Best Books on the Sovereignty of God: 11 Classics to Read Free
If you want one readable book on the sovereignty of God, start with Horatius Bonar's Truth and Error. It is a set of letters to a friend who was confused by the arguments of the day, and Bonar writes like a pastor, not a debater. If you want a single sermon, read Jonathan Edwards' "God Glorified in Man's Dependence." If you want the doctrine laid out plainly, read A. A. Hodge on chapter 3 of the Westminster Confession.
The classics mean something simple by "the sovereignty of God." God is God. He made all things, He rules all things, and He does what He pleases in heaven and on earth. Nothing happens by chance, and nothing catches Him off guard. He saves sinners by His own free choice and grace, not because He saw something in them first. And the old writers held this as comfort, not as a puzzle. If God is in charge, then the world is not in the hands of fate, or the devil, or bad men, or you.
Our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.
Psalm 115:3
These are strong books, and some are long. Here are eleven of the best in TheWay Library, all free, ordered so you can start gently and go deeper.
Start here
1. Truth and Error, by Horatius Bonar
Ten letters on the questions people actually ask: God's will and man's will, election, predestination and foreknowledge, the work of Christ, faith and assurance, and why we can't come to God on our own. Bonar's rule is that Scripture decides, and that any teaching that hides God's glory is suspect. He is firm and warm at once.
It was not Adam who chose to be made; but it was God who chose to make Adam.
Truth and Error, Election
See Who Was Horatius Bonar? and our guide to his books. Read Truth and Error.
2. Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards
Seven sermons, with a helpful introduction. Read the first, "God Glorified in Man's Dependence," Edwards' first published sermon. Its point is that salvation is from God, through God and in God, so that no one can boast. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is here too, and it is a sermon about God's sovereign hand.
The redeemed have all their good in God. We not only have it of him, and through him, but it consists in him; he is all our good.
Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards, God Glorified in Man's Dependence
See Who Was Jonathan Edwards? Read the Selected Sermons.
3. A Commentary on the Confession of Faith, by A. A. Hodge
Hodge takes the Westminster Confession section by section, explains it and proves it from Scripture. His chapter on God's eternal decree is the clearest short statement of the doctrine in this list. He also answers the usual objections in plain terms.
It is absolutely sovereign, depending only on the "wise and holy counsel of his own will."
A Commentary on the Confession of Faith, Of God's Eternal Decree
See our guide to A. A. Hodge's books. Read the Commentary.
Go deeper
4. The Existence and Attributes of God, by Stephen Charnock
The great Puritan work on who God is. It is very long, so don't start at the beginning. Go to Discourse XIII, "On God's Dominion," where Charnock shows that God's rule rests in His nature, can't be shaken, and lasts forever. The discourses on His power and wisdom sit right next to it.
It is fixed, not tottering; it is an immovable dominion; all the strugglings of men and devils cannot overturn it, nor so much as shake it.
The Existence and Attributes of God, Discourse XIII
More Puritans are in our guide to the best Puritan books. Read Charnock.
5. Freedom of the Will, by Jonathan Edwards
The most famous book ever written on how God's sovereignty and human choice fit together. Edwards defines the will as simply the mind choosing, and shows that we always choose what seems best to us. His key distinction is between natural inability (you can't, even if you want to) and moral inability (you don't want to). Only the second keeps sinners from God, and it doesn't excuse them. Demanding, but it rewards slow reading.
And therefore it must be true, in some sense, that the Will always is as the greatest apparent good is.
Freedom of the Will, Concerning the Determination of the Will
6. A History of the Work of Redemption, by Jonathan Edwards
Sermons Edwards preached to his congregation as one long plan: all of history, from the fall to the end of the world, as God working out His purpose to redeem a people. It is the sovereignty of God told as a story. Many readers find it easier than his treatises. Read A History of the Work of Redemption.
7. Absolute Predestination, by Girolamo Zanchi
A sixteenth-century Reformed treatise in Augustus Toplady's English version. Zanchi starts from God's attributes, His knowledge, will, wisdom and justice, and reasons from them to election. The tenth chapter argues that the doctrine should be preached openly, and why it humbles and comforts.
The vilest sinner may, for aught we can tell, appertain to the election of grace, and be one day wrought upon by the Spirit of God.
The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination, chapter 3
8. The Cause of God and Truth, by John Gill
A big reference book. Gill goes through more than seventy texts used against the doctrines of grace and gives his reading of each, then sets out the texts that teach them, then answers arguments from reason, then shows the same teaching in the early church. Use it when a particular verse troubles you. Read The Cause of God and Truth.
Sovereignty in the Bible
9. An Exposition of Romans, Volume 3, by Robert Haldane
Haldane spends the most time on Romans 11: God has not cast away His people, a remnant is saved by grace, and the chapter ends in Paul's cry, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" It shows how the doctrine ends in worship.
According to our views of the character of God, so will be our conduct.
An Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, Volume 3, Introduction
10. The Prophet Jonah, by Hugh Martin
A full exposition of Jonah. A storm, a lot cast in a ship, a great fish and a city that repents: God rules all of it, and He has mercy on whom He will. Martin is rich on the sovereignty of God's commission and on Jonah as a sign of Christ.
For the cross of Christ is God's work of infinite love and God's work of infinite judgment too.
The Prophet Jonah, Jonah's Flight: Its Lessons
11. The Sovereignty of God, by Arthur W. Pink
The early edition of Pink's well-known book. He defines sovereignty as God being God, then follows it through creation, providence, salvation and reprobation, the human will, responsibility and prayer. Pink is forceful and doesn't soften anything. One caution: this copy comes from an old scan and has errors, mostly at chapter openings, so read it alongside the others rather than first.
To say that God is sovereign is to declare that God is God.
The Sovereignty of God, chapter 1
How to read these books
Start with Bonar or Edwards' sermon, and read them slowly. The doctrine is meant to bring you to your knees, not to win arguments. Then take one chapter of Hodge or Charnock. Save Edwards on the will and Gill for when you have a specific question.
The sovereignty of God over the events of your own life is its own subject. For that, see our guide to the best Christian books on providence, which starts with John Flavel's The Mystery of Providence. For how sovereign grace saves, see the best books on grace and the best books on salvation. More of these authors are on their pages: Jonathan Edwards, Horatius Bonar and A. A. Hodge.