Title: Faith-Rest Drill: The Doctrine of Divine Decrees: The Will of God and the Divine Decree (continued)
Author: Joe
Last saved by: Auth User
Company: GDC

99-05-16-B.JSH-141 / 

© 1999  Joe Griffin

Faith-Rest Drill: The Doctrine of Divine Decrees: The Will of God and the Divine Decree (continued, 8-24)

	8)	The will of God is classified under three categories.
1.	What He directly does, e.g., Jesus Christ controls history by means of printouts from the sovereignty-of God-chip in the computer of divine decrees.
2.	What He permits, e.g., sin which is recorded in the free-will-of-man chip in the computer of divine decrees.
3.	What He overrules, e.g., because of the pivot of mature believers God will deliver a Client Nation in times of crisis.
9)	In the “will of God” omniscience is the source of the divine decree while the divine decree is the source of foreknowledge.
10)	Therefore, foreknowledge makes nothing certain.  Foreknowledge merely perceives what the decree has made certain.
11)	Let’s illustrate with Bible prophecy.  Remember that prophecy includes any biblical subject whose fulfillment was future at the time of its writing.
12)	The prophecies of the biblical writers do not determine future history.  They are merely revelations to man of future events contained in the divine decree.
13)	Thus, Bible prophecy is a divine revelation to man regarding the events of future history.  But nothing can be prophesied until it is first decreed.
14)	Omniscience programs the computer of divine decrees and the computer prints out various categories of information from its ROM and PROM chips.
15)	Divine cognizance of the printout from the PROM chip is called foreknowledge.

16)	The decrees are the “will of God” in the sense that from divine omniscience God knows the actual thoughts, decisions, and actions of all of human history and “wills” them as certainly future.
17)	Although His decrees recognize the realities of human history, God does not desire or approve of all the things that He decrees.
18)	But His plan calls for human volition to be absolutely free.  God has created a free will that can act independently of Himself.
19)	All sins are acts of free will.  God never approves of sin.  Yet He put them into the decrees because His omniscience knew we would commit them.
20)	The decrees deal with the actual events of human history with respect to the coexistence of the sovereignty of God and the free will of man.
21)	It is decreed in the ROM chip that God does not approve of sin.  But it is also decreed in the PROM chip that men commit them.  God does not approve of them but He can perceive them as certainly future.
22)	The fact that sin is in the decree demonstrates that our volition is truly free.
23)	By the same token, the fact that sin is in the decree, just as is God’s disapproval of it, demonstrates that our free will and His sovereignty coexist.
24)	This coexistence of two prevailing opposites does not mean that divine integrity is compromised.  Quite the contrary.  Instead, divine integrity is the principle that enables the coexistence to continue.