He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him. - Ephesians 1:9God's will. We talk about it a lot. We wonder whether or not God's will made something happen, whether or not a certain life choice would be according to His will. We talk about His revealed will and His moral will, and talk about His will and things He allows to happen - questioning whether or not there's a difference.
We don't often stop, however, to think about the fact that God has a will. He isn't just some mystical energy or divine force that acts without intention. God intends things, means to do things, has a purpose - and all of this is connected to His will. Thelema - the Greek word translated as "will" in the verse above - has 2 meanings. The first is a determined resolve to accomplish what you wish to accomplish. Think of phrases such as "I'll _______ if it's the last thing I do" or "I'll _______ unless it kills me" - such expressions are expressions of thelema, that determined resolve to achieve one's ends. God has His own plan in mind, and He has the thelema to see those ends accomplished. Based on what else we know about God (omnipotence, sovereignty, etc.) we know that this determined resolved comes backed by the power punch to see anything through. This should give us great comfort regarding the promises and predictions of God. He has a purpose which He intends to carry out according to His will and He has the authority and power to see His will done, which means His promises and predictions are never in vain. God always gets a "10" on the follow through.
However, there's a second meaning to thelema that unpacks more about God's will. Thelema also implies a gracious design regarding everything one's will affects. In other words, God is not a tyrant. His will always looks graciously on all that it includes - which, by the way, is everything God created (see Genesis 1 for a full list). God the Authority, God the Power, God the Will behind all - these names often frighten us into thinking about a vengeful, powerful, wrathful dictator using His subjects as means to selfish and terrible ends, but this is not what thelema implies.
We need a balanced view of God in light of these two definitions. A dictator as described earlier is a terrible and awful use of power and will. However, just as terrible is a naively just dictator who has not the power or the will to keep evil and injustice at bay and who has to watch enemies mutilate his unsuspecting citizens who have been trained only for peace. The dictator and the foolish bleeding heart have one thing in common - an imbalance between determined resolve and gracious design. God does not fall into this shortcoming on either side: He has a determined resolve that is not challenged or interrupted by the schemes of His enemy and a gracious design that makes sure all involved in His plan are granted a gracious chance.
"Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created." - Revelation 4:11
You give some very interesting insight into this verse in Ephesians. I really like how you included Thelema into the blog, creating even more depth to the verse. One thing is that I got a little confused in the last paragraph. You talk about two dictators then a dictator and bleeding heart. "A dictator" would be the cruel dictator and the "bleeding heart" would be the weak dictator I'm assuming. That said, this is just a small thing and everything else was masterfully put together. Just saying God is perfect would be easy to say but this really fleshes out His complexity in a way that glorifies Him even more :)
ReplyDeleteas a non-christian, I am curious as to what you believe God's will to be, in broad general terms. Is it possible to Cliff Notes what God's overall goal for humankind is?
ReplyDelete@Little Master: Thanks! I appreciate the applause and the critique. I'm having fun delving into verses and seeing how deep they go, and I'm probably not doing as good a job as I could in leading others into these fascinating depths. I shouldn't have used 'dictator' for the naive ruler - he's more of a pacifist or "noble" monarch. Tying bleeding heart to noble monarch or gentle leader would have made more sense.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous: The answer to your question is difficult, as there's a lot involved in the category of "God's will", but here's some basics.
1) God has "two" wills, or at least two parts to His will. The first is His revealed or moral will, which is His prescriptions and prohibitions and guidelines for living our lives. In this sense we can always either obey or disobey His will. The second part is His sovereign or hidden will - a will rooted in God's sovereignty and His omniscience, a plan for the universe that accounts for everything that's going to happen and ultimately achieves His ends. We cannot disobey this plan since it accounts for all activity in God's creation, good and bad.
2) God's sovereign will for the universe always seeks to achieve two things: God's glory and our good (think of the two meanings of Thelema above and this makes sense). God, as the perfect deity, deserves all glory and honor to be had. As a relational, loving God, He wants the best for us. As a wise, powerful God, He has made it so that the same paths achieve both.
Hope that helps :)
Thanks for the feedback and keep reading!