THE DECREES OF GOD
By C.D. Cole
By the
decree of God is meant His purpose or determination with
regard to
future events. It means that things
come to pass according to
a Divine
purpose rather than by a fixed natural law or blind fate or
capricious
chance. To deny the decrees or
foreordination of God is
practically
to dethrone Him. It puts Him on the
sidelines as an
interested
but helpless spectator to what is going on.
"A
universe without decrees would be as irrational and appalling
as would be
an express train driving on in the darkness without
headlight
or engineer, and with no certainty that the next moment it
might not
plunge into the abyss" (A. J. Gordon).
"Plan and purpose as we may, the plans and purposes will turn
only to the
final end which God has predetermined" (Henry).
"We
give thanks to God for blessings which come to us through
the free
actions of others, but if God has not purposed these blessings,
we owe
thanks to others and not to God" (A. H. Strong).
"The Scriptures make mention of the
decrees of God in many
passages
and under a variety of terms. The word
'decree' is found in
#Ps 2:7:
"I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me,
Thou art my
Son; this day have I begotten thee."
In #Eph 3:11 we
read of His
'eternal purpose':"According to the eternal purpose which
he purposed
in Christ Jesus our Lord"; In #Ac 2:23 'determinate
counsel and
foreknowledge':"Him, being delivered by the
determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by
wicked
hands have crucified and slain"; In #Eph 1:9 of his 'good
pleasure':"Having made known unto us the mystery of his will,
according
to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself."
God's
decrees are called His 'counsel' to signify they are
consummately wise. "Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am
understanding; I have strength" (#Pr 8:14). They are called God's
'will' to
show He was under no control, but acted according to His own
pleasure.
"Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by
Jesus
Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will"
(#Eph
1:5). When a man's will is the rule of
his conduct; it is usually
capricious
and unreasonable; but wisdom is always associated with
'will' in
the Divine proceedings, and, accordingly, God's decrees are
said to be
the 'counsel of His own will" (A. W. Pink).
"Victor Hugo, recognizing the overruling divine hand, said,
'Waterloo
was God.' God in the exercise of His
infinite wisdom and
power, so
personally directs and controls the free actions of men as to
determine
all things in accordance with His eternal purpose" (E. H.
Bancroft).
POSITIVE
AND PERMISSIVE DECREES
All
things were not decreed in the same sense. Sinful acts of men
were not
decreed in the same sense as were righteous acts. God is the
efficient
cause of all that is good, while evil is only permitted and
directed
and overruled for His glory. The sinful
acts of men which
God decreed
permissively will certainly be done, but in doing them
men are
giving expression to their own inherent depravity. "Surely the
wrath of
man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou
restrain" (#Ps 76:10).
The good deeds of men are decreed efficiently,
which means
that God works in them "For it is God which worketh in
you both to
will and to do of his good pleasure" (#Php 2:13).
"Careless seems the great avenger;
History's pages but record
One death grapple in the darkness,
Twixt old systems and the Word.
Truth forever on the scaffold;
Wrong forever on the throne;
But that scaffold sways the Future;
And, behind the dim unknown
Standeth God, within the shadow,
Keeping watch above His own."
--Lowell.
GOD'S
SECRET AND REVEALED WILL
The
decrees of God belong to His secret will; the commands of
God belong
to His revealed will. "The secret things belong unto the
LORD our
God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us
and to our
children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law"
(#De
29:29). God's secret will is the rule
of His actions; His revealed
will is the
rule of our actions. God's secret will embraces all things; His
revealed
will embraces all we ought to do. The
secret will of God is
His
program, according to which all things come to pass; His revealed
will gives
us our program according to which we are to work.
The
decrees of God are not addressed to men, and have nothing
to do with
human responsibility. It may be that
God has decreed a
poor crop
year, but that is no reason for failure to plant and cultivate.
God may
have decreed a famine, but that does not justify idleness.
God may
have decreed the death of the writer this year, but that does
not keep
him from regarding the laws of health and safety. God
decreed the
death of His Son, but that did not make it the duty of men
to crucify
Him.
GOD'S DECREES
AND FREE AGENCY
God's
decrees determine the free actions of men, that is, the
decree
makes their actions certain but not a necessity. God's decrees
are not
executed by compelling man's will, therefore they are not
inconsistent with man's freedom. "For of a truth against thy
holy child
Jesus, whom
thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with
the
Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to
do
whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be
done"
(#Ac 4:27,28). God's decree made the death of Christ certain,
but it laid
no necessity upon any man. None of the
men were
compelled
to do the foul deed. In crucifying the
Lord of glory they
were giving
free expression to their thoughts and feelings toward Him.
They were
fulfilling the Scriptures, and executing God's eternal
purpose,
without knowing it: "Which none of the princes of this world
knew: for
had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of
glory"
(#1Co 2:8). "I speak not of you
all: I know whom I have
chosen: but
that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread
with me
hath lifted up his heel against me" (#Joh 13:18). "But they
cried out,
Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith
unto them,
Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We
have no
king but Caesar" (#Joh 19:15).
GOD'S
DECREES ARE ETERNAL
If God
has any purpose concerning the happenings of the
universe it
must, of necessity, be eternal. To deny
this is to suppose
some
unforeseen event that made it necessary for God to change His
purpose. All of God's
purposes were formed in wisdom, and since he
has power
to execute them, there is no reason for any change. "Known
unto God
are all his works from the beginning of the world" (#Ac 15:18).
"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:"
(#Isa
46:9,10).
PRACTICAL
VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE
It
magnifies God in His wisdom, power, and sovereignty. It puts
Him on the
throne where He should be and is ever and always. There
are no
crises with God, no perplexing problems to ponder, no forces
beyond His
control. He moves with majestic step
toward the
consummation of His eternal purpose in Christ to the praise of His
glory.
The
believer is humbled at the sight of such a great God, and his
soul is
bowed in adoring wonder and worship. It
will save the believer
from undue
familiarity with God in prayer and other acts of devotion.
Some men
pray as if God were on their level; to them He is not the
August
Being the Scriptures represent Him to be.
Much of the poetry
and other
literature coming out of this war is too irreverent and merely
represents
God as a sort of comrade in arms. But
the Scriptures say
that
"God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to
be had in
reverence of all them that are about him" (#Ps 89:7).
"This doctrine is one of those advanced teachings of Scripture
which
requires for its understanding a matured mind and a deep
experience. The beginner
in the Christian life may not see its value or
even its
truth, but with increasing years it will become a staff to lean
upon. In times of affliction, obloquy, and
persecution, the church has
found in
the decrees of God, and in the prophecies in which these
decrees are
published, her strong consolation. It
is only upon the basis
of the
decrees that we can believe: "And we know that all things work
together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
according
to his purpose" (#Ro 8:28) or pray: "Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be
done in earth, as it is in heaven" (#Mt 6:10)." A. H.
Strong.