Many people believe that God created the world and then He either left it to itself or merely exerts a general influence in the world. But God actually rules in the world. Most also believe that God reacts to people and circumstances, but God is not a reactionary, changeable God. He is forever immutably sovereign. Nothing ever has or ever will come to pass apart from His sovereign will. The Bible teaches that the affairs of this universe are controlled and guided "according to the purpose of [God] who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:11). We conclude then that no person or circumstance can defeat His counsel or prevent or frustrate His purposes and intentions.

God reveals His absolute sovereignty in creation (Jeremiah 27:5; 32:17; Nehemiah 9:6; Psalms 50:10-12; Acts 17:24-26). God reveals His absolute sovereignty in providence which refers to God's government (1 Samuel 2:6-8; Job 42:2; Psalms 115:3; 135:6; Isaiah 46:10; Daniel 4:35; Romans 8:28). God reveals His absolute sovereignty in salvation (Isaiah 55:11; Matthew 28:18; Romans 9:20-24; Ephesians 1:4-5,11,22; 1 Peter 1:1-2). This is what we are going to study first. Read Isaiah 46:9-11. This is the testimony of a sovereign, powerful God who does as He pleases and who carries forth His purposes. Read Isaiah 46:12-13.

This is an absolute and unconditional promise from a sovereign, powerful, merciful, and gracious God. This is a promise of eternal salvation based on the fact that God is faithful to save sinners based on His free, unmerited favor. This is revealed in His sovereign purpose to save sinners, to justify the ungodly, conditioned, not on the sinner, but on the only Substitute sent of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is able to satisfy God's law and justice on their behalf. Stouthearted sinners that are far from righteousness are commanded to believe God's promise of salvation conditioned on Christ alone, and to repent of ever thinking that anything but His righteousness could ever recommend us unto God.

This is a promise from God in which He has engaged every attribute of His character, His glory, to fulfill. It is so sure and certain that God will fulfill it, that we can assure everyone who hears God's Gospel that God will save them based on the righteousness of Christ freely imputed and received by faith. God's sovereignty is revealed to lead sinners to this great truth. Everything that God reveals in His Word is revealed ultimately to glorify Him as both a just God and a Savior, and to lead sinners to believe on Him as the God who justifies the ungodly based upon the righteousness of Christ. Let's view God's sovereignty in salvation from three points of view.

I. GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN ELECTION - Election is the blessed fact that God the Father, before the foundation of the world, from the very beginning, chose a particular number of condemned, guilty sinners out of Adam's fallen race AND conditioned all of their salvation upon God the Son (Ephesians 1:3-5; 2 Thessalonians 2:13). Nothing in any individual sinner, real or foreseen, nothing outside of God Himself, influenced God's choice of sinners unto salvation. God formed the body of Christ by His independent, sovereign choice. His choice was totally apart from any human consideration and purely on the basis of His own will. When did He choose us? "Before the foundation of the world," before the creation of the universe -- chosen in eternity past.

Why did He choose us? Not because He foresaw what we would do. That would be conditional election, not unconditional. He chose us out of His free, unmerited, sovereign love. God justifies the ungodly, and all whom God elected unto salvation are and were, before conversion, "children of wrath even as others" (Ephesians 2:1-4). A justified sinner cannot boast in anything he has done to make him to differ. He knows his character and conduct falls way short of God's holy standard and merits nothing from God. He knows that because of his own selfish pride, self-love, self-righteousness, he would have never chosen God, unless God had chosen him.

The reason God chose one sinner and not another is known only to God. God has revealed that all who hear the Gospel are commanded to believe the Gospel and are forbidden to believe anything else. The unbelief of the majority of sinners will not make God's promise ineffectual. God is sovereign. He will accomplish His purpose to glorify Himself in the full, free, eternal salvation of all His elect.

II. GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN THE ATONEMENT - The same sovereign God who chose a people and marked them out to receive His divine mercy has also appointed all the means necessary to bring them to salvation. The first means is His sending Christ to fulfill all the conditions of their salvation. This is where we see God's sovereignty revealed in the atonement. God's sovereignty in election is not simply that He chose a people, but that He chose a people in Christ and conditioned all of their salvation on Christ (Romans 9:11, 27-30; Ephesians 1:3-7). In order to insure that His sovereign purpose be fulfilled, God conditioned the salvation of the whole election of grace upon Christ.

Christ, the Representative of God's elect, by virtue of His particular atonement, insures that in time, in each generation, God's elect will be made actual partakers of all that He merited for them. Christ's righteousness demands these blessings according to God's promise of salvation conditioned on Christ alone. This is honoring to God and consistent with His holy law and justice. God's Word clearly reveals an inseparable connection between His electing grace, Christ's atoning death, and the full, free, eternal salvation of all whom He represented in His obedience and death (Isaiah 53:5, 10-12; Romans 5:18b, 19b; John 6:37; 10:15-16). Christ did not die to try to save all men without exception nor to make sinners savable if they would meet certain conditions. That would be works, not grace. He did not die for all sinners without exception upon condition that they would believe. He died to save His people from their sins and to insure that they would believe and repent.

III. GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY AND THE NEW BIRTH - The next means God has sovereignly appointed to insure His purpose of grace is the actual application of all that He has promise and all that Christ has purchased to everyone of His elect in time. He has appointed and sent His Holy Spirit to perform this work in the new birth (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; 2 Timothy 1:8-9). God's elect in each successive generation will hear and believe God's Gospel. They will be made willing to be saved based on the righteousness of Christ (Ps. 110:3). The "day of His (God's) power" is when the elect of God hear and believe the certainty of salvation revealed in the Gospel. It is all according to God's promise, and it is all based upon the imputed righteousness of Christ.

The "Primitive Baptist" denomination sincerely believes that they honor God's sovereignty and electing grace when they deny the means of the preaching of the Gospel. They claim God is so sovereign that He does not need man and they claim that to say that God uses preachers to bring His elect to salvation is to deny God's sovereignty and God's power. But what they do not see is that to deny the means is to deny the God who has appointed the means. God is absolutely sovereign in all things, even salvation. But this same God has appointed His way of saving sinners, and "it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (1 Corinthians 1:21).

All the means appointed glorifies God, exalts Christ, and excludes boasting in sinners, because all the means require us to believe that God is the only Source and Originator of salvation and that Christ's righteousness is the only ground of salvation. To claim that the sovereignty of God cancels all means, methods, and procedures that God Himself has appointed is to deny God's glory revealed in the Gospel. Even the work of God the Holy Spirit IN the sinner is the fruit and effect of Christ's righteousness. All grace within, including faith, repentance, Godly fear, humility, and love, are all the results of what Christ has merited for His people. None of these things form any part of the ground of salvation. Christ must have all the preeminence.

IV. THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY - Everything in the Scriptures concerning God's electing grace and Christ's definite atonement is stated to be an encouragement for sinners to believe God's promise of salvation conditioned on Christ alone and to repent from thinking that anything other than Christ's righteousness could recommend us unto God. God freely invites, encourages, and commands all who hear the Gospel, whosoever will, to believe His promise and be saved. How could the doctrine of election shut any sinner out of heaven when God Himself commands all who hear the promise to believe? Sinners shut themselves out by denying God's election of grace and insisting that salvation, or some part of it, be conditioned on the sinner.

These truths do not shut sinners out of the kingdom of heaven. First, we must understand that God promises to save sinners based on the imputed righteousness of Christ. God forbids sinners to seek salvation based on anything else (Rom. 9:30-32). This righteousness is revealed in the Gospel, and God commissions all His preachers to preach His Gospel to all sinners without exception (Mark 16:15). God's preachers are to implore lost sinners to be reconciled to God on the basis of Christ's righteousness alone (2 Cor. 5:19-21). The sinner's warrant from God is not to try to find out whether or not God elected him or Christ died for him personally. The sinner's warrant from God is to believe and repent. All whom God elected, all for whom Christ died, will believe and repent. No sinner has any excuse, and the only thing that keeps sinners from believing and repenting is self-righteousness, self-love, and religious pride.

The certain salvation of God's elect does not remove anyone's responsibility. It is the greatest encouragement for all to seek salvation God's way through Christ. God has engaged every attribute of His character to insure the salvation of His elect, all conditioned on Christ alone. God removes every obstacle and provides all the means necessary for their salvation. He made them one with His Son in the view of His law and justice. Each office that He entrusted to His Son, along with the duties of each office, insures the certainty of their salvation. God conditioned all of their salvation upon Christ, and Christ satisfied all the conditions as their Mediator and Surety.

V. IMPLICATIONS OF GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY - All this has some awesome implications when we consider that most professing Christians are either ignorant or simply deny God's sovereignty and the doctrines of election and definite atonement. Most professing Christians believe salvation is conditioned on man's will, not God's, and that Christ's death is universal. Most have never considered the implications of this. First, if Christ's death is universal, it cannot, in and of itself, be effectual to any of its objects. What good will it do any sinner to believe that Christ is his personal savior when he also believes that Christ's death, in and of itself, has no real saving value at all. Universal atonement says that Christ's death did no more for sinners in heaven that it attempted to do for sinners in hell. The sinner makes the real difference between heaven and hell. The only value this puts on Christ's atonement is that which the sinner gives it by the addition of his faith, repentance, perseverance, and obedience.

Most professing Christians actually make their faith, not Christ, to be their savior. Actually, their faith is a testimony that Christ's obedience, sufferings, and death, His blood and righteousness, have no power to keep any sinner out of hell or to put any sinner in heaven. It is their faith, not Christ Himself, that removes God's wrath and gains God's favor as they set it along side of Christ. Faith, then, not Christ's blood, ratifies the blessed covenant of grace. Faith, not Christ's righteousness, is their ground of salvation. This denies God's sovereignty; it denies God's holiness and justice; it denies God's grace.

God's sovereignty does not shut sinners out of the kingdom of heaven. But universal notions of God's purpose to save and of Christ's atonement shuts every sinner out of the kingdom of God because such notions dishonor every attribute of God's redemptive character and they cast shame and reproach upon Christ's Person, offices, and work of redemption.

Many use the fact that the Gospel commands sinners to believe to deny God's sovereignty in election and salvation. They object, "But sinners must believe or be damned." It is true sinners must believe. This is not the issue. The truth of God's sovereignty in election and salvation, does not say that God will save sinners "no matter what." It says that God will save sinners in such a way so as to glorify His character, exalt Christ, and exclude boasting in sinners. This is accomplished through God's appointed means. The issue is this -- What must sinners believe? No sinner is commanded by God to believe anything that dishonors God and devalues Christ's Person and work. Therefore, no sinner is commanded to believe in a universal atonement. In fact, God forbids sinners to believe such heresy. Justifying faith, which is the requirement of the Gospel, believes that Christ's death, His atonement, is effectual and definite. Justifying faith believes that Christ's death alone makes the difference between heaven and hell. Justifying faith excludes all occasions for the sinner to boast in anything other than the righteousness of Christ (Gal. 6:14). Justifying faith sees that faith itself does not make the difference between saved and lost. Justifying rest in Christ alone!

Another objection has to do with the Scriptural phrase, "Whosoever will." This occurs in the Bible many times, but the issue is not simply "whosoever will." The issue "whosoever will" what? This is always qualified in Scripture by a command from God. For example - Mark 8:34; Revelation 22:17.

Neither one of these verses say, "Whosoever will believe what he wants to believe," or "Whosoever will think what he wants to think." Each "whosoever will" is qualified by a command that is directly related to the Gospel. In Mark 8:34 it has to do with following Christ and denying self. This is faith in Christ and repentance from former idolatry and dead works. It is a trust that Christ's Person and atoning work is sufficient in and of itself to remove God's wrath and gain God's favor. The "water of life" in Revelation 22:17 is eternal life conditioned on Christ alone. All of this has to do with God's election of grace and Christ's particular, definite atonement. The promise is that whosoever will come to God pleading the imputed righteousness of Christ as the only ground of salvation shall be saved. Those who come believing a universal atonement are expecting salvation based on something other than the righteousness of Christ. By nature they will not come to God in a way that is honoring to God in Christ. But whosoever comes God's way shall be saved. They are God's elect who come believing all of salvation conditioned on Christ alone.

Apart from a saving knowledge of Christ and His righteousness as the only ground of salvation all without exception are idolaters with no fear of God before their eyes. Until we see that Christ's righteousness alone demands the salvation of every sinner for whom He died, according to God's law and justice, we cannot honor the Father nor the Son. This is why universal notions of God's purpose to save and of Christ's atoning work actually shut every sinner out of the kingdom of God. Again, such notions dishonor every attribute of God's redemptive character and cast shame and reproach upon Christ's Person and work.