A Meditation on Sovereignty and Gospel

God’s sovereignty will always be offensive if you don’t love Him.

The fact that God is God, not merely a helpful spiritual sage or positive force of moral light we are free to access when useful, the fact that He is rightful ruler of everything and everyone everywhere is very unwelcome news to those who do not treasure Him.

We have a very man-centric ethos in this 21st century Western culture. God, if He exists, is the Benevolent Validator of all that I want to do and be. He is as soft and as malleable as I need Him to be. If I desire something He (or She or It) must of course approve. Affirm. Celebrate. Because God is love, and of course love is the celebration of all I desire. Which is to say God is whatever I desire.

Into this pagan mess sounds forth the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is that the King has died to give life to His traitors. He is God, He is Lord, and at His Name, before all is said and done, every last pair of knees in creation will bow. But of course at the outset of His coronation, this King Himself bowed. He did it to wash His friends’ feet. Like an ancient slave.

Bet your desires won’t do that for you.

God is sovereign, but in His sovereignty as Father and Son and Spirit He pledged Himself to die that the Son might pay the price for our sins and so glorify the Father. And the Son promised the Spirit to all who believe in Him that they would all be in Him and with the Three (who are one) forever. This is a God, understand. He asks no permission, and He will silence every objection.

And here is this adoring, truthful, breathtaking majesty that is God being born a man to die as a man so that men may no longer die. A sovereign, one with all authority in Heaven and Earth, descending to save us from our just desserts.

The Gospel is the message of a King come to die, and a King come to live. This is a God we worship. He is at the center of all we see, all we were ever meant to see.

And there is deep hope in that no idol can counter.