The Bible’s teaching on the absolute sovereignty of God brings to mind a number of questions. If God is sovereign, ordaining all things from eternity past, how am I responsible for my actions? If God is sovereign, why is there so much evil, and where did sin come from?

The mysterious mingling of divine sovereignty and human responsibility shows up in the story of Joseph from the book of Genesis. Speaking to his brothers who sold him into slavery, Joseph says, “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

In this video, Dr. Albert Mohler answers a question concerning God’s sovereignty in this story. In the end, Dr. Mohler says, God is more glorified to be known as Creator and Redeemer, than to be known only as Creator.

This suggestion that God created a world in which there would be sin and evil and death in order that he might be glorified as redeemer comes to us from texts like Romans 9. There, in verses 22-23, Paul answers a questions about God’s justice in holding us accountable for sin with another question: “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory?”

In other words, a creation in which there is no sin and no death would be a creation where God’s glorious grace is not praised because it is not known.