All Things?

When reading about God, we need to be careful not to miss the way that the Lord has allowed himself to be described. After all, inspired, inerrant, holy Scripture tells us the exact truth of who God is and what he is like. And, if we are not careful, we will let ourselves skip past the descriptions of God in one part of a sentence in order to get to the verb. We like to read about the actions of God. But we must not miss his attributes.

Note how God is described here. Ask yourself if you are willing to believe what God says about himself. Because, if you believe it, you accept a serious doctrine.

Ephesians 1:11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,

God is here called “him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Believing this requires the acceptance of the sovereignty of God in a significant way. God works all things according to the counsel of his will—all things, God’s will.

Of course, this is not a new thing in Scripture. We can look other places to see a similar truth claim (cf. Psa. 115:3; Rom. 8:28). But, ask yourself, “What changes in my worldview if I accept the fact that God works all things according to his will?”

Before you let yourself become discouraged, this is not to say that God enjoys evil. Nor does it mean that God is declaring all things to be good things. But, if we grasp that God is purposeful and not random, and Scripture is clear that God is not and has never been random, then we can trust that God has purpose even for our greatest pains and the darkest evils of history. It is a logically flawed view that declares that if God is all good and all powerful, he must eliminate all evil. In truth, the God who is all good, all powerful, and all wise has the ability to have a purpose for all things, good and evil, that is beyond our limited ability to comprehend. And that same God can use all things without himself being tainted by the evil of the actions of mankind.

What the truth that God works all things according to the counsel of his will does declare is that no event on earth, no event in the universe, no great good, no terrible hardship, nothing happens apart from the ultimate and sovereign will of God. Every cubic inch of the universe is under God’s power. Nothing is beyond God’s control. Nothing, absolutely nothing, thwarts God’s will. Life and death, kingdoms rising and falling, harvests and disasters, salvation and damnation, all things work in accord with the ultimate will of God to his ultimate glory. Yes, these include things in which God takes no pleasure. But they never include things that God is powerless to change. God is he who works all things according to the counsel of his will. And such a God is the one we are far better to serve than to think we could ever oppose.