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God in the ways of God
God hated Pharaoh: The ordained hardening of Pharaoh’s heart so that he would refuse to let the people go. God hated the Exodu Generation: The ordained hardening of the Exodus generation after their salvation, so that they would discontinue faith and fear. The will is irresistible, determinate, incomprehensible, and logically unjustifiable to the mind of man. ~ Just Trust God ~ |
God in the ways of Man
God loved Pharaoh: The commandment to let Israel go, and the lamentation of God over Pharaoh’s sin when he refused to humble himself, this was the good will of love for Pharaoh because God desired that he would not sin. God loved the Exodus Generation: The promises, Covenant, commandments, signs, salvation, chastening, strivings, and lamentations of God to save Israel. The will is resistible, dependent upon the response of man, comprehensible as if man has a free will, and logical in justice as if man’s will was free, and therefore, fully responsible. |
The Lord’s will (God in the ways of God) to Pharaoh as an individual was like unto His will (God in the ways of God) to the Exodus generation as a congregation.
In Exodus 10, as previously discussed, God commanded Pharaoh to let His people go, but Pharaoh refused. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to refuse His command because of the eternal purpose to use Pharaoh as an instrument of wrath (Rom. 9). Simultaneously, God did not want Pharaoh to sin against Him, commanded him to let His people go, and was grieved that he refused to humble himself (Ex. 10:3). God in the ways of God eternally hated Pharaoh while God in the ways of man loved Pharaoh. God in the ways of God did not want Pharaoh to let Israel go, while God in the ways of man did want Pharaoh to let Israel go, and furthermore He was grieved that he didn’t let them go. Pharaoh, as a “vessel of wrath fitted to destruction,” chosen to this end by election (Rom. 9:22), was used for the glory of God to “shew His wrath and to make His power known” by plaguing Egypt, to the end that all the world would know the strength of God which is as a unicorn!
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“God brought them out of Egypt; He hath as it were the strength of an unicorn” (Numbers 23:22).
“God brought him forth out of Egypt; He hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: He shall eat up the nations His enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with His arrows” (Numbers 24:8). |
God loved and saved Israel – He became “God their Saviour, which had done great things in Egypt; wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red Sea” (Psalm 106:21-22). These two instances (The Passover Night & The Red Sea Parting), along with the Covenant experience at Sinai – these three works of God are the complete salvation of Israel in its initiation – and their salvation is finished, or consummated (in type), when the gospel promises are fulfilled through their final inheritance of the Promised Land. Therefore, from the time of Sinai to the Jordan River they were already saved, they were being saved, and (by promise) they would be saved. The promises of the Abrahamic Covenant would be fulfilled in their inheritance of the Promised Land, just as our promises of our New Covenant will be fulfilled in our final resurrection and inheritance of the Promised Land (New Jerusalem).
God brought glory for Himself when “He made a way to His anger” (Ps. 78:49). “He cast upon them (the Egyptians) the fierceness of His anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble” to the end that He “smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham” (Ps. 78:51). By subduing the chief strength of Egypt, there sounded out a worldwide proclamation of God’s power! GOD WAS FAMOUS! Inevitably, for those who are saved, at present, or those who will be saved in the future, God uses this exaltation of His glory as a testimony for their good (Rom. 8:28). The glory God obtains by destroying “vessels of wrath” is used to save and have mercy upon “vessels of mercy.” Therefore in the death of Egypt’s firstborn, the Israelites were saved from bondage, and through this display of strength the Israelites experience the powerful gospel of God. If the Israelites keep in memory this experiential faith, steadfastly, then they will endure to the end. A remembrance of these events that God did accomplish in the past does empower the Israelites at present to believe for, and thus experience, the same power of God. Therefore the condition for persevering in an empowering salvation is to persevere in faith’s remembrances, as Moses said in Deut. 7:17-19 – "If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well REMEMBER what the LORD thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt; The great temptations which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the stretched out arm, whereby the LORD thy God brought thee out: so shall the LORD thy God do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid.” The Israelites were saved from Egypt by faith, and they had to keep that faith unto the end to persevere their salvation, thus it might be said of them, as it is said to us, that they are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5).
After Israel’s salvation, God did continue to love Israel, and this can be observed in how God sought the perseverance of their salvation. The perseverance of their salvation would be wrought by a keeping of faith, faith that is evidenced through a remembrance of Egyptian-Giant slaying power, and a Consuming, Fiery God of fear, because this would make Israel obey the voice of God. The Israelites did provoke God many times before Mount Sinai, but after the Covenant was established, and when they provoked Him still, God did smite them in His wrath, and many died. Before Sinai not one Israelite died, but after Sinai God was “willing to shew His wrath, and to make His power known,” and as their unbelief continued, they eventually lost their salvation. They too, like Pharaoh, through the sovereign Counsel of God (in the ways of God), were “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction,” but their destruction was after their salvation. The eternal purpose of God to bring glory to Himself was to show His wrath toward the saints who lose their faith. God is willing to show His wrath by damning the saved who lose their faith! Though this was the eternal purpose of God (God in the ways of God), the will of God (God in the ways of Man) was to persevere their salvation and fulfill His promises to them.
God in the ways of Man loved the Exodus generation and sought to persevere their salvation, yet simultaneously, God in the ways of God hated the Exodus generation and sought that they would lose their salvation by a discontinuance of saving faith. God in the ways of man loved and sought a persevering salvation by the “marvellous things” which He did in their sight.
God brought glory for Himself when “He made a way to His anger” (Ps. 78:49). “He cast upon them (the Egyptians) the fierceness of His anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble” to the end that He “smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham” (Ps. 78:51). By subduing the chief strength of Egypt, there sounded out a worldwide proclamation of God’s power! GOD WAS FAMOUS! Inevitably, for those who are saved, at present, or those who will be saved in the future, God uses this exaltation of His glory as a testimony for their good (Rom. 8:28). The glory God obtains by destroying “vessels of wrath” is used to save and have mercy upon “vessels of mercy.” Therefore in the death of Egypt’s firstborn, the Israelites were saved from bondage, and through this display of strength the Israelites experience the powerful gospel of God. If the Israelites keep in memory this experiential faith, steadfastly, then they will endure to the end. A remembrance of these events that God did accomplish in the past does empower the Israelites at present to believe for, and thus experience, the same power of God. Therefore the condition for persevering in an empowering salvation is to persevere in faith’s remembrances, as Moses said in Deut. 7:17-19 – "If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well REMEMBER what the LORD thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt; The great temptations which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the stretched out arm, whereby the LORD thy God brought thee out: so shall the LORD thy God do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid.” The Israelites were saved from Egypt by faith, and they had to keep that faith unto the end to persevere their salvation, thus it might be said of them, as it is said to us, that they are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5).
After Israel’s salvation, God did continue to love Israel, and this can be observed in how God sought the perseverance of their salvation. The perseverance of their salvation would be wrought by a keeping of faith, faith that is evidenced through a remembrance of Egyptian-Giant slaying power, and a Consuming, Fiery God of fear, because this would make Israel obey the voice of God. The Israelites did provoke God many times before Mount Sinai, but after the Covenant was established, and when they provoked Him still, God did smite them in His wrath, and many died. Before Sinai not one Israelite died, but after Sinai God was “willing to shew His wrath, and to make His power known,” and as their unbelief continued, they eventually lost their salvation. They too, like Pharaoh, through the sovereign Counsel of God (in the ways of God), were “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction,” but their destruction was after their salvation. The eternal purpose of God to bring glory to Himself was to show His wrath toward the saints who lose their faith. God is willing to show His wrath by damning the saved who lose their faith! Though this was the eternal purpose of God (God in the ways of God), the will of God (God in the ways of Man) was to persevere their salvation and fulfill His promises to them.
God in the ways of Man loved the Exodus generation and sought to persevere their salvation, yet simultaneously, God in the ways of God hated the Exodus generation and sought that they would lose their salvation by a discontinuance of saving faith. God in the ways of man loved and sought a persevering salvation by the “marvellous things” which He did in their sight.
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“Marvellous things did He in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. He divided the sea, and caused them to pass through; and He made the waters to stand as an heap. In the daytime also He led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire. He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers. And they sinned yet more against Him by provoking the most High in the wilderness. And they tempted God in their heart by asking meat for their lust. Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? Behold, He smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed; can He give bread also? can He provide flesh for His people? Therefore the LORD heard this, and was wroth: so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel; Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in His salvation: Though He had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven, And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven. Man did eat angels’ food: He sent them meat to the full. He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven: and by His power He brought in the south wind. He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea: And He let it fall in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations. So they did eat, and were well filled: for He gave them their own desire; They were not estranged from their lust. But while their meat was yet in their mouths, The wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel. For all this they sinned still, and believed not for His wondrous works. Therefore their days did He consume in vanity, and their years in trouble. When He slew them, then they sought Him: and they returned and enquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer. Nevertheless they did flatter Him with their mouth, and they lied unto Him with their tongues. For their heart was not right with Him, neither were they stedfast in His covenant. But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned He His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath. For He remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again. How oft did they provoke Him in the wilderness, and grieve Him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. They remembered not His hand, nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy. How He had wrought His signs in Egypt, and His wonders in the field of Zoan: And had turned their rivers into blood; and their floods, that they could not drink. He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them. He gave also their increase unto the caterpiller, and their labour unto the locust. He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycomore trees with frost. He gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts. He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them. He made a way to His anger; He spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence; And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham: But made His own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. And He led them on safely, so that they feared not: but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. And He brought them to the border of His sanctuary, even to this mountain, which His right hand had purchased" (Psalm 78:12-54).
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Therefore, this generation became the example of those who are damned (1 Cor. 10:4-5), as Paul said: “all these things happened unto them for ensamples” (1 Cor. 10:11). God does here command, through the apostle Paul, that the manner in which they were saved, then damned, would be remembered and taught to subsequent generations, that they “might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation.”
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"I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done. For He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments: And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God. The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in His law; And forgat His works, and His wonders that He had shewed them" (Psalm 78:2-11).
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Anyone who will be like these men, “like their fathers” (Ps. 78:57), they too will be damned. All those who are departing from the faith or have departed from the faith…now they know the signs of God’s wrath that will come, or the signs that are upon them now – to the end they would repent and be not like them. The psalmist in 106 confesses the sins of his generation, that they were sinning even as the Exodus generation did sin, and was damned, yet he seeks mercy through confession and repentance –
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"Remember me, O LORD, with the favour that Thou bearest unto Thy people: O visit me with Thy salvation; That I may see the good of Thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of Thy nation, that I may glory with Thine inheritance. We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly. Our fathers understood not Thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of Thy mercies; but provoked Him at the sea, even at the Red Sea. Nevertheless He saved them for His name’s sake, that He might make His mighty power to be known. He rebuked the Red Sea also, and it was dried up: so He led them through the depths, as through the wilderness. And He saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. And the waters covered their enemies: there was not one of them left. Then believed they His words; they sang His praise. They soon forgat His works; they waited not for His counsel: But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert. And He gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul. They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the LORD. The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram. And a fire was kindled in their company; the flame burned up the wicked. They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass. They forgat God their saviour, which had done great things in Egypt; Wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red sea. Therefore He said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen stood before Him in the breach, to turn away His wrath, lest He should destroy them. Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word: But murmured in their tents, and hearkened not unto the voice of the LORD. Therefore He lifted up His hand against them, to overthrow them in the wilderness…" (Psalm 106:4-26)
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God sought for Israel to fear Him. He intended that they would, and gave them ten commandments with such fearful displays of power that Israel was afraid of dying (Ex. 20:19). The intent of God was, “that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not” (Ex. 20:20). This good will and love toward Israel was not determinate but God in the ways of man, therefore this good will was resistible. Israel went on to sin more - ten times they did tempt God - and eventually, nearly all the men in this generation were condemned to hell. God in the ways of God directs and controls the hearts of men, but God in the ways of man laments in a genuine will that appears to be subjected to the free will of man, even though we know that there is no such thing. I say “subject to an appearance of free will,” because God’s emotions are not kindled or manifest until the deeds are committed, as if He didn’t know they were going to sin, as if He didn’t desire and ordain that they would sin (God in the ways of God), and as if He was unaware of what He was eventually going to do with them through their sin.
God’s lamentation to this generation was, “O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever” (Deut. 5:29)! Is this “O” not an exclamation of love and care toward Israel!? God loved them, but 600,000 men of war fell short of His promise and love by a fearless heart. God loved them and wanted them to fear, and simultaneously He was hardening their hearts in an eternal hatred which determined their hearts to be fearless and sinful. Do you see how there are simultaneous wills in God working from two separate planes of relational capacities in God (His ways and man’s ways, in Sovereignty and in Condescension). These are not the ways of human beings, because we cannot genuinely will two things at once, that are opposites, but God can and does. His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:9). Shudder at His holiness and hear the cry of the godly go up: “O LORD, why hast Thou made us to err from Thy ways, and hardened our heart from Thy fear? Return for Thy servants’ sake, the tribes of Thine inheritance” (Isaiah 63:17)!
In Conclusion – The Exodus generation, as a “vessel of wrath fitted to destruction,” chosen to this end by election (Rom. 9:22), was used as an example of God’s wrath to “shew His wrath and to make His power known” upon those individuals who do not keep a steadfast saving faith. The Lord was willing to show the world the severity of disobeying His voice! He was willing to show the world Psalm 90! Finally, He was willing to fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant by the manifestation and completion of all things in Christ, and so, He overpassed this generation for His own glory, changed the generation of choice, and prepared the promises for other men.
The wrath of God is able to be provoked, and if we understood the holiness of God aright, we would understand that the righteous are scarcely saved from the wrath of God. This was written by Peter, when he said, “And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear” (1 Peter 4:18)? Also note the life of Moses, who was a saved man (Heb. 3, 11), and he died in the wilderness with those who provoked God in rejecting the gospel (Heb. 4). However, Moses died for a different sin which was of the non-damnable kind. His sin was not a rejection of the gospel like as that wicked congregation in Numbers 14. Moses, along with Caleb and Joshua – they all believed the gospel of God and pled with the others to repent. No man, other than Moses, is more able to account of the dreamlike experiences of the exodus generation, how that they were a story of God’s wrath! Moses’ prayer in Psalm 90 does illustrate the willingness of God to show His wrath upon those who lose their salvation. With this generation, God wanted to make men know the power of His anger (Ps. 90:11), what manners God did and would turn men to destruction (Ps. 90:3), and the practical deeds of faith that unbelieving men do neglect, so that those who are still persevering may learn from and avoid their mistakes (Ps. 90:12). God was willing to cause Israel to pass away in His wrath, to make them a tale to be told, that men might number their days and apply their hearts to wisdom (Ps. 90:9), TODAY. Through Psalm 90, it is as if God is saying to the rest of the saved remnant in every generation – “O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear ME” (Deut. 5:24). Read the fearful psalm and be ye taught of God, and imagine it! Imagine what terrible astonishment was in the heart of Moses when he did write this psalm…
God’s lamentation to this generation was, “O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever” (Deut. 5:29)! Is this “O” not an exclamation of love and care toward Israel!? God loved them, but 600,000 men of war fell short of His promise and love by a fearless heart. God loved them and wanted them to fear, and simultaneously He was hardening their hearts in an eternal hatred which determined their hearts to be fearless and sinful. Do you see how there are simultaneous wills in God working from two separate planes of relational capacities in God (His ways and man’s ways, in Sovereignty and in Condescension). These are not the ways of human beings, because we cannot genuinely will two things at once, that are opposites, but God can and does. His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:9). Shudder at His holiness and hear the cry of the godly go up: “O LORD, why hast Thou made us to err from Thy ways, and hardened our heart from Thy fear? Return for Thy servants’ sake, the tribes of Thine inheritance” (Isaiah 63:17)!
In Conclusion – The Exodus generation, as a “vessel of wrath fitted to destruction,” chosen to this end by election (Rom. 9:22), was used as an example of God’s wrath to “shew His wrath and to make His power known” upon those individuals who do not keep a steadfast saving faith. The Lord was willing to show the world the severity of disobeying His voice! He was willing to show the world Psalm 90! Finally, He was willing to fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant by the manifestation and completion of all things in Christ, and so, He overpassed this generation for His own glory, changed the generation of choice, and prepared the promises for other men.
The wrath of God is able to be provoked, and if we understood the holiness of God aright, we would understand that the righteous are scarcely saved from the wrath of God. This was written by Peter, when he said, “And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear” (1 Peter 4:18)? Also note the life of Moses, who was a saved man (Heb. 3, 11), and he died in the wilderness with those who provoked God in rejecting the gospel (Heb. 4). However, Moses died for a different sin which was of the non-damnable kind. His sin was not a rejection of the gospel like as that wicked congregation in Numbers 14. Moses, along with Caleb and Joshua – they all believed the gospel of God and pled with the others to repent. No man, other than Moses, is more able to account of the dreamlike experiences of the exodus generation, how that they were a story of God’s wrath! Moses’ prayer in Psalm 90 does illustrate the willingness of God to show His wrath upon those who lose their salvation. With this generation, God wanted to make men know the power of His anger (Ps. 90:11), what manners God did and would turn men to destruction (Ps. 90:3), and the practical deeds of faith that unbelieving men do neglect, so that those who are still persevering may learn from and avoid their mistakes (Ps. 90:12). God was willing to cause Israel to pass away in His wrath, to make them a tale to be told, that men might number their days and apply their hearts to wisdom (Ps. 90:9), TODAY. Through Psalm 90, it is as if God is saying to the rest of the saved remnant in every generation – “O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear ME” (Deut. 5:24). Read the fearful psalm and be ye taught of God, and imagine it! Imagine what terrible astonishment was in the heart of Moses when he did write this psalm…
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Psalm 90
“A Prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth. For we are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance. For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of Thine anger? even according to Thy fear, so is Thy wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent Thee concerning Thy servants. O satisfy us early with Thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, and Thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it.” The Glory of God in the POWER of WRATH “What if God, willing to shew His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction” (Rom. 9:22). |
The scarcity of salvation for those who do endure to the end cannot be properly understood until we are conscientious of the dual, simultaneous, and genuine wills of God that are actively working all the time, in tension/contradiction with one another. Noting one snapshot in time wherein the dual wills are easily seen will help us comprehend how there is a constant tension with the continuous wills of God every time God experiences the observance of sin, or as Psalm 90:8 put it, when sin is set in the light of His countenance. Some will still be inclined to doubt the genuine nature of this dual will that God has. This faculty in God, which is able to have simultaneous, contradictory wills, is not functional or possible in men. If we tried to mimic the experience of God we would have to fake one of the wills, therefore only one would be sincere and the other unreal. God can say to Adam, “Where art thou” (Gen. 3:9), while knowing where he is, and so can men. God can say to Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother” (Gen. 4:9), while knowing where he is, and so can men. These can be done to teach or relate with men, but can men lament over Israel’s fearless heart, not wanting them to sin, while at the same time (by ordination and interior heart-hardening) cause it (because of an unchanging, unwavering, eternal hatred)? A vivid example of this dual work of God is in Exodus 32.
In Exodus 32, God intended to consume the whole congregation to death after their golden calf idolatry. God was not acting when He told Moses, “let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation” (Ex. 32:10). This was a genuine intention, therefore God had to repent of this thinking, for it was genuine thinking – “And the LORD repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people” (Ex. 32:14). Why did the Lord repent? Well, only God in the ways of man can repent, for the eternal, Sovereign will of God cannot repent, for He is not like a man (1 Sam. 15:29). There was an unchanging eternal purpose at work to use Israel as an example of salvation, and they were not to be destroyed here, but go on; thus God caused the Spirit in Moses to intercede with God that the Lord would repent. The eternal counsel never repented or changed, but the counsel in the context of God in the ways of man did, but both were simultaneously at work in the same, single, Triune God! God wanted to kill all of Israel, and simultaneously, the will of God which is existent in an unchanging eternity did not want to destroy them, therefore God in the ways of man repented. God in the ways of God determined the whole scene to the end that we would marvel and learn! The dumbest human is smarter than the smartest ant. Breaking the boundaries of species to compare differing creatures can help us understand how “other than” and “different” God is from man. God is not a man. God is not a greater species. The chasm that separates the creature from the Creator is beyond our comprehension, therefore there is condescension.
In Exodus 32, God intended to consume the whole congregation to death after their golden calf idolatry. God was not acting when He told Moses, “let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation” (Ex. 32:10). This was a genuine intention, therefore God had to repent of this thinking, for it was genuine thinking – “And the LORD repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people” (Ex. 32:14). Why did the Lord repent? Well, only God in the ways of man can repent, for the eternal, Sovereign will of God cannot repent, for He is not like a man (1 Sam. 15:29). There was an unchanging eternal purpose at work to use Israel as an example of salvation, and they were not to be destroyed here, but go on; thus God caused the Spirit in Moses to intercede with God that the Lord would repent. The eternal counsel never repented or changed, but the counsel in the context of God in the ways of man did, but both were simultaneously at work in the same, single, Triune God! God wanted to kill all of Israel, and simultaneously, the will of God which is existent in an unchanging eternity did not want to destroy them, therefore God in the ways of man repented. God in the ways of God determined the whole scene to the end that we would marvel and learn! The dumbest human is smarter than the smartest ant. Breaking the boundaries of species to compare differing creatures can help us understand how “other than” and “different” God is from man. God is not a man. God is not a greater species. The chasm that separates the creature from the Creator is beyond our comprehension, therefore there is condescension.