Sovereignty and Responsibility

Right-thinking Christians hold the line between two seemingly conflicting truths: the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of human beings.

God is in charge – sovereign over all. He does not stand helplessly by while human beings do as they like. This may appear to be the case sometimes, but God has His own agenda and will not be rushed into anything. All humans must eventually bow to His will.

Logically, this could reduce human beings to being mere pawns on God’s chessboard, available to be pushed around. Yet in the Bible they are the high point of God’s creation. He means them to have dignity and to take responsibility for their actions. The likes of Judas Iscariot may be destined to betray Jesus Christ, but they are certainly not programmed to do so.

“And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, ‘Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.’ They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, ‘Is it I?’ He said to them, ‘It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born’” (Mark 14:17-21 ESV).

It is a blasphemous insult against God when one person robs another of his or her humanity. Some of the most appalling examples of this process occurred during the systematic extermination of Jews in the Nazi era.

Holocaust Memorial Day this year – 27 September, the 70^th anniversary of the ending of this appalling event – brought back memories of a radio broadcast from some months ago. This had opened my eyes to an unexpected side of the evil strategy of the Nazis against Jews. I used to think that the death trains were simply a means of transporting the victims from A to B. In fact the journey itself was an instrument in dehumanising these hapless people, long before their arrival at the concentration camps.

“The deportees were forced into rail cars, most of which were windowless, unheated cattle cars, and squeezed in so tightly that most were forced to stand. The doors were then sealed shut from the outside. Neither drinking water nor sanitary facilities were available. Each car held more than 120 people, and many froze or suffocated to death or succumbed to disease during the trip to the camps. The dead were not removed from the cars during the journey because the Nazi bureaucracy insisted that each body entering a car be accounted for at the destination” (http://remember.org/guide/Facts.root.final.html, accessed 28 January 2015).

Human beings who started out with dignity, identity and a sense of worth were forced to compete with each other, manoeuvring themselves so they could reach whatever air was available to gulp. By the time they reached the concentration camps, most survivors of the journey had been softened up to become passive recipients of whatever fate awaited them.

The Nazis had learned, irrationally, to hate, fear and despise certain groups of people. I know well the temptation to regard anyone who causes me great trouble as being less than human. But if I am to learn any lesson from the Holocaust, it is that I must never dehumanise anyone, because God certainly does not.

Isaac Watts captured this truth in a hymn based on Psalm 147 both the greatness and the care of God.

What is the creature’s skill or force?

The sprightly man, or warlike horse?

The piercing wit, the active limb?

All are too mean delights for Him.

But saints are lovely in His sight,

He views His children with delight;

He sees their hope, He knows their fear,

and looks, and loves His image there.

In some people the stamp of God’s image is very hard to see. But may I never behave as though it were totally gone.