IN TREATING of the will of God some theologians have differentiated between His DECRETIVE will and His PERMISSIVE will, insisting that there are certain things which God has positively fore-ordained, but other things which He merely suffers to exist or happen. But such a distinction
is really no distinction at all, inasmuch as God
only permits that which is according to His will. No such distinction would have been invented had these theologians discerned
that God could have decreed the existence and activities of sin without Himself being the Author of sin. Personally, we much prefer to adopt the distinction made by the older high Calvinists between God's secret and revealed will, or, to state it in another way, His disposing and His perceptive will.
God's revealed will is made known in His Word, but
His secret will is His own hidden counsels. God's revealed will is the definer of our duty and the standard of our responsibility. The primary and basic reason why I should follow a certain course or do a certain thing is that it is God's will that I should. His will being clearly defined for me in His Word. That I should not follow a certain course, that I must refrain from doing certain things, is because they are contrary to God's revealed will. But suppose I disobey God's Word, then do I not cross His will? And if so, how can it still be true that God's will is always done and His counsel accomplished at all times? Such questions should make evident the necessity for the distinction here advocated.
God's revealed will is frequently crossed,
but His secret will is never thwarted. That it is legitimate for us to make such a distinction concerning God's will is clear from Scripture. Take these two passages:
1st Thessalonians~“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification”
Romans 9:19~“For who hath resisted His will?”
Would any thoughtful reader declare that God's “will” has precisely the same meaning in both of these passages? We sure hope not. The first passage refers to God's revealed will, the latter to His secret will. The first passage concerns our duty, the latter declares that God's secret purpose is immutable and must come to pass notwithstanding the creature's insubordination. God's revealed will is never done perfectly or fully by any of us, but His secret will never fails of accomplishment even in the minutest particular. His secret will mainly concerns future events; His revealed will, our present duty; the one has to do with His irresistible purpose, the other with
His manifested pleasure: the one is brought upon us and accomplished through us, the other is to be done by us.
The secret will of God is His eternal unchanging purpose concerning all things which He hath made, to be brought about by certain means to their appointed ends: of this God expressly declares,
Isaiah 46:10~ “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure”
This is the absolute, efficacious will of God,
always effected, always fulfilled. The revealed will of God contains not His purpose and decree but our duty,~
not
what He will do according to His eternal counsel, but what we should do if we would please Him, and this is expressed in the precepts and promises of His Word.
Whatever God has determined within Himself, whether to do Himself, or to do by others, or to suffer to be done, whilst it is in His own breast, and is not made known by any event in providence, or by precept, or by prophecy, is His secret will. Such are the deep things of God, the thoughts of His heart, the counsels of His mind, which are impenetrable to all creatures. But when these are made known they become His revealed will: such is almost the whole of the book of Revelation, wherein God has made known to us
Revelation 1:1b~“.......things which must shortly come to pass”
“Must” because He has eternally purposed that they should.
It has been objected by Arminian theologians that the division of God's will into secret and revealed is untenable, (I'm sure we will have many do the same on this forum) because it makes God to have two different wills, the one
opposed to the other. But this is a mistake, due to their failure to see that the secret and revealed will of God respect entirely different objects. (But, we have come to expect this from them on most doctrines.) If God should require and forbid the same thing, or if He should decree the same thing should and should not exist, then would His secret and revealed will be
contradictory and purposeless. This should not be hard to understand. If those who object to the secret and revealed will of God being inconsistent would only make the same distinction in this case that they do in many other cases, the seeming inconsistency would at once disappear. How often do men draw a sharp distinction between what is desirable in its own nature and what is not desirable all things considered. For example, the fond parent does not desire, simply considered, to punish his offending child, but, all things considered, he knows it is his bounden duty, and so corrects his child. And though he tells his child he does not desire to punish him, but that he is satisfied it is for the best, all things considered, to do so, then an intelligent child would see no inconsistency in what his father says and does. Just so, the All-wise Creator may consistently decree to bring to pass things which He hates, forbids and condemns. God chooses that some things shall exist which He thoroughly hates (in their intrinsic nature), and He also chooses that some things shall not yet exist which He perfectly loves (in their intrinsic nature). For example: He commanded that Pharaoh should let his people go, because that was right in the nature of things, yet,
He had secretly KNEW that Pharaoh would not let his people go, God used the heart of Pharaoh for his own glory and purposes, knowing what Pharaoh WOULD do when left to himself.
Again: God commands us to be perfectly holy in this life (
Matthew 5:48), because this is right in the nature of things, but
He has decreed that no man shall be perfectly holy in this life because it is best all things considered that none shall be perfectly holy (experimentally) before they leave this world. Holiness is one thing, the taking place of holiness is another; so, sin is one thing, the taking place of sin is another. When God requires holiness His perceptive or revealed will respects the nature or moral excellence of holiness; but when He decrees that holiness shall not take place (fully and perfectly) His secret or decretive will respects only the event of it not taking place. So, again, when He forbids sin, His perceptive or revealed will respect only the nature or moral evil of sin; but when He decrees that sin shall take place, His secret will respects only its actual occurrence to
serve His good purpose. Thus the secret and revealed will of God respect
entirely different objects.
God's will of decree is not His will in the same sense as His will of command is. Therefore, there is no difficulty in supposing that one may be contrary to the other. His will, in both senses, is His inclination. Everything that concerns His revealed
will is perfectly agreeable to His nature, as when He commands love, obedience, and service from His creatures. But that which concerns
His secret will has in view His ultimate end, that to which all things are now working. Thus, He decreed the entrance of sin into His universe though His own holy nature hates all sin with infinite abhorrence, yet, because it is one of the means by which His appointed end is to be reached He suffered it to enter. God's revealed will is the measure of our responsibility and the determiner of our duty.
With God's secret will we have nothing to do: that is His concern. But, God knowing that we should fail to perfectly do His revealed will ordered His eternal counsels accordingly, and these eternal counsels, which make up His secret will, though unknown to us are, though unconsciously, fulfilled in and through us.
Whether the reader is prepared to accept the above distinction in the will of God or not he must acknowledge that the commands of Scripture declare God's revealed will, and he must also allow that sometimes God wills not to hinder a breach of those commands, because He does not as a fact so hinder it. God wills to permit sin as is evident, for He does permit it.
Surely none will say that God Himself does what He does not will to do.
Finally, let it be said again that, my responsibility with regard to the will of God is measured by what He has made known in His Word. There I learn that it is my duty to use the means of His providing, and to humbly pray that He may be pleased to bless them to me. To refuse so to do on the ground that I am ignorant of what may or may not be His secret counsels concerning me, is not only absurd, but the height of presumption.
We repeat: the secret will of God is none of our business; it is His revealed will
which measures our accountability. That there is no conflict whatever between the secret and the revealed will of God is made clear from the fact that, the former is accomplished by my use of the means laid down in the latter.
"If you desire to pursue the important subject of God's Sovereignty concerning his will be sure to get “The Sovereignty of God” by A.W. Pink, (BAKER HOUSE EDITION) which is a clear and helpful setting-forth of the teaching of Scripture on this neglected theme. It is available worldwide for download from website:
www.mountzion.org."
It is the best book I think that is available that's easy to read and easy to comprehend for the average reader. It's a hard book for a diehard Arminian, especially so if he already has high blood pressure problems~he may want to consult his doctor first~and he better hope his doctor is not a high Calvinist.
Topic: The will of God....please explain. (Read 508 times)