What Does It Mean That God Is Sovereign?

by R.C. Sproul

The first big question that ancient philosophers asked was “What is motion?” The next two questions were “What is life?” and “What is being?” Those were the three great mysteries of antiquity.

The oldest philosophical question is, Why is there something rather than nothing?

What God creates, He sustains and upholds by the power of His might. We understand that we can do nothing apart from the sustaining power of God, as the Apostle Paul said to the Athenians on Mars Hill: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

generally say that there are four ways that God is sovereign. He is sovereign over nature. He is sovereign over history and human affairs. And He is sovereign in His inherent right to impose obligations on His creatures, to say to them, “Thou shalt not do this” and “Thou shalt do that.” Do we believe that He has that sovereignty,

The only reason I can find in Scripture that any of us has faith is that it is given according to the good pleasure of God’s will. It pleased the Lord to rescue you from death, not because of any foreseen righteousness in you but according to the good pleasure of His will. And the only reason He did that was to honor His Son, to make Him the firstborn of many brethren and so that our Lord could see the travail of His soul and be satisfied. You are the gift of the Father to the Son, and the only merit that enters into this transaction is the merit of the Son, not yours and not mine.

The Bible warns us again and again that people may indeed profess faith in Christ without possessing that which they profess.

faith. When we’re engaged in evangelism, we have to remember that justification is by faith and not merely by a profession of faith. Paul said we are to confess the Lord with our lips, but we must, at the same time, believe with our hearts.

“No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (John 6:65).