If you are a parent, you will recognize the characters in today’s post.
Even if you are not a parent, you have certainly seen them out in public: a parent trying to corral a child who just will not obey…….a child who is determined to get what he wants even against his parent’s wishes. The scene is usually ugly……sometimes a little ugly…….sometimes it is awful. Without getting into the specifics of their disagreement, I think that we can all agree that the fight itself is unpleasant to watch. If you could replay the last time you saw this scene play out, I’m fairly sure you would be sympathetic to the parent. If you could offer a solution to the problem, it would probably be that the child should settle down and obey his parent. Your solution would be for the child to submit to the authority of the parent……..the sovereignty of the parent. While this is not an absolute, the parent typically has more knowledge and experience. Furthermore, the parent loves the child and is looking out for the child’s best interests…….in the long run. We know from experience that the world runs better when the parent is in control than when the child is in control. This is true, even when the parent is not completely in the right. I can recall an episode where my father and I had a disagreement about a pair of jeans that I had just bought. Looking back, as a parent myself, I can say with confidence that my father was wrong. But, I obeyed him. I submitted to his authority. And our family survived.
The post this week is not about whether our parent is right or wrong. It is not about whether God is right or wrong from our temporal perspective.
The post is about authority and submission to authority.
Authority…….sovereignty…….comes in several “flavors”.
Absolute sovereignty……..whatever the boss says is true whether you like or not. When the boss says jump……you jump. Good and bad……right and wrong are defined by the sovereign. This is not negotiable. Everybody operates on the same set of rules……the same set of definitions. Everybody is headed in the same direction.
Limited sovereignty………most of what the boss says is true. When the boss tells you to do something, you assess it and decide if it suits you. If it works for you…….you obey. The same applies to right and wrong…….good and bad. You listen, you assess, you accept what you like and discard what you don’t like. Everything is negotiable. You have a personal veto over the boss.
Non-sovereignty…….an external boss does not exist. You do as you please. No need to negotiate. No need to justify your behavior. You are the boss of your tiny corner of the universe. You go your own way……and so does everybody else. You make your own rules and definitions and so does everybody else. The guy who robs you in the alley……..is just as right as you are. Hitler is just as right as mother Teresa.
The tradeoff here is clear. Absolute sovereignty yields uniformity. Uniformity yields peace. Conflict……war…….is eliminated. We all work together toward a common goal……..a goal chosen by the sovereign……..whether we agree with that goal or not. Non-sovereignty gives us freedom. We look at the world. We assess our appetites. We act in a way that gives us what we want. But……so does the other guy. We believe that we are right. We believe that we are good people. But so does he. We butt heads…….we go to war. Nobody is right. Nobody is good…….because there is no uniform definition of right and good. When you boil it down this tradeoff is the dividing line between Creationism……..Christianity……..and secular humanism.
It doesn’t take an intellectual giant to determine which path the world is on.
But………it’s not that simple.
There is a temporal world and there is an eternal spiritual world. God’s absolute sovereignty extends over both. Our freedom is absolutely confined to the temporal world. Our freedom ends when our temporal clock runs out. God’s sovereignty has no end….no limits.
In the final analysis, the only escape from the eternal sovereignty of God is to deny his sovereignty. The only intellectually honest way to deny God’s sovereignty……..is to deny his existence. This is the “unforgivable sin” described in Matthew.
Denying the absolute sovereignty of God can work. People do it every day. But, it can only work in the temporal world. And even then, ignoring or denying God’s sovereignty often fails. At death, we all transition from our temporal world to God’s eternal world. When we die, we can no longer evade the absolute sovereignty of God.
In a nutshell…….this is the fate of man. One day, we will all experience God’s absolute sovereignty. It is worth the trouble to become familiar with it now.
“Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come”.
Jesus explaining “the unforgiveable sin”, Matthew 12: 31-32, ESV