24 Bible Passages about God’s Sovereignty
BY BCL | How much is God in control of all that happens in the world? Here are 24 Bible passages about God’s sovereign rule.
What does it mean that God is sovereign? We find a helpful definition in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647):
God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself; and is alone in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them. He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things; and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever himself pleaseth. In his sight all things are open and manifest, his knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature, so as nothing is to him contingent, or uncertain. He is most holy in all his counsels, in all his works, and in all his commands. To him is due from angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service, or obedience he is pleased to require of them. (“Of God, and of the Holy Trinity,” WCF 2.2)
Here are 24 Bible passages about the sovereignty of God (all Scripture quotations from the English Standard Version):
God has sovereign dominion over all.
1. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:27-28)
2. Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. (Psalm 115:3; see also Psalm 135:6)
3. The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. (Proverbs 21:1)
4. I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things. (Isaiah 45:7)