How Can a Sovereign God Be Surprised?

00:00:00.000 | A podcast listener named Scott in Abilene, Texas writes in to ask this, "Pastor John,

00:00:09.880 | I've heard people use Jeremiah 19 verses 4-5 as a refutation of the absolute sovereignty

00:00:15.540 | of God over evil, particularly the line, 'Nor did it come into my mind.'"

00:00:20.440 | "I fully believe and trust in God's supreme sovereignty, but I must admit that this took

00:00:24.720 | me back." How does such a text fit within the doctrine of the sovereignty of God? Can

00:00:30.200 | a sovereign God ever be surprised?

00:00:33.000 | Wow. This takes me back 15 years, maybe 20, when I was in the thick of the battle over

00:00:42.240 | open theism. That's a pretty sophisticated argument from Jeremiah 19, and it might be

00:00:49.680 | helpful for me to sketch the battle lines here, because the force of that argument against

00:00:58.600 | the sovereignty of God won't be felt without some sense of what open theism is. So let

00:01:05.040 | me give you a little sketch. Open theism is a view, I think it's a wrong view, is a view

00:01:11.960 | that the future is open-ended even to God. That is, God does not know, not only doesn't

00:01:20.520 | control all details of the future, but he doesn't know them either, especially the acts

00:01:28.720 | of morally free agents like humans. This view is seen by its proponents as the only consistent

00:01:40.160 | view of Arminian theology. Remember, historically, Arminianism has taught that God does not decisively

00:01:50.160 | control the future moral acts of people, like whether they believe on Jesus or not. People

00:01:57.560 | really do have ultimate self-determination. But God does, this is what Arminianism says,

00:02:04.920 | God does exhaustively know. Know. He doesn't control it, but he knows the future moral

00:02:10.920 | acts of people. Now open theism says that can't be, because if God is infallible and

00:02:17.560 | knows what we are going to choose before we choose it, then the choice must happen or

00:02:22.480 | God would make a mistake. And so God's foreknowledge of an act makes the act certain or necessary.

00:02:30.000 | And theism solves that problem by saying God doesn't know the future of our morally

00:02:37.200 | responsible acts. And they find arguments, besides that philosophical one, in the Bible

00:02:46.200 | in places like Jeremiah 19, 4, and 5. So let me tell you how I, back in those days, responded

00:02:52.840 | to those arguments. Here's what the text says. "The people of Israel have forsaken

00:02:58.600 | me and have filled this place with blood, the blood of innocence, that is, they have

00:03:03.640 | sacrificed children to false gods, and have built high places to Baal to burn their sons

00:03:12.600 | in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or declare, nor did it come

00:03:21.560 | into my mind." Okay, now that's the text. And what's been stumbled over is, "It

00:03:28.640 | didn't come into my mind." What does that mean? The argument of open theism is that

00:03:34.680 | God did not see it coming, or as the questioner asked, they were surprised. It didn't even

00:03:41.280 | come into God's mind that this would happen. But is that what it says, let alone means?

00:03:49.940 | Is that what Jeremiah wants us to understand, or what God meant for us to understand? And

00:03:56.360 | I doubt it. Very seriously, not only would that contradict his own, Jeremiah's own

00:04:02.040 | view of God's sovereignty expressed elsewhere in the book, like 32, 40, and 10, 23, and

00:04:07.760 | not only would it contradict the truth of God's foreknowledge taught all over the

00:04:11.480 | prophets like Isaiah 48, but more immediately, that's not what the text says. And it's

00:04:19.920 | not a necessary or obvious meaning either. Look at it more carefully. What precisely

00:04:25.840 | did not come to God's mind? It says, "I did not command or declare this slaughter

00:04:34.180 | of your children, nor did it," what's the "it," "come into my mind." What if

00:04:41.480 | I translate it like this, "Nor did it come into my mind to command or declare such a

00:04:46.760 | thing." I think that's what he means. It's just a natural way to read it. Instead

00:04:52.920 | of saying, "Oh, it never occurred to me that such a thing might happen by my sinful

00:04:56.720 | people," rather he's saying, "What never came into my mind is that I would command

00:05:01.480 | you to do such a thing or declare to you to do such a thing." And that's no contradiction

00:05:06.660 | of his sovereignty or his foreknowledge at all. So I don't think this text is a problem

00:05:12.380 | for a full view of God's foreknowledge or a full view of God's sovereignty.

00:05:19.000 | And let me close like this. If you start to think around by talking to open theists that

00:05:29.480 | denying the foreknowledge of God, which they do, is a small thing and you can still be

00:05:34.780 | a Christian and be an Orthodox believer while disbelieving that God and Christ foreknow

00:05:44.500 | the future acts of morally responsible agents, consider this text. John 13, 19. Jesus says

00:05:56.020 | about the future morally responsible act of Judas' betrayal. He says, "I am telling

00:06:03.720 | you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I

00:06:12.780 | am." Now, it's usually translated, "That I am he." There's no "he" in the Greek.

00:06:19.100 | That you may believe that I am. What does that mean? Well, you know what that means.

00:06:25.620 | That "I am" language is taken from Exodus 3 where God says, "I am who I am." And what

00:06:33.600 | Jesus is saying here is, "I'm telling you about a future act that is going to be performed

00:06:42.560 | by Judas so that you may believe that I am, that I am God, that I am divine." Which

00:06:49.480 | means this, implies this, beware of surrendering the foreknowledge of God because in doing

00:06:58.960 | so you are surrendering the Godness of God. And that is, you are surrendering God.

00:07:07.760 | Yes, very good. Thank you, Pastor John. And I can imagine some listeners to this episode

00:07:13.000 | who are now asking the question, "Well then, do I have free will in choosing Jesus?" As

00:07:19.040 | Pastor John once put it, "When you get to heaven, if God asks you, 'What is the deepest,

00:07:23.200 | decisive reason you believed on my Son?' What will your answer be? Will you say, 'The

00:07:27.680 | decisive reason for my choice was your grace,' or will you say, 'The decisive reason for

00:07:31.800 | my choice was me?'" That is a key question. And it's one that we addressed back in episode

00:07:37.200 | number 307. Be sure to check out that episode in the Ask Pastor John archive, most easily

00:07:41.480 | found in the app for the iPhone and Android.

00:07:44.600 | So what does it mean in Romans 8:16 that the Spirit bears witness with our spirits that

00:07:49.120 | we are children of God? We'll ask that of John Piper tomorrow. My name is Tony Ranke.

00:07:53.840 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:07:56.040 | [END]

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00:07:57.040 | The Spirit Bears Witness to the Faults of the Church in the United States of America.

00:07:58.040 | The Spirit Bears Witness to the Faults of the Church in the United States of America.

00:07:59.040 | The Spirit Bears Witness to the Faults of the Church in the United States of America.

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00:08:00.040 | The Spirit Bears Witness to the Faults of the Church in the United States of America.

00:08:01.040 | The Spirit Bears Witness to the Faults of the Church in the United States of America.

00:08:02.040 | The Spirit Bears Witness to the Faults of the Church in the United States of America.

00:08:03.040 | The Spirit Bears Witness to the Faults of the Church in the United States of America.

00:08:04.040 | The Spirit Bears Witness to the Faults of the Church in the United States of America.

How Can a Sovereign God Be Surprised?

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