Tag Archives: god is love

“God is on the throne.” What does this even mean?

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“God is on the throne.”

The saying gets pulled out any time something happens that isn’t to our liking. A roadblock in a relationship. A cancer diagnosis. An unwanted election result.

“Don’t worry. God is still on the throne.”

It’s well-meaning, intended to bring comfort when hard things happen. It’s equivalent to “God is sovereign.” Or more directly: “God is in control.”

“God is in control.” That’s getting to the heart of what most people seem to mean when they say, “God is on the throne” or “God is sovereign.” All these are intended to suggest that God controls the circumstances in our lives, that things only happen because God decrees that they happen, or at least that God allows them to happen.

There are certainly texts in the Bible that suggest this way of thinking about God. Psalms that lyrically portray fire and hail, snow and ice arriving at God’s very command (Psa 148:8). Proverbs that sagely profess that every decision derived from casting lots (like throwing a dice) is from God (Prov 16:33). Prophets that poetically proclaim words of God like this:

I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I form light and create darkness,
I make weal and create woe;
I the Lord do all these things. (Isa 45:6-7)

But it doesn’t take much reflection to problematize this view of God. What kind of loving God is it who allows or even decrees evil things to happen, especially to good people? Or, another angle on this problem: how can we reconcile this evil-decreeing or evil-allowing God with other passages of Scripture, like the statement that it is “the thief” who comes “to steal and kill and destroy,” not God, whose Son brings “life, and life abundantly” (John 10:10)?

Or, perhaps most to the point: if “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), how can this God be party to any harm against others, which is the antithesis of love (Rom 13:10)?

It seems some choices need to be made as to which biblical texts we start and end with, which ones will control our interpretation of other texts. And as I do this, I can’t help but conclude that God is not in control of all things.

For this, I look primarily to none other than Jesus, and the prayer he taught his disciples. If we are to pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10), this presumes that at present God’s will is not being done on earth, at least not fully. No, God is not in control of all things, and no, God is not the author of evil, or even its passive partner. God is, indeed, love.

So let’s go back to “God is on the throne.” This is a metaphor—“God is sovereign” is another version of the metaphor. And the metaphor is this: God is comparable to a king or queen, ruling over their realm from their throne.

Makes sense. The basic metaphor is not hard to grasp.

But here’s the thing—there is no king or queen who, in their sovereign rule, controls all the things that happen in their realm. That’s not the point of declaring their sovereignty. It’s not the point of saying, “The king (or queen) is on the throne.”

Rather, the point is this: because the monarch is on the throne, because they are sovereign in their realm, all within their realm owe their allegiance to them. Those under their sovereignty are not controlled by them. Rather, they owe their fealty to them, and are called upon to obey their will.

“God is on the throne,” then, is not equivalent to “God is in control.” Instead, it’s more like “God is in charge.”

Yes, “God is on the throne.” Yes, “God is sovereign.” But this doesn’t mean God controls everything that happens, or even that God allows all things to happen, and especially not all this world’s death and destruction, degradation and devastation.

Rather, to claim that “God is on the throne” or “God is sovereign” means that God calls us to allegiance to God and God’s ways, which is allegiance to Jesus as God’s Messiah and Jesus’ way of love (Matt 28:18-20). Which means that God calls us to resist the reign of sin and death and evil and injustice as it is in the world, to instead “seek first God’s reign and God’s justice” (Matt 6:33), praying, longing, working for “God’s reign to come, God’s will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10).

Is God present with us in all things, even poverty and sickness and death, even injustice and evil? Absolutely (Heb 13:5-6).

Does God work through all things, even suffering and sin, to bring about God’s good purposes? Most definitely (Rom 8:28-30).

These are tremendous promises of God, growing out of the goodness of the God who is love. But God does not control all things, for God neither decrees nor allows evil to happen. Rather, God calls us to allegiance to God as revealed in Jesus and his way of love, resisting the forces of sin and death, evil and injustice.

And it is when we walk in this way of faith and hope and love that we can have the full assurance of God’s faithful presence always with us and God’s good purposes ultimately worked out for us.

© Michael W. Pahl

My Faith Story

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On September 4, 2022, I shared my faith story with my congregation as part of the process of transferring my membership from my previous congregation. Here is what I shared.

If I were to sum up my faith journey in a phrase, it might be this: “Pursuing Jesus who first found me.”

I grew up in a conservative evangelical environment, nominally Anabaptist. I knew my Bible. I knew about Jesus. But I didn’t know Jesus.

In my university days I went on a spiritual quest. I checked out other religions—Hinduism and Buddhism fascinated me for a while. I actively participated in a different church every year of university: Pentecostal, United Church, Lutheran, Baptist. I was baptized in that Baptist church.

Along the way I had a profound spiritual experience that pushed me back to the Bible. I read it like I’d never read it before, in huge chunks: all of Isaiah in one sitting, all of Luke and Acts in another, all of Genesis in a morning, all of John in an afternoon, Romans before bed. I gorged on Scripture.

And that’s how I first met Jesus. I read the Bible and I found Jesus. Or rather, Jesus found me, and I’ve pursued him ever since.

Later, when I was teaching through the New Testament at a small Christian college and working on my Ph.D., I had an epiphany: this Jesus-centred reading of Scripture had made me into an Anabaptist. By reading the Bible to follow Jesus I had become committed to Jesus’ way of nonviolence, his way of just peace, his way of community, his way of love.

And so, when I left this nondenominational college to move into pastoral ministry, it made sense to serve in a Mennonite congregation, one that was thoroughly Anabaptist.

That was 13 years ago, and our journey since then has brought us from Alberta to Ohio to Manitoba, and now into my current role as Executive Minister of Mennonite Church Manitoba, and member of Home Street Mennonite Church. I’m grateful for this congregation, for its commitment to pursue Jesus who first found us.

Last week Ingrid shared about developing a centred-set approach to church instead of a bounded-set approach. I’ve also taught that concept since first coming across missionary anthropologist Paul Hiebert’s use of this idea. And this, to me, is at the centre of this thing we call “Christianity,” and this thing we call “church”: Jesus, and Jesus’ way of love.

Jesus of Nazareth, crucified Messiah and resurrected Lord, and Jesus’ way of devotion for God expressed through compassion for others, especially those the world deems “last,” “least,” or “lost.”

We gather around Jesus and his way of love like people gathering around a bonfire on a cold, dark night. We draw close to Jesus and his love for light and warmth, and as we do so we find ourselves drawing closer to each other.

Around this fire we tell our stories, we sing our songs, we pray our prayers, we share our bread and wine. And we commit ourselves to following Jesus and his way of love as we go out into the world, carrying our candles lit with the fire of Jesus’ love.

As we go we proclaim the greatest revelation Jesus has given us: God is love. We should know this from Scripture, we should know this from observing creation around us, but in Jesus this is confirmed and clarified: God is love.

God always loves. God cannot not love. Everything God does is motivated by love and enacted in love. This means that anything we experience that is not of love is not of God. God is not the author of evil or suffering or harm.

Love is the essence of God in a way that God’s other attributes are not. God’s holiness is a holy love. God’s justice is a just love. God’s wisdom is a wise love. God’s power is a powerful love.

All is being moved by love towards God’s good purposes. Love is stronger than injustice or violence. Love is stronger than every other power. Love is stronger than death. In the end, love will win, and all will be well.

Jesus, and Jesus’ way of love, pointing us to the God who is love.

This is indeed good news.