Featured God's desire

I was watching Tony Evans this morning, and he had a great explanation for this. Though God desires all men to be saved, he doesn't force himself on anyone. I don't have the exact wording, but according to the message I heard this morning, God has his directive will and his will of desire. The desire allows each person to make the decision of whether to accept or reject Jesus Christ as savior, or something to this effect.

 

Do you reject God's description of Himself?

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

As Vincent Cheung wrote in his (Systematic Theology (vincentcheung.com):

"There is no divine law that says God would be wrong if he were to be the cause of evil. Why, then, do men assume that it would be evil for God to be the author of sin? What law would God transgress? He would transgress the law of men, or what men have imposed upon him to define what a righteous God must or must not do. This is the sinister truth behind the religious tradition that says God is not the author of sin, for if he were to be such, it would mean that he has transgressed a law that men has declared against him. The necessary conclusion is that the doctrine that God is not the author of sin, or that it is blasphemy and heresy to say that he is, is itself the real blasphemy and heresy. Unless God is the author of sin and evil, he is not completely sovereign, and he is not God. Therefore, to deny that God is the author of sin and evil is to deny God.

The Bible teaches that God's decrees and actions are always right and good. Since he is completely sovereign, and there is evil in this universe, this means that he is the one who decrees and causes evil in this universe. But since his decrees and actions are always right and good, then this means that it is right and good that he is the one who decrees and causes evil in this universe. The very fact that he decrees and causes evil means that it is right and good for him to do so. There is no authority or standard higher than God by which to condemn him. If he thinks that it is good for him to cause evil, then it is good for him to cause evil.

This does not mean that evil is good, which would be a contradiction. Sin is defined as a transgression of God's moral law, and when we say that God is the author of sin, we are saying that God is the metaphysical cause of a creature's transgression of God's moral law. God transgresses no moral law, since there is no moral law against what he does, but he causes the creature to transgress. Morality relates to moral law. But there is no moral law against sovereign metaphysical power. It is right and good for God to metaphysically cause evil, just because he does it, and because he has not declared himself wrong for doing it. It is wrong for man to morally commit evil, because God has declared man wrong for doing it, although it is God who metaphysically causes man to do it. Therefore, God remains righteous, and the sinner remains evil. The distinctions are clear. There is no paradox or contradiction, and also no biblical or logical basis for objection against the doctrine."

 

I like Tony Evans. In Bible College he used to come for our weeklong lecture series. In this issue, however, he is wrong.

 

You can't just make a blanket statement; you have to first define who the "all" is. If God desires every single person that He ever creates to be saved, then every single person that He ever creates will be saved. Otherwise, you are saying that God cannot always obtain what He desires. Which shows that this idea that seemingly most people, even those who claim the name "Christian", have that man can act sovereignly independently of God is such a false teaching. It is steeped in Deism and should be rejected.

 

How?

 

So you believe in a God that cannot obtain something that He desires? I am glad that the God that I worship, the God revealed in the Bible, always obtains what He desires.

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?

Isaiah 46:9-10 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure

(emphasis mine)

 

You wrote that even though you believe God desires that every human being He creates to be saved, yet you also believe that God cannot save every human being He creates, while you also say that God can obtain that which He desires.

 

I am not going to go around in circles with you.

Maybe you should simply state your beliefs about the sovereignty of God in bullet points to facilitate discussion.

 

"Where some reject God's revelation of Himself - that He desires all be saved and come to a knowledge of truth" - JonC

"Of course I do not believe God cannot obtain that which He desires." - JonC

(emphasis mine)

 

Thank you for explaining yourself. Clearly, we do not believe in the same attributes of God even though we read the same Bible.

Enjoyed the discussion, JonC. Have a nice evening.

 

A short book by John Piper (it's free and I uploaded the PDF version here for all who would read it.) "Does God Desire All to Be Saved?"

My aim in this short book is to show from Scripture that the simultaneous existence of God’s will for all people to be saved and his will to choose some people for salvation unconditionally before creation is not a sign of divine schizophrenia or exegetical confusion. A corresponding aim is to show that unconditional election therefore does not contradict biblical expressions of God’s compassion for all people and does not rule out sincere offers of salvation to all who are lost among the peoples of the world. The Perplexing Texts First Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9, Ezekiel 18:23, and Matthew 23:37 are the texts most commonly cited to show that God’s will is for all people to be saved and none to be lost. • In 1 Timothy 2:1–4, Paul says that the reason we should pray for kings and all in high positions is that this may bring about a quiet and peaceable life that “is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
• In 2 Peter 3:8–9, the apostle says that the delay of the second coming of Christ is owing to the fact that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” • In Ezekiel 18:23 and 32, the Lord speaks about his heart for the perishing: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? . . . I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.” • In Matthew 23:37, Jesus says: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” It is possible that careful interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:4 would lead us to believe that God’s desire for all people to be saved does not refer to every individual person in the world, but rather to all sorts of people, since “all people” in verse 1 may well mean groups such as “kings and all who are in high positions” (v. 2).3 It is also possible that the “you” in 2 Peter 3:9 (“the Lord is . . . patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish”) refers not to every person in the world but to professing Christians, among whom, as Adolf Schlatter says, “are people who only through repentance can attain to the grace of God and to the promised inheritance.”

Nevertheless, the case for this limitation on God’s universal saving will has never been convincing to Arminians. And for our purposes, this case is not decisive, since other texts are more compelling. Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11; and Matthew 23:37 surely point to God’s desire that all people be saved. Therefore, as a hearty believer in unconditional, individual election, I also rejoice to affirm that there is a real sense in which God does not take pleasure in the perishing of the impenitent, that he desired to gather all the rebellious inhabitants of Jerusalem, and that he has compassion on all people. My aim is to show that this is not double talk. My purpose is not to defend the doctrine that God chooses unconditionally whom he will save. I have tried to do that elsewhere, and others have done it more extensively than I. Nevertheless, I will try to make a credible case that while the texts cited above may indeed be pillars for God’s universal love and universal saving desire, they are not weapons against unconditional election.

Does God Desire All to Be Saved?

What Keeps God from Saving Whom He Desires to Save?

This seems right to me, and it can be illustrated again by reflecting directly on 1 Timothy 2:4, where Paul says that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” What are we to say of the fact that God desires something that in fact does not happen? There are two possibilities, as far as I can see. One possibility is that there is a power in the universe greater than God’s, which is frustrating him by overruling what he desires. Neither the Reformed nor the Arminians affirm this. The other possibility is that God wills not to save all, even though he “desires” that all be saved, because there is something else that he wills or desires more, which would be lost if he exerted his sovereign power to save all. This is the solution that I, as Reformed, affirm along with Arminians. In other words, both the Reformed and the Arminians affirm two wills in God when they ponder deeply over 1 Timothy 2:4 (as we have seen in the case of I. Howard Marshall). Both can say that God wills for all to be saved. And when queried why all are not saved, both the Reformed and the Arminians answer the same: because God is committed to something even more valuable than saving all. The difference between the Reformed and the Arminians lies not in whether there are two wills in God, but in what they say this higher commitment is. What does God will more than saving all? The answer the Arminians give is that human self-determination and the possible resulting love relationship with God are more valuable than saving all people by sovereign, efficacious grace. The answer the Reformed give is that the greater value is the manifestation of the full range of God’s glory in wrath and mercy (Rom. 9:22–23) and the humbling of man so that he enjoys giving all credit to God for his salvation (1 Cor. 1:29).

 

"It is not true that there are two wills in God. We do not say that there are two decrees and two precepts in God, because decree and precept refer to different things. And it is just as ridiculous to say that there are two wills in God. There is a will and a precept, or a decree and a will, or there is a decree and precept, but not a will and a will. Once it is pointed out that there are two distinct ideas that can be expressed with two different words, all confusion disappears, and the blasphemy that presents God as insane disappears along with it. The Bible does not teach that there are two wills in God, but it merely uses the same word to refer to two different things." - Vincent Cheung, Systematic Theology (Systematic Theology (vincentcheung.com), page 90)