1689 BCF, Chapter 2, Paragraph 2: God Over All

INTRODUCTION

I remember having an ‘Aha’ moment as a young Christian when a very basic but necessary idea was put in place. It was the idea that God must insist that He be God. I can remember the moment vividly, my friend and I were having a discussion about God’s sovereignty over all things. And we began to imagine a scenario. Imagine that God just allowed us perfect freedom and being such a gentleman He just allowed the devil to run the universe or you to run your own life. Would God be loving to put the running of the universe into your hands? Would God be wise to let someone who is not all knowing decide what goodness is and what truth is? Would God be lying if He denied that He was the most qualified to run everything? In my early Christian life I was trying to build a worldview and often I would hear things and try and build up the truth around them. One idea that seemed basic is that God respects my free will and backs right off, that He gives me my freedom with absolutely no constraints. I soon realized that this is a backwards and bizarre way to try and conceive of things and goes right against the teaching of scripture. In our silly little way we would say that when God walks into the room He must insist that He be God. If you get into a relationship with God He must be God and not you. God cannot deny Himself, and so we must not either. Nor can we have a view of God’s activity in and over the world that denies God being God. Now it might seem absurd to you, but this was a revelation to us. Our whole lives we had lived our lives with ourselves at the centre, with our wills and desires as supreme, and to consistently work out what it means for God to be God changed the way we saw everything. This orientation of God’s relation as God to creation is what chap. 2 para. 2 is all about.