The Sovereignty of God

For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. ROMANS 11:36

Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a Calvinist, and he said so without embarrassment. But the word can mislead. He was not interested in Calvinism as a party badge or a debating position, and he had little patience with those who were. What gripped him was something larger and older than any system: the living God, who is sovereign over all things and who saves sinners by His own free grace from first to last. That conviction was the backbone of his preaching. Take it away, and the rest of his teaching falls to pieces.

Where the gospel begins

The modern tendency, he believed, was to begin with man — his needs, his feelings, his decision — and to fit God in around him. The Bible begins with God. It begins with His being, His holiness, His purposes, His glory. Lloyd-Jones insisted that the first question of religion is not what man wants but who God is, and that until that question has been answered, every other will be answered wrongly.

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! ROMANS 11:33

This is why so many of his series began with long expositions of doctrine before they ever came to application. He was not being academic. He was convinced that Christians are made weak by small thoughts of God, and strong by great ones. A man who knows that God is on the throne can face anything. A man who suspects that everything depends on himself will sooner or later break.

Salvation is of the Lord

When Lloyd-Jones spoke of the sovereignty of God, he meant chiefly His sovereignty in salvation. The previous chapter showed his diagnosis: man is dead in trespasses and sins. It follows that man cannot save himself, cannot even contribute to his salvation, cannot of his own resources so much as turn towards God. If he is to be saved at all, God must do it.

No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. JOHN 6:44

And God does do it. He chose His people in Christ before the foundation of the world. He sent His Son to redeem them. He sends His Spirit to give them life, to open their eyes and to draw them to Christ. He keeps them to the end. In his expositions of Ephesians 1 and of Romans 8 and 9, Lloyd-Jones worked through these truths with evident delight. They were not, for him, cold propositions. They were the ground of all assurance and all praise.

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. EPHESIANS 1:4

He was quick to point out that election in Scripture is always unto holiness. It is not a licence for complacency. The believer who says, in effect, that since he is chosen it does not matter how he lives has shown by that very statement that he has not understood the doctrine.

Grace that humbles and grace that comforts

Two great fruits of this doctrine appear again and again in his preaching.

The first is humility. If salvation is entirely of grace, then no Christian has anything to boast of. He did not find God; God found him. He did not choose Christ first; Christ chose him. Every ground of pride is removed.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. EPHESIANS 2:8–9

The second is comfort. If salvation depended in the end on the believer’s own will, it would be as unstable as the believer’s own will. But it depends on God, and God does not change. The One who began the work will finish it.

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. PHILIPPIANS 1:6

Lloyd-Jones found in this the answer to much spiritual anxiety. The depressed Christian, the doubting Christian, the Christian who has fallen badly, is too often looking at himself. He needs to look at God, who does not let His purposes fail.

Sovereignty and the free offer

It is important to say what Lloyd-Jones did not do with this doctrine, because some who share it have gone astray. He did not stop preaching to the unconverted. He did not tell sinners that they must first find evidence of their election before they could come to Christ. Anyone who reads his evangelistic sermons — the sermon on the prodigal son hosted on Ochorus is a fine example — will find him pleading with his hearers, freely and urgently, to come to Christ as they are. He held that God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are both taught in Scripture, and that the preacher must proclaim both, even where he cannot reconcile them to the satisfaction of his own reason.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. MATTHEW 11:28

He was also sharply critical of what he regarded as a merely intellectual Calvinism: men who could argue the doctrines of grace brilliantly and showed little of the grace itself — no warmth, no zeal for the lost, no love. Orthodoxy that leaves the heart cold, he believed, has not understood its own doctrines, however correct it may be on paper.

Where care is needed

These are deep waters, and good Christians have disagreed about them for centuries. Many who love Christ and read Lloyd-Jones gladly do not share his convictions on election, and he himself was willing to have fellowship with evangelicals of other views on this question, though he believed they were mistaken. The reader who stumbles here should remember that the heart of the matter is not a system but a confession every Christian makes on his knees: that salvation is God’s gift and not our achievement. And the reader who agrees should heed Lloyd-Jones’s own warning. The doctrines of grace were never meant to be a club for beating other believers. They were meant to make us humble, grateful and bold.

So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. ROMANS 9:16

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask where your thinking about the Christian life begins: with yourself or with God. Spend ten minutes today meditating on one attribute of God before you pray for anything.

2. Read Ephesians 1:3–14 and list everything God does in it. Notice how little is said about what we do.

3. Identify one area of anxiety in your life. Bring Philippians 1:6 to bear on it deliberately.

4. If you hold these doctrines, examine whether they have made you more humble and more loving — or more argumentative.

5. Pray by name for one unbelieving friend, trusting both that God is able to save and that He uses the witness of His people.

A PRAYER

Sovereign Lord, You are on the throne, and all things are of You, and through You, and to You. I bow before You.

I did not find You; You found me. I did not choose You first; You chose me. Take from me every trace of pride.

When I am anxious, remind me that my salvation rests in Your hands and not in mine.

And let these great truths make me warm, not cold; humble, not proud; eager to tell others of Your free mercy in Christ. Amen.