God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Responsibility

Romans 9 is one of the most important chapters in the Bible when it comes to how we ought to view the basic relationship between man and God. It really ought to shape everything about how we view His sovereignty as well as our response.

When I was younger if I had been asked to explain what it means that God is sovereign and I am responsible – my answer would have been saturated with self-determination – you would have heard about my works, my efforts, my worthiness. My ideas did not come from the Bible, just my own reasoning on how things must be. I was absorbed in the independent, self-sufficient, self-esteeming, self-exalting air that you and I all breathe every day of our lives in America. I took my views with me to college, just a kid trying to figure things out, thinking I was just fine, justifying myself daily, & not following Jesus. The sovereignty of God to me back then meant He could do anything He wanted with me that I allowed Him to. As long as I gave permission for Him to act, He could do anything He wanted. Like the poem Invictus, I wanted to be the captain of my soul. I cherished and ended up worshipping human autonomy and the supposed ultimate self-determination of my will. The ultimate in self-delusion. I didn’t even know how wrong I was. I was acting as if I was sovereign over my life & I lived for a long time like that. I even had my worldview affirmed by well-meaning but mistaken Christians who essentially held the same view.

But then God did something in my heart that changed my mind. Through some painful circumstances, and dramatic failings on my part, He gave me a good look at the reality of my own inability to run my life, my utter failings in being my own savior and the foolishness of trying to act sovereign in my own life. It was not an easy time for me. My self-sufficient, man-centered worldview was crumbling all around me. I did not know it at the time, but God was bringing me to the end of myself so I would see how utterly inadequate I was and how sufficient He was. God put me in waters I couldn’t navigate and I had to admit that I was up a creek without a paddle, guilty before a Holy God, utterly unable to help myself. I fought it long enough and finally yielded to the truth – I believed the gospel message. and the truth set me free. I no longer wanted to fight against God and His Word. I did not know what was happening at the time – but looking back, I began to see what had really taken place. I was spiritually dead and He made me alive. Jesus brought my dead soul to life. He gave me faith as a gift, and I responded to Him by faith. God’s sovereign hand of grace had been and was guiding me.

At other points in my life, over the past 28 years of knowing Christ, there have been times when God took me through the pain of painful self-examination and the horror of a fresh look at my sinful condition and my utter inability to do anything apart from Christ; a process that always leads to a deeper appreciation of the gospel and a fuller trust in the sufficiency of Christ. It is a process God takes His children through, of humbling and deepening and gracious and merciful love and comfort that comes when the clouds part & Christ’s assurance envelops our souls.

I have 2 reasons for sharing these things: 1. To praise God for His wonderful grace. 2. To introduce a subject that is not an easy one to navigate. I am going to try to explain some things that only those in Christ can understand and often find it difficult to understand. I know. These are not easy things to grasp – but they are gifts from God meant for us to believe deeply by faith.

This is a huge topic that generates lots of feelings and emotions. It is a sensitive topic and an element of mystery surrounds it. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but some may find that what they have been believing is less than Biblical. Others may find that they have put a thin veneer of looking like a Christian over an unsaved heart. Or, you may realize that what you have believed all along is in line with the Bible you just didn’t know how to explain it. God may give you new works to share with others in need of the same grace.

When it comes to God’s Sovereignty and man’s responsibility, I think we make it a much more complicated, confusing and combustible topic than it actually is. The idea of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility boils down to a simple statement: God is over all and man is under God. God is in control and we are not and we answer to Him. He will call us to account not the other way around. Many deny this Biblical truth. No Christian in their right mind would deny the sovereignty of God, nor would they deny the responsibility of man. But many pit them against each other as if they are mutually exclusive or in competition for supremacy. I hope you will see God’s Sovereignty & Man’s Responsibility are scripturally in perfect harmony.

God’s election of believers, human will, God’s justice, His sovereignty and human responsibility are all in Romans 9, but not for their own sake, in context they answer a burning question: how can God’s people Israel be accursed and cut off from Christ if God’s Word is trustworthy? That is the issue this chapter addresses, and in the process we see God’s sovereignty as well as man’s responsibility. Romans 9 explains why, even though people reject Him, God’s Word has not failed. God’s sovereign grace is the ground of His faithfulness in spite of Israel’s rejection – and the foundation for Romans 8. God is faithful to His Word.

Romans 9:3 tells us Israel is accursed and cut off from Christ but God had promised in Jer. 31:33 that they would be His people and He would be their God. Paul answers in v. 6 that it is not as though the Word of God has failed. His explanation takes him into the realm of God’s sovereignty over human will. He says they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. True Israel consists of the children of promise. The example of Jacob and Esau shows God’s ultimate sovereignty in choosing who will receive the promise. This raises a question of God’s justice that Paul also asnwers. Is God unfair? Absolutely not. It is ultimately God’s free sovereign choice of grace, He is free to choose whom He wills and harden whom He wills, it doesn’t depend on man. And He is just in doing so. A big mystery to us but true nonetheless.

We are dealing with the Infinite and Finite: God and Man. The Bible teaches God’s Sovereignty as well as man’s responsibility. The first is a great doctrinal truth that stands as the capstone and pinnacle of all great biblical truths. The other is a fact of life, a biblical truth that causes us to take an honest look at our condition before God and our response to Him as we realize that we will be held accountable for our thoughts, words and actions. 2 seemingly contradictory truths to finite minds. Like oil and water how could they go together? Many have tried to figure it out and in the process overemphasized one to the exclusion of the other. What results is error of some kind. It is what happens when finite man meets infinite God and tries to explain the infinite in finite terms. We end up going further than the Bible does; misconstruing the biblical teaching and God's intent. If we overemphasize God's sovereignty it seems we make men into puppets. If we overemphasize man's responsibility we make God into one. While both errors are harmful, the 2nd is worse since it essentially makes man God. & both diminish a true knowledge of God as they deny certain biblical truths and grossly enlarge others.

God's sovereignty. In Romans 9:5 you have God over all. He rules as King over all. He has authority over all. He is the maker, sustainer and ruler over all. As Ps. 103:19 says the Lord established His throne in the heavens; and His sovereignty rules over all. When we say God, You are God & I am not – we acknowledge His sovereignty & our responsibility to Him. Without this great doctrine everything falls down. It is helpful to identify what God is sovereign over. That is easy. Everything. If not, he is not sovereign. He rules as king over all. Nothing and no one is above him. No one gives him orders. Rom. 11:33-36, Job 42:1-3. No one can tell God what to do or be in charge of Him. He is all powerful, all knowing, all present. He is awesome and inspires shock and awe from his subjects. None greater. But we live in a culture where the Sovereignty of God is regularly rejected and man’s so-called autonomy (read pseudo-sovereignty) is flaunted. God is good, allowing in mercy, grace and his grace wisdom, in His design for his human subjects to think, act and operate in the world he created, in such a way that they can blame no one for their actions.

We call it Man's responsibility or accountability. Man under God. Rom. 3:19 says all the world accountable to God. No one can blame God or any other man for his own actions and choices. Those in heaven will praise God’s grace, give God all the glory; those in hell will have no one to blame but themselves. Man is not responsible to choose himself to be saved or give himself life, or do any of God's things. He will be held acceptable by God for the things God expects from him. What will God hold us accountable for? Our sin; our response to God; our thoughts, words & actions.

The discussion of man's responsibility often gets sticky when the discussion turns to free will. Free will = choosing according to our desires. Jonathan Edwards in The Freedom of the Will, defined the will as that by which the mind chooses. Humans make choices. We have free will. We need to know what our will is free to choose.

First we need to discuss God’s will, What He wants, purposes and does. God’s will is both Hidden and Revealed Paul dives into the deep end of the pool in 9:11 God’s purpose of election. In the context of Salvation what God accomplishes on the basis of the shed blood of Christ and not on the basis of any human work or merit John 1:12, Eph. 2:8-10. Election is the act of God whereby God, before the foundation of the world, chose in Christ who He would save. The biblical teaching that says that God chooses and knows who will be saved. Not that he looked down the corridor of time and knew what we would choose, but that of His own free will chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Eph. 1:4-10, Rom. 8:28-30. It does not cancel out or contradict the responsibility of man to repent and believe, trusting Christ as Savior and Lord Jn 3:18-19, 36; 5:40; 2 Thess. 2:10-12. 9:19 He has the right as Potter over the clay to do whatever He wants. We have trouble wrapping our finite minds around this truth. But it stands; mysterious in many ways, but true. I came across something I wrote 25 years ago while in seminary in 1985...a paper on the doctrine of election, The doctrine of election is grounds for encouragement. There is great encouragement in knowing that the work of God is initiated and sustained by God himself. There is also excitement in knowing that as His instruments God chooses and uses people He has brought into a saving relationship with Himself through Jesus Christ. For the outworking of His purposes, God couples His omniscience and omnipotence with the efforts of His people energized with power by the Holy Spirit. Here is an interesting point: God uses the elect to reach the elect. Those who know Jesus personally are sent out to reach those who are not yet aware of their future standing with God. And God leaves this a mystery to those He sends. He knows. He shows. We offer the gospel to any who will receive it. Some accept what God has done, others reject it. 'The Lord knows those who are His...' 2 Timothy 2:19. The doctrine of election goes together with the universal offer of salvation. In fact, 'the doctrine of election is never taught apart from the universal offer of salvation'.

It is interesting that the Holy Spirit seems to have been anticipating objections. Paul faces them head on in Rom. 9: 1, 6, 14, 19. These ideas run contrary to our finite minds and our self-centered thinking that comes so naturally for us. Questions confront us as we leave this subject for now: Will the blood-bought promises of God that purchased our freedom hold? Will God keep His Word to us? Will He truly work all things together for our good? Will th predestined be called, will the called be justified, will the justified be sanctified and glorified? Is there really no condemnation for those in Christ? I am so thankful Rom. 9 follows Rom. 8: God’s Word has not failed; His covenant with Israel has not failed just because they have been unfaithful to Him – why? Because it is grounded in God’s sovereignty – the will upholding our will. The promises of God in Rom. 8 stand based on the message of Rom. 9. The promises purchased by the blood of Christ will be performed by the sovereign hand of God. How humbling to stand in this truth.