Tuesday 18 May 2010

Sovereignty of God (2)

Further attempts to go a little deeper into God's Sovereignty:

So then...

Here's a question, can one go against the will of God?

See.. both yes and no answers have problems
if yes - you imply God is not sovereign
if no - you imply there is no 'free will' (at least at some level)
therefore current theologians want to insist that there is tension between the 2

tension cannot be the state of the living God - He is definitely not tense
the theologians are

anyway,
let's review it with Christ in mind

the Sovereign Will of God has to be Christ-centered and Christ-focused
therefore what is the will of God?
let's take a few:
1. To glorify Christ
- this is done through Christ's obedience

2. To perfect Christ (cf Heb)
- this is done through Christ's obedience

3. To save the world - so that Christ will have a bride
- this is done through Christ's obedience

So then - the will of God is for the sake of Christ ALONE in the major sense
and accomplished through Christ ALONE
what else would you expect?

So what does that mean?

If I say I can reject or cannot reject the will of God - I take Christ out of the picture - in some sense it is a meaningless question, with no correct answer found in Scripture
there is no will of God for me ALONE

Since the will of God is only for Christ through Christ
so can I thwart those 3 points above? no.. of course not - Christ has been obedient
can I not reject the will of God? - again a bit meaningless here.. it's not really about you

Yet when I join into Christ - the will of God is fulfilled:
1. glorify Christ - yes you glorify Christ by trusting Christ
2. perfecting Christ - yes you now are making up the new body of Christ through death
3. saving the world - yes you are saved and are now His bride

let's take it down to me personally :
In Christ - His will for ME is :
1. to conform me into the image of His likeness - which glorifies me (cf John 17), perfects me, and saves me (past, present and future tense)
2. this was foreknown - God ordained it from before the beginning of the world
3. this was predestined - God carried it out - through His Son (note here that predestination only makes sense when the Father trusts His Son)

When I am not doing things in Christ, that is against the Spirit
then I am 'outside' His will for Christ - i.e. I am in the 'curses' zone (cf Abraham)

I am not 'against' His will either - because again:
- He predestined those outside of Christ to go to the place of judgment
- He will still glorify, perfect and have a bride for Christ
- It's just it will be done without me included in the blessings, but in the curses for the same purposes

so the Christological question is not whether I can defy the will of God
but rather whether I am in Christ, so am I part of His will in Christ, done by Christ and present-continuously, am being part of His will - so I pray "let thy will be done" or "not my will, but your will"

then there really is no tension
God, and those in Christ, can relax....

3 comments:

thesentone said...

awesome!

Paul Blackham said...

Very helpful. Thank you for that. refreshing. The people I speak to these days all feel governed by 'fate' -that everybody is fixed and set, that there is nothing really we can do about our destiny either in this life or beyond. However, it is deeply humbling and joyful to know that the Living God has taken responsibility for our destinies - whether in Jesus or outside Jesus. Nothing depends on us... and yet we are called to enter into the Way whose destiny has been decreed before the world began.

yemsee said...

thanks Paul

I wonder if I can take in down another level deeper to specific actions