Sometimes in life, there are realities you are vaguely aware of but don’t land in your consciousness with appropriate weight until later. That’s how it was with me when it came to God’s sovereignty. Yes, I heard about it in church, and yes, I knew it was true based on what the Bible taught, but it had not dawned on me, through my early years, how significant that attribute of God truly was.
It wasn’t until college that I came to grapple with this beautiful truth. I began engaging with the writings of men like John Piper, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, and J.I. Packer. Here I was confronted with the greatness of God and his supremacy over all things, working all things to the praise of his glory (Eph. 1:3–14). What had been a tangential topic in my mind became a beautiful front-and-center reality. God reigns over all. In this article, I plan to briefly define God’s sovereignty, describe how this doctrine relates to other attributes of God, warn against deviations, and then finally reflect on the devotional value of this glorious characteristic of God.
Definition
Let’s get more specific by defining sovereignty and examining where we see it in Scripture. That God is sovereign means that “he reigns effectually as Lord over all that he has made.”[1] Said differently, God’s sovereignty refers to his power of absolute self-determination as the ultimate, final, and complete authority over all things.[2] And, as the seventeenth-century theologian Turretin rightly notes, “God wills all created things not to make himself perfect (as if he stood in need of them), but to communicate himself and to manifest his glory and goodness in them. Hence, because he could be without them without any detriment to his happiness, he is said to will them freely.”[3]
1. Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Essentials of Reformed Systematic Theology (Wheaton: Crossway, 2025), 132.
2. John S. Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), 294.
3. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1997), 1:219.
So, God’s sovereignty is the biblical doctrine that the Lord is the supreme ruler over all reality, such that nothing that exists or occurs is outside his wise, purposeful governance, including creation, human choices, and salvation. God’s sovereign will freely determines the ordering of all things in accordance with his character and purposes, and as such, it is meticulous down to the smallest atom, not merely general in its extent.
This doctrine is found throughout Scripture, so we will need to limit the number of texts we examine for this article. First, we should note the obvious: God creates all things in accordance with his sovereign will (Gen. 1:1–2:3). Beyond creation, he exercises his sovereignty by orchestrating all things according to the same. King Nebuchadnezzar proclaims this:
34 At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever,
for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
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?” (Dan. 4:34–35)
Nothing and no one can thwart the purposes of God; he will bring them to pass. Unlike the false, lifeless gods of this world, the psalmist calmly states that our God is in the heavens and does all that he pleases (Ps. 115:3). There is no god besides him; he forms light and creates darkness, he is sovereign over both well-being and calamity (Isa. 45:7).
Additionally, he works all things in accordance with the counsel of his will, including in the realm of saving a people (Eph. 1:11). Consider two texts from the book of Acts, spoken by the apostle Peter and by Christians in Jerusalem, in relation to the saving work of Christ on the cross.
22 Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Acts 2:22–23, emphasis added).
27 . . 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, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. (Acts 4:27–28, emphasis added)
In the most egregious and wicked act ever perpetrated by men, we see the sovereign hand of God orchestrating redemption. This does not excuse man’s responsibility, as we will see, but it does demonstrate that God accomplishes his purposes and even does so while humanity commits acts of wickedness.
Finally, consider the scope of Revelation and the end of all things. God will bring to a close all that is, and he will be victorious over sin, Satan, and death. He will judge, he will cast into the lake of fire, and he will usher in a new creation. The entire book of Revelation is a glorious picture of the sovereign God receiving worship as he brings all things to a triumphant end. He is sovereign.
Doctrine
The glorious truth of God’s sovereignty is clarifying in one sense, but it also raises questions best answered in connection with other doctrines. First, one can consider the concept of providence. This, says theologian Stephen Wellum, is the idea that “God acts with foresight, thus emphasizing God’s prior knowledge of and plan for the world, along with his sovereign power to accomplish what he has decreed.”[4] Put simply, providence is purposeful sovereignty.[5] God directs all things toward the goal of his glory.
4. Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology: From Canon to Concept, vol. 1 (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2024), 862.
5. For more on this point, see John Piper, Providence (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020).
This connects to God acting in the preservation and governance of his creation. Preservation refers to God’s continuous, active supervision by which he maintains all things in existence that he has created (Deut. 33:25–28; Job 34:14–15; Ps. 104:19–20, 30; 107:9; 145:14–15; Matt. 10:29; Acts 17:28; Rom. 11:36; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3).[6] God upholds and sustains all things, nothing could exist apart from his sovereign work in this way. God also governs all of creation. That is, he directs all things to their appointed ends (Gen. 50:20; Ps. 29:10; Acts 17:24; Eph. 3:15; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:15; Rev. 1:6; 19:6).[7]
6. Wellum, Systematic Theology, 868.
7. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2021), 175.
As God sovereignly works through preservation and governance, he does so in a way that involves created beings. Wellum rightly notes, “God not only preserves all things; he also acts as the primary cause in and through all things, which function as secondary causes, but in such a way that he upholds each thing’s created integrity.”[8] This is known as concurrence. God acts in a primary way without violating the integrity and character of rational creatures. God is the primary agent; created beings are secondary agents, acting in ways that render them responsible while acknowledging God’s sovereign orchestration of all things, down to the granular details, in accordance with his will.[9]
8. Wellum, Systematic Theology, 871.
9. It is beyond the scope of this article to consider how this plays out in matters such as election, reprobation, divine sovereignty and human freedom, Calvinism and Arminianism, and how God relates to sin and evil. Standard works on systematic theology and doctrine of God will address these matters in greater detail. For a more comprehensive study of these and related matters, see Scott Christensen, What about Evil? A Defense of God’s Sovereign Glory (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2020); Scott Christensen, What about Free Will: Reconciling Our Choices with God’s Sovereignty (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2016).
Deviations
Briefly, one can observe that the biblical view of sovereignty stands against various false ideas seen in the doctrine of God. For example, the view espoused here would contradict process theism, the errant belief that “God is in the world and the world is in God,” which holds that there is “mutual interdependence” between God and his creation, thus calling into question God’s power and his need of nothing (aseity).[10] In the beliefs of open theism, God’s love and relationality demonstrate that God’s relationship to the world is dynamic, a mutual give-and-take in which he does not act coercively but merely persuades human beings in their freedom. Thus, God is not sovereign in the biblical sense, but rather his knowledge of future events is “open,” influenced by human choice and events in the world.[11] Such views, among others, also distort how the Bible portrays God’s relationship with evil.
10. Robert Letham, Systematic Theology (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 52.
We must deal with the biblical data, even when it raises paradoxes and complexities. We are finite creatures, called to submit to the truths of God’s Word. We cannot distort what is there; rather we must study earnestly, recognize we will not know all things as fallen creatures, and we must submit to the truth we see.
11. Wellum, Systematic Theology, 549.
Devotion
While the sovereignty of God as a concept and reality can raise some questions and even difficulties in our minds, Mark Jones helpfully reminds us that if God does not exercise his sovereign will over all things, then we are in a precarious position indeed. “God’s providence remains the work of an infinitely wise, good, and powerful God. Even when we cannot understand all the details of each story, we can nevertheless cast ourselves on the one who cannot act in a way contrary to who he is.”[12] God is sovereign, wise, and good; therefore, we can trust him, knowing that in the end he will eradicate all evil and bring us into his glory.
12. Mark Jones, God Is: A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2017), 124–25.
In the meantime, as we live now under his sovereign rule in a fallen world, Beeke and Smalley remind us that God’s sovereignty calls us to repent of our rebellion against him, trust his promises, fear him, humbly praise him, serve him, submit to him in sorrows, have hope for the salvation of others, and pray for great things.[13] This is not merely a doctrine to be analyzed and assessed. Sovereignty is an attribute of God, describing his very nature and how he operates in creation and in our lives. As such, we do well to study and let that meditation lead us to worship our triune, sovereign, good, wise, eternal God.
13. Beeke and Smalley, Essentials of Reformed Systematic Theology, 136–37.
