The God Who Reigns: Sovereignty in the Scriptures

Is God still intimately present within His creation, or has He stepped back, leaving the world in human hands? Has He withdrawn to a distant vantage point, passively observing history unfold?

If God is truly sovereign, how active is that sovereignty? Does He merely permit events, or does He shape them with deliberate intention? And if His purposes can be thwarted by human will, in what sense can we still call Him sovereign?

These are not idle questions. They cut to the heart of how we understand providence, freedom, and the very character of God.

What picture does Scripture actually give us? How far does His reign extend—over the grand movements of nations, or down to the smallest details of life? The biblical vision of sovereignty may prove far more active, far more encompassing, than we are inclined to imagine.

According to Scripture, God is:

•SOVEREIGN OVER THE WEATHER

Job 37:6-13

For to the snow he says, "Fall on the earth," likewise to the downpour, his mighty downpour. He seals up the hand of every man, that all men whom he made may know it. Then the beasts go into their lairs, and remain in their dens. From its chamber comes the whirlwind, and cold from the scattering winds. By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad waters are frozen fast. He loads the thick cloud with moisture; the clouds scatter his lightning. They turn around and around by his guidance, to accomplish all that he commands them on the face of the habitable world. Whether for correction or for his land or for love, he causes it to happen. Hear this, O Job; stop and consider the wondrous works of God. Do you know how God lays his command upon them and causes the lightning of his cloud to shine? Do you know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge, you whose garments are hot when the earth is still because of the south wind? Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror?

Job 5:9-12

who does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number: he gives rain on the earth and sends waters on the fields; he sets on high those who are lowly, and those who mourn are lifted to safety. He frustrates the devices of the crafty, so that their hands achieve no success.

Psalm 135:7

He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.

Psalm 147:8

He covers the heavens with clouds; he prepares rain for the earth; he makes grass grow on the hills.

Psalm 147:16-18

He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes. He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs; who can stand before his cold? He sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.

Matthew 8:26-27 (also Mark 4:39-31, Luke 8:24-25)

And he said to them, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, "What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?"

•SOVEREIGN OVER THE PLANS OF MEN

Proverbs 20:24

A man's steps are determined by the LORD, so how can anyone understand his own way?”

Proverbs 19:21

Many plans are in a man's heart, but the LORD's decree will prevail.

Proverbs 16:9

A man's heart plans his way, but the LORD determines his steps.

Proverbs 21:1

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.

James 4:13-15

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring... Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."

 

•SOVEREIGN OVER HEALTH, LIFE & DEATH

Deuteronomy 32:39

See now that I alone am He; there is no God but Me. I bring death and I give life; I wound and I heal. No one can rescue anyone from My hand.

I Samuel 2:6

The LORD brings death and gives life; he sends some to Sheol, and he raises others up.

Job 14:5

...man's days are determined and the number of his months depends on You, and You have set limits he cannot pass,..

Psalm 139:16 

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Psalm 68:20

Our God is a God of salvation, and to GOD, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.

Psalm 31:15

My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!

Daniel 5:23

...But you have not glorified the God who holds your life-breath in His hand and who controls the whole course of your life.

Exodus 4:11

Then the LORD said to him, "Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?"

•SOVEREIGN OVER SALVATION

Romans 9:15-16

For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

John 1:12-13

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

John 6:44

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

John 6:65

And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."

II Timothy 2:24-26

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

Acts 13:48

And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

Acts 16:14

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

•SOVEREIGN OVER ALL THINGS

Ephesians 1:11

[God] works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Proverbs 16:33

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.

Matthew 10:29

Aren't two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will.

Lamentations 3:37-38

Who is there who speaks and it happens, unless the Lord has ordained it? Do not both adversity and good come from the mouth of the Most High?

Isaiah 45:7

I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things.

Amos 3:6

Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?

Isaiah 46:10

declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, "My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,"

Psalm 115:3

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.

Psalm 135:6

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

Job 42:2

I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Daniel 4:35

All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?"

Job 12:13-25

With God are wisdom and might; he has counsel and understanding. If he tears down, none can rebuild; if he shuts a man in, none can open. If he withholds the waters, they dry up; if he sends them out, they overwhelm the land. With him are strength and sound wisdom; the deceived and the deceiver are his. He leads counselors away stripped, and judges he makes fools. He looses the bonds of kings and binds a waistcloth on their hips. He leads priests away stripped and overthrows the mighty. He deprives of speech those who are trusted and takes away the discernment of the elders. He pours contempt on princes and loosens the belt of the strong. He uncovers the deeps out of darkness and brings deep darkness to light. He makes nations great, and he destroys them; he enlarges nations, and leads them away. He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth and makes them wander in a trackless waste. They grope in the dark without light, and he makes them stagger like a drunken man.

The testimony of Scripture leaves us with no uncertain conclusion: God’s sovereignty is not passive distance but active rule, guiding history and our very lives according to His will and purpose.

In the words of Charles Spurgeon,

"I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes — that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit, as well as the sun in the heavens — that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence — the fall of sere leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche."

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892)