https://youtu.be/YQ1244DyDQA
In our verse by verse study of Romans last time we completed our Expanded Translation of Rom 9:9; "For the word of the promise is this, at this time (after Abraham's spiritual maturity adjustment to God's justice) I will come to impute blessing, and Sarah will have a son."
Then we started on a brief look at God decree that was programmed by God's omniscience in eternity past that the predicate for everything that is done in the creation.
We noted that only reality that is comprised of things that will actually occur in history is fed into the decree even though events in the decree are affected by causes acting in a manner consistent with reality that influences the thoughts, decisions and actions of each and every free agent.
God's decree is efficacious in that it determines all that ever was or ever will be, and at the same time it is efficacious in relationship to what God does directly in contrast to what God permits creatures to do.
This means the execution of any thought or any decision or any action on the part of any creature is not the source of the decree. God's omniscience is.
God's omniscience created the decree from God's cognizance of every anticipated thought, decision, or action of every creature and fed it into the decree in eternity past.
Events in the decree never arise from God's foreknowledge because foreknowledge makes nothing certain; it simply acknowledges as certain what has already been declared in the decree by God's omniscience.
Foreknowledge is not synonymous with self-knowledge or omniscience. It is an entirely different category of information that does not exist until after the decree exists because it is actually a readout from the decree.
Being omniscient God knows all that would have been involved had He adopted any one of an infinite number of plans of action. But what is actually fed into the decree is only what is or will become actual reality.
Omniscience includes all knowledge that includes things that do not occur in the decree but foreknowledge is restricted to what actually is recorded in the decree that will actually become part of history.
God's omniscience only fed reality into the decree and what He fed into the decree is related to omniscience exclusively, never to foreknowledge. Again, foreknowledge can only read out what is already in the decree.
That means that foreknowledge is not actual knowledge of future events, it is only acknowledgment of what is in the decree. That means that God's foreknowledge does not produce or cause any event, it simply recognizes what is in the decree, and reveals that information.
Foreknowledge is not foresight. God does not learn or obtain knowledge. In eternity past God instantly knew everything that was ever knowable. God knew all events past, present and future in eternity past and His omniscience fed that reality into the decree thereby decreeing them.
God's decree relates equally to all events in all categories including the free actions of moral agents as well as the actions of necessary agents, the sinful, the human good, and the evil as well as the morally correct and gracious.
Since the divine decree alone establishes certainty nothing can be foreknown until it is first decreed. Omniscience only decreed what would happen and therefore omniscience only fed reality into the decree.
Foreknowledge is related only to what is decreed. But again foreknowledge simply acknowledges what is already in the decree. So omniscience precedes the decree; foreknowledge is technically simultaneous with the decree but logically it comes after the decree because it reads out the decree.
Foreknowledge cannot be placed before the decree because that would be a blasphemous implication that God was not aware of something so He was not the original cause.
The will of God must be consistent with His own perfect attributes and His own eternal essence because God's immutability requires that be no compromise of His attributes. It is impossible for God to compromise His attributes.
God cannot compromise His essence. God is one in essence, three in personality. Both the essence and personality imply self-consciousness and self-determination
Because of this we have to understand God's will as it relates to man's free will that is the function of man as a free agent. .
God did not decree Himself to be. God always existed and He preexisted and decreed everything from His omniscience. In other words, everything that was fed into the decree was fed by an eternal being who has always existed in a perfect state and who never came into existence or ceased to exist at any time.
God's will is manifested in the decree and because the divine decree is God's will the decree covers everything in history. Not the slightest uncertainty could exist regarding even the smallest event without confusing everything.
That means that all of the events are interwoven and they are interdependent because God's will is eternal. God's will existed in eternity past, long before anything other than God existed because everything that exists is in the decree.
God fed all of the facts of history into the decree as thought, decision, and action under the principle of free volition. In other words, God is a gentleman and God's sovereignty that always existed created the free volition of angels and humans and He provided alternatives that always have a solution.
The solution is always preparation from God's Word of Truth on a daily basis.
Any crisis in life personal or national is something you must prepare for on a daily basis. God already has a plan for the problem in the decree, and God's plan moves on with you or without you on a daily basis.
There is only one way to move on with God's plan. You have to make daily decisions to understand it. As soon as you begin to make daily decisions to understand it you are going to face real problems in the form of distractions from listening, problems in the sense of discouragement in listening.
Just remember God's Word contains what is in God's decree so it contains everything you need to know and understand.
So God's will is God's policy. God's policy for dealing with the believer is grace. God's outline for human history takes the form of dispensations that establish an economy based on God's policy and His will.
God's objective is the preservation and the deliverance of the believer. God's providence is a part of the system whereby God works all events into the fulfillment of His eternal purpose and His eternal pleasure.
God's preservation maintains the existence of things and God's providence directs their progress. Therefore God's will for this study is: Directive: God has a plan for our lives.
Determinative: God has permitted non-meritorious volition to bring us to the place of either blessing or cursing.
Permissive: negative volition toward doctrine is permitted but God's justice deals with negative volition.
The fourth concept of the will of God is preventative that is from His provision of His Word of Truth, the provision of the laws of divine establishment, the function of the royal family honor code, and divine discipline that restrains negative volition.
God has decreed ends as well as means, causes as well as effects, conditions as well as sources, events and everything that depends on them. The things that God has decreed to do Himself are called immediate. This includes creation.
Other things God accomplishes through the actions of secondary causes acting under the law of necessity. Other things God has decreed to promote or permit free agents to do in the exercise of their free will. And all of these categories of events are in the decree and are absolutely certain to occur in the future from this time, and tomorrow from that time and so on.
God's decree must be related to God's glory. The decree unites together in one all-inclusive final objective God's glory and pleasure.
Being alone before all creation as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit God's decree really concerns no one but the members of the Trinity because everything apart from the Trinity is a product or creation of the Trinity.
That means that those who pre-existed the decree are those who will be glorified in the decree.
Being alone before all creation God's decree concerned no one but the members of the Trinity for the purpose of God's glory and pleasure. Being eternal and infinite, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are worthy of glory. God's glory is what He is in His essence and in His person.
As the subject of the divine decree it is logical and inevitable that God will be glorified in what He is and in what He has decreed. The manifestation of His glory secures the highest glory for His creatures and their greatest good that is attainment of spiritual maturity and resultant blessing from God's justice that brings glory to God from their maturity adjustment to God's justice
He is glorified in such action and because of His integrity it results in imputation from God.
God is pleased and God is glorified both in momentum and in advance His plan. The divine decree is executed through imputations from God's justice. God's entire plan is predicated upon God's imputations.
There are seven imputations that glorify God in both time and eternity, and these seven imputations become the categories of tactical victory in the angelic conflict.
Each advance in God's plan provides blessing from God that glorifies God. Blessing from God and glorification of God are potentials based on positive volition toward Jesus Christ at salvation and positive volition toward the thinking of Jesus Christ after salvation.
God's decree determines what will happen because everything that happens comes out of the decree.
Omniscience knew the actual and that was put into the decree but the potential was not put into the decree. So you have to understand that omniscience knows potential and actual but foreknowledge only recognizes what is in the decree.
In eternity past God knew what thoughts, decisions and actions that would carry one believer to maturity and another believer into reversionism.
Omniscience knows the factual and the potential while foreknowledge knows only the factual that was fed into the decree. Omniscience fed the decree foreknowledge is a printout.
Human volition and freedom are consistent with God's plan. God is the inventor of freedom. He is the inventor of freedom and the author of human volition. He does not tamper with His own invention.
We must differentiate between what God causes directly such as the cross and what God permits indirectly such as the evil of sin and human good.
God's omniscience fed only what is actual into the His decree. Election is a part of that decree and a readout from that decree that is only related to believers. In eternity past God's omniscience knew everyone who would believe in Jesus Christ as He is revealed to them throughout all of human history.
Election therefore is that part of the decree that prints out the thoughts, decisions, and actions of believers only because all election is exclusively related to the Lord Jesus Christ who is the predicate for election. Isa 42:1; 1Pet 2:4-6.
In addition to Jesus Christ God's Word only reveals two general elections: TRUE Israel (Matt 24:1-25:46; Rom 11:1-7); and the Church (Eph 1:3-6; 1Thes 1:4; 2Thess 2:13; Titus 1:1; Elected or not everyone who believes in Jesus Christ will be saved. Rahab and Ruth are examples of this.
During the Church Age all believers are elected as part of the church Gal 3:28.
Unbelievers do not believe in Jesus Christ are in the decree as condemned and under God's wrath so they are not elected or saved. Matt 7:22-23; Matt 25:41;