God is not the author of sin. God ordains free agency. God allows for the attribution of events to more than one cause, though ultimately it is His own will. “But I don’t understand,” you may protest. You are in good company. Even John Calvin admitted as much. In his commentary on Romans, written early in his ministry when he had been evicted from Geneva, he wrote that “the predestination of God is indeed a labyrinth from which the mind of man can by no means extricate itself.” Care is needed when thinking about God’s sovereignty.

Things happen because God orders them to happen, orders them to happen before they happen, and orders them to happen in the way that they happen. This is a statement of God’s complete sovereignty.

Take Job, for example. In response to one of life’s unimaginable tragedies, losing all ten of his children in one day, Job exclaimed: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). And when Satan inflicted Job with a disease, Job’s response to his wife is sublime: “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (2:10).

It may appear absurd to some that Job expressed no anger at the loss of his children or the disease that brought him to within an inch of his life: “My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth” (19:20). How could he be so seemingly composed? The Apostle James points out Job’s “steadfastness” under trial (James 5:11). Though Job would lose his composure as the trial evolved, his faith in God’s complete sovereignty kept him calm and resolute, initially at least. Job lived his life under the dome of God’s complete control of all events. He believed in a world where God’s sovereignty was total. Events occur “according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). Or, to quote Paul again: “For those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

What does it mean to live under the dome of Ephesians 1:11 or Romans 8:28? It means peace and security even during hard times. The possibility of assurance that we have “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for [us]” (1 Peter 1:4). This view of total divine causality, one that is perfectly compatible with human responsibility and action, brings about a “peace . . . that surpasses all understanding” and guards both our hearts and minds amid all kinds of trials (Phil. 4:7).

Outside this dome, there is uncertainty and confusion. Nothing is sure. We can be driving along the interstate highway and read a sign that says, “God is not in control between exit 48 and exit 53.” What would you do? God’s sovereignty does not guarantee that we will never make sinful choices or never be the victim of what appears to be a random act. We live in a world where there exists true creaturely agency. We make choices all day long: what clothes we wear, what food we order from a menu, when to go to bed, and when to rise from it. But all these are decisions made under the umbrella of God’s fatherly disposition and upholding of all events and actions. That is what Ephesians 1:11 and Romans 8:28 insist on.

This is the worldview that Joseph lived by. When his brothers sold him into a life of slavery and false imprisonment in Egypt, he told them: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20). There was human agency involved in the deliberate choices of his brothers. But there was also divine superintendence ensuring a definite outcome—“to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” God’s sovereign hand ensured that when famine struck the land of the patriarchs, there would be a welcoming embrace of this covenant family in Egypt, thereby ensuring the continuation of God’s redemptive purposes.

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