The Decree – Part II
THIS IS YET ANOTHER BLOG DEALING WITH THE DEEPEST THING OF GOD from the opening chapter of the great book of Ephesians…
NAS Ephesians 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
PAUL’S INTRODUCTION TO EPHESIANS VV. 3-14, WHICH IS HIS OFFICIAL introduction to his great epistle (vv. 1-2 is a greeting), is an example of God’s determinative will. God’s determinative will is synonymous to His Decree. Though the Greek word for “Decree,” βουλὴν (boo-lay), is only found in v. 11, the concept is clearly present throughout. Paul is talking about the things God determined before the foundation of the world, things that have happened or will happen without question. Listen to v. 11 again…
NAS Ephesians 1:11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will,
HIS DETERMINATIVE WILL. HIS DETERMINATIVE IS THE DECREE…
GOD’S DETERMINATIVE WILL IS, AS YOU MIGHT EXPECT TO HEAR, absolutely free, unencumbered by circumstance. “Being alone when His decree was made, His determinations were influenced by no other being. Aside from the fact that He must act according to His wisdom and holiness, He was free to do or not to do. Within the sphere of His perfections, He could do what He would.” – Chafer…
NAS Isaiah 40:13-14 Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, Or as His counselor has informed Him? 14 With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding? And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge, And informed Him of the way of understanding?
THE DECREE OF GOD WAS THE EXPRESSION OF THE FREE WILL OF GOD, the sovereign will of God…
A BRIEF BUT IMPORTANT OBSERVATION ABOUT FREE WILL: Though some Christians chaff at any mention that diminishes in any way the free will of man, I must nevertheless humbly say that the freedom of will we humans possess cannot be compared to the free will of God. Only God’s will is entirely free. Our freedom is conditioned by our humanity, the fact we are limited created beings…
THERE IS GOD’S ABSOLUTE SOVEREIGNTY, AND THERE IS ALSO MAN’S FREE will… How they both can exist together at the same time is an enigma, but the Scripture insists both are true…
AS I HAVE MENTIONED MORE THAN ONCE IN PREVIOUS BLOGS, the best word I have found in my studies over the years to describe this enigma is “antimony” Antinomy says that two seemingly contradictory truths – incredible as it may at first sound – can and sometimes do exists simultaneously. Light is an example; it is both wavelength and particle. Science says this cannot be, yet scientists are forced to deal with the dualistic reality of light all the same. And then there is Jesus; is He not 100% God and 100% man at the same time? That can’t be, our human minds tell us, and yet we know it is true. Antinomy…
SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY, AT LEAST IN SOME AREAS, IT IS A “BOTH/AND” SITUATION… The reality is that God is absolutely sovereign. He knows all things and He ordains all things. We must say that He does indeed ordain all things or we cannot say that He has a perfect plan for His creation. He could not be said to have a perfect plan if there are things He does not know or allows to exist apart from His control. God is entirely sovereign. And yet, somehow, someway, at the same time God is sovereign, man possesses a free will. Antinomy…
“GOD AS CREATOR HAS THE RIGHT TO RULE HIS UNIVERSE IN ANY WAY He sees fit consistent with His own attributes. If He should choose to delegate spheres of autonomy (human freedom to make decisions – TAR) to His creatures, this in no way limits His sovereignty. By His omniscient foreknowledge of both eventualities and non-eventual possibilities, God orchestrates and arranges those events He chooses without coercing the wills of the human moral agents involved.” – Olson…
I TRIED TO COME UP WITH AN ANALOGY THAT MIGHT HELP YOU formulate in your minds this difficult concept regarding God’s sovereignty and simultaneously man’s free will, and I came up with this. Imagine an ancient king who rules an imaginary kingdom. The king is sovereign; his rule is unchallenged. He makes all the laws and renders all the punishment. At the same time the king is exercising his sovereign rule, the individual subjects of his kingdom enjoy free will. They make decisions about what crops to plant, how many children to have, and what to eat for the day. Make sense? A sovereign king need not restrict the free choices of his people…
I’LL SAY MORE ABOUT OUR FREE WILL next week when we talk about predestination (Ephesians 1:5, 11)…
NOW, LET ME QUICKLY GIVE YOU AN EXAMPLE OF GOD’S DESIROUS WILL…
NAS 1 Timothy 2:3-4 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
GOD “DESIRES’ ALL TO BE SAVED; HE DOES NOT DETERMINE THAT ALL WILL be saved… That, of course, would deny man’s “free” will and make grace and love and faith and obedience all but meaningless… (The Greek word in 1 Tim 2:4 is not boulh, [bou-lay] but qe,lw [thay-lo], a word that may be seen to be of a lesser degree than boulh, [bou-lay]; qe,lw [thay-lo] can be translated “wish” or “desire” – God wishes or desires that all be saved; He does not determine that all be saved.)…
“THE DECREE” IS THE TERM THEOLOGIANS APPLY TO THE FACT THAT BEFORE the foundations of the world the three Persons of the Godhead sovereignly planned the creation of the universe and all the events that would happen in it, including the salvation of certain people…
“WITH GOD THERE IS ONE IMMUTABLE DECREE EMBRACING IN ITSELF every detail (of the creation, the maintenance, and eventually the renewing of the world – TAR), even the falling of a sparrow.” – Chafer…
NET Matthew 10:29 Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.
AND FROM ACTS 15:18…
KJV Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.
“THE TERM ‘DIVINE DECREE’ IS AN ATTEMPT TO GATHER UP INTO ONE designation that to which the Scriptures refer by various designations, the divine purpose (Eph 1:11), determinate counsel (Acts 2:23), foreknowledge (1 Peter 1:2), election (Eph 1:3 and 1 Thess 1:4), predestination (Eph 1:5, 11; Rom 8:30), the divine will (Eph 1:11), and the divine good pleasure (Eph 1:9).” – Chafer…
“THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE DECREE IS ONLY ANOTHER METHOD OF assigning to God the position of first cause of all that exists. There is one comprehensive plan in which all things have their place and by which they proceed.” – Chafer…
AFTER STUDYING THIS CHALLENGING SUBJECT ALL WEEK, MY HUMBLE definition of “The Decree” is this: The Decree is God’s sovereign purposeful plan for the creation of the universe and everything that happens thereafter…
CAN WE NOT ALL SEE AND APPRECIATE WHAT GOD’S DECREE MEANS TO US?…For one thing it means that God is in complete control of everything that is happening in the world and happening to us. There is immense comfort in knowing that God has a plan. And He has a purpose. There is divine purpose in our sufferings. God does not choose to reveal to us all the details of His plan, but Scripture assures us He does indeed have a plan. There is great comfort in knowing this fact, brothers and sisters!…
“THERE IS A WORTHY REASON FOR ALL THAT GOD HAS EVER DONE or will do. Even His permission of evil will, like the wrath of man, can be seen to praise Him.” – Chafer…
NIV Psalm 76:10 Surely your wrath against men brings you praise,
NAS Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
THINK ABOUT DNA FOR A MOMENT, the miraculous substance that carries an organism’s complete genetic information. What is DNA but not sovereign plan for the individual organism? I cannot dwell on this question, of course, but I ask you to consider it. I think there is a telling similarity between DNA and God’s sovereign Decree…
“IT SHOULD BE OBSERVED THAT GOD FORMED HIS DECREE IN ETERNITY, though its execution is in time. The decree being eternal, all its parts are, in the mind of God, but one institution, though in its realization there is succession. Christ’s earthly mission was seen in one conception, though an interval of some thirty-three years fell between His birth and His death.” – Chafer…
NKJ 1 Peter 1:20 He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you
“THE DIVINE DECREE EMBRACES ALL THAT WAS OR IS FUTURE. Whatever was to transpire in time was decreed from eternity past, whether good or evil, whether great or small, whether wrought directly by God or indirectly through agencies. The divine decree embraces the entire ongoing of the universe including things material and things immaterial.” – Chafer…
“ELECTION,” “FOREKNOWLEDGE,” “PREDESTINATION,” “ADOPTION,” they were all a part of “The Decree” of God…
BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, GOD IN THREE PERSONS IN a perfect expression of His sovereign unrestricted will determined a Decree… In this purposeful plan of God, everything that would happen in creation and everything that would follow creation was foreordained by God. This absolute and perfect foreordination, in ways we cannot fully understand, somehow allows for the expression of man’s free will…
NAS Isaiah 55:8-9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
THE BEST WAY TO ATTEMPT TO UNDERSTAND THESE DEEP THINGS OF GOD is to study all the doctrines in Scripture that relate to them… That is what we will be doing in our verse- by-verse study of the great first chapter in Ephesians…
BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, THE SOVEREIGN GOD ABOVE ALL things, in an exercise of His sovereign, free, determinative will, formulated His plan for the creation and administration of the world… I believe it is correct to call his plan “The Decree.” The purpose of “The Decree” was and is to bring glory to Himself…
SO MUCH MORE TO SAY…
LET’S END WITH THESE RELEVANT WORDS OF PAUL FROM…
NAS Ephesians 1:9-12 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. In Him 11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, 12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
– Professor Thomas A. Rohm
