The Sovereignty of God -- and sin (19b)

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Greetings to our forum members,
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In my last installment I was answering some questions that had been raised in connection with my assertion that God’s kindness, mercy, grace, etc. are shown by God only to His elect, and that the reprobate wicked are never in any sense of the word the objects of these delightful attributes of God. The questions inquired into the possibility of kindness and grace to the reprobate wicked, which would make God less tyrannical, hateful and even cruel towards men.
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A few more things have to be said about this matter before we can move on; and, indeed, other questions included in the letter have to be answered. I am glad that I can address these problems and questions that arise in the minds of our readers, not only because they are necessary questions, but also because they are asked, not in the spirit of confrontation, but expressing a desire to learn of these things more completely. The questions give such an opportunity and it is my prayer that the answers will help as well. We shall pursue this matter a bit further.
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It is difficult for us, mere men and sinners as well, to take sin seriously. We are seemingly so accustomed to sin, also in our own lives, that we are frequently unaware of it, or if we are aware of it, we tend to brush it aside lightly. The world has constructed a false doctrine about the non-existence of sin; and the apostatizing church has bought into worldly philosophy in its efforts to minimize sin. Divorce and remarriage are no sins; Sabbath desecration is no sin; wrong doctrine is to be tolerated; “minor” lapses in conduct are to be overlooked; “white lies” are a necessary part of life; and such evils as materialism, worldliness, feminism, not to mention such horrible sins as immorality and homosexuality, are opening practiced and generally accepted as a normal part of life. Our tendency is, as we are also affected by the world, to become insensitive to sin and thus come to a position where sin is tolerated.
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Such a cavalier attitude towards sin influences our thinking, and the result is that sin is no longer the horrible monster that Scripture makes it. Scripture points out in blistering language that not only sin as sinful words, deeds, thoughts and desires is abhorrent to God, but also that we are, apart from grace, sinful people, with depraved natures who can only be described in terms of being clothed with filthy rags (Is. 64:6, literally, menstrual rags), covered with pus-dripping sores (Is. 1:6), leprous from top to bottom, and such other graphic illustrations. We have sinful natures that are totally depraved and for which there is no cure – outside the balm of Gilead. These sinful natures, the source of a river of sewage, are also our responsibility before God. We have winked cheerfully at our reflection in the mirror as we contemplate our own favorable features, but God sees, apart from Christ, repulsive people whom His soul abhors.
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The measure of the seriousness of our sins in the eyes of God is to be found in the impenetrable depths of the suffering of the Son of God. God gave His Son to an awful cross! Why? God takes sin seriously, for He is a holy God. God will give His beloved Son to hell’s degradation and agony to satisfy His fury against sin. One who bows in shame at the foot of the cross realizes how dreadful sin is. My wife and I were reading in our devotions that sad book of Lamentations 4. If God deals so harshly as there described by the prophet, with His people, how must He deal with the wicked? (I Peter 4:17, 18 asks the same rhetorical question.)
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All this judgment of God against sin is in no way eased by an appeal to the sovereignty of God. God is sovereign. His sovereignty does not mean that we are not responsible for our sin. We are! Every sinner knows it – deep down, where he will not even permit himself to venture in his own thoughts. In the judgment day when all stand before the white throne of Christ, not one sinner will open his mouth in protestation. Hell is the anguish that it is, because it is the endless memory of our sins for which we are to blame and for which we now suffer.
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The decree of reprobation is also sovereign. Reprobation does not imply that God’s eternal, all-wise, sovereignly good and holy decree is the cause of sin. Reformed people have turned away in horror at such a thought. But it does mean that God sovereignly accomplishes His purpose in damning the wicked in the way of man’s sin, so that God remains sovereign over sin, but also everlastingly free from sin’s blot or guilt. Even reprobation underscores the seriousness of sin.
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Is your response: “I cannot understand these things”? I did not keep track of how many times I was asked about these things during the years of my ministry, but I think I am correct when I say that in my catechetical instruction over the years, no single question has been more frequently asked by catechumens in doctrine classes than the question: How does one harmonize God’s sovereignty, which includes sovereignty over sin, with man’s responsibility?
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It is not my intention to go into this question in this letter. I only want to emphasize one point: Both God’s sovereignty (also over sin) and man’s responsibility are so clearly taught in Scripture, and so frequently in the same breath, (See Acts 2:23 and 4:26, 27 as only two examples), that they cannot be denied. Nor can we dismiss these two ideas with the off-handed remark that they are mutually exclusive, and contradictory; they are not. They fit together without contradiction. – even if we cannot understand fully how this is possible. God is absolutely sovereign – even over sin; I am a wretched, hell-bound sinner; I receive what I deserve when judgment comes. I need Christ. I shall cling to Him.
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I stress these things, because, in the final analysis we must be God-centered in our thinking, not man-centered. We can have such feelings of sympathy in our hearts for mankind and such horror at the thought of everlasting hell that we turn away with the shivering comment: “Such things cannot possibly be true of God. He would not take a baby out of this life. He would not put a man in hell where there is anguish and pain forever. He would not send tornados and tsunamis that kill thousands.” Such language ought never to cross the lips of one who fears God.
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God is God! He is the Holy One who inhabits eternity. He is infinitely above us. We cannot climb the ladder of our own thinking and reasoning to find God and describe Him. He dwells in an unsearchable light. He is beyond finding out. If we would collect the knowledge of all God’s faithful servants, what the church of all ages has collectively said of God and His works, into one whole, it is less than a thimble full of water in comparison with all the oceans of the earth. He made them all! He set their bounds! He controls their movements! He is God.
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“O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” (Rom. 9:20). And this comes after, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (9:13). “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (vs. 13). “So it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (vs. 16). “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth” (vs. 18).
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Before such a great God we can do nothing but fall on our faces and worship.
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It is no wonder that men from the church, men who ought to be spending their time defending the great name of God, are ashamed to confess God’s absolute sovereignty. And, almost inevitably, when these churchmen launch their attacks against a God-centered theology in some vain hope of rescuing man from his shame and degradation, their attacks are against the doctrine of sovereign reprobation. They apparently consider this doctrine the Achilles’ heel of true Reformed theology. They do this, it would seem, to appeal to the sympathies of men without regard for the transcendent greatness of the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth.
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Calvin’s theology was centered in God’s glory. His enemies called him a “God-intoxicated man”. He was, they said, “drunk with God.” They meant it as a slur. It is the highest of all compliments. Would God we had more God-intoxicated men today.
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There are no other options available to us: either we are “God-intoxicated” or we are man-intoxicated. The latter will lead to forming our own images of God in our own minds, but images nonetheless; images as awful as Baal, Moloch or Ashtaroth.
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Who by searching can find out God? We may be puzzled by problems that arise in our own minds concerning truths Scripture sets down, but what of all the works of God can you and I understand? Do you understand how God forms a baby in its mother’s womb? Do you understand that God creates wine by causing vines to produce grapes? Do you understand how a blade of grass grows, nourished by the dirt? I do not. Nor does anyone. I am not disturbed by my inability to understand the ways of a sovereign God. To try by refusing to believe Scripture’s teachings is to be kinder, more beneficent, more gracious than God Himself is. But God will not allow Himself to be squeezed into molds of our devising.
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Let us then join the company of saints in all ages and say with them, “Oh God, how great thou art!”
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With warmest regards,
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Prof Hanko