Another factor in this passage is the
absolute sovereignty of God over all things. God is the primary cause of all
things, yet all secondary agents are fully responsible their actions. God
sovereignly controls even His enemies for His divinely-appointed purposes with
regard to His people, yet these same enemies will pay the ultimate price – destruction
– for their treatment of the Lord’s people. Isaiah 10 details this explicitly
with regard to Nineveh. Thus we are made to see Nineveh’s full responsibility
for her actions. Yet God unapologetically states in verse 12b that it is He who
has afflicted His people. He was the primary agent in the affliction of His
people, yet Nineveh, as the secondary agent was fully responsible for her
actions. This concept, like the previously discussed one of covenant
solidarity, runs rampant throughout the Scriptures. The Bible plainly teaches
that God is the First Cause, the Primary Agent, of all things, and I do mean all things which occur. That is to
say, no one single act, good or bad, done by anyone who has ever lived or will
ever live, occurs outside the decree of God. Nevertheless, God has decreed all
things so that they must necessarily occur as He has decreed them to occur, by
the people whom He has decreed to do these acts, in such a way that their own
personal responsibility for these actions is not nullified. I am not arguing
for freedom; I am arguing accountability or, if you like, responsibility. To
say that one is free implies that there are never any external or internal forces
or factors that influence our actions. This is patently false. Being born as
sinners, we already have an inborn proclivity to evil which cannot be overcome
except by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit of God. This means that we
are never free. The only Being of whom freedom can be predicated with any real
meaning is God. The existence or nonexistence of freedom has absolutely no bearing
on the question of responsibility. God created us and He created us as
responsible beings before Him. When Scripture asserts that Original Sin has
rendered man completely unable to do anything righteous or pleasing before God,
absolutely and totally unable to do anything salvific, utterly unable and
unwilling to have faith in God or submit to Him – meaning that no man in the
unregenerate state is able to obey the law of God: when Scripture says this and
we state this, it is commonly objected that this would make God unjust. It is
argued that it would be unfair for God to require of man that which he knows we
cannot do. But this is a red herring. It is ridiculous to assert that simply
because man fell into sin by eating the forbidden fruit, God must therefore
logically surrender His right to demand obedience. Stated this way I trust we
can all see the nonsensical nature of such an assertion. Just because Adam
destroyed himself and his posterity with his iniquity, it does not therefore
follow that God must surrender, or that God has surrendered His right to
perfect obedience.
Returning to our previous statement that God
is the primary cause, that is to say, First Cause, of all things which happen,
we also remember that we stated that this does not exonerate the secondary
causes from their personal responsibility. In Genesis 50, Joseph explicitly
declares his brothers’ culpability and personal guilt when they sold him into
slavery. Without denying this, Joseph also affirms that it was not they, but
God who had sent him to Egypt. Joseph tells them that they meant their act for
evil (Hebrew: רַע). Joseph replies that this
very act of ra, God meant for good.
In verse 20, he says, God meant it
for good.” The antecedent to the pronoun, it, is the word evil. They agree in
person, number, and gender. There is no other word in the sentence to which the
pronoun, it, can grammatically apply. So as I have been saying, we see that
divine Providence, that is God’s direct government and control over all things,
does not negate the personal responsibility of secondary causes.
So, looking back at our text, particularly 1:2-10,
which comprise a hymn or poem celebrating God’s greatness, His special love for
His people, His control over nature and His sovereign use of his enemies, we
find two things asserted: God had afflicted His people and Nineveh had
afflicted His people. Scripture places these two things side-by-side asserting
that they are one and the same. This clearly shows what we have been saying.
God is the First Cause or Primary Agent of all events that take place in
history because He has decreed all things. But He has decreed that all things
take place through the agency of secondary agents and His decree does not
mitigate the guilt of the secondary agent nor does it nullify their
culpability.
This theme is seen all over Scripture. In
Exodus, when God sends Moses to Pharaoh he tells Moses that Pharaoh will not
listen to him because God will harden Pharaoh’s heart. The succeeding narrative
alternates in the reasons that it gives for why Pharaoh refused to obey Moses:
in some instances we are told that Pharaoh hardened his heart. In other
instances we are told that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. In Joshua 7, when
Israel is defeated in battle by the one horse town Ai, Joshua laments that God
has given Israel into the hands of the Amorites. In 1 Samuel 2, when Eli’s sons
refused to listen to him, we are told that this was of God for he planned to
put them to death. In 1 Samuel 4, when the Philistines defeat Israel in battle,
the elders of Israel cry out, “Why has the Lord defeated us in battle?” 2
Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21 recount the same event, namely David’s taking a
census of Israel. In 2 Samuel 24 the impetus for this act is said to be God. In
1 Chronicles 21, the event or the inciting to the event is said to be of Satan.
The Devil, no doubt, fancies himself a great rebel against God, yet in the final analysis, he's as big a company man as there ever was. Not even he moves without God overruling his every move.
This shows us that not only are human enemies of God’s people at God’s
disposal, but even the spiritual enemy of God’s people is at His disposal. In 2
Corinthians 12, Paul mourns his “thorn in the flesh.” And yet he acknowledges
that this weakness he laments is actually of God so that the power of Christ
may rest upon him. This “thorn in the flesh,” Paul actually calls a messenger
of Satan while saying that God sent it. Clearly then we can see that God’s
sovereignty over the sinful acts of men never exonerates sinners, neither does
it negate their personal responsibility for their own actions. It ultimately
serves to comfort God’s people, knowing that all things which befall them in
this life come from their Father’s hand. Heidelberg Catechism, Question 26: What do you believe when you say, "I
believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth"?
Answer: That the eternal Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ (who of nothing made heaven and earth, with all that is in them;
who likewise upholds and governs the same by his eternal counsel and
providence) is for the sake of Christ his Son, my God and my Father; on whom I
rely so entirely, that I have no doubt, but he will provide me with all things
necessary for soul and body and further, that he will make whatever evils he
sends upon me, in this valley of tears turn out to my advantage; for he is able
to do it, being Almighty God, and willing, being a faithful Father.
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