The Sovereignty of God in Determinate Counsel
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- God is all powerful and there is a manner in which His counsel is determining of all other things. We can see this determinate counsel spoken of in the book of Acts when referencing the predestination of Judas to betray and deliver over Jesus Christ to His enemies.
Acts 2:23
23 Him [Jesus], being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: |
Truly, if God were to give counsel or decide to do anything, it could not be resisted and none could stand against it! “There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand” (Prov. 19:21). When God gives the counsel from eternity past, no method or circumstance at present in any time could usurp what “was determined” already by God (Luke 22:22). The great King of kings has made it a practice to bring the most noble and lofty to humbly confess what was written in Proverbs 19:21, but the question remains, have you confessed? Soberly observe Nebuchadnezzar’s confession written in Daniel chapter 4:
Daniel 4:35-37
35 And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou? 36 At the same time my reason returned unto me; and for the glory of my kingdom, mine honour and brightness returned unto me; and my counsellors and my lords sought unto me; and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me. 37 Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all Whose works are truth, and His ways judgment: and those that walk in pride He is able to abase. |
“He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth,” Nebuchadnezzar confesses (Daniel 4:35). Yea, “whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places” (Psalm 135:6). It is true that a man may prepare his thoughts to answer with his tongue, but will you know the Lord governs them both? Every step of a man is a chosen step in his own heart, this is true, but the Lord directs every step! Nebuchadnezzar learned that whether mean or mighty, all the hearts of men are in the hand of the LORD, and “as the rivers of water: He turneth it withersoever He will” (Proverbs 21:1).
Proverbs 16:1
1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD. Proverbs 16:9 9 A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps. Proverbs 21:1 1 The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever He will. Proverbs 21:30 30 There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD. |
Even while a man may prepare his heart for an evil act of sin, the Lord uses it all for His good and glorious purpose. He uses the evil sins of men for His mighty, sovereign, eternal plan. He used the sinful hearts and hands of Joseph’s brethren to send Joseph to Egypt. They did evilly prepare their hearts but it was from the Lord. Read how they did indeed think evil, but God meant good by it, thus He had governance over the evil in their hearts. Joseph explained this in Genesis 50:20.
Genesis 50:20
20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. |
It was the sin of Joseph’s brethren that they betrayed and sold Joseph to Egypt, even so, but God takes OWNERSHIP of it because it was God’s plan. What sin was in the heart of Joseph’s brethren? How did this come to pass? His brethren began to hate Joseph in their heart, and from this horrid and bitter hatred they conspired to sell him to Egypt. They indeed made a plan in their own wicked heart, nevertheless, read how it was the plan of Joseph’s brothers, while simultaneously, it was the Lord’s plan. Beginning with Genesis 37:4…
Genesis 37:4
4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. |
Thus they planned and conspired…
Genesis 37:18-20
18 And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. 19 And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. 20 Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams. |
By what was written and afore proven by scripture, we ought to expect that God was in control of their hearts, thus Joseph freely confesses this in Genesis 45. Read how it was God’s plan as well, yet He is innocent of any unrighteousness, altogether lovely, and pure!
Genesis 45:5-8
5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. 6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. 7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. 8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and He hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. |
Joseph was able to confess this, but can you? Please do not harden your heart against the scriptures simply because they cannot be logically digested. Likewise to Joseph’s confession, the Holy Spirit inspired the psalmist of Psalm 105 to give credit to God in the same way. Again God was in complete, sovereign control!
Psalm 105:16-22
16 Moreover He called for a famine upon the land: He brake the whole staff of bread. 17 He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant: 18 Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron: 19 Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him. 20 The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of the people, and let him go free. 21 He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his substance: 22 To bind his princes at his pleasure; and teach his senators wisdom. |
By the hands of Joseph’s brethren God sent Joseph; even in their sinful thoughts God was Lord, and He was working a mighty plan of salvation! As God did with the hands of Joseph’s brethren, He did the same thing with Judas, the Jews, and the Romans when they betrayed Jesus Christ, that it might rightly be said that God sacrificed His own Son. The Lord takes OWNERSHIP of this sinful plan of the Jews in a multitude of places throughout scripture. If the Lord did not send Joseph by the hands of the Jews, then He did not crucify His own Son, both would have been the happening of the free will of man. If it was the happening of the free will of man and God merely orchestrated and allowed the circumstances and scenarios to transpire, then it would have been the foreknowledge of God alone that was active in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and that was God’s full part in the matter. It was not singly the foreknowledge of God only but it was the determinate counsel of God as well!
Acts 2:23
23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: |
God appointed the men to their disobedient, wicked conspiracy so that God was able to take sure ownership of Christ’s death. In 1 Peter 2:8 it is written that the disobedient were appointed instead of freely choosing, and mind you, we could have known this already by the previous scripture that revealed God’s relationship to the heart of all men (Prov. 16:1, 9, 21:1, 30).
1 Peter 2:8
8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. |
In Isaiah 53 God takes pleasure in His plan to kill His own Son as an offering for sin, and, He is innocent, again, of all unrighteousness! In Isaiah 53:10, God claims complete ownership and authorship of the plan and its execution; while in Acts 3:13-15 God holds the Jews responsible for this sin, telling them it was their desire of evil, and they will be punished for it if they fail to repent and believe. It is a paradox. Please read carefully – first, Isaiah 53:10, and then Acts 3:13-15:
Isaiah 53:10
10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He [God] hath put Him to grief: when Thou [God] shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. Acts 3:13-15 13 The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus; Whom ye delivered up, and denied Him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. 14 But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; 15 And killed the Prince of life, Whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. |
Indeed, “whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth” and “it pleased the LORD to bruise” and crucify His Son (Ps. 135:6, Isaiah 53:10)! God took ownership of the most momentous event in all time! God has provided “gates of righteousness,” and Christ is “this Gate of the LORD, into which the righteous shall enter” (Ps. 118:19-20) – praise God! “Every house is builded by some man; but He that built all things is God,” and “strait is the Gate, and narrow is the Way which leadeth unto life” (Heb. 3:4, Matt. 7:14)! Let everyone praise the LORD as the psalmist says, “I will praise Thee, for Thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation” (Psalm 118:21)! Christ has become our salvation by “the LORD’s doing,” when, namely, “the stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the LORD’S doing; it is marvellous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:22-23)! “This is the day which the LORD hath made!” And will you rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24)? The disciples were offended that Christ was smitten by men, but will you be offended that God smote Christ? God said, “I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad” (Matt. 26:31). The Son of Man has gone to the crucifix “as it was determined” of Him, nevertheless God holds men in a simultaneous responsibility, and “woe unto that man by whom He is betrayed” (Lk. 22:22)!
I say again, God took ownership of the most momentous event in all time! This event was the greatest sin of man against God, for they crucified the Lord of glory, but since it was a sovereign work of God it was the greatest display of God’s love to give and kill His Son, likewise the Son willingly laid down Himself under the Father’s death sentence, and more so, this was the greatest display of God’s wrath to require the value of His Own Life as the only capable means to pacify the magnitude of His just anger against sin and sinners. The sovereignty of God behind the crucifixion of Christ is carefully detailed in the book of Romans with much more explanation than Psalm 105, which gave only a snapshot of God’s sovereignty in Joseph’s betrayal, slavery, and rise to power. In the crucifixion, God declares His mysterious purpose behind why He killed His own Son, and how that He did it by blinding His own people. Through the “fall,” “diminishing,” and “casting away” of God’s chosen people Israel (Romans 11:15), the Gentiles are grafted into the Tree of Salvation! God determined that it would be through the “fall” of Israel that the Gentiles would be saved (Rom. 11:11). How can their fall be the casting away of God? Did God cast them away in response to their sin only, or was God the author of this unsearchable plan!? Their fall into sin was that they rejected and crucified Christ, and God was the author and executor of these events through ordination, specifically in that He made them “slumber” in blindness and deafness (Romans 11:8). It was because they were blinded and made deaf that they did reject Christ, thus God’s Sovereign control is the cause and determining factor of sin and righteousness. So when a man is blind or deaf it was God’s election that determined it. Please read carefully:
I say again, God took ownership of the most momentous event in all time! This event was the greatest sin of man against God, for they crucified the Lord of glory, but since it was a sovereign work of God it was the greatest display of God’s love to give and kill His Son, likewise the Son willingly laid down Himself under the Father’s death sentence, and more so, this was the greatest display of God’s wrath to require the value of His Own Life as the only capable means to pacify the magnitude of His just anger against sin and sinners. The sovereignty of God behind the crucifixion of Christ is carefully detailed in the book of Romans with much more explanation than Psalm 105, which gave only a snapshot of God’s sovereignty in Joseph’s betrayal, slavery, and rise to power. In the crucifixion, God declares His mysterious purpose behind why He killed His own Son, and how that He did it by blinding His own people. Through the “fall,” “diminishing,” and “casting away” of God’s chosen people Israel (Romans 11:15), the Gentiles are grafted into the Tree of Salvation! God determined that it would be through the “fall” of Israel that the Gentiles would be saved (Rom. 11:11). How can their fall be the casting away of God? Did God cast them away in response to their sin only, or was God the author of this unsearchable plan!? Their fall into sin was that they rejected and crucified Christ, and God was the author and executor of these events through ordination, specifically in that He made them “slumber” in blindness and deafness (Romans 11:8). It was because they were blinded and made deaf that they did reject Christ, thus God’s Sovereign control is the cause and determining factor of sin and righteousness. So when a man is blind or deaf it was God’s election that determined it. Please read carefully:
Romans 11:7-10
7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded 8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. 9 And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them: 10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway. |
Election is manifest by blindness and sight. Blindness or sight determines the actions of a person. The state of the heart is blindness or sight; God is in control of the heart, and the heart is the fountain the “issues of life” (Prov. 4:23). Dear reader, be astonished and wonder that God, He, Himself, caused the “casting away” of Israel through the most horrendous, vile, and immeasurably wicked sin, satisfying a wrath which was ready to eternally burn trillions of men. Yet He, Himself, caused the sin! And by it provided innumerable benefits and worldwide reconciliation, mercy to triumph over judgment in every nation through heaven’s High Priest making the Offering – The Sacrifice – of an impossible Person to bring an impossible peace, an eternally valuable propitiation upon an altar on earth, and lo! The Holy Man arose to herald the victory in heaven’s High courts! Ascending to the heights men and angels behold His rites! And lo, and behold, men and angels, the world and animals of the stable, they do all wonder at the meekness of this Man Who had footsteps of thunder – His birth, His might, His weakness is power in the most royal right! For only the King, the Judge, could save the convicts from eternal death, through LOVE. And now, worldwide reconciliation! That is, namely, salvation to the Gentiles.
Romans 11:11-15
11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. 12 Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? 13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: 14 If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. 15 For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? |
It is a glorious plan, nevertheless, it was the “casting away” of Israel and the “salvation” of the Gentiles. Yes, God caused, ordained, and made the Gentiles find Him. He manifested Himself to them, was found of them, for they were given eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to savingly believe. Please read carefully: God’s election to salvation is evident in that the Gentiles were saved; God’s election to damnation is evident in that Israel was a disobedient and gainsaying people.
Romans 10:19-21
19 But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. 20 But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought Me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after Me. 21 But to Israel He saith, All day long I have stretched forth My hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. |
Election is God’s choice. When He has chosen, He brings that choice to pass by His own sovereign might to give or take away sight, to soften or harden hearts. God hardens in a plan or purpose of wrath, God softens in a plan or purpose of mercy. It is in reference to those who are elect that it was written, “For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel” (Rom. 9:6). This is to say that God did not grant that all of Israel could come to Christ, but a remnant did come by the sovereign distribution of saving faith. If you are not of this faith, you cannot become a spiritual child of Israel. Jesus Christ did in all of Israel preach! But He knew just who were the very ones that He would reach! With this idea in reference, consider John chapter 6. This chapter contains, arguably, the most antagonistic sermon He could have given to the flesh of men, and to justify His words, Jesus Christ said: “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him,” and, “it is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not” (John 6:44, 63-64). Jesus preached with the understanding that only those who were granted ears to hear would hear, and that is a gift from God. He called all to come, but only those of whom God called by His sovereign power could come. He preached to all, but only those who had the quickening of the Spirit brooding upon their dead souls could hear, believe, and live by Him. “The preaching of the cross is foolishness to them which are perishing” (1 Cor. 1:18). God must give and take away saving faith and repentance, and this is sober thinking, “for I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith” (Romans 12:3).
Our faith is a calling, a calling irresistible and effectual, ordained before the world began. It is all of HIM, the Lord God, “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Timothy 1:9). This calling is ever under the Presidency of God in Christ so that we may humbly confess that all faith or repentance is a gift from God. This ought to make us increasingly meek to longsuffer sinners until God, if He wills, may grant them repentance, till then and for all there is therefore hope. Thus it was written, “In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Timothy 2:25-26). Therefore all boasting is excluded – on what basis? That all things, whether works or faith, are not of ourselves but a gift from God. It is therefore highminded pride to claim that, of yourself, you have saving faith, or of your freedom of will you chose God. On the contrary, “there is none seeketh after God” and “we love Him, because He first loved us” (Romans 3:11, 11:18-25, 1 John 4:19). ALL GLORY TO GOD! “For Who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it” (1 Cor. 4:7)? The determinate working of God that is active within time and eternally pre-ordained is termed in Romans 9:16 & 18.
Our faith is a calling, a calling irresistible and effectual, ordained before the world began. It is all of HIM, the Lord God, “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Timothy 1:9). This calling is ever under the Presidency of God in Christ so that we may humbly confess that all faith or repentance is a gift from God. This ought to make us increasingly meek to longsuffer sinners until God, if He wills, may grant them repentance, till then and for all there is therefore hope. Thus it was written, “In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Timothy 2:25-26). Therefore all boasting is excluded – on what basis? That all things, whether works or faith, are not of ourselves but a gift from God. It is therefore highminded pride to claim that, of yourself, you have saving faith, or of your freedom of will you chose God. On the contrary, “there is none seeketh after God” and “we love Him, because He first loved us” (Romans 3:11, 11:18-25, 1 John 4:19). ALL GLORY TO GOD! “For Who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it” (1 Cor. 4:7)? The determinate working of God that is active within time and eternally pre-ordained is termed in Romans 9:16 & 18.
Romans 9:16
16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. Romans 9:18 18 Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth. |
Truly, man may seek after repentance and faith. They can will for it, they can run after it, but unless God shows mercy they cannot find it. Even as Esau desired to be saved, but lo, “when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (Heb. 12:17). Esau madly pursued salvation! In agonizing tears, “he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry,” and “said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept” (Gen. 27:34, 38)! How could it be that a man could so greatly desire and run after salvation, and yet he finds no repentance and faith? There is only one answer – the hatred of God. God says, “I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness” (Mal. 1:3). This was the purpose of God for Esau which was purposed through election, as God had said: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (Rom. 9:13). For those unlike Esau, the few and precious elect of God, when they find repentance and faith they are humbled to hate themselves, hallowed by a first and forceful grace, struck alive into an amazement that God’s love was first, saving, faith-giving, and finishing. GRACE! “Even so at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work” (Rom. 11:5-6). If there is a remnant saved, “the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded” (Rom. 11:7).
If you have been made into a faithful and godly saint, it is because you have “obtained mercy of the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:25) as “His workmanship” (Eph. 2). If you have become fearless and double-hearted toward repentance, bent on backsliding, and floundering in fearlessness before a Holy God Who demands FEAR, this is the end of your unhappy predestination if you are never changed! God is evidently hardening your heart, for, “who He will He hardeneth!” On the contrary, “Happy is the man that feareth alway,” and back again, “but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief” (Prov. 28:14). You are responsible in heaven’s court for your crimes, and yet, God “hath blinded [your] eyes, and hardened [your] heart; that [you] should not see with [your] eyes, nor understand with [your] heart, and be converted,” that Christ should heal you (John 12:40). With God is the power of the clay, to make one vessel to see and the other blind! Blessed are you, oh man, if Jesus Christ comes to you in your lifetime and has compassion on your blind, pitiful estate. He is the potter, and with a little clay He can turn all your darkness into day. “How were thine eyes opened? He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight” (John 9:6-11). “But now, O LORD, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our Potter; and we all are the work of Thy hand” (Isaiah 64:8)! Praise God!
The love and hatred of God moves a softening and hardening, OMNIPOTENT HAND, well able to mold the billions of clay hearts from every race, tribe, and tongue, even class, category, and status – the rich and the poor – every creature and more throughout all their goings, and since they were born they are mastered by the mold of His mysterious art. Blessed is the man that can say, “By Thee have I been holden up from the womb: Thou art He that took me out of my mother’s bowels: my praise shall be continually of Thee” (Psalm 71:6).
If you have been made into a faithful and godly saint, it is because you have “obtained mercy of the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:25) as “His workmanship” (Eph. 2). If you have become fearless and double-hearted toward repentance, bent on backsliding, and floundering in fearlessness before a Holy God Who demands FEAR, this is the end of your unhappy predestination if you are never changed! God is evidently hardening your heart, for, “who He will He hardeneth!” On the contrary, “Happy is the man that feareth alway,” and back again, “but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief” (Prov. 28:14). You are responsible in heaven’s court for your crimes, and yet, God “hath blinded [your] eyes, and hardened [your] heart; that [you] should not see with [your] eyes, nor understand with [your] heart, and be converted,” that Christ should heal you (John 12:40). With God is the power of the clay, to make one vessel to see and the other blind! Blessed are you, oh man, if Jesus Christ comes to you in your lifetime and has compassion on your blind, pitiful estate. He is the potter, and with a little clay He can turn all your darkness into day. “How were thine eyes opened? He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight” (John 9:6-11). “But now, O LORD, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our Potter; and we all are the work of Thy hand” (Isaiah 64:8)! Praise God!
The love and hatred of God moves a softening and hardening, OMNIPOTENT HAND, well able to mold the billions of clay hearts from every race, tribe, and tongue, even class, category, and status – the rich and the poor – every creature and more throughout all their goings, and since they were born they are mastered by the mold of His mysterious art. Blessed is the man that can say, “By Thee have I been holden up from the womb: Thou art He that took me out of my mother’s bowels: my praise shall be continually of Thee” (Psalm 71:6).
From eternity past love moved Him to choose the cast, the Potter molded the clay making performers for the Glory Day, that in theater of time God might display a salvation through God making temples of clay His redeeming habitation, to magnify Himself in a culmination and manifestation that will cause the world to wonder at an incorruptible glorification. A glorification that is the beginning at the end, an eternal life in a recreated, new earth, a new world and better birth than the beginning of Eden in its goodness and worth. We love Him because He first loved us, we are the cast set for this task, and before physical creation we were ever in the mind of God as His loving meditation, that He would ordain us for His momentous and universal occasion.
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This purpose of God’s election is what determines their faith and salvation, as we have been carefully noting so far. However, given the difficulty of grasping this subject, the responsibility of man in tension with the justice of God, it is needful to carefully note each crystallized fixture set in geometric perfectness to behold the doctrinal jewel of the Lord as a whole. It is apparent that election determines all things… but what determines election? It cannot be the foreknowledge God has of what man will do, because God is sovereign over what man will do. He would not elect based upon what man will do – for He determines it! Election determines what man will do, but what determines election? The free will of God motivates election! Free will does exist, but only in God. We are to know that election is simply according to the purpose of God, and that is all. God does not allow man to know all the facets of His eternal judgment and purposes. It pleases the Lord that His judgments and ways are, “past finding out,” even as the Holy Ghost did rightly extol: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out” (Romans 11:33)! Will you agree?
The impossibility of election being determined by foreknowledge of works is a very important doctrine one MUST understand, seeing that those of the persuasion of the free will doctrine are convinced that this is the case and point of Romans 9:11. The mastermind of the Holy Spirit used the apostle Paul to formulate the treatise of unconditional, eternal election through the ensamples of the Old Testament historical men, Jacob (Israel) and Esau, and the historical people as a whole, the Israelites in the days of Moses and the Egyptians, but the Egyptians were represented by their king who was called Pharaoh. These four peoples in view are of specific representation, Paul argued, that Jacob and the Israelites were instruments of mercy that God “afore prepared unto glory,” and that Esau and the Egyptians were “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.” God’s eternal purpose was a willing, or a desire, to make His power known to the world by a public display of His wrath on the Egyptians (Pharaoh) for their refusal to release Israel. The use of the wording, “fitted to destruction” and “afore prepared,” shows the purpose of God before these men or peoples were created or born, and thus, not in reference to what they were going to do in works. To show the determination and foreknowledge of God through eternal election, Jacob and Esau are first used as persons of election to prove this point. Thus the subject of investigation at hand in a question is - did election happen according to God’s foreknowledge of works or simply by election alone? Please read Romans 9:6-24 before we continue.
In Romans 9:12-13, the purpose of God was distinct in His will for the two individuals. God’s plan for the two is that “the elder shall serve the younger,” and this was to prove that, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” He loved Jacob in ordaining him to be the inheritor of the covenants and promises which were the blessings of salvation. The line of the seed is through generations of saved men – Abraham, Isaac, and then Jacob. Romans 9:12-13 was God’s elective plan and purpose governed by His will of love or hatred, which is, mercy or wrath. This election was before their creation and birth, meaning that it was before they DID ANYTHING at all. Pointedly then, election must not be of works. As it is written:
The impossibility of election being determined by foreknowledge of works is a very important doctrine one MUST understand, seeing that those of the persuasion of the free will doctrine are convinced that this is the case and point of Romans 9:11. The mastermind of the Holy Spirit used the apostle Paul to formulate the treatise of unconditional, eternal election through the ensamples of the Old Testament historical men, Jacob (Israel) and Esau, and the historical people as a whole, the Israelites in the days of Moses and the Egyptians, but the Egyptians were represented by their king who was called Pharaoh. These four peoples in view are of specific representation, Paul argued, that Jacob and the Israelites were instruments of mercy that God “afore prepared unto glory,” and that Esau and the Egyptians were “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.” God’s eternal purpose was a willing, or a desire, to make His power known to the world by a public display of His wrath on the Egyptians (Pharaoh) for their refusal to release Israel. The use of the wording, “fitted to destruction” and “afore prepared,” shows the purpose of God before these men or peoples were created or born, and thus, not in reference to what they were going to do in works. To show the determination and foreknowledge of God through eternal election, Jacob and Esau are first used as persons of election to prove this point. Thus the subject of investigation at hand in a question is - did election happen according to God’s foreknowledge of works or simply by election alone? Please read Romans 9:6-24 before we continue.
In Romans 9:12-13, the purpose of God was distinct in His will for the two individuals. God’s plan for the two is that “the elder shall serve the younger,” and this was to prove that, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” He loved Jacob in ordaining him to be the inheritor of the covenants and promises which were the blessings of salvation. The line of the seed is through generations of saved men – Abraham, Isaac, and then Jacob. Romans 9:12-13 was God’s elective plan and purpose governed by His will of love or hatred, which is, mercy or wrath. This election was before their creation and birth, meaning that it was before they DID ANYTHING at all. Pointedly then, election must not be of works. As it is written:
Romans 9:11-13
11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth;) 12 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. 13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. |
The entire point of these passages is to show that God’s election was not according to works but according to election, and election is entirely separate from any reference or motivation stimulated by a knowledge of works; thus making impossible the claim that election based upon a foreknowledge of works. The very passage demands the same interpretation of election as is written in Romans 11:7, and elsewhere.
Romans 11:7
7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded |
Furthermore, seeing that it was before Jacob and Esau were created or born that the election was made, their creation was a fitting, an afore preparation to one of two destinies – wrath or mercy – the glory of His hatred through punishing plagues or the glory of His love through a shackle-breaking salvation! Therefore they are no more significant or involved in their purpose, destiny, deeds, and fate as much as clay is molded under the unavoidable will of the forming Potter. God has power over each vessel to make one of honour (unto a merciful salvation) and the other of dishonour (unto a wrathful damnation). As God made Jacob and Esau for His purposes, they were fitted and prepared for that purpose, and this is the reason “fitted to destruction” and “afore prepared unto glory” are used in Romans 9:22-23. As God did with the individuals, Jacob and Esau, so it is with the nations of people called Israel and Egypt. And now, lo, you may be confused. You may be questioning many things regarding the character and innocence of God. Yes, my reader, this view of sovereignty provokes the questions, “Is there unrighteousness with God?” and again, “Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will” (Romans 9:14, 19)? If all this work is God’s, even all the sin, how can He yet punish and find fault with men? If you feel provoked to answer God with a question, “how is this righteous?” know that there is no unrighteousness with God even though it appears that there is. If you feel compelled to ask, “Why doth He yet find fault” or “why does He yet hold men accountable and responsible for their sins that He ordains under His mighty sovereign power,” the scriptures answer this question directly. The answer to this question is a humbling one where you must come to know your place before an unsearchable, mysterious, infinitely Holy God: “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus” (Romans 9:20).
“If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth” (Prov. 30:32).
“What doest Thou?” – Eccl. 8:4 “What doest Thou?” – Job 9:12 “What doest Thou?” – Daniel 4:35 “What makest Thou?” – Isa. 45:9 “Why hast Thou made me thus?” – Rom. 9:20 |
“who art thou that repliest against God?” – Rom. 9:20
“shall I answer Him” – Job 9:14 “who can say” – Job 36:23 “who may say unto Him” – Eccl. 8:4 “shall the work say of Him that made it” – Isa. 29:16 “shall the thing framed say of Him that framed it” – Isa. 29:16 “shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it” – Rom. 9:20 |
Do you not know? Have you not heard that you are but a “potsherd” fashioned by God? What insanity would it be for clay to think, argue, or speak!? And yet, this arena of earth-dwellers does not know the silent humility that a clay pot has before its Pottery Maker! We need to learn from the silence of clay pots! And how infinitely more insane it is for human beings to question God! The curve of respect clay has to its dignified potter on earth is infinitely out-steeped by the curve of humanity to the Almighty. God says you are proud! You are proud if you think you should understand, you need to understand, or you must understand, and so you argue to comprehend, or you have the audacity to question! Does your heart argue with God? Answer God then! Listen to the Potter’s preaching – “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to Him that fashioneth it, What makest Thou? or thy work, He hath no hands” (Isa. 45:9)? If He makes you to damn you for the glory of His wrath, will you now add to your reprobate insanity by saying to God – “What makest Thou?” This is the clear interpretation and meaning of Romans 9 on the doctrine of election, and, those who are humble enough to leave the limitations of human logic when seeking a comprehension of an incomprehensible God will be forced to confess like Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 4:35:
“And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him,
What doest Thou?” (Dan. 4:35) |
Don’t say it. You don’t know His eternal mind, you are blind to His glorious, harmless, righteousness that is omniscient and outside of time. Will you make yourself the teacher, questioner, creator, or speaker, and tell God that you see, and that He is blind on this point that He has revealed to you within time? “Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the Potter’s clay: for shall the work say of Him that made it, He made me not? Or shall the thing framed say of Him that framed it, He had no understanding” (Isa. 29:16)? Oh house of Israel and all the hellish heathen, hear God! “Cannot I do with you as this potter? Saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the Potter’s hand, so are ye in Mine hand” (Jer. 18:6). If the heathen rage and rise to blaspheme, if they frame mischief with lies, oh Lord Jesus! “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a Potter’s vessel” (Psalm 2:9)! Lord Jesus, You “shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a Potter shall they be broken to shivers” (Rev. 2:27)! “Be wise now therefore” all ye men of the earth, “be instructed ye judges of the earth” (Psalm 2:10)! “O the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Rom. 11:33)! “A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this. When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever” (Psalm 92:4-7). Deep, wise, and great are His works, and the righteous shall be glad at the end. What are you, my reader? What are we? WHAT IS MAN!?
“If he will contend with Him [God], he cannot answer Him one of a thousand. He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath hardened himself against Him [God], and hath prospered? Which removeth the mountains, and they know not: which overturneth them in His anger. Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble. Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars. Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea. Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. Which doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number. Lo, He goeth by me, and I see Him not: He passeth on also, but I perceive Him not. Behold, He taketh away, who can hinder Him? who will say unto Him, What doest Thou? If God will not withdraw His anger, the proud helpers do stoop under Him. How much less shall I answer Him, and choose out my words to reason with Him?” (Job 9:3-14)
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The end of a true study of God, namely theology, is a wonder at His infinite loft, an elevation that surpasses our humble knowledge and understanding! God’s achievements dwarf every man’s skyscraper; the Lord of glory is a galaxy maker! Architect and Engineer with pen in hand, calculating on paper they carefully planned, but the Lord spoke without moving His hand! Lo, and BEHOLD! Void to creation, darkness to illumination, chaos to innumerable creatures applauding God in standing ovation, all this, even, a type of Christian recreation! The same works and words were shadows to personal salvation. To be carnally minded, you will be vile and interrogating, you will be arrogantly investigating, but when will you stop? When will you finally agree with Paul, and exclaim: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out” (Romans 11:33)?!
Can you believe it? That salvation is like the first creation; our beginning is like the earth’s formation? “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from darkness” (Gen. 1:2-4). The world now is in darkness blinded, Satan is enthroned in the carnally minded. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:3-4). My darkness was illuminated by a COMMAND, and there was separation. “For God, Who COMMANDED the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). Let not man reason like the reprobates! Let no man think up some accusing question for God, some reprimand! “Lie not against the truth” that salvation is God given by God’s sovereign COMMAND (James 3:14)!
Spiritual light to shine out of humanities depraved darkness is a treasure that comes from the command of God in election. As it is written, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Cor. 4:7). Formless wickedness is recreated into righteousness when the Spirit moves upon sinners. At the command of Light comes a revelation of Christ, and Christ’s likeness is the formation and mighty transformation. “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:17-18). Our confession is that, it was not when I was pleased, that then I chose God, that then I savingly called upon Him, that it was then that I did genuinely will and run after Him, “but when it pleased God, Who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me,” it was then that I was saved (Gal. 1:15-16)!
These truths of God’s sovereignty are biblically true but not always apparently true. It is not always apparent by the plain reading of scripture that God is Sovereign over all things. What is most righteously and needfully inculcated is the responsibility of man, their vileness and crimes motivating a Holy God to an enormity of just recompenses and punishments. But when the scriptures which we have concisely overviewed thus far are properly believed, the conclusion is clear: God’s justice in the punishment of sinners is irreconcilable to the full spectrum of revelation concerning all the features of God’s active will, works, responsibility, and sovereignty. The incomprehensible paradigm proven in Romans 9 is not the primary context scripture was written in. By saying this I mean to point out that the most exhaustive form scripture is written in is the context where God’s justice is vindicated, understandable, and justified, when addressing the gross crimes of the wicked. If one built theology solely based upon the scripture which is apparently paradoxical to other inspired scripture, we would have a great problem. This needs to be exemplified, and please, pause and pray for wisdom as we proceed.
We have accounted how God was in control of the betrayal of Joseph, and the crucifixion of Jesus, and how God takes ownership of them both as His work and doing. We have seen that men are simultaneously held responsible for their sin. So who was responsible for the sin of taking God’s people as slaves in Egypt? What does a simple reading of Exodus chapter 1 conclude? Lesson: things are not always what they appear to be, what is apparent is not always what is actual.
Can you believe it? That salvation is like the first creation; our beginning is like the earth’s formation? “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from darkness” (Gen. 1:2-4). The world now is in darkness blinded, Satan is enthroned in the carnally minded. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:3-4). My darkness was illuminated by a COMMAND, and there was separation. “For God, Who COMMANDED the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). Let not man reason like the reprobates! Let no man think up some accusing question for God, some reprimand! “Lie not against the truth” that salvation is God given by God’s sovereign COMMAND (James 3:14)!
Spiritual light to shine out of humanities depraved darkness is a treasure that comes from the command of God in election. As it is written, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Cor. 4:7). Formless wickedness is recreated into righteousness when the Spirit moves upon sinners. At the command of Light comes a revelation of Christ, and Christ’s likeness is the formation and mighty transformation. “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:17-18). Our confession is that, it was not when I was pleased, that then I chose God, that then I savingly called upon Him, that it was then that I did genuinely will and run after Him, “but when it pleased God, Who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me,” it was then that I was saved (Gal. 1:15-16)!
These truths of God’s sovereignty are biblically true but not always apparently true. It is not always apparent by the plain reading of scripture that God is Sovereign over all things. What is most righteously and needfully inculcated is the responsibility of man, their vileness and crimes motivating a Holy God to an enormity of just recompenses and punishments. But when the scriptures which we have concisely overviewed thus far are properly believed, the conclusion is clear: God’s justice in the punishment of sinners is irreconcilable to the full spectrum of revelation concerning all the features of God’s active will, works, responsibility, and sovereignty. The incomprehensible paradigm proven in Romans 9 is not the primary context scripture was written in. By saying this I mean to point out that the most exhaustive form scripture is written in is the context where God’s justice is vindicated, understandable, and justified, when addressing the gross crimes of the wicked. If one built theology solely based upon the scripture which is apparently paradoxical to other inspired scripture, we would have a great problem. This needs to be exemplified, and please, pause and pray for wisdom as we proceed.
We have accounted how God was in control of the betrayal of Joseph, and the crucifixion of Jesus, and how God takes ownership of them both as His work and doing. We have seen that men are simultaneously held responsible for their sin. So who was responsible for the sin of taking God’s people as slaves in Egypt? What does a simple reading of Exodus chapter 1 conclude? Lesson: things are not always what they appear to be, what is apparent is not always what is actual.
Exodus 1:6-14
6 And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. 7 And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them. 8 Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. 9 And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: 10 Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. 11 Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. 13 And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: 14 And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour. |
A simple reading of the text shows how the events came to pass. It seems apparent that they have a free will and are understandably responsible for their actions and sin. Their thought process is accounted of, they have prepared their heart and devised their way, but one thing is to be remembered! God holds their hearts in His hand and directs them after His determinate counsel and will! Read as the Psalmist of Psalm 105 gives an explanation of the events of Exodus 1 which were not recorded there. It is the hidden, higher, and lofty work which only God can author.
Psalm 105:24-25
24 And He increased His people greatly; and made them stronger than their enemies. 25 He turned their heart to hate His people, to deal subtilly with His servants. |
It is inaccurate to build theology on just what is written in Exodus 1. We must take into account the whole of scripture. Does not the Spirit expressly teach us that the way of God is revealed in comparing spiritual with spiritual, and that is meant to say, scripture with scripture? This is the way of the Holy Ghost, “which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Corinthians 2:13). It is easy to oversimplify biblical history by only one perspective of understanding when there are two perspectives to take into account. What two perspectives? First, God does not want the Egyptians to sin by taking captive His people Israel. Second, God does want the Egyptians to take His people captive. It cannot be said that God wanted men to sin, most would agree to this, but in the same manner that God does not want any man to sin, likewise He genuinely does not want anyone to perish. He holds men responsible for their sins even though He is in control, but this does not mean they have a free will, thus their condemnation is His ordination and it is comprehensibly unjustified in our eyes (or ways), but it is justified in His. Indeed, “it is God that justifieth” (Romans 8:33). If you have any questions for Him about that, it is just your stinking, filthy pride; these things are too wonderful for us to understand – we must hear, learn, trust, and obey!
We must put a difference here. All things God does are just, and He is justified in His doings, but not necessarily in our comprehension. We cannot understand His justice in all His works, because His sovereign works are hidden from us. In all of our reasoning, we cannot get a logical peek into the righteousness of His majesty when He rules in His eternal sovereignty. Contrasting this hidden justice, there is a comprehensible justice where God pointedly justifies His doings according to our understanding. The context of God’s doings where the Lord is comprehensibly justified in our eyes, this is God in the ways of man. When men try to understand the righteousness of God while His sovereign election and predestination is in view, God’s answer is that: we are forbidden to understand why we have become what He formed us to be, or how our creative purpose and eternal destiny is just. God does not need to vindicate the righteousness of sovereign predestination, nor does He desire to. It is sin for us to question it! Therefore these things are hidden from us, secret to God, and all else is that which is revealed and belonging to us. "The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 29:29). NOTE: the sovereignty of God makes justice incomprehensible, but there remains a justice which condescends to your comprehension…more will be spoken on this later as these two themes build and develop in this chapter.
In Exodus 10 we can see the same hidden, sovereign works of God, but this time we don’t have to go to another book to read about it. In Exodus 10 God says to Pharaoh, “how long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before Me? Let My people go, that they may serve Me” (v. 3). It is clear that God wants His people to be released, and Pharaoh is sinning against God in his obstinate pride. God’s clear commanded desire is to let His people go. This is the genuine will of God concerning Pharaoh but this is not His determinate will… did you know there are two wills in God? God desires Pharaoh not to sin and His people to be released, and simultaneously, He desires that Pharaoh would refuse to let the people go. Why? So that God can show great and mighty signs of wrath and judgment against the sin of Pharaoh, on behalf of His love for Israel, to the end that Israel might know that God is the LORD! You may ask where I am getting all of this. Well, in verses 1-2 of Exodus chapter 10, all these things can be clearly seen, and likewise, in Romans 9:17-18, & verse 22.
We must put a difference here. All things God does are just, and He is justified in His doings, but not necessarily in our comprehension. We cannot understand His justice in all His works, because His sovereign works are hidden from us. In all of our reasoning, we cannot get a logical peek into the righteousness of His majesty when He rules in His eternal sovereignty. Contrasting this hidden justice, there is a comprehensible justice where God pointedly justifies His doings according to our understanding. The context of God’s doings where the Lord is comprehensibly justified in our eyes, this is God in the ways of man. When men try to understand the righteousness of God while His sovereign election and predestination is in view, God’s answer is that: we are forbidden to understand why we have become what He formed us to be, or how our creative purpose and eternal destiny is just. God does not need to vindicate the righteousness of sovereign predestination, nor does He desire to. It is sin for us to question it! Therefore these things are hidden from us, secret to God, and all else is that which is revealed and belonging to us. "The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 29:29). NOTE: the sovereignty of God makes justice incomprehensible, but there remains a justice which condescends to your comprehension…more will be spoken on this later as these two themes build and develop in this chapter.
In Exodus 10 we can see the same hidden, sovereign works of God, but this time we don’t have to go to another book to read about it. In Exodus 10 God says to Pharaoh, “how long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before Me? Let My people go, that they may serve Me” (v. 3). It is clear that God wants His people to be released, and Pharaoh is sinning against God in his obstinate pride. God’s clear commanded desire is to let His people go. This is the genuine will of God concerning Pharaoh but this is not His determinate will… did you know there are two wills in God? God desires Pharaoh not to sin and His people to be released, and simultaneously, He desires that Pharaoh would refuse to let the people go. Why? So that God can show great and mighty signs of wrath and judgment against the sin of Pharaoh, on behalf of His love for Israel, to the end that Israel might know that God is the LORD! You may ask where I am getting all of this. Well, in verses 1-2 of Exodus chapter 10, all these things can be clearly seen, and likewise, in Romans 9:17-18, & verse 22.
Exodus 10:1-4
1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these My signs before him: 2 And that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son’s son, what things I have wrought in Egypt, and My signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how that I am the LORD. 3 And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before Me? let My people go, that they may serve Me. 4 Else, if thou refuse to let My people go, behold, to morrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast: Romans 9:17-18 & 22 17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew My power in thee, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth. 18 Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth……22 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: |
It cannot be said that God does not want His people to be set free, because God never commands something He does not want (or will). He certainly was not acting or lying when He commanded Pharaoh to let His people go. He was not acting or lying when He was grieved over the unwillingness of Pharaoh to humble himself before the Lord’s command. This grief is illustrated in the words “How long wilt thou refuse” written in verse 3. This is a real and genuine will of God which was working in a tension against the determinate will of God that motivated the Lord to harden Pharaoh’s heart. How can these two wills, desires, and deeds of the Lord be completely contradictory and genuine at the same time? How can they both be presently active at the same instance of history, and yet both be completely real, emotional wills in God? There is no way we can know the answer to these questions, but one thing is for sure – God is not a man – consequentially man ought to be comfortable with the idea that we cannot fully understand Him.
There is a will of God that is determinate and another that is responsive to the responses of men. The determinate will of God turns men’s hearts and determines their response; the other will of God is changeable, resistible, and interactive to the responses of men. God’s resistible will was His desire that Pharaoh would let the people go, that Pharaoh would not sin, and that Pharaoh would not be hardened through pride. God was using Pharaoh as an instrument of His wrath and hatred, and He hardened him through an eternal, predestinated plan and purpose which was for His own glory – this was His eternal, irresistible, unchanging will. God hated Pharaoh from eternity past, and at present that eternal hatred hardened his heart; simultaneously, God loved Pharaoh and did not want him to sin, so much so that He was grieved over his continuance to sin.
There is a will of God that is determinate and another that is responsive to the responses of men. The determinate will of God turns men’s hearts and determines their response; the other will of God is changeable, resistible, and interactive to the responses of men. God’s resistible will was His desire that Pharaoh would let the people go, that Pharaoh would not sin, and that Pharaoh would not be hardened through pride. God was using Pharaoh as an instrument of His wrath and hatred, and He hardened him through an eternal, predestinated plan and purpose which was for His own glory – this was His eternal, irresistible, unchanging will. God hated Pharaoh from eternity past, and at present that eternal hatred hardened his heart; simultaneously, God loved Pharaoh and did not want him to sin, so much so that He was grieved over his continuance to sin.
Isaiah 55:8-9
8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith 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. |
We must humble ourselves to Who God reveals Himself to be. We must not arrogantly expect or demand some kind of comprehensive summary of the justice of His judgments, as if we have some kind of seat of reason or authority in the courtroom of heaven. God has not invited you as a jury in His courtroom! Indeed, a true study of all that is given to us in the holy scripture will cause us to exclaim in unspeakable wonder, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out” (Romans 11:33)!
I define all the attributes of God which are employed for determination, which are accomplished by His irresistible will, as God in the ways of God. They are holy ways, separate ways, and they are not even comprehensible to the ways of man. In Isaiah 55:8-9 the Lord seeks to make this point. We cannot even comprehend God’s thoughts, because He is outside the dimension of our thinking capacity. An ant cannot understand the moral conscience of a human being, nor can we understand the conscience or consciousness of God; what it is like for Him to think or do anything in His will or ways. An ant to a human is a six-foot height difference; a human to God is higher still, even as the earth to the immeasurable expanse of the heavens in outer space. Expanding on and on, no man can measure its distance and no telescope can see its end. STOP & BE STILL, & CONSIDER the WONDER: God condescends to us as men. He seeks a relationship with us. Undoubtedly, this motivated the purpose of God to relate to us in the ways of man. God in the ways of God – He is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, eternal, determinate, and irresistible. He is everywhere, always, uncreated, and evermore. He is mightily other than us, HOLY, that we could have no relationship with Him unless He condescends to our low estate of mean, dustic faculties. Men are dustic, made of dust and dirt, thus all our splendor is in the meekness of dustic dynamics. We are not omnipresent; we have one location. We are not omnipotent; we must be spoken to in a manner which does not destroy our feeble frames. We are not omniscient, and therefore we need to learn lessons from the Judge. We are temporarily in flesh and subject to the governance of time and deterioration. Our will is not determining but relative, responsive, emotional, changing, and interactive to events we have no foreknowledge of. The two contexts, spectrums, paradigms, and relationships are in two separate ways consistently logical to the features attributed to God and man, but God takes on both simultaneously. Please let me accumulate the scriptural case for this.
I define all the attributes of God which are employed for determination, which are accomplished by His irresistible will, as God in the ways of God. They are holy ways, separate ways, and they are not even comprehensible to the ways of man. In Isaiah 55:8-9 the Lord seeks to make this point. We cannot even comprehend God’s thoughts, because He is outside the dimension of our thinking capacity. An ant cannot understand the moral conscience of a human being, nor can we understand the conscience or consciousness of God; what it is like for Him to think or do anything in His will or ways. An ant to a human is a six-foot height difference; a human to God is higher still, even as the earth to the immeasurable expanse of the heavens in outer space. Expanding on and on, no man can measure its distance and no telescope can see its end. STOP & BE STILL, & CONSIDER the WONDER: God condescends to us as men. He seeks a relationship with us. Undoubtedly, this motivated the purpose of God to relate to us in the ways of man. God in the ways of God – He is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, eternal, determinate, and irresistible. He is everywhere, always, uncreated, and evermore. He is mightily other than us, HOLY, that we could have no relationship with Him unless He condescends to our low estate of mean, dustic faculties. Men are dustic, made of dust and dirt, thus all our splendor is in the meekness of dustic dynamics. We are not omnipresent; we have one location. We are not omnipotent; we must be spoken to in a manner which does not destroy our feeble frames. We are not omniscient, and therefore we need to learn lessons from the Judge. We are temporarily in flesh and subject to the governance of time and deterioration. Our will is not determining but relative, responsive, emotional, changing, and interactive to events we have no foreknowledge of. The two contexts, spectrums, paradigms, and relationships are in two separate ways consistently logical to the features attributed to God and man, but God takes on both simultaneously. Please let me accumulate the scriptural case for this.