A.W. Tozer Chapter Twenty Two: The Sovereignty of God

Excerpts from Chapter 22:

Opening Prayer

“Who wouldst not fear Thee, O Lord God of Hosts, most high and most terrible? For Thou art Lord alone. Thou has made heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth and all things that are therein, and in Thy hand is the soul of every living thing, Thou sittest king upon the flood; yea, Thou sittest king forever. Thou art a great king over all the earth. Thou art clothed with strength; honor and majesty are before Thee. Amen.”

When I think of God’s sovereignty I think of a portion from C.S. Lewis’s classic, “The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe”. The account below focuses on the question “who is Aslan?” I hope you can follow my thought. Take a read.

“Is he a man?” asked Lucy.

“Aslan a man!” said Mr Beaver sternly. Certainly not. I tell you he is King of the wood and the son of the great emperor-beyond- the-sea. Don’t you know who is the King of the Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great lion.”

“ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake” said Mrs Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

- Source: CS Lewis, The Lion, the Witch & The Wardrobe –

The point I want to draw attention to here is the term Susan and Lucy use to describe Aslan; “Is he - quite safe?” Safeness along with all its connotations of reliability, security and control, has a sense about it that is not flattering to Aslan’s nature, nor God’s nature given the point of the story. The implication of Susan’s question reveals a common human concern of self, ‘is he safe to me… to us?’ However the decisions which must follow these estimations rise from our continual effort to grasp control. Many people have many different ideas about safety and ‘safe conditions’ that all relate back to there own, (and those of the people and things they value), sense of familiarity, comfort and management ability. Safety, in the carnal man’s mindset, is in the ‘hand’ and ‘eye of the beholder.’

To keep it short, one measures risk based on many factors: ones personal competence, evaluation of those risks, costs and the rewards, etc. In fact many people (with the exception of fools perhaps) wouldn’t even venture into these testing territories unless they could conclusively satisfy the secret interest behind all of these concerns; ‘What about me?’ ‘Can I manage?’ or better, ‘Can I mange that?’ Either way the emphasis is on the individual controlling the situation in order to influence the outcome to some favorable degree. This idea of control discloses itself through one of two assessments or sometimes both: ones ability to withstand (type of self control) or overpower it. Either way the problem is that one looks centrally to their own abilities and is focused on their own interests.

The truth is there is no withstanding or overcoming Aslan. It seems that beaver got rightfully perturbed at the children’s question and wanted to set the matter straight about who is in control and who is in authority. “Safe?” said Mr Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe…” That is to say Aslan isn’t manageable. He isn’t controllable nor will he be manipulated or handled. We like to ‘handle’ things. You cannot withstand him nor overcome him. Aslan is in charge – end of story. No, the only reassuring fact that beaver can offer is found in the character of Aslan’s person. “… he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” Beaver shifts the attention of Lucy & Susan from off themselves to where the attention should be... on Aslan. Aslan is both good in all he is and does and he has the power and authority to secure his will without the aid or acquiescence of any other. Aslan is to be cherished above all... even personal safety.

The sovereignty of God grants us security, hope, faith, courage, joy and strength in adversity because, and only because, we know this sovereignty of God, His control, is driven by the essence of His ‘goodness’. All that he does is good because He is good. Those are the benefits God’s sovereignty gives us. End of story.

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” - Romans 8:28.
 

“His sovereignty requires that He be absolutely free, which means simply that He must be free to do whatever He wills to do anywhere at any time to carry out His eternal purpose in every single detail without interference. Were He less than free He must be less than sovereign.”

“To grasp the idea of unqualified freedom requires a vigorous effort of the mind. We are not psychologically conditioned to understand freedom except in its imperfect forms. Our concepts of it have been shaped in a world where no absolute freedom exists. Here each natural object is dependent upon many other objects, and that dependence limits its freedom. Wordsworth at the beginning of his “Prelude” rejoiced that he had escaped the city where he had long been pent up and was “now free, free as a bird to settle where I will.” But to be free a bird is not to be free at all. The naturalist knows that the supposedly free bird actually lives its entire life in a cage made of fears, hungers, and instincts; it is limited by weather conditions, varying air pressures, the local food supply, predatory beasts, and that strangest of all bonds, the irresistible compulsion to stay within the small plot of land and air assigned it by birdland comity. The freest bird is, along with every other created thing, held in constant check by a net of necessity. Only God is free.”

“Another real problem created by the doctrine of the divine sovereignty has to do with the will of man. If God rules His universe by His sovereign decrees, how is it possible for man to exercise free choice? And if he can not exercise freedom of choice, how can he be held responsible for his conduct? Is he not a mere puppet whose actions are determined by a behind-the-scenes God who pulls the strings as it pleases Him? The attempt to answer these questions has divided the Christian church neatly into two camps, which have borne the names of two distinguished theologians, Jacobus Arminius and John Calvin. Most Christians are content to get into one camp or the other and deny either sovereignty to God or free will to man. It appears possible, however, to reconcile these two positions without doing violence to either, although the effort that follows may prove deficient to partisans of one camp or the other. Here is my view: God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, “What doest thou?” Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.”

“Toward all this God is moving with infinite wisdom and perfect precision of action. No one can dissuade Him from His purposes; nothing turn Him aside from His plans. Since He is omniscient, there can be no unforeseen circumstances, no accidents. As He is sovereign, there can be no countermanded orders, no breakdown in authority; and as He is omnipotent, there can be no want of power to achieve His chosen ends. God is sufficient unto Himself for all these things.”

“We must all choose whether we will obey the gospel or turn away in unbelief and reject its authority. Our choice is our own, but the consequences of the choice have already been determined by the sovereign will of God, and from this there is no appeal.”

Psalm 2

“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us."