautiful, he told the king, Abimelech, that Sarah was his sister, so Abimelech took Sarah as his own.

Here’s where the passage turns. God came to Abimelech and told him he was a dead man for taking a married woman (Gen 20:3). Abimelech never touched her and honestly didn’t know, so wasn’t he guiltless in one sense—blameless with respect to intent? That's what he told God (Gen 20:4-5). God answers him directly: “Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her” (Gen 20:6). God ascribes “integrity” to him—not covenant righteousness, but a real sincerity that he didn’t mean to sin—while also giving the true reason the king never touched Sarah: “I also kept you from sinning against Me.”

Did you know God did that? Were you aware that He can prevent sin from happening? We are not autonomous creatures. We make real choices, but we don’t decide everything for ourselves, and our decisions never place God in a corner. Proverbs says, “The heart of man plans his way, but YHWH establishes his steps” (Pro 16:9). Not even the world’s authority figures are exempt. “The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of YHWH; He turns it wherever He will” (Pro 21:1). (A lot of Christians are concerned—about the Trumps and Bidens of this world. That should give some comfort.) Elsewhere, we get a different glimpse into the sense of it. “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of YHWH that will stand” (Pro 19:21).

That’s really the idea. It is the purpose of God that will stand—always. You can’t ultimately derail His plan. You can’t sin Him into “Plan B.” But that doesn’t make sin small, harmless, or “not my fault.” Scripture is comfortable holding both truths at once: God’s purposes are never threatened, and human beings remain responsible—and sins still bring real consequences.

Genesis 20 shows that clearly. God restrained Abimelech from touching Sarah (Gen 20:6), yet Abimelech is still under judgment (Gen 20:3) and commanded to act (“return the man’s wife…,” Gen 20:7), and Abraham is still confronted with his fear-driven deception. God’s providence doesn’t absolve us of sin; it exposes it, restrains it at times, and judges it when necessary.

You see the same pattern elsewhere. Judas’s betrayal fulfills what God had purposed, yet Jesus still says, “Woe to that man” (Luke 22:21-22). Pilate and the rulers acted wickedly even as God sovereignly overruled their actions to accomplish the cross (Acts 4:26-28).

That is different from the way God brings obedience in the new covenant—by giving a new heart and causing His people to walk in His statutes (Eze 36:26-27). God can move even pagan rulers like Cyrus to carry out His purposes (Ezra 1:1), and He can call and set apart someone like Paul from before birth (Gal 1:15-16). In all of it, we are never outside of His purposes, and He is always faithful. But our sins aren’t excused because He permits them; we still must repent, and we still face consequences—even while God, in the end, ensures that His purposes are fulfilled.