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When the sovereign God seems to be surprised, part 4

When God gave Adam dominion in Genesis 1:26-28, He delegated authority to man. Authority is not sovereignty, yet it is very real and ought to be taken seriously. Adam’s abuse of his authority did not negate it, though it started a long process of degeneration into chaos, culminating at the end of the age (today).

Sovereignty (dunamis) and authority (exousia) exist side by side, each having its own level of power. What men call “free will” is actually the exercise of authority, which, in turn, is subject to the sovereignty of God by whom authority derives its existence. When exercised properly, we will think and do all things according to the will of God in conformity to His nature.

God Himself respects man’s authority, because He created it and because His plan is to create men (and women, of course) in His own image. The final product is to make man a perfect reflector of the divine nature, a mirror image of Himself. Jesus Christ was the First fruit of God’s success in manifesting His image in the earth (Hebrews 1:3). That was achieved in His first coming. The second coming of Christ is designed to bring forth a body of people who are transformed into the image of God and are like Christ, their Head.

God does not often intervene and interfere with man’s authority. Why? Because authority was created by His word in Genesis 1:26. His word manifests His nature, which God respects. Men have interpreted this in terms of “free will,” which is a philosophical term; while authority is actually rooted in law, which is the standard of measure based on God’s nature.

The results of Adam’s sin have been seen throughout history. Even righteous people are not fully righteous, for “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23) and “there is none righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10). Believers have sought righteousness diligently, and many have wondered why God does not intervene to make them actually righteous. They have not understood the sanctity of authority. They do not understand that the moment God delegated authority, He limited Himself by law within certain time restraints.

In other words, once God has made a decree, He is bound by it, having chosen to limit His way of achieving His goal (plan). By His sovereignty, He could snap His fingers and put all things under His feet, but having delegated authority, the plan is delayed and extended by time. Fortunately, time itself is subject to God’s sovereignty, so its time of jurisdiction is finite.

Nonetheless, during its time of jurisdiction, the authority of time is real, and even God Himself cannot break His word. His direct intervention is limited by man’s authority, even as man’s authority is limited by God’s sovereignty.

Perhaps we can say that authority means we must act as if we had free will. Yet if we redefine “free will” in terms of authority, we might still use the term without violating the principle behind it. The point is that man’s “free will” is subject to God’s sovereignty.

Land Laws

The law says in Leviticus 25:23,

²³ The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me.

The “Promised Land,” in terms of real estate, was given to the tribes and families of Israel as their inheritance. God gave them authority over the land, but God retained sovereignty over it. The people spoke in terms of owning their property, but in reality, they were tenants on God’s land. Their authority was real, but it was limited by God’s sovereignty.

We are made from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7). That is probably why Leviticus 25:23 seems to equate the land with the people themselves, who are described as “aliens and sojourners,” instead of as landowners. Men did not create themselves; hence, no man owns himself. Neither do parents own their children, because procreation makes children by the authority of man, while God Himself is the Creator. In other words, parents make children out of the same dust of the ground that God created. Hence, their “ownership” is subject to the sovereignty of God.

For this reason, no man has the authority to sell his “land” permanently. His authority is limited. If a man sells his soul to the devil, for example, he will suffer the consequences only up to the level of his authority. But in the end, God’s sovereignty takes over and lays claim to all the land. Such is the nature of Creator’s rights.

The entire world has been sold into bondage to sin on account of Adam’s sin, which was exercised by his authority. However, God still retains ownership of the earth and will claim it all in the end (1 Corinthians 15:27, 28) as an act of sovereignty. This is the restoration of all things.

The law of God specifies that the time of man’s labor under bondage is mitigated by the laws of redemption until the law of Jubilee sets him free. A kinsman has the right of redemption during his time of bondage, and the same kinsman also retains the right to forgive any debt that is owed to him. But “even if he is not redeemed by these means, he shall still go out in the year of Jubilee” (Leviticus 25:54).

The Uniqueness of the Jubilee

Most religions acknowledge the Creator, and, at least to some extent, they understand that God has rights. However, the law of Jubilee is unique in the Bible. Men do not normally like the idea of setting slaves free, not even after 49 years of bondage. Hence, the revelation of the Jubilee has fallen on deaf ears for most of history.

The law of Jubilee is God’s assertion of His rights as the Creator to take possession of that which He created. It overrides the will of man at the end of man’s authority, so that His plan for the earth and for mankind as a whole may be fulfilled as originally intended. This assertion overrides the will of man.

Up to the moment of the Jubilee, God’s earlier decree judging Adam and his estate still holds sway, limiting God’s “ability” (so to speak) to set men free. Even so, men and nations have been able to achieve a modicum of freedom through the laws of redemption. This is where faith and obedience to the laws of God become paramount. Old Covenant faith achieved some level of freedom under Moses, but New Covenant faith has greater power of freedom.

New Covenant faith, however, does not immediately set us free from sin in the fullest sense. We are imputed righteous, where God calls what is not as though it were (Romans 4:17 KJV). Paul illustrates this principle by the story of Abraham, who believed God and it was imputed (logizomai) to him as righteousness (Romans 4:21, 22). God did not vacate His original judgment for Adam’s sin, but yet He made Abraham legally righteous.

So is it for all who share Abraham’s faith (Romans 4:24).

Note that God could not overturn His original decree that made Adam mortal and corruptible. This decree upon Adam and his estate will not be fully overturned until the great Jubilee of Creation, which, I believe, will occur after 49,000 years have run their course. We now live at the end of the 6^th “day,” that is, the start of the first Sabbath millennium, for a day is as a thousand years (2 Peter 3:8).

The Sabbath millennium that lies before us is a partial release, designed to give rest to the earth from the labor and bondage of Mystery Babylon (Exodus 23:10-12). It does not mean that the earth will be released fully from the bondage dating back to Adam’s sin. Reversing the effects of Adam’s sin requires the law of Jubilee.

The Promised Land

Just before God allowed Israel to enter the Promised Land under Joshua, He told Moses in Deuteronomy 7:1, 2 that they were to “utterly destroy” the nations living in Canaan. The Israelites obeyed partially, but not completely. In Judges 2:2, God complained,

² “and as for you, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed Me; what is this you have done?” ³ Therefore I also said, “I will not drive them out before you, but they will become as thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you.”

Once again, God appeared to be surprised and almost helpless in the face of disobedience. Israel had again abused its authority by its partial obedience. It is clear that as long as they remained under the sentence of death through Adam’s sin, they were unable to fulfill all righteousness under the Old Covenant, which was based on man’s vow or promise to God.

So Israel came under further judgment which would test their hearts. Judges 2:20-23 says,

²⁰ So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He said, “Because this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers and has not listened to My voice, ²¹ I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, ²² in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk in it as their fathers did, or not.” ²³ So the Lord allowed those nations to remain, not driving them out quickly, and He did not give them into the hand of Joshua.

So the order of events can be summarized in this way: Adam sinned. Men became mortal and corruptible. A few had faith, but Israel as a nation was disobedient. When they entered Canaan, their hearts were still not right, so God did not allow Joshua to destroy all of the Canaanites. They conquered only enough land to gain a foothold. God then “allowed those nations to remain” in order to test the hearts of the Israelites. And when they failed those tests, God brought them into captivity to various nations, culminating with the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. The failure of the Old Covenant then required a New Covenant that rested upon the promise of God, rather than the promises of men (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

Did God know that the Old Covenant would fail? Of course. The Old Covenant was laced with types and shadows which prophesied of better things yet to come. It was all in the plan, because Christ, was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8 KJV). The lambs slain under the Old Covenant were never meant to be a permanent part of worship, for the blood of animals could make no one perfect. “He takes away the first in order to establish the second” (Hebrews 10:9).

We see how God judges all men for abusing their authority, and we often read that God was “angry” with them. His anger is certainly real, but we should know also that God planned to be angry from the beginning. It was all part of His plan from the beginning of creation. Furthermore, His anger itself is limited to the level of man’s authority. Psalm 79:5 asks, “Will You be angry forever?” Under the Old Covenant, the answer was obscure. Under the New Covenant, however, we know that His anger is NOT forever.

Psalm 130:3, 4 says,

³ If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? ⁴ But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared [respected].

There are various layers of forgiveness, but the Jubilee is the greatest manifestation of God’s forgiveness.

So when we read about the anger of God and about His judgments on the earth, we should also recognize that forgiveness prior to the Jubilee is based on the laws of redemption, which apply during the interim between Adam’s sin and the Creation Jubilee. We must respect God’s anger as a judicial response to man’s sin; yet we must also know that God is love and that He has a forgiving heart. His plan is to show all men the lawful path to obtaining forgiveness through the redemptive blood of the Lamb of God.