SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD AND THE PLAN FOR MAN
Introduction
The understanding this book exegesis, changed my entire Christian faith. When you read this book please be open to repentance of things that you have been taught that may not be in the Word of God the way you have heard… Like the word Sovereignty
Sovereignty of God
And The Plan for Man
“Kabash”
The subject of the Sovereignty of God is a matter that has caused division and quarreling most likely since the fall in the Garden. The very fact that division and quarreling exist over the topic speaks of the the playground of the enemy. As Christians we are to be united not divided, we are to agree with each other not quarrel.
1 Corinthians 1:10
Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions (schisma in greek 1) to rent/ tear apart 2) a division, dissension/ Disagreement that leads to discord) among you; but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
Of the seven things God hates in Proverbs 6:16-19 He ends with “one who sows discord among brethren”. In the Hebrew culture it is not the first thing in a list that has the most importance it is the last, for the last thing in a list is the thing that you end thinking about. In this case God then puts sowing discord (division) at the top of His hate list!
1 Corinthians 3:3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?
1 John 2:16
For all that is in the world--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--is not of the Father but is of the world.
Worldliness (jealousy which produces quarreling) is not of the Father, but it is of the Devil. Those things are produced through worldly wisdom and came as a result of the fall of mankind. We were designed to live a supernatural spirit centered life with God. After the lie to dominion mankind became was subjected to a demonic humanistic way operating. We were never designed to live a self centered life based upon our wisdom and feeling which results in the focus on the things of this world.
James 3:14-15 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.
Titus 3:10 Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them.
It is easy to see what God thinks about those that are divisive. Does this mean that we can not disagree with someone? No. It just means that we are to agree to disagree at times. It means we are not to keep trying to force a person to agree with our view. It means we are not to “judge” others as noted below. It means our view or opinion or the revelation that God has give to us individually is not to so important to us that we are wiling to stay in a place of disagreement and division with others. In other words, Jesus died on a hill so we do not have to make what we believe a hill to die on.
Romans 14:4
Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.
We are to present truth (Jesus) to others based upon the revelation we have received directly from our personal relationship with Him. If others will not receive what we believe to be truth, we are not to argue with them, or put them on trial to try and win our case.
2 Corinthians 5:10
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things [done] in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
The following is the revelation I have received, not from a teaching of man but what I believe God showed me in my relationship with Him. Please remember I am not calming that I am willing to die on this hill over what is my personal revelation, but it has been settled in my heart for years. One thing to remember when ever we share personal revelation.
1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
As I have noted the Sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man is one of the greatest divisive topics in Christianity. I am sure there will be those that read what I have to say and come to the conclusion that I am a heretic and on the way to Hell. To them I reply “May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you also”. I rest my salvation on the simplicity of the Good news/ Gospel as described in
1 Corinthians 15:1,3b-4 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand... that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures..
That is the Gospel truth and it is what I stand on.
As for the matter of the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man I have never struggled with the Topic. I never even studied the topic until after several years of being saved. In fact, I had never put time into exhaustively studying the topic until I started writing this book. This topic has always seemed so simple to me. 1) God is Sovereign and 2) He has chosen to give responsibility to mankind, His creation. That has always meant to me, God is all about a relationship. He has chosen in His Sovereignty to love me and reach out to me to save me and I responded by taking His hand of salvation to pull me out of a miry pit. He
communicate with me and then He choses to let me chose how I will respond. He is all wise and knowing so it does me well to listen and do according to what He tells me. If I chose not to I usually suffer for not doing as He told me, but in some cases as He chooses He saves from what I would have suffered and gives me another opportunity to try again. I was told at the church that I got saved in that Christianity is not a religion it is relationship with God. God initiates and we respond.
I was once at a home study and the leader was teaching out of John 3. He said “Jesus tells us in John 3:7 you must be born again and in the Greek the word born is in a passive tense, which means a person that is born again can not birth them-self, they are the recipient of the action of being born. He went on to teach that from the “passive verb tense” people have no part in or anything to do with their salvation! It is God Who decides who, when and if people will be saved. I quickly used my smart phone to look up the verb tense and sure enough, the leader did his homework. There it was “Aorist, Passive, Infinitive”. Just as quickly I look up the three other passages.
Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Matthew 3:3 and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!"
Acts 2:38 Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
In each verse the verb tense for Repent is “Aorist, Active, Imperative”. The “Active” verb tense means “the subject is the doer or performer of the action” and the “Imperative” mood expresses a command to the hearer to perform a certain action by the order and authority of the one commanding. Thus, Jesus' phrase, "Repent ye, and believe the Gospel" (Mark.1:15) is not at all an "invitation," but an absolute command requiring the action of full obedience on the part of all hearers. It is easy to take one look at life and see that obedience is a choice. Some are obedient to the command and some are not.
After I looked up the verses I shared with the leader of the home study that the action of being born of the Spirit is 100% the action of God. I also shared that God does not and will not take the action of birthing a person until after they are 1) convicted of their sin and 2) they take the action of repenting.
Thus God has chosen to give people the responsibility of repenting before He takes the action of birthing them into the Spirit. He quickly replied “yah, but no one would ever repent if God did not convict them of their sin, because people are total depraved. I agreed and then said “So would you agree 1) God convicts People of sin, 2) Then people chose how they will respond and if they repentant then 3) God responds to their repentance by birthing them of the Spirit to a living hope? Before he could answer I said, that process sounds like a relationship... And I think God made us to have a relationship with Him.
The word Sovereignly is never used in any translation of the Bible. The word Sovereignty is used once in the New King James version speaking of Saul’s establishing his rule over Israel. It is used twice in the NIV speaking of King Nebuchadnezzar once and of the kingdoms under heaven (of this world). It is used in the NASB seven times, most cases it is speaking of Nebuchadnezzar kingdom as well as once in Isa speaking of a kingdom of Damascus.
Psalm 103:19 The LORD has established His throne in the heavens, And His sovereignty rules over all.
In Psalm 103 the word Sovereign means
1) royalty, royal power, reign, kingdom, sovereign power a) royal power, dominion b) reign c)kingdom, realm
Nowhere does it state that it means total control of all circumstances. In any kingdom a royal king has power to make laws by which his subject must live under. He does not determine every move they make or the
choices they will make. He will have to enforce the laws if they decide to brake them. So in every case the word Sovereignty is used it comes up the same this is also noted in the new testament as well. Sovereignty never means total control. Rule does not mean total control it means setting rules for others to follow and enforcing the laws that have been established.
It is important to note that the word Sovereign used may times in the Old Testament in the NIV many times. When you look at the scriptures in which it is used it does not exist in the Hebrew text. The individuals that wrote the NIV chose to use the word “Sovereign” every time the word Adonay is used in the Hebrew text. Nowhere in the definition of Adonay does it speak of anything to do with the definition of Sovereignty.
When the Jewish scribes duplicated scripture, if they came to a place where the formal name of God was found “YHVH” which Christians believe to be the word Yahweh they would write “Adonay” instead of YHVH. They believed that God was so Holy that they should not say or write is name so they would write Adonay which means Lord. In none of the text did they write any word for Sovereign before or after Adonay.
In the new testament in the NIV the word Sovereign is used for the Greek word despotēs which means“master” in 2 Peter 2:1, Jude 1:4 and Revelation 6:10. In Luke 2:29 and in Acts 4:24 Sovereign is used, but once again, the NIV writers have chosen to add Sovereign in front of the word “Lord” in the english text, but it does not appear in any form in the Greek text.
In the new testament the word that is used in some other translations for Sovereign in the NASB is.
The word dynastēs which means 1) a prince, a potentate
2) a courtier, high officer, royal minister of great authority
The word dynastēs is used three time in the NASB in the new testament starting with Mary’s declaration of the child in her womb Jesus.
Luke 1:52 "He has brought down rulers from their thrones, And has exalted those who were humble.
The word “rulers” is dynastēs and it is used speaking of God bringing down those that did not humble themselves before Him. (Note that is a law God has established of which He chooses to enforce as He wills).
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Acts 8:27 So he got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace , queen of the Ethiopians , who was in charge of all her treasure ; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship...
The word in the Greek for “official” is dynastēs also. In the verse above it is use in regards to an earthly ruler worked for a queen. Below it is used in
1 Timothy 6:15 which He will bring about at the proper time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords,who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.
The word dynastēs which is used for “Sovereign” in the New American Standard Bible is only rendered Sovereign once out of the three verses. In Luke it is “rulers” and in Acts it is “official”. In the New and old King James the word Potentate is used not Sovereign. In the NIV the word Ruler is used not Sovereign. In all cases in any version the word in the new or old never mean total control. The reason why I have taken all the time to show the usage of the words that are used for forms of Sovereign is to make us really thing about how the word is used in the Bible in comparison to how we use in modern Christianity. I was at a conference today and the speaker said that God is not in control of the earth and does not want to be. He went on to say that we as Christians are to be in control of the earth. Wow did that cause some division. I believe he was and is well intended. The scripture that he used to say that we as Christians are to have control of the earth is.
Gen 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
Subdue which the Hebrew is “kabash” and means 1) to subject, subdue, force, keep under, bring into bondage a) (Qal) 1) to bring into bondage, make subservient 2) to subdue, force, violate 3) to subdue, dominate, tread down b) (Niphal) to be subdued c) (Piel) to subdue d) (Hiphil) to bring into bondage
And dominion which is “radah” in the Hebrew
1) to rule, have dominion, dominate, tread down a) (Qal) to have dominion, rule, subjugate b) (Hiphil) to cause to dominate
The real issue I had with what he said was the word “control”. I do not believe that in current time, that we live on earth, “better known as the Dispensation of Grace” in regards to the human race that neither God or Christians are to be in control of anyone.
2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
merriam-webster.com does render the word Sovereign fist as “obsolete : supreme excellence or an example of it”
But it goes on to also state “freedom from external control”
I believe that the real plan for man was to dominion all the animals and make them subservient to him... specially the “serpent”. This way man would stay free from external control. The serpents goal is to control man God’s plan was for man to have control of himself....”Likeness and Image”. Man was to exercise self control which is a fruit of the Spirit (Galations 5:23, 2 Corinthians 3:17). The serpent’s plan was to “kabash” man, but God told man to “kabash” the serpent.
In being free from external control, a person, or a nation has the freedom to chose. Here in lies the revelation that God gave to me that has settled the issue of the Sovereignty and the responsibility of man. God has the ability to chose what He wants to do and He has the power to do it, so He is is Sovereign. His choice was to make mankind in His likeness and image, therefore mankind has the ability to chose. This next statement will be a real pill for many to swallow but in it lies the truth that if ingested will be transforming to say the lest. Jesus said some really power statements that if we as Christians really believe...Because we call our selves believers remember, we should be doing things that the enemy should tremble at and the world should fall down on there face and proclaim Jesus is Lord! HERE WE GOOOOO!
Luke 9:1
Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases.
Luke 10:19
"Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Why did Jesus say trample on serpents? Remember the commission to the First Adam in the Garden? “Kabash” which means to subdue, dominate, tread down. Who was Adam to “Kabash”? All the animals including the serpent. So now Jesus is saying I’m the one that my Father said would come “Kabash” crush the head of the serpent in Genesis 3:15. Then Jesus goes on to tell His “disciples” I give you my authority to “Kabash”. You were born under the curse that was put on the First Adam because he got
“kabashed” by the serpent instead of “kabashing” the serpent. Praise be to Jesus that now the Second Adam has come to redeem and restore His disciples back to their true identity as those that He has given the authority to “Kabash” the serpent. This is why Jesus says now in Me you can “Kabash”!
Matthew 28:20 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth."Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.
This is why Jesus tells us to make “disciples” because He gives His “disciples” the authority to “kabash” the serpent. Who did Jesus send out with the authority to “kabash”? His disciples. Not His converts, but disciples which means “to follow His precepts and instructions”. What are His precepts? “Kabash” this is very clearly stated...
1 John 3:8 The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. What are the works of the Devil? His works are to rob people of their true identity as children of God, destroy their authority to destroy him and ultimately bring them into a place of bondage that leads to death which is the destruction of there souls in eternal separation from Father God.
God’s desire is for His children to be free. The Devil’s desire is not freedom it is slavery. This is clear to see in 2 Timothy 2:26, speaking of those that live under captivity of the lie that they are not free sons and daughters.
2 Timothy 2:26
that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.
As to the Sovereignty of God, He does have the final say as to the outcome of eternity. Remember the one reasons why God is so good is because He is all knowing so when He makes a choice it is always a good one. He is so good that He chose because of His Son’s choice to die for every person bad choices He put everyone’s name in the book of life. Now God is desiring that all humanity will agree with His choice rather than to have your name blotted out of the book of life. At the end of this age He will chose to do what is fair and right. God will at that point reward every wrong suffered to His children with the completeness of glorification.
Romans 8:17
and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with [Him], that we may also be glorified together.
He will also determine by the things we have done what will be rewarded and what will not.
1 Corinthians 3: 14-15
If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
On the other hand for those that did not chose to accept His free offer of freedom from the Devil He will chose to honor there choice. The results are truly grievous. They will spend eternity separated from God and Heaven and be sent to a place of torment. This is the clear teaching of the Gods word in Revelation chapter 20. This should be sobering to all those that have received the free gift and should compel us to fulfill the Grate commission.
Matthew 28”29-20
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, "teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.