WILL OF GOD

Transcript:

0:00 Intro

Whoever hears the gospel is welcome to come to the Lord Jesus Christ and to be saved. 

Today's video is on the Will of God. Looking for some answers, Kyle and I went to Trinity Reformed Church to get Pastor van Eyk's thoughts on the subject. This is Faith to Film. 

When the bible speaks about the will of God, it speaks about God's will in three particular ways. There is His decretive will. There is His preceptive will and then thirdly there is His will of disposition. 

0:34 What is God's sovereign will?

So God's decretive will is His sovereign ordaining and planning and designing of all things. Of all His creatures and all their actions. That refers to God's plan from before the foundation of the world. That the universe would unfold and world history would unfold in this and this particular way. That is also called God's hidden will because we don't know what God has planned for us. For example, we do not know how long we will live. We don't know whom we will marry or if we will marry at all and we don't know a lot of the details of our lives. But all the details of our lives are ordained from eternity by God's sovereign will. 

1:23 What is perceptive will?

God's preceptive will, unlike his decretive will, is clearly revealed to us in the bible. This is a reference to His law for our lives that's written in the scriptures and also on our conscience. So for example, God's will is that we do not steal, we do not murder, that we love our neighbor as ourself, and that we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as our savior. I think one of the helpful ways to distinguish between His decretive will and His preceptive will, is to think about the events surrounding the death of our Lord Jesus. So it's clear from the scriptures from Acts 2 and Acts 4 for instance that the death of the lord Jesus was planned by God from before the foundation of the world. He was chosen to be the lamb that would suffer for sinners. But it's also clear that our Lord Jesus was put to death by the hands of lawless men. Judas ought not to have betrayed the lord and the Jews and the Romans ought not to have put to death the righteous, innocent Jesus Christ and so though Jesus death fell out according to God's decretive will, it came about because of the disobedience of many to God's preceptive will. 

2:49 What is God's will of disposition?

God's will of disposition is His stated desire to show mercy to all who come to him through the Lord Jesus Christ and this desire of God is expressed for all humanity. He doesn't delight in the destruction of the wicked but wishes that they would all repent and believe. This will of disposition is demonstrated in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and the offer of grace for all humanity. Whoever hears the gospel is welcome to come to the Lord Jesus Christ and to be saved. As believers, we ought to submit cheerfully to God's decretive will, obey gladly God's perceptive will, and embrace fully His will of disposition demonstrated in the offer of Jesus Christ for all who would come to Him