“The heaven … the Eternal holds himself, the earth He has assigned to men.”
(Ps 115:16, MT)
One often finds that theologians who theorize the sovereignty of God as an attribute of his personality also see it as set apart from his other personal characteristics. We know God is also kind. Kindness is a clear characteristic of God’s personality (Ps 103:8). But then He is also righteous (Dan 9:14), another characteristic of His personality. These two characteristics, for example, should be seen as a paradox, a seeming contradiction that implies the co-existence of both, without excluding facets of the other. This is also true for various other characteristics of his personality.
All of Scripture is studded with different perspectives on the sovereignty of God. See for instance a Scripture such as Ps 135:6 – “Whatever the LORD pleases He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places.” In Dan 4:35 it is stated clearly – “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?’”
Yet this is not the complete picture. Paul writes in 1 Cor 3:9 that believers are also “fellow workers of God”. A “fellow worker” in the original Greek is sunergos, a combination of the words working and with. But Strongs defines with as follows – “A primary preposition denoting union; with or together … that is, by association, companionship, process, resemblance, possession, instrumentality, addition, etc.: – beside, with. In compounds it has similar applications, including completeness.”
Human beings are thus complete partners with God in all matters on earth. We already know that He does not control the earth (1 John 5:19), only the sons of God (Rom 8:14) make his will manifest. He does nothing without first announcing it to his prophets (Luke 1:70; 2 Pet 1:21). As He is love and cannot ignore the will of man (or that of other spiritual beings) he CHOOSES, as is His personality, to not act except through his sons on earth. In other words – by choice God can do nothing on earth except through his children.
This is a shocking truth.
God is thus only the King in his Kingdom through us, who are seated in the heavens within Christ, seated at the right hand of God, exercising his authority from there (Eph 2:6). This is His choice! From the beginning, from the days of Adam, this was God’s choice for man – read Gen 1:26-28, and Ps 8:3-8. Verse 6 says – “You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet.”
The Hebrew word for dominion implies “(to be a) manager, steward, governor, mediator, go-between, representative”! Ps 115:16 (Moffatt Translation) clearly spells it out – “The heaven … the Eternal holds himself, the earth He has assigned to men.” Dutch Sheets formulates it as follows – “So complete and final was God’s decision to do things on earth through human beings that it cost God the Incarnation to regain what Adam gave away.”
- Sela: Explain God’s sovereignty to another.
- Read: Lev 17; Hag 1; Isa 57
- Memorise: Hag 1:6
- For a deeper understanding: Read p 622 on the dilemma of “Sovereignty” in FJ Dake’s God’s plan for man.
