The Will(s) of God

Does God have one or two wills? There are times in the Bible where God makes a declaration, and the thing comes to pass. There are other times where God gives a command, and sometimes it’s disobeyed.

                

         What’s going on?

God’s will has two components:

1.      

       God’s decretive will

2.       God’s desired will

God’s decreed will is that characteristic of God whereby whatever He determines will come to pass every time. It’s 100% guaranteed to occur. This is His sovereignty being put on display. God’s decreed will is prophetic. Every prophecy in the Bible has been fulfilled or will be fulfilled in the future. This element of God’s will is irresistible – meaning it under no circumstances can be disappointed. Why? Because God determined before hand that what He promised will come to pass.

There are numerous accounts in scripture where God has decreed His will in the earth. Here are a few;

1.       

The promise of the Messiah – In Genesis 3:15 we read, “I will put enmity between you (Satan), and the woman, and between your seed (unbelievers) and her Seed (Christ). He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heal.”

Here we see the Lord way back in the garden of Eden predicting the coming of Jesus Christ  to the earth (although the prophecy was very cryptic at that time) to die for sin and defeat the devil. The verse  also speaks of the virgin birth (her seed). We know women do not contain seed, the male does. This speaks of a miraculous birth. This prophecy was going to occur no matter what the circumstances were in the earth. God decreed it, it had to come to pass and it did.

2.       God promised to bless Abraham and all his descendants -  The Bible says that God chose to make Abraham a great nation, and that his posterity would be innumerable. The key to this is that Abraham and Sarah have to have a son in their old age. Although neither Abraham or Sarah  believed God at first, that did not prevent God from doing to them what He determined to do. Abraham could not stop what God was doing due to his initial unbelief. Everything God promised Abraham happened exactly how God planned it. Genesis 24:1 says Abraham was blessed in all things.

3.       The death of the Messiah was foreordained – Numerous passages in the Bible vividly describe the crucifixion of Jesus. I’ll cite two here.

a.       In Psalm 22:1 we read, “My God my God why have you forsaken me?” Here we read the distress that King David was going through, but ultimately this expression is repeated when Jesus was dying in agony for the sins of mankind (Matt 27:46). We see here that a portion of this Psalm is what theologians call “Messianic”, dealing with the Messiah. David was speaking prophetically by the Holy Spirit regarding the crucifixion of Jesus.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

b.      The apostle Peter declared in Acts 2:22-24, “Men of Israel hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know – Him being delivered by the determined purpose  and foreknowledge of God you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that He should be held by it.”

We read here in Acts that Jesus death was predetermined by God. That’s why Jesus in the gospels on several occasions predicts his own death and resurrection. Jesus death was no accident. God the Father planned it before the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). What man planned for evil (killing Jesus), God planned before time for good, saving his people from their sins through the death of Jesus Christ. Men’s plan for killing Jesus was because of hate. God sacrificed His Son because of love – the love of humanity.

With God’s desired will, it is authoritative, but it can be resisted or disobeyed. This is God’s revealed command such as the Ten Commandments, thou shall not kill, thou shall not commit adultery, thou shall not steal, etc (Exodus 20).

Another instance would be David’s sin of adultery with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11:4.                      

David knew the law of Moses, but disobeyed the Lord’s command and took another man’s wife. David resisted or disobeyed God’s command when he should have obeyed. God desired that David remained faithful in his marriage, but unfortunately this did not occur. In this instance God’s desire is frustrated by David’s disobedience.

Another account where God’s will was resisted was during the time of Joshua 7:1-26. This deals with the sin of Achan who stole some the accursed things after the defeat of Jericho. Joshua gave a specific command not to touch or covet anything other than the silver and Gold, vessels of bronze and iron because they were consecrated, and for the treasury of the Lord (Joshua 6:18). Anything else would bring sin into the camp. Achan knowingly disobeyed this command and as a result, he and his family were stoned to death and cremated once he confessed his sin (Josh 7:25). Achan and everything he owned was taken outside of the camp and destroyed; signifying his being cut off from Israel and being rejected by God. This caused the curse to be removed.

In these instances, not everything God desired came to pass, because of the willful sinfulness of man. Unlike in His decreed will God determines that on His own. His decreed will does not requires man’s voluntary or involuntary involvement for it to come to pass. God makes the decree, and through the agency of men God’s plan unfolds and is accomplished. Man’s choice is subdued by God’s omnipotent will so that His plans are brought to fruition. With God’s decreed will man’s will is made irresistible to God’s will, but with God’s desired will, man can and does choose to resist God’s revealed commands.