God's Sovereignty and Holiness

God's holy sovereignty means he is in control of everything. God's holiness means he is set apart from sin and evil. Does God's holiness limit God's sovereignty? The answer is yes. For the Bible says that there are things that God cannot do.

God cannot lie. God cannot be tempted by evil therefore he temps no one to do evil. So it's clear that while God is all-powerful and sovereign his holiness limits that attribute.

So the idea that God causes evil in the world (as in God causing a man to rape an 8 year old girl) is ridiculous. All evil comes from the evil one, everything good and every perfect gift comes from the God of Heaven.

So when we look at man's free will and responsibilities we see that God does not need to control everything including man's will. God gave Adam and Eve the ability to choose right and wrong, to obey or disobey. This ability to choose does not violate God's Sovereign control of everything. In his sovereignty he decided to allow Adam and Eve the ability to choose obedience or rebellion. They chose rebellion.

In God's sovereignty, holiness, and gracious love he decided long ago that He would send his only Son to die on a cross to redeem those whom would believe. There is no doubt that every person must be touched by the Holy Spirit in order to come to faith in Christ, it is still their choice to believe and be saved or to reject and be eternally condemned.

There is no contradiction between God's sovereignty and man's ability and responsibility to choose Him. How all this worked out in the spiritual realm we might never know with complete precision. 

However we do now that our God is sovereign, and that His sovereignty is limited by his holiness, and that because of his loving grace we have the ability to be with him in heaven through faith in Christ.

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