If we are willing to set aside the doctrinal prejudices that we carry and honestly seek after a correct understanding of the God of the Bible, we will inevitably discover a God that unhesitatingly exercises his right as the Creator to govern and manage his creation exactly as he sees fit according to his perfect wisdom and plan. God may sovereignly turn human free wills to hate his people (Egyptian hearts in Psalm 105:25), or he may just as easily turn human free wills to look favorably on his people (Egyptian hearts again, in Exodus 3:21 and 11:3). He may harden or blind human hearts (Romans 11:7; Matthew 11:25; Matthew 13:11; Lamentations 3:64–65; 2 Thessalonians 2:11–12), or he may soften hearts and give them understanding (Acts 16:14; Matthew 13:11; 1 Thessalonians 1:4; 1 Corinthians 1:23–24, 29–30). He may “make hearts obstinate” to the point of it resulting in their death (Deuteronomy 2:30), or he may give the grace necessary to enable belief in those hearts he has appointed (Acts 13:48). He may wound, or he may heal; he may kill, or he may make alive (Deuteronomy 32:39). He may stir up human will to accomplish his own purposes (Revelation 17:17; Ezra 1:1; Jeremiah 51:11). He may suppress an evil man’s will or hatred for his enemies (Exodus 34:24; Psalm 105:14–15), or he may harden a man’s heart and will against his enemies (Joshua 11:20). He may restrain humanity’s natural will to sin (Genesis 20:6; Joshua 24:9–10), or he may influence human will in such a manner that it will lead to certain death (1 Samuel 2:22–25; Isaiah 37:7). He may well “allure” human hearts in order to turn them to himself (Hosea 2:14), or he may “hedge up” human ways to force them to follow his own purpose (Hosea 2:6). He may give people eyes that will not see and ears that will not hear (Romans 11:7; Isaiah 6:10; Mark 4:10–12; John 12:40; Deuteronomy 29:4), or he may give people eyes that see and ears that hear (Proverbs 20:12; Isaiah 32:3; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 1:4). But, no matter how he works, God’s will and purpose is always accomplished. He is God, and we are not! As for us, “who is there who speaks and it come to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?” (Lamentations 3:37 NASB). As for God, he does indeed work in us, both to will and to do his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). The Bible, then, shows quite unmistakably that God is not a gentleman waiting on humans to will and to do the correct things, or combination of things, so that God’s will can come to pass; rather, he is actively involved in steering the universe (including both sparrows and human hearts) in the direction he alone sees fit. Elihu (the fourth and final counselor of Job—the only one that was not rebuked by the Lord for speaking incorrectly) correctly asserted in Job 33:12 that “God is greater than man.” He also pointed out that God often acts to influence human will, but often this action is not noticed by humans (v. 29, v. 14, vv. 15–20). The mechanism of God’s influence is quite obviously beyond both our understanding and our revelation (Deuteronomy 29:29; Ecclesiastes 8:17; Romans 11:33–34; Isaiah 55:8–9), and it is just as obviously infinitely varied as appropriate for any given situation. While God may certainly take men and women by a “hook in the nose” (Isaiah 37:29), it seems likely that his influence more often goes initially unnoticed by humans—just as when God used Cyrus as his own instrument though Cyrus did not even know God (Isaiah 44:28; 45:5, 1–4, 13). God’s reasons for using Cyrus in this manner are provided to us in this passage, and as we should expect, God was using Cyrus for his own glory (45:6), to accomplish his own righteous purpose (44:28; 45:13; see NLT), and to eventually reveal himself to Cyrus (45:3). Robert Berknecker The Illusion Of A Gentleman God~
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 17:38:58 +0000
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