God's Eternal Decree & Secondary Causality
A man’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed ... (Job 14.5)
A man’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed ... (Job 14.5)
The subject of God’s eternal decrees is, like the other categories within Savoy Declaration of Faith, imbued with theological and biblical richness so that it is scarcely possible fully to develop all that are being suggested in its few short paragraphs. Consequently, I shall make no effort, at least for now, to enlarge upon the doctrine of secondary causality (man’s “free will”), nor will I attempt to reconcile the perceived conflict between God’s eternal decree and man’s reprobation. The doctrine of reprobation teaches that God according to his sovereign will, passes over some sinners, leaving them in their sins and in the day of judgment condemns them for their sins. There is a debate between supralapsarianism (often called double predestination, that is, God predestined some for salvation and He predestined others for damnation), and infralapsarianism (God decreed to permit the Fall and elected a chosen number to be the objects of His redemptive mercy; the rest continue in their lost estate [preterition]). This latter view is similar to the Formula of Concord (Lutheran in origination). It is not a doctrine that Calvin fully developed and it seems the best course to leave the debate for another day. As with other doctrines, there is an overlap between the doctrine of God's eternal decrees and other doctrines such as creation, providence, effectual calling, election, and perseverance.
The opening paragraph of the Savoy Declaration of Faith states: “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.” Essentially this means that God acts intentionally and with absolute sovereignty in everything that He does. Nothing happens by chance and nothing is outside of His purpose and design for creation.
He has a plan for the history of the universe, and in executing it he governs and controls all created realities. Without violating the nature of things, and without at any stage infringing upon human free agency, God acts in, with and through his creatures so as to do everything that he wishes to do exactly as he wishes to do it. By this overruling action, despite human disobedience and Satanic obstruction, he achieves his pre-set goals. Some question the reality of the eternal decree (that is, decision) whereby God has foreordained everything that comes to pass, but this also imposes an unbiblical limitation on such texts as Eph. 1:11, and it too must be judged eccentric. (New Dictionary of Theology, p. 276 [emphasis mine])
That God has ordained all that will come to pass is often a point of conflict with those who wish to ascribe to mankind an absolutely autonomous will. Some contend that when the Bible speaks of God’s foreknowledge that this knowledge is contingent upon the future acts determined by man’s free choice. This is blatantly contrary to the biblical witness. That a man has what Jonathan Edwards calls natural freedom (the power to act according to his own desire) is not disputed; however, man lacks moral freedom; that is, he has neither the disposition, nor the ability to behave in such a way that his righteousness will be acceptable to God (cf. R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith, 179 – 180; Jonathan Edwards, The Freedom of the Will, 31-36; Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will, 50 - 51). It baffles me how quickly men want to claim the sovereignty of their wills at the expense of the sovereignty of God’s will. Common sense dictates that God’s eternal sovereign will ought to have precedent over the corrupted and sinful will of the creature. Thus, I concur, with Scripture, that the decretive will of God is the cause of all things, including man’s salvation. Individuals have been given the dignity of secondary causality and are thereby accountable for all their actions.
One may then deduce that God’s knowledge of all things is not the result of prescience in any human sense. Rather, His knowledge is the result of the absolute decree of His will. He sees all things in the present; he knows all possible contingencies. However, though he knows them, not every contingency will eventuate if He has not willed it. All secondary causes exist to bring about His decretive will. “In virtue of His absoluteness God knows the future. Only what is possible and what God allows are future. It is as God determines things that He knows the future. In this knowledge, however, He sees it as present. His prescience is thus infallible and in its determinative character immutable. In this determinative character it is a special aspect of God’s knowledge, extending only to things that are still to be, and in this sense subordinate to His will” (ISBE, vol. 3, p. 601).
Given this understanding of God’s sovereignty we may more readily appreciate the progress of redemption through secondary causes as they are recorded in Scripture. The Old Testament tends to be unconcerned with secondary causes; thus, what God permitted is often said the to be done directly by him. Secondary causes were not the main focus; the ultimate cause took precedence as a means of explanation (cf. Hard Saying of the Bible, p. 140). Paul assures the Roman Church: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified (Romans 8.28-30). Such a dramatic statement has an additional force when understood in light of God’s eternal decree that also embraces the doctrine of secondary causes. There are numerous biblical illustrations of this.
Monarchs, governments, bureaucratic officials and the like may issue decrees. Such pronouncements, rulings and judgments carry the full force of the nation’s law and are intended to constrain the object of the decree to comply with the monarch’s will. Such edicts have varying degrees of success. In the book of Esther we read that Haman, the royal representative of King Xerxes, had contrived a means of killing all the Jews in Persia. He issued a decree with the imprimatur of the King’s signet ring that was later countermanded by Xerxes through Mordecai (after Haman was executed). The story of the Jews’ preservation through the intercession of Esther is an example of secondary causes being subject to God’s eternal decree. Mordecai challenged Esther with these words: “And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4.14; cf. 8.9 – 13).
Daniel records that Nebuchadnezzar had issued a decree that everyone in his kingdom was to prostrate himself to worship a ninety foot image of gold whenever they heard the musical call to worship (Daniel 3.10). Three Israelites men (Mishael, Meshach, and Azariah) refused to obey the King’s diktat. Subsequent to their defiant refusal (we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up) they were bound and cast into the into flames, only to have God intervene and save them (Daniel 3.24-27; cf. Isaiah 43.2). Although men may contrive to do one thing or another, it is God who determines the outcome. Many seek an audience with a ruler, but it is from the LORD that man gets justice (Proverbs 29.26).
Scripture constantly encourages the believer to put his hope and trust in the Lord alone, because only God is able to deliver him from trouble.The psalmist tells us that the plans of the Lord endure throughout all generations; there is nothing that can thwart the plan of God. No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine (Psalm 33.16-19). Wonderfully illustrative of God’s overruling purpose is the incident of Ahithophel’s counsel to Absalom. Absalom had driven his father, King David, from Jerusalem in an attempt to depose him from the throne (2 Sam 15.31). When David became aware that his insightful and trusted advisor Ahithophel had conspired with Absalom, he prayed to the Lord that He would make the counsel of this traitor sound foolish to his son. Additionally, David sent Hushai, an infiltrator of his own, to align himself with Absalom. So, when Ahithophel gave Absalom very good advice on how to defeat King David, it was countered with the bad advice of David’s mole. But the LORD had determined to frustrate the good advice of Ahithophel in order to bring disaster on Absalom (2 Sam 16.15-17.14; quote from 7.14). David knew that the plan of man is subject to the will of God.
The counsel of the Lord is eternal, “It stands forever.” The enduring character of God’s counsel and plan is grounded in the unchangeableness of God himself. The “plans of his heart” may be equated with “the secret things” which belong to the Lord our God. It is God who guarantees the accomplishment of his eternal decrees. Isaiah beautifully integrates these thoughts, “Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all my good pleasure’; Calling … the man of my purpose (lit. the man who executes my purpose, i.e. Cyrus) from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly, I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do itÉ” (46:9-11). It is well to remember that ‘esa is translated in the LXX by boule, a word replete with theological significance in the New Testament (see Acts 2:23; 4:28; 5:38–39; 20:27; Eph 1:11 where “the counsel of his will” expresses the immutable foreordination of God’s will; cf. Heb 6:17, “the unchangeableness of his purpose”). (Gilchrist, TWOT, p. 390)
Just as Joseph learned that the evil his brothers intended for him, God intended for good (Gen 50.19-21), so too the believer has every reason to be confident that God will in due course bless him with every good gift(Rom 8.32; Matt 6.33; Rev 21.7).
Decrees and Salvation
They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen (Acts 4.28).
When one begins to ask questions concerning design and purpose he must immediately abandon all hope of finding an answer within the non-theistic assumptions of philosophical naturalism (a view of reality that is strictly dependent on natural event-causation). In spite of everything, people want to believe that their lives have purpose and meaning. Though they have no system of belief that can assure them that this is true. Their worldview (Weltanschauung), whether they are conscious of it or not, is grounded on philosophical naturalism. Ironically, many Christians are unwittingly influenced by a modernist, naturalistic worldview. However, those who embrace any of the many variations of naturalism (i.e., evolutionism, the Marxist economic dialectic, pragmatism…) find their belief system to be logically intolerable because it inevitably leads to fatalism. A philosophy built upon a mechanistic system will, when allowed to run its logical course, most often lead to despair. Not infrequently, the naturalist steals his utopian idealism from a Christian worldview (e.g., what does the survival of the fittest have to do with universal brotherhood?). Of course, the end result of a worldview built upon the idea that God’s eternal decretive will results in a universal good for all His “children” is very appealing. It is the supposition of God’s decretive will, however, that is distasteful to the unbeliever. We live in an age where people indiscriminately pick and mix from a smorgasbord of secular philosophies without due consideration of their logical implications. In the final analysis, secularism is unable to offer a sense of purpose or meaning for life. Nontheistic determinism (that is, people’s choices are determined by antecedent physical and psychological causes) dissolves in a morass of moral relativism in which one is only loosely accountable to an ever vacillating, rudderless, and self-indulgent society.
The entire Christian worldview is contingent upon the purposeful acts of God. That is, God’s eternal decretive will is the final cause of everything that happens, and everything that happens will result in a universal good, of which God’s elect will be benefactors. God’s eternal decree is accomplished through both secondary causality and through the supernatural causality of God’s direct intervention in the affairs of man. The Bible is fundamentally a history of redemption; in its pages there is a detailed record of God’s purposeful redemptive acts. Immediately after the Fall, God begins to assure Adam and Eve that He will secure their salvation. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen 3.15). To accomplish this, God may intervene directly as in the case of creation, or the exodus. More often He acts through secondary causes, although the Bible usually attributes these secondary causes directly to God. In every case God works toward His own end, namely, to bring everything into subjection to Christ (1 Cor 15.27). Those who populate the new heaven and earth are God’s elect (Acts 13.48; Rev 21.6-8, 27). How all this will come about is a part of the decretive will of God (Millard Erickson prefers simply the “plan of God”; see Christian Theology, vol. 1, pp. 345-346). An additional resource for understanding the over all plan of God in Scripture is Willem Van Gemeren’s excellent book, The Progress of Redemption (see my sermon notes May 11, 1997).
It is clearly evident in Scripture that God most often uses natural or secondary causes to bring about His purposes. However, there are occasions where He intervenes directly as in the case of creation ex nihilo. Also, we have a record of Divine intervention through revelation, epiphanies, and miracles. Certainly there is no greater example of God’s direct intervention than that of Mary, a virgin, conceiving and giving birth to the Messiah (Luke 1.35; 2.7). That the Scriptures assert Jesus as the means whereby God brings about His salvation is everywhere plain in the gospels, from the birth narratives (e.g. Luke 2.28-32), to the resurrection (John 20.30-31). That Jesus was cognizant of His salvific role being sovereignly played out on the stage of history is unmistakably clear from his final remarks to His disciples: “This is what I told you while I was till with you: everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms… “this is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24.44, 46).
Jesus’ role as savior and mediator between God and man was endemic to the doctrine of the early church. God is the sovereign author of salvation; salvation is in Jesus Christ (John 3.16; 5.24). There is no power in heaven or on earth that can hinder it. This is clear from the narrative in Acts 4.23-31, which is something of a continuation of Luke 24.24. The believers understood that God’s decretive will was carried out in the recent events of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The believers understood the implications of God’s immutable plan as is evident in their prayer in response to Peter and John’s release from prison. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.’ Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen”. (Acts 4.24 – 28).
Regarding Luke’s comments in Acts 4.23-31 Lewis and Demarest write: The record of the church’s growth in Acts gives pride of place to God’s sovereign will. As in the Gospels, so in Acts Christ’s rejection, death, and resurrection were grounded in God’s overarching plan. So Peter testifies to the Jews: “this man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose [horismene boule] and foreknowledge [prognosis] and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross” (Acts 2:23). Peter later declared that the authorities “did what [God’s] will [boule] had decided beforehand [proorisen] should happen” (Acts 4:28). These texts teach (1) that Christ’s death in respect to its saving end or purpose was willed by God and thus certain of occurrence (cf. Acts 2:18; 17:3); (2) that God permitted the freely conceived plots of Jesus’ enemies which were incorporated into his redemptive plan.; and (3) that Christ’s death, though part of gospel plan, did not exclude Jesus’ free giving of himself (Eph. 2:5) – i.e., for Jesus God’s will was conditionally experienced. (Lewis and Demarest, Integrative Theology, vol. 1, p. 306)
When confronted by an antagonistic secular authority the believers immediately turned to God in prayer acknowledging that He alone was sovereign. The Lord God is the Creator of heaven and earth. All that exists is subject to Him. Moreover, all the secondary causalities (nations that rage – Psalm 2) are subject to His will; anyone who contrives to do anything contrary to God’s plan will be thwarted in his attempt. Many nevertheless will conspire against the Lord Jesus; yet, their efforts will prove fruitless – they will only further God’s decretive will. Such was the case when both Herod and Pontius Pilate, at the prompting of the Jewish leadership, cooperated in the death of Jesus (Luke 22.66 – 23.25). Although they are accountable for their decision, they only accomplished what God had already determined to do. In these few verses we see that: 1. God is the creator of everything (you made). 2. He speaks to make known His will (spoke by the Holy Spirit, revelation). 3. Finally, He is the God of history; he causes even his enemies, through their own free will, to do what He desires. “This, then, was the early church’s understanding of God, the God of creation, revelation and history, whose characteristic actions are summarized by the three verbs ‘you made’ (24), ‘you spoke’ (25) and ‘you decided’ (28)” (John Stott, The Spirit, the Church and the World, p. 100).
God’s eternal decretive will is at the very heart of man’s salvation, as it is associated with such passages as Ephesians 1.3-14: Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ: For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves…. In him we were also chose, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will (Eph 1.3-6, 11; cf. Rom 8.28 – 30; 2 Thess 2.13; 2 Tim 1.9). There can be no doubt that the Bible teaches a doctrine of predestination and that this doctrine is intricately tied to the doctrine of the eternal decretive will of God.
Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, has chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto; and all to the praise of His glorious grace. (Savoy Declaration of Faith, Chapter 3.5)
Predestination is not predicated on God’s omniscient foreknowledge of anyone’s saving faith in Christ. Quite to the contrary, no one can put their trust in Christ unless God enables them to do so (John 6.44, 65). Augustine, gave an accurate rendering of a biblical view of predestination:
Reflecting on his study of Scripture and the experiences of his own life, Augustine came to believe that the individual left to himself is so lost in sin and rebellion against God that he will not seek God. His fallen will is so corrupted that he cannot seek salvation. In that sense humanity has no free will. So if there is to be salvation for man, it must come at God’s initiative. God’s grace seeks, restores, saves and preserves the sinner; but then why are some saved and not others? Augustine and others in his tradition argue that it cannot be for anything in men and women—for some residual goodness or moral superiority in those saved over those who are lost. The Augustinian doctrine of sin precludes that answer. So the reason that some sinners are saved and others are lost must be in God. It is according to God’s sovereign purpose, his eternal decree, that some sinners are rescued and others are left in their sin. The foundation of this divine decree is simply the good pleasure or will of God. (William R. Godfrey, New Dictionary of Theology, p. 528)
Predestination takes seriously the magnitude of sin and it exalts the saving grace of God in Christ. The Arminian doctrine of free will and natural ability ultimately promotes a salvation apart from grace alone. Predestination does not lead to fatalism; to the contrary, it is a doctrine of comfort and assurance and should liberate the Christian from morbid introspection or debilitating insecurity. Although the contemporary evangelical church is largely Arminian, this is more “a result of anti-doctrinal bias rather than careful theological reflection. The historic Augustinian doctrine of predestination remains biblical and theologically compelling” (Godfrey, p. 528).
The opening paragraph of the Savoy Declaration of Faith states: “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.” Essentially this means that God acts intentionally and with absolute sovereignty in everything that He does. Nothing happens by chance and nothing is outside of His purpose and design for creation.
He has a plan for the history of the universe, and in executing it he governs and controls all created realities. Without violating the nature of things, and without at any stage infringing upon human free agency, God acts in, with and through his creatures so as to do everything that he wishes to do exactly as he wishes to do it. By this overruling action, despite human disobedience and Satanic obstruction, he achieves his pre-set goals. Some question the reality of the eternal decree (that is, decision) whereby God has foreordained everything that comes to pass, but this also imposes an unbiblical limitation on such texts as Eph. 1:11, and it too must be judged eccentric. (New Dictionary of Theology, p. 276 [emphasis mine])
That God has ordained all that will come to pass is often a point of conflict with those who wish to ascribe to mankind an absolutely autonomous will. Some contend that when the Bible speaks of God’s foreknowledge that this knowledge is contingent upon the future acts determined by man’s free choice. This is blatantly contrary to the biblical witness. That a man has what Jonathan Edwards calls natural freedom (the power to act according to his own desire) is not disputed; however, man lacks moral freedom; that is, he has neither the disposition, nor the ability to behave in such a way that his righteousness will be acceptable to God (cf. R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith, 179 – 180; Jonathan Edwards, The Freedom of the Will, 31-36; Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will, 50 - 51). It baffles me how quickly men want to claim the sovereignty of their wills at the expense of the sovereignty of God’s will. Common sense dictates that God’s eternal sovereign will ought to have precedent over the corrupted and sinful will of the creature. Thus, I concur, with Scripture, that the decretive will of God is the cause of all things, including man’s salvation. Individuals have been given the dignity of secondary causality and are thereby accountable for all their actions.
One may then deduce that God’s knowledge of all things is not the result of prescience in any human sense. Rather, His knowledge is the result of the absolute decree of His will. He sees all things in the present; he knows all possible contingencies. However, though he knows them, not every contingency will eventuate if He has not willed it. All secondary causes exist to bring about His decretive will. “In virtue of His absoluteness God knows the future. Only what is possible and what God allows are future. It is as God determines things that He knows the future. In this knowledge, however, He sees it as present. His prescience is thus infallible and in its determinative character immutable. In this determinative character it is a special aspect of God’s knowledge, extending only to things that are still to be, and in this sense subordinate to His will” (ISBE, vol. 3, p. 601).
Given this understanding of God’s sovereignty we may more readily appreciate the progress of redemption through secondary causes as they are recorded in Scripture. The Old Testament tends to be unconcerned with secondary causes; thus, what God permitted is often said the to be done directly by him. Secondary causes were not the main focus; the ultimate cause took precedence as a means of explanation (cf. Hard Saying of the Bible, p. 140). Paul assures the Roman Church: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified (Romans 8.28-30). Such a dramatic statement has an additional force when understood in light of God’s eternal decree that also embraces the doctrine of secondary causes. There are numerous biblical illustrations of this.
Monarchs, governments, bureaucratic officials and the like may issue decrees. Such pronouncements, rulings and judgments carry the full force of the nation’s law and are intended to constrain the object of the decree to comply with the monarch’s will. Such edicts have varying degrees of success. In the book of Esther we read that Haman, the royal representative of King Xerxes, had contrived a means of killing all the Jews in Persia. He issued a decree with the imprimatur of the King’s signet ring that was later countermanded by Xerxes through Mordecai (after Haman was executed). The story of the Jews’ preservation through the intercession of Esther is an example of secondary causes being subject to God’s eternal decree. Mordecai challenged Esther with these words: “And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4.14; cf. 8.9 – 13).
Daniel records that Nebuchadnezzar had issued a decree that everyone in his kingdom was to prostrate himself to worship a ninety foot image of gold whenever they heard the musical call to worship (Daniel 3.10). Three Israelites men (Mishael, Meshach, and Azariah) refused to obey the King’s diktat. Subsequent to their defiant refusal (we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up) they were bound and cast into the into flames, only to have God intervene and save them (Daniel 3.24-27; cf. Isaiah 43.2). Although men may contrive to do one thing or another, it is God who determines the outcome. Many seek an audience with a ruler, but it is from the LORD that man gets justice (Proverbs 29.26).
Scripture constantly encourages the believer to put his hope and trust in the Lord alone, because only God is able to deliver him from trouble.The psalmist tells us that the plans of the Lord endure throughout all generations; there is nothing that can thwart the plan of God. No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine (Psalm 33.16-19). Wonderfully illustrative of God’s overruling purpose is the incident of Ahithophel’s counsel to Absalom. Absalom had driven his father, King David, from Jerusalem in an attempt to depose him from the throne (2 Sam 15.31). When David became aware that his insightful and trusted advisor Ahithophel had conspired with Absalom, he prayed to the Lord that He would make the counsel of this traitor sound foolish to his son. Additionally, David sent Hushai, an infiltrator of his own, to align himself with Absalom. So, when Ahithophel gave Absalom very good advice on how to defeat King David, it was countered with the bad advice of David’s mole. But the LORD had determined to frustrate the good advice of Ahithophel in order to bring disaster on Absalom (2 Sam 16.15-17.14; quote from 7.14). David knew that the plan of man is subject to the will of God.
The counsel of the Lord is eternal, “It stands forever.” The enduring character of God’s counsel and plan is grounded in the unchangeableness of God himself. The “plans of his heart” may be equated with “the secret things” which belong to the Lord our God. It is God who guarantees the accomplishment of his eternal decrees. Isaiah beautifully integrates these thoughts, “Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all my good pleasure’; Calling … the man of my purpose (lit. the man who executes my purpose, i.e. Cyrus) from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly, I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do itÉ” (46:9-11). It is well to remember that ‘esa is translated in the LXX by boule, a word replete with theological significance in the New Testament (see Acts 2:23; 4:28; 5:38–39; 20:27; Eph 1:11 where “the counsel of his will” expresses the immutable foreordination of God’s will; cf. Heb 6:17, “the unchangeableness of his purpose”). (Gilchrist, TWOT, p. 390)
Just as Joseph learned that the evil his brothers intended for him, God intended for good (Gen 50.19-21), so too the believer has every reason to be confident that God will in due course bless him with every good gift(Rom 8.32; Matt 6.33; Rev 21.7).
Decrees and Salvation
They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen (Acts 4.28).
When one begins to ask questions concerning design and purpose he must immediately abandon all hope of finding an answer within the non-theistic assumptions of philosophical naturalism (a view of reality that is strictly dependent on natural event-causation). In spite of everything, people want to believe that their lives have purpose and meaning. Though they have no system of belief that can assure them that this is true. Their worldview (Weltanschauung), whether they are conscious of it or not, is grounded on philosophical naturalism. Ironically, many Christians are unwittingly influenced by a modernist, naturalistic worldview. However, those who embrace any of the many variations of naturalism (i.e., evolutionism, the Marxist economic dialectic, pragmatism…) find their belief system to be logically intolerable because it inevitably leads to fatalism. A philosophy built upon a mechanistic system will, when allowed to run its logical course, most often lead to despair. Not infrequently, the naturalist steals his utopian idealism from a Christian worldview (e.g., what does the survival of the fittest have to do with universal brotherhood?). Of course, the end result of a worldview built upon the idea that God’s eternal decretive will results in a universal good for all His “children” is very appealing. It is the supposition of God’s decretive will, however, that is distasteful to the unbeliever. We live in an age where people indiscriminately pick and mix from a smorgasbord of secular philosophies without due consideration of their logical implications. In the final analysis, secularism is unable to offer a sense of purpose or meaning for life. Nontheistic determinism (that is, people’s choices are determined by antecedent physical and psychological causes) dissolves in a morass of moral relativism in which one is only loosely accountable to an ever vacillating, rudderless, and self-indulgent society.
The entire Christian worldview is contingent upon the purposeful acts of God. That is, God’s eternal decretive will is the final cause of everything that happens, and everything that happens will result in a universal good, of which God’s elect will be benefactors. God’s eternal decree is accomplished through both secondary causality and through the supernatural causality of God’s direct intervention in the affairs of man. The Bible is fundamentally a history of redemption; in its pages there is a detailed record of God’s purposeful redemptive acts. Immediately after the Fall, God begins to assure Adam and Eve that He will secure their salvation. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen 3.15). To accomplish this, God may intervene directly as in the case of creation, or the exodus. More often He acts through secondary causes, although the Bible usually attributes these secondary causes directly to God. In every case God works toward His own end, namely, to bring everything into subjection to Christ (1 Cor 15.27). Those who populate the new heaven and earth are God’s elect (Acts 13.48; Rev 21.6-8, 27). How all this will come about is a part of the decretive will of God (Millard Erickson prefers simply the “plan of God”; see Christian Theology, vol. 1, pp. 345-346). An additional resource for understanding the over all plan of God in Scripture is Willem Van Gemeren’s excellent book, The Progress of Redemption (see my sermon notes May 11, 1997).
It is clearly evident in Scripture that God most often uses natural or secondary causes to bring about His purposes. However, there are occasions where He intervenes directly as in the case of creation ex nihilo. Also, we have a record of Divine intervention through revelation, epiphanies, and miracles. Certainly there is no greater example of God’s direct intervention than that of Mary, a virgin, conceiving and giving birth to the Messiah (Luke 1.35; 2.7). That the Scriptures assert Jesus as the means whereby God brings about His salvation is everywhere plain in the gospels, from the birth narratives (e.g. Luke 2.28-32), to the resurrection (John 20.30-31). That Jesus was cognizant of His salvific role being sovereignly played out on the stage of history is unmistakably clear from his final remarks to His disciples: “This is what I told you while I was till with you: everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms… “this is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24.44, 46).
Jesus’ role as savior and mediator between God and man was endemic to the doctrine of the early church. God is the sovereign author of salvation; salvation is in Jesus Christ (John 3.16; 5.24). There is no power in heaven or on earth that can hinder it. This is clear from the narrative in Acts 4.23-31, which is something of a continuation of Luke 24.24. The believers understood that God’s decretive will was carried out in the recent events of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The believers understood the implications of God’s immutable plan as is evident in their prayer in response to Peter and John’s release from prison. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.’ Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen”. (Acts 4.24 – 28).
Regarding Luke’s comments in Acts 4.23-31 Lewis and Demarest write: The record of the church’s growth in Acts gives pride of place to God’s sovereign will. As in the Gospels, so in Acts Christ’s rejection, death, and resurrection were grounded in God’s overarching plan. So Peter testifies to the Jews: “this man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose [horismene boule] and foreknowledge [prognosis] and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross” (Acts 2:23). Peter later declared that the authorities “did what [God’s] will [boule] had decided beforehand [proorisen] should happen” (Acts 4:28). These texts teach (1) that Christ’s death in respect to its saving end or purpose was willed by God and thus certain of occurrence (cf. Acts 2:18; 17:3); (2) that God permitted the freely conceived plots of Jesus’ enemies which were incorporated into his redemptive plan.; and (3) that Christ’s death, though part of gospel plan, did not exclude Jesus’ free giving of himself (Eph. 2:5) – i.e., for Jesus God’s will was conditionally experienced. (Lewis and Demarest, Integrative Theology, vol. 1, p. 306)
When confronted by an antagonistic secular authority the believers immediately turned to God in prayer acknowledging that He alone was sovereign. The Lord God is the Creator of heaven and earth. All that exists is subject to Him. Moreover, all the secondary causalities (nations that rage – Psalm 2) are subject to His will; anyone who contrives to do anything contrary to God’s plan will be thwarted in his attempt. Many nevertheless will conspire against the Lord Jesus; yet, their efforts will prove fruitless – they will only further God’s decretive will. Such was the case when both Herod and Pontius Pilate, at the prompting of the Jewish leadership, cooperated in the death of Jesus (Luke 22.66 – 23.25). Although they are accountable for their decision, they only accomplished what God had already determined to do. In these few verses we see that: 1. God is the creator of everything (you made). 2. He speaks to make known His will (spoke by the Holy Spirit, revelation). 3. Finally, He is the God of history; he causes even his enemies, through their own free will, to do what He desires. “This, then, was the early church’s understanding of God, the God of creation, revelation and history, whose characteristic actions are summarized by the three verbs ‘you made’ (24), ‘you spoke’ (25) and ‘you decided’ (28)” (John Stott, The Spirit, the Church and the World, p. 100).
God’s eternal decretive will is at the very heart of man’s salvation, as it is associated with such passages as Ephesians 1.3-14: Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ: For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves…. In him we were also chose, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will (Eph 1.3-6, 11; cf. Rom 8.28 – 30; 2 Thess 2.13; 2 Tim 1.9). There can be no doubt that the Bible teaches a doctrine of predestination and that this doctrine is intricately tied to the doctrine of the eternal decretive will of God.
Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, has chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto; and all to the praise of His glorious grace. (Savoy Declaration of Faith, Chapter 3.5)
Predestination is not predicated on God’s omniscient foreknowledge of anyone’s saving faith in Christ. Quite to the contrary, no one can put their trust in Christ unless God enables them to do so (John 6.44, 65). Augustine, gave an accurate rendering of a biblical view of predestination:
Reflecting on his study of Scripture and the experiences of his own life, Augustine came to believe that the individual left to himself is so lost in sin and rebellion against God that he will not seek God. His fallen will is so corrupted that he cannot seek salvation. In that sense humanity has no free will. So if there is to be salvation for man, it must come at God’s initiative. God’s grace seeks, restores, saves and preserves the sinner; but then why are some saved and not others? Augustine and others in his tradition argue that it cannot be for anything in men and women—for some residual goodness or moral superiority in those saved over those who are lost. The Augustinian doctrine of sin precludes that answer. So the reason that some sinners are saved and others are lost must be in God. It is according to God’s sovereign purpose, his eternal decree, that some sinners are rescued and others are left in their sin. The foundation of this divine decree is simply the good pleasure or will of God. (William R. Godfrey, New Dictionary of Theology, p. 528)
Predestination takes seriously the magnitude of sin and it exalts the saving grace of God in Christ. The Arminian doctrine of free will and natural ability ultimately promotes a salvation apart from grace alone. Predestination does not lead to fatalism; to the contrary, it is a doctrine of comfort and assurance and should liberate the Christian from morbid introspection or debilitating insecurity. Although the contemporary evangelical church is largely Arminian, this is more “a result of anti-doctrinal bias rather than careful theological reflection. The historic Augustinian doctrine of predestination remains biblical and theologically compelling” (Godfrey, p. 528).