There is a popular and perilous rumour around, inspired by the late Myles Munroe and Benny Hinn. It says that the Sovereign of the universe requires man’s permission to do anything on earth. ‘The only creature that God gave authority in the earth, legally to, is a spirit in a dirt body,’ maintains Munroe. ‘Any spirit without a body is illegal on planet earth’ he says, before remarking that ‘even God Himself is illegal on earth.’
Munroe, hosted by Benny Hinn, states that because God is a spirit without a body, He cannot operate on earth without permission from humanity. ‘The law set up by His own mouth was that only spirits with bodies can function on earth legally.’ Munroe asks, ‘if God is so mighty, omnipotent, omniscient, why couldn’t (he) who made five hundred million planets and galaxies stop a skinny little woman from picking fruit to destroy his whole program?’ Munroe answers that God did not stop Eve ‘because he couldn’t.’
How then does God get the license to operate on earth? Munroe’ reply is, through prayer. For Munroe, prayer is ‘man giving God permission or license to interfere in earth’s affairs.’ Indeed, ‘God could do nothing on earth…nothing has God ever done on earth without a human giving Him access.’
Munroe’s Misconception of God
John Calvin, that great French Reformer, once remarked that ‘Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and ourselves.’ Thus, a distorted view of humanity inevitably distorts our understanding of God and vice-versa.
Considering the biblical teaching on the character of God can be a corrective on such human-centred and lethal doctrines. For example, Genesis introduces to us an unbound God who, from nothing and by his word, made all things. According to Genesis 1:1, ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’ The clear implication is that God, who made all things, is unbound and uncontained by creation. As the Creator of space, he must exist beyond spatial confines. Thus, God is in space as one who transcends it, sustaining it in his divine hiddenness.
That God is everywhere every time is a cardinal Christian doctrine (Prov. 15:3, 1 Kings 8:27, Jer. 23:23-24, Ps. 139:7-12). God is infinite regarding space, and thus omnipresent and immense, filling all space as one who transcends all spatial limitations. As spirit, He is uncircumscribed and yet fills all space in the totality of His being at each point or place. As its source, God certainly exists in but beyond space.
Thus, Munroe’s claim that God is ‘illegal on earth’ runs counter to the whole biblical narrative. The Maker of the universe is always at home with his creation. Unlimited by space, there is no single plot in the entire world where God does not dwell, not even in Sheol (Ps. 139:8). God, by definition and nature, cannot be ‘illegal’ anywhere.
God’s Sovereign Providence
But not only is God ‘legally present’ everywhere, he freely and fully governs all things. Aristotelian deism depicts a god who designed all things and resigned, leaving creation to its whims. But the Bible insists that God is always and actively involved in the affairs of the universe, providentially sustaining and guiding it to his desired ends.
Indeed, ‘Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases’ (Psalm 115:3). And ‘Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps’ (Psalm 135:6).
Rehearsing Genesis, Psalm 104 praises God’s providential provision on earth. God permanently ‘set the earth on its foundations’ (v5) and established boundaries for the waters (v9). God provides water to quench the beasts’ thirst (v10-11) and ‘beside them, the birds of the heavens dwell’ (v12). Indeed, from his ‘lofty abode,’ the Lord waters the mountains so that ‘the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work’ (v13). God grows grass for livestock ‘and plants for man to cultivate’ so that mankind may have food and wine to gladden the human heart (v14-15).
The Psalmist continues to remark how God guides the sun and moon, light and darkness. He made all living creatures which look to him ‘to give them their food in due season’ (v27-30).
God does all these things without permission from anyone. Even this morning, the Maker of the universe consulted no one before he freely gave us breath. Somewhere in a Ugandan forest, a bird sings and a seed buds, owing to the breath of a God who sovereignly and uninvitedly offers life to all his creatures. A flower fades, and the wind wanes because God reigns in the affairs of men. All that the righteous person can do is to sing praises to God (v33) before whom the earth trembles and the mountains emit smoke at God’s sight and touch (v32). And yet, Munroe claims that ‘even though God can do anything, he can only do what you permit him to do.’
The Bible screams in objection to such an idolatrous stance. ‘Who is this’ God demands, ‘that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?’ (Job 38:2). ‘The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!’ (Ps. 99:1).
Of the few men forced to consciously encounter the sovereign rule of God over every individual situation is the debased king of an exalted kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had such a distorted view of the power of God on earth that he essentially declared himself a god (Daniel 3). Seven years of a changed diet and address brought him to his knees. It is then that he proclaimed how:
All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” Daniel 4:35
God totally and truly rules over all things, without permission or counsel from any creature. He is God, and that is enough!
Do you not know? Do you not hear?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
Isaiah 40:21-23
Prayer in Light of God’s Providence
Contrary to Munroe, prayer is not permitting God to do anything ‘he could not do.’ May we perish such a pompous perception. Prayer does not make man sovereign or God subservient. Prayer is a remarkably underserved audience with the omnipresent and sovereign King. During prayer, the consuming fire (Deut. 4:24) accommodates himself to encounter us, frail grass (Isaiah 40:6), without consuming us (Ex. 3:2-4). That God answers prayer testifies of his humility rather than our exaltation. Prayer does not change God. It changes us.
Through prayer, the omnipresent God removes the veil from our eyes to behold His all-pervasive presence that both sustains us and shatters our sinful self-centeredness. As we commune with God, we understand, with Jacob, that God has always been actively present everywhere, and we were unaware (Gen. 28:16). Prayer prevents us from darkening God’s counsel ‘by words without knowledge’ (Job 38:2). Through it, we join the mission of God, who has always been working (John 5:17).
We pray because God is sovereign. It is no use praying to a god who is not already in charge. We pray because we are not in control. If we were, there would be no need to ask. In fact, we also pray because it is God who works in us ‘both to will and to work for his good pleasure’ (Phil. 2:13). Neither do we know ‘what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words’ (Rom. 8:26). We could not pray unless God worked in us.
We are incapable of praying without him. If then he waited for permission from us, when would it ever arrive? Who would work in us to pray apart from His Spirit in us? How then can we permit him to do the very work necessary before we permit him?
The very logic of prayer as ‘permission’ breaks down given Scriptural revelation. Scripture states that prayer is a product of God’s grand work, not the cause of it. Viewed in light of God’s providence, prayer humbles us, reminding us that he is the Porter and we are the clay (Is. 64:8). There, on our knees, our pride perishes, and his glory glows and grows in our lives, overflowing into our obedience. After all, it is his permission we need when we pray.
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