Sunday, 3 August 2008

Our God Is the Sovereign God

Anyone who desires to know about the Son of God, the second person the Triune God, he must study what the Bible says about itself. This is the infinite quality. Apart from the Bible no one will be able to know about the Son of God, what He had done and what He will be going to do in the future. The Holy Scripture is the only book that God ever had written and given to His people. Because God was the One who wrote the Bible, it is absolutely that the Bible did not contain any mistake and error. Our God is the sovereign God who does all things perfectly. For this reason, the Bible is the most precious book to every believer. We need to know how to handle and study it.

When the Lord gave His Word to His people both in the Old and New Testament, one of the things that God wants us to know is about the Lord Jesus Christ. Because God is the author of the Bible, right from the first book till the last book in the Bible, there is only one theme that is given namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. Although the writing of each book of this Holy Scripture was separated in different place and time, yet the Lord had made all things perfect by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

For example, Isaiah 53 was already written hundreds of years before Jesus Christ came to this world, but the fact there is more information given in this chapter regarding the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah 53 provided the information what the Lord Jesus did on the cross and what He wanted to accomplish during His life on this earth. The information that we find in this chapter is more than we find in the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. If the people in the Old Testament have studied and mastered Isaiah 53, all prophesies and all things that lead up to it and follow it there would be no doubt that they must have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ when He came to this earth. In fact when John the Baptist pointed the people to the Lord Jesus Christ and saying “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), he did not really have to explain its meaning because the Jews were supposed to know it for they have been indoctrinated, taught this prophetic truth hundreds of years who the Messiah and the Lamb really is.

Thus based on Isaiah 53, the writers of the New Testament by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit often quoted in their writing to prove that this prophetic truth was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. This quotation can be seen for example in Matthew 8: 17 “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sickness” (ref. Isaiah 53:4). Luke 22:37 “And he was reckoned among the transgressors” (ref. Isaiah 53:12). John 12:38 “Lord, who hath believed our report? And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (ref. Isaiah 53:1). Acts 8:32 “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer,” (ref. Isaiah 53:7,8). Romans 10:16 “Lord who hath believed our report?” (ref. Isaiah 53:1). 1 Peter 2:25 “Ye were as sheep going astray but are now returned” (ref. Isaiah 53:6). All these verses prove that our God is sovereign God who does not mistake in the writing of His word.

The sovereignty of God seen in His sign miracles

Based on the fulfilment of the prophecy given in Isaiah 53, there is no doubt to conclude that our God is the true and living God. God has shown His sovereignty through the Scriptures. We can see clearly the great distinction of our God with the gods of the heathen, the gods of the world. The gods of world will never make such statement as in the book of Isaiah. For this reason we can conclude that there are two distinctions seen as the sovereignty of our God. Firstly, our God is the Only God who can perform genuine sign miracles e.g. creating the world (ref. Isaiah 48:13), paying the penalty of our sins and the rising of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. Secondly, our God is the true and living God who can tell His people long in advance about the sign miracles which He is going to do in the future. He has totally mastered about the future just as mentioned in Isaiah 53. Only our God who is able to do the genuine sign miracles and there is no other gods because God has said, “I will not give my glory unto another” (Isaiah 48:11). Thus we should recognise that He is sovereign, and ultimate. He is omnipotent and omnipresent. God knows everything that happens in this world because He is in control.

On the other hand though God is in control of everything in this universe, as we know by faith, man and angels are responsible to the sovereign God. Men are responsible, accountable, answerable to every thought, they think, every word they speak and everything they do. And God therefore tells us in His word, that He will come to judge everything that we do.
The sovereignty of God seen in the fulfilment of His promise

As we have seen the distinctions of our God with the gods of this universe, we are really convinced that our God is the God who is able to do genuine sign miracles. The event on the Mount Carmel when the prophet Elijah had a contest was the tremendous proof of the sovereignty of our God over the universe (1 Kings 18:20-40). He is the only true God that ever exists and nothing else.

As the only true and living God, our God can predict the future and fulfil them. The Lord said through the prophet Isaiah saying “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:9-10). This is awful saying that the Lord ever said in the history of the world. What the Lord Jesus has done and accomplished was not known just in the New Testament. The crucifixion of the Son of God on the cross has been pre-programmed and planed by God. Everything has been spelt out in the Old Testament hundreds years in advance. There is a great need to know that what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished for us on the cross was based on the previous revelation mentioned centuries in advance in the Old Testament Scriptures.

However it is sad to say that many people who deliberately ignore the teaching in the Old Testament about the Lord Jesus Christ even though they have it in their Bible. On the other hand there are many people in this world who do not have even the Old Testament Scriptures in their own languages. Many missionaries struggle to own the New Testament in the languages where they are serving.

Can we imagine if certain groups of people hold only the gospel of Matthew? Can you think what is in their mind when they read Matthew 1:1 for the first time? They will read in this way “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of the David, the son of Abraham.” And the questions are raised, who is David? Was he Jesus’s father? Who is Abraham? Was he His grandfather? The answer is no, for there are a thousand of years between each of those names packed with significant and prophesy that makes Jesus known automatically before we read Matthew 1:2. Thus the most important truth for us, evangelical Christians today is to open the book in the Old Testament and let the Holy Spirit tells us about Christ the Lord in the precious book. There are hundreds of quotations in the New Testament pointing back to the Old Testament. We can glance the basis who Christ is in the Old Testament, and not only known in the New Testament. Indeed there is a weakness among the Christians that without realising in our heart and mind that the New Testament has the foundation from the Old Testament.

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