Sovereign over Time and Nations
“[God] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.” Acts 17:26–27a
Divine transcendence characterizes the one true God, making Him distinct from all created things. God’s transcendence means that He reigns as Lord over all and that He is very different from us, having ways that are not our ways and thoughts that are not our thoughts (Isa. 55:8–9). Because God is transcendent, He is also sovereign, in complete control of creation, working out all things according to the counsel of His will (Ps. 99:1; Eph. 1:11).
False religions, especially of the pagan and polytheistic variety, tend to reject divine transcendence, making God just one of many actors in the world and subject to the control of fate or something else. Consequently, presenting the truth about God to a pagan people requires an emphasis on divine transcendence. Preaching to the Athenian thinkers at the Areopagus, many of whom were polytheists, Paul therefore stressed the transcendence of the Creator. The Athenians could not experience the salvation offered through Jesus Christ and rightly relate to the one true God if they did not know the truth about Him. So Paul’s opening remarks about God emphasize His sovereignty, work of creation, and self-sufficiency, qualities that are all integral to divine transcendence (Acts 17:22–25).
In today’s passage, we see that Paul also spoke of divine transcendence by explaining God’s sovereignty over the origin and destiny of nations. The nations of the world exist not merely because of the decisions of men; rather, the Lord ultimately forms them from “one man” and determines their allotted times and boundaries (v. 26). All tribes and tongues of humanity have a common origin—we are all descended from the first man, Adam—being established by God, who gives every nation its own boundaries, both physical and temporal. Every individual nation, in other words, exists where it does and for as long as it does according to the Lord’s sovereign decree that governs its rise and fall. The rise and fall of nations is an incredibly complex process, requiring the interplay of countless causes and effects, and God determines it all. John Calvin comments, “This world is governed by his hand and counsel, and . . . men’s affairs fall not out by chance, as profane men dream.”
God did all this so that mankind would seek Him (Acts 17:27). Human beings in bondage to sin show their ingratitude and rebellion in that they do not truly seek God (Rom. 3:9–18).
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Because of sin, human beings reject the truth of God’s complete sovereignty over all things. Non-Christians fail to recognize His sovereignty, but even regenerate people can have trouble accepting it because of the way that sin warps our thinking. Let us insist on God’s full sovereignty so that people will know the true God rightly in all His fullness.
Tabletalk Magazine, August 2024 (Sovereign over Time and Nations)
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