The Will of God. (2) - by C. J. Holdway

No.2. Desire and Determination.

Before we progress further in our studies on the will of God, it will be well for us to consider the two main words which are translated ‘will’. For the sake of simplicity we refer only to the verbs at this point: thelo desire, wish; boulomai take counsel, determine, purpose. There is a marked degree of intensity between saying “I wished I could . . . . .” and “I am determined to . . . . .”, or “I purpose to . . . . .”. The difference is illustrated clearly in Mark xv. 7-15. In the questions put by Pilate to the people in verses 9 and 12, he uses the weaker word: “Do you wish me to release unto you the King of the Jews?” But in recording Pilate’s action in verse 15, Mark uses the stronger word: “And so Pilate determined (or purposing) to content the people, released Barabbas . . .”. Perhaps we could say thelo is a neutral word, while boulomai is active. After the meeting of the Sanhedrin mentioned in John xi., we read (verse 53): “Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put Him to death”. The verb ‘took counsel together’ (bouleuomai) has the same root as boulomai. It is clear they were determined to put Christ to death. A further instance of the strength of the second group of words is to be found in Acts xv. 37: “Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark . . . . . And (39) the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other . . . . .”. Barnabas had made up his mind, not even a rift between himself and his friend Paul would turn him from his purpose. 

It is, perhaps, rather surprising to find how seldom boulomai and its associated words are used in connection with the sovereign God. These words are used in the N.T. between 50 and 60 times; but only on 10 occasions in reference to God Himself. (These ten references are Acts ii. 23; xiii. 36; xx. 27; Rom. ix. 19; I Cor. xii. 11; Eph. i. 11; Heb. vi. 17; James i. 18; II Pet. iii. 9; and Luke xxii. 42, in the Lord’s Prayer in Gethsemane.) In the latter case The Companion Bible suggests: “If it be Thine intention remove this cup from Me”. Possibly we might paraphrase it thus: “If it is in accord with Thy purpose”. It is instructive to look a little more closely into the rest of this verse: “If it is in accord with Thy purpose remove this cup from Me; nevertheless not My wish (or ‘desire’), but Thine be done”. This verse establishes the relationship between the Father and the Son, between God and His Servant, and between us who are ‘in the Son’ and our God and Father. God’s purpose must be carried out, our wishes and desires must be subordinate to His purpose. Whether or not we pray that His will may be done, His purpose will be fulfilled; but we certainly should pray that His wishes are fulfilled on earth among men. In the “Lord’s Prayer” (Matt. vi. 9-13; Luke xi. 2-4) the petition “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” is to do with God’s desire, not His purpose. It was His desire that the Kingdom should come, and His wishes be carried out, but the response of Israel was lacking, the coming of the Kingdom is yet in abeyance, and His desires still ignored. 

This thought is brought out in a comparison of II Pet. iii. 9 with I Tim. ii. 4. Peter, referring to the appearance of scoffers who ask “Where is the promise of His coming?” says in verse 9: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise . . . . . but is . . . . . not willing that any should perish . . . . .”. The Lord does not determine, or purpose that any should perish. Here, surely, is the answer to those who say there are those predestined to damnation. This is not, says Peter, God’s purpose. Writing to Timothy, Paul says “God our Saviour . . . . . will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth”. God desires to have all men saved. But God has given to man the freedom of choice (not freedom of will, but the freedom either to comply with the desires of God for man, or to refuse so to do), and He will not override that freedom. Speaking of the sovereign will of God in Rom. ix., Paul refers to Pharaoh (verse 17): “For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose (lit. ‘thing’) have I raised thee up, that I might shew My power in thee, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth”. He continues in verse 19: “Thou wilt say then unto me, why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will?”; who hath resisted His purpose? Had Pharaoh complied with that request or not, it was God’s purpose to shew forth His power and to declare His name throughout all the earth, and nothing could prevent it. While Pharaoh resisted God’s wish, he could do nothing to resist God’s purpose. “Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee” says the Psalmist (lxxvi. 10). If God’s purpose could be resisted and prevented by man, or any other being, there could be no assurance, no certainty, no salvation. 

With Israel’s failure to repent and receive the Messiah, it seemed that Satan had succeeded in resisting and preventing the fulfillment of God’s purpose. But through His foreknowledge, God was not found unprepared. He had planned to meet the eventuality. In terms of our subject, this is made clear in Eph. i. 9-11: Having made known unto us the mystery of His desire, according to (or perhaps, ‘in harmony with’) His good pleasure which He designed (lit. ‘set before’, hence to plan or design) in Him; unto the dispensation of the fullness of times to sum up for Himself in one all things in Christ, things above the heavens and things on the earth; in Him, in Whom we obtain an inheritance having been marked out beforehand in harmony with the design (or plan) of Him Who worketh all things in harmony with the purpose of His desire. God has made known to us the (now) ‘open secret’ (as Moffatt has it) of His desire which He designed ‘before the foundation of the world’ (verse 4), a design still in harmony with His desire, and still well-pleasing to Himself. He had not been ‘caught out’. His desire for His creatures left them a degree of latitude enabling them to frustrate His desire; but, as it were, within the sphere of His desire is the ‘hard core’ of His purpose which cannot be frustrated, and it is in harmony with this ‘hard core’ that he worketh all things. Hence, upon the failure of Israel to conform to His desire for them, His purpose was continued in the Church which is the Body of Christ. 

Nevertheless, “Hath God cast away His People?”. No! for within His desire for Israel is the ‘hard core’ of His purpose to fulfil the covenants with them, and with Abraham their forefather. 

“Thus saith the Lord; if ye can break My covenant of the day, and My covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; then may also My covenant be broken with David My servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priest, My ministers . . . . . If My covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David My servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them” (Jer. xxxiii. 20-26). 

There are two Scriptures only, involving the use of a word to do with the purpose of God, which have possible applications to members of the Body of Christ. The first is to be found in James i. 18: 

“Of His Own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures”,

or more literally having purposed (or determined) He begat us. God does not merely wish, or desire that certain ones should be begotten with the word of truth, for that would leave our new nature and our salvation at the mercy of our desires, and our response, we should be saved by our decision. We are saved ‘according to the purpose of Him Who worketh all things after the counsel of His Own will’. As with those to whom James wrote, so we also are ‘begotten’ with the word of truth, and if they were to be ‘a kind of firstfruits of His creatures’, may we not say, in the light of Ephesians, that we are to be ‘a kind of firstfruits’ of ‘the all things’? In Heb. vi. 17 we read: 

“Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath.” 

God purposing . . . . . to shew . . . . . the immutability of His purpose; and by the unchangeableness of His purpose to ‘the heirs of promise’, confirms to us ‘the immutability of His purpose’ for us. We have every reason for the utmost confidence; our salvation depends upon His purpose, and our hope is secured to us by the ‘immutability of His purpose’. 

But for those whose salvation is certain, and their hope secure, God has certain desires. It is of these that Paul writes in Rom. xii. 1, 2: “that ye may assess what is the good and well pleasing, and perfect desire of God”. Clearly as human beings, even if we were in the position fully to know the purpose of God, our limitations would prevent us from being able to ‘assess’ it. We do need to be able to discover the good and well pleasing and perfect desire of God to us, and above all, as we experience it, as we test it, to discover that it is indeed, for us, good and well pleasing and perfect. Fundamentally this desire is, as we saw in the last study, our sanctification: “This is the desire of God, even your sanctification”. He desires that we should be separated, not so much separated from anything, as to be separated to Himself. As, increasingly, we are separated to Him, we shall thereby be separated from those things which are not well pleasing to Him. It is quite possible for a person to be separated from the things of the present age, and yet not separated to God. Such a person may have all sorts of reasons for becoming separate from the world, indeed, is this not what so many ‘drop outs’ are in fact seeking to do? They have become disillusioned by the things of the world, tired of the speed of modern life, and from such things they have separated themselves, and not infrequently they have separated themselves to drugs and the like. God desires those who are His to separate themselves to Him. 

James has a word of warning which is particularly applicable to some forms of ‘evangelism’. In chapter iv. 4 he has this to say: 

“Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” 

Let us note that the word translated ‘will’ is the one we have mainly considered in this article, purpose, intent. Whoever intends to be a friend of the world, James tells us, is the enemy of God. Surely a very sobering thought, when so many today are advocating friendship with those in the world, with the consequent use of the methods of the world, in order, so they claim, to bring the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. How very near they may be coming to enmity to God. 

As we started in the previous article, the knowledge of the will of God is not the easy matter some would have us believe. We must distinguish between His purpose, or intent, and His wish or desire. As we realize His purpose we find security, strength and confidence in Him, and surely by so doing, it should be our intent to fulfil His desires for us. In the light of His purpose made plain in Christ Jesus, the mercies of God, we should offer ourselves as living sacrifices, that we may fulfil His desire to be separated to Himself. 

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 47, page 161).

http://charleswelch.net/BE%20Vol%2047%20final.pdf

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The Goal of God. (I Cor. xv. 28).- (9)

by Charles H. Welch

No.9. An Examination of Gen. i. 26, 27. 

Man as a “shadow” of the Lord and of His purpose. 

We have seen that in the mystery of godliness, “God was manifest in the flesh”, and that in the person of Christ, the invisible God, condescended to the limitations of His creatures, and that Christ is a necessary Mediator by reason of the gulf that exists between Creator and all creatures, just as surely as He must be the Mediator because of the moral gulf that exists between sinful man and a righteous God. Instead, however, of commencing with the teaching of Scripture, that Christ was made in the likeness of man, we must start with the creation of man, to see how emphatic the Scriptures are that in the beginning, man was made in the likeness of God. Two things are stated in Gen. i. 26 “In our image, after our likeness”. How are these words to be understood? Delitzsch suggests that in the word ‘image’ we have the outline, and in the word ‘likeness’ we have the filling up of the outline, but upon close investigation it is difficult to understand in what way man was created in the outline of God and what the after “filling up of the outline of God” can mean. We must therefore turn once again to the fountain head of truth in order to obtain all the help we can by examining the usage of these two words and their equivalents in the N.T.

Tselem ‘image’. This Hebrew word occurs 17 times in the O.T. and is translated ‘image’ every time, except in Psa. xxxix. 6 where it is rendered ‘in a vain shew’ (margin an image). The Chaldee tselem occurs also 17 times, and these references are confined to the book of Daniel. In every occurrence the Chaldee word is rendered ‘image’ except in Dan. iii. 19 where the AV. reading is ‘form’. This word tselem is allied with tsel ‘a shadow’. It is used not only in a literal sense, as ‘a shadow from the heat’, ‘the shadow of a cloud’ (Isa. xxv. 4, 5), but in various figurative ways, as for example: 

“All my members are as a shadow” (Job xvii. 7). 

“Our days upon earth are a shadow” (Job viii. 9). 

In combination with the Hebrew word for ‘death’ we have the word tsalmaveth, translated throughout the A.V. by the words ‘the shadow of death’. There can be no doubt in the mind of any who take the trouble to examine the word, its cognates and its usage, that the primary meaning of the word translated ‘image’ in Gen. i. 26 is ‘shadow’. 

Let us now turn our attention to the word translated “likeness”, the Hebrew word demuth. This word comes from damah ‘to be like’. “Man is like to vanity” (Psa. cxliv. 4). “I have compared thee, O my love” (Song i. 9). “I have . . . . . used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets” (Hosea xii. 10).

Demuth itself occurs more frequently in the prophecy of Ezekiel than in the rest of the O.T. where it is translated ‘likeness’, and is chiefly used of the “four living creatures”, the cherubim. 

In that daring blasphemy of the king of Babylon, as recorded by Isaiah, we catch a glimpse of the intention of the word, as used in Gen. i. 26:

“Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; . . . . . I will be like the Most High” (Isa. xiv. 13, 14). 

There are many challenging passages in the O.T. Scriptures regarding this matter of comparison with the Most High.

“Who in heaven can be compared unto the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord?” (Psa. lxxxix. 6). 

“To whom will ye liken Me, and make Me equal, and compare Me, that we may be like?” (Isa. xlvi. 5). 

The daring assumption of Babylon is the blasphemy of Antichrist, and to quote a passage dealing with another circumstance we can say: 

“And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth” (Rev. v. 3),

can be found worthy to be compared with the Most High. Yet, just as in Rev. v. the tears of John are stayed as he learns that the Lion of the tribe of Judah was worthy to open the seven sealed book, so the testimony of the Gospels and the Epistles reveal that in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in Him alone, may be found the answer to the challenge of Psa. lxxxix. 6 and of Isa. xlvi. 5. There is One, Who rightly ascended into heaven, whose throne is exalted above the stars of God. There is One Who thought it not robbery to be upon equality with God. There is One Who is the Image of the Invisible God, the Form of God, and the express Image or character of His substance. He is made known to us in Phil. ii., in Col. i., in Heb. i. and in John i. 

The Lord Jesus Christ is “The Likeness” after Whom Adam was created. While it has always been a difficulty to interpret the image and the likeness of Gen. i. 26 on the physical plane, because God is spirit, the difficulty ceases when we realize that the “Image” is the “shadowing forth” for which honour Adam was created, and the ‘likeness’ according to which he was created, was the likeness of Him Who had form and shape before His incarnation, and was destined in the fullness of time to be made flesh, to be found in fashion as a man, to be made even in the ‘likeness’ of sinful flesh. 

Man’s hope in the Lord is not exclusively upon the plane of spirit. In the resurrection the exchange of the earthly image for the heavenly image is defined as the exchange of corruption for incorruption, of mortality for immortality, and even though the resurrection body of some will be a heavenly and a spiritual body, they will be bodies nevertheless, and not spirits. So, in Gen. v. we read: 

“In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him . . . . . and Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image” (Gen. v. 1, 3). 

There can be no doubt that Seth, the son of Adam not only resembled Adam his father in mind and spirit, but in body also. In Phil. iii. we have the pledge concerning the body, while in Col. iii. we have the insistence upon the mind, neither the one nor the other being a contradiction, but rather a presentation of complete truth. 

“Who shall change this body of our humiliation that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Phil. iii. 21). 

That is the pledge regarding the renewal of the ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ so far as the body is concerned. 

“And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him” (Col. iii. 10). 

It will be remembered that in explanation as it were of the intention of the Creator, the words “let them have dominion” immediately follow the words “in ourimage, after our likeness”. This dominion first exercised over fish, fowl and beast, is to extend until some at least of Adam’s sons, shall reign with Christ in that supernal glory “far above all”. It will be remembered that the cherubim are described as having four faces, that of a lion, an ox, a man and an eagle. Adam, who had lost the dominion entrusted to him, would see in the symbolic cherubim at the gate of Paradise, God’s pledge that this dominion should be restored.

As a parallel with this suggested meaning of the word cherub, we might place the name of the Archangel. Michael is simply mi ‘who’ Kha ‘like’ El ‘God’, “Who is like God?” 

We have covered a deal of ground in our endeavour to attain to some Scriptural understanding of the meaning and intention of the words of Gen. i. 26, and we earnestly commend every reader not only to re-read the evidence submitted, but to supplement it by a personal examination of all the occurrences of the key words, so that the matter may be given the fullest examination. Adam was a ‘shadow’ only, just like the typical sacrifices. A “shadow of good things to come” indeed, but “not the very image” (Heb. x. 1), and just as Christ sets aside the ‘shadows’ of the sacrificial law, by coming in the flesh, and offering Himself, so as “the second Man” and “the last Adam” he sets aside the frail type, and is revealed as THE IMAGE of the invisible God, in Whose likeness it is the Divine will that every one of the redeemed shall one day be fashioned.

The wonder will grow as we allow the truth to enter, and the glory of the goal of the ages, focused as it is in the idea of one day being conformed to the image and likeness of the Son of God, will enable us to appreciate perhaps as never before, what lies behind and what leads up to the words, 

“That God may be all in all”. 

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 44, page 77).

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