Lesson 8 February 15-21

Free Will, Love, and Divine Providence

Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study: Luke 13:34; Jer. 32:17-20; Heb. 1:3; Deut. 6:4, 5; Eph. 1:9-11; John 16:33.

Memory Text: “ ‘These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world’ ” (John 16:33, NKJV).

Providence is the term used to describe God’s action in the world. How we think about God’s providence makes a huge difference in how we relate to God, how we relate to others, and how we think about the problem of evil.

Christians hold various understandings of divine providence. Some believe that God exercises His power in a way that determines all events to happen just as they do. He even chooses who will be saved and who will be lost! In this view, people are not free to choose other than what God decrees. In fact, people who believe this way argue that even human desires are determined by God.

In contrast, strong biblical evidence shows that God does not determine everything that happens. Instead, He grants humans free will, even to the point where they (and angels) can choose to act directly against His will. The history of the Fall, of sin, and of evil is a dramatic and tragic expression of the results of abusing this free will. The plan of salvation was instituted in order to remedy the tragedy caused by the misuse of free will.

Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, February 22.

Sunday ↥        February 16

Our Sovereign God

“God is sovereign,” the youth pastor taught his middle school group. “That means He controls everything that happens.” One puzzled middle schooler replied, “So God was in control when my dog died? Why would God kill my dog?”

Trying to answer this question, the youth pastor replied: “That’s a tough one. But sometimes God lets us go through hard times so that we’re prepared for even more difficult things in the future. I remember how hard it was when my dog died. But going through that helped me deal with an even more difficult time later when my grandma died. Does that make sense?”

After a long pause, the middle schooler replied, “So God killed my dog to prepare me for when He’s going to kill my grandma?”—Marc Cortez, quoted in John C. Peckham, Divine Attributes: Knowing the Covenantal God of Scripture (Michigan: Baker Academic, 2021), p. 141.

People sometimes assume that everything that occurs happens just as God wants it to. Whatever happens in the world is precisely as God wanted to have happen. After all, God is almighty. How, then, could anything occur that God does not want to occur? Hence, no matter what happens, no matter how bad, it was God’s will. That, at least, is what this theology teaches.

Read Psalm 81:11-14; Isaiah 30:15, 18; Isaiah 66:4; and Luke 13:34. What do these texts say about the question of whether God’s will is always being done?

While many people believe that God must always get what He wants, the Bible tells a quite different story. Over and over, Scripture depicts God as experiencing unfulfilled desires. That is, what happens often runs counter to what God states that He actually prefers to happen. In many instances, God explicitly declares that what is happening is the opposite of what He wants. He willed one outcome for His people, but they chose another instead. God Himself laments: “ ‘My people would not heed My voice. . . . Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would soon subdue their enemies’ ” (Ps. 81:11, 13, 14, NKJV).

Think through the implications of any theology that attributes everything that happens to God’s direct will. What kind of deep problems, especially in the context of evil, would such a theology create?

Monday ↥        February 17

Pantokrator

Throughout Scripture, God’s amazing power is made manifest. The Bible includes countless narratives of His exercising His power and working miracles. And yet, despite this, many things happen that God does not want to happen.

Read Revelation 11:17, Jeremiah 32:17-20, Luke 1:37, and Matthew 19:26. Consider also Hebrews 1:3. What do these passages teach about God’s power?

These texts and others teach that God is all-powerful and that He sustains the world by His power. Indeed, Revelation repeatedly refers to God as the “LORD God Almighty” (for example, Rev. 11:17; compare with 2 Cor. 6:18, Rev. 1:8, Rev. 16:14, Rev. 19:15, Rev. 21:22) and the word translated “Almighty” (pantokrator) literally means “all-powerful.” The fact that God is all-powerful is not only affirmed in words, but manifest in the many amazing instances where God uses His power to deliver His people or otherwise miraculously intervenes in the world.

However, to say God is “all-powerful” does not mean that God can do anything whatsoever. Scripture teaches that there are some things God cannot do; for example, 2 Timothy 2:13 declares, God “cannot deny Himself” (NKJV).

Accordingly, most Christians agree that God is all-powerful (omnipotent), meaning that God has the power to do anything that does not involve a contradiction—that is, anything that is logically possible and consistent with God’s nature. That some things are not possible for God because they would involve a contradiction is apparent in Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane. While Christ affirmed that

“with God all things are possible’ ” (Matt. 19:26), He also prayed to the Father as the crucifixion neared, “ ‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will’ ” (Matt. 26:39, NKJV).

Of course, the Father possessed the sheer power to deliver Christ from suffering on the cross, but He could not do this while also saving sinners. It had to be one or the other, not both.

Scripture also teaches that God wants to save everyone (for example, 1 Tim. 2:4-6, Titus 2:11, 2 Pet. 3:9, Ezek. 33:11), but not everyone will be saved. What does this fact teach about the reality of free will and the limits of God’s power with beings granted free will?

Tuesday ↥        February 18

To Love God

That God is all-powerful does not mean that He can do the logically impossible. Accordingly, God cannot causally determine that someone freely love Him. If freely doing something means to do something without being determined to do it, then by definition it is impossible to make someone freely do something. In short, as we have seen, and must re-emphasize—God cannot force anyone to love Him, for the moment it’s forced, it is no longer love.

Read Matthew 22:37 and Deuteronomy 6:4, 5. What do these verses teach about the reality of free will?

The greatest commandment, to love God, provides evidence that God does, indeed, want everyone to love Him. However, not everyone does love God. Why, then, does God simply not make everyone love Him? Again, that is because love, to be love, must be freely given.

Read Hebrews 6:17, 18 and Titus 1:2. What do these texts teach about God?

According to Numbers 23:19, “ ‘God is not man, that [H]e should lie’ ” (ESV). God never lies (Titus 1:2); God always keeps His word and never breaks a promise (Heb. 6:17, 18). Accordingly, if God has promised or committed Himself to something, His future action is morally limited by that promise.

This means that, insofar as God, in most cases, grants creatures the freedom to choose otherwise than what God prefers, it is not up to God what humans choose. If God has committed Himself to granting creatures free will, humans possess the ability to exercise their freedom in ways that go against God’s ideal desires. Tragically, many people do exercise their freedom in this way, and accordingly, there are many things that occur that God wishes did not, but that are not, strictly speaking, up to God.

What have you done that you knew God didn’t want you to do? What does this teach about the reality—and possible frightful consequences—of free will?

Wednesday ↥        February 19

God’s Ideal and Remedial Wills

Read Ephesians 1:9-11. What is this text saying about predestination? Are some people predestined to be saved and others to be lost?

The Greek term translated “predestination” here and elsewhere in Scripture (prohorizo) does not itself teach that God causally determines history. Rather, the Greek term simply means “to decide beforehand.”

Of course, one can decide something beforehand unilaterally, or one can decide something beforehand in a way that takes into account the free decisions of others. Scripture teaches that God does the latter.

Here and elsewhere (for example, Rom. 8:29, 30), the term translated “predestined” refers to what God plans for the future after taking into account what God foreknows about the free decisions of creatures. Thus, God can providentially guide history to His desired good ends for all, even while respecting the kind of creaturely freedom that is required for a genuine love relationship.

Ephesians 1:11 proclaims that God “works all things according to the counsel of His will” (NKJV). Does this mean that God determines everything to happen just as He desires? Read in isolation, Ephesians 1:9-11 might seem to affirm this view. However, this interpretation would contradict the many texts we saw earlier that show that people sometimes reject “the will of God” (Luke 7:30, NKJV; compare with Luke 13:34, Ps. 81:11-14). If the Bible does not contradict itself, how can these passages be understood in a way that is consistent with one another?

This passage makes perfect sense if one simply recognizes a distinction between what we might call God’s “ideal will” and God’s “remedial will.” God’s “ideal will” is what God actually prefers to occur and which would occur if everyone always did exactly what God desires. God’s “remedial will,” on the other hand, is God’s will that has already taken into account every other factor, including the free decisions of creatures, which sometimes depart from what God prefers. Ephesians 1:11 appears to be referring to God’s “remedial will.”

So powerful is God’s foreknowledge of the future that, even knowing all the choices, including the bad choices, that people will make, He can still work “all things together for good” (Rom. 8:28, CEB). What comfort can you draw from this truth?

Thursday ↥        February 20

Christ Has Overcome the World

If everything occurred according to God’s ideal will, there would never have been evil but only the perfect bliss of love and harmony. Eventually, the universe will be restored to this perfect, ideal will of God. In the meantime, God is working out His will in a way that takes into account the free decisions of His creatures.

Imagine a baking competition in which all participants are required to use some particular set of ingredients, but they can add any other ingredients they want in order to bake any kind of cake they want, as well. In the end, whatever cake a baker ends up making will be determined, at least partially, by some ingredients that the baker did not choose.

Similarly (in this limited respect), because God has committed Himself to respecting creaturely freedom of the kind necessary for love, many of the “ingredients” that make up world history are not chosen by God but are actually the opposite of what God desires.

In this view, divine providence is not simply one-dimensional, as if God unilaterally controls everything that happens. Rather, this requires (at least) a two-dimensional view of God’s providence. Some things in this world are caused by God, but other occurrences are the result of the free decisions of creatures (as are all evils). Many things happen that God does not want to happen.

Read John 16:33. What hope, even amid tribulations, does the text offer us?

Particularly in times of suffering or trial, people’s faith may waver because they hold the mistaken belief that God will or should spare them from suffering and trials in this life. But Jesus tells us a very different story, warning His followers they will experience trials and tribulations in this world, but there is hope, for Christ has overcome the world (John 16:33).

The fact that we encounter suffering and trials does not mean that this is what God ideally wants for us. We must always keep in mind the big picture: the great controversy. However, we can be confident that, while evil itself is not necessary for good, God can bring good even out of evil events. And, if we trust God, God can use even our sufferings to draw us closer to Him and to motivate us to be compassionate and to care for others.

Friday ↥        February 21

Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “ ‘God With Us,’ ” pp. 19-26, in The Desire of Ages.

“The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was a revelation of ‘the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal.’ Rom. 16:25, R. V. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God’s throne. From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He foresaw its existence, and made provision to meet the terrible emergency. So great was His love for the world, that He covenanted to give His only-begotten Son, ‘that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ John 3:16.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 22.

Discussion Questions:

Inside Story~ ↥        

From Rumba to Church

by Andrew Mcchesney

Nelson Silva

Nelson Silva

As a boy, Nelson was too young to go to rumba in Colombia. But he sensed something was wrong when his parents took him to church on December 31 and then left him at home so they could celebrate New Year’s Eve at rumba, a traditional party with music, dancing, and drinking.

In Nelson’s culture, Christians went to church to consecrate themselves to God before New Year’s Eve and then went to rumba to ring in the New Year. Although he was young, Nelson sensed that church was a holy place and that rumba, which was usually held in bars and night clubs, was not holy. He wondered, “Why does my family go to church to get sanctified and then go to rumba to get unsanctified?”

Nelson asked his mother, “Why do you go to church and then to rumba?”

She didn’t answer.

As a young man, Nelson stopped going to church and began to play vallenato folk music at rumba. He was an excellent accordion player, and he made strides toward fulfilling a dream to become rich and famous.

Then he met his future wife, Laura, a former Seventh-day Adventist.

“Did you know that the dead are not in heaven?” she said.

Nelson didn’t like Laura’s ideas, but he liked her. So, they stayed together.

After some time, Laura returned to the Adventist church, and she invited Nelson to meet her parents. At their first meeting, her father surprised Nelson when they sat down to eat. “Let’s pray for the food,” he said. Nelson had never prayed before meals.

Nelson and the father became good friends. Before long, Nelson started to pray at meals. He also began to go to church with Laura. He didn’t enjoy it at first because it seemed strange to go to church on Saturdays. But then he read the fourth commandment in Exodus 20:8-10 and realized that God commanded people to keep the seventh day holy. He wanted to be holy.

Today, Nelson Silva, 30, is an Adventist musician who no longer plays the accordion at rumba. Instead, he plays in restaurants and at birthday parties. He tells listeners about God’s mercy and prays for them. He and a group of church musicians also play on public buses.

“Music made me shine in the world, but now I want to shine for Christ,” he said.

Pray for the gospel to be proclaimed to all cultures and people groups around the world. Thank you for your mission offerings that help share the gospel with unreached and underreached people groups. Watch a YouTube video of Nelson playing the accordion at: bit.ly/Nelson-Silva.