What really is God’s sovereignty other than something theologians argue about? And how does He express it? This study seeks to find the answer from a different perspective. Instead of argument about whether God’s sovereign will can override man’s will or not, this paper will seek to see it in terms of God’s ultimate purpose and how He will achieve that.

To start with, the Bible is overwhelmingly clear that God Himself is sovereign, that what He decrees comes to pass and that there is no other god beside Him. As He says, He is “a just God and a Saviour, there is none beside Me” (Isaiah 45:21).

Yet, for centuries furious debate has raged over whether God orders and ordains every event, including sin and rebellion against Him (the Calvinists), or whether  He allows people free will to choose or reject God and his offered salvation (most Christians of non-Calvinist persuasion).

So, does God order and predetermine all events (which would mean God is responsible for sin) or does He largely let mankind go its own way? He is certainly on record for letting unbelieving nations welter in idolatry for thousands of years while He “winked at the times of this ignorance” (Acts 17:30).

What is missing from the debate, in my view, is not whether God is sovereign or not, but rather; how He expresses and executes his sovereignty. And for that – yes, you guessed it – I’m once again to suggest a dispensational answer.

To say it again, the real issue is not whether God is sovereign or not. He is even though most of humanity rebels against Him and most refuse to acknowledge his existence. Rather, the question is: How does Almighty God exercise his sovereignty?

For example, how will God, Creator of all and Saviour of all that believe Him, bring to an end to sin, death and human defiance of Him and bring in the state of holy harmony and peace He has promised through his prophets?

Certainly, if God is who He says He is, He will one day “wipe away all tears” and bring the earth and those live on it in to complete and loving harmony with Himself (Rev. 21:3-4).

Fact is God has spoken, saying the thing which He purposes shall come to pass and nothing will stop it. As Isaiah 46: 9-10 declares:

For I AM God and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times, the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure.

Just what his ultimate pleasure is is a secret He only revealed to the Apostle Paul thousands of years later. It is recorded in Eph. 1:9-10:

Having made known unto us the mystery [secret now revealed] of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in Himself. That in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in ONE all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him.

Notice the word DISPENSATION there. The Greek word okonomia means the rules for management or stewardship of a household (oikos, a house, nomos, a law). And here, according to Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words:

…it is used of the arrangement or administration by God by which ‘in the fullness of times’ (or seasons) God will sum up all things in the heavens and on earth in Christ.

What’s more “dispensationalism”, (the scriptural study of what God does in the different ages and dispensations) is described as “godly” in 1 Tim. 1:4. Thus 1 Tim. 1:3-4 says:

That thou mightiest charge some that they teach no other doctrine [than a dispensational understanding]. Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than GODLY EDIFYING.

Here the word for “edifying”, oikodomia, correctly translated, means dispensationalism. That is believing that God will do all He has promised through a series of dispensations, or different ages in which God acts differently toward mankind. Paul urges believers to be noting these distinctions in faith, rather than giving heed to “fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions”.

So, if you want to live “godly” then “be a dispensationalist by learning to “rightly divide the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15).

Now to the question: How does God Almighty exercise his sovereignty? The answer is that He does so through a series of pre-determined dispensations or ages, each designed to bring blessing and salvation to mankind. Even though humanity largely rejects such changes, the ages to come will see…

Every knee bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10-11, Isaiah 45:23).

And when that happens everyone will personally be brought face to face with the full power and glory of God’s sovereignty. They will be compelled to surrender by the power of the Lord’s love when He is revealed in his full glory, which is indeed his love.

To see this we need to recognise that Almighty God, the Lord Jesus Christ, long ago created before they came into effect each age or dispensation that has been or is to come. And that He is the one speaking now whether directly through his words in scripture or through his apostles, Peter, Paul and John. Thus Heb. 1:2 tells us:

(God) hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son, who He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom He also made the worlds (Greek aion, ages or eons) as in Heb. 11:3:

Through faith we understand the worlds were framed by the Word of God (Jesus Christ), so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

Wow! If creating the different dispensations in advance and then bringing them into effect according to his predetermined plan of the ages isn’t God exercising his full sovereignty then I don’t know what is.

John Dudley Aldworth

 Email: john.aldworth@hotmail.com

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