God is not in control - Daniel Mosby
Yes you heard me right. God is NOT in control. All my life when bad things have been going on I’ve heard this well intentioned phrase, “Don’t worry God is on control, he knows what he’s doing”. A phrase intended to comfort in difficult times. It’s time the church stopped using this phrase.
Let’s examine this phrase and look at why, if we think about it, “God is in control” is actually not that comforting at all. Take the current global pandemic; if we are to say that God is in control of it we have to believe that God created it. We have to believe that God has deliberately made a virus that has killed hundreds of thousands and made the lives of millions a misery. Is God really in control of this? Of course not! Some people try to justify this control by saying that God has caused it to teach us something. Well yes we certainly can learn something from it, God has an amazing ability to bring light out of darkness but he doesn’t create the darkness. God doesn’t use pain and suffering as a teaching tool.
God only causes good, anything not good is not from God, but the result of living in a fallen world. If you’re not with me on this then Geoff and I have addressed this in detail in previous blogs (you can read them here and here) I’d recommend getting your head around that before continuing. It is also vital to understand that we’re not saying that suffering is any way a result of sin or individual failure of any kind.
So if God isn’t in control who is? God has delegated control to mankind. In Genesis 1:26 God says:
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” KJV
God has delegated control to us. But now here’s the good bit, instead of controlling humanity God wants to work in partnership with us to make the world a better place. Control is a fear based response, partnership is a love-based response. The abusive partner exercises control through fear and oppression. The loving partners work together. We know which has better results.
I’m a teacher, people often ask me how “do you keep control your class?” My answer is I don’t want to control the children; I want to work in partnership with them. I want to show them that making the right choices makes life better for everyone. I don’t want them to do what I ask because they are scared of me. I want them to do what I ask because they trust me and see the benefit in completing the task.
For some the revelation that God isn’t in control may be dis-empowering, are we just meant to then succumb to the world? No, this isn’t dis-empowering it’s empowering. It give us a role, an invitation to work with God to use all the power of heaven to make the world a better place. We are no longer spectators to a battle between good and evil. No longer helpless victims of a spiritual power struggle. We are powerful beings, active participants.
For some reason this idea that God isn’t in control is quite offensive to some Christians. People seem to get quite defensive of this idea. I think there are a couple of reasons for this, firstly because it may be different to what they have been taught to believe and we don’t like being wrong. But faith is a continual journey of discovery. Please really consider whether a controlling God who makes bad things happen to teach us a lesson is the same God revealed to us by Jesus.
The other reason I think people don’t like this idea is because it means we cannot just be bystanders. It means we have power and as the great philosopher Peter Parker once said “With great power, comes great responsibility”. Perhaps it is easier for some Christians to say God is in control because it abdicates us of responsibility.
In a recent conversation on this matter a fervent defender of the controlling God doctrine threw lots of (almost exclusively Old Testament) verses of Scripture at me. I want to examine a few of them in detail. As with any passage of Scripture it is vital to read them in the context of the whole book, through the lens of Christ’s words and actions. I haven’t got time to address all of these passages here but one such passage is Isaiah 55: 8-11:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” NIV
Far from this being about control this passage is a plea from God to work in partnership with him. It’s a plea to move on from the earthly view of the World. This chapter begins with the phrase “Come all who are thirsty” reminiscent of the living water Jesus discusses in John chapter 4. This is an invitation from God to set aside the provisions of the World and let him be the source of all we need. He is saying stop working in partnership with the world and work alongside me. Verse 11 talks about how the word of God will accomplish what he desires. Can I suggest that the word being referred to here is the word referred to by the Apostle John at the start of his gospel: Logos, a reference to Christ. How did Christ achieve his aims on Earth? Did he control the government? Did he force his disciples to follow him by threatening them? No, he worked in partnership with his disciples and many others. Jesus wasn’t interested in control.
One New Testament verse this individual used to try and justify their position was John 16 verse 33:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
The context here is Jesus speaking to his disciples in the garden before he is arrested, this is his final set of instructions. I guess what my correspondent was implying here is that by the saying he has “overcome the world” Jesus is saying it is under his control. If you look at the Greek, the word “world” is “kosmos” (Strong’s 2889) which Strong’s defines as:
“(literally, "something ordered") – properly, an "ordered system" (like the universe, creation); the world.”
I like the version of this verse in Fracois du Toit’s Mirror translation:
“Be of good courage, I have conquered the world-order.”
Jesus isn’t saying here he is now in control of the world, that he is the puppet master of creation. He is saying that through his death on the Cross the world system of sin, retributive violence and death is no more.
So brothers and sisters I ask you to think twice before delivering the pat answer “don’t worry God is in control” as a response to suffering, or in any other context. It isn’t comforting, it reinforces the belief that the suffering is caused by God. To some it says that we’re not good enough, that the suffering is deserved, that the suffering is a consequence of our sin. It’s dis-empowering, it removes us from the narrative making us pawns in God’s Calvinistic game. On the face of it it’s a meaningless soundbite, deep down it paints a dangerous picture of God. Can I suggest that a better response would be “God feels your pain, he is there with you and wants to work in partnership with you to make it better”.