Evidence That "Impossible" Is Possible

If you were at our Metro Cru meeting last week, you heard me speak about Calling and God's will. I briefly mentioned that, in Scripture, the phrase "will of God" has one of two meanings - the two sides of God's will. One is His sovereign will - His absolute authority over everything that has happened or ever will happen. Nothing occurs without God willing it to occur. Nothing surprises Him, nothing is random. The other side is His moral will - His stated commands and desires for how we are to live. While God's sovereign will cannot be thwarted, His moral will can. We can disobey and reject His instruction, and we do it all the time.

I mentioned in my talk that this is a gigantic paradox, but didn't give any more time to it. I will here.

A paradox happens when you have 2 truths that appear opposed to one another, giving the appearance that they naturally contradict one another, yet are somehow true. The Christian faith is full of paradoxes - Jesus was fully God and fully man, believers are chosen by God for salvation yet it's something we freely enter into by faith, etc. This paradox of God's sovereign and moral will can be stated this way (phrases borrowed from the book Just Do Something, by Kevin DeYoung):

a) God decrees everything that comes to pass.

b) We are responsible and fully accountable for sinful actions.

Naturally this leads to the question of, "is the disobedience of God's moral will (sin) planned by God within His sovereign will?" In other words, is God responsible somehow for human sin - does He will it to happen? The answer to that is, of course, no. God is not the author of sin (James 1:13 - God cannot be tempted by evil; Dt 32:4 - God does no wrong, He's upright and just; Matthew 5:48 - God is perfect). Nor does God tempt us to sin - again, from James 1:13, "When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone."

So, somehow, God's sovereign will includes all human sin - disobedient, rebellious actions that are directly contrary to God's will. In some way these fall under the rule of God's sovereignty. They don't surprise Him, nor do they affect His sovereign control of all things. And no matter how hard we try, we'll never understand how this is possible. Theologian Wayne Grudem, in his book Christian Beliefs, says: "The exact relationship between his will and evil is not something he has chosen to completely reveal to us. Therefore, we must take comfort in the fact that 'the secret things belong to the LORD our God. (Deut 29:29)'"

This might seem hard to accept. And of course it would, it's paradoxical! But I submit that you've already accepted it, no matter what intellectual barriers come up in your mind.

I've been going through a book called A Discipleship Journey, by David Buehring. The section I'm in goes through the ways, works, attributes, and character of God - defining who He is as revealed in Scripture, and pointing out the places in Scripture where these things are declared. This morning I read the section on God's Providence, and was pointed to Acts 2:23-24:

"This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him."

The crucifixion of Jesus is the ultimate example of the paradox of God's will in action. Jesus was the perfectly righteous Son of God, innocent by all accounts. Yet "wicked men", as it says in the verse, crucified Him. These men weren't robotically doing the actions that led to Jesus crucifixion - they were wicked, they hated Jesus, accused Him, and actively sought to kill Him. Their wickedness was their own and they bore the blame for their actions. Throughout the Gospels, it's evident that the men opposed to Jesus were acting in sin - Jesus rebukes them and calls them to reject their ways. Matthew 23 is a great example. And in Luke 23:34, Jesus says "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" about the men casting lots for his garments. The ask for forgiveness indicates culpability for their actions.

BUT, Acts 2:23-24 says that all this happened "by God's set purpose and foreknowledge." The ESV says "definite plan and foreknowledge of God." In fact, so definite was this plan that the entirety of human redemption hinged on it. It was set beforehand as the means of God redeeming us - by sending His Son to die as payment for all the sins of man. It was not random, it was sovereignly purposed.

So we see in action confirmation that the paradox is true. God was fully sovereign over the crucifixion of His Son, yet it was carried out through acts of rebellion and wickedness, acts which the men who performed them were fully responsible for. They were crucifying Jesus, and by doing so were unknowingly making possible their own redemption, though they did it with wickedness and sin.

This impossibility is indeed possible; in fact, our faith depends on it being so. Just some food for thought as we ponder this paradox - one we may never fully grasp, at least not this side of Heaven. But just because we won't understand it doesn't mean we can't believe it.

--Jason