Yes, God is in control – of everything. Here’s how
One of the most timeless issues in Christian theology, among believers and unbelievers, is how God can be both all-loving and all-powerful.
How can God have sovereign control over the events of history when so many of them are evil, horrible atrocities, or disasters of mass tragedy? How can anyone say He has power over the free will of men when some of them rape children? If He is all-powerful, why doesn’t He heal people who are dying of various diseases, including Christians?
Since most people will affirm the great love of God, that leaves His power as the target of doubt. If God is all-loving, many have said, He can’t be all-powerful.
Even many Christians who would affirm God’s authority in a legal sense say that doesn’t extend to practical sovereignty. For example, author Jason Clark wrote a book titled God Is Not in Control. The back cover includes these quotes from well-known charismatic preachers:
“God is not in control, but He is in charge.” — Bill Johnson, leader of the mega-popular Bethel Church in Redding, California
“God is sovereign and God is in control are two different thoughts; they are two totally different things.” — Todd White
“The belief that God controls everything that happens to us is one of the devil’s biggest inroads into our lives.” — Andrew Wommack
As you can see, “control” may be one of the most hated words among certain professing Christians.
What is control?
If by control they mean God proactively causing all things to happen, I agree with them. I, too, would not believe that God causes a man to rape a child, as if he wouldn’t otherwise. God does not tempt anyone to commit evil, James 1:13 says. He is not the author of sin.
Some of the people who deny God’s control agree that God allows sin to occur, and they characterize His permission as passive relative to the free will of men. But I wonder how many of them ponder the meaning of His permission, given His attributes — specifically, His omniscience and omnipotence.
If God is absolutely omniscient, He has perfect knowledge of the future, including everything that will happen. If He is absolutely omnipotent over every atom in the universe, every second of history, and every neuron in our minds, then He has the ability to control or, at the very least, stop a foreseen event from happening.
Therefore, if a certain act occurs, which God foresaw and had the power to prevent, that means He intentionally chose not to stop that act. He determined that it would happen. Is that not control? Is that not God ordaining and decreeing what takes place?
In fact, one way God steers the course of events is by loosening His restraint on them. He controls by withdrawing His control. Three times in Romans 1, Paul writes that God gave sinners over to their sin. “Gave” is not a passive verb; God changed something. Psalm 81 says:
11 “But My people would not heed My voice,
And Israel would have none of Me.
12 So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart,
To walk in their own counsels.
See also: Who hardened Pharaoh’s heart? Check the scoreboard
What God can control, He does control. By definition. His permission is just as deterministic as direct causation.
Some people may realize this and accordingly conform their beliefs about God’s attributes to that realization. For example, open theists deny God’s omniscience of the future, rendering Him unable to stop evil acts from occurring. Others believe in “dynamic omniscience,” that His knowledge is not exhaustive. I would submit that these people are more consistent in their reasoning; if they want to truly deny God control and make Him a helpless observer, they need to limit His knowledge of the future and/or ability to stop its events.
What the Bible says
Of course, when it comes to God’s attributes, no man is the final authority — only God Himself — and He has bountifully revealed the scope of His sovereignty in His word, the Bible. Scripture makes an overwhelmingly clear, slam-dunk case for the absolute power of God:
Whatever the Lord pleases He does,
In heaven and in earth,
In the seas and in all deep places.
Psalm 135:6
Remember the former things of old,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
Saying, “My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure.”
Isaiah 46:9-10
All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing;
He does according to His will in the army of heaven
And among the inhabitants of the earth.
No one can restrain His hand
Or say to Him, “What have You done?”
Daniel 4:35
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.
Ephesians 1:11
… for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
Philippians 2:13
He does whatever He pleases, according to His will. He declares the future. No one has any power over Him. Thus says the Lord. He even upholds all of existence:
And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
Colossians 1:17
… upholding all things by the word of His power …
Hebrews 1:3
See also this list of hundreds of Biblical examples of God exercising His absolute sovereignty, including over the will and actions of men. Not to mention that He spoke the universe into existence and maintains it. It has not gotten away from Him.
Power and love
How, then, do we reconcile that with His love? That would be the topic of another discussion, one that I may not be able to fully grasp, no more than I can wrap my head around the vast complexity of His providence. I, too, have cried out, how can You allow this? From Job to the psalmists to Paul, God doesn’t hesitate to show us how much His people have struggled with understanding His ways.
But I trust the Lord completely, and a big reason I trust Him is His absolute sovereignty. How could I worship Him otherwise? The reality that God permits the worst sins and catastrophes when He can stop them can be hard to comprehend, but even more disturbing would be the idea that He can’t stop them. There is no more frightening thought to me than God being helpless. If any creature or force had any advantage over God, it would be better to worship it. Without His absolute authority, God’s love would be impotent. Only a God who has all power is worthy of all praise and all glory.
One of the worst things we can do when forming our theology is to lower our view of God — to make Him weaker or less able in our eyes — to get Him to fit what we want to believe. That was the indictment against the Israelites in Psalm 78:41:
Yes, again and again they tempted God,
And limited the Holy One of Israel.
They didn’t actually limit God — no one can, as Scripture says above — but they limited Him in their eyes. They thought He was lesser than He was.
The almighty sovereignty of the Most High God must be the foundational truth around which every other belief revolves. Many Christians would say that about God’s love. I wouldn’t dispute that at all, but only say that those two things are never in conflict. Emphasizing His sovereignty doesn’t minimize His love in any way; in fact, it is emphasizing His love, too. It’s defining His love as He does.
Thank God that He controls everything. That’s how I know He has saved me. In His great love, He conquered me. He overpowered me. He declared my eternity. According to the counsel of His will and His good pleasure, He worked in me to give Him all praise and glory.
