God’s Will – Introduction
God’s Will – Introduction.
God’s Will, Beyond our Understanding. “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His decisions! And how mysterious are His ways, His methods, and His paths! For who has known the mind of the Lord, who has understood His thoughts, or who has ever been His counselor? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. For all things originate with Him and come from Him; all things live through Him, and all things center in and end in Him. To Him be glory forever! Amen. That’s the truth.” (Romans 11:33-36).
Hebrew Word for Will is “haspasti”, which means to will something because it brings great delight; to desire because it brings pleasure; to wish something to be done because it is the best for all concerned.
Greek Word for Will is “thelema,” which means the preferred choice, the intended will that has a deep purpose behind it; the desired preference for action.
“Calvary is the Great Central Fact of all that has been made known of the Will-of-God in this world.” (Brother Rex Andrews, from his book What the Bibe Teaches About Mercy).
A Foundational Truth to Consider. God’s will is what He wants done, what He wants accomplished. God’s will is based on His character, and so His will shall always reflect His essence and divine identity. His will is always going to be a revelation of His authentic Being, and it will not compromise His nature. To be in the center of God’s will then, we need to live in the center of who God is, what His character is through His Holy Spirit with Jesus. God’s character determines the substance of His will. His ultimate intentions and plans will unfailingly line up with His character. It appears from Scripture that God’s will is mercy. God’s bottom-line will is mercy. What God wants for the world to experience is His mercy and goodness, and His desire is to demonstrate the essence of His character.
God’s Will Reflects His Self-Identity. When at the base of Mt. Sinai, Moses asked God if he could see God’s glory. (Exodus 33:19). The Lord Yahweh responded by saying that He would pass before Moses, but he would not be allowed to see His “face,” only His backside. The Glory is too overwhelming for humans who are not equipped to experience a consuming fire quite yet. Yahweh told Moses that He will cause all His “goodness” to pass before Moses, and that in Moses’ presence He will pronounce His holy Name. Goodness is usually a synonym for mercy, because God’s goodness is revealed through His mercy. So Moses ascended Mt. Sinai to meet God at the top, and Yahweh descended in a cloud and stood there with Moses. Only God can accurately name Himself, and here we see the Lord pronouncing His sacred Name… “God passed before Moses and proclaimed, “I AM Yahweh! I AM Yahweh! A God who is compassionate (rachem) and gracious, longsuffering and slow to anger, abounding in mercy (hesed) and truth, preserving mercy (hesed) for thousands of generations, forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin, but by no means clearing the guilty or allowing sin to go unpunished.” (Exodus 34:6-7). What a singular moment! The Almighty God, the Great I AM, describes His Name, His identity. He is revealing to Moses how He sees Himself in His Essence. What a turning point in history! The Lord of the universe chooses to reveal Himself in utter transparency to a human being! ‘You want to know what I am made of, Moses, the Lord is saying, then this is how I describe my character, these are my core attributes. Yes, I am the great LORD, and this is Me in a nutshell… rich in mercy, compassion, grace, forgiveness. That is truly who I am, Moses!’ At the very end of this historical self-description, God reminds Moses (and all of us) that He is Lord of a moral universe, that there is such a thing as right and wrong, and He has established an ultimate system of justice. God’s statement about justice and moral accountability, interestingly enough, seems to have been made in the context of mercy and forgiveness, of compassion and grace. So it appears that if God’s will springs out of God’s core character, His will must be mercy, compassion, grace, and forgiveness.
Describing God’s Will. Accepting the fact that God’s thoughts are as unreachable as the furthest star in the galaxy, and that His level of understanding is as far from us as the distance from one end of the universe to the other end, we can try to describe God’s will this way: His will is His heart’s desire for every creature to become what that creature was created to be, to reach God’s purpose and destiny for that person; God’s will is what He wants to happen; God’s will is His pure and perfect intention for everything under the sun; His will always remain what is best for all of humanity; His will includes all of mankind’s actions and attitudes that are in line with His character and purpose; His will is that which brings pleasure and joy to His heart; God’s will springs from His character and is an expression of who He is by nature. According to many biblical scholars, God has three wills: His Intentional Will, which is what He prefers according to His designs and plans for the world. The whole world is full of God’s mercy (Ps. 119:64), and God intends that his creatures reflect and live into that mercy with each other. But His intentions could be thwarted in the short-term, because of His… Permissive Will: His will honors each person’s free will, since we are all made in His image; for the short-term, His permissive will allows each of us to stray from His preference or His intention, refusing to eliminate the freedom of mankind to make their own choices in life. However, God has an Ultimate Will for the long-term, a perfect will that is irresistible, that God has had in mind since the creation of the world, and God is determined that His ultimate will shall prevail. Much of God’s ultimate will is a secret at this point, known only to Him. God in His wisdom enjoys a unified plan that we are not privy to, and life in this world is moving towards the ending He has determined. In any discussion of God’s will, of course, we shouldn’t forget that, “whatever the Lord pleases to do, He does.” (Ps. 135:6), and “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.” (Ps. 115:3).
My Theory on God’s Will in the World. Imagine that world history, with all its momentous events, national tragedies and unforeseen twists and turns that seemed random, with all its natural disasters and unpredictable conflicts, with all the glories and beauties of civilizations come and gone, all the bright lights of saints and heroes and the dark shadows of villains and devils, all the world’s great masterpieces in art, music, literature and technology, and with all the personal choices of love and hate, destined for victory or defeat… imagine that all of that is a mind-boggling, complex, multi-layered, impossible-to-understand cosmic Play by the Divine Playwright, God Himself. Our Playwright is the only One who could possibly have the Big Picture in mind, the only One who has a unified vision of the world, and He has written the ultimate ending to the Play. He is determined to have the Play be resolved at the conclusion according to His plan for the Play. The ending of the play is non-negotiable by others who might have different ideas, but the conclusion will reflect without question the deep desires of the Playwright. He will not compromise his creative genius, since He is filled with wisdom and understanding and knows exactly where everything is eventually headed and how it all fits together. His ultimate plan for the Play can be called God’s Will, as can be the fact that the Playwright has in mind the main themes in each Act of the Play. Each Act contains a theme or two that is determined by Him, but each scene in each Act is being written by the likes of us, we who are mixed bags of God’s image and fallen nature. The Playwright has given humanity a lot of freedom to write some of our own script, and He will honor our freedom by not eliminating free human will. God has actually invited us to cooperate in a draft of the Play. Each of us writes a lot of the action scenes and even some of the secondary plot development, but if the Playwright sees any of His main themes drifting away from His main purpose, He has a few ways of responding: the Playwright can simply delete the scene and ask for a re-write; He can intervene and force a few important changes in the script; He could personally do a rewrite Himself; He can redeem the unfortunate scene by taking the part of the scene that didn’t fit into His grand scheme of things, and turning it into a part that fits, taking the objectionable part in hand and arranging things so something good and beautiful can emerge. God can redeem any part of a wayward script and have good come out of the bad. One way or another, God’s ultimate Will is going to be successfully fulfilled, and the play will without any doubt be resolved according to the desires of the Playwright. Nature and humanity all have a part to play in the writing of the script, but it is God alone who will determine the main direction of the plot line, the final character development, and the glorious conclusion at the end. The Playwright is God, and of course He knows best. It’s our job to understand as much as we can about the Playwright so we can cooperate with His plot. We can only see the play from our limited view. Only the Playwright has the Big Picture in mind, from beginning to end. The Playwright has ultimate sovereignty, but at the same time permits people to make their own mistakes and lets nature take its course.
Will God Get What He Wants? Eventually His will is completely accomplished. Temporarily, though, He allows His will to be thwarted. Many have posed this question, and of course, we don’t really understand the full answer to this. This remains a mystery, a secret part of His will. It’s clear that God in the end wants everyone to be saved. “God is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). He does not desire that anyone would perish. “Our God and Savior, who desires all mankind to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-4). God is the lover of mankind, and ”takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” (Ezekiel 33:11). There is a lot in Scripture about hell and judgment, much of it proclaimed by Jesus Himself. Will God get what He wants, everyone saved, in the very, very, very end of the End? After continually rejecting the mercy of God, it may take some of the more stubborn souls a long time to finally accept Him. How much weight does God finally give our finite, imperfect free wills? Will he really allow our weak, ignorant wills to frustrate His plans and then we foolishly sentence ourselves to eternal death? How far will God take this free will idea in terms of final decisions? We just don’t know the answer to this mystery. There is an interesting little parable in Matthew 13:47-50, the Parable of the Fishing Net. The fishing net is thrown wide and deep, and it catches any number of kinds of fish. Jesus has the angels coming at the end and helping Him judge these fish, some good and some not good. In many ways this is a tragic story. Jesus seems clear and unequivocal that there will be a final judgment, a separation unto what at least seems like an eternity. The “good fish” though should not feel especially smug or self-righteous or judgmental against what they consider the “bad fish.” We are assured it won’t get all sorted out till the end. Spread the net and pray for mercy for others and for yourself in the separation process. It’s hard to miss that the angels seemed intent and eternally tough in their display of divine justice. Somehow, Lord, may your judgment throne be a mercy seat. “So let us come boldly to the throne of grace. There we will receive His mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.” (Hebrews 4:16). Let’s pray that verse for everyone, even the “bad fish.” Maybe somehow, after the angels are done sorting things out, Jesus, who has the Last Word, will say, “Father, forgive them, for they didn’t know what they were doing.” Maybe, somehow, the Lord will give the bad fish a final opportunity to flop into paradise. Maybe, after what seems an eternity, the Lord’s will of mercy wins out. I would like to think and hope that, even in His moral universe in which there is accountability, even with that in mind, God will eventually get what He wants.
Living into God’s Intentional Will: Demonstrating to others the mercy God has shown us puts us into the Center of His Will. When we use our wills to show mercy, our will turns into God’s will. We need to become as knowledgeable as possible about God’s direction and purpose in the overall trajectory of the Play; to obey His directions; to cooperate with His plans and do what pleases Him; to trust in the skills of the Playwright when unsure of the plot; to magnify the faultless character of the Playwright; to be assured of the Playwright’s love for us as we write our action scenes; to grow in anticipating His plot lines and character development; to represent the Playwright’s standing in the world and make sure He gets all the credit and applause. The Lord God put forth His “intentional will” in Micah 6:8. That passage summarizes His preference for how we live, what He delights in, what reflects His character, what He takes great pleasure in, what He has had in mind for us since He created us. If it were solely up to God, this is what the world would look like: “He has already told you, mortals, what is good in His sight. This is what Lord Yahweh asks of you: to live with justice and fairness in mind; to embrace lovingkindness and mercy; and to walk humbly and obediently with your True God.”God is intending that we all live that way if it was up to Him alone. But, mysteriously, the Almighty God honors His “permissive will,” allowing each person’s free will to have a big influence in the way we choose to live. Of course, God has the power and wisdom to intervene whenever He wants. Much like sin itself, God doesn’t endorse injustice, cruelty, or pride, and in fact He has gone on record a million times as hating every form of wickedness. He obviously doesn’t really prefer unrighteousness or the results of sin in the world, and He never had the intention to make this a part of His creation. And He knows that evil’s days are numbered. But here we see reality in a sinful world, where God rejects much of what goes on His world. Our pure God permits impurity and brokenness and certainly doesn’t insist on their existence. It’s a mystery what this does to God’s sovereignty. But God is not a cosmic sadist, and so He doesn’t inflict pain, give people cancer, or cause fatal car crashes. He doesn’t will tragedy into innocent lives, He doesn’t inspire mass murders or spread life-ending illnesses. In His short-term permissive will, He allows effects of sin, and He redeems them. God is in the business of redeeming the bad into the good, not inflicting the bad. But God also has an “ultimate will” which reveals His final authority and sovereignty. His ultimate plans are irresistible, and final, and will not be frustrated. God has ultimate control of the universe, in which God gets what He wants. God has already determined that justice, mercy and humility will characterize human interaction when the world is redeemed in the kingdom to come. God’s will of mercy will not be compromised in the end.
“We are only on the outer fringes of Your works! How faint the whisper we hear of You! I am unworthy – How can I reply to You? I put my hand over my mouth. Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” (Job 26:14, 40:4, 42:36).