The Sovereignty of God (5)

God’s Sovereignty Over Evil

We’ve just seen that God is sovereign over Satan and his evil works. The Bible tells us that God is sovereign over all evil, not just that of Satan and his demons. However, God never does evil. God is not the author of evil. He is “A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he” (Deut. 32:4). This is not to say, however, that God doesn’t create, move, permit, and even send evil, for nothing occurs, exists, or endures apart from the sovereign will of God. “The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble” (Prov. 16:4).

Scripture tells us that God creates evil: “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). The word for “create” here is the same one used in Genesis 1, and the word for “calamity” means evil. Amos poses the rhetorical question: “When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?” (Amos 3:6, NIV).

Scripture also tells us that God sends evil. God sent demons to torture Saul (1 Sam. 16:14-23). He sent angels to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19, esp. v. 13). He sent the ten plagues on Egypt (Ex. 7-12). He sent snakes to bite the Israelites (Num. 21:6). In Isaiah 10 God promised to punish Assyria by sending a plague among its warriors—in Isaiah 37 the angel of the Lord was sent to fulfill this promise, and 185,000 Assyrian warriors were killed. Again, the rhetorical question is asked: “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?” (Lamentations 3:38).

Scripture also affirms that God permits evil. We’ve seen this explicitly in the case of Job and Satan asking for God’s permission to test him. There are other passages that carry this idea of no one ever doing evil unless God permits it. In Geneses 31:7, Jacob says that God did not allow Laban to harm him; in Exodus 12:23, God did not allow the destroyer to enter the Israelite homes who had spread blood on the lintel and two doorposts; and in Luke 22:31 Satan is denied permission to sift Peter.

Scripture even asserts that God moves others to do evil. Again, in Job’s story it is implied that God suggested Job for Satan to attack. Consider also Isaiah 19:2:

Isaiah 19:2: And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight, each against another and each against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom.

God is said to harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he would pursue after the Israelites:

Exodus 14:4: And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.”

Revelation 17:17 tells us concerning the ten horns:

Revelation 17:17: For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.

Reflecting on these four aspects of God’s sovereignty over evil poses the question: Why does God allow and even create and send and move others to do evil? There are several reasons given to us in Scripture. One is that God ordains evil to exist as a means for carrying out his righteous judgment upon the wicked. This is seen in God’s creating and sending evil to destroy wicked cities or to discipline the rebellious Israelites. Another reason is to bring about good out of evil. The classic text for this is Genesis 50:20. After being sold into slavery by the wicked act of his brothers, Joseph tells them years later after all that had occurred in Egypt and how many people were saved from the famine, including Joseph’s family: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” In Psalm 105:17 we learn that it was God who “had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave.” God sent Joseph to Egypt. God didn’t just see Joseph as a victim of evil choices and decide to bring about some good – it was God’s plan all along. We learn then that not only does God bring about good out of evil, he ordains the very events so that it happens this way.

So then, Scripture both renounces the idea that God does actual evil while affirming that God ordains all the evil that exists. No evil occurs, exists, or endures outside God’s ordaining, sovereign will. “The Lord of hosts has sworn: ‘As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand’” (Isa. 14:24). “For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?” (Isa. 14:27). So when we endure even the grossest evils, we can know that they have ultimately come from the hand of our sovereign, omnipotent God, and will ultimately work out for our good (Rom. 8:28).